Читать книгу 1001 Nights - Richard Francis Burton - Страница 102

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She said, It reached me, O auspicious King, that Nuzhat al-Zaman wrote the letter and gave it to the merchant; and he took it and read it and understood the contents and exclaimed, “Glory to Him who fashioned thee!” Then he redoubled his kindness and made himself pleasant to her all that day, and when night came he sallied out to the bazar and bought some food, wherewith he fed her; after which he carried her to the Hammam and said to the bath woman, “As soon as thou hast made an end of washing her head, dress her and send and let me know of it.” And she replied “Hearing is obeying.” Meanwhile he fetched food and fruit and wax candles and set them on the bench in the outer room of the bath; and when the tire woman had done washing her, she dressed her and led her out of the bath and seated her on the bench. Then she sent to tell the merchant, and Nuzhat al-Zaman went forth to the outer room, where she found the tray spread with food and fruit. So she ate and the tire woman with her, and gave the rest to the people and keeper of the bath. Then she slept till the morning, and the merchant lay the night in a place apart from her. When he aroused himself from sleep he came to her and waking her, presented her with a shift of fine stuff and a head kerchief worth a thousand diners, a suit of Turkish embroidery and walking boots purfled with red gold and set with pearls and gems. Moreover, he hung in each of her ears a circlet of gold with a fine pearl therein, worth a thousand diners, and threw round her neck a collar of gold with bosses of garnet and a chain of amber beads that hung down between her breasts over her navel. Now to this chain were attached ten balls and nine crescents, and each crescent had in its midst a bezel of ruby, and each ball a bezel of balass: the value of the chain was three thousand diners and each of the balls was priced at twenty thousand dirhams, so that the dress she wore was worth in all a great sum of money. When she had put these on, the merchant bade her adorn herself, and she adorned herself to the utmost beauty; then she let fall her fillet over her eyes and she fared forth with the merchant preceding her. But when folk saw her, all wondered at her beauty and exclaimed, “Blessed be Allah, the most excellent Creator! O lucky the man in whose house the hall be!” And the trader ceased not walking (and she behind him) till they entered the palace of Sultan Sharrkan; when he sought an audience and, kissing the earth between his hands, said, “O auspicious King, I have brought thee a rare gift, unmatched in this time and richly gifted with beauty and with good qualities.” Quoth the King, “Let me see it.” So the merchant went out and brought her, she following him till he made her stand before King Sharrkan. When he beheld her, blood yearned to blood, though she had been parted from him in childhood and though he had never seen her, having only heard a long time after her birth that he had a sister called Nuzhat al-Zaman and a brother Zau al-Makan, he having been jealous of them, because of the succession. And such was the cause of his knowing little about them. Then, having placed her before the presence, the merchant said, “O King of the age, besides being peerless in her time and beauty and loveliness, she is also versed in all learning, sacred and profane, including the art of government and the abstract sciences.” Quoth the King to the trader, “Take her price, according as thou boughtest her, and go thy ways.” “I hear and I obey,” replied the merchant; “but first write me a patent, exempting me for ever from paying tithe on my merchandise.” Said the King, “I will do this, but first tell me what price thou paidest for her.” Said the merchant, “I bought her for an hundred thousand diners, and her clothes cost me another hundred thousand.” When the Sultan heard these words, he declared, “I will give thee a higher price than this for her;” and, calling his treasurer, said to him, “Pay this merchant three hundred and twenty thousand ducats; so will he have an hundred and twenty thousand diners profit.” Thereupon the Sultan summoned the four Kazis and paid him the money in their presence and then he said, “I call you to witness that I free this my slave girl and purpose to marry her.” So the Kazis wrote out the deed of emancipation and the contract of marriage, when the Sultan scattered much gold on the heads of those present; and the pages and the eunuchs picked up this largesse. Then, after paying him his monies, Sharrkan bade them write for the merchant a perpetual patent, exempting him from toll, tax or tithe upon his merchandise and forbidding each and every in all his government to molest him, and lastly bestowed on him a splendid dress of honour. — And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.