Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/222

200 To return to the Lady of Beauty. When the day broke and she awoke from sleep, she missed Bedreddin from her side and thought he had gone to the lavatory, so lay expecting him awhile, when behold, her father entered. Now he was sore at heart by reason of what had passed between him and the Sultan and for that he had married his daughter by force to one of his servants, and he a lump of a hunchbacked groom; and he said to himself, “If she have suffered this damnable fellow to possess her, I will kill her.” So he came to the door of the alcove and cried out, “Ho, Lady of Beauty!” She replied, “Here am I, O my lord;” and came out tottering for joy, with a face whose brightness and beauty had redoubled for that she had lain in the arms of that gazelle, and kissed the ground before her father. When the Vizier saw her thus, he said to her, “O accursed woman, dost thou rejoice in this groom?” At these words, the Lady of Beauty smiled and said, “O my lord, let what happened yesterday suffice, when all the folk were laughing at me and flouting me with that groom, who is not worth the paring of one of my husband’s nails. By Allah, I never in all my life passed a pleasanter night! So do not mock me by reminding me of that hunchback.” When her father heard this, he was filled with rage and glared at her, saying, “Out on thee! what words are these? It was the hunchbacked groom that lay with thee.” “For God’s sake,” replied the Lady of Beauty, “do not mention him to me, may God curse his father! And mock me not, for the groom was only hired for ten dinars to conjure the evil eye from us, and he took his hire and departed. As for me, I entered the bridal chamber, where I found my true husband sitting in the alcove, him before whom the singers had unveiled me and who flung them the red gold by handsful, till he made all the poor there rich; and I