The adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan/01

Chapter I: Hajji Baba's birth and education
My father, Kerbelai Hassan, was one of the most celebrated barbers of ‎Ispahan. He was married, when only seventeen years of age, to the ‎daughter of a chandler, who lived in the neighbourhood of his shop; but ‎the connexion was not fortunate, for his wife brought him no offspring, ‎and he, in consequence, neglected her. His dexterity in the use of a razor ‎had gained for him, together with no little renown, such great custom, ‎particularly among the merchants, that after twenty years' industry, he ‎found he could afford to add a second wife to his harem; and succeeded ‎in obtaining the daughter of a rich money-changer, whose head he had ‎shaved, during that period, with so much success, that he made no ‎difficulty in granting his daughter to my father. In order to get rid, for a ‎while, of the importunities and jealousy of his first wife, and also to ‎acquire the good opinion of his father-in-law (who, although noted for ‎clipping money, and passing it for lawful, affected to be a saint), he ‎undertook a pilgrimage to the tomb of Hosein, at Kerbelah. He took his ‎new wife with him, and she was delivered of me on the road. Before the ‎journey took place he was generally known, simply as 'Hassan the ‎barber'; but ever after he was honoured by the epithet of Kerbelai; and I, ‎to please my mother, who spoilt me, was called Hajjî or the pilgrim, a ‎name which has stuck to me through life, and procured for me a great ‎deal of unmerited respect; because, in fact, that honoured title is seldom ‎conferred on any but those who have made the great pilgrimage to the ‎tomb of the blessed Prophet of Mecca.‎

My father having left his business during his absence to his chief ‎apprentice, resumed it with increased industry on his return; and the ‎reputation of a zealous Mussulman, which he had acquired by his ‎journey, attracted the clergy, as well as the merchants, to his shop. It ‎being intended that I should be brought up to the strap, I should perhaps ‎have received no more education than was necessary to teach me my ‎prayers, and I not been noticed by a mollah, (or priest), who kept a ‎school in an adjoining mosque, whom my father (to keep up the character ‎he had acquired of being a good man) used to shave once a week, as he ‎was wont to explain, purely for the love of God. The holy man repaid the ‎service by teaching me to read and write; and I made such progress under ‎his care, that in two years I could decipher the Koran, and began to write ‎a legible hand. When not in school I attended the shop, where I learnt the ‎rudiments of my profession, and when there was a press of customers, ‎was permitted to practise upon the heads of muleteers and camel-drivers, ‎who indeed sometimes paid dear for my first essays.‎

By the time I was sixteen it would be difficult to say whether I was ‎most accomplished as a barber or a scholar. Besides shaving the head, ‎cleaning the ears, and trimming the beard, I became famous for my skill ‎in the offices of the bath. No one understood better than I the different ‎modes of rubbing or shampooing, as practised in India, Cashmere, and ‎Turkey; and I had an art peculiar to myself of making the joints to crack, ‎and my slaps echo.‎

Thanks to my master, I had learnt sufficiently of our poets to enable me ‎to enliven conversation with occasional apt quotations from Saadi, Hafiz, ‎etc.; this accomplishment, added to a good voice, made me considered as ‎an agreeable companion by all those whose crowns or limbs were ‎submitted to my operation. In short, it may, without vanity, be asserted ‎that Hajji Baba was quite the fashion among the men of taste and ‎pleasure.‎

My father's shop being situated near the Royal Caravanserai, the largest ‎and most frequented in the city, was the common resort of the foreign, as ‎well as of the resident, merchants; they not unfrequently gave him ‎something over and above the usual price, for the entertainment they ‎found in the repartees of his hopeful son. One of them, a Bagdad ‎merchant, took great fancy to me, and always insisted that I should attend ‎upon him, in preference even to my more experienced father. He made ‎me converse with him in Turkish, of which I had acquired a slight ‎knowledge, and so excited my curiosity by describing the beauties of the ‎different cities which he had visited, that I soon felt a strong desire to ‎travel. He was then in want of some one to keep his accounts, and as I ‎associated the two qualifications of barber and scribe, he made me such ‎advantageous offers, to enter into his service, that I agreed to follow him; ‎and immediately mentioned my determination to my father. My father ‎was very loath to lose me, and endeavoured to persuade me not to leave a ‎certain profession for one which was likely to be attended with danger ‎and vicissitudes; but when he found how advantageous were the ‎merchant's offers, and that it was not impossible that I might become one ‎myself in time, he gradually ceased to dissuade me from going; and at ‎length gave me his blessing, accompanied by a new case of razors.‎

My mother's regret for the loss of my society, and her fears for my ‎safety, derived no alleviation from the prospect of my expected future ‎aggrandizement; she augured no good from a career begun in the service ‎of a Sûni; but still, as a mark of her maternal affection, she gave me a ‎bag of broken biscuit, accompanied by a small tin case of a precious ‎unguent, which, she told me, would cure all fractures, and internal ‎complaints. She further directed me to leave the house with my face ‎towards the door, by way of propitiating a happy return from a journey ‎undertaken under such inauspicious circumstances.‎