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solace and of the accomplishment of my desire.’ Bersoum came up to the table and sitting down with the rest to eat, espied a dish of sweet rice, sprinkled with sugar; but it was far from him. So he pushed up to it and putting out his hand to it, took it and set it before himself. His next neighbour said to him, ‘Why dost thou not eat of what is before thee? Art thou not ashamed to reach over for a dish that is distant from thee?’ Quoth Bersoum, ‘I will eat of none but this dish.’ ‘Eat then,’ rejoined the other, ‘and small good may it do thee!’ But another man, a hashish-eater, said, ‘Let him eat of it, that I may eat with him.’ ‘O unluckiest of hashish-eaters,’ replied the first speaker, ‘this is no meat for thee; it is eating for Amirs. Let it be, that it may return to those for whom it is meant and they eat it.’
But Bersoum heeded him not and putting his hand to the rice, took a mouthful and put it in his mouth. He was about to take a second mouthful, when Zumurrud, who was watching him, cried out to certain of her guards, saying, ‘Bring me yonder man with the dish of sweet rice before him and let him not eat the mouthful he hath ready, but throw it from his hand.’ So four of the guards went up to Bersoum and throwing the mouthful of rice from his hand, haled him forthright before Zumurrud, whilst all the people left eating and said to one another, ‘By Allah, he did wrong in not eating of the food meant for the like of him.’ ‘For me,’ quoth one, ‘I was content with this frumenty that is before me.’ And the hashish-eater said, ‘Praised be God who hindered me from eating of the dish of sweet rice, for I looked for it to stand before him and was only waiting for him to have stayed his hunger of it, to eat with him, when there befell him what we see.’ And they said, one to another, ‘Wait till we see what befalls him.’
Then said Zumurrud to Bersoum, ‘Out on thee, O blue
