Know then, O Commander of the Faithful, that my first brother, al-Bakbuk, the Prattler, is a hunchback who took to tailoring in Baghdad. He used to sew in a shop that he hired from a wealthy man who lived above it, and there was also a flour mill in the basement. One day, as my brother sat working in his shop, he happened to glance up and saw a lady like the rising full moon at a balconied window of his landlord's house, gazing out at the passersby. When he saw her, his heart was instantly captured by love, and he spent his whole day watching her, neglecting his tailoring until evening.

The next morning he opened his shop and sat down to sew, but every stitch he took, he looked up at the window and saw her still there. His passion and infatuation grew with each passing hour. On the third day, as he sat in his usual place watching her, she caught sight of him. Perceiving that he was captivated with love for her, she laughed openly at him, and he smiled back. Then she disappeared, but soon sent her slave girl to him with a bundle containing a piece of red flowered silk. The handmaid approached him and said, "My lady greets you and asks that you, being skilled and willing, fashion for her a shift from this piece and sew it beautifully with your best work." He replied, "I hear and I obey," and he cut and sewed a chemise for her that very day.

When morning came, the girl returned and said to him, "My lady greets you and asks how you have spent the night, for she has not slept, so taken is her heart with thoughts of you." She laid before him a piece of yellow satin and said, "My lady asks that you cut her two pairs of petticoat trousers from this piece and sew them this very day." "I hear and I obey!" he replied. "Give her my many greetings and tell her that her slave is obedient to her command—let her order him as she will." He set himself to cutting and sewing with great urgency, and after an hour the lady appeared at the lattice window. She greeted him with signs—now casting down her eyes, now smiling at him—and he began to feel certain that he would soon win her affection. She did not let him rest until he had finished both pairs of trousers. Then she withdrew, and the handmaid came to collect them and took them away. That night he threw himself on his carpet bed and lay tossing from side to side until morning. When he rose and took his place at his work, the slave girl soon appeared and said, "My master calls for you."

Hearing this, he was seized with fear, but the slave girl, seeing his distress, said to him, "Do not be afraid—no harm is meant to you. Only good awaits you. My lady wishes you to meet my lord." So my brother the tailor went with her, rejoicing greatly. When he came before his landlord, the lady's husband, he kissed the ground before him. The master of the house returned his greeting and gave him a large piece of linen, saying, "Make me shirts from this cloth and sew them well." My brother answered, "I hear and I obey." He worked without pause, cutting, shaping, and sewing until he had finished twenty shirts by supper time, without even pausing to eat. The house master asked him, "What is your wage for this work?" My brother answered, "Twenty dirhams." The gentleman called to the slave girl, "Bring me twenty dirhams," but my brother said nothing. The lady, however, made a sign that he should take nothing. So my brother said, "By God, I will take nothing from your hand." He gathered his tools and returned to his shop, though he had not a single coin to his name.

In his zeal and devotion to their service, he worked himself to exhaustion, eating only a small piece of bread and drinking only a little water for three days. When the handmaid came to him at the end of this time and asked, "What have you done?" he said, "They are finished." He carried the shirts to the lady's husband, who offered him his pay, but my brother refused, fearing to displease the lady. He returned to his shop and passed the night hungry and sleepless. What my brother did not know was that the lady had already told her husband the whole situation, and the two of them had agreed to make him work for nothing, the better to mock and laugh at him.

The next morning, as he worked in his shop, the handmaid came and said, "Speak with my master." My brother went with her, and the husband said to him, "I wish you to cut out five long-sleeved robes for me." My brother cut them out and took the fabric away. He sewed them carefully and brought them to the gentleman, who praised his work and offered him a purse of silver. My brother reached out to take it, but the lady signed to him from behind her husband not to. So he said, "My lord, there is no hurry. We have time enough for this matter." He left the house humbler and meeker than a donkey, for truly five things had come together in him: love, poverty, hunger, nakedness, and hard labour. Yet he comforted himself with the hope of winning the lady's favour.

When he had finished all their work, they played him yet another trick—they married him to their slave girl. But on the night when he expected to lie with her, they said to him, "Sleep this night in the mill, and tomorrow all will be well." My brother thought there must be some good reason for this and spent the night alone in the mill. What he did not know was that the husband had instructed the miller to make my brother work the mill instead of the ox. When midnight came, the miller entered and said to him, "Our bull has become useless and will not turn the mill. We have a great amount of corn that must be ground, and the people are impatient for their flour. By necessity, I will yoke you to do the work and you must finish the grinding by morning." He filled the hoppers with grain and, coming to my brother with a rope, tied it around his neck and said, "Come on now! Turn the mill! You, O bull, will do nothing but eat, sleep, and defecate!" Then he took a whip and began to beat my brother on his shoulders and legs. My brother howled and bellowed, but no one came to help him. He was forced to grind wheat through the night until dawn was near. Only then did the house master come in and, seeing my brother still yoked and being beaten, he turned away and left. At daybreak the miller went home, leaving my brother still bound to the yoke, half dead. Soon after, the slave girl came and untied him and said to him, "My lady and I are very sorry for what has happened. We have shared your suffering with you." But my brother had no voice to answer her, so exhausted was he from the beating and the mill work.

Later, he returned to his lodging, and the clerk who had drawn up the marriage contract came to him, greeting him with the words, "God bless you with a long life! May your marriage be blessed! Your face tells of pleasant nights and sweet embraces from dusk to dawn!" My brother, enraged, cried out, "God grant the liar no peace! By God, all I did was turn the mill in place of the ox all night until morning!" The clerk asked, "Tell me what happened," and my brother recounted everything that had befallen him. The clerk said, "Your star and her star do not agree. But if you wish, I can alter the marriage contract for you"—and he added, "But beware, lest another trick is not already being prepared for you." My brother answered him, "See if you cannot contrive some other solution."

The clerk left him, and my brother sat in his shop hoping someone would bring him work by which to earn his daily bread. Presently, the handmaid came and said, "Speak with my lady." He replied, "Go away, my good girl. There will be no more dealings between me and your lady." The handmaid returned to her mistress and told her what my brother had said. The lady then put her head out of the window, weeping, and cried, "Why, O my beloved, are there to be no more dealings between us?" But he made no answer. She wept and implored him, swearing that the mill incident was not her doing and that she was innocent of it all. When he looked upon her beauty and loveliness and heard the sweetness of her voice, the sorrow in his heart melted away. He accepted her excuse and felt joy at the sight of her again. He greeted her and spoke with her while he worked, and after a time the handmaid came and said, "My mistress greets you and tells you that her husband will spend the night away at the house of some close friends. When he has gone, come to us and spend the night with my lady in the greatest pleasure until morning."

What her husband had actually he asked was, "How shall we turn him away from you?" and she had answered, "Leave it to me—I will play him another trick and make him a laughing stock for the whole town." But my brother knew nothing of the wickedness that women can devise. As soon as darkness fell, the slave girl came to him and brought him to the house. When the lady saw him, she said, "By God, O my lord, I have been longing for you with great desire." "By God," he cried, "kiss me now before anything else!" He had hardly spoken when the lady's husband came from the next room and seized him, saying, "By God, I will not release you until I deliver you to the chief of the town watch!" My brother humbled himself and begged for mercy, but the husband would not listen. He dragged my brother before the Prefect, who gave him a hundred lashes with a whip. Then, mounting him on a camel, the Prefect paraded him through the city while the guards proclaimed aloud, "This is the reward for one who violates the homes of honourable men!"

During the procession, he fell from the camel and broke his leg, becoming lame. The Prefect then banished him from the city, and my brother went forth not knowing where to go. But I heard of his plight and, fearing for him, I went out after him. I brought him secretly back to the city, nursed him back to health, and took him into my own house, where he lives to this day.

The Caliph laughed at my story and said, "You have done well, O Samit, O Silent Man, you man of few words!" And he bade me take a gift and depart. But I said, "I will accept nothing from you unless I also tell you what befell my other brothers. Do not think me a man of many words." The Caliph agreed to hear