Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-02-01 / 2. szám
6 FRATERNITY At the break of dawn friends of the dead husband mounted their horses, soon overtook the caravan and in blood-thirsty revenge attacked and stabbed the drivers. The merchants who came to the aid of their drivers were massacred in turn. The attackers abducted the camels and returned home rich with booty: the silks intended for the Damascus Bazaar, the pearls and the precious stones and the galax of slave girls. Some of the gravely wounded merchants and drivers staggered to their feet and dragged themselves to the neighboring village. Vowing death to the murderers and robbers, they incited the population, engaged strong men and offered high reward, thousands of gold pieces, if they would but destroy the guilty village. And so it transpired. One village plundered the other, and the other retaliated, and death made a good bargain here and there because it received without cost what is dearest. And the savagery and the din of battle were heard far and wide. The people of village after village came forth, followed by the people of the towns, some friend, some foe, some helping these and others helping those, trampling down crops here, setting minarets on fire there. One half of the country devastated the other half, and the other half of the country devastated the one half, and the holy priests lost their green turbans, the viziers their offices, the sultans and caliphs their thrones and their crowns. And for seven years the people mercilessly killed and murdered each other with sword and arrow and spear, and no one knew any longer why they fought — that it was because of a flea. After seven years the Father of Time had enough of the senseless bloodshed, opened the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, ordered the arrows back into the quivers and the swords into the scabbards and the daggers into the belts. One remnant of the country made peace with the other remnant, and the other remnant with the one remnant. The people embraced one another and erected splendid new mosques for the glory of Allah, and the holy priests again donned their green turbans and the sultans their crowns. The righteous caliph summoned the sages and the scribes, and commanded them to compile at once the history of the savage, bloody and miserable Seven Years’ War for the edification of all peoples and nations for all time to come, in Arabic and in Persian and also in the tongues of the Chinese, the Jews and the Hindoos,
