"Alas!" cried I, "must I be beaten unmercifully, and, to complete my affliction, have my hand cut off, for partaking of a dish seasoned with garlic, and forgetting to wash my hands? What proportion is there between the punishment and the crime? Curse on the dish, on the cook who dressed it, and on him who served it up." All the ladies who had seen me receive the thousand strokes, took pity on me, when they heard the cutting off of my hand mentioned. "Dear madam, dear sister," said they to the favourite lady, "you carry your resentment too far. We own he is a man quite ignorant of the world, of your quality, and the respect that is due to you: but we beseech you to overlook and pardon his fault." "I have not received adequate satisfaction," said she; "I will teach him to know the world; I will make him bear sensible marks of his impertinence, and be cautious hereafter how he tastes a dish seasoned with garlic without washing his hands." They renewed their solicitations, fell down at her feet, and kissing her fair hands, said, "Good madam, moderate your anger, and grant us the favour we supplicate." She made no reply, but got up, and after uttering a thousand reproaches against me, walked out of the chamber: all the ladies followed her, leaving me in inconceivable affliction. I continued thus ten days, without seeing any body but an old female slave that brought me victuals. I asked her what was become of the favourite lady. "She is sick," said the old woman; "she is sick of the poisoned smell with which you infected her. Why did you not take care to wash your hands after eating of that cursed dish?" "Is it possible," thought I, "that these ladies can be so nice, and so vindictive for such a trifling fault!" I loved my wife notwithstanding all her cruelty, and could not help pitying her. One day the old woman told me my spouse was recovered, and gone to bathe, and would come to see me the next day. "So," said she, "I would have you call up your patience, and endeavour to accommodate yourself to her humour. For she is in other respects a woman of good sense and discretion, and beloved by all the ladies about the court of our respected mistress Zobeide." My wife accordingly came on the following evening, and accosted me thus: "You perceive that I must possess much tenderness to you, after the affront you have offered me: but still I cannot be reconciled till I have punished you according to your demerit, in not washing your hands after eating of the garlic dish." She then called the ladies, who, by her order, threw me upon the ground; and after binding me fast, she had the barbarity to cut off my thumbs and great toes herself, with a razor. One of the ladies applied a certain root to staunch the blood; but by bleeding and by the pain, I swooned away.