Aladdin and the Magic Lamp
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After having passed a very strange wedding night and being returned to the bridal room, the two newlyweds have to process what happened to them. And, obviously, they are unable to understand.
When the princess tells her parents what she saw happening, the sultan and his wife do not believe her, which is understandable.
ON THE TWENTY-FIRST NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
Be that as it may, the fate of the two spouses, for a first wedding night, was nothing but very distressing and very calamitous.
The next morning, without Aladdin needing to rub the lamp again, the genie, according to the order given to him, came of his own accord to await the awakening of the master of the lamp. And, as he was late in waking, he uttered several exclamations which terrified the princess, who could not see him. And Aladdin opened his eyes; and, as soon as he had recognized the genie, he rose from beside the princess, and went a little aside, to be heard only by the genie, and said to him: "You to fetch the vizier's son from the cabinets; and come back and put him in the bed, where he was. Then carry them both to the sultan's palace, to the very place where you took them. And, above all, watch them carefully to prevent them from caressing or even touching!" And the genie of the lamp answered by hearing and obedience and hastened to go first and take the languishing young man out of the water closet and lay him on the bed, beside the princess. Then, in less time than it takes to blink, he transported them both to the bridal chamber, in the sultan's palace, without their being able to see or understand what was happening to them, or by what means they moved so quickly. And besides, that was the best thing that could have happened to them, for the mere sight of the dreadful genie, servant of the lamp, would have, without a doubt, terrified them to death.
No sooner had the genie transported the two newlyweds to the palace room than the sultan and his wife, impatient to know how the princess, their daughter, had spent this first wedding night, and eager to congratulate her and to be the first to see her and wish her happiness and many future delights, made their morning entrance. And they approached, deeply moved, the bed of their daughter, and kissed her tenderly between the two eyes, saying to her: “Blessed be your union, O daughter of our hearts! And may you see germinate from your fecundity a long line of beautiful and illustrious descendants, who will perpetuate the glory and the nobility of your race! Ah! tell us how you spent that first night, and how your husband behaved towards you!" And, having thus spoken, they were silent, awaiting her answer! And suddenly they saw her, instead of showing a fresh and smiling face, burst into tears and looked at them with big sad eyes full of tears.
Then they wanted to question her husband, and looked at the side of the bed where they thought he was still lying; but he had just left the room, just as they came in, to go and wash himself of all the filth that smeared his face. And they thought he had gone to the palace hammam to take the customary bath after consumption. And they turned again towards their daughter and questioned her anxiously with gestures, look, and voice, the reason for her tears and her sadness. And, as she continued to be silent, they thought that only the modesty of the first wedding night prevented her from speaking and that her tears were tears of circumstance; and they stood still for a while, not wanting to insist too much. But as this situation threatened to last for a very long time, and as her tears only increased, the queen could no longer wait; and, in a humorous tone, ended by saying to the princess: “Come, my daughter, will you finally answer me and answer your father? And are you going to do these ways with us for a long time, which has already lasted too long? Me too, my daughter, I was a new bride like you and before you! but I knew how to have the tact not to make these offended chicken manners last too long. And you forget, moreover, that you are presently lacking in the respect you owe us, by continuing not to answer our questions!"
At these formal words from her mother, the poor princess, overwhelmed on all sides at the same time, saw herself obliged to break the silence which she was maintaining, and, heaving a great and very sad sigh, she replied: "Allah forgive me if I failed in the respect that I owe to my father and my mother! but my excuse is that I am extremely disturbed and very moved and very sad and very amazed at all that has happened to me this night! And she began to relate all that had happened to her the previous night, not as things had really happened, but as she had been able to judge of them only by her eyes. She tells how, barely lying in her bed, next to her husband the son of the vizier, she had felt the bed move under her, how she had seen herself transported in the twinkling of an eye from the bridal chamber in a house she had never known before, as her husband had been separated from her, without her being able to know how he had been removed and returned, how he had been replaced, throughout the night, by a handsome young man, very respectful, moreover, and extremely attentive who, so as not to see himself exposed to abusing her, had put his bare saber between them and had fallen asleep, his face turned towards the wall, and how finally, in the morning, once her husband had returned in bed, she had been transported with him again, to their nuptial chamber, in the palace, where he had then hastened to get up to run from there to the hammam to get rid of a heap of horrible things which covered his face! And she added: “And it was at this moment that I saw you both come in, to wish me good morning and to ask me how I was doing! Alas on me! All I have to do now is die!" And, having thus spoken, she hid her head in the pillows, crying with painful sobs.
When the sultan and his wife heard these words from their daughter Badrou'l-Budour, they were amazed, and looked at each other, with white eyes and long faces, not doubting that she had lost her mind because of that night when her virginity had been harmed for the first time. And they would not believe any of her words; and her mother said to her, in a whispering voice...
— At this point in her narration, Scheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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