herself and lamenting and when we returned with the Hashimi to
Bassorah we said to her, 'Leave this weeping and wailing.' Quoth
she, 'I will don black and make me a tomb beside the house and
abide there and repent from singing.'[FN#51] we allowed her so to
do and on this wise she abideth to this day. Then they carried me
to the Hashimi's house, where I saw the damsel as they had said.
When she espied me, she cried out a great cry, methought she had
died, and I embraced her with a long embrace. Then said the
Hashimi to me, 'Take her;' and I said, ''Tis well: but do thou
free her and according to thy promise marry her to me.'
Accordingly he did this and gave us costly goods and store of
raiment and furniture and five hundred dinars, saying, 'This is
the amount of that which I purpose to allow you every month, but
on condition that thou be my cup-companion and that I hear the
girl sing when I will.' Furthermore, he assigned us private
quarters and bade transport thither all our need; so, when I went
to the house I found it filled full of furniture and stuffs and
carried the damsel thither. Then I betook myself to the grocer
and told him all that had betided me, begging to hold me
guiltless for divorcing his daughter, without offence on her
part; and I paid her her dowry[FN#52] and what else behoved
me.[FN#53] I abode with the Hashimi in this way two years and
became a man of great wealth and was restored to the former
estate of prosperity wherein I had been at Baghdad, I and the
damsel. And indeed Allah the Bountiful put an end to our troubles
and loaded us with the gifts of good fortune and caused our
patience to result in the attainment of our desire: wherefore to
Him be the praise in this world and the next whereto we are
returning."[FN#54] And among the tales men tell is that of