Borges’s “World History of Bastards” in Brief Contents
In the cycle “World history of baseness” collected stories about the lives of murderers, scammers, pirates. Among them, “Hakim of Merv, a masked dyer”,
Hakim, who was subsequently nicknamed the Prophet Under the Veil, was born in 736 of the Cross in the dying city of Merv on the edge of the desert. The brother of Hakim’s father taught him the craft of the dyer, “the art of the wicked,” who inspired him to heretical thoughts.
Then Hakim disappears from his native city, leaving in the house broken boilers and dye tanks, as well as a Shiraz scimitar and a bronze mirror. More than ten years after that, on the eve of the beginning of Ramadan, slaves, beggars, camel thieves and butchers were sitting at the gate of the caravanserai on the road to Merv. Suddenly they saw three figures appear from the bowels of the desert, which seemed unusually high to them. All three were human figures, but the one walking in the middle was the head of
Hakim, having announced his messengership, called people to holy war, jihad, and martyrdom. Slaves, butchers, beggars, camel drivers refused to believe in him. One of the guests of the caravansary had a leopard with him. Suddenly, he escaped from the cage. All except the masked prophet and his blind companions, rushed to flee. When they returned, it turned out that the beast had gone blind. Seeing the dead eyes of the beast, people fell at the feet of Hakim and recognized his supernatural power.
Hakim, who eventually replaced the bull mask with a four-layered blanket of white silk, embroidered with precious stones, became extremely popular in Khorasan. In the battles with the Abbasid
Heretic cosmogony of Hakim was based on the existence of a certain ghost God, which has neither a name nor a face. From him there are nine shadows, populating and leading the first heaven. From the first demiurgic crown there was a second, also with the angels, forces and thrones, and those, in turn, founded another sky below. The second holy gathering was reflected in the third, then in the next, and so on until 999. The ruler of the original sky controls them, the shadow of the shadows of the other shadows.
The land on which we live is just a mistake, an inept parody. Mirrors and childbirth are disgusting, for they multiply and strengthen this error. The main virtue is disgust. Paradise and hell in Hakim were no less desolate. “In this life,” Hakim promises, “you endure the torments of one body, but in spirit and in recompense – in countless bodies.” Paradise is a place where there are always dark and everywhere stone bowls with holy water, and the bliss of this paradise is the “special bliss of separation, renunciation and those who sleep.”
In the fifth year of his prophetic life, Hakim was besieged in Sanama by the troops of the Caliph. Food and warriors were enough, in addition, an early rescue of a host of angels of light was expected. Suddenly a terrible rumor spread through the fortress. When one of the women of the harem was about to be executed for adultery, she announced that there was no nameless finger on the right hand of the Prophet, and the other fingers had no nails.
On a high terrace, in the bright sun, Hakim asked his deity to bestow victory. Two of his generals approached him and tore off the embroidered embroidered with him.
Everyone shuddered. Lick, who visited heaven, really hit white – a special whiteness of spotty leprosy. There was no eyebrows, the lower eyelid of the right eye sagged to the flabby cheek, a heavy knobby bunch of lips, a nose swollen and flattened, like a lion,
Hakim for the last time tried to deceive others: – Your vile sins do not let you see my radiance…
He was not listened to and pierced with spears.
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