Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and PalaceHauff, Wilhelm
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Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace
Hauff, Wilhelm
Short stories, German -- Translations into English
When Thiuli saw there was no hope of her recovery, he cursed himself
and the whole world, tore out his beard, and butted his head against
the wall. But all this availed nothing, for Fatima, under the care of
the other women, soon ceased to breathe. When Thiuli heard of her
death, he ordered a coffin to be hastily made, as he could not suffer a
dead person to remain in the house, and had the body carried to the
tomb. The bearers carried the coffin there, dropped it hastily, and
fled, as they heard groans and sighs proceeding from the other coffins.
Mustapha, who had hidden behind the coffins and frightened away the
bearers of Fatima's coffin, now came out from his hiding place, and
lighted a lamp that he had provided for this purpose. Next he produced
a phial containing the restorative, and raised the lid of Fatima's
coffin. But what was his amazement when the rays of the lamp disclosed
features entirely strange to him! It was neither my sister nor Zoraide,
but quite another person, that lay in the coffin. It took him a long
time to recover from this latest blow of fate, but finally pity
overcame his vexation. He opened the phial, and poured some of the
contents into the mouth of the sleeper. She breathed, opened her eyes,
and seemed for a long time to be trying to make out her situation. At
last she recalled all that had happened, and, stepping out of the
coffin, flung herself at Mustapha's feet. "How can I thank you,
gracious being?" cried she, "for freeing me from my terrible prison!"
Mustapha interrupted her expressions of gratitude with the question how
it happened that she and not his sister Fatima had been rescued. She
looked at him in an astonished way before replying: "Now for the first
time I understand what before was incomprehensible to me. You must know
that I was called Fatima in the castle, and it was to me you gave the
note and medicine." My brother requested her to give him news of his
sister and Zoraide, and learned that they were both in the castle, but,
in accordance with a custom of Thiuli's, had received other names, and
were now called Mirza and Nurmahal.
When the freed slave, Fatima, saw that my brother was so cast down by
this mistake, she consoled him with the assurance that she could point
out another way by which both of the young girls might be rescued.
Aroused by what she said, he begged her to tell him her plan, to which
she replied--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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