Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/286



At eventide the king sat [in his privy sitting-chamber] and sending for the vizier, said to him, “Tell me the story of the fuller and his wife.” “With all my heart,” answered the vizier. So he came forward and said, “Know, O king of the age, that STORY OF THE FULLER AND HIS WIFE.

There was once in a certain city a woman fair of favour, who had to lover a trooper. Her husband was a fuller, and when he went out to his business, the trooper used to come to her and abide with her till the time of the fuller’s return, when he would go away. On this wise they abode awhile, till one day the trooper said to his mistress, ‘I mean to take me a house near unto thine and dig an underground passage from my house to thy house, and do thou say to thy husband, “My sister hath been absent with her husband and now they have returned from their travels; and I have made her take up her sojourn in my neighbourhood, so I may foregather with her at all times. So go thou to her husband the trooper and offer him thy wares [for sale], and thou wilt see my sister with him and wilt see that she is I and I am she, without doubt. So, Allah, Allah, go to my sister’s husband and give ear to that which he shall say to thee.”’

Accordingly, the trooper bought him a house near at hand and made therein an underground passage communicating with his mistress’s house. When he had accomplished his affair, the wife bespoke her husband as her