"That satisfaction," replied the husband, "I cannot afford you. I can only tell you that I laughed at what the ass said to the ox; the rest is a secret, which I must not reveal."
"And why not?" asked his wife.
"Because, if I tell you, it will cost me my life."
"You trifle with me," added she; "this can never be true; and if you do not immediately inform me what you laughed at, I swear by Allah that we will live together no longer."
In saying this, she went back to the house in a pet, shut herself up, and cried the whole night. Her husband, finding that she continued in the same state all the next day, said, "How foolish it is to afflict yourself in this way! Do I not seriously tell you, that if I were to yield to your foolish importunities, it would cost me my life?"
"Whatever happens rests with Allah," said she; "but I shall not alter my mind."
"I see very plainly," answered the merchant, "it it not possible to make you submit to reason, and that your obstinacy will kill you."
He then sent for the parents and other relations of his wife; when they were all assembled, he explained to them his motives for calling them together, and requested them to use all their influence with his wife, and endeavor to convince her of the folly of her conduct. She rejected them all, and said she had rather die than give up this point to her husband. When her children saw that nothing could alter her resolution, they began to lament most bitterly—the merchant himself knew not what to do.
A little while afterward he was sitting by chance at the door of his house, considering whether he should not even sacrifice himself in order to save his wife, whom he so tenderly loved, when he saw his favorite dog run up to the cock in the farmyard, and tell him all the circumstances of the painful situation in which he was placed. Upon which the cock said, "How foolish must our master be. He has but one wife, and cannot gain his point, while I have fifty, and do just as I please. Let him take a good-sized stick, and not scruple to use it, and she will soon know better, and not worry him to reveal what he ought to keep secret."
The merchant at once did as he suggested, on which his wife quickly repented of her ill-timed curiosity, and all her family came in, heartily glad at finding her more rational and submissive to her husband.