Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/332

306 with averted face, that she may say I am high of soul. Presently her mother will come to me and kiss my head and hands and say to me, ‘O my lord, look on thy handmaid, for she longs for thy favour, and heal her spirit.’ [sic] But I will give her no answer; and when she sees this, she will come and kiss my feet repeatedly and say, ‘O my lord, verily my daughter is a beautiful girl, who has never seen man; and if thou show her this aversion, her heart will break; so do thou incline to her and speak to her.’ Then she will rise and fetch a cup of wine, and her daughter will take it and come to me; but I will leave her standing before me, whilst I recline upon a cushion of cloth of gold, and will not look at her for the haughtiness of my heart, so that she will think me to be a Sultan of exceeding dignity and will say to me, ‘O my lord, for God’s sake, do not refuse to take the cup from thy servant’s hand, for indeed I am thy handmaid.’ But I will not speak to her, and she will press me, saying, ‘Needs must thou drink it,’ and put it to my lips. Then I will shake my fist in her face and spurn her with my foot thus.” So saying, he gave a kick with his foot and knocked over the basket of glass, which fell to the ground, and all that was in it was broken. “All this comes of my pride!” cried he, and fell to buffeting his face and tearing his clothes and weeping. The folk who were going to the Friday prayers saw him, and some of them looked at him and pitied him, whilst others paid no heed to him, and in this way my brother lost both capital and profit. Presently there came up a beautiful lady, on her way to the Friday prayers, riding on a mule with a saddle of gold and attended by a number of servants and filling the air with the scent of musk, as she passed along. When she saw the broken glass and my brother weeping, she was moved to pity for him; so she asked what ailed him and was told that he had a basket full of glass, by the sale of which he