Famous Egyptian dramatist, novelist, and short-story writer Tawfiq al-Hakim was born in Alexandria and studied both in Alexandria and Cairo. When in Cairo, he discovered his love of theater and attended many performances by the most famous Egyptian actors of his day. He also studied at the Berlitz School in Cairo where he read a great amount of French literature. The Mailman by Tawfiq al-Hakim:
"It was by the seashore that I came across him: an odd fellow, carrying a bag just like those that mailmen use. His whole air was one of languor and stupidity—even the weary way he looked up at the sky put you in mind of an imbecile. He had the bearing of someone who was totally exhausted, at war with himself and the whole world. His vocabulary, I reckoned, would be exhausted after the single word “Ugh!” I went over to talk to him.
“If I’m not mistaken,” I said, “you’re a mailman on his day off.” He didn’t even bother to look up.
“Day off!” he retorted contemptuously, obviously trying to swallow his annoyance.
“Why not?” I said. “Don’t you get time off each week?”
“I’ve never had a day off in my life.”
“But how can the Post Office do that? Don’t they have a system for time off?”
“My dear sir, the Post Office doesn’t know what time off is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just consider, my dear sir. I get up every morning at dawn, along with the birds, and grab my bag, which is stuffed to overflowing with as many letters as there are grains of sand. Every living man and woman on earth must have a letter in it, and I’m the one who’s supposed to do the rounds and give a letter to every one of them, all delivered to the proper place, till the day comes to an end. The bag has to be empty by then—so it can be filled up all over again next day, with fresh letters, all to be delivered once more, one by one, to the proper place. It just goes on and on, day after day; the people never go away and the bag’s never empty. In fact the only thing that ever gets exhausted is my patience. But what can I do? If I didn’t keep working, the letters would pile up, over two days, and then I’d really be in trouble.”
“But that’s incredible!” I said. “Doesn’t the Post Office have any other mailmen?”
“No. There’s only me. I am the Post Office.”
“How has that come about? Is it mismanagement or just plain negligence?”
“Don’t ask me. I keep complaining how overworked I am, but I might as well talk to thin air. As you can see, things have got so bad now I just don’t care any more.”
“But can you really deliver all those letters in one day?”
“I just deliver them at random. A person can only be expected to do so much. No one’s ever called me to account for any mistakes I’ve made—and I must have made a lot, of course. The main thing is, when I come back at the end of the day, there are never any letters left in my bag.”
As he spoke, he opened his bag, almost as though he’d just remembered it was still there. Looking inside, I saw he really did have a lot of letters.
“How are you going to get all those delivered?” I asked. “It’s already twelve o’clock.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll just do what I do every day.”
Close by was a fisherman, who hadn’t managed to catch anything since he started early that morning. The mailman thrust out his hand toward the man and shoved several dozen letters in his pocket. A moment later the fisherman, to his astonished delight, was hauling his net from the sea with a huge catch of fish inside, while another group of fishermen, a little way off, was still vainly trying to land a single fish. I pointed toward these other people.
“But what about them?” I asked.
“They’re too far away,” he said irritably, glancing in their direction. “I told you, I’m tired. Why should I have to go and give every one of them a letter? I’ve given theirs to this fisherman here.”
“Do you always treat people’s letters like that?”
“Of course I do. Do you think I’m stupid enough to strain my joints and get all out of breath chasing after every creature God put on this earth? If I don’t come across people, I give their letters to the ones I do happen to meet. That way I get a bit of rest, in God’s safe keeping!”
At that moment a peevish-looking old hag with a dreadful voice came by and, taking a lottery ticket from her pocket, yelled at the newspaper seller to check for her number in the paper. The way she kept bossing the poor man around made cursing and swearing sound polite. Meanwhile a whole bevy of lovely girls in bathing costumes came running along the sands behind her, waving their glistening arms. They had lottery tickets too and wanted to check their numbers. As the old hag approached the mailman, he took a thousand letters out of his bag and stuffed them in her pocket, and a moment later she found her ticket had won first prize, worth thousands of pounds. Her fearful voice rang out in a cry of triumph and victory and sheer joy! This was too much for me.
“Don’t you have any decency?” I exclaimed.
“Or if common justice means nothing to you, can’t you at least show a bit of sense? Look at that ugly old hag. She’s so repulsive she couldn’t make a grave laugh. How can you give her all that wealth, when there are all those gorgeous young girls just a few feet away, overflowing with energy and youth and full of the joys of life? Life’s one long happiness for them. Doesn’t just looking at them make you want to break into a smile?”
“Stop bothering me!” he replied, shoving me to one side. “If I had to tell the difference between spring and autumn, or say who’s ugly and who’s beautiful, or work out who deserves things and who doesn’t, I’d never get my day’s work done!”
“But doesn’t everyone have a letter with you? And doesn’t each man’s letter give him the same chance as his brother?”
“I told you,” he yelled, “I can only do so much! Show a bit of pity, can’t you? Isn’t there anyone, in heaven and earth, who’ll show me some pity, or at least some understanding? Up in heaven they keep telling me my negligence is making people furious with them. And here you are, down on earth, shouting how this person should get something and that one shouldn’t. I’m the one who ought to be complaining. I’ve been working so hard for so long, generation after generation, I can hardly see any more and my brain’s scrambled. Listen, all you dear people. My eyes are still just about capable, God be praised, of making you out, and I still hand out what’s in my bag, day after day. And that’s all I can do!
If I happen to meet someone, or they bump into me, I thrust my hand down in my bag, bring out whatever I can take hold of in my fingers, and give it to them. It’s all a matter of chance, according to what comes up. If I were to try and give every man the same share as his brother, I’d find my legs wouldn’t move fast enough. I’d break down. You can go on as long as you like, saying how I’m lazy, or unfair, or negligent, but you won’t change the way I do things. If people have complaints, they can yell them to the whole world for all I care—it won’t make a jot of difference. There have been more complaints about me than there are grains of sand on this beach.”
With that the “mailman” went off from the beach, leaving me to my reflections. Then the joyful shouts of the lucky fisherman and the old hag’s peals of laughter brought me back to reality. I ran after the fellow. “Hey,” I yelled, like a madman. “Mailman, wait! I forgot to ask you. Could I have some of your letters? Please? Dig me out a handful from your bag!” He’d vanished. I went and sat on the beach, burying my hand in the sand in sheer despair and biting my nails in my frustration. “What a fool I am!” I thought. “There was good fortune right next to me, his bag full to overflowing, ready to give me everything I needed. But no! I had to be all philosophical and forget about my practical interests. And that stopped fortune giving me anything. We wasted our time talking—and time was all I got. If I hadn’t kept pestering him with my ideas, he would have stretched his hand out to me, and I’d be another Rothschild, or Rockefeller, or Qarun!”"
Translation by Roger Allen and Christopher Tingley
"It was by the seashore that I came across him: an odd fellow, carrying a bag just like those that mailmen use. His whole air was one of languor and stupidity—even the weary way he looked up at the sky put you in mind of an imbecile. He had the bearing of someone who was totally exhausted, at war with himself and the whole world. His vocabulary, I reckoned, would be exhausted after the single word “Ugh!” I went over to talk to him.
“If I’m not mistaken,” I said, “you’re a mailman on his day off.” He didn’t even bother to look up.
“Day off!” he retorted contemptuously, obviously trying to swallow his annoyance.
“Why not?” I said. “Don’t you get time off each week?”
“I’ve never had a day off in my life.”
“But how can the Post Office do that? Don’t they have a system for time off?”
“My dear sir, the Post Office doesn’t know what time off is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just consider, my dear sir. I get up every morning at dawn, along with the birds, and grab my bag, which is stuffed to overflowing with as many letters as there are grains of sand. Every living man and woman on earth must have a letter in it, and I’m the one who’s supposed to do the rounds and give a letter to every one of them, all delivered to the proper place, till the day comes to an end. The bag has to be empty by then—so it can be filled up all over again next day, with fresh letters, all to be delivered once more, one by one, to the proper place. It just goes on and on, day after day; the people never go away and the bag’s never empty. In fact the only thing that ever gets exhausted is my patience. But what can I do? If I didn’t keep working, the letters would pile up, over two days, and then I’d really be in trouble.”
“But that’s incredible!” I said. “Doesn’t the Post Office have any other mailmen?”
“No. There’s only me. I am the Post Office.”
“How has that come about? Is it mismanagement or just plain negligence?”
“Don’t ask me. I keep complaining how overworked I am, but I might as well talk to thin air. As you can see, things have got so bad now I just don’t care any more.”
“But can you really deliver all those letters in one day?”
“I just deliver them at random. A person can only be expected to do so much. No one’s ever called me to account for any mistakes I’ve made—and I must have made a lot, of course. The main thing is, when I come back at the end of the day, there are never any letters left in my bag.”
As he spoke, he opened his bag, almost as though he’d just remembered it was still there. Looking inside, I saw he really did have a lot of letters.
“How are you going to get all those delivered?” I asked. “It’s already twelve o’clock.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll just do what I do every day.”
Close by was a fisherman, who hadn’t managed to catch anything since he started early that morning. The mailman thrust out his hand toward the man and shoved several dozen letters in his pocket. A moment later the fisherman, to his astonished delight, was hauling his net from the sea with a huge catch of fish inside, while another group of fishermen, a little way off, was still vainly trying to land a single fish. I pointed toward these other people.
“But what about them?” I asked.
“They’re too far away,” he said irritably, glancing in their direction. “I told you, I’m tired. Why should I have to go and give every one of them a letter? I’ve given theirs to this fisherman here.”
“Do you always treat people’s letters like that?”
“Of course I do. Do you think I’m stupid enough to strain my joints and get all out of breath chasing after every creature God put on this earth? If I don’t come across people, I give their letters to the ones I do happen to meet. That way I get a bit of rest, in God’s safe keeping!”
At that moment a peevish-looking old hag with a dreadful voice came by and, taking a lottery ticket from her pocket, yelled at the newspaper seller to check for her number in the paper. The way she kept bossing the poor man around made cursing and swearing sound polite. Meanwhile a whole bevy of lovely girls in bathing costumes came running along the sands behind her, waving their glistening arms. They had lottery tickets too and wanted to check their numbers. As the old hag approached the mailman, he took a thousand letters out of his bag and stuffed them in her pocket, and a moment later she found her ticket had won first prize, worth thousands of pounds. Her fearful voice rang out in a cry of triumph and victory and sheer joy! This was too much for me.
“Don’t you have any decency?” I exclaimed.
“Or if common justice means nothing to you, can’t you at least show a bit of sense? Look at that ugly old hag. She’s so repulsive she couldn’t make a grave laugh. How can you give her all that wealth, when there are all those gorgeous young girls just a few feet away, overflowing with energy and youth and full of the joys of life? Life’s one long happiness for them. Doesn’t just looking at them make you want to break into a smile?”
“Stop bothering me!” he replied, shoving me to one side. “If I had to tell the difference between spring and autumn, or say who’s ugly and who’s beautiful, or work out who deserves things and who doesn’t, I’d never get my day’s work done!”
“But doesn’t everyone have a letter with you? And doesn’t each man’s letter give him the same chance as his brother?”
“I told you,” he yelled, “I can only do so much! Show a bit of pity, can’t you? Isn’t there anyone, in heaven and earth, who’ll show me some pity, or at least some understanding? Up in heaven they keep telling me my negligence is making people furious with them. And here you are, down on earth, shouting how this person should get something and that one shouldn’t. I’m the one who ought to be complaining. I’ve been working so hard for so long, generation after generation, I can hardly see any more and my brain’s scrambled. Listen, all you dear people. My eyes are still just about capable, God be praised, of making you out, and I still hand out what’s in my bag, day after day. And that’s all I can do!
If I happen to meet someone, or they bump into me, I thrust my hand down in my bag, bring out whatever I can take hold of in my fingers, and give it to them. It’s all a matter of chance, according to what comes up. If I were to try and give every man the same share as his brother, I’d find my legs wouldn’t move fast enough. I’d break down. You can go on as long as you like, saying how I’m lazy, or unfair, or negligent, but you won’t change the way I do things. If people have complaints, they can yell them to the whole world for all I care—it won’t make a jot of difference. There have been more complaints about me than there are grains of sand on this beach.”
With that the “mailman” went off from the beach, leaving me to my reflections. Then the joyful shouts of the lucky fisherman and the old hag’s peals of laughter brought me back to reality. I ran after the fellow. “Hey,” I yelled, like a madman. “Mailman, wait! I forgot to ask you. Could I have some of your letters? Please? Dig me out a handful from your bag!” He’d vanished. I went and sat on the beach, burying my hand in the sand in sheer despair and biting my nails in my frustration. “What a fool I am!” I thought. “There was good fortune right next to me, his bag full to overflowing, ready to give me everything I needed. But no! I had to be all philosophical and forget about my practical interests. And that stopped fortune giving me anything. We wasted our time talking—and time was all I got. If I hadn’t kept pestering him with my ideas, he would have stretched his hand out to me, and I’d be another Rothschild, or Rockefeller, or Qarun!”"
Translation by Roger Allen and Christopher Tingley
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