Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/285

255 case is for me the gravest of admonitions!” And I recited the following verses:

THE SCHOOLMASTER WHO FELL IN LOVE BY REPORT.

(Quoth one of the erudite), I passed once by a [school, in which a] schoolmaster, comely of aspect and well-dressed, was teaching children; so I entered, and he rose and made me sit with him. Then I examined him in the Koran and in syntax and poetry and lexicography, and found him perfect in all that was required of him and said to him, “God strengthen thy purpose! Thou art indeed versed in all that is sought of thee.” So I frequented him awhile, discovering daily some new excellence in him, and said to myself, “This is indeed a wonder in a schoolmaster; for the understanding are agreed upon the lack of wit of those that teach children.” Then I separated myself from him and sought him out and visited him [only] every few days, till, one day, coming to see him as of wont, I found the school shut and made enquiry of the neighbours, who said, “Some one is dead in his house.” So I said to myself, “It behoves me to pay him a visit of condolence,” and going to his house, knocked at the door. A slave-girl came out to me and said, “What dost thou want?” “I want thy master,” answered I. Quoth she, “He is sitting alone, mourning.mourning.” [sic] “Tell him,” rejoined I, “that his friend so and so seeks to condole with him.”