Wardan the Butcher and the Vizier's Daughter
This is the start of the story. What is happening here is difficult to summarize; you must read it.
Warning: in this story, the sexual descriptions are much cruder than in the story of Aladdin.
ON THE FIRST NIGHT
Scheherazade said:
It is said, among various tales, that there was in Cairo a man called Wardan who was, by profession, a butcher for mutton. Every day he saw a teenager come to his shop, splendid in body and face, but with very tired eyes and also very tired features and a very pale complexion. She always arrived followed by a porter loaded with her basket, chose the most tender piece of meat and also the mutton eggs, paid for everything with a gold coin weighing two dinars or more, put her purchase in the hood of the porter, and continued his tour of the souk, stopping at all the shops and buying something from all the merchants. And she continued to act like this for a long time, until one day the butcher Wardan, very much intrigued by the look, the silence, and the manners of his young client, decided to clear it up, to get rid of the thoughts that were tormenting him about it.
However, he found precisely the opportunity he was looking for when one morning he saw the young woman's porter pass alone in front of the shop. He stopped him, put in his hand an excellent sheep's head, and said to him: "O porter, recommend to the master of the oven not to burn the head too much, otherwise it will lose its flavor!" Then he added: “O porter, you see me very perplexed about this young girl who takes you into her service every day! Who is she and where does she come from? What does she do with these sheep's eggs? And above all, why are her eyes and features so tired?" He replied, “By Allah! You see me just as perplexed about it as you are! What I know, I will tell you right away, since your hand is generous to the poor like me. Here it is! Once all her purchases are finished, she takes another dinar or more worth of precious old wine from the local Nazarene merchant and takes me, thus laden, to the entrance of the Grand Vizier's gardens. There she blindfolds me with her veil, takes my hand, and leads me to a staircase, the steps of which she descends with me, to then relieve me of my basket, give me half a dinar for my trouble, and a basket. empty in place of mine, and escort me, my eyes still blindfolded, to the gate of the gardens, where she gives me leave until the next day. And I never knew what she was doing with this meat, these fruits, these almonds, these candles, and all the things she made me carry to this underground staircase!" The butcher Wardan answered: “You only increase my perplexity, O porter! And, as other customers arrived, he left the porter and began to serve them.
The next day, after a night spent thinking about this state of things which worried him to the extreme, he saw the young girl arrive, followed by the porter, at the same time. And he said to himself: “By Allah! I must this time, at all costs, know what I want to know!" And after the young girl had gone away with her various purchases, he charged his assistant, the boy butcher, with the care of the shop as selling and buying, and began to follow her at a distance, so as not to be noticed. He walked in this way behind her to the entrance of the vizier's gardens and hid behind the trees to await the return of the porter, whom he saw, in fact, blindfolded and led by the hand through the aisles. After a few moments of absence, he saw her return to the entrance, remove the veil from the porter's eyes, dismiss him, and wait until the porter had disappeared to reenter the garden.
So he got up from his hiding place and followed her, barefoot, hiding behind the trees. He saw her arrive in this way in front of a section of rock, touch it in a certain way, makes it turn on itself, and disappear by a staircase whose steps he saw go down underground. He then waited a few moments and approached the rock which he began to manipulate in the same way, and which he managed to turn. He then plunged underground, bringing the rock back to its place, and here is told by himself, what he saw.
He said :
“At first I could make out nothing in the subterranean darkness; then I ended up seeing a corridor at the end of which filtered light; I followed it, still barefoot and holding my breath, and I came to a door behind which I heard laughter and grunts. I then applied my eye to the crack through which a ray of light passed, and I saw, entwined on a divan, in the midst of various contortions and movements, the young girl and an enormous ape with a perfectly human face. After a few moments, the teenager untied herself, stood up, and undid all her clothes to lie down again on the sofa, but completely naked. And immediately the monkey pounced on her and covered her, taking her in his arms. And when he had finished his thing with her, he got up, rested for a moment, then regained possession of her, covering her. He then got up and rested again, only to swoop down on her again and possess her, and so on, ten times in the same way, while she, on her side, gave the finest and most delicate things that a woman gives to a man. After which, both fell fainting from annihilation. And they didn't move.
Me, I was amazed...
— Then Scheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.