The Arabian Nights II (36 page)

When Maimuna saw this, she was very happy and said to Dahnash, “Did you see, devil, how your beloved behaved out of passion for my beloved, and how my beloved comported himself with coquettishness and pride? There is no doubt that my beloved is more beautiful than yours; nevertheless, I pardon you.” Then she wrote him a certificate of manumission and, turning to Qashqash, said, “Carry Dahnash's beloved, and help him take her back to her place, for most of the night has passed, and I am late.” Dahnash and Qashqash went to Princess Budur and, lifting her, flew with her back to her palace and put her back in her bed, while Maimuna stayed alone with Qamar al-Zaman, gazing on him as he slept, until the night was almost over when she went her way.

When it was dawn, Qamar al-Zaman awoke from his sleep and looked right and left but did not find the girl with him and said to himself, “What does this mean? It seems that my father wanted to make me desire marriage with the girl that was with me and took her away by stealth to intensify my desire.” Then he called out to the eunuch who was sleeping at the door and said to him, “Get up, damn you!” The eunuch got up, still dazed from sleep, and brought him the basin and ewer. Qamar al-Zaman entered the toilet and relieved himself; then he came out, made his ablutions, and after he performed his morning prayer, sat repeating the praises of God. Then he looked up, and when he saw the eunuch standing in attendance before him, he said to him, “Hey, Sawwab, who came here and took the girl from my side, while I was asleep?” The eunuch said, “What girl, my lord?” Qamar al-Zaman said, “The girl who was sleeping beside me last night.” The eunuch was troubled and said, “There has been neither girl nor anyone else with you last night. How could she have come in, when I was sleeping at the door, and the door was locked? By God, my lord, neither man nor woman came in to you.” Qamar al-Zaman said to him, “You are lying, you wretched slave. Do you too presume
to trick me and refuse to tell me what happened to the girl who slept beside me and who took her away from me?” The eunuch was upset and said, “By God, my lord, I have seen neither girl nor boy.” Qamar al-Zaman was angered by the eunuch's words and said to him, “Devil, they have taught you deceit. Come here!” He came up to Qamar al-Zaman, who seized him by the collar and threw him to the ground, causing him to fart. Then Qamar al-Zaman knelt on him, kicked him, and choked him until he fainted. Then he tied him to the well-rope and, letting him down the well, plunged him into the water, then pulled him up and plunged him in again. Qamar al-Zaman kept plunging him in and pulling him up, while he screamed and called for help, for it was severe winter weather, and Qamar al-Zaman kept saying to him, “Devil, by God, I will not pull you out of this well until you tell me what happened to the girl and who took her away while I was asleep.”

Finally, the eunuch said, “My lord, take me out of the well, and I will tell you the truth.” So Qamar al-Zaman pulled him out of the well, almost unconscious from the beating and water and cold and torture and fear of drowning. His clothes were all wet, he shook like a reed in a storm, and his teeth chattered. As soon as he found himself on the land, he said to Qamar al-Zaman, “My lord, let me go and take off my clothes, wring them out, spread them in the sun, and put on others. Then I will come back quickly and tell you the story of the girl.” Qamar al-Zaman said, “Wretched slave, by God, had you not tasted death, you would never have told the truth. Go and take care of yourself, and after that come back quickly and tell me the story of the girl.”

The eunuch went out, hardly believing in his safe escape, and he kept running until he came in to King Shahraman, the father of Qamar al-Zaman, whom he found, with the vizier beside him, discussing Qamar al-Zaman, and heard him saying, “I did not sleep last night because of my worry about my son Qamar al-Zaman, for I fear that something may happen to him in that old tower. What good was there in imprisoning him?” The vizier replied, “Do not worry about him. By God, nothing bad will happen to him. Leave him in prison for a month until he relents.” As they spoke, in came the eunuch in that plight and said to the king, “My lord the King, your son has gone mad and has done this to me, saying that a girl had spent the night with him and stolen away and demanding that I tell him what happened to her, but I know nothing of the matter.” When King Shahraman heard what the eunuch said about his son, he cried out, “O my son!” He was extremely angry at the vizier, who had been a cause of this, and said to him, “Go and find out what is the matter with my son.”

The vizier stumbled out, in his fear of the king, and hastened with
the eunuch to the tower. It was by now plain daylight, and when he came in to Qamar al-Zaman, he found him sitting on the bed, reading the Koran. He saluted him and, sitting beside him, said, “My lord, this wretched slave has told us something that has troubled us and angered the king.” Qamar al-Zaman asked, “Vizier, what has he told you about me, to trouble my father, when in truth he has troubled none but me?” The vizier said, “He came to us in a sorry plight and said something about you, which is far from the truth and a lie that is not proper to repeat. May God preserve your youth, your sound mind, and your eloquent tongue, and may He forbid anything base to proceed from you.” Qamar al-Zaman asked, “Vizier, what has this wretched slave told you?” The vizier replied, “He told us that you had gone mad and told him that there was a girl with you last night. Did you tell him that?” When Qamar al-Zaman heard this, he was very angry and said to the vizier, “It is obvious that you instructed the servant to do what he did and asked him not to tell me what happened to the girl who spent last night with me. Vizier, you are more sensible than this servant. Tell me forthwith where that beautiful girl who slept in my lap last night has gone, for you are the ones who sent her to me and commanded her to sleep in my lap. I slept with her till the morning, but when I awoke, I did not find her. Where is she now?” The vizier said, “My lord, Qamar al-Zaman, may God preserve you! By God, we sent no one to you last night. You slept alone, with the door locked on you and the servant sleeping behind it, and neither girl nor anyone else came in to you. Return to your senses, my lord, and do not trouble your mind.” Qamar al-Zaman said angrily, “Vizier, that girl is my beloved, the beautiful one with the black eyes and the red cheeks, whom I embraced last night.” The vizier was astonished and said to him, “Did you see that girl last night with your eyes, while you were awake or asleep?” Qamar al-Zaman replied, “Wretched old man, do you suppose that I saw her with my ears? No, I saw her with my eyes while I was awake, turned her over with my hand, and spent half of the entire night looking at her beauty and grace and coquettish charm, but since you people instructed her not to speak, she pretended to be asleep, and I slept beside her till the morning, when I awoke and did not find her.” The vizier said, “My lord, Qamar al-Zaman, perhaps you saw this in your sleep, and it is nothing but confused dreams or fancies caused by eating a mixture of different kinds of food, or an insinuation by the wicked devils.” Qamar al-Zaman said, “Wretched old man, do you too mock me and tell me that this is perhaps the result of confused dreams, when this servant admitted her presence and said that he would soon come back to me and tell me her story?” Then Qamar al-Zaman got up instantly and, seizing the vizier's beard, which was long, twisted it around his hand, yanked him off the
bed, and threw him on the floor. The vizier felt as if he was dying from the pain caused by the pulling of his beard, while Qamar al-Zaman kept kicking him and pummeling him on the back of the head until he almost killed him. The vizier said to himself, “If the slave saved himself from this mad young man by a lie, it is all the more reason that I too should save myself by a lie. Let me do it; otherwise, he will kill me, for he is mad, and there is no doubt about it.”

Then he turned to Qamar al-Zaman and said, “Forgive me, my lord, for it was your father who had instructed me to conceal you from the affair of the girl. But now I am weak and weary of the beating, for I am an old man, and I am too weak to bear it. Give me a respite, and I will tell you the story of the girl.” Qamar al-Zaman stopped beating him and said, “Why did you not tell me about the girl, without the beating and the humiliation? Get up, wretched old man, and tell me about her.” The vizier said, “Are you asking about that girl with the beautiful face and elegant body?” Qamar al-Zaman replied, “Yes, vizier, tell me who brought her to me and let her sleep beside me, and tell me where she is now, so that I may go to her myself. If my father King Shahraman did this to me to test me with that beautiful girl, with a view of marrying her, I consent to the marriage. He did this to me, inflaming my love for the girl, then taking her away from me, only because I refused to get married. Now I consent, and again consent. Tell that to my father, vizier, and advise him to marry me to that girl, for I desire none but her, and I love none but her. Hurry to my father, advise him to hasten my marriage, and come back as soon as you can.”

The vizier could hardly believe his escape from Qamar al-Zaman until he went in to King Shahraman, who said to him, “Vizier, why are you upset, and who has abused you and terrified you?” The vizier replied, “I bring you news.” The king asked, “What is it?” The vizier said, “Your son Qamar al-Zaman has gone mad.” When the king heard this, the light turned to darkness before his eyes and said, “Vizier, describe to me my son's madness.” The vizier said, “I hear and obey,” and he told him what his son had done. The king said to him, “Vizier, I will reward you for the news of the madness of my son with the cutting of your head and forfeiture of your property, you the most wretched of viziers and most wicked of princes, for I know that you have been the cause of my son's madness by the wretched advice you gave me from beginning to end. By God, if my son has been hurt or afflicted with madness, I will nail you to the dome and let you taste death.”

Then he got up and, taking the vizier with him, went to the tower where Qamar al-Zaman was imprisoned. When they entered, Qamar al-Zaman jumped off the bed, kissed his father's hands and, drawing
back, stood before him a while, with his hands behind his back and his head bowed down. Then he raised his head and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, recited the following verses,

If I have sinned against you in the past,

Or done anything loathsome against you,

I do repent, and your ample mercy

Includes him who does for your pardon sue.

When the king heard this, he embraced his son, Qamar al-Zaman, and, seating him beside him on the bed, looked at the vizier angrily and said, “O dog of a vizier, why do you tell me such things about my son and frighten me about him?” Then he turned to his son and asked, “Son, what is today called?” Qamar al-Zaman replied, “Father, today is Saturday, and tomorrow is Sunday, and the day after that is Monday, and after that is Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday.” The king said to him, “O my son Qamar al-Zaman, God be praised for your safety. What is the name of this month in Arabic?” Qamar al-Zaman replied, “It is Thu al-Qa'da, followed by Thu al-Hejja, then Muharram, then Safar, then Rabi' al-Awwal, then Rabi' al-Thani, then Jamadi al-Awwal, then Jamadi al-Thani, then Rajab, then Sha'ban, then Ramadan, then Shawwal.” The king was very glad and, spitting in the vizier's face, said to him, “Wretched old man, why do you claim that my son Qamar al-Zaman has gone mad, when in fact none has gone mad but you?” The vizier shook his head and was about to reply, but it occurred to him to wait a little and see what would happen next.

The king said to his son, “Son, what is this you have been saying to the servant and the vizier that you spent last night with a beautiful girl? What about the girl?” Qamar al-Zaman laughed at his father's words and replied, “Father, I have no strength to endure any further mockery; therefore, do not add a single word of it, for I am exasperated by what you have been doing to me, and I now consent to marry, father, but on condition that you marry me to the girl who spent last night with me, for I am certain that you are the one who sent her to me and made me long for her, and afterward you sent for her before dawn and took her away from me.” The king said, “O my son, may God preserve you and preserve your mind from madness! What girl do you claim I sent you last night and afterward sent for and took her from you before dawn? By God, son, I know nothing about this. For God's sake, tell me whether this is a confused dream or a hallucination caused by food, for you slept last night, troubled and worried about the thought of marriage (may God curse marriage and its existence and him who advised it). There is no doubt that you were disturbed by the thought of marriage and saw in your dream a beautiful girl
embracing you, and you believed that you really saw her, but all of this, my son, is nothing but the delusion of dreams.” Qamar al-Zaman said, “Stop this talk, and swear to me by God the Creator, the Omniscient, the Destroyer of the mighty and Annihilator of kings that you had no knowledge of the girl or her whereabouts.” The king said, “By the Almighty God, the God of Moses and Abraham, I had no knowledge of that, and it was probably a confused dream that you saw in your sleep.” Qamar al-Zaman said to his father, “I will give you an example to prove to you that I saw this when I was awake, by asking you whether it has ever happened that anyone dreamt that he was fighting in a fierce battle and afterward awoke from his sleep and found himself holding a sword stained with blood?” His father replied, “By God, my son, such a thing has never happened.” Qamar al-Zaman said, “Then I will tell you what happened to me last night. It seems that I awoke from my sleep in the middle of the night and saw lying beside me a girl, whose figure and looks were like mine, and I embraced her and held her with my hand and took off her ring and put it on my finger, and she took off my ring and put it on her own finger. I abstained from her in deference to you, thinking that you had sent her and hid yourself somewhere to see what I would do. For this reason, I was too embarrassed to kiss her on the mouth in your presence, supposing that you were testing me and making me desire marriage. When I awoke from my sleep at dawn, I found no trace of the girl and no explanation about her, and this was the cause of what happened between me and the servant and the vizier. How could all this be a lie, when the matter of the ring is true? Were it not for the ring, I would have thought that it was a dream. This is her ring on my little finger at this moment. Look at the ring, O King, and see how valuable it is.” Then he handed the ring to his father.