Thousand & One Nights: 104th Night

One hundred and fourth night of story telling.
Shahrazad, the queen of India Indochina, a vast geographical region, where king Shahriar ruled over an empire that stretched from India to Persia and beyond and including parts of Indochina. These places do not have any relation to Modern day places carrying the same name.
Queen Shahrazad leave stories incomplete retaining its suspense to crack the brain of the king and thus divert his attention.

The tailor carried the hunchback in his arms, covered with a silk shawl, and followed his wife, who led the way, wailing and saying, "O my boy, may you recover from your illness. Where has this smallpox been lying in wait for us?" so that whoever saw them said, "These two have a child stricken with the small pox," until someone directed them to the house of a Jewish physician. When the wife knocked at the door, a maid came down, and when she opened the door, she saw a man carrying a sick child. The wife handed her quarter dinar and said, "Miss, give this to your master, and let him come down to see my child, who is gravely ill." As soon as the maid went upstairs, the wife went in, saying to her husband, "Let us leave the hunchback here and run." The tailor propped up the hunchback, leaving him standing in the middle of the Jew's staircase, and went away with his wife.

While the maid went to the Jew and said to him, "Master, there are people downstairs, carrying a sick child, and they have sent you this quarter dinar to go down to see him and prescribe for him." When the Jew saw the quarter dinar as fee for merely going downstairs, he was pleased and in his joy rose hastily in the dark, saying to the maid, "Bring me light," and descended hurriedly in the dark. But hardly had he taken a step, when he stumbled on the hunchback, who fell and rolled to the bottom of the stairs. The Jew startled and shouted to the maid, "Hurry with the light." When she brought it he went down, and finding the hunchback dead, said, "O Esdras, O Moses, O Aaron, O Joshua, son of Nun! It seems that I have stumbled against this sick fellow, and he has fallen downstairs and died. By the hoof of Esdras's ass how shall I get this dead body out of my house?" Then he carried the body upstairs, and when he told his wife about it, she said to him, "Why do you sit still? If the day breaks, and he is still here, we will both lose our lives. You are naive and careless." Then she recited the following verses:

You thought well of the days when they were good. Oblivious of the ills Life brings. Deluded by the peaceful Nights, yet in peace the sorrow stun.

It was dawn. The suspense of the story lingers 


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