Arabian Nights

Then he folded up the sketch and, causing all the furniture to be collected, he took Badr al-Din’s garments and the turband and Fez and robe and purse, and carried the whole to his house and locked them up, against the coming of his nephew, Badr al-Din Hasan, the son of his lost brother, with an iron padlock on which he set his seal. As for the Wazir’s daughter, when her tale of months was fulfilled, she bare a son like the full moon, the image of his father in beauty and loveliness and fair proportions and perfect grace.

They cut his navel string and kohl’d his eyelids to strengthen his eyes, and gave him over to the nurses and nursery governesses, naming him Ajib, the Wonderful. His day was as a month and his month was as a year; and, when seven years had passed over him, his grandfather sent him to school, enjoining the master to teach him Koran-reading, and to educate him well. He remained at the school four years, till he began to bully his schoolfellows and abuse them and bash them and thrash them and say, ‘Who among you is like me? I am the son of the Wazir of Egypt!’ At last the boys came in a body to complain to the Monitor of what hard usage they were wont to have from Ajib, and he said to them, ‘I will tell you somewhat you may do to him so that he shall leave off coming to the school, and it is this. When he enters tomorrow, sit ye down about him and say some one of you to some other; “By Allah none shall play with us at this game except he tell us the names of his mamma and his papa; for he who knows not the names of his mother and his father is a bastard, a son of adultery, and he shall not play with us.”’

When morning dawned the boys came to school, Ajib being one of them, and all flocked round him saying, ‘We will play a game wherein none shall join save he can tell the name of his mamma and his papa.’ And they all cried, ‘By Allah, good!’ Then quoth one of them, ‘My name is Majid and my mammy’s name is Alawiyah and my daddy’s Izz al-Din.’ Another spoke in like guise and yet a third, till Ajib’s turn came, and he said, ‘My name is Ajib, and my mother’s is Sitt al-Husn, and my father’s Shams al-Din, the Wazir of Cairo.’ ‘By Allah,’ cried they, ‘the Wazir is not thy true father.’ Ajib answered, ‘The Wazir is my father in very deed.’ Then the boys all laughed and clapped their hands at him, saying ‘He does not know who is his papa; get out from among us, for none shall play with us except he know his father’s name.’

There upon they dispersed from around him and laughed him to scorn; so his breast was straitened and he well nigh choked with tears and hurt feelings. Then said the Monitor to him, ‘We know that the Wazir is thy grandfather, the father of thy mother, Sitt al-Husn, and not thy father. As for thy father, neither dost thou know him nor yet do we; for the Sultan married thy mother to the hunchbacked horse-groom; but the Jinni came and slept with her and thou hast no known father. Leave, then, comparing thyself too advantageously with the little ones of the school, till thou know that thou hast a lawful father; for until then thou wilt pass for a child of adultery amongst them. Seest thou not that even a huckster’s son knoweth his own sire? Thy grandfather is the Wazir of Egypt; but as for thy father we wot him not and we say indeed that thou hast none. So return to thy sound senses!’

When Ajib heard these insulting words from the Monitor and the schoolboys and understood the reproach they put upon him, he went out at once and ran to his mother, Sitt al-Husn, to complain; but he was crying so bitterly that his tears prevented his speech for a while. When she heard his sobs and saw his tears her heart burned as though with fire for him, and she said, ‘O my son, why dost thou weep? Allah keep the tears from thine eyes! Tell me what hath betided thee?’ So he told her all that he heard from the boys and from the Monitor and ended with asking, ‘And who, O my mother, is my father?’ She answered, ‘Thy father is the Wazir of Egypt,’ but he said, ‘Do not lie to me. The Wazir is thy father, not mine! Who then is my father? Except thou tell me the very truth I will kill myself with this hanger.’

When his mother heard him speak of his father she wept, remembering her cousin and her bridal night with him and all that occurred there and then, and she repeated these couplets:

‘Love in my heart they lit and went their ways,

And all I love to furthest lands withdrew;

And when they left me sufferance also left,

And when we parted Patience bade adieu:

They fled and flying with my joys they fled,

In very constancy my spirit flew:

They made my eyelids flow with severance tears

And to the parting-pang these drops are due:

And when I long to see reunion-day,

My groans prolonging sore for ruth I sue:

Then in my heart of hearts their shapes I trace,

And love and longing care and cark renew:

O ye, whose names cling round me like a cloak,

Whose love yet closer than a shirt I drew,

Beloved ones! how long this hard despite?

How long this severance and this coy shy flight?’

Then she wailed and shrieked aloud and her son did the like; and behold, in came the Wazir whose heart burnt within him at the sight of their lamentations and he said, ‘What makes you weep?’ So the Lady of Beauty acquainted him with what happened between her son and the schoolboys; and he also wept, calling to mind his brother and what had passed between them and what had betided his daughter and how he had failed to find out what mystery there was in the matter. Then he rose at once, and repairing to the audience-hall, went straight to the King and told his tale and craved his permission to travel eastward to the city of Bassorah and ask after his brother’s son. Furthermore he besought the Sultan to write for him letters patent, authorizing him to seize upon Badr al-Din, his nephew and son-in-law, wheresoever he might find him.

And he wept before the King, who had pity on him and wrote royal autographs to his deputies in all climes and countries and cities; whereat the Wazir rejoiced and prayed for blessings on him. Then, taking leave of his Sovereign, he returned to his house, where he equipped himself and his daughter and his adopted child Ajib, with all things meet for a long march; and set out and travelled the first day and the second and the third and so forth till he arrived at Damascuscity. He found it a fair place abounding in trees and streams, even as the poet said of it:

When I nighted and dayed in

Damascus-town,

Time sware such another he ne’er should view:

And careless we slept under wing of night,

Till dappled Morn ’gan her smiles renew:

And dew-drops on branch in their beauty hung,

Like pearls to be dropt when the Zephyr blew:

And the Lake was the page where birds read and note,

And the clouds set points to what breezes wrote.

The Wazir encamped on the open space called Al-Hasa;1 and, after pitching tents, said to his servants, ‘A halt here for two days!’ So they went into the city upon their several occasions, this to sell and that to buy; this to go to the Hammam and that to visit the Cathedral-mosque of the Banu Umayyah, the Ommiades, whose like is not in this world. Ajib also went, with his attendant Eunuch, for solace and diversion to the city and the servant followed with a quarter-staff of almond-wood so heavy that if he struck a camel therewith the beast would never rise again.

When the people of Damascus saw Ajib’s beauty and brilliancy and perfect grace and symmetry (for he was a marvel of comeliness and winning loveliness, softer than the cool breeze of the north, sweeter than limpid waters to man in drowth, and pleasanter than the health for which sick man sueth), a mighty many followed him, whilst others ran on before and sat down on the road until he should come up, that they might gaze on him, till, as Destiny had decreed, the Eunuch stopped opposite the shop of Ajib’s father, Badr al-Din Hasan. Now his beard had grown long and thick and his wits had ripened during the twelve years which had passed over him, and the Cook and ex-rogue having died, the so-called Hasan of Bassorah had succeeded to his goods and shop, for that he had been formally adopted before the Kazi and witnesses.

When his son and the Eunuch stepped before him he gazed on Ajib and, seeing how very beautiful he was, his heart fluttered and throbbed, and blood drew to blood and natural affection spake out and his bowels yearned over him. He had just dressed a conserve of pomegranate grains with sugar, and Heaven-implanted love wrought within him; so he called to his son Ajib and said, ‘O my lord, O thou who hast gotten the mastery of my heart and my very vitals and to whom my bowels yearn; say me, wilt thou enter my house and solace my soul by eating of my meat?’ Then his eyes streamed with tears which he could not stay, for he bethought him of what he had been and what he had become. When Ajib heard his father’s words his heart also yearned himwards and he looked at the Eunuch and said to him, ‘Of a truth, O my good guard, my heart yearns to this Cook; he is as one that hath a son far away from him: so let us enter and gladden his heart by tasting of his hospitality. Perchance for our so doing Allah may reunite me with my father.’

When the Eunuch heard these words he cried, ‘A fine thing this, by Allah! Shall the sons of Wazirs be seen eating in a common cook-shop? Indeed I keep off the folk from thee with this quarter-staff lest they even look upon thee; and I dare not suffer thee to enter this shop at all.’ When Hasan of Bassorah heard this speech he marvelled and turned to the Eunuch with the tears pouring down his cheeks; and Ajib said, ‘Verily my heart loves him!’ But he answered, ‘Leave this talk, thou shalt not go in.’

Thereupon the father turned to the Eunuch and said, ‘O worthy sir, why wilt thou not gladden my soul by entering my shop? O thou who art like a chestnut, dark without but white of heart within! O thou of the like of whom a certain poet said—’ The Eunuch burst out a-laughing and asked: ‘Said what? Speak out by Allah and be quick about it.’ So Hasan the Bassorite began reciting these couplets:

‘If not master of manners or aught but discreet

In the household of Kings no trust could he take:

And then for the Harem! What Eunuch is he

Whom angels would serve for his service sake.’

The Eunuch marvelled and was pleased at these words, so he took Ajib by the hand and went into the Cook’s shop: whereupon Hasan the Bassorite ladled into a saucer some conserve of pomegranate-grains wonderfully good, dressed with almonds and sugar, saying, ‘You have honoured me with your company: eat then and health and happiness to you!’ Thereupon Ajib said to his father, ‘Sit thee down and eat with us; so perchance Allah may unite us with him we long for.’ Quoth Hasan, ‘O my son, hast thou then been afflicted in thy tender years with parting from those thou lovest?’ Quoth Ajib, ‘Even so, O nuncle mine; my heart burns for the loss of a beloved one who is none other than my father; and indeed I come forth, I and my grandfather, to circle and search the world for him. Oh, the pity of it, and how I long to meet him!’

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