When camels were town criers and fleas were barbers, a certain writer, mulling things over nice and easy, took his pen in hand and set about telling a tale. Let’s hear what he said.
In an unknown time, in an unknown land, there was a great city whose name was unknown.
One spring day the townsfolk saw a stranger they had never met sitting right in the middle of that city. On the first day they paid him no heed, but when the stranger never once rose from that spot and kept looking into a device in his hand, this caught their attention.
Up they went to the stranger and said to him, ‘What is that device, and where are you looking?’
The stranger said, ‘Look into this device, and whatever you imagine, you will see. What is more, I also see what will happen in the near future.’
Everyone who heard this was astonished. The gossip took off and spread. Everyone kept coming to see the man. Before long, wave upon wave of onlookers began to throng and cluster around him.
The notables among the city’s townsfolk talked it over together: ‘Since there is such a thing, this man must surely know what will happen in this city ten days from now. Then let us ask. If he knows what will happen a while from now, it means he is telling the truth.’
The notable men of the city asked this stranger, who was still looking into the strange device in his hand: ‘Since you see the future, then let us ask you something. What will happen in the near future?’
The stranger, looking at them with a know-it-all air, said, ‘Soon there will be idleness in this city, no one will think about anything any more, everyone will come to live as if in a dream, and everyone will take to arguing and fighting with one another.’
With one voice they said, ‘How can this be?’ Curiosity took hold of everyone.
The stranger put up a tent for himself, and on the door of the tent he wrote, ‘Going in and looking at the device for two minutes is free.’
People formed queues at the door of the tent and began pushing and shoving one another to grab their turn to go inside.
Of those who went in and came out, some said, ‘I saw a dragon’; some said, ‘I saw something never seen before’; some said, ‘I saw a naked woman’; some said, ‘I saw a Hercules’…
Everyone saw everything they imagined and began telling one another about it. A few days later an argument broke out among the people.
‘Can a thing like this be? Can a thing like that be? How can this be? No, it can’t be like that, it must be like this. You can’t see this, I saw this, but how can it be?’ was the kind of thing they were arguing about.
Meanwhile, once the stranger had got everyone used to going into the tent and looking at the device, he wrote on the door of the tent that looking for two minutes now had to be paid for.
Instead of dwindling, the customers multiplied. In the city everyone began talking about this man’s device and what they had seen inside it; there were as many voices as there were heads.
The arguments picked up speed. Meanwhile, in the field, in the shop, in the workshop, work was neglected and idleness set in. Everyone took to wondering about the device and what they would see inside the device.
From morning until the middle of the night, the queues in front of the tent never ran out. Whoever looked, for as long as they looked, saw in the device whatever they imagined.
From those who imagined a beautiful woman to those who imagined themselves rich and a king, everyone came to imagine everything. As imaginings felt easier and more pleasant than real life, people would no longer leave the door of the tent.
Ten days later the notables of the city gathered and went to the stranger.
The stranger said, ‘I told you so. Look, people have started arguing with one another; everyone has neglected their work and toil, has grown idle, and everyone has come to live in a dream.’
The notables who had listened to the stranger said, ‘Yes, you are telling the truth; you have also seen what will happen in the future. So you are a man of great wisdom, and a sage. Then will you be mayor of our city?’
The man of wisdom said, ‘I will, I won’t,’ yet he brought matters round to ‘Go on, twist my arm’. And so the people made the stranger mayor of the city.
Some time after he had become mayor, the notables among the townsfolk gathered and went to the new mayor and asked him again: ‘What will happen in the near future?’
This stranger who had been elected mayor, once again adopting a know-it-all manner, said, ‘Soon hunger and famine will break out. If we cannot prevent it, there will be a great disaster. If everyone brings whatever wealth they have and hands it over to me, I will save you from this famine, from this disaster.’
And so everyone brought everything they had, lock, stock and barrel, and handed it over to the mayor. The people, on the one hand living in a world of imagination as they looked at the device inside the tent, and on the other hand having given their savings to the mayor as well, lost even the money to buy food. As work was neglected, production fell, and the food they had began to run out. And so they were left face to face with hunger and famine.
The mayor, however, spent part of the wealth he had gathered on food and stored it up in the storehouses of the palace.
Saying, ‘What a man this man is, that he knows everything that will happen, look, he knew this too. Let us go, and let him save us from this famine,’ the notables gathered and went to the mayor’s palace, and the mayor handed out to everyone just enough bread to keep them from dying.
And everyone said, ‘What a good man you are, what a useful man you are! You have saved us from this famine, this hunger. If it weren’t for you, we would have died of hunger,’ and they voiced their gratitude.
From that day on, the mayor made laws in that city and had his laws enforced. He was loved to excess by the people.
He put the city in debt to the neighbouring cities; he also sold off the city’s lands, swelled the treasury’s wealth and added it to his personal wealth.
Since he himself had both written the play and played the part, each time he had told them beforehand what would happen in the future. It was he himself who had planned that future.
THE END