Now Badr al-Din Hasan of Bassorah was sitting in full gaze of the
folk when the bride came forward with her graceful swaying and
swimming gait, and her hunchbacked bridegroom stood up to meet and
receive her. She, however, turned away from the wight and walked
forward till she stood before her cousin Hasan, the son of her
uncle. Whereat the people laughed. But when the wedding guests saw her
thus attracted toward Badr al-Din, they made a mighty clamor and the
singing women shouted their loudest. Whereupon he put his hand into
his pocket and, pulling out a handful of gold, cast it into their
tambourines, and the girls rejoiced and said, "Could we will our wish,
this bride were thine!" At this he smiled and the folk came round him,
flambeaux in hand, like the eyeball round the pupil, while the Gobbo
bridegroom was left sitting alone much like a tailless baboon. For
every time they lighted a candle for him it went out willy-nilly, so
he was left in darkness and silence and looking at naught but himself.
When Badr al-Din Hasan saw the bridegroom sitting lonesome in the
dark, and all the wedding guests with their flambeaux and wax
candles crowding about himself, he was bewildered and marveled much,
but when he looked at his cousin, the daughter of his uncle, he
rejoiced and felt an inward delight.
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