Antoine Galland, from the telling of Hannā Diyāb · Complete work
Cassim in the Cave
Cassim in the Cave of 14. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
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Loin d’être sensible au bonheur qui pouvoit être arrivé à son frère pour se tirer de la misère, Cassim en conçut une jalousie mortelle. Il en passa presque la nuit sans dormir. Le lendemain il alla chez lui, que le soleil n’étoit pas levé. Il ne le traita pas de frère: il avoit oublié ce nom depuis qu’il avoit épousé la riche veuve.
« Ali Baba, dit-il en l’abordant, vous êtes bien réservé dans vos affaires, vous faites le pauvre, le misérable, le gueux; et vous mesurez l’or! »
« Mon frère, reprit Ali Baba, je ne sais de quoi vous voulez me parler? Expliquez-vous. »
« Ne faites pas l’ignorant, repartit Cassim » Et en lui montrant la pièce d’or que sa femme lui avoit mise entre les mains: « Combien avez-vous de pièces, ajouta-t-il, semblables à celle-ci que ma femme a trouvée attachée au-dessous de la mesure que la vôtre vint lui emprunter hier? »
À ce discours, Ali Baba connut que Cassim, et la femme de Cassim (par un entêtement de sa propre femme), savoient déjà ce qu’il avoit un si grand intérêt de tenir caché; mais la faute étoit faite: elle ne pouvoit se réparer. Sans donner à son frère la moindre marque d’étonnement ni de chagrin, il lui avoua la chose, et il lui raconta par quel hasard il avoit découvert la retraite des voleurs, et en quel endroit; et il lui offrit, s’il vouloit garder le secret, de lui faire part du trésor.
« Je le prétends bien ainsi, reprit Cassim d’un air fier; mais, ajouta-t-il, je veux savoir aussi où est précisément ce trésor, les enseignes, les marques, et comment je pourrois y entrer moi-même, s’il m’en prenoit envie; autrement je vais vous dénoncer à la justice. Si vous le refusez, non-seulement vous n’aurez plus à en espérer, vous perdrez même ce que vous avez enlevé, au lieu que j’en aurai ma part pour vous avoir dénoncé. »
Ali Baba, plutôt par son bon naturel, qu’intimidé par les menaces insolentes d’un frère barbare, l’instruisit pleinement de ce qu’il souhaitait, et même des paroles dont il falloit qu’il se servît, tant pour entrer dans la grotte, que pour en sortir.
Cassim n’en demanda pas davantage à Ali Baba. Il le quitta, résolu de le prévenir; et plein d’espérance de s’emparer du trésor lui seul, il part le lendemain de grand matin, avant la pointe du jour, avec dix mulets chargés de grands coffres, qu’il se propose de remplir, en se réservant d’en mener un plus grand nombre dans un second voyage, à proportion des charges qu’il trouveroit dans la grotte. Il prend le chemin qu’Ali Baba lui avoit enseigné; il arrive près du rocher, et il reconnoît les enseignes, et l’arbre sur lequel Ali Baba s’étoit caché. Il cherche la porte, il la trouve; et pour la faire ouvrir, il prononce les paroles: Sésame, ouvre-toi. La porte s’ouvre, il entre, et aussitôt elle se referme. En examinant la grotte, il est dans une grande admiration de voir beaucoup plus de richesses qu’il ne l’avoit compris par le récit d’Ali Baba; et son admiration augmente à mesure qu’il examine chaque chose en particulier. Avare et amateur des richesses, comme il l’étoit, il eût passé la journée à se repaître les yeux de la vue de tant d’or, s’il n’eût songé qu’il étoit venu pour l’enlever et pour en charger ses dix mulets. Il en prend un nombre de sacs, autant qu’il en peut porter; et en venant à la porte pour la faire ouvrir, l’esprit rempli de toute autre idée que ce qui lui importoit davantage, il se trouve qu’il oublie le mot nécessaire, et au lieu de Sésame, il dit: Orge, ouvre-toi; et il est bien étonné de voir que la porte, loin de s’ouvrir, demeure fermée. Il nomme plusieurs autres noms de grains, autres que celui qu’il falloit, et la porte ne s’ouvre pas.
Cassim ne s’attendoit pas à cet événement. Dans le grand danger où il se voit, la frayeur se saisit de sa personne, et plus il fait d’efforts pour se souvenir du mot de Sésame, plus il embrouille sa mémoire, et bientôt ce mot est pour lui absolument comme si jamais il n’en avoit entendu parler. Il jette par terre les sacs dont il étoit chargé, il se promène à grands pas dans la grotte, tantôt d’un côté, tantôt de l’autre, et toutes les richesses dont il se voit environné ne le touchent plus. Laissons Cassim déplorant son sort, il ne mérite pas de compassion.
Les voleurs revinrent à leur grotte vers le midi; et quand ils furent à peu de distance, et qu’ils eurent vu les mulets de Cassim autour du rocher, chargés de coffres, inquiets de cette nouveauté, ils avancèrent à toute bride, et firent prendre la fuite aux dix mulets que Cassim avoit négligé d’attacher, et qui paissoient librement; de manière qu’ils se dispersèrent de çà et de là dans la forêt, si loin qu’ils les eurent bientôt perdus de vue.
Les voleurs ne se donnèrent par la peine de courir après les mulets: il leur importoit davantage de trouver celui à qui ils appartenoient. Pendant que quelques-uns tournent autour du rocher pour le chercher, le capitaine, avec les autres, met pied à terre et va droit à la porte le sabre à la main, prononce les paroles, et la porte s’ouvre.
Cassim qui entendit le bruit des chevaux du milieu de la grotte, ne douta pas de l’arrivée des voleurs, non plus que de sa perte prochaine. Résolu au moins à faire un effort pour échapper de leurs mains, et se sauver, il s’étoit tenu prêt à se jeter dehors dès que la porte s’ouvriroit. Il ne la vit pas plutôt ouverte, après avoir entendu prononcer le mot de Sésame, qui étoit échappé de sa mémoire, qu’il s’élança en sortant si brusquement, qu’il renversa le capitaine par terre. Mais il n’échappa pas aux autres voleurs, qui avoient aussi le sabre à la main, et qui lui otèrent la vie sur-le-champ.
Le premier soin des voleurs après cette exécution, fut d’entrer dans la grotte: ils trouvèrent près de la porte, les sacs que Cassim avoit commencé d’enlever pour les emporter, et en charger ses mulets; et ils les remirent à leur place sans s’apercevoir de ceux qu’Ali Baba avoit emportés auparavant. En tenant conseil et en délibérant ensemble sur cet événement, ils comprirent bien comment Cassim avoit pu sortir de la grotte; mais qu’il y eût pu entrer, c’est ce qu’ils ne pouvoient s’imaginer. Il leur vint en pensée qu’il pouvoit être descendu par le haut de la grotte; mais l’ouverture par où le jour y venoit, étoit si élevée, et le haut du rocher étoit si inaccessible par dehors, outre que rien ne leur marquoit qu’il l’eût fait, qu’ils tombèrent d’accord que cela étoit hors de leur connoissance. Qu’il fût entré par la porte, c’est ce qu’ils ne pouvoient se persuader, à moins qu’il n’eût eu le secret de la faire ouvrir; mais ils tenoient pour certain qu’ils étaient les seuls qui l’avoient, en quoi ils se trompoient, en ignorant qu’ils avoient été épiés par Ali Baba qui le savoit.
De quelque manière que la chose fût arrivée, comme il s’agissoit que leurs richesses communes fussent en sûreté, ils convinrent de faire quatre quartiers du cadavre de Cassim, et de le mettre près de la porte en dedans de la grotte, deux d’un côté, deux de l’autre, pour épouvanter quiconque auroit la hardiesse de faire une pareille entreprise; sauf à ne revenir dans la grotte que dans quelque temps, après que la puanteur du cadavre seroit exhalée. Cette résolution prise, ils l’exécutèrent; et quand ils n’eurent plus rien qui les arrêtât, ils laissèrent le lieu de leur retraite bien fermé, remontèrent à cheval, et allèrent battre la campagne sur les routes fréquentées par les caravanes, pour les attaquer et exercer leurs brigandages accoutumés.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from Antoine Galland’s French text of “Histoire d’Ali Baba, et de quarante voleurs exterminés par une esclave” (Les Mille et une nuits, Le Normant edition of 1806, volume VI), paragraph for paragraph, and checked against the French before publication.
Far from being glad of the good fortune that might have lifted his brother out of poverty, Cassim was seized by a deadly jealousy. He spent most of the night without sleep. The next day he went to his brother's house before the sun was up. He did not greet him as a brother; he had forgotten that word ever since he married the rich widow.
"Ali Baba," he said as he came up to him, "you are very close about your affairs. You play the poor man, the wretch, the beggar, and you measure gold!"
"Brother," Ali Baba replied, "I don't know what you mean. Explain yourself."
"Don't play the innocent," Cassim retorted. And showing him the gold piece his wife had put in his hands, he added, "How many pieces do you have like this one, which my wife found stuck to the bottom of the measure your wife came to borrow from her yesterday?"
At these words Ali Baba knew that Cassim and Cassim's wife, thanks to his own wife's stubbornness, already knew what he had such strong reason to keep hidden. But the mistake was made, and it could not be undone. Without showing his brother the least sign of surprise or distress, he admitted the whole thing and told him by what chance he had discovered the robbers' hideout, and where it was, and he offered, if Cassim would keep the secret, to share the treasure with him.
"That is exactly what I intend," Cassim replied haughtily. "But," he added, "I also want to know exactly where this treasure is, the landmarks, the signs, and how I could get in myself if I had a mind to. Otherwise I will go and denounce you to the law. If you refuse, not only will you have nothing more to hope for, you will even lose what you have taken, while I will get my share for having denounced you."
Ali Baba, more from his own good nature than from fear of the insolent threats of a cruel brother, told him everything he wished to know, even the words he must use both to enter the cave and to leave it.
Cassim asked Ali Baba nothing more. He left him, resolved to get there ahead of him, and full of hope of seizing the treasure for himself alone. He set out the next day very early, before daybreak, with ten mules carrying large chests that he meant to fill, planning to bring a greater number on a second journey according to the loads he found in the cave. He took the road Ali Baba had shown him. He came near the rock and recognized the landmarks and the tree in which Ali Baba had hidden. He looked for the door and found it, and to open it he spoke the words: "Open, Sesame!" The door opened, he went in, and at once it closed again. Examining the cave, he was filled with wonder to see far greater riches than he had understood from Ali Baba's account, and his wonder grew as he looked at each thing in turn. Greedy and in love with wealth as he was, he would have spent the whole day feasting his eyes on so much gold if he had not remembered that he had come to carry it off and load his ten mules with it. He took up a number of sacks, as many as he could carry, and coming to the door to open it, his mind filled with every thought but the one that mattered most, he found that he had forgotten the word he needed. Instead of Sesame he said, "Open, Barley!" and he was astonished to see that the door, far from opening, stayed shut. He named several other grains, every one but the right one, and the door did not open.
Cassim had not expected this. In the great danger in which he found himself, terror took hold of him, and the harder he tried to remember the word Sesame, the more his memory tangled, until soon the word was as lost to him as if he had never heard it. He threw to the ground the sacks he was carrying and paced the cave with long strides, now this way, now that, and all the riches around him no longer moved him at all. Let us leave Cassim lamenting his fate; he deserves no pity.
The robbers came back to their cave around noon. When they were a short distance away and saw Cassim's mules around the rock loaded with chests, they were alarmed at this strange sight and rode up at full gallop. They put to flight the ten mules, which Cassim had neglected to tie up and which were grazing freely, so that they scattered this way and that through the forest, so far that the robbers soon lost sight of them.
The robbers did not trouble to chase the mules; it mattered more to them to find the man they belonged to. While some of them circled the rock looking for him, the captain and the rest dismounted and went straight to the door, sabers in hand. He spoke the words, and the door opened.
Cassim, in the middle of the cave, heard the noise of the horses and had no doubt that the robbers had come, nor that his death was near. Resolved at least to make one effort to escape their hands and save himself, he had held himself ready to rush out as soon as the door opened. The moment he saw it open, after hearing spoken the word Sesame that had slipped his memory, he sprang out so violently that he knocked the captain to the ground. But he did not escape the other robbers, who also had their sabers drawn and killed him on the spot.
The robbers' first concern after this execution was to go into the cave. Near the door they found the sacks Cassim had begun to move so he could carry them off and load them on his mules, and they put them back in their places without noticing the ones Ali Baba had carried off before. Holding council and debating together about what had happened, they understood well enough how Cassim had managed to get out of the cave, but how he could have got in, they could not imagine. It occurred to them that he might have come down through the top of the cave, but the opening through which daylight came in was so high, and the top of the rock so impossible to reach from outside, besides which nothing showed that he had done so, that they agreed it was beyond them. That he had come in by the door they could not believe, unless he had the secret for opening it; but they held it for certain that they alone had it. In this they were wrong, not knowing that they had been spied on by Ali Baba, who knew it.
However the thing had happened, since what mattered was that their common wealth be safe, they agreed to cut Cassim's body into four quarters and place them inside the cave near the door, two on one side and two on the other, to terrify anyone bold enough to attempt the same thing, and not to come back to the cave for some time, until the stench of the corpse had cleared. This resolved, they carried it out, and when nothing more held them there, they left their hideout securely closed, mounted their horses again, and went off to scour the country along the roads the caravans used, to attack them and carry on their usual robberies.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same French text of Galland’s 1806 Le Normant edition, paragraph for paragraph.
Cassim should have been happy that his brother had a chance to escape being poor. Instead he became horribly jealous. He hardly slept that night. The next morning, before sunrise, he went to Ali Baba's house. He didn't treat him like a brother. He had stopped using that word when he married the rich widow.
"Ali Baba," he said as he walked up, "you keep your business very quiet. You act poor and miserable, like a beggar. And all the while you're measuring gold!"
"Brother," Ali Baba said, "I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean?"
"Don't pretend you don't know," Cassim snapped. He held up the gold coin his wife had given him. "How many coins like this do you have?" he went on. "My wife found this one stuck under the measuring bowl your wife borrowed from her yesterday."
When he heard this, Ali Baba realized that Cassim and his wife already knew what he badly wanted to keep hidden. It was his own wife's stubbornness that had let it out. But what was done was done. It couldn't be fixed. He didn't let his brother see that he was surprised or upset. He admitted everything. He told him how he had come across the robbers' hiding place by chance, and where it was. He offered to share the treasure with Cassim if Cassim would keep it secret.
"That's exactly what I expect," Cassim said proudly. "But," he added, "I also want to know exactly where the treasure is. I want the landmarks and the signs, and how I can get in myself if I feel like it. If you don't tell me, I'll report you to the authorities. If you refuse, you won't get any more of it. You'll even lose what you've already taken. And I'll get a share as a reward for turning you in."
Ali Baba told him everything he wanted to know. He did it more because he was a kind man than because he was scared of his brother's rude, cruel threats. He even told him the words he would need to get into the cave and to get out again.
Cassim didn't ask Ali Baba anything else. He left, planning to get there first. He hoped to take the whole treasure for himself. Very early the next morning, before dawn, he set out with ten mules carrying big chests. He planned to fill them. Later he would bring more mules on a second trip, depending on how much there was in the cave. He took the road Ali Baba had described. He reached the rock and recognized the landmarks and the tree where Ali Baba had hidden. He looked for the door and found it. To open it he said, "Open, Sesame!" The door opened. He went in, and it shut right behind him. As he looked around the cave, he was amazed. There was much more treasure than he had imagined from Ali Baba's story. The more he looked at each thing, the more amazed he was. He was a greedy man who loved money. He would have spent the whole day staring at all that gold, but he remembered he had come to take it away and load it onto his ten mules. He picked up as many sacks as he could carry. He went to the door to open it. But his head was full of everything except the one thing that mattered, and he found he had forgotten the word. Instead of "Sesame," he said, "Open, Barley!" He was shocked when the door didn't open. It stayed shut. He tried the names of several other grains, every one but the right one, and the door still didn't open.
Cassim hadn't expected this. He saw what danger he was in and was terrified. The harder he tried to remember the word "Sesame," the more mixed up he got. Soon it was as if he had never heard the word at all. He dropped the sacks he was holding. He walked back and forth across the cave with long steps, first one way, then the other. All the treasure around him meant nothing to him anymore. Let's leave Cassim there, crying over what was happening to him. He doesn't deserve anyone's pity.
The robbers came back to their cave around midday. When they got close, they saw Cassim's mules standing around the rock with chests on their backs. This worried them, since it had never happened before. They galloped up. Cassim hadn't bothered to tie up his ten mules, and they were grazing loose. The robbers scared them off, and the mules ran in all directions into the forest. They ran so far that the robbers soon couldn't see them.
The robbers didn't bother to chase the mules. It was more important to find the man who owned them. Some of them rode around the rock looking for him. The leader and the others got off their horses and went straight to the door, swords drawn. The leader said the words, and the door opened.
From inside the cave, Cassim heard the horses and knew the robbers had come. He also knew he was about to die. He decided he would at least try to get away. He had gotten ready to rush out as soon as the door opened. He heard the word "Sesame," the word he had forgotten. As soon as he saw the door open, he charged out so hard that he knocked the leader down. But he didn't get past the other robbers. They also had their swords out, and they killed him right there.
After they had killed him, the first thing the robbers did was go into the cave. Near the door they found the sacks Cassim had started to move so he could load them on his mules. They put the sacks back where they belonged. They didn't notice the ones Ali Baba had taken earlier. They sat down together to talk about what had happened. They understood how Cassim had gotten out of the cave. What they couldn't figure out was how he had gotten in. They thought he might have climbed down through the top of the cave. But the hole that let the light in was very high, and nobody could get to the top of the rock from outside. Besides, there was no sign that he had come in that way. So they agreed they had no idea. They couldn't believe he had come in through the door unless he knew the secret for opening it. And they were sure they were the only ones who knew it. They were wrong. They didn't know that Ali Baba had spied on them and knew the secret.
However it had happened, what mattered was keeping their shared treasure safe. They agreed to cut Cassim's body into four pieces. They would put the pieces just inside the door of the cave, two on one side and two on the other. That would frighten anyone else who dared to try the same thing. They also agreed not to come back to the cave for a while, until the smell of the body was gone. Once they had decided, they did it. When there was nothing else to keep them there, they left their hiding place locked tight. They got back on their horses and rode off to roam the roads that the caravans used, to attack them and rob them as usual.