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beard and fell to crying out and saying, ‘[Help,] O Muslims!’
So the neighbours came in and freed his beard from her clutch and beset her with blame and reproved her, saying, ‘We are all content to eat vermicelli with cane-honey. Why, then, wilt thou oppress this poor man thus? Verily, this is disgraceful in thee!’ And they went on to soothe her till they made peace between him and her. But, when the folk were gone, she swore that she would not eat of the vermicelli, and Marouf, being consumed with hunger, said in himself, ‘She swears that she will not eat; so I will eat.’ Then he ate, and when she saw him eating, she said, ‘If it be the will of God, may the eating of it be poison to destroy some one’s[1] body!’ Quoth he, ‘It shall not be as thou sayest,’ and went on eating, laughing and saying, ‘Thou swearest that thou wilt not eat of this; but God is bountiful, and to-morrow night, if it be His will, I will bring thee vermicelli dressed with bees’ honey, and thou shalt eat it alone.’ And he addressed himself to appease her, whilst she called down curses upon him; and she ceased not to rail at him and revile him till the morning, when she bared her arm to beat him. Quoth he, ‘Give me time and I will bring thee other vermicelli.’
Then he went out to the mosque and prayed; after which he betook himself to his shop and opening it, sat down; but hardly had he done this when up came two officers from the Cadi’s court and said to him, ‘Come,
- ↑ The Arabs consider it a breach of manners, in telling a story, textually to repeat an imprecation, lest some person present apply it to himself, and therefore commonly substitute “the remote one” (el baïd) for the pronoun or name of the person cursed, an expression equivalent to our vulgar “present company excepted.” I have substituted the similar English expression “some one,” which sufficiently renders the Arabic idiom.
