Story of the Second Lunatic.[FN#102]

“O my lord,” quoth the young man, “my case is marvellous, and haply thou wilt desire me to relate it in order continuous;” and quoth the Sultan, “Let me hear it.”—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O sister mine, and enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was

The Three Hundred and Fifty-fifth Night,

Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the second youth said:—­O my lord the Sultan, I am by calling a merchant man and none of the guild was younger, I having just entered my sixteenth year.  Like my fellows I sold and bought in the Bazar every day till, one day of the days, a damsel came up to me and drew near and handed to me a paper which I opened; and behold, it was full of verses and odes in praise of myself, and the end of the letter contained the woman’s name professing to be enamoured of me.  When I read it I came down from my shopboard, in my folly and ignorance, and putting forth my hand seized the girl and beat her till she swooned away.[FN#103] After this I let her loose and she went her ways and then I fell into a brown study saying to myself, “Would Heaven I wot whether the girl be without relations or if she have kith and kin to whom she may complain and they will come and bastinado me.”  And, O our lord the Sultan, I repented of what I had done whenas repentance availed me naught and this lasted me for twenty days.  At the end of that time as I was sitting in my shop according to my custom, behold, a young lady entered and she was sumptuously clad and sweetly scented and she was even as the moon in its fullness on the fourteenth night.  When I gazed upon her my wits fled and my sane senses and right judgment forsook me and I was incapable of attending to aught save herself.  She then came up and said, “O youth, hast thou by thee a variety of metal ornaments?” and said I, “O my lady, of all kinds thou canst possibly require.”  Hereupon she wished to see some anklets which I brought out for her, when she put forth her feet to me and showing me the calves of her legs said, “O my lord, try them on me.”  This I did.  Then she asked for a necklace[FN#104] and I produced one when she unveiled her bosom and said, “Take its measure on me:”  so I set it upon her and she said, “I want a fine pair of bracelets,” and I brought to her a pair when, extending her hands