Capítulo 2 de 23

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

Truth is stranger than fiction.—Old Saying

Having had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental

investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsöornot, a work

which (like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at

all, even in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my

knowledge, by any American—if we except, perhaps, the author of

the “Curiosities of American Literature”;—having had occasion, I

say, to turn over some pages of the first-mentioned very

remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that

the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error

respecting the fate of the vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, as

that fate is depicted in the “Arabian Nights”; and that the

dénouement there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as

it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much

farther.

For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the

inquisitive reader to the “Isitsöornot” itself; but in the

meantime, I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I

there discovered.

It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a

certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not

only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the

prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his

dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to the

executioner.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with

a religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit

upon him as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was

interrupted one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit

from his grand vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had

occurred an idea.

Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would

either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty,

or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the

attempt.

Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year

(which makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her

father, the grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her

hand. This hand the king eagerly accepts—(he had intended to take

it at all events, and had put off the matter from day to day,

only through fear of the vizier),—but, in accepting it now, he

gives all parties very distinctly to understand, that, grand

vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design of

giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When,

therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king,

and did actually marry him despite her father’s excellent advice

not to do any thing of the kind—when she would and did marry him,

I say, will I, nill I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as

thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading

Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in

her mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I

forget what specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch

sufficiently near that of the royal pair to admit of easy

conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing,

she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband (who bore

her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on

the morrow),—she managed to awaken him, I say, (although on

account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept

well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a

black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone,

of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that

this history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade,

in the nature of things could not finish it just then, since it

was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung—a thing very

little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel!

The king’s curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say,

even over his sound religious principles, induced him for this

once to postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning,

for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it

fared in the end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was)

and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only

put the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat

was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found

herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference

(if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green

wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was

wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even

more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day

broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen’s

endeavors to get through with it in time for the bowstringing),

there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony as

before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened a

similar accident with a similar result; and then the next—and

then again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch,

having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his

vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one nights,

either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time, or

gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more

probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father

confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally

descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven

baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked up

from under the trees in the garden of Eden; Scheherazade, I say,

finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.

Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it

upon record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant—but

alas! like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than

true, and I am indebted altogether to the “Isitsöornot” for the

means of correcting the error. “Le mieux,” says a French proverb,

“est l’ennemi du bien,” and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had

inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she

put them out at compound interest until they amounted to

seventy-seven.

“My dear sister,” said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I

quote the language of the “Isitsöornot” at this point, verbatim)

“my dear sister,” said she, “now that all this little difficulty

about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is

so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great

indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry

to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion

of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous other and

more interesting adventures than those which I related; but the

truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their

narration, and so was seduced into cutting them short—a grievous

piece of misconduct, for which I only trust that Allah will

forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to remedy my great

neglect—and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in

order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible

noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases)

with the sequel of this very remarkable story.”

Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the

“Isitsöornot,” expressed no very particular intensity of

gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at

length ceased snoring, and finally said, “Hum!” and then “Hoo!”

when the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt

Arabic) to signify that he was all attention, and would do his

best not to snore any more—the queen, I say, having arranged

these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into

the history of Sinbad the sailor:

“‘At length, in my old age,’ [these are the words of Sinbad

himself, as retailed by Scheherazade]—‘at length, in my old age,

and after enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became

once more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries;

and one day, without acquainting any of my family with my design,

I packed up some bundles of such merchandise as was most precious

and least bulky, and, engaging a porter to carry them, went with

him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival of any chance

vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region

which I had not as yet explored.

“‘Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down

beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of

perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever.

At length I fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or

humming sound; and the porter, after listening awhile, declared

that he also could distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and

then still louder, so that we could have no doubt that the object

which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of the

horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in

size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a

great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came

toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of

foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea

through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended

far off into the distance.

“‘As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length

was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and

it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O

most sublime and munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was

unlike that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a

jetty blackness throughout all that portion of it which floated

above the water, with the exception of a narrow blood-red streak

that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated beneath

the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and

then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely

covered with metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in

misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it

there extended upwards of six spines, about half the length of

the whole body.

“‘This horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive;

but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with

at least four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets

like those of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around

the body in two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the

blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the purpose of an

eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger

than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.

“‘Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with

the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by

necromancy—for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like

a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown along in the

manner of a vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do

the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely alike,

only, not far from the latter, were two small holes that served

for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick

breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking,

disagreeable noise.

“‘Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but

it was even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a

nearer look, we perceived upon the creature’s back a vast number

of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much

resembling them, except that they wore no garments (as men do),

being supplied (by nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable

covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting so tight to the

skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward, and put

them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads

were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I

thought might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon

discovered that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I

therefore concluded they were contrivances designed, by their

great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and safe

upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were

fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as

we keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so

that it was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their

heads in any direction without moving the body at the same time;

and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their

noses—a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively

in an awful degree.

“‘When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood,

it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and

emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense

cloud of smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but

thunder. As the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd

man-animals standing near the head of the large beast with a

trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it to his mouth) he

presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable accents,

that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had they not

come altogether through the nose.

“‘Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply,

as I could in no manner understand what was said; and in this

difficulty I turned to the porter, who was near swooning through

affright, and demanded of him his opinion as to what species of

monster it was, what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those

were that so swarmed upon its back. To this the porter replied,

as well as he could for trepidation, that he had once before

heard of this sea-beast; that it was a cruel demon, with bowels

of sulphur and blood of fire, created by evil genii as the means

of inflicting misery upon mankind; that the things upon its back

were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a

little larger and more savage; and that these vermin had their

uses, however evil—for, through the torture they caused the beast

by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that degree

of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and

so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.

“This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without

once even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the

hills, while the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an

opposite direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his

escape with my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took

excellent care—although this is a point I cannot determine, as I

do not remember that I ever beheld him again.

“‘For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin

(who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon

overtaken, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which

immediately swam out again into the middle of the sea.

“‘I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home

to peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being

useless, I made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to

secure the goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and

who appeared to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded

so well in this endeavor that, in a few days, the creature

bestowed upon me various tokens of his favor, and in the end even

went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it was

vain enough to denominate its language; so that, at length, I was

enabled to converse with it readily, and came to make it

comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.

“‘Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt

grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,’ said he to me, one day after

dinner—but I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your

majesty is not conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so

the man-animals were called; I presume because their language

formed the connecting link between that of the horse and that of

the rooster). With your permission, I will translate. ‘Washish

squashish,’ and so forth:—that is to say, ‘I am happy to find, my

dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow; we are

now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the

globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will

strain a point and give you a free passage upon back of the

beast.’”

When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the

“Isitsöornot,” the king turned over from his left side to his

right, and said:

“It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you

omitted, hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know

I think them exceedingly entertaining and strange?”

The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair

Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:

“Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative—‘I thanked the

man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very much at

home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the

ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the

world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we

went—so to say—either up hill or down hill all the time.’

“That I think, was very singular,” interrupted the king.

“Nevertheless, it is quite true,” replied Scheherazade.

“I have my doubts,” rejoined the king; “but, pray, be so good as

to go on with the story.”

“I will,” said the queen. “‘The beast,’ continued Sinbad to the

caliph, ‘swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at

length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in

circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the

middle of the sea by a colony of little things like

caterpillars.’” (*1)

“Hum!” said the king.

“‘Leaving this island,’ said Sinbad—(for Scheherazade, it must be

understood, took no notice of her husband’s ill-mannered

ejaculation) ‘leaving this island, we came to another where the

forests were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to

pieces the finest-tempered axes with which we endeavoured to cut

them down.’” (*2)

“Hum!” said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no

attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.

“‘Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where

there was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty

miles within the bowels of the earth, and that contained a

greater number of far more spacious and more magnificent palaces

than are to be found in all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs

of these palaces there hung myriads of gems, like diamonds, but

larger than men; and in among the streets of towers and pyramids

and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony, and

swarming with fish that had no eyes.’” (*3)

“Hum!” said the king.

“‘We then swam into a region of the sea where we found a lofty

mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents of melted

metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long

(*4); while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a

quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the

heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that

when we were even at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles

from the mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object,

however close we held it to our eyes.’” (*5)

“Hum!” said the king.

“‘After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until

we met with a land in which the nature of things seemed

reversed—for we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which,

more than a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there

flourished in full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.’”

(*6)

“Hoo!” said the king.

“Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the

atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our

own does feather.’” (*7)

“Fiddle de dee,” said the king.

“Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at

the most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there

meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This

river was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than

that of amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its

banks which arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in

perpendicular height, were crowned with ever-blossoming trees and

perpetual sweet-scented flowers, that made the whole territory

one gorgeous garden; but the name of this luxuriant land was the

Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable death.’” (*8)

“Humph!” said the king.

“‘We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came

to another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of

monstrous animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads.

These hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil,

of a funnel shape, and line the sides of them with rocks, so

disposed one upon the other that they fall instantly, when

trodden upon by other animals, thus precipitating them into the

monster’s dens, where their blood is immediately sucked, and

their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an

immense distance from “the caverns of death."’” (*9)

“Pooh!” said the king.

“‘Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with

vegetables that grew not upon any soil but in the air. (*10)

There were others that sprang from the substance of other

vegetables; (*11) others that derived their substance from the

bodies of living animals; (*12) and then again, there were others

that glowed all over with intense fire; (*13) others that moved

from place to place at pleasure, (*14) and what was still more

wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and

moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable

passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and confining

them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of

appointed tasks.’” (*15)

“Pshaw!” said the king.

“‘Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the

bees and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and

erudition, that they give daily instructions in the science of

geometry to the wise men of the empire. The king of the place

having offered a reward for the solution of two very difficult

problems, they were solved upon the spot—the one by the bees, and

the other by the birds; but the king keeping their solution a

secret, it was only after the most profound researches and labor,

and the writing of an infinity of big books, during a long series

of years, that the men-mathematicians at length arrived at the

identical solutions which had been given upon the spot by the

bees and by the birds.’” (*16)

“Oh my!” said the king.

“‘We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found

ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew over

our heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and

forty miles long; so that, although they flew a mile during every

minute, it required no less than four hours for the whole flock

to pass over us—in which there were several millions of millions

of fowl.’” (*17)

“Oh fy!” said the king.

“‘No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us

great annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a

fowl of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs

which I met in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the

biggest of the domes on your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of

Caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head that we could perceive,

but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was of a prodigious

fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance, smooth,

shining and striped with various colors. In its talons, the

monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house

from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of

which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in

a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited

them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening

the bird into letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort

or puff, as if of rage and then let fall upon our heads a heavy

sack which proved to be filled with sand!’”

“Stuff!” said the king.

“‘It was just after this adventure that we encountered a

continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which,

nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue

cow that had no fewer than four hundred horns.’” (*18)

“That, now, I believe,” said the king, “because I have read

something of the kind before, in a book.”

“‘We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in

between the legs of the cow), and, after some hours, found

ourselves in a wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by

the man-animal, was his own native land, inhabited by things of

his own species. This elevated the man-animal very much in my

esteem, and in fact, I now began to feel ashamed of the

contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him; for I

found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most

powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain, (*19)

which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful

writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of

imagination!’”

“Nonsense!” said the king.

“‘Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very

singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones

were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he

had black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard

a diet, he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more

weighty than the grandest temple in this city, at a rate

surpassing that of the flight of most birds.’” (*20)

“Twattle!” said the king.

“‘I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but

bigger than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and

brick; her blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she

was nearly related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate

nothing but wood or black stones. This hen brought forth very

frequently, a hundred chickens in the day; and, after birth, they

took up their residence for several weeks within the stomach of

their mother.’” (*21)

“Fal lal!” said the king.

“‘One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of

brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity

that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with

the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22)

Another of these magi constructed (of like material) a creature

that put to shame even the genius of him who made it; for so

great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed

calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required

the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23)

But a still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a

mighty thing that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains

of lead, intermixed with a black matter like pitch, and fingers

that it employed with such incredible speed and dexterity that it

would have had no trouble in writing out twenty thousand copies

of the Koran in an hour, and this with so exquisite a precision,

that in all the copies there should not be found one to vary from

another by the breadth of the finest hair. This thing was of

prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew the

mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised

equally for evil and for good.’”

“Ridiculous!” said the king.

“‘Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in

his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of

sitting down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his

dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had

the faculty of converting the common metals into gold, without

even looking at them during the process. (*25) Another had such a

delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to be invisible.

(*26) Another had such quickness of perception that he counted

all the separate motions of an elastic body, while it was

springing backward and forward at the rate of nine hundred

millions of times in a second.’” (*27)

“Absurd!” said the king.

“‘Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody

ever yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish

their arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance

at his will. (*28) Another had cultivated his voice to so great

an extent that he could have made himself heard from one end of

the world to the other. (*29) Another had so long an arm that he

could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter at Bagdad—or

indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another commanded the

lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at

his call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another

took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another

constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31)

Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed the

sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did. (*33) Another took

this luminary with the moon and the planets, and having first

weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their depths

and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were

made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a

necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their

commonest cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects

that do not exist at all, or that for twenty millions of years

before the birth of the nation itself had been blotted out from

the face of creation.’” (*34)

“Preposterous!” said the king.

“‘The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise

magi,’” continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner

disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions

on the part of her husband—“‘the wives and daughters of these

eminent conjurers are every thing that is accomplished and

refined; and would be every thing that is interesting and

beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from

which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and

fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities

come in certain shapes, and some in others—but this of which I

speak has come in the shape of a crotchet.’”

“A what?” said the king.

“‘A crotchet’” said Scheherazade. “‘One of the evil genii, who

are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into

the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we

describe as personal beauty consists altogether in the

protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the

small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the

direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been long

possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country,

the days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a

woman from a dromedary—’”

“Stop!” said the king—“I can’t stand that, and I won’t. You have

already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day,

too, I perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been

married?—my conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And

then that dromedary touch—do you take me for a fool? Upon the

whole, you might as well get up and be throttled.”

These words, as I learn from the “Isitsöornot,” both grieved and

astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of

scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she

submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however,

great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from

the reflection that much of the history remained still untold,

and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for

him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many

inconceivable adventures.