Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
The rejoicings lasted all that day in the palace, and the sultaness, who
never left the princess, forgot nothing to divert her, and induce her to
take part in the various diversions and shows: but she was so struck
with the idea of what had happened to her that it was easy to see her
thoughts were entirely taken up about it. Neither was the grand vizier’s
son’s affliction less, but that his ambition made him disguise it, and
nobody doubted but he was a happy bridegroom.
Aladdin, who was well acquainted with what passed in the palace, never
disputed but that the new-married couple were to lie together again that
night, notwithstanding the troublesome adventure of the night before;
and therefore, having as great an inclination to disturb them, he had
recourse to his lamp, and when the genie appeared, and offered his
services, he said to him, “The grand vizier’s son and the princess
Badr-oul-boudour are to lie together again to-night: go, and as soon as
they are in bed, bring the bed hither, as thou didst yesterday.”
The genie obeyed Aladdin as faithfully and exactly as the day before:
the grand vizier’s son passed the night as coldly and disagreeably as
before, and the princess had the mortification again to have Aladdin for
her bedfellow, with the sabre between them. The genie, according to
Aladdin’s orders, came the next morning, and brought the bridegroom and
laid him by his bride, and then carried the bed and new-married couple
back again to the palace.
The sultan, after the reception the princess Badr-oul-boudour had given
him that day, was very anxious to know how she passed the second night,
and if she would give him the same reception, and therefore went into
her chamber as early as the morning before. The grand vizier’s son, more
ashamed and mortified with the ill success of this last night, no sooner
heard him coming, but he jumped out of bed, and ran hastily into the
wardrobe. The sultan went to the princess’s bed-side, and after the
caresses he had given her the former morning, bid her good-morrow.
“Well, daughter,” he said, “are you in a better humour than you were
yesterday morning?” Still the princess was silent, and the sultan
perceived her to be more troubled, in greater confusion than before, and
doubted not but that something very extraordinary was the cause; but
provoked that his daughter should conceal it, he said to her in a rage,
with his sabre in his hand, “Daughter, tell me what is the matter, or I
will cut off your head immediately.”
The princess, more frightened at the menaces and tone of the enraged
sultan, than at the sight of the drawn sabre, at last broke silence, and
said, with tears in her eyes, “My dear father and sultan, I ask your
majesty’s pardon if I have offended you, and hope, that out of your
goodness and clemency you will have compassion on me, when I have told
you in what a miserable condition I have spent this last night and the
night before.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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