236
done eating, I poured water on his hand and gave him wherewith to wipe it. Then we sat talking, after I had set sweetmeats before him, and I said to him, “O my lord, I prithee relieve my mind by telling me why thou eatest with thy left hand. Belike something ails thy right hand?” When he heard my words, he recited the following verses:
Ask not, I prithee, my friend, of the anguish that burns in my heart: ’Twould but the infirmities show that now in my bosom lie hid.
If with Selma I company now and harbour with Leila no more, Believe me, ’tis none of my will; needs must, if necessity bid.
Then he drew his right arm out from his sleeve, and behold, it was a stump without a hand, the latter having been cut off at the wrist. I was astonished at this, and he said to me, “Thou seest that my eating with the left hand arose, not from conceit, but from necessity; and there hangs a strange story by the cutting off of my right hand.” “And how came it to be cut off?” asked I. “Know,” answered he, “that I am a native of Baghdad and the son of one of the principal men of that city. When I came to man’s estate, I heard the pilgrims and travellers and merchants talk of the land of Egypt, and this abode in my thought till my father died, when I laid out a large sum of money in the purchase of stuffs of Baghdad and Mosul, with which I set out on my travels and God decreed me safety, till I reached this your city.” And he wept and recited the following verses:
It chances oft that the blind man escapes a pit, Whilst he that is clear of sight falls into it:
The ignorant man can speak with impunity A word that is death to the wise and the ripe of wit:
The true believer is pinched for his daily bread, Whilst infidel rogues enjoy all benefit.
What is a man’s resource and what shall he do? It is the Almighty’s will: we must submit.
“So I entered Cairo,” continued he, “and put up at the
