Chapter XVIII: Section I

"How unfortunate am I to have been born!" said Ardassan Ougli, a young _icoglan_ of the grand sultan of the Turks. Yet if I depended only on the sultan--but I am also subject to the chief of my _oda,_ to the _cassigi bachi_; and when I receive my pay, I must prostrate myself before a clerk of the _teftardar,_ who keeps back half of it. I was not seven years old, when, in spite of myself, I was circumcised with great ceremony, and was ill for a fortnight after it. The dervish who prays to us is also my master; an _iman_ is still more my master, and the _mullah_ still more so than the _iman._ The _cadi_ is another master, the _kadeslesker_ a greater; the _mufti_ a greater than all these together. The _kiaia_ of the grand vizier with one word could cause me to be thrown into the canal; and finally, the grand vizier could have me beheaded, and the skin of my head stripped off, without any person caring about the matter.

"Great God, how many masters! If I had as many souls and bodies as I have duties to fulfil, I could not bear it. Oh Allah! why hast thou not made me an owl? I should live free in my hole and eat mice at my ease, without masters or servants. This is assuredly the true destiny of man; there were no masters until it was perverted; no man was made to serve another continually. If things were in order, each should charitably help his neighbor. The quick-sighted would conduct the blind, the active would be crutches to the lame. This would be the paradise of Mahomet, instead of the hell which is formed precisely under the inconceivably narrow bridge."

Thus spoke Ardassan Ougli, after being bastinadoed by one of his masters.

Some years afterwards, Ardassan Ougli became a pasha with three tails. He made a prodigious fortune, and firmly believed that all men except the grand Turk and the grand vizier were born to serve him, and all women to give him pleasure according to his wishes.