Death Of A Jester - No Joke
In a certain city of China lived a tailor who was a jolly good fellow. Every day he looked for some new amusement. His wife too was made of the same stuff. One evening, while returning home from the market, he saw a dwarf hunchback. Instantly, he took a fascination for the little fellow. "It should be good fun to hear him talk of his life," he thought. "Why not join me for dinner? We have some delicious fish stored in our kitchen," he told the dwarf. "Why not," responded the dwarf with a broad smile. He introduced himself as the Sultan's jester. That flattered the tailor. The tailor's wife was amused to see the dwarf. The dinner was spread out and the three sat down. The dwarf talked a lot but ate rather little.
The tailor's wife, in her enthusiasm, to make the guest eat well, thrust quite a large piece of fish into his mouth and kept his mouth shut with her palm until he swallowed it. The fish contained a bit of sharp bone that got stuck in the dwarf's throat. He died. The mishap was so unexpected and so sudden that the couple sat dumbfounded for a while. Upon recovering his wit the tailor said, "It is no joke to kill the Sultan's jester, even though unwittingly. We must get rid of the corpse." "But how to carry it out of our house?" asked his anxious wife. "I will carry it in my arms, covering it with linen. Being small in size it will look like a boy. You should run after me crying. To any passer-by's question, we will say that our son is ill and that we are carrying him to a physician," explained the tailor. They carried out the plan well. It was not very late at night when they reached the physician's house. "Here is the physician's fee. Please call him out to examine our son," the tailor told a maid who stood at the door-steps, giving her some money. The physician and his wife had already sat down for dinner on the upper floor of their house and the maid was in a hurry to go upstairs and serve them. "Wait here. My master will not take long to come and see your son," said the maid. As soon as the maid entered the room at the top of the staircase, the tailor too climbed the stairs and placed the dwarf's corpse against the door. Then he and his wife slipped away. A little later the physician pushed open the door.
The dwarf's corpse tumbled off and went rolling down the steps till it reached the bottom of the staircase. The physician rushed down to examine him and found him dead. With great difficulty, he carried the corpse to the upper floor and told his wife, "I never knew that this fellow sat leaning right against the door. He got killed because of a fall down the flight of stairs and his fall was due to my pushing open the door. Soon his parents will return and it will be a great scandal." "We can say that we have never seen him," proposed his wife. "But what about the dead body?" asked the physician. "Let us carry it over our roof and then fling it on to the neighbors," said the wife. The idea appealed to the physician. His neighbor was the kitchen supervisor to the governor's household. He returned home quite late at night. From their own roof, the physician and his wife hurled the corpse into the kitchen supervisor's house through an opening at the top of the wall made for letting in light and breeze.
The kitchen supervisor was in the habit of transferring meat, butter, and other foodstuffs from the governor's house to his own. But often he found his store diminished. It was, of course, due to a family of robust rodents who had made their habitat under the supervisor's floor. Merrily whistling, the supervisor returned at midnight and opened his house. As soon as he lighted the lamp, his eyes fell on somebody crouching in a corner with his face towards the wall. "So, it is you who steal my food regularly, do you? At last, you are caught red-handed!" exclaimed the supervisor and he picked up an iron-studded stick and used it on the culprit's head! The dwarf's corpse fell sprawling on the ground. "I have killed the fellow!" he whispered to himself. There was no time to lose. He dragged the body out. At the end of a dark lane, he made the corpse stand against the wall of a shop. In the dim moonlight, he saw a turban lying on the road. Without much thought, he picked it up and placed it on the dead body's head and ran away. Now, the turban belonged to an officer of the Sultan. A little while ago he had passed by that lane, thoroughly drunk. The turban had fallen off his unsteady head. But when he found it missing, he returned falteringly in search of it. His bleary eyes soon fell on the dead body wearing the turban! "You thief! How dare you pinch my turban!" shouted the officer. Boozed as he was, he began raining blows on the corpse, shouting all the while for the city guards to come and arrest the thief. The guards rushed to the spot and checked the officer. But they found the supposed culprit dead. "You can't kill a fellow for stealing your turban, even though it is an officer's turban!" they said grimly and put the officer under arrest. In the morning it was the first case to be reported to the governor. He ordered the officer to be hanged instantly, for the fellow he had killed was no other than the Sultan's jester. And, according to the custom, the proposed hanging was announced with the beating of drums. A large crowd collected.
The hangman put the noose around the officer's neck. "Please stop. It is I who killed the dwarf, not the officer," shouted the governor's kitchen supervisor, wading his way through the crowd. "I killed one man. I do not want a second man to be killed on my account." He then narrated how he left the corpse at the end of the lane. The governor altered his order and now it is the supervisor who was to be hanged. But soon came forth the physician claiming that it was he who had killed the dwarf. But before the physician had been hanged there arrived the tailor and the governor had no reason to disbelieve his story either. So, it was decided that if anybody it was the tailor who was to be hanged. Meanwhile, the news of the jester's death had reached the Sultan. He rushed to the place of execution and heard all that the four confessors had to say. "My great good jester, even in his death, made good fun of those people. Nobody needs to be hanged," announced the Sultan as he heaved a sigh and wiped his eyes after a last glimpse of the dwarf.
For More Bedtime Stories Click Here
Comments
Post a Comment