In a city of Persia, on the borders of your majesty’s realms, there were two brothers, one called Qasim and the other Ali Baba. These two had been left very little in the way of possessions by their father, who had divided the inheritance equally between the two of them. They should have enjoyed an equal fortune, but fate was to dispose otherwise. Qasim married a woman who, shortly after their marriage, inherited a well-stocked shop and a warehouse filled with fine goods, together with properties and estates, which all of a sudden made him so well off that he became one of the wealthiest merchants in the city. By contrast, Ali Baba had married a woman as poor as himself; he lived in great poverty and the only work he could do to help provide for himself and his children was to go out as a woodcutter in a neighbouring forest. He would then load what he had cut on to his three donkeys – these being all that he possessed – and sell it in the city.
One day, while he was in the forest and had finished chopping just enough wood to load on to his donkeys, he noticed a great cloud of dust rising up in the air and advancing straight in his direction. Looking closely, he could make out a large crowd of horsemen coming swiftly towards him. Although there was no talk of thieves in the region, nonetheless it struck him that that was just what these could be. Thinking only of his own safety and not of what could happen to his donkeys, he climbed up into a large tree, where the branches a little way up were so densely intertwined as to allow very little space between them. He positioned himself right in the middle, all the more confident that he could see without being seen, as the tree stood at the foot of an isolated rock much higher than the tree and so steep that it could not be climbed from any direction.
The large and powerful-looking horsemen, well mounted and armed, came close to the rock and dismounted. Ali Baba counted forty of them and, from their equipment and appearance, he had no doubt they were thieves. He was not mistaken, for this was what they were, and although they had caused no harm in the neighbourhood, they had assembled there before going further afield to carry out their acts of brigandage. What he saw them do next confirmed his suspicions.
Each horseman unbridled his horse, tethered it and then hung over its neck a sack of barley which had been on its back. Each then carried off his own bag and most of these seemed so heavy that Ali Baba reckoned they must be full of gold and coins.
The most prominent of the thieves, who seemed to be their captain, carried his bag like the rest and approached the rock close to Ali Baba’s tree. After he had made his way through some bushes, this man was clearly heard to utter the following words: ‘Open, Sesame.’ No sooner had he said this than a door opened, and after he had let all his men go in before him, he too went in and the door closed.
The thieves remained for a long time inside the rock. Ali Baba was afraid that if he left his tree in order to escape, one or all of them would come out, and so he was forced to stay where he was and to wait patiently. He was tempted to climb down and seize two of the horses, mounting one and leading the other by the bridle, in the hope of reaching the city driving his three donkeys in front of him. But, as he could not be sure what would happen, he took the safest course and remained where he was.
At last the door opened again and out came the forty thieves. The captain, who had gone in last, now emerged first; after he had watched the others file past him, Ali Baba heard him close the door by pronouncing these words: ‘Shut, Sesame.’ Each thief returned to his horse and remounted, after bridling it and fastening his bag on to it. When the captain finally saw they were all ready to depart, he took the lead and rode off with them along the way they had come.
Ali Baba did not climb down straight away, saying to himself: ‘They may have forgotten something which would make them return, and were that to happen, I would be caught.’ He looked after them until they went out of sight, but he still did not get down for a long time afterwards until he felt completely safe. He had remembered the words used by the captain to make the door open and shut, and he was curious to see if they would produce the same effect for him. Pushing through the shrubs, he spotted the door which was hidden behind them, and going up to it, he said: ‘Open, Sesame.’ Immediately, the door opened wide.
He had expected to see a place of darkness and gloom and was surprised to find a vast and spacious manmade chamber, full of light, with a high, vaulted ceiling into which daylight poured through an opening in the top of the rock. There he saw great quantities of foodstuffs and bales of rich merchandise all piled up; there were silks and brocades, priceless carpets, and, above all, gold and coins in heaps or heaped up in sacks or in large leather bags that were piled one on top of the other. Seeing all these things, it struck him that for years, even centuries, the cave must have served as a refuge for generation upon generation of thieves. He had no hesitation about what to do next: he entered the cave and immediately the door closed behind him, but that did not worry him, for he knew the secret of how to open it again. He was not interested in the rest of the money but only in the gold coins, particularly those that were in the sacks, so he removed as much as he could carry away and load on to his three donkeys. He next rounded up the donkeys, which had wandered off, and when he had brought them up to the rock he loaded them with the sacks, which he hid by arranging firewood on top of them. When he had finished, he stood in front of the door and as soon as he uttered the words ‘Shut, Sesame’, the door closed, for it had closed by itself each time he had gone in and had stayed open each time he had gone out.
Having done this, Ali Baba took the road back to the city, and when he got home, he brought the donkeys into a small courtyard, carefully closing the door behind him. He removed the small amount of wood which covered the sacks and these he then took into the house, putting them down and arranging them in front of his wife, who was sitting on a sofa.
She felt the sacks and, realizing they were full of money, she suspected him of having stolen it. So when he had finished bringing them all to her, she could not help saying to him: ‘Ali Baba, you can’t have been so wicked as to . . . ?’ ‘Nonsense, wife!’ Ali Baba interrupted her. ‘Don’t be alarmed: I’m not a thief, or at least only a thief who robs thieves. You will stop thinking ill of me when I tell you about my good fortune.’ He then emptied the sacks, making a great heap of gold which quite dazzled his wife, and having done this, he told her the story of his adventure from beginning to end. When he had finished, he told her to keep everything secret.
Once his wife had recovered from her fright, she rejoiced with her husband at the good fortune which had come to them and she wanted to count all the gold that was in front of her, coin by coin. ‘Wife,’ said Ali Baba, ‘that’s not very clever: what do you think you are going to do and how long will it take you to finish counting? I am going to dig a trench and bury the gold there; we have no time to lose.’ ‘But it would be good if we had at least a rough idea of how much there is there,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go and borrow some small scales from the neighbours and use them to weigh the gold while you are digging the trench.’ Ali Baba objected: ‘There is no point in that, and, believe me, you should leave well alone. However, do as you like, but take care to keep the secret.’
To satisfy herself, however, Ali Baba’s wife went out to the house of her brother-in-law, Qasim, who lived not very far away. Qasim was not at home and so, in his absence, she spoke to his wife, asking her to lend her some scales for a short while. Her sister-in-law asked her if she wanted large scales or small scales, and Ali Baba’s wife said she wanted small ones. ‘Yes, of course,’ her sister-in-law replied. ‘Wait a moment and I will bring you some.’ The sister-in-law went off to look for the scales, which she found, but knowing how poor Ali Baba was and curious to discover what sort of grain his wife wanted to weigh, she thought she would carefully apply some candle grease underneath them, which she did. She then returned and gave them to her visitor, apologizing for having made her wait and saying she had had difficulty finding them.
When Ali Baba’s wife got home, she placed the scales by the pile of gold, filled them and then emptied them a little further away on the sofa, until she had finished. She was very pleased to discover how much gold she had weighed out and told her husband, who had just finished digging the trench.
While Ali Baba was burying the gold, his wife, in order to show her sister-in-law how meticulous and correct she was, returned her scales to her, not noticing that a gold coin had stuck to the underside of the scales. ‘Dear sister-in-law,’ she said to her as she returned them to her, ‘you see, I didn’t keep your scales very long. I’m bringing you them back, and I’m very grateful to you.’ As soon as her back was turned, Qasim’s wife looked at the underside of the scales and was astonished beyond words to find a gold coin stuck there. Immediately her heart was filled with envy. ‘What!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ali Baba has gold enough to be weighed! And where did the wretch get it from?’
As we have said, her husband, Qasim, was not at home but in his shop, from which he would only get back in the evening. So the time she had to wait for him seemed like an age, so impatient was she to tell him news which would surprise him no less than it had surprised her. When Qasim did come home, his wife said to him: ‘Qasim, you may think you are rich, but you are wrong; Ali Baba has infinitely more than you; he doesn’t count his money, like you – he weighs it!’ Qasim demanded an explanation of this mystery and she then proceeded to enlighten him, telling him of the trick she had used to make her discovery; and she showed him the gold coin that she had found stuck to the underside of the scales – a coin so ancient that the name of the prince stamped on it was unknown to him.
Qasim, far from being pleased at his brother’s good fortune, which would relieve his misery, conceived a mortal jealousy towards him and scarcely slept that night. The next morning, before even the sun had risen, he went to his brother, whom he did not treat as a real brother, having forgotten the very word since he had married the rich widow. ‘Ali Baba,’ he said, ‘you don’t say much about your affairs; you act as though you were poor, wretched and poverty-stricken but yet you have gold enough to weigh!’ ‘Brother,’ replied Ali Baba, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Explain yourself.’ ‘Don’t pretend to be ignorant,’ said Qasim, showing him the gold coin his wife had handed to him. ‘How many more coins do you have like this one, which my wife found stuck to the underside of the scales that your wife came to borrow yesterday?’
On hearing this, Ali Baba realized that, thanks to his wife’s persistence, Qasim and his wife already knew what he had been so eager to keep concealed; but the damage was done and could not be repaired. Without showing the least sign of surprise or concern, he admitted everything to his brother and told him by what chance he had discovered the thieves’ den and where it was, offering to give him a share in the treasure if he kept the secret. ‘I will indeed claim my share,’ said Qasim arrogantly, then added: ‘But I also want to know precisely where this treasure is, the signs and marks of its hiding place, and how I can get in if I want to; otherwise, I shall denounce you to the authorities. If you refuse, not only will you have no hope of getting any more of it, but you will lose what you have already removed, as this will be given to me for having denounced you.’ Ali Baba, more thanks to his own good nature than because he was intimidated by the insolent threats of so cruel a brother, told him everything he wanted to know, even the words to use when entering or leaving the cave.
Qasim asked no more questions but left, determined to get to the treasure before Ali Baba. Very early the next morning, before it was even light, he set out, hoping to get the treasure for himself alone. He took with him ten mules carrying large chests which he planned to fill, and he had even more chests in reserve for a second trip, depending on the number of loads he found in the cave. He took the path following Ali Baba’s instructions and, drawing near to the rock, he recognized the signs and the tree in which Ali Baba had hidden. He looked for the door, found it, and said ‘Open, Sesame’ to make it open. When it did, he went in, and immediately it closed again. Looking around the cave, he was amazed at the sight of riches far greater than Ali Baba’s account had led him to expect. The more closely he examined everything, the more his astonishment increased. Being the miser he was and fond of wealth and riches, he would have spent the whole day feasting his eyes on the sight of so much gold had he not remembered that he had come to remove it and load it on to his ten mules. He then took as many sacks as he could carry and went to open the door, but his mind was filled with thoughts far removed from what should have been of more importance to him. He found he had forgotten the necessary word and so instead of saying ‘Open, Sesame’, he said ‘Open, Barley’ and was very surprised to see that the door, rather than opening, remained shut. He went on naming various other types of grain, but not the one he needed, and still the door did not open.
Qasim had not expected this. In the great danger in which he found himself, he was so terror-stricken that, in his efforts to remember the word ‘Sesame’, his memory became more and more confused and soon it was as though he had never ever heard of the word. He threw down his sacks and began to stride around the cave from one side to another, no longer moved by the sight of all the riches around him. So let us now leave Qasim to bewail his fate – he does not deserve our compassion.
Towards midday, the thieves returned to their cave, and when they were a little way off, they saw Qasim’s mules by the rock, laden with chests. Disturbed by this unusual sight, they advanced at full speed, scaring away the ten mules, which Qasim had neglected to tether. They had been grazing freely, and they now scattered so far into the forest that they were soon lost from sight. The thieves did not bother to run after them – it was more important for them to discover their owner. While some of them went round the rock to look for him, the captain, together with the rest, dismounted and went straight to the door, sword in hand; he pronounced the words and the door opened.
Qasim, who had heard the sound of the horses from the middle of the cave, was in no doubt that the thieves had arrived and that his last hour had come. Resolved at least to make an effort to escape from their hands and save himself, he was ready to hurl himself through the door immediately it opened. As soon as he saw it open and hearing the word ‘Sesame’, which he had forgotten, he rushed out headlong, flinging the captain to the ground. But he did not escape the other thieves who were standing sword in hand and who killed him on the spot.
After they had killed him, the first concern of the thieves was to enter the cave. Next to the door they found the sacks which Qasim had begun to carry off in order to load on to his mules. These they put back in their place, failing to notice what Ali Baba had previously removed. They consulted each other and discussed what had just happened, but although they could see how Qasim might have got out of the cave, what they could not imagine was how he had entered it. It struck them that he might have come down through the top of the cave, but there was nothing to show that this was what he had done, and the opening which let in the daylight was so high up and the top of the rock so inaccessible from outside that they all agreed it was incomprehensible. They could not believe that he had come in through the door, unless he knew the secret of making it open, and they were certain that no one else knew this. In this they were mistaken, unaware as they were that Ali Baba had found it out by spying on them.
They then decided that, however it was that Qasim had managed to get into the cave, it was now a question of protecting their communal riches and so they should chop his body in four and place the four pieces inside the cave near the door, two on each side, so as to terrify anyone who was bold enough to try the same thing. They themselves would only come back some time later, when the stench of the corpse had passed off. They carried out their plan, and as there was nothing else to keep them there, they left their den firmly secured, remounted their horses and went off to scour the countryside along the caravan routes, attacking and carrying out their usual highway robberies.
Qasim’s wife, meanwhile, was in a state of great anxiety when she saw that night had come and her husband had not returned home. In her alarm, she went to Ali Baba and said to him: ‘Brother-in-law, I believe you know well enough that your brother, Qasim, went to the forest and you know why he went there. He hasn’t come back yet and as it has been dark for some time, I’m afraid that some misfortune may have befallen him.’
After the conversation that Ali Baba had had with his brother, he had suspected that he would make this trip into the forest and so he had not gone there himself that day so as not to alarm him. Without reproaching his visitor in any way which could cause offence to her or to her husband, if he was alive, he told her not to be worried yet, explaining that Qasim might well have thought fit not to come back to the city until well after dark.
Qasim’s wife believed him all the more readily when she realized how important it was that her husband should act in secret. So she went home and waited patiently until midnight, but after that her fears increased and her suffering was all the more intense because she could not give vent to it nor relieve it by crying out loud, for she knew well enough that the reason for it had to remain concealed from the neighbours. The damage had been done, but she repented the foolish curiosity and blameworthy impulse which had led her to meddle in the affairs of her in-laws. She spent the night in tears, and as soon as it was light, she rushed to Ali Baba’s house and told him and his wife – more through her tears than her words – what had brought her there.
For his part, Ali Baba did not wait for his sister-in-law to appeal to his kindness to find out what had happened to Qasim. Telling her to calm down, he then immediately set out with his three donkeys and made for the forest. He found no trace of his brother or of the ten mules along the way, but when he drew near the rock, he was astonished to see a pool of blood near the door. He took this for an evil omen and, standing in front of the door, he pronounced the words ‘Open, Sesame’. When the door opened, he was confronted by the sorry sight of his brother’s corpse, cut into four pieces. Forgetting what little fraternal love his brother had shown him, he did not hesitate in deciding to perform the last rites for his brother. He made up two bundles from the body parts that he found in the cave and these he loaded on to one of his donkeys, with firewood on top to conceal them. Then, losing no more time, he loaded the other two donkeys with sacks filled with gold, again with firewood on top, as before. As soon as he had done this and had commanded the door to shut, he set off on the path leading back to the city, but he took the precaution of stopping long enough at the edge of the forest so as to enter it only when it was dark. When he arrived home, he brought in only the two donkeys laden with the gold, leaving his wife with the job of unloading them. He told her briefly what had happened to Qasim, before leading the other donkey to his sister-in-law’s house.
When he knocked at the door, it was opened by Marjana. Now this girl Ali Baba knew to be a very shrewd and clever slave who could always find a way to solve the most difficult of problems. When he had entered the courtyard, Ali Baba unloaded the firewood and the two bundles from the donkey and, taking Marjana aside, said to her: ‘Marjana, the first thing I am going to ask you is an inviolable secret – you will see how necessary this is for us both, for your mistress as well as for myself. In these two bundles is the body of your master; he must be buried as though he died a natural death. Let me speak to your mistress, and listen carefully to what I say to her.’
After Marjana had told her mistress that he was there, Ali Baba, who had been following her, entered and his sister-in-law immediately cried out impatiently to him: ‘Brother-in-law, what news have you of my husband? Your face tells me you have no comfort to offer me.’ ‘Sister-in-law,’ replied Ali Baba, ‘I can’t tell you anything before you first promise me you will listen to me, from beginning to end, without saying a word. It is no less important to you than it is to me that what has happened should be kept a deadly secret, for your good and your peace of mind.’ ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Qasim’s wife, although without raising her voice. ‘You are going to tell me that my husband is dead, but at the same time I must control myself and I understand why you are asking me to keep this a secret. So tell me; I am listening.’
Ali Baba told his sister-in-law what had happened on his trip, right up to his return with Qasim’s body, adding: ‘This is all very painful for you, all the more so because you so little expected it. However, although the evil cannot be remedied, if there is anything capable of comforting you, I offer to marry you and join the little God has given me to what you have. I can assure you that my wife won’t be jealous and you will live happily together. If you agree, then we must think how to make it appear that my brother died of natural causes: this is something it seems to me you can entrust to Marjana, and I for my part will do everything that I can.’
What better decision could Qasim’s widow take than to accept Ali Baba’s proposal? With all the wealth she had inherited through the death of her first husband she had yet found someone even wealthier than herself, a husband who, thanks to the treasure he had discovered, could become richer still. So she did not refuse his offer but, on the contrary, considered the match as offering reasonable grounds for consolation. The fact that she wiped away the copious tears she had begun to shed and stifled the piercing shrieks customary to the newly widowed made it clear enough to Ali Baba that she had accepted his offer.
He left her in this frame of mind and returned home with his donkey, after having instructed Marjana to carry out her task as well as she could. She, for her part, did her best and, leaving the house at the same time as Ali Baba, she went to a nearby apothecary’s shop. She knocked on the door and when it was opened she went in and asked for some kind of tablets which were very effective against the most serious illnesses. The apothecary gave her what she had paid for, asking who was ill in her master’s house. ‘Ah!’ she sighed heavily. ‘It’s Qasim himself, my dear master! They don’t know what’s wrong with him; he won’t speak and he won’t eat.’ So saying, she went off with the tablets – which Qasim was in no state to use.
The next morning, Marjana again went to the same apothecary and, with tears in her eyes, asked for an essence which one usually gives the sick only when they are at death’s door. ‘Alas!’ she cried in great distress as the apothecary handed it to her. ‘I am very much afraid that this remedy will have no more effect than the tablets! Ah, that I should lose such a good master!’
For their part, Ali Baba and his wife could be seen, with sorrowful faces, making frequent trips all day long to and from Qasim’s house, so that it was no surprise to hear, towards evening, cries and lamentations coming from Qasim’s wife, and especially from Marjana, which told of Qasim’s death.
Very early the next day, when dawn was just breaking, Marjana left the house and went to seek out an elderly cobbler on the square who, as she knew, was always the first to open his shop every day, long before everyone else. She went up to him, greeted him and placed a gold coin in his hand. Baba Mustafa, as he was known to all and sundry, being of a naturally cheerful disposition and always ready with a joke, looked carefully at the coin because it was not yet quite light and, seeing it was indeed gold, exclaimed: ‘That’s a good start to the day! What’s all this for? And how can I help you?’ ‘Baba Mustafa,’ Marjana said to him, ‘take whatever you need for sewing and come with me immediately, but I will have to blindfold you when we reach a certain place.’
When he heard this, Baba Mustafa became squeamish, saying: ‘Aha! So you want me to do something that goes against my conscience and my honour?’ Placing another gold coin in his hand, Marjana went on: ‘God forbid that I should ask you to do anything which you couldn’t do in all honour! Just come, and don’t be afraid.’
The man allowed himself to be led by Marjana, who, after she had placed a handkerchief over his eyes at the place she had indicated, took him to the house of her late master, only removing the handkerchief once they were in the room where she had laid out the body, each quarter in its proper place. When she had removed the handkerchief, she said to him: ‘Why I have brought you here is so that you can sew these pieces together. Don’t waste any time, and when you have done this, I will give you another gold coin.’
When Baba Mustafa had finished, Marjana blindfolded him once more in the same room and then, after having given him the third gold coin that she had promised him, telling him to keep the secret, she took him back to the place where she had first blindfolded him. There she removed the handkerchief and let him return to his shop, watching him until he was out of sight in order to stop him retracing his steps out of curiosity to keep an eye on her.
She had heated some water with which to wash the body, and Ali Baba, who arrived just after she returned, washed it, perfumed it with incense and then wrapped it in a shroud with the customary ceremonies. The carpenter brought the coffin which Ali Baba had taken care to order, and Marjana stood at the door to receive it, to make sure that the carpenter would not notice anything. After she had paid him and sent him on his way, she helped Ali Baba to put the body into the coffin, and when Ali Baba had firmly nailed down the planks on top of it, she went to the mosque to give notice that everything was ready for the burial. The people at the mosque whose business it was to wash the bodies of the dead offered to come and perform their duty, but she told them it had already been done.
No sooner had Marjana returned than the imam and the other officials of the mosque arrived. Four neighbours had assembled there who then carried the bier on their shoulders to the cemetery, following the imam as he recited the prayers. Marjana, as the dead man’s slave, followed bareheaded, weeping and wailing pitifully, violently beating her breast and tearing her hair. Ali Baba also followed, accompanied by neighbours who would step forward from time to time to take their turn to relieve the four who were carrying the bier, until they arrived at the cemetery.
As for Qasim’s wife, she stayed at home grieving and uttering pitiful cries with the women of the neighbourhood, who, as was the custom, hurried there while the funeral was taking place, adding their lamentations to hers and filling the whole quarter and beyond with grief and sadness. In this way, Qasim’s grisly death was carefully concealed and covered up by Ali Baba, his wife, Qasim’s widow and Marjana, so that no one in the town knew anything about it or was in the least suspicious.
Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba moved the few items of furniture he had, together with the money he had taken from the thieves’ treasure – which he brought in only at night – to the house of his brother’s widow in order to set up house there. This was enough to show that he had now married his former sister-in-law, but no one showed any surprise, as such marriages are not unusual in our religion.
As for Qasim’s shop, Ali Baba had a son who some time ago had finished his apprenticeship with another wealthy merchant who had always testified to his good conduct. Ali Baba gave him the shop, with the promise that if he continued to behave well, he would soon arrange an advantageous marriage for him, in keeping with his status.
Let us now leave Ali Baba to start enjoying his good fortune, and talk about the forty thieves. When they returned to their den in the forest at the time they had agreed on, they were astonished first at the absence of Qasim’s body but even more so by the noticeable gaps among their piles of gold. ‘We’ve been discovered, and if we don’t take care we’ll be lost,’ said the captain. ‘We must do something about this immediately, for otherwise bit by bit we shall lose all the riches which we and our fathers amassed with so much trouble and effort. What our loss teaches us is that the thief whom we surprised learned the secret of how to make the door open and that fortunately we arrived at the very moment he was going to come out. But he wasn’t the only one – there must be someone else who found out about this. Quite apart from anything, the fact that the corpse was removed and some of our treasure taken is clear proof of this. There is nothing to show that more than two people knew the secret, however, and so now that we have killed one of them we shall have to kill the other as well. What do you think, my brave men? Isn’t that what we should do?’
The band of thieves were in complete accord with their captain, and finding his proposal perfectly reasonable, they all agreed to abandon any other venture and to concentrate exclusively on this and not to give up until they had succeeded. ‘I expected no less of your courage and bravery,’ their captain told them. ‘But before anything else, one of you who is bold, clever and enterprising must go to the city, unarmed and dressed as a traveller from foreign parts. He is to use all his skill to discover if there is any talk about the strange death of the wretch we so rightly slaughtered, in order to find out who he was and where he lived. That’s what is most important for us to know, so that we don’t do anything we might regret or show ourselves in a country where for a long time no one has known about us and where it is very important for us to stay unknown. Were our volunteer to make a mistake and bring back a false report rather than a true one, this could be disastrous for us. Don’t you think, then, that he had better agree that, if he does this, he should be killed?’
Without waiting for the rest to vote on this, one of the thieves said: ‘I agree and I glory in risking my life by taking on this task. If I don’t succeed, remember at least that, for the common good of the band, I lacked neither the goodwill nor the courage.’ He was warmly praised by the captain and his comrades, after which he then disguised himself in such a way that no one would take him for what he was. Leaving his comrades behind, he set out that night and saw to it that he entered the city as day was just breaking. He made for the square, where the one shop that he found open was that of Baba Mustafa.
Baba Mustafa was seated on his chair, his awl in his hand, ready to ply his trade. The robber went up to him to bid him good morning and, seeing him to be of great age, said to him: ‘My good fellow, you start work very early, but you cannot possibly see clearly at your age, and even when it gets lighter, I doubt that your eyes are good enough for you to sew.’ ‘Whoever you are,’ replied Baba Mustafa, ‘you obviously don’t know me. However old I may seem to you, I still have excellent eyes and you will realize the truth of this when I tell you that not long ago I sewed up a dead man in a place where the light was hardly any better than it is at the moment.’ The thief was delighted to find that after his arrival he had come across someone who, as seemed certain, had, immediately and unprompted, given him the very information for which he had come.
‘A dead man!’ the thief exclaimed in astonishment, adding, in order to make him talk: ‘What do you mean, “sewed up a dead man”? You must mean that you sewed the shroud in which he was wrapped?’ ‘No, no,’ insisted Baba Mustafa, ‘I know what I mean. You want to make me talk, but you’re not going to get anything more out of me.’
The thief needed no further enlightenment to be persuaded that he had discovered what he had come to look for. Pulling out a gold coin, he placed it in Baba Mustafa’s hand, saying: ‘I don’t want to enter into your secret, although I can assure you that I would not reveal it if you confided it to me. The only thing I ask is that you be kind enough to tell me or show me the house where you sewed up the dead man.’ ‘Even if I wanted to, I could not,’ replied Baba Mustafa, ready to hand back the gold coin. ‘Take my word. The reason is that I was led to a certain place where I was blindfolded and from there I let myself be taken right into the house. When I had finished what I had to do, I was brought back in the same way to the same place, and so you see that I cannot be of any help to you.’ ‘You ought at least to remember something of the path you took with your eyes blindfolded,’ the thief went on. ‘Come with me, I beg you, and I will blindfold you in that place, and we will go on together by the same path, taking the turns that you can remember. As every effort deserves a reward, here is another gold coin. Come, do me the favour I ask of you.’ On saying this, he placed another gold coin in his hand.
Baba Mustafa was tempted by the two gold coins; he gazed at them in his hand for a while without uttering a word, thinking over what he should do. Finally, he pulled out a purse from his breast and put them there, saying to the thief: ‘I can’t guarantee I will remember the precise path I was led along, but since that’s what you want, let’s go. I will do what I can to remember it.’
To the thief’s great satisfaction, Baba Mustafa rose and, without closing his shop – where there was nothing of consequence to lose – he led the thief to the place where Marjana had blindfolded him. When they arrived there, he said: ‘Here is where I was blindfolded and I was turned like this, as you see.’ The thief, who had his handkerchief ready, bound his eyes and then walked beside him, sometimes leading him and sometimes letting himself be led, until he came to a halt. ‘I don’t think I went any further,’ said Baba Mustafa, and indeed he was standing before Qasim’s house where Ali Baba was now living. Before he removed the handkerchief from his eyes, the thief quickly put a mark on the door with a piece of chalk which he had ready in his hand. He then removed it and asked Baba Mustafa if he knew to whom the house belonged. But Baba Mustafa replied that he could not tell him as he was not from that quarter. Seeing that he could not learn anything more, the thief thanked him for his trouble, and after he had left him to return to his shop, he himself took the path back to the forest, certain that he would be well received.
