THE STORY OF THE PORTER WITH THE YOUNG LADIES
Source
The efreet finds the saâlouk, kills the girl, and changes the saâlouk into a monkey. But it is not the end of the story, obviously.
ON THE TWELFTH NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
The second saâlouk continued his story:
After which I kept on walking until I came to my friend the tailor. And I found him who, because of my absence, was sitting as if he were on the fire in a frying pan. And there he was, waiting for me impatiently. And he said to me: “Yesterday, not seeing you arrive as usual, I spent the night with my heart at your house! And I was afraid for you of a wild beast or something like that in the forest. But praise be to Allah for your salvation!" So I thanked him for his kindness, went into the shop, and sat down in my corner; and I began to think of what had happened to me, and to blame myself for the kicking that I had given to the cupola. Suddenly my good friend the tailor came in and said to me: "At the door of the shop there is a person, a sort of Persian, who is asking for you and who has your ax and your sandals with him. He had taken them to all the tailors in the street, telling them: "I went out at dawn to go to morning prayers at the call of the muezzin, and I found these objects on my way without managing to know who they might belong to. Tell me, you people, who owns it! Then the tailors in our street who know you, seeing the ax and the sandals, knew that they belonged to you, and eagerly gave your address to this Persian. And there he is, waiting for you at the door of the shop. Go out then, and thank him for his trouble, and take your ax and your sandals." But I, at these words, felt my complexion turn yellow and my whole body slump in terror. And, while I was in this prostration, all of a sudden, the ground, in front of my corner, half opened, and the Persian in question came out. It was the efreet! He had, during that time, tortured his young wife, and what torture! But she had told him nothing. So he took the ax and the sandals, and said to her: "I will prove to you that I am still Georgirus, of the seed of Eblis! And you will see whether or not I can bring you here the owner of this ax and these sandals!"
It was then that he came to use this ruse, of which I have spoken, with the tailors.
So he suddenly entered my house, from underground, and immediately, without wasting a moment, he kidnapped me! He took off and soared into the air; then it descended and plunged into the earth! As for me, I lost all consciousness. It was then that he entered with me into the underground palace where I had tasted voluptuousness. And I saw the naked girl, and the blood flowing from her sides! Then my eyes were wet with tears. But the efreet walked towards her and, seizing her, said to her: “O debauchery! here he is, your lover! So the girl looked at me and said: "I don't know him. And I've never seen him until just now." And the efreet said to her: "How? Here is before you the body of the offense and you do not confess!: So she said: "I don't know him." And in my life, I have never seen him. And it is not suitable for me to lie in the face of Allah!" Then the efreet said to her: "If you really don't know him, take this sword and cut off his head!" So she took the sword, came to me, and stopped in front of me. So I, yellow with terror, gave her a negative sign with my eyebrows (to beg her to have mercy) and my tears ran down my cheeks. Then she too winked at me; but she said aloud: “It is you who are the cause of all our misfortunes!" So, I, again made a sign to her with my eyebrows, and with my tongue, I said to her verses with two meanings (which the efreet could not quite understand):
My eyes know enough to speak to you for my tongue to become useless!
My eyes alone reveal to you the secrets concealed in my heart!
When you appeared to me, sweet tears streamed down, and I became dumb:
For my eyes spoke to you enough of my flame!*
The eyelids, by blinking, express to us all feeling;
And there is no need for the intelligent to use his fingers.
Our eyebrows take the place of all other things.
So be quiet! and let love alone speak.
Then the young woman understood both my signs and my verses, and she threw the sword of the efreet from her hands. Then the efreet took the sword and handed it to me and said: "Cut her neck, and I will release you and do you no harm!" And I say: “Yes!" And I took the sword, and I stepped forward bravely, and I raised my arm! Then she said to me, making me a sign with her eyebrows: “Me, did I infringe your rights?" Then my eyes were filled with tears, and I threw the sword from my hands and said to the efreet: “O mighty efreet, O strong and invincible hero! if this woman were, as you believe, of little faith and reason, she would have found the fall of my severed head lawful! But, on the contrary, it was the sword itself that she threw away from her. How then can I, in turn, find it lawful to cut her neck, especially since I have never seen her before this hour? So, I will never commit this action, even if you were to make me drink the cup of bad death! At this speech, the efreet exclaimed: “Ha! I see now the love that is between you two!"
And then, O my mistress, that accursed man took the sword, struck the hand of the girl and cut it; then he struck the other hand with it and cut it in the same way; then he cut off her right foot; then he cut off her left foot. And so, with four strokes, he severed the four limbs. And, me, I looked at that with my eyes and I thought I would certainly die.
At this moment, the young woman looked at me furtively and winked at me. But unfortunately ! the efreet saw that wink, and cried, “O daughter of a whore! you have just committed adultery with your eye!" And then he struck her in the neck with the sword and cut off her head. Then he turned to me and said, "Know, O you a human being, that in our law, the genies, it is permissible for us, and it is even lawful and advisable for us, to kill the wife adultery! Know then that this woman, I kidnapped her on her wedding night when she was still only twelve years old, and before anyone else had slept with her or known her! I carried her here, and I came to see her every tenth day, to spend the night with her, and I copulated with her under the guise of a Persian! But the day I saw that she was cheating on me, I killed her! Besides, she only deceived me with her eye, the eye she blinked while looking at you. As for you, as I could not ascertain that you had fornicated with her to help her deceive me, I will not kill you. But, all the same, I want, so that you can't laugh on my back, do you some harm that takes away your pride! But I'll let you choose which strain you prefer out of all the evils."
So I, O my mistress, was rejoiced to the limit of rejoicing when I saw myself escaping death. And that encouraged me to abuse grace. And I said to him: "I really don't know what to choose in the midst of all the evils! I prefer none!" Then the wrathful efreet stamped the ground with his foot and cried, "I tell you to choose! So, choose under which image you prefer that I bewitch you! Do you prefer the image of a donkey? No! A picture of a dog? The image of a mule? The image of a crow? Or the image of a monkey?" So I answered him, still abusing it, for I had the hope of a complete pardon: “By Allah! O my master Georgirus, from the posterity of mighty Eblis! if you grant me grace, Allah will grant you grace! for he will be grateful to you for the forgiveness granted to a good Muslim man, who has never wronged you!" And I continued to implore him almost prayerfully, standing humbly in his hands, and I said to him: “You condemn me unjustly!" So he answered me: "Enough talk like that, otherwise death! So do not abuse my goodness, for I absolutely must bewitch you! »
At these words, he took me up, split the dome and the earth above us, and flew with me in the air, and so high that I no longer saw the earth except under the aspect of a bowl of water. So he came down to the top of a mountain and set me down there; he took a bit of earth in his hand, grumbled something over it, growling like this: “Hum! hmm! hmm!" said a few words, then threw this earth on me, crying out: “Get out of your form here and take the form of a monkey!" And instantly, O my mistress, I became a monkey, and what a monkey! At least a hundred years old and quite ugly! So, when I saw myself under this aspect, I was at first displeased and started to jump and I jumped, in truth! Then, as it was of no use to me, I began to cry about myself and my past self. And the efreet laughed horribly, and then he disappeared.
Then I began to reflect on the injustices of fate, and I learned, at my expense, that in truth fate does not depend on the creature.
After that, I started to tumble from the top of the mountain all the way down. And I began to travel, sleeping at night in the trees, and that for a month, until I came to the shore of the salt sea. I stopped there for nearly an hour, and at last, I saw in the middle of the sea a ship which the favorable wind was pushing towards the shore, on my side. So I hid behind a rock and waited. When I saw the men coming and going and coming, I grew bolder and ended up jumping amidships. Then one of the men cried out, “Quickly drive away this ominous being!" And another exclaimed: “No! kill him!" And a third exclaimed: “Yes! kill him with this sword! So I began to cry and stopped the end of the sword with my paw, and my tears flowed abundantly.
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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