So I left the house and went to
my shop, where I sat buying and selling. About mid-day a great
ugly black slave came into the bazaar, having in his hand one of
the three apples, with which he was playing; so I called to him
and said, "Prithee, good slave, tell me whence thou hadst that
apple, that I may get the fellow to it." He laughed and answered,
"I had it of my mistress; for I had been absent and on my return
I found her lying ill, with three apples by her side: and she
told me that the cuckold her husband had made a journey for them
to Bassora, where he had bought them for three dinars. So I ate
and drank with her and took this one from her." When I heard
this, the world grew black in my eyes, and I rose and shut my
shop and went home, beside myself for excess of rage. I looked
for the apples and finding but two of them, said to my wife,
"Where is the third apple?" Quoth she, "I know not what is come
of it." This convinced me of the truth of the slave's story, so I
took a knife and coming behind her, without word said, got up on
her breast and cut her throat; after which I hewed her in pieces
and wrapping her in her veil and a piece of carpet, sewed the
whole up hurriedly in the basket. Then I put the basket in the
chest and locking it up, set it on my mule and threw it into the
Tigris with my own hands. So, God on thee, O Commander of the
Faithful, make haste to hang me, for I fear lest she sue for
vengeance on me at the Day of Resurrection! For when I had thrown
her into the river, unknown of any, I returned home and found my
eldest boy weeping, though he knew not what I had done with his
mother; and I said to him "Why dost thou weep, my son?" He
replied, "I took one of my mother's apples and went down with it
into the street to play with my brothers, when lo, a tall black
slave snatched it from my hand, saying, 'Whence hadst thou this?'
Quoth I, 'My father journeyed to Bassora for it and brought it to
my mother, who is ill, with two other apples for which he paid
three dinars.
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