Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/275

251 “O Shehrzad,” said King Shehriyar, “this is indeed a right wonderful story!” “O King,” answered she, “it is not more wonderful than that of Alaeddin Abou esh Shamat.” “What is that?” asked he, and she said, “I have heard tell, O august King, that ALAEDDIN ABOU ESH SHAMAT.

There lived once in Cairo, of old time, a merchant named Shemseddin, who was of the best and truest-spoken of the traders of the city and had great store of money and goods and slaves and servants, white and black and male and female. Moreover, he was Provost of the Merchants of Cairo and had a wife, whom he loved and who loved him; but he had lived with her forty years, yet had not been blessed with son or daughter by her. One Friday, as he sat in his shop, he noted that each of the merchants had a son or two or more, sitting in shops like their fathers. Presently, he entered the bath and made the Friday ablution; after which he came out and took the barber’s glass, saying, ‘I testify that there is no god but God and that Mohammed is His Apostle!’ Then he looked at his beard and seeing that the white hairs in it outnumbered the black, bethought himself that hoariness is the harbinger of death. Now his wife knew the time of his coming and had washed and made ready for him; so when he came in to her, she said, ‘Good even;’ but he replied, ‘I see no good.’ Then she called for the evening mealevening-meal [sic] and said to her husband, ‘Eat, O my lord.’ Quoth he, ‘I will eat nothing,’ and pushing the table away with his foot, turned his back to her. ‘Why dost thou thus?’ said she. ‘What has vexed thee?’ And he answered, ‘Thou art the cause of my vexation.’ ‘How so?’ asked she. ‘This morning,’ replied he, ‘when I opened my shop, I saw that each of the other merchants