'You have been rightly served,' said I to myself, 'by the soul of Kerbelai Hassan, the barber! What well-fed hound ever went among wolves without being torn to pieces? What fool of a townsman ever risked himself amongst the wild Arabs of the desert without being robbed and beaten? Perhaps Hajji may one day become a wise man, but plentiful is the vexation he must eat first! Of what use is a beard,' said I, taking mine into my hand, 'when an empty sconce is tied to the end of it? about as much as a handle is to a basket without dates. Great wisdom had the sage who declared that no man was ever pleased with the elevation of his fellow, except perhaps when he saw him dangling on a gibbet!'
In this manner did I soliloquize until I reached my house, where, having retired to the harem, I endeavoured to seek repose for the remainder of the day, in order to chew the cud of my bitter reflections. But I was mistaken; for, to add to my misery, Shekerleb, my wife, as if impelled by some wicked demon, demanded that I should immediately advance her the money inserted in the marriage settlement for clothes, and so worked upon me by her very unreasonable entreaties, that, involving her in the ill-humour in which I had continued against my own countrymen, I poured forth the current of my feelings in language and gestures the most violent. Curses upon them and maledictions upon her came from my lips in horrid succession, until I, the once mild and patient Hajji, had become more furious than a Mazanderan lion.
My wife at first was all astonishment, and, as she drew herself up at the head of her slaves and handmaids, seconded by the old Ayesha, waited with impatient silence for an opportunity to speak. At length, when she had found utterance, her mouth appeared too small for the volume of words which flowed from it. Her volubility unloosed the tongue of Ayesha, and the old woman's those of all the other women, until there arose such a tempest of words and screams, all of which were directed against me, that I was nearly overwhelmed.
I would have resisted, but I found it impossible. It raged with such fury, that the room in which we all stood was not large enough to contain us. I was the first to seek shelter, and made a retreat from my harem amid the groans, the revilings, and the clapping of hands of the beings within it, who, with my wife at their head, looked more like maniacs than those fair creatures, in paradise, promised by our Prophet to all true believers.
Tired, jaded, and distressed by my day's adventures, I retired into my own apartment, locked the door, and there, though surrounded by and master of every luxury that man can enjoy, I felt myself the most miserable of beings, detesting myself for my idiotical conduct in the present posture of my affairs, and full of evil forebodings for the future. The inconveniences of lying now stared me full in the face. I felt that I was caught in my own snare; for if I endeavoured to extricate myself from my present dilemma by telling more lies, it was evident that at the end I should not fail to be entirely entangled.
'Would to Heaven,' did I exclaim, 'that I had been fair and candid at first; for now I should be free as air, and my wife might have stormed until the day of judgement, without being a single shift the better for it; but I am bound by writings, sealed and doubly sealed, and I must ever and shall stand before the world a liar both by word and deed.'
