Читать книгу 1001 Nights - Richard Francis Burton - Страница 99

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She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Badawi gave the barley scone to Nuzhat al-Zaman and promised he would sell her to a good man like himself, she replied, “Whatso thou doest is right!” and, about midnight when hunger burned her,943 she ate a very little of that barley bread and the Badawi ordered his party to set out; so they loaded their loads and he mounted a camel setting Nuzhat al-Zaman behind him. Then they journeyed and ceased not journeying for three days, till they entered the city of Damascus and alighted at the Sultan’s Khan, hard by the Viceroy’s Gate. Now she had lost her colour by grief and the fatigue of such travelling, and she ceased not to weep over her misfortunes. So the Badawi came up to her and said, “O thou city filth, by the right of my bonnet, if thou leave not this weeping, I will sell thee to none but a Jew!” Then he arose and took her by the hand and carried her to a chamber, and walked off to the bazar, and he went round to, the merchants who dealt in slave girls, and began to parley with them, saying, “I have brought a slave girl whose brother fell ill, and I sent him to my people about Jerusalem, that they might tend him till he is cured. As for her I want to sell her, but after the dog her brother fell sick, the separation from him was grievous to her, and since then she doth nothing but weep, and now I wish that whoso is minded to buy her of me speak softly to her and say, ‘Thy brother is with me in Jerusalem ill’; and I will be easy with him about her price.” Then one of the merchants came up to him and asked, “How old is she?” He answered “She is a virgin, just come to marriageable age, and she is endowed with sense and breeding and wit and beauty and loveliness. But from the day I sent her brother to Jerusalem, her heart hath been yearning for him, so that her beauty is fallen away and her value lessened.” Now when the merchant heard this, he set forth with the Badawi and said, “O Shaykh944 of the Arabs, I will go with thee and buy of thee this girl whom thou praisest so highly for wit and manners and beauty and loveliness; and I will pay thee her price but it must be upon conditions which if thou accept, I will give thee ready money, and if thou accept not I will return her to thee.” Quoth the Badawi, “An thou wilt, take her up to the Sultan Sharrkan, son of Omar bin al-Nu’uman lord of Baghdad and of the land of Khorasan, and condition me any conditions thou likest, for when thou hast brought her before King Sharrkan, haply she will please him, and he will pay thee her price and a good profit for thyself to boot.” Rejoined the merchant, “It happens that I have just now something to ask from him, and it is this that he write me an order upon the office, exempting me from custom dues and also that he write me a letter of recommendation to his father, King Omar bin al-Nu’uman. So if he take the girl, I will weigh945 thee out her price at once.” “I agree with thee to this condition,” answered the Badawi. So they returned together to the place where Nuzhat al-Zaman was and the wild Arab stood at the chamber door and called out, saying, “O Nájiyah946!” which was the name wherewith he had named her. When she heard him, she wept and made no answer. Then he turned to the merchant and said to him, “There she sitteth; go to her and look at her and speak to her kindly as I enjoined thee.” So the trader went up to her in courteous wise and saw that she was wondrous beautiful and loveable, especially as she knew the Arabic tongue; and he said to the Badawi, “If she be even as thou saddest, I shall get of the Sultan what I will for her.” Then he bespake her, “Peace be on thee, my little maid! How art thou?” She turned to him and replied, “This also was registered in the Book of Destiny.” Then she looked at him and, seeing him to be a man of respectable semblance with a handsome face, she said to herself, “I believe this one cometh to buy me;” and she continued, “If I hold aloof from him, I shall abide with my tyrant and he will do me to death with beating. In any case, this person is handsome of face and maketh me hope for better treatment from him than from my brute of a Badawi. May be he cometh only to hear me talk; so I will give him a fair answer.” All this while her eyes were fixed on the ground; then she raised them to him and said in a sweet voice, “And upon thee be peace, O my lord, and Allah’s mercy and His benediction!947 This is what is commanded of the Prophet, whom Allah bless and preserve! As for thine enquiry how I am, if thou wouldst know my case, it is such as thou wouldst not wish but to thy foe.” And she held her peace. When the merchant heard what she said, his fancy took wings for delight in her and, turning to the Badawi, he asked him, “What is her price, for indeed she is noble?” Thereupon the Badawi waxed angry and answered, “Thou wilt turn me the girl’s head with this talk! Why dost thou say that she is noble,948 while she is of the scum of slave girls and of the refuse of folk? I will not sell her to thee!” When the merchant heard this, he knew the man to be weak of wits and said to him, “Calm thyself, for I will buy her of thee with these blemishes thou mentionest.” “And how much wilt thou give me for her?” enquired the Badawi. Replied the merchant, “Name thy price for her: none should name the son save his sire.” Rejoined the Badawi, “None shall name it but thou thyself.” Quoth the merchant to himself, “This wildling is a rudesby and a maggotty head. By Allah, I cannot tell her price, for she hath won my heart with her fair speech and good looks; and, if she can read and write, it will be complete fair luck to her and to her purchaser. But this Badawi does not know her worth.” Then he turned and said to him, “O Shaykh of the Arabs, I will give thee in ready money, clear of the tax and the Sultan’s dues, two hundred gold pieces.” Now when the Badawi heard this, he flew into a violent rage and cried at the merchant, saying, “Get up and go thy ways! By Allah, wert thou to offer me two hundred diners for the bit of camlet she weareth, I would not sell it to thee. And now I will not sell her, but will keep her by me, to pasture the camels and grind my grist.” And he cried out to her, saying, “Come here, thou stinkard! I will not sell thee.” Then he turned to the merchant and said to him, “I used to think thee a man of judgment; but, by the right of my bonnet, if thou begone not from me, I will let thee hear what shall not please thee!” Quoth the merchant to himself, “Of a truth this Badawi is mad and knoweth not her value, and I will say no more to him about her price at the present time; for by Allah, were he a man of sense, he would not say, ‘By the rights of my bonnet!’ By the Almighty, she is worth the kingdom of the Chosroës and I have not her price by me, but if he ask even more, I will give him what he will, though it be all my goods.” Then he turned and said to him, “O Shaykh of the Arabs, take patience and calm thyself and tell me what clothes she hath with thee?” Cried the Badawi, “And what hath the baggage to do with clothes? By Allah, this camlet in which she is wrapped is ample for her.” “With thy leave,” said the merchant, “I will unveil her face and examine her even as folk examine slave girls whom they think of buying.”949 Replied the other, “Up and do what thou wilt and Allah keep thy youth! Examine her outside and inside and, if thou wilt, strip off her clothes and look at her when she is naked.” Quoth the trader, “Allah forfend! I will look at naught save her face.”950 Then he went up to her and was put to shame by her beauty and loveliness — And Shahrazed perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.