The Arabian Nights [495]
The Story of Syed Naomaun.
I shall not trouble your majesty with my birth, which is not illustrious enough to merit your attention. For my situation, my parents, by their good economy, left me enough to live on like an honest man, free from ambition, or being burdensome to any one.
With these advantages, the only blessing I wanted to render my happiness complete was an amiable wife, who might share them with me; but that was a blessing it did not please God to grant me: on the contrary, it was my misfortune to have one, who, the very next day after our wedding, began to exercise my patience in a manner not to be conceived by any one who has not had the same trial.
As it is the custom for us to marry without seeing or knowing whom we are to espouse, your majesty is sensible that a husband has no reason to complain, when he finds that the wife who has been chosen for him is not horribly ugly and deformed, and that her carriage, wit, and behaviour make amends for any slight bodily imperfections.
The first time I saw my wife with her face uncovered, after she was brought home with the usual ceremonies to my house, I rejoiced to find that I had not been imposed upon in the description of her person, which pleased me, and she was perfectly agreeable to my inclination.
The next day after our wedding, when our dinner was served up, which consisted of several dishes, I went into the room where the cloth was laid, and not finding my wife there, ordered her to be called. After making me wait a long time, she came. I dissembled my impatience, we sat down, and I began with the rice, which I took up as usual.
On the other hand, my wife, instead of using her hand as everybody does, pulled a little case out of her pocket, and took out of it a kind of bodkin, with which she picked up the rice, and put it into her mouth, grain by grain.
Surprised at this manner of eating, I said to her, "Ameeneh," (which was her name,) "are you used to eat rice so in your family, or do you do it because you are a little eater, or would you count the grains, that you may not eat more at one time than another? If you do it out of frugality, or to teach me not to be extravagant, you have no reason to fear, as I can assure you we shall not ruin ourselves that way. We have, God be thanked! enough to live at our ease, without depriving ourselves of necessaries. Do not restrain yourself, my dear Ameeneh, but eat as you see me eat." The kind manner in which I made these remonstrances might have produced some obliging answer; but she, without saying a word, continued to eat as she had begun. At last, to make me the more uneasy, she ate a grain of rice at intervals only; and instead of eating any of the other meats with me, she only now and then put some crumbs of bread into her mouth, but not so much as a sparrow would have pecked.
I was much provoked at her obstinacy; but yet, to indulge and excuse her, I imagined that she had not been used to eat with men, before whom she might perhaps have been taught to restrain herself; but at the same time thought she carried it too far out of pure simplicity.