THE SLEEPER AWAKENED
to him and say, 'Thou didst treat us right royally while thou wast rich: now that thou art poor, come and partake, in your turn, of our largesse,' By which you will perceive, O King, that he was not growing any older.
A whole year passed in riotous living and extravagant generosity. Then, finding the money exhausted, he called his boon companions and laid his case before them, expecting what he did not receive. Every one of them turned his back and left him with the utmost unconcern. Some called him a fool; others could not imagine what he had done with all his money: all took their leave and went their ways.
A sad man then was Abu Hasan and, like all sad men, he sought his mother.
'O my son,' said she, stroking his hair, 'was it not always so? Thou wast rich: they were thy friends. Thou art poor: where is their friendship? My son, thou hast sold it and paid for it thyself. Alas! learn from this never to put thy trust in the friends of thy purse.' And, with his head upon her lap, she wept over him bitterly.
A changed man then was Abu Hasan. He arose and went forth, no longer young, and withdrew from its safe keeping the remaining half of his fortune. With a part of this—being still a man of wealth—he purchased a mansion and filled it with all manner of delights till it was fit to charm the heart of the caliph himself; and there he dwelt in luxury, as befitted a man of his station. But, having purchased a fragment of wisdom at the price of half his original fortune, he resolved to make use of it. He would have done with friends and have to do only with strangers, and these, moreover, should remain strangers, for his associationship with any one of them should be for one night only;—at dawn 'Farewell! Henceforth I know you not; for I have been sorely bit by friends; by strangers never.'
In the evenings, when the purple twilight fell upon Baghdad, Abu Hasan would take up a position at the end of the great bridge, and there, sooner or later, he would accost a stranger, pressing upon
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