“In sooth, she is sorely ill. She is on fire. We must find some remedy. Hast aught of her water?”
“That which she made last night is there,” said one of the attendants.
“Give it me,” said the mother.
She took the urine, and put it in a proper vessel, and told her son-in-law that she would show it to a physician, that he might know what he might do to her daughter to cure her.
“For God’s sake! spare naught!” she said. “I have still some money, but I love my daughter better than money.”
“Spare!” said he. “If money can help, I will not fail her.”
“When thou goest,[110] and while she is resting,” said the mother, “I will go home; but I will return an I am needed.”
Now it should be known that the old woman on the previous day, when she quitted her daughter, had instructed the physician, who was well aware of what he must say. So the young man carried his wife’s water to the physician, and, having saluted him, related how sick and suffering was his wife.
“And I have brought some of her water that thou mayest judge how sick she is, and the more easily cure her,” said the young man.
The physician took the vessel of urine, and, turning it about and examining it, said: