Thousand & One Nights: 163rd Night: The Barber Tells His Story -13

All these were the daydreams of my brother. The dreams did not stop, but continued:

I will continue enjoy looking at the bride, until they finish presenting her to me.  Then I will order my servant to fetch a purse of five hundred dinars, and giving it to the attendants of the bride, command them to lead me to the bride chamber.  When they lead her in and leave her alone with me, I will look at her and lie by her side, but I will ignore her and will not speak to her, so that she may say that I am a proud man.  Then her mother will come in and kiss my hand and say, 'My lord look at your servant, and comfort her, for she craves your favour.'  But I will not answer.  When she sees this, she will kiss my feet many times, and say, 'My daughter is a young lady, who has never seen a man before, and if you disdain her, you will break her heart.  Turn to her, speak to her, and comfort her.'  Her mother will give her a cup of wine and say to he, 'Entreat your lord to drink.'  When the bride comes to me, I will let her stand, while I recline on a cushion embroidered with gold and silver, and will proudly disdain to look at her, so that she may say that I am an honourable and self-respecting man. I will let her stand until she feels humiliated and learns that I am her master.  Then she will say to me, 'My lord, for God's sake, don't refuse the cup from me, for I am your servant.'  But I will not speak to her, and she will press me, saying, 'You must drink,' and put the cup to my lips.  Then I will shake my fist in her face and kick her with my foot, and it knocked over the basket of glass, and it fell to the ground, and everything in it was broken.

The tailor who was present in the recitation assembly forget that he was attending to a story, reacted out, "All this comes of your pride, you dirty pimp.  By God, if it was within my power, I would have you beaten a hundred times and paraded throughout the city."

At that moment, the Commander of the Faithful, my brother began to beat on his face, tear his clothes, and weep.  The people who were going to the Friday prayers saw him, and some of them pitied him, while others paid no attention to him as he stood bereft both of capital and profit.

While he had been weeping, a beautiful lady, riding on a she-mule with a saddle of gold and attended by servants, passed by, filling the air with the odor of musk. When she saw my brother weeping in his plight, she felt pity for him and, inquiring about him, was told that he had had a basket of glass, by which he was trying to make a living, but it had got broken, and that this was the cause of his grief.  The lady called one of her servants and said to him, "Give to him whatever you have with you," and the servant gave my brother a purse in which he found five hundred dinars.  When he saw the money, he almost died of joy and, invoking blessings upon the lady, returned to his house a rich man.

As he sat thinking, he heard a knocking at the door, and when he asked, "Who is it?" a woman answered, " Brother, I would like to have a word with you."  He rushed and, opening the door, saw an old woman he did not know.  She said to him, "Son, the time of prayer is near, and I have not yet performed my ablutions.  I would like you to let me do so in your house." My brother replied, "I hear and obey."  Then he asked her to come in, and when she was inside, he gave her a ewer for her ablutions and sat down, still beside himself with joy at the money, which he began to stuff inside his clothes.  As he finished doing this, the old woman, finishing her prayers, came near where he sat and prayed a two-bow prayer.  Then she invoked blessings on him.

Morning overtook and Shahrazad lapsed into silence.





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