Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/260

230 any treason in him, took my hand to dayto-day [sic] and pressed and squeezed it.’ Quoth her husband, ‘O woman, let us crave pardon of God! Verily, I repent of what I did, and do thou ask forgiveness of God for me.’ ‘God pardon me and thee,’ said she, ‘and vouchsafe to make good the issue of our affair!’

Next day, the water-carrier came in to the jeweller’s wife and throwing himself at her feet, grovelled in the dust and besought pardon of her, saying, ‘O my lady, acquit me of that which Satan deluded me to do; for it was he that seduced me and led me astray.’ ‘Go thy ways,’ answered she; ‘the fault was not in thee, but in my husband, for that he did what he did in his shop, and God hath retaliated upon him in this world.’ And it is related that the goldsmith, when his wife told him how the water-carrier had used her, said, ‘Tit for tat! If I had done more, the water-carrier had done more.’ And this became a current byword among the folk.

So it behoveth a wife to be both outward and inward with her husband, contenting herself with little from him, if he cannot give her much, and taking pattern by Aaïsheh the Truthful and Fatimeh the Clean Maid, (may God the Most High accept of them), that she may be of the company of the righteous. KHUSRAU AND SHIRIN WITH THE FISHERMAN.

King Khusrau of Persia loved fish; and one day, as he sat in his saloon, he and Shirin his wife, there came a