Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/102

84 journeymen a dinar, wherefore they loved him, and so did the syndic. Then he sat talking with the jeweller and whenever a beggar came up to him, he gave him a dinar and they all marvelled at his generosity.

Now Ubeid had tools at home, like those he had in the shop, and whenever he was minded to do any extraordinary piece of work, it was his wont to carry it home and do it there, that his journeymen might not learn the secrets of his curious workmanship. His wife used to sit before him, and when she was sitting thus and he looking upon her, he would fashion all manner of curiously wrought trinkets, such as were fit for none but kings. So he took Kemerezzeman’s jewel home and sat down to fashion the ring with rare workmanship. When his wife saw him thus engaged, she said to him, ‘What wilt thou do with this jewel?’ And he answered, ‘I mean to make it into a ring with gold, for it is worth five hundred dinars.’ ‘For whom wilt thou set it?’ asked she. ‘For a young merchant,’ replied he, ‘who is fair of face, with eyes that wound and cheeks that strike fire and mouth like Solomon’s seal and cheeks like blood-red anemones and lips red as coral and neck like that of a gazelle. His complexion is white blent with red and he is well-bred, pleasant and generous and doth thus and thus.’ And he went on to describe to her his beauty and grace and bounty and perfection and ceased not to vaunt his charms and the generosity of his fashion, till he had made her in love with him; for there is no sillier cuckold than he who vaunts another man’s good looks and liberality to his wife.

So, when desire rose high in her, she said to him, ‘Is aught of my charms found in him?’ ‘He hath all thy beauties,’ answered her husband; ‘and he is thy counterpart in favour. Meseemeth his age is even as thine and but that I fear to vex thee, I would say that he is a thousand times handsomer than thou.’ She was silent, and the