ABSTRACT

He found the opportunity for which he was looking when the young woman’s porter passed the shop alone. Wardan called him in, placed a prime sheep’s head in his hand, and said: ‘O porter, tell the cook not to overdo this head or it will lose its savour…. I am very perplexed concerning the girl who employs you every day. Who is she? Where does she come from? What does she do with the ram’s eggs? Why are her eyes and face always so tired?’ ‘As Allah lives,’ replied the other, ‘I am as anxious as you are to know the answers to these questions. But what little I know I will tell you, as you stretch forth so generous a hand towards the poor…. As soon as all her other purchases are made, my mistress goes to the Christian merchant at the corner and buys a dinar’s worth or more of rare old wine; then she leads me up to the entrance of the wazir’s gardens. There she binds my eyes with her veil, takes me by the hand, and leads me to some stair; we go down this together, and my basket is taken from my head. I am given a half-dinar and an empty basket in place of the fall one, then, still with my eyes bandaged, I am led back to the gate of the garden and dismissed until the next day. I

have never been able to find out what she does with all the meat and fruit, almonds, candles and the like, which she makes me carry to the bottom of that subterranean stair.’ ‘You have but added to my perplexity, O porter,’ said Wardan, and then, as other customers were approaching the shop, he dismissed the porter and began to serve them.