The Arabian Nights Entertainments by - (carter reed TXT) 📕

days, my most respectable princess, in perfect health, and grant you many happy years! Abou Hassan! poor Abou Hassan! whom you honoured with your esteem, and gave me for a husband, is no more!”

At these words Nouzhatoulaouadat redoubled her tears and sighs, and threw herself again at the princess’s feet. Zobeide was extremely concerned at this news. “Abou Hassan dead!” cried she; “that agreeable, pleasant man! I did not expect his death so soon; he seemed to promise a long life, and well deserved to enjoy it!” She then also burst into tears, as did all her women, who had been often witnesses of Abou Hassan’s pleasantries when the caliph brought him to amuse the princess Zobeide, and all together continued for some time bewailing his loss. At length the princess Zobeide broke silence: “Wicked woman!” cried she, addressing herself to the false widow, “perhaps you may have occasioned his death. Your ill temper has given him so much vexation, that you have at last brought him to his grave.”

Nouzhatoulaouadat seemed much hurt at the reproaches of Zobeide: “Ah, madam,” cried she, “I do not think I ever gave your majesty, while I was your slave, reason to entertain so disadvantageous an opinion of my conduct to a husband who was so dear to me. I should think myself the most wretched of women if you were persuaded of this. I behaved to Abou Hassan as a wife should do to a husband for whom she has a sincere affection; and I may say, without vanity, that I had for him the same regard he had for me.

I am persuaded he would, were he alive, justify me fully to your majesty; but, madam,” added she, renewing her tears, “his time was come, and that was the only cause of his death.”

Zobeide, as she had really observed in her slave a uniformly equal temper, mildness, great docility and zeal for her service, which shewed she was rather actuated by inclination than duty, hesitated not to believe her on her word, and ordered her treasurer to fetch a hundred pieces of gold and a piece of rich brocade.

The slave soon returned with the purse and piece of brocade, which, by Zobeide’s order, she delivered to Nouzhatoulaouadat, who threw herself again at the princess’s feet, and thanked her with great self-satisfaction at finding she had succeeded so well. “Go,” said Zobeide, “use that brocade to cover the corpse of your husband, and with the money bury him handsomely, as he deserves. Moderate the transport of your afflictions: I will take care of you.”

As soon as Nouzhatoulaouadat got out of the princess’s presence, she dried up her tears, and returned with joy to Abou Hassan, to give him an account of her good success. When she came home she burst out a laughing on seeing her husband still stretched out in the middle of the floor; she ran to him, bade him rise and see the fruits of his stratagem. He arose, and rejoiced with his wife at the sight of the purse and brocade. Unable to contain herself at the success of her artifice, “Come, husband,” said she, laughing, “let me act the dead part, and see if you can manage the caliph as well as I have done Zobeide.”

“That is the temper of all women,” replied Abou Hassan, “who, we may well say, have always the vanity to believe they can do things better than men, though at the same time what good they do is by their advice. It would be odd indeed, if I, who laid this plot myself, could not carry it on as well as you. But let us lose no time in idle discourse; lie down in my place, and witness if I do not come off with as much applause.”

Abou Hassan wrapped up his wife as she had done him, and with his turban unrolled, like a man in the greatest affliction, ran to the caliph, who was holding a private council with Jaaffier and other confidential viziers. He presented himself at the door, and the officer, knowing he had free access, opened it. He entered holding with one hand his handkerchief before his eyes, to hide the feigned tears, which trickled down his cheeks, and striking his breast with the other, with exclamations expressing extraordinary grief.

The caliph, always used to see Abou Hassan with a merry countenance, was very much surprised to behold him in so much distress. He interrupted the business of the council to inquire the cause of his grief. “Commander of the faithful,” answered Abou Hassan, with repeated sighs and sobs, “God preserve your majesty on the throne, which you fill so gloriously! a greater calamity could not have befallen me than what I now lament. Alas!

Nouzhatoulaouadat whom you in your bounty gave me for a wife to gladden my existence, alas!” at this exclamation Abou Hassan pretended to have his heart so full, that he could not utter more, but poured forth a flood of tears.

The caliph, who now understood that Abou Hassan came to tell him of the death of his wife, seemed much concerned, and said to him with an air which shewed how much he regretted her loss, “God be merciful to her: she was a good slave, and we gave her to you with an intention to make you happy: she deserved a longer life.”

The tears then ran down his face, so that he was obliged to pull out his handkerchief to wipe them off. The grief of Abou Hassan, and the tears of the caliph, excited those of Jaaffier and the other viziers. They bewailed the death of Nouzhatoulaouadat, who, on her part, was only impatient to hear how Abou Hassan succeeded.

The caliph had the same suspicion of the husband that Zobeide had of the wife, and imagined that he had occasioned her death.

“Wretch!” said he, in a tone of indignation, “have not you been the cause of your wife’s death by your ill treatment of her? You ought at least to have had some regard for the princess my consort, who loved her more than the rest of her slaves, yet consented to give her to you. What a return for her kindness!”

“Commander of the faithful,” replied Abou Hassan, affecting to weep more bitterly than before, “can your majesty for a moment suppose that Abou Hassan, whom you have loaded with your favours and kindness, and on whom you have conferred honours he could never have aspired to, can have been capable of such ingratitude?

I loved Nouzhatoulaouadat my wife as much on these accounts, as for the many good qualities she possessed, and which drew from me all the attachment, tenderness, and love she deserved. But, my lord,” added he, “she was to die, and God would no longer suffer me to enjoy a happiness for which I was indebted to your majesty and your beloved consort.”

Abou Hassan dissembled so well, that the caliph, who had never heard how extravagantly he and his wife had lived, no longer doubting his sincerity, ordered his treasurer, who was present, to give Abou Hassan a purse of a hundred pieces of gold and a piece of brocade. Abou Hassan immediately cast himself at the caliph’s feet, and thanked him for his present. “Follow the treasurer,” said the monarch; “throw the brocade over the corpse, and with the money shew the last testimony of thy love for thy wife.”

Abou Hassan made no reply to these obliging words of the caliph, but retiring with a low prostration, followed the treasurer; and as soon as he had got the purse and piece of brocade, went home, well pleased with having found out so quick and easy a way of supplying the necessity which had given him so much uneasiness.

Nouzhatoulaouadat, weary with lying so long in one posture, waited not till Abou Hassan bade her rise; but as soon as she heard the door open, sprang up, ran to her husband, and asked him if he had imposed on the caliph as cleverly as she had done on Zobeide. “You see,” said he, shewing her the stuff, and shaking the purse, “that I can act a sorrowful husband for a living wife, as well as you can a weeping widow for a husband not dead.” Abou Hassan, however, was not without his fears that this double plot might be attended with some ill consequences. He thought it would not be amiss to put his wife on her guard as to what might happen, that they might aft in concert. “For,” added he, “the better we succeed in embarrassing the caliph and Zobeide, the more they will be pleased at last, and perhaps may shew their satisfaction by greater liberality.” This last consideration induced them to carry on their stratagem farther.

The caliph, though he had important affairs to decide, was so impatient to condole with the princess on the death of her slave, that he rose up as soon as Abou Hassan was gone, and put off the council to another day. “Follow me,” said he to Mesrour, who always attended him wherever he went, and was in all his councils, “let us go and share with the princess the grief which the death of her slave Nouzhatoulaouadat must have occasioned.”

Accordingly they went to Zobeide’s apartment, whom the caliph found sitting on a sofa, much afflicted, and still in tears.

“Madam,” said the caliph, going up to her, “it is unnecessary to tell you how much I partake with you in your affliction; since you must be sensible that what gives you pleasure or trouble, has the same effect on me. But we are all mortal, and must surrender up to God that life he has given us, when he requires it.

Nouzhatoulaouadat, your faithful slave, was endued with qualifications that deserved your esteem, and I cannot but approve your expressing it after her death; but consider all your grief will not restore her to life. Therefore, madam, if you love me, and will take my advice, be comforted for this loss, take care of a life which you know is precious to me, and constitutes all the happiness of mine. “

If the princess was charmed with these tender sentiments which the caliph expressed in his compliments, she was amazed to hear of Nouzhatoulaouadat’s death. This news threw her into such astonishment, that she was not able to return an answer for some time. At last recovering, she replied with an air expressive of surprise, “Commander of the faithful, I am very sensible of all your tender sentiments; but give me leave to say, I cannot comprehend the news you tell me of the death of my slave, who is in perfect health. My affliction is for the death of Abou Hassan, her husband, your favourite, whom I esteemed, as much for the regard you had for him, as his having so often diverted me agreeably, and for whom I had as great a value as yourself. But the little concern you shew for his death, and your so soon forgetting a man in whose company you have so often told me you took so much pleasure, surprises me; and this insensibility seems the greater, from the deception you would put upon me in changing his death for that of my slave.”

The caliph, who thought that he was perfectly well informed of the death of the slave, and had just reason to believe so, because he had both seen and heard Abou Hassan, laughed, and shrugged up his shoulders, to hear Zobeide talk in this manner.

“Mesrour,” said he, to the eunuch, “what do you think of the princess’s discourse? Do not women sometimes lose their senses; for you have heard and seen all as well as myself?” Then turning to Zobeide, “Madam,” said he, “shed no more tears for