And behold, in came the bride attended by an old woman,
who stood at the door and said, "O Father of Uprightness, arise and
take what God giveth thee." Then the old woman went away and the
bride, Sitt al-Husn or the Lady of Beauty hight, entered the inner
part of the alcove brokenhearted and saying in herself, "By Allah, I
will never yield my person to him- no, not even were he to take my
life!"
But as she came to the further end she saw Badr al-Hasan and she
said, "Dearling! Art thou still sitting here? By Allah, I was
wishing that thou wert my bridegroom, or at least that thou and the
hunchbacked horsegroom were partners in me." He replied, "O
beautiful lady, how should the syce have access to thee, and how
should he share in thee with me?" "Then," quoth she, "who is my
husband, thou or he?" "Sitt al-Husn," rejoined Hasan, "we have not
done this for mere fun, but only as a device to ward off the evil
eye from thee. For when the tirewomen and singers and wedding guests
saw thy beauty being displayed to me, they feared fascination, and thy
father hired the horsegroom for ten dinars and a porringer of meat
to take the evil eye off us, and now he hath received his hire and
gone his gait.
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