The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01Anonymous
General
The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01
Anonymous
Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Folklore -- Arab countries
without resistance. Do not let us trifle away the time in
needless discourse, said she, interrupting me: I make no doubt of
your sincerity, and you shall quickly be convinced of mine. Will
you do me the honour to come to my home? or, if you will, I will
come to yours. Madam, said I, I am a stranger, lodging in a khan,
which is not a proper place for the reception of a lady of your
quality and merit. It is more proper, madam, for me to come to
you at your home, if you will please to tell me where it is. The
lady complying with this desire, I live, said she, in
Devotion-street; come next Friday after noon prayers, and ask for
the house of Abbon Schamam, surnamed Bercount, late master of the
emirs; there you will find me. This said, we parted, and I passed
the next day in great impatience.
On Friday I got up betimes, and put on my best clothes, with
fifty pieces of gold in my pocket: thus prepared, I mounted an
ass, which I had bespoken the day before, and set out,
accompanied by the man that lent me the ass. When we came to
Devotion-street, I directed the owner of the ass to inquire for
the house I wanted: he accordingly inquired, and conducted me to
it. I paid him liberally, and sent him back directing him to
observe narrowly where he left me, and not to fail to come back
with the ass to-morrow morning to carry me back again.
I knocked at the door, and presently two little girl slaves,
white as snow, and neatly dressed, came and opened it. Be pleased
to come in, sir, said they, our mistress expects you impatiently;
for two days she has spoken of nothing but you. I entered the
court, and saw a great pavilion raised upon seven steps, and
surrounded with iron rails that parted it from a very pleasant
garden. Besides the trees which embellished the prospect, and
formed an agreeable shade, there was an infinite number of other
trees loaded with all manner of fruit. I was charmed with the
warbling of a great number of birds, which joined their notes to
the murmurings of a very high water-work in the middle of a
ground-plot enamelled with flowers. This water- work was a very
agreeable sight; four large gilded dragons adorned the angles of
the bason, which was of a square form; and these dragons spouted
out water clearer than rock crystal. This delicious place gave me
a charming idea of the conquest I had made. The two little slaves
conducted me into a parlour magnificently furnished, and while
one of them went to acquaint her mistress with my arrival, the
other tarried behind, and pointed out to me the ornaments of the
hall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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