Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/19

3

And he comforted her till she consented and took up her dwelling with him. Then he got him a net and went a-fishing every day in the river or the lakes or some other place in which there was water; and one day he would earn ten paras, another twenty and another thirty, which he spent upon his mother and himself, and they ate and drank well. But, as for his brothers, they plied no craft and sold not neither bought; misery and ruin and overwhelming calamity overtook them and they wasted that which they had taken from their mother and became wretched naked beggars. Bytimes they would come to their mother, humbling themselves to her exceedingly and complaining of hunger; and she, a mother’s heart being pitiful, would give them some mouldy bread; or, if there were any cooked meat of the day before, she would say to them, ‘Eat it quickly and go, before your brother comes; for it would be grievous to him and he would harden his heart against me, and ye would disgrace me with him.’ So they would eat in haste and go.

One day they came in to their mother, and she set cooked meat and bread before them. As they were eating, in came their brother Jouder, at whose sight their mother hung her head in shame and confusion, fearing lest he should be wroth with her. But he smiled in their faces, saying, ‘Welcome, O my brothers! This is indeed a blessed day. How comes it that ye visit me this blessed day?’ Then he embraced them and entreated them lovingly, saying to them, ‘I thought not that ye would have deserted me nor that ye would have forborne to visit me and your mother.’ ‘By Allah, O my brother,’ said they, ‘we longed sore for thee and nought withheld us but shamefastness