The Arabian Nights Entertainments - - (ebook reader 7 inch txt) 📗

laid on a camel. The vizier and his retinue began their march, and travelled the rest of that night, and all the next day, without stopping In the evening they halted, and Buddir ad Deen was taken out of his cage, in order to be served with the necessary refreshments, but still carefully kept at a distance from his mother and his wife; and during the whole expedition, which lasted twenty days, was served in the same manner.

When they arrived at Cairo, they encamped in the neighbourhood of the city; Shumse ad Deen called for Buddir ad Deen, and gave orders, in his presence, to prepare a stake. “Alas!” said Buddir ad Deen, “what do you mean to do with a stake?” “Why, to impale you,” replied Shumse ad Deen, “and then to have you carried through all the quarters of the town, that the people may have the spectacle of a worthless pastry-cook, who makes cream-tarts without pepper.” This said, Buddir ad Deen cried out so ludicrously, that Shumse ad Deen could hardly keep his countenance: “Alas!” said he, “must I suffer a death as cruel as it is ignominious, for not putting pepper in a cream-tart?”

“How,” said Buddir ad Deen, “must I be rifled; must I be imprisoned in a chest, and at last impaled, and all for not putting pepper in a cream-tart? Are these the actions of Moosulmauns, of persons who make a profession of probity, justice, and good works?” With these words he shed tears, and then renewing his complaint; “No,” continued he, “never was a man used so unjustly, nor so severely. Is it possible they should be capable of taking a man’s life for not putting pepper in a cream-tart? Cursed be all cream-tarts, as well as the hour in which I was born! Would to God l had died that minute!”

The disconsolate Buddir ad Deen did not cease his lamentations; and when the stake was brought, cried out bitterly at the horrid sight. “Heaven!” said he, “can you suffer me to die an ignominious and painful death? And all this, for what crime? not for robbery or murder, or renouncing my religion, but for not putting pepper in a cream tart,”

Night being then pretty far advanced, the vizier ordered Buddir ad Deen to be conveyed again to his cage, saying to him, “Stay there till tomorrow; the day shall not elapse before I give orders for your death.” The chest or cage then was carried away and laid upon the camel that had brought it from Damascus: at the same time all the other camels were loaded again; and the vizier mounting his horse, ordered the camel that carried his nephew to march before him, and entered the city with all his suit. After passing through several streets, where no one appeared, he arrived at his palace, where he ordered the chest to be taken down, but not opened till farther orders.

While his retinue were unlading the other camels, he took Buddir ad Deen’s mother and his daughter aside; and addressed himself to the latter: “God be praised,” said he, “my child, for this happy occasion of meeting your cousin and your husband! You remember, of course, what order your chamber was in on your wedding night: go and put all things as they were then placed; and if your memory do not serve you, I can aid it by a written account, which I caused to be taken upon that occasion.”

The beautiful lady went joyfully to execute her father’s orders; and he at the same time commanded the hall to be adorned as when Buddir ad Deen Houssun was there with the sultan of Egypt’s hunchbacked groom. As he went over his manuscript, his domestics placed every moveable in the described order. The throne was not forgotten, nor the lighted wax candles. When every thing was arranged in the hall, the vizier went into his daughter’s chamber and put in their due place Buddir ad Deen’s apparel, with the purse of sequins. This done, he said to the beautiful lady, “Undress yourself, my child, and go to bed. As soon as Buddir ad Deen enters your room, complain of his being from you so long, and tell him, that when you awoke, you were astonished you did not find him by you. Press him to come to bed again; and tomorrow morning you will divert your mother-in-law and me, by giving us an account of your interview.” This said, he went from his daughter’s apartment, and left her to undress herself and go to bed.

Shumse ad Deen Mahummud ordered all his domestics to depart the hall, excepting two or three, whom he desired to remain. These he commanded to go and take Buddir ad Deen out of the cage, to strip him to his under vest and drawers, to conduct him in that condition to the hall, to leave him there alone, and shut the door upon him.

Buddir ad Deen, though overwhelmed with grief, was asleep so soundly, that the vizier’s domestics had taken him out of the chest and stripped him before he awoke; and they carried him so suddenly into the hall, that they did not give him time to see where he was. When he found himself alone in the hall, he looked round him, and the objects he beheld recalling to his memory the circumstances of his marriage, he perceived, with astonishment, that it was the place where he had seen the sultan’s groom of the stables. His surprise was still the greater, when approaching softly the door of a chamber which he found open, he spied his own raiments where he remembered to have left them on his wedding night. “My God!” said he, rubbing his eyes, “am I asleep or awake?”

The beautiful lady, who in the mean time was diverting herself with his astonishment, opened the curtains of her bed suddenly, and bending her head forward, “My dear lord,” said she, with a soft, tender air, “what do you do at the door? You have been out of bed a long time. I was strangely surprised when I awoke in not finding you by me.” Buddir ad Deen was enraptured; he entered the room, but reverting to all that had passed during a ten years’

interval, and not being able to persuade himself that it could all have happened in the compass of one night, he went to the place where his vestments lay with the purse of sequins; and after examining them very carefully, exclaimed, “By Allah these are mysteries which I can by no means comprehend!” The lady, who was pleased to see his confusion, said, once more, “My lord, what do you wait for?” He stepped towards the bed, and said to her, “Is it long since I left you?” “The question,” answered she, “surprises me. Did not you rise from me but now? Surely your mind is deranged.” “Madam,” replied Buddir ad Deen, “I do assure you my thoughts are not very composed. I remember indeed to have been with you, but I remember at the same time, that I have since lived ten years at Damascus. Now, if I was actually in bed with you this night, I cannot have been from you so long. These two points are inconsistent. Pray tell me what I am to think; whether my marriage with you is an illusion, or whether my absence from you is only a dream?” “Yes, my lord,” cried she, “doubtless you were light-headed when you thought you were at Damascus.” Upon this Buddir ad Deen laughed heartily, and said, “What a comical fancy is this! I assure you, madam, this dream of mine will be very pleasant to you. Do but imagine, if you please, that I was at the gate of Damascus in my shirt and drawers, as I am here now; that I entered the town with the halloo of a mob who followed and insulted me; that I fled to a pastry cook who adopted me, taught me his trade, and left me all he had when he died; that after his death I kept a shop. In fine, I had an infinity of other adventures, too tedious to recount: and all I can say is, that it was well that I awoke, for they were going to impale me!” “And for what,” cried the lady, feigning astonishment, “would they have used you so cruelly? Surely you must have committed some enormous crime.” “Not the least,”

replied Buddir ad Deen; “it was for nothing but a mere trifle, the most ridiculous thing you can imagine. All the crime I was charged with, was selling a cream-tart that had no pepper in it.”

“As for that matter,” said the beautiful lady laughing heartily, “I must say they did you great injustice.” “Ah!” replied he, “that was not all. For this cursed cream-tart was every thing in my shop broken to pieces, myself bound and fettered, and flung into a chest, where I lay so close, that methinks I am there still, but thanks be to God all was a dream.”

Buddir ad Deen was not easy all night. He awoke from time to time, and put the question to himself, whether he dreamed or was awake. He distrusted his felicity; and, to be sure whether it was true or not, looked round the room. “I am not mistaken,” said he; “this is the same chamber where I entered instead of the hunchbacked groom of the stables; and I am now in bed with the fair lady designed for him.” Daylight, which then appeared, had not yet dispelled his uneasiness, when the vizier Shumse ad Deen, his uncle, knocked at the door, and at the same time went in to bid him good morrow.

Buddir ad Deen was extremely surprised to see a man he knew so well, and who now appeared with a different air from that with which he pronounced the terrible sentence of death against him.

“Ah!” cried Buddir ad Deen, “it was you who condemned me so unjustly to a kind of death, the thoughts of which make me shudder, and all for a cream-tart without pepper.” The vizier fell a laughing, and to put him out of suspense, told him how, by the ministry of a genie (for hunchback’s relation made him suspect the adventure), he had been at his palace, and had married his daughter instead of the sultan’s groom of the stables; then he acquainted him that he had discovered him to be his nephew by the memorandum of his father, and pursuant to that discovery had gone from Cairo to Bussorah in quest of him. “My dear nephew,” added he, embracing him with every expression of tenderness, “I ask your pardon for all I have made you undergo since I discovered you. I resolved to bring you to my palace before I told you your happiness; which ought now to be so much the dearer to you, as it has cost you so much perplexity and distress. To atone for all your afflictions, comfort yourself with the joy of being in the company of those who ought to be dearest to you. While you are dressing yourself I will go and acquaint your mother, who is beyond measure impatient to see you; and will likewise bring to you your son, whom you saw at Damascus, and for whom, without knowing him, you shewed so much affection.”

No words can adequately express the joy of Buddir ad Deen, when he saw his mother and his son. They embraced, and shewed all the transports that love and tenderness could inspire. The mother spoke to Buddir ad Deen in the most moving terms; she mentioned the grief she had felt for his long absence, and the tears she had shed. Little Ajib, instead of flying his father’s embraces, as at Damascus, received them