So she went in to an
ouman's store which stood open still and bought her need of him and
said: "By thy life, O uncle, tell me what be the tidings in town
this day, that people have made all these decorations and every
house and market street are adorned and the troops all stand on
guard?" The oilman asked her, "O woman, I suppose thou art a stranger,
and not one of this city?" and she answered, "Nay, I am thy
townswoman." He rejoined: "Thou a townswoman, and yet wottest not that
this very night the son of the Grand Wazir goeth in to the Lady Badr
al-Budur, daughter of the Sultan! He is now in the hammam, and all
this power of soldiery is on guard and standing under arms to await
his coming forth, when they will bear him in bridal procession to the
palace, where the Princess expecteth him."
As the mother of Aladdin heard these words, she grieved and was
distraught in thought and perplexed how to inform her son of this
sorrowful event, well knowing that the poor youth was looking, hour by
hour, to the end of the three months. But she returned straightway
home to him, and when she entered she said, "O my son, I would give
thee certain tidings, yet hard to me will be the sorrow they shall
occasion thee.
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