Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/272

250 by accident?” “O my brothers,” answered he, “it is not this thumb alone that has been cut off, but also that of the other hand and the great toe of each of my feet, as ye shall see.” Then he bared his left hand and his feet, and we saw that the left hand was even as the right and that each of his feet lacked the great toe. At this sight, our amazement increased and we said to him, “We are impatient to know thy history and the manner of the cutting off of thy thumbs and great toes and the reason of thy washing thy hands a hundred and twenty times.” “Know then,” answered he, “that my father was chief of the merchants of Baghdad in the time of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid; but he was given to drinking wine and listening to the lute and other instruments, so that when he died, he left nothing. I buried him and had recitations of the Koran made over him and mourned for him days and nights. Then I opened his shop and found he had left little but debts. However, I compounded with his creditors for time to pay and betook myself to buying and selling, paying them something week by week on account, till at last I succeeded in clearing off the debts and began to add to my capital. One day, as I sat in my shop, there came up to the entrance of the bazaar a lady, than whom my eyes never saw a fairer, richly clad and decked and riding on a mule, with one slave walking before and another behind her. She halted the mule at the entrance of the bazaar and entered, followed by an eunuch, who said to her, ‘O my lady, come out, without telling any one, or thou wilt bring us into trouble.’ And he stood before her, whilst she looked at the shops. She found no shop open but mine, so came up, with the eunuch behind her, and sitting down in my shop, saluted me, never did I hear aught sweeter than her voice or more pleasant than her speech. Then she unveiled her face, and I saw she was like the moon and stole at her a glance