"More Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dixons Version)
This princess, to whom Prince Firouz Schah so fortunately addressed himself, was the Princess of Bengal, eldest daughter of the king of that kingdom, who had built this palace at a small distance from his capital, whither she went to enjoy the country. After she had heard the prince, she replied with kindness: 'Prince, you are not in a barbarous country; take courage; hospitality, humanity, and politeness are to be met with in the kingdom of Bengal, as well as in that of Persia. It is not I who grant you the protection you ask; you may find it not only in my palace, but throughout the whole kingdom; you may believe me, and depend upon what I say.'
The Prince of Persia would have thanked the Princess of Bengal for her kindness, and the favour she did him, and had already bowed down his head, but she would not give him leave to speak. 'Notwithstanding my desire,' said she, 'to know by what miracle you have come hither from the capital of Persia in so short a time, and by what enchantment you have been able to come to my apartment, and to have escaped the vigilance of my guards; as you must want some refreshment I will waive my curiosity, and give orders to my women to regale you, and show you to a room where you may rest after your fatigue.'
The princess's women each took a wax candle, of which there were numbers in the room, and after the prince had taken leave very respectfully, they went before him, and conducted him into a handsome chamber, where, notwithstanding that it was so unseasonable an hour, they did not make Prince Firouz Schah wait long, but brought him all sorts of meat; and when he had eaten, they removed the table, and left him to repose.
In the meantime the Princess of Bengal was so struck with the intelligence, politeness, and other good qualities which she had discovered in that short conversation with the prince, that she could not sleep, but, when her women came into her room again, she asked them if they had taken care of him, and if he wanted anything, and particularly what they thought of him.
The women answered: 'We do not know what you may think of him, but, for our part, we think you would be very happy if the king your father would marry you to so amiable a prince, for there is not a prince in all the kingdom of Bengal to be compared to him, nor can we hear that any of the neighbouring princes are worthy of you.'
This flattering discourse was not displeasing to the Princess of Bengal, but she imposed silence upon them, telling them they talked without reflection.
Next day, the princess dressed herself very carefully, and sent to know if the Prince of Persia was awake, and charged the messenger to tell him she would pay him a visit.
The Prince of Persia by his night's rest had recovered from the fatigue he had undergone the day before, and when the lady-in-waiting had acquitted herself of her errand, he replied: 'It shall be as the princess thinks fit; I came here to be solely at her pleasure.'
As soon as the Princess of Bengal understood that the Prince of Persia waited for her, she immediately went to pay him a visit. After mutual compliments on both sides, the princess said: 'Through my impatience to hear the surprising adventure which procures me the happiness of seeing you, I chose to come hither that we may not be interrupted; therefore, I beg of you to oblige me.'
Prince Firouz Schah began his discourse with the solemn and annual feast of the Nevrouz, relating all the sights worthy of her curiosity which had amazed the court of Persia and the whole town of Schiraz. Afterwards he came to the enchanted horse; the description of which, with the account of the wonders which the Indian had performed on him before so august an assembly, and of what had happened to himself, convinced the princess that nothing of the kind could be imagined more surprising in all the world.
For two whole months Prince Firouz Schah remained the guest of the Princess of Bengal, taking part in all the amusements she arranged for him, as if he had nothing else to do but to pass his whole life in this manner. But after that time he declared seriously that he could not stay any longer, and begged her to give him leave to return to his father; repeating a promise he had made her to return soon in a style worthy of her and of himself, and to demand her in marriage of the King of Bengal.
'And, princess,' replied the Prince of Persia, 'that you may not doubt the truth of what I say, and that you may not ram: me among those false lovers who forget the object of their love as soon as they are absent from them; but to show that it is real, and that life cannot be pleasant to me when absent from so lovely a princess, I would presume, if I were not afraid you would be offended at my request, to ask the favour of taking you along with me to visit the king my father.'
The Princess of Bengal consented. The only difficulty was that the prince knew not very well how to manage the horse, and she was apprehensive of being involved with him in the same hind of perilous adventure as when he made the experiment. But the prince soon removed her fear, by assuring her that she might trust herself with him, for after the experience he had had, he defied the Indian himself to manage him better.
The next morning, a little before daybreak, they went out on the terrace of the palace. The prince turned the horse towards Persia, and placed him where the princess could easily get up behind him; which she had no sooner done, and was well settled with her arms round his waist, for better security, than he turned the peg, and the horse mounted into the air, and making his usual haste, under the guidance of the prince, in two hours' time the prince discovered the capital of Persia.
He would not alight at the great square from whence he had set out, nor in the sultan's palace, but directed his course towards a palace at a little distance from the town. He led the princess into a handsome apartment, where he told her that, to do her all the honour that was due, he would go and inform his father of their arrival, and return to her immediately. He ordered the housekeeper of the palace, who was then present, to provide the princess with whatever she had occasion for.
After the prince had taken his leave of the princess, he ordered a horse to be saddled, and after sending back the housekeeper to the princess with orders to provide her breakfast immediately, he set out for the palace. As he passed through the streets, he was received with acclamations by the people, who were overjoyed to see him again. The sultan his father was giving audience, when he appeared before him in the midst of his council, all of whom, as well as the sultan and the whole court, had been in mourning ever since he had been absent. The sultan received him, and embracing him with tears of joy and tenderness, asked him what had become of the Indian's horse.
This question gave the prince an opportunity to tell him of the embarrassment and danger he was in when the horse mounted into the air with him, and how he arrived at last at the Princess of Bengal's palace, and the kind reception he met with there: and how after promising to marry her, he had persuaded her to come with him to Persia. 'But, sir,' added the prince, 'I have promised that you would not refuse your consent, and have brought her with me on the Indian's horse, to a palace where your majesty often goes; and have left her there, till I could return and assure her that my promise was not in vain.'
After these words the prince prostrated himself before the sultan to gain his consent, but his father raised him up, embraced him a second time, and said: 'Son, I not only consent to your marriage with the Princess of Bengal, but will go and meet her myself, and thank her for the obligation I am under to her, and will bring her to my palace, and celebrate your wedding this day.'
Then the sultan gave orders for his court to go out of mourning, and make preparations for the princess's entry; that the rejoicings should begin with a grand concert of military music, and that the Indian should be fetched out of prison. When the Indian was brought before the sultan, he said to him, 'I secured thy person, that thy life might answer for that of the prince my son, whom, thank Heaven! I have found again; go, take your horse, and never let me see your face more.'
As the Indian had learned of those who fetched him out of prison that Prince Firouz Schah had returned, and had brought a princess behind him on his horse, and was also informed of the place where he had alighted and left her, and that the sultan was making preparations to go and bring her to his palace; as soon as he got out of the sultan's presence, he bethought himself of being beforehand with him and the prince, and, without losing any time, went direct to the palace, and addressing himself to the housekeeper told him that he came from the Sultan and Prince of Persia, to fetch the Princess of Bengal, and to carry her behind him through the air to the sultan, who waited in the great square of his palace to gratify the whole court and city of Schiraz with that wonderful sight.
The housekeeper, who knew the Indian, and knew that the sultan had imprisoned him, gave the more credit to what he said. because he saw that he was at liberty. He presented him to the Princess of Bengal, who no sooner understood that he came from the Prince of Persia, than she consented to what the prince, as she thought, desired of her.
The Indian, overjoyed at his success, and the ease with which he had accomplished his villainy, mounted his horse, took the princess behind him with the assistance of the housekeeper, turned the peg, and presently the horse mounted into the air with him and the princess.
At the same time the Sultan of Persia, followed by his court, was on the way from his own palace to the palace where the Princess of Bengal was left, and the Prince of Persia had ridden on before to prepare the Princess of Bengal to receive him, when the Indian, to defy them both and revenge himself for the ill-treatment he had received, passed over their heads with his prize.
When the Sultan of Persia saw this, he stopped. His surprise and affliction were the more keen because it was not in his power to make him repent of so outrageous an affront. He loaded him with a thousand imprecations, as also did all the courtiers, who were witnesses of so signal a piece of insolence and unparalleled villainy.
But what was Prince Firouz Schah's grief to see the Indian carry away the Princess of Bengal, whom he loved so dearly that he could not live without her! At so unexpected a sight he was thunderstruck, and before he could make up his mind whether he should let fly all the reproaches his rage could invent against the Indian, or bewail the deplorable fate of the princess, or ask her pardon for not taking better care of her, the horse was out of sight. He could not resolve what to do, and so continued his way to the palace where he had left his princess.
When he came there, the housekeeper, who was by this time convinced that he had been deceived by the Indian, threw himself at his feet with tears in his eyes, and accused himself of the crime which he thought he had committed, and condemned himself to die.
'Rise up,' said the prince to him, 'I do not impute the loss of my princess to thee, but to my own folly. But do not lose time, fetch me a dervish's robe, and take care you do not give the least hint that it is for me.'
Not far from this palace there stood a convent of dervishes, the sheik or superior of which was the palace-keeper's particular friend. He went to this sheik, and telling him that it was for an officer at court, a man to whom he had been much obliged and wished to favour by giving him an opportunity to withdraw from the sultan's rage, he easily got a complete dervish's suit of clothes, and carried it to Prince Firouz Schah. The prince immediately pulled off his own clothes, and put them on; and being so disguised, and provided with a box of jewels, which he had brought as a present to the princess, he left the palace in the evening, uncertain which way to go, but resolved not to return till he had found out his princess, and brought her back again.
But to return to the Indian: he managed his enchanted horse so well that day, that he arrived early in the evening at a wood near the capital of the kingdom of Cashmire. Being hungry, and inferring that the princess was hungry also, he alighted in an open part of the wood, and left the princess on a grassy spot, by a rivulet of clear fresh water.
During the Indian's absence, the Princess of Bengal, who knew that she was in the power of a base deceiver, whose violence she dreaded, thought of getting away from him, and seeking a sanctuary. But as she had eaten scarcely anything on her arrival at the palace in the morning, she was so faint that she was forced to abandon her plan, and to stay where she was, without any other resource than her courage, and a firm resolution to suffer death rather than be unfaithful to the Prince of Persia. When the Indian returned, she did not wait to be asked twice, but ate with him, and recovered herself enough to reply with courage to the insolent language he began to use to her when they had done. After a great many threats, as she saw that the Indian was preparing to use violence, she rose up to make resistance, and, by her cries and shrieks, drew about them a company of horsemen, who happened to be the Sultan of Cashmire and his attendants, returning from hunting.
The sultan addressed himself to the Indian, and asked him who he was, and what he presumed to do to the lady? The Indian, with great impudence, replied that she was his wife; and what had anyone to do with his quarrel with her?
The princess, who knew neither the rank nor the quality of the person who came so seasonably to her relief, told the Indian he was a liar; and said to the sultan, 'Sir, whoever you are that Heaven has sent to my assistance, have compassion on a princess, and give no credit to that impostor. Heaven forbid that I should be the wife of so vile and despicable an Indian! a wicked magician, who has taken me away from the Prince of Persia, to whom I was going to be married, and has brought me hither on the enchanted horse you see.'
The Princess of Bengal had no occasion to say any more to persuade the Sultan of Cashmire that she told him the truth. Her beauty, majestic air, and tears spoke sufficiently for her. Justly enraged at the insolence of the Indian, the Sultan of Cashmire ordered his guards to surround him, and cut off his head: which sentence was immediately executed, as the Indian, just released from prison, was unprovided with any weapon to defend himself.
The princess, thus delivered from the persecution of the Indian, fell into another no less afflicting to her. The sultan, after he had ordered her a horse, carried her with him to his palace, where he lodged her in the most magnificent apartment, next his own, and gave her a great number of women-slaves to attend her, and a guard. He showed her himself into the apartment he assigned her; where, without giving her time to thank him, he said, 'As I am certain, princess, that you must want rest, I will here take my leave of you till to-morrow, when you will be better able to give me all the circumstances of this strange adventure;' and then left her.
The Princess of Bengal's joy was inexpressible, to find that she was so soon freed from the violence of a man she could not look upon without horror. She flattered herself that the Sultan of Cashmire would complete his generosity by sending her back to the Prince of Persia when she told him her story, and asked that favour of him; but she was very much deceived in these hopes, for the Sultan of Cashmire resolved to marry her the next day; and to that end had ordered rejoicings to be made by daybreak, by beating of drums and sounding of trumpets and other instruments; which echoed not only through the palace, but throughout the city.
The Princess of Bengal was awakened by these tumultuous concerts; but attributed them to a very different cause from the true one. When the Sultan of Cashmire, who had given orders that he should be informed when the princess was ready to receive a visit, came to enquire after her health, he told her that all those rejoicings were to render their wedding more solemn; and at the same time desired her to approve. This discourse put her into such consternation that she fainted away.
The women-slaves, who were present, ran to her assistance; and the sultan did all he could to bring her to herself again, though it was a long time before they could. But when she recovered, rather than break the promise she had made to Prince Firouz Schah, by consenting to marry the Sultan of Cashmire, who had proclaimed their wedding before he had asked her consent, she resolved to feign madness. She began to say the most extravagant things before the sultan, and even rose off her seat to fly at him; insomuch that the sultan was very much surprised and afflicted that he should have made such a proposal so unseasonably.
When he found that her frenzy rather increased than abated, he left her with her women, charging them never to leave her alone, but to take great care of her. He sent often that day to know how she was; but received no other answer than that she was rather worse than better. In short, at night she seemed much worse than she had been all day.
The Princess of Bengal continued to talk wildly, and show other marks of a disordered mind, next day and the following ones; so that the sultan was obliged to send for all the physicians belonging to his court, to consult them about her disease, and to ask them if they could cure her.
The physicians all agreed that there were several sorts and degrees of this distemper, some curable and others not; and told the sultan that they could not judge of the Princess of Bengal's malady unless they saw her: upon which the sultan ordered the chamberlain to introduce them into the princess's chamber, one after another, according to their rank.
The princess, who foresaw what would happen, and feared that, if she let the physicians come near her to feel her pulse, the least experienced of them would soon know that she was in a good state of health, and that her madness was only feigned, flew into such a rage and passion that she was ready to tear out their eyes if they came near her; so none of them dared approach her.
Some of them, who pretended to be more skilful than the rest, and boasted of judging of diseases only by sight, ordered her some medicines, which she made less objection to take, well knowing she could be ill or well at pleasure, and that they could do her no harm.
When the Sultan of Cashmire saw that his court physicians could not cure her, he called in the most noted and experienced in the city, who had no better success. Afterwards he sent for the most famous in the kingdom, who met with no better reception than the others from the princess, and what they ordered had no better effect. Afterwards he despatched messengers to the courts of neighbouring princes, with a description of the princess's case, to be distributed among the most famous physicians, with a promise of a handsome reward, besides travelling expenses, to any who should come and cure the Princess of Bengal.
A great many physicians came from all parts, and undertook the cure; but none of them could boast of better success than their fellows, since it was a case that did not depend on their skill, but on the will of the princess herself.
During this interval, Prince Firouz Schah, disguised in the habit of a dervish, had travelled through a great many provinces and towns, full of grief, and having endured much fatigue, not knowing which way to direct his course, or whether he was not taking the very opposite road to the right one to hear the tidings he sought. He made diligent inquiry after her at every place he came to; till at last passing through a great town in India, he heard the people talk very much of a Princess of Bengal, who went mad on the day of her marriage with the Sultan of Cashmire. At the name of the Princess of Bengal, and supposing that there was no other Princess of Bengal than she upon whose account he undertook his travels, he set out for the kingdom of Cashmire, and on his arrival at the capital he went and lodged at a khan, where the same day he was told the story of the Princess of Bengal, and the unhappy fate of the Indian, which he richly deserved. By all the circumstances, the prince knew he could not be deceived, but that she was the princess he had sought after so long.
The Prince of Persia, being informed of all these particulars provided himself with a physician's robe, and, having let his beard grow during his travels, he passed for a physician; and, through the greatness of his impatience to see his princess, went to the sultan's palace. Here, presenting himself to the chief of the officers, he told him that perhaps it might be looked upon as a very bold undertaking in him to offer to attempt the cure of the princess after so many had failed; but that he hoped some specifics, which he had had great experience of and success from, would effect the cure. The chief of the officers told him he was very welcome, that the sultan would receive him with pleasure, and that if he should have the good fortune to restore the princess to her former health, he might expect a liberal reward from the sultan his master. 'Wait a moment,' added he, 'I will come to you again presently.'
It was a long time since any physician had offered himself; and the Sultan of Cashmire, with great grief, had begun to lose all hope of ever seeing the Princess of Bengal restored to her former health, that he might marry her. He ordered the officer to bring in the physician he had announced.
The Prince of Persia was presented to the Sultan of Cashmire in the robe and disguise of a physician, and the sultan, without wasting time in superfluous discourse, after having told him that the Princess of Bengal could not bear the sight of a physician without falling into the most violent transports, which increased her illness, took him into a private room, from whence, through a window, he might see her without being seen.
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