Thousand & One Nights: 124th Night: The Young Baghdad Man & Zubaida's Maid.

After one week the merchants began to ask the payment against the sale of fabrics. The young Baghdad man asked them to wait. Another week passed and the lady came, in the early morning, riding the she-mule, guarded by the eunuch and the slaves. She greeted the merchant, sat in front of him, and said, "I am late in bringing the money for the fabrics. Fetch a money changer and receive the money." The merchant sent for the money changer, and the eunuch counted out the money and gave it to the young man. Then she and he sat talking until the other shops opened. The merchant paid every merchant what he owed to each of them. 

Then she asked for a fresh lot of fabrics and it cost thousand dinars. After getting the goods she went away without making the payment or saying anything. The young man regreted what he had done. This time she took thousand dinars worth of goods. "What a predicament!" he thought, "she had given me five thousand dirhams and took goods worth one thousand dinars. This woman who tricked me must be a swindler. I could have asked her address."

More than a month has passed, and the merchants in the market began to press him for payment. Finally, despairing of ever seeing her the young Baghdad man put up his shop for sale. One day, while I sat dejected and perplexed, she unexpectedly came into the shop, and said, "Fetch your scale and take your money." She gave him the money and sat chatting with him freely. The young man was happy: he received the money and she was beside him talking freely. In the middle of the talk, she asked, "Do you have a wife?"
The young man replied, "No. I have never been married," and began to weep. "Why do you weep?" she asked. The young man said, "It is nothing." Giving eunuch some money, he asked him to act as a go-between her and him. But he laughed and said, "By God, she is more in love with you than you are with her. She had no need for fabrics she bought from you, she only did it out of love for you. Tell her yourself what you want." She had seen the young man giving the eunuch money. So he said to her, "Permit your servant to tell you what is on his mind." She assented. And the young man said, "the eunuch shall be the go-between." She said to the eunuch, "You shall carry my message to him." And she said to the young man, "Do whatever he asks you," and went away.

He paid the merchants what he owed them and spend a sleepless night.

A few days later the eunuch came to the young man.

The morning overtook, and Shahrazad stopped the story.



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