Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/324

290 what ailed him. “O my brother,” replied the goldsmith, “that which ails me is love, and it befell on this wise. I saw the figure of a woman painted on the wall of my brother such an one’s house and became enamoured of it.” Quoth the other, “This was of thy lack of wit; how couldst thou fall in love with a painted figure on a wall, a thing that can neither harm nor profit, that seeth not neither heareth, that neither taketh nor withholdeth.” “Surely,” said the sick man, “he who painted yonder picture must have limned it after the likeness of some beautiful woman.” “Belike,” rejoined his friend, “he painted it from imagination.” “In any case,” replied the goldsmith, “I am dying for love of the picture, and if there live the original thereof in the world, I pray God to keep me in life, till I see her.”

When those who were present went out, they enquired for the painter of the picture and finding that he had departed to another town, wrote him a letter, complaining of their friend’s case and asking whether he had drawn the figure of his own invention or copied it from a living model; to which he replied that he had painted it after a certain singing girl belonging to one of the viziers in the city of Cashmere in the land of Hind. When the goldsmith heard this, he set out for Cashmere, where he arrived, after much travail, and tarried awhile. There he clapped up an acquaintance with a certain druggist, a fellow of a keen and sprightly wit, and being one day in company with him, questioned him of their king and his polity; to which the other answered, saying, “Our king is just and righteous in his governance, equitable and beneficent to his subjects, and misliketh nothing in the world save sorcerers; but, whenever a sorcerer or sorceress falls into his hands, he casts them into a pit without the city and there leaves them to die of hunger.” Then he questioned him of the king’s viziers, and the druggist told