The Seven Adventures
Of Sindbad The Mariner
My name is Sindbad. I live in Baghdad. My parents bequeathed me a thousand sacks of gold, a thousand barrels of silver, a hundred palaces, a hundred gardens, and one molar tooth of my great-grandfather, which my father kept in an ebony casket, as a souvenir and a curiosity. My great-grandfather suffered from toothache all his life and from time to time he had to pull out another tooth, so that in the end only one molar was left for him.
I lived in the palace with my only uncle, Tarabuk. Uncle Tarabuk was a poet. Every day he would compose poems and then read them so loudly that he got a sore throat and had to rinse them carefully with medicine, which he carefully hid from the human eye, keeping the strictest secret. He also claimed that his throat did not hurt at all and that there was no need to gargle with medicine.
Uncle Tarabuk loved poetry but hated grammar. He wrote with mistakes and usually made two or three mistakes for one word. However, he was ashamed of his incorrect spelling and claimed that he made mistakes deliberately in order to have the opportunity and pleasure to correct his works. I have not noticed, however, that Uncle Tarabuk, once written a poem, ever corrected it.
Uncle Tarabuk had a little folding table, a silver inkwell, and a gold pen. He would go to the seashore with these utensils, sit by the shore and, listening to the sounds of the sea, wrote his poems.
One time in the morning he went to the seashore. He set up a folding table, dipped a gold pen in a silver inkwell, and began to write a poem on pink paper.
He wrote and wrote, scratched and scraped, sweated, gasped all the time, and finally, after inhuman hardships and torments, he composed the following poem:
The sea is not a river, a bird is not a cow!
The Happy One who loves rhyming words!
Rhyme for me, rhyme, my dear poem!
Stand patiently, my little folding table!
The table is standing, swaying a bit,
Behind the table the sea,
and beyond God knows what!
Having written this poem, Uncle Tarabuk read it aloud and exclaimed: Beautiful poem! How very real this beginning is! The sea is not a river, and a bird is not a cow. Who can deny the truth of these words! And what a fitting end! Behind the table the sea, and beyond God knows what.
Uncle Tarabuk rubbed his hands in satisfaction and pulled out a bottle of a mysterious medicine from his pocket to gargle his throat, strained by reading a newly written poem aloud. It's hard to believe how many grammatical mistakes Uncle Tarabuk managed to make in such a short poem! Instead of "river", he wrote "reaver", instead of "bird", he wrote "bardh". I don't want to list all the mistakes so as not to make fun of my uncle, whom I love and respect. Besides, Uncle Tarabuk himself felt that he was writing incorrectly. And although he could not notice his own mistakes, nevertheless, by reviewing the poem again, he began to suspect every word of an error. The series of these incessant suspicions made him so tired that he finally fell asleep in a sudden, tasty and refreshing sleep. He slept motionlessly over the folding table and snoring every now and then, because Uncle Tarabuk liked to snore and knew how to do that.
Clouds gathered in the sky, the sea flashed with silver ribbons of loud foam, a storm arose.
Uncle Tarabuk was asleep.
The wind struck the folding table, grabbed the silver inkwell and the golden feather and threw them into the sea.
Wu Tarabuk was asleep.
The gold pen and the silver inkwell drowned. For the first time, both of these items found their way to the seabed among bizarre fish and monsters.
The wind struck the folding table a second time and blew all the papers into the sea. These were all the poems of Uncle Tarabuk, which he wrote from his childhood until the last moment. The poems swayed on the choppy waves and began to get wet. Wet, soaked until drenched and heavy with water, they went to the bottom following the inkwell and quill.
The sea, feeling in its depths the songs of Uncle Tarabuk, rattled even more, rustled, roared so strongly that my uncle woke up at last.
He woke up and looked at the table. Not seeing his treasures on the table, he began to cry and scream and tear the hair out of his head.
Weeping, screaming, howling, whimpering and tearing out tufts of lush hair, he ran back home, grabbed the largest fishing rod, returned with it to the seashore, and threw it into the water. Uncle Tarabuk thought that he could catch his manuscripts from the depths of the sea with a fishing rod.
Meanwhile, all of my uncle's manuscripts lay on the bottom. A fish called the Sea Devil noticed them. It is a fish with a bulky belly, a huge mouth and terrible eyes. He has the advantage of being learned, however. He can read and write. Well, the Sea Devil, seeing the manuscripts, approached them and began to read them carefully. After reading a few manuscripts, he wagged his tail angrily and exclaimed:
I have never read such stupid, ugly and obnoxious poems before. To make matters worse, two to three mistakes are hidden in every word. My guess is that the author of these poems is Uncle Tarabuk, who every day sits at a folding small table by the sea and torments his head over rhymes. It is good that the wind blown these manuscripts off his table, together with a silver inkwell and a gold quill! Maybe he would finally stop writing those disgusting poems! He has a very nice nephew, Sindbad, who lives with him in the palace. The poor man is a nephew who has to live with such an uncle under the same roof! I'll use this silver inkwell and gold pen to write a letter to Sindbad. I will ask a good friend of mine, the Madame Flying Fish, to give this letter to Sindbad.
One night I received a letter from the Sea Devil. I sat in the open window and stared out the window at the heavens at the full moon. Suddenly I heard a strange, dry, sharp hum of wings in the air. It was a peculiar noise, unlike any noise. No bird rustles its wings like this.
I stuck my head out the window and stared intently at the moonlit brightness of the clear night. After a while I saw a Madame Flying Fish in the air.
She was holding a piece of pink paper in her mouth. It was flying straight towards me.
As she approached the window, she handed me pink paper. I barely took the paper out of her mouth, and the fish immediately escaped back and soon disappeared from my sight.
I looked at the paper. On one page of it, Uncle Tarabuk's poem was written in calligraphy, but with terrible errors. I recognized his handwriting immediately, and, unwilling to read the boring and silly poem, I turned the sheet of paper over and looked at the other side of it.
On the other side, at the top, was the headline of the letter in huge black letters: To Mr. Sindbad in Baghdad. Below, under this inscription, was a letter to me, with the following content:
I am writing to you from the sea,
my dear Sindbad!
Even though the storm broke up
and the wave lays on my back
and breaks my peace and silence,
I despite the storms and winds
am writing a letter to you.
People call me the Sea Devil
but though I am a sea creature,
I don't feel like a devil at all.
On the contrary
I am good, tender, although coarse and ribald,
because my stomach is too bulky
and my mouth is very scary.
Do not judge me by my appearance,
I eat fish in the sea, you eat on land,
I swallow them alive, you after frying.
We both please our palate,
We both eagerly eat what happens,
The difference is that I don't have a cook like you.
I prefer fish from the sea, you fish from the pan,
But we are both at dinner brave.
I am writing this letter for a whirlwind-vagabond,
Who seeks many adventures on the shore, has just fled
Uncle Tarabuk's papers to the sea,
I was just swimming, driven by the wave and the wind,
And seeing papers under the water unexpectedly,
I began to read greedily because I like reading,
And even prefer poems to ordinary prose.
I have read and so far from anger and horror
I am trembling, because indeed,
for the first time in my life
I've read so many terrible poems!
What a nonsense rhyme Uncle Tarabuk writes!
Foolishness sits on folly, bug sits on error
The donkey would write better.
Sindbad! How can you live under one roof
With such an obnoxious fool and such a scarecrow.
How can you sleep peacefully in the same building
Where does Tarabuk form its rhymes without rest?
Quickly leave your palace and say goodbye to your uncle,
Are you not attracted to a ship that swings at sea?
Are you not attracted by a strange and distant journey?
A miracle unknown in the unknown journey awaits you.
A dream fairy tale awaits you in a cursed land,
And the Missing Beauty, famous for its beauty,
And treasures and splendors and wonders and spells!
Fly on a flying ship across the seas
Explore islands, peninsulas, lands and capes,
And the farthest bays, the innermost corners,
Fight all obstacles!
Rush, fly, run continuously! Listen to my advice!
I wish you this, sending you a court bow,
Loving you sincerely your friend
Sea Devil
I read this letter in one breath and confess that I never expected the Sea Devil to write so neatly and correctly.
Each word, written in black ink on pink paper, flickered strangely in the moonlight, and I was so intoxicated that I finally felt dizzy. Each letter gave off the alluring scent of sea grass. This scent penetrated my soul and made me want to travel by sea. Undoubtedly, this letter was enchanted, and its content, despite its good-natured appearances, was truly devilish. The cunning Sea Devil, in his gentle and tender words, urged me to leave my family home and my only uncle.
The advice of the Sea Devil seemed to me both right and alluring. For a long time I got bored with my palace, uncle Tarabuk, and the poems of uncle Tarabuk. I have long wanted adventure and dangers. Apart from that, the letter from the Sea Devil, read in the moonlight, charmed me with a penetrating, irresistible spell. But I succumbed to these spells. I was delighted with the letter addressed to my name from the mysterious depths of the sea.
I sat all night by the window in deep reflection.
In the morning I waited for the moment when Uncle Tarabuk, holding a fishing rod in his hand, was just leaving the room to go to the sea, as was his custom, to retrieve the lost manuscripts.
He was pale and sad. The loss of his beloved manuscripts had a devastating effect on his health. He had aged a hundred years over the top, although he was only fifty. He became reticent and did not finish the words he began. And now he looked at me sadly and said:
Good mo ...
It was supposed to mean "good morning." Worry and deep regret did not allow him to say words. I got used to these incompletely finished words, and after almost the first syllable I guessed the rest of them without saying anything.
"Good morning," I said, "how did you sleep that night?"
"As wor…" answered Uncle Tarabuk.
It was supposed to mean: "as worst possible", as my uncle suffered from insomnia after losing the manuscripts.
I have to say goodbye to you, uncle! I said firmly. Tonight I decided to go on a long journey. Do you mind?
"No", answered my uncle.
"No" was one of the words my uncle spoke completely. After losing the manuscripts, Uncle Tarabuk became so indifferent to all matters that he was not at all moved by the news of my journey.
I threw myself on his neck and started hugging and kissing him.
Uncle! I called out. I bid you farewell for a long time and I wish you to get all your manuscripts out of the sea!
Uncle Tarabuk kissed my forehead and said in a broken voice:
Happy ...
It was supposed to mean: "happy journey!"
On the same day I went on horseback from Baghdad to Balsora, because Balsora is a port city and ships from this port depart to all parts of the world.
In Balsora, I got on a ship that was going to distant and unknown countries. I stood on the deck of the ship and watched the land recede from me and slowly disappear from my sight. A favorable wind was blowing. The bloated sails glittered in the sun. The sea was turning blue and green. Screaming seagulls hovered above the sails, soared above the surface of the water and brushed the surface with their white wings.
When the land disappeared from my sight, I felt immensity and infinity around me. Above me - the sky, below me - the sea, in front of me - gave the unknown and unexplored.
I took the Sea Devil's letter from my pocket to read it again. I read it, enjoying every word, and waved my arms so much that the captain of the ship approached me and asked:
"What are you reading my friend that you waving your arms so bizarrely?"
"Sea Devil's Letter," I replied honestly and simply.
"What?" The captain asked, surprised again. "I guess I didn't hear your answer?"
"The Sea Devil's Letter," I repeated louder, with even greater sincerity and even greater simplicity.
First Adventure
The captain, hearing my answer, said, watching me closely:
"My seamen have often told me that the Sea Devils can read and write. I have not yet believed these stories. Now, however, I am convinced that the claims of my seamen were true. I would be very grateful if you would let me read this letter, if any. Of course, it does not contain any personal secrets."
"I am happy to satisfy your curiosity, Captain," I replied, handing him the letter "this letter was brought to me in the mouth of the Flying Fish as I sat at the open window of my palace."
The captain read the letter and called one of the oldest sailors.
"I have a Sea Devil's letter in my hand," he said to the sailor. "Since you are experienced, then tell me if the presence of such a letter on the ship brings good luck or misfortune?
"Misfortune" replied the old sailor in a serious and sullen voice.
"What then shall I do with this letter?" the captain asked.
"Throw into the sea as soon as possible!" said the sailor.
"Sinbad" the captain exclaimed, "You have to agree that I will deprive you of this letter."
"I agree to it, Captain!" I replied immediately, "I would have felt a lifetime of remorse if I had been the unknowing perpetrator of anyone's misfortune."
The captain threw the letter into the sea. Instead of floating on the water, the letter began to shrink, tense, jump from wave to wave, and finally it folded itself into two, then into three, then into four, and suddenly it hummed, rustled, turned into sea foam and melted into nothing on the surface of the wave.
The sailor scowled at me and said glumly:
"If you had kept this letter with you, you would have died after a few hours of travel with the entire crew. Now, after throwing the letter into the sea, adventures, misfortunes, unexpected events and unforeseen dangers await you. I hate that you receive letters from the Sea Devil. , but I suppose you are inexperienced and do not know about the Sea Devils or their lists."
The captain said to the seaman:
"Do not look so suspiciously at this young man, for I guarantee you for his innocence. If he had any evil intentions, he would have hidden the Sea Devil's letter from us; meanwhile, he confessed to me with complete honesty and simplicity that he was reading the Sea Devil's letter and repeated this confession twice. in a row.
Reassured by the captain's words, the sailor departed, but told the entire crew immediately what had happened. So everyone, except the captain, began to look at me unfriendly and avoid my company.
So lonely, I stood in the corner of the deck and watched the sea rise in a sapphire wave, foamed on the back. The waves were high but wide. The ship swayed on them slowly, rising once and then sliding down to get to the next wave again.
The sun shone, sparkling and blazing on the bumps and bends of the waves. The weather was wonderful. The wind that blew our sails stopped. The silence of the sea, unknown to me before, was slowly approaching. Every moment the waves decreased, the surface of the sea smoothed more and more.
Suddenly I heard the restless movement of the entire crew.
I looked back.
A crowd of sailors stood on the deck, muttering and gloomily looking into the clear, serene skies. I couldn't understand why they feel fear and anxiety? After all, the sky was clear, cloudless, spotless. Good weather lasted for a long time. No storm threatened our ship.
I enjoyed the sun and the silence, looking with astonishment at the seafarers frightened at the sight of the serene sky. The captain stood among them, watching the heavens with the same awe, saying something or giving any orders.
"I did not expect such obstacles and delays in the journey," said the captain, "I had hoped, and even certainty, that fate would be in favor of the ship. Meanwhile, we have to accept the misfortune that falls on us. The wind stops, the surface of the sea smooths out with unusual haste, wave after wave disappears and dies. A terrible, menacing, furious and angry sea silence begins to ring in the air. Another moment and all the breeze will disappear, the sails will freeze and instead of puffing, they will sag powerlessly. "The ship will stop petrified in this deadness and in this stillness. We will be forced to stand still until any wind comes to our aid. I prefer the storm than this Sea Silence. You can fight the storm, you cannot fight the silence."
The rest of the conversation between the captain and the sailors filled me with horror. The old sailor, who ordered the Sea Devil's letter to be thrown into the sea, said grimly, pointing his finger at me and addressing the captain directly:
"This stranger is the cause of our misfortune. I do not like his correspondence with the Sea Devil very much. If I were a captain, I would have him thrown into the sea along with the Sea Devil's letter. The presence of this man on the ship can cause a thousand misfortunes and bad cases.
The captain said after long reflection and after even longer silence:
"You are wrong, my old and faithful sailor. This young man is neither a bad man, nor a cunning sorcerer in the service of the Sea Devil. He received the letter by accident, and because the letter was addressed to him, he took it and kept it with him. He had no idea that this letter is so dangerous. The expression on this young man's face, his behavior, the sound of his voice, and above all his honesty and simplicity testify more than enough to his nobility. Not only will I not throw him into the sea, but I forbid the whole crew to insult or do anything bad to him.
The captain's answer restored my composure. I breathed more freely. I was glad. I cursed in my spirit the Sea Devil, who by sending this letter exposed me at the very beginning of my journey to the disapproval of the sailors and to the possibility of drowning in the depths of the sea.
Suddenly I heard the loud and joyful cry of sailors:
"Island! Island!
I looked ahead and I saw a small island on the surface of the sea, greening on it.
The ship, pushed by the last effort of the sails, approached the island and suddenly stopped without moving. The silence of the Sea made the ship completely immobile.
So we had to stand still and wait for any wind to come.
Part of the crew, bored with the idle waiting for the wind, decided to get to the island to spend the waiting time there.
Like them I got off to explore the island. For the first time in my life I saw an island at sea.
When my foot touched the ground of the island, I was surprised by its softness and elasticity. I had the impression that this ground was alive and that life was pulsating constantly in it. I put my ear to the ground and heard steady noises or knocks, similar to a heartbeat.
Since the sailors stayed away from me, I wandered the island alone. I went to the very end and stood on the shore. The island was covered with bizarre seaweed and shrubs. Some bushes were so dense and tall that I could easily hide in them. The seamen made a fire to bake the potatoes, and soon the fire burst into a cheerful blue-gold flame. I took the traveling knife out of my pocket and dipped it lightly into the ground to explore the strange soil of the island.
I barely touched the ground with the edge of my knife, and immediately cold but purple blood spurted into my face.
This phenomenon surprised me! I came to the conclusion that there is probably bloody soil on some islands.
Meanwhile, the smoke from the fire gushed more and more violently.
The smell of fried or baked fish filled the air at once.
After a while, I noticed that under the influence of the embers of the fire, the entire island began to shrink, move and wobble.
I put my ear to the ground again and heard faster and more violent beats of the enigmatic heart, this time similar to the restless beating of a hammer on a trowel.
The ground swayed beneath me and I suddenly heard the voice of the captain standing in front of the ship:
"Leave the island immediately! It is not an island, but a whale's back! Its body is sinking into the sea! You will all drown!
At this captain's cry, the sailors in no time crossed from the alleged island to the ship. A sudden and unexpected wind blew from the north. The sails swelled and the ship began to set sail quickly.
Since I was at the very end of a huge body covered with seaweed, I did not manage to reach the ship with the crowd of sailors. I screamed a few times for help, but no one heard me. Perhaps the wind choked the sounds of my voice, or perhaps the sailors wanted to get rid of me and pretended not to hear my calls.
I was left alone in the trembling and swaying body of the whale.
The whale began to sink into the sea. He sank slowly. The first wave hit his back and extinguished the fire.
The sore and scalded body of the whale breathed with delight under my feet, feeling cool in the place where a moment ago a cruel and unbearable fire had glowed.
The whale kept sinking. Only my head was above the surface of the sea. I realized that I was about to die in the depths of the sea.
I grabbed one of the logs left by the sailors on the back of the whale.
An ever greater and more powerful wind blew from the north, hurling me across the sea like a blade of poor straw.
The wind was driving me towards the south. The waves went up, they fell below me. I rose and fell with the waves. I followed the windstorm, not knowing where it was carrying me.
I had been sailing all day like this and saw no shores, no land. Nothing but the sea and the sea, endless, limitless.
The night passed and the day dawned.
From behind the cloud, the sun showed a tiny piece of gold, then half a disc, and finally the entire sun's disc turned golden in the sky.
Then my eyes, tormented by the night darkness, saw from a distance the shores of an unknown island, covered with the green of giant trees.
The sight of these shores cheered my eyes and my soul.
After a while the beam hit the shore of the island. I grabbed a bush which was hanging above the shore and I crawled out of the sea onto the island.
On the shores of a wild and empty island, I saw lots of beautiful horses. Some were running with their mane flapping, others were grazing on the lush grass, others were standing still, their mouths proudly raised and staring at me with eyes full of astonishment.
And I, too, looked at them with surprise.
I was very hungry. So I set off deep into the island in the hope that I would be able to find coconuts or bananas and satisfy my hunger with them.
Having gone quite a few steps, I saw a grotto. A dozen or so richly dressed people sat inside this cave.
They noticed me right away and ran out of the grotto to stop me.
"Stop!" one of these people exclaimed "where are you going from and where are you going to?
"I'm going straight from the sea," I replied, "and where I'm going I don't know."
"You are probably a foreigner?
"I am a foreigner. My name is Sinbad. I avoided the moment of death which threatened me all day and all night. If you want I will tell you what happened to me."
"Tell us!" they all exclaimed in chorus, "We like to listen to stories passionately, but we can only listen to you until five minutes past three o'clock. Now is one o'clock, so you have two hours and five minutes.
I told them everything that I had experienced since I left Balsora. They listened carefully, amazed at my adventures.
After I had finished my story, they invited me to the grotto and gave me a hearty meal.
One of them addressed me with these words:
"We are stablemen of King Mirage, who is the king of this island and many surrounding islands. Every year we spend one day on this island with a thousand royal horses. If you were one day late, you would not find us anymore, because tomorrow, at dawn, we return to the capital. The roads of this island are so erroneous and mysterious that without our help, you would have lost your way and would have starved to death."
It's exactly three o'clock!" suddenly the second masters cried, interrupting the first.
"We only have five minutes of time," said the first, and turning to me continued:
"At three minutes five, the Sea Horse emerges from the sea and, on the beach, performs its boastful frolics, dances and jumps. The royal horses watch these frolics, dances and jumps, and involuntarily imitate them, taking on wonderful movements. In this way, we educate royal horses. But the Sea Horse, having finished its dancing, frolics and jumps, throws itself on our horses to devour them. Then we scare him away with a scream from which he escapes back into the sea. If you want to look at this phenomenon, please come with us to the shore of the island as we all go there immediately."
For the first time in my life, I saw a Sea Horse. It was an unusual and almost magic horse, green as a sea wave. He had green eyes, a green mane, a green tail, and green hooves.
The royal horses, enchanted by his dance, stared at him for a long time, and finally began to imitate his movements without knowing it.
When he noticed that the royal horses were already enchanted enough, he ceased his dancing, lurked, flashed his eyes and was about to pounce on them, but the king's stablemen in a flash jumped out of the bushes to scare him away with a sudden shout and a sudden scream.
The scream and shout of the royal stablemen scared the Sea Horse. With a quick leap, he flung himself from the shore to the depths of the sea and disappeared into the waves.
We spent the night in the grotto with the horses, and the next day, at dawn, we set off on the way to the city.
The sight of this city filled me with admiration! The cobblestones, bricks of houses, roofs, windows were all green, like the colors of the sea wave. It seemed to me that I was looking at the world through the green glass.
Passing street after street, I came out to the giant square. There were crowds of people on this square. I mingled with the crowd and looked at the center of the square through the tingling people.
There was a golden throne in the middle of the square. King Mirage was seated on the throne, in a green robe and with a green mace in his hand.
I turned to one of my neighbors and asked what all this crowd around the royal throne meant?
"You are probably a foreigner," replied the neighbor, "so you do not know that today is King Mirage's name day. On that day King Mirage decided to give his daughter, beautiful Piruza, for a wife, to anyone who can solve a difficult puzzle. Every year on the name day's day the king is having the same ceremony, but no one has yet been able to solve the mystery. Watch carefully!"
At that moment, the second silver throne was placed next to the golden throne, and the beautiful Piruza came and sat down on the silver throne.
King Mirage rose and, looking at those present, said in a loud voice:
"As is the annual custom, I tell my riddle to all my subjects. Whoever guesses it will possess the hand of my beautiful daughter, Pirouza, and half my kingdom.
I hope that this year there will be a default knight who will solve the puzzle, because so far no one has given me the right answer for many years. It is fair, then, that my daughter is already impatient with the ineffectiveness of my subjects. A mysterious puzzle consists of three questions. So I would like three answers to three questions.
First question:
What weather, despite the weather, heralds disasters, misfortunes and damages?
Second question:
What kind of dancer is this who is dancing to devour others when they dance willingly?
Third question:
Who writes letters in the midst of the waves and, being the devil, does not come from hell?
The king made a sign with his hand and everyone thought deeply. You could see them straining their minds, drawing attention, and concentrating scattered thoughts.
They tapped their forehead with their fingers, frowned, closed their eyes, opened their mouths mute from surprise, sweated and turned pale with exertion. All in vain! Nobody broke the silence, nobody could solve the mystery!
The beautiful Piruza tapped her foot impatiently on the ground, shrugged her shoulders contemptuously and gnawed her carmine lips angrily.
My heart beat faster in my chest. For I felt that in a moment I could possess beautiful Piruza and half the kingdom! The answers to the three royal questions were all too well known to me thanks to my travel adventures.
"King" I said, "I guessed your riddle! I can answer your three questions!"
"Answer," said the king.
The beautiful Piruza smiled while I continued:
"First question: What weather, despite the weather, portends disasters, misfortunes and damage? The silence of the sea."
"You guessed it," said the king.
Beautiful Piruza grew serious, and I continued:
"Second question: What is this dancer who is dancing to devour others when they dance willingly? Sea horse."
"You guessed," repeated the king.
Beautiful Piruza looked at me with admiration and gratitude, and I continued:
"Third question: Who writes letters among the waves and, being the devil, does not come from hell? Sea devil."
"You guessed" the king repeated again.
Beautiful Piruza stretched out both her hands towards me and whispered:
"Finally!"
(to be continued)