All that night I saw the sheep’s head before my eyes, it was covered in blood. Then a profanity slipped from my tongue and I was having blasphemous thoughts… May God strike me dumb. There’s no doubt in God’s goodness, but these helpless animals… it’s sinful. Oh Lord, oh Providence, you know better. No matter what, man is sinful.” He sat lost in thought for a moment. Then he continued, “Yes, if only I could spell out everything that is in my heart: well, but everything can’t be said, God forbid. May God strike me dumb.”

As if he were bored Shahbaz said, “Just think of important things.”

Mirza Yadollah replied with an air of indifference, “Yes, what can we do? The world’s always this way.”

“Our time is over,” said Shahbaz. “We’re done for. We’re only alive because we can’t afford shrouds. What tricks haven’t we played in this base world? Once in Tehran I had a grocery store. I put away six rials a day after expenses.”

Mirza Yadollah interrupted his words. “You were a grocer? I don’t like grocers as a group.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story. But you finish what you have to say first.”

Shahbaz continued talking. “Yes, I had a grocery store. I was doing all right. Little by little I was building a life for myself. To make a long story short, I married a shrew. It’s been five years since my wife ruined my life. She wasn’t a woman, she was a firebrand. How hard I had worked to marry and settle down: she ruined everything I had accomplished. Well, one night she came back from listening to a sermon. She insisted that she must go on pilgrimage to lighten her burden of sin. You wouldn’t believe how much she harassed me… How silly I was to give my wits to that woman. In any case, man is gullible. I was strong and ruthless, but a woman got the better of me. God forbid that a woman should get under a man’s skin. That very night she said, ‘I don’t understand these things, but I’ve figured it out. I don’t want my dowry back, just set me free. I have a bracelet and a necklace, I’ll sell them and leave. I looked for an omen and I found a good one.