Aladdin, who believed himself innocent, was very much surprised at this announcement and asked the officer if he knew of what crime he was accused, to which the officer answered that neither he nor his men knew anything about it. When he saw how few his own men were compared to the horsemen in the detachment and how they were now moving away from him, he dismounted. ‘Here I am,’ he said. ‘Carry out your order. I have to say, though, that I don’t believe I am guilty of any crime, either against the sultan himself or against the state.’ A very long, thick chain was immediately passed around his neck and tied around his body in such a manner as to bind his arms. Then the officer went ahead to lead the detachment, while a horseman took the end of the chain and, following the officer, led Aladdin, who was forced to follow him on foot. In this manner, Aladdin was led towards the city.
When the horsemen entered the outskirts, the first people who saw Aladdin being led as a criminal were convinced he was going to have his head chopped off. As he was held in general affection, some took hold of their swords or other weapons, while those who had no weapons armed themselves with stones, and they followed the detachment. Some horsemen in the rear turned round to face the people as though to disperse them; but the crowd quickly grew to such an extent that the horsemen decided on a stratagem, being concerned to get as far as the sultan’s palace without Aladdin being snatched from them. To succeed in this, they took great care to take up the entire street as they passed, now spreading out, now closing up again, according to whether the street was broad or narrow. In this way, they reached the palace square, where they all drew themselves up in a line facing the armed populace, until their officer and the horseman who led Aladdin had entered the palace and the doorkeepers had shut the gate to stop the people entering.
Aladdin was led before the sultan, who was waiting for him on the balcony, accompanied by the grand vizier. As soon as he saw him, the sultan immediately commanded the executioner, whom he had ordered to be present, to chop off his head, without wanting to listen to Aladdin or receive an explanation from him. The executioner seized Aladdin and removed the chain which he had around his neck and body. On the ground he spread a leather mat stained with the blood of the countless criminals he had executed and made him kneel on it before tying a bandage over his eyes. He then drew his sword, sized him up before administering the blow and, after flourishing the sword in the air three times, sat down, waiting for the sultan to give the signal to cut off Aladdin’s head.
At that moment, the grand vizier noticed that the crowd, who had broken through the horsemen and filled the square, were scaling the palace walls in several places and were beginning to demolish them in an attempt to breach them. Before the sultan could give the signal to the executioner, the vizier said to him: ‘Sire, I beseech your majesty to reflect carefully on what you are about to do. You will run the risk of seeing your palace stormed, and should such a disaster occur, the outcome could be fatal.’ ‘My palace stormed!’ exclaimed the sultan. ‘Who would be so bold?’ ‘Sire,’ replied the vizier, ‘if your majesty were to cast a glance towards the walls of your palace and towards the square, you would discover the truth of what I say.’
On seeing the excited and animated mob, the sultan was so terrorstricken that he instantly commanded the executioner to put away his sword in its sheath and to remove the bandage from Aladdin’s eyes and let him go free. He also ordered the guards to proclaim that the sultan was pardoning him and that everyone should go away. As a result, all the men who had already climbed on top of the palace walls, seeing what had happened, now abandoned their plan. They very quickly climbed down and, filled with joy at having saved the life of a man they truly loved, they spread the news to everyone around them and from there it soon spread to all the crowd assembled in the palace square. And when the guards proclaimed the same thing from the top of the terraces to which they had climbed, it became known to all. The justice the sultan had done Aladdin by pardoning him pacified the mob; the tumult died down and gradually everyone went home.
Finding himself free, Aladdin looked up at the balcony and, seeing the sultan, cried out in an affecting manner to him: ‘Sire, I beseech your majesty to add one more favour to the one you have already granted me and to let me know what crime I have committed.’ ‘Crime! You don’t know your crime?’ exclaimed the sultan. ‘Come up here and I’ll show you.’
Aladdin went up on to the balcony, where the sultan told him to follow him, and without looking back, led him to his closet. When he reached the door, the sultan turned to him, saying: ‘Enter. You ought to know where your palace stood; look all around and then tell me what has happened to it.’ Aladdin looked and saw nothing. He could see the whole area which his palace had occupied but, having no idea how the palace could have disappeared, this extraordinary event put him into such a state of confusion that in his astonishment he could not utter a single word in reply.
‘Go on, tell me where your palace is and where my daughter is,’ the sultan repeated impatiently. Aladdin broke his silence, saying: ‘Sire, I see very well and have to admit that the palace I built is no longer where it was. I see that it has disappeared but I cannot tell your majesty where it can be. I can assure you, however, that I had no part in this.’ ‘I am not so concerned about what happened to your palace,’ the sultan continued. ‘My daughter is a million times more valuable to me and I want you to find her for me, otherwise I will cut off your head and nothing will stop me.’
‘Sire,’ replied Aladdin, ‘I beg your majesty to grant me forty days’ grace to do all I can, and if in that time I don’t succeed in finding her, I give you my word that I will offer my head at the foot of your throne so you can dispose of it as you please.’ ‘I grant you the forty days you ask for,’ answered the sultan, ‘but don’t think to abuse this favour by believing you can escape my anger, for I will know how to find you, in whatever corner of the earth you may be.’
Aladdin left the sultan, deeply humiliated and in a truly pitiful state: with head bowed, he passed through the palace courtyards without daring to raise his eyes in his confusion. Of the chief court officials, whom he had treated graciously and who had been his friends, not one for all their friendship went up to him to console him or to offer to take him in, but they turned their backs on him as much to avoid seeing him as to avoid being recognized by him. But even had they gone up to Aladdin to say something consoling to him or to offer to help him, they would not have known him, for he no longer knew himself, being no longer in his right mind. This was evident when he came out of the palace, as, without thinking what he was doing, he went from door to door and asked passersby, enquiring of them whether they had seen his palace or could give him any news of it. Consequently, everyone became convinced that Aladdin had gone out of his mind. Some only laughed, but the more reasonable, and in particular those linked to him either by friendship or business, were filled with compassion. He stayed three days in the city – walking hither and thither and only eating what people offered him out of charity – unable to decide what to do.
Finally, in the wretched state he was in and feeling he could no longer stay in a city where he had once cut such a fine figure, he left and went out into the countryside. Avoiding the main roads and after crossing several fields in a state of great uncertainty, eventually, at nightfall, he came to the bank of a river. There, greatly despondent, he said to himself: ‘Where shall I go to look for my palace? In which province, which country or part of the world shall I find it and recover my dear princess, as the sultan demands of me? I will never succeed. It’s best if I don’t go to all of this wearisome effort, which will in any case come to nothing, but free myself of all this bitter grief that torments me.’ Having made this resolution, he was on the point of throwing himself into the river but, being a good and faithful Muslim, he thought he ought not to do this before first performing his prayers. Wishing to prepare himself, he approached the river in order to wash his hands and face according to custom, but as the bank sloped at that point and was damp from the water lapping against it, he slipped and would have fallen into the river had he not been stopped by a small rock which protruded about two feet above the ground. Fortunately for him, he was still wearing the ring which the magician had put on his finger before he had gone down into the cave to remove the precious lamp that had now been taken away from him. As he caught hold of the rock, he rubbed the ring quite hard against it and immediately the same jinni who had first appeared to him in the cave in which the magician had shut him up appeared once again, saying: ‘What is your wish? Here am I, ready to obey you, your slave and the slave of all those who wear the ring on their finger, I and the other slaves of the ring.’
Delighted at this apparition, which he had so little expected in his despair, Aladdin replied: ‘Save me a second time, jinni, and either tell me where the palace I built is or bring it back immediately to where it was.’ ‘What you ask of me,’ replied the jinni, ‘is not within my power to bring back; I am only the slave of the ring. You must address yourself to the slave of the lamp.’ ‘If that’s the case,’ said Aladdin, ‘I command you, by the power of the ring, to transport me to the place where my palace is, wherever it is in the world, and set me down underneath the windows of Princess Badr.’ Hardly had he finished speaking than the jinni transported him to Africa, to the middle of a meadow where the palace stood, not far from a large town, and set him down right underneath the windows of the princess’s apartments, where he left him. All this happened in a moment. Despite the darkness of the night, Aladdin easily recognized his palace and the princess’s apartments; but as the night was already advanced and all was quiet in the palace, he moved off a little way and sat down at the foot of a tree. There, filled with hope as he reflected on the pure chance to which he owed his good fortune, he found himself in a much more peaceful state than he had been in since the time when he had been arrested and brought before the sultan and had been delivered from the recent danger of losing his life. For a while he entertained himself with these agreeable thoughts but eventually, not having slept at all for five or six days, he could not stop himself being overwhelmed by sleep and fell asleep at the foot of the tree where he was sitting.
The next morning, as dawn was breaking, Aladdin was pleasantly awoken by the singing of the birds, not only those that roosted on the tree beneath which he had spent the night but all those on the luxuriant trees in the very garden of his palace. When he cast his eyes on that wonderful building, he felt a joy beyond words at the thought that he would soon be its master once more and possess once again his dear princess. He got up and, approaching the princess’s apartments, walked for a while underneath her windows until it was light and he could see her. As he waited, he searched his mind for a possible cause for his misfortune, and after much thought he became convinced that it all came from his having left the lamp out of his sight. He blamed himself for his negligence and his carelessness in letting it leave his possession for a single moment. What worried him still more was that he could not imagine who could be so jealous as to envy him his good fortune. He would have soon guessed had he known that such a man and his palace were both in Africa, but the slave of the ring had not mentioned this, while he himself had not even asked about it. The name of Africa alone should have reminded him of the magician, his avowed enemy.
That morning, Princess Badr arose earlier than she had done ever since the wily magician – now the master of the palace, the sight of whom she had been forced to endure once a day but whom she treated so harshly that he had not yet been so bold as to take up residence there – had by his cunning kidnapped her and carried her off to Africa. When she was dressed, one of her slave girls, looking through the lattice screen, spotted Aladdin and ran to tell her mistress. The princess, who could not believe the news, rushed to the window and saw her husband. She opened the screen and, hearing the sound, Aladdin raised his head. Recognizing her, he greeted her with great delight. ‘So as to waste no time, someone has gone to open the secret door for you; enter and come up,’ said the princess and closed the screen.
The secret door was beneath the princess’s apartments. Finding it open, Aladdin entered and went up. It is impossible to describe the intensity of their joy at their reunion after believing themselves parted for ever. They embraced several times and showed all the signs of love and affection one can imagine after such a sad and unexpected separation. After many an embrace mingled with tears of joy, they sat down. Aladdin was the first to speak: ‘Before we talk about anything else, dear princess, I beg you, in the Name of God, in your own interest and that of your worthy father, the sultan, and no less of mine, to tell me what has happened to the old lamp that I put on the cornice in the room of the twenty-four windows before I went off to hunt.’ ‘Ah, my dear husband!’ sighed the princess. ‘I did indeed suspect that all our troubles came from the loss of that lamp and what distresses me is that I myself am the cause of it.’ ‘Dear princess,’ said Aladdin, ‘don’t blame yourself; it’s all my fault and I should have taken greater care in looking after it. Let’s now think only about how to repair the damage, and so please be so good as to tell me how it happened and into whose hands the lamp fell.’
The princess then proceeded to tell Aladdin how the old lamp had been exchanged for a new one, which she ordered to be brought in for him to see; and how the following night she had found the palace had been transported and, the next morning, she woke to find herself in an unknown country, where she was now talking to him, and that this was Africa, a fact she had learned from the very mouth of the traitor who had transported her there by his magic arts.
‘Dear princess,’ Aladdin interrupted her, ‘you have already told me who the traitor is by explaining that I am with you in Africa. He is the most perfidious of all men. But now is not the time nor the place to give you a fuller picture of his evil deeds. I only ask you to tell me what he has done with the lamp and where he has put it.’ ‘He carries it with him carefully wrapped up close to his chest,’ the princess answered, ‘and I can bear witness to that since he pulled it out and unwrapped it in my presence in order to show it off.’
‘Princess, please don’t be annoyed with me for wearying you with all these questions,’ said Aladdin, ‘for they are as important to you as they are to me. But to come to what most particularly concerns me, tell me, I beg you, how you yourself have been treated by this wicked and treacherous man.’ ‘Since I have been here,’ replied the princess, ‘he only visits me once a day, and I am sure that he does not bother me more often because these visits offer him so little satisfaction. Every time he comes, the aim of all his conversation is to persuade me to break the vows I gave you and to make me take him for my husband, by trying to make me believe that I should not hope ever to see you again; that you are no longer alive and that the sultan, my father, has had your head chopped off. He adds, to justify himself, that you are ungrateful and that you owed your good fortune only to him, and there are a thousand other things I will leave him to tell you. And as all he gets from me in reply are tears and moans, he is forced to depart as little satisfied as when he came. However, I have no doubt that his intention is to let the worst of my grief and pain pass, in the hope that I will change my mind, and, finally, if I persist in resisting him, to use violence. But, dear husband, your presence has already dispelled my worries.’
‘Princess,’ said Aladdin, ‘I am confident that it is not in vain and your worries are over, for I believe I have found a way to deliver you from your enemy and mine. But to do that, I have to go into the town. I will return towards noon and will then tell you what my plan is and what you will need to do to help make it succeed. I must warn you not to be astonished if you see me return dressed in different clothes, but give the order not to have me kept waiting at the secret door after my first knock.’ The princess promised him that someone would be waiting for him at the door, which would be opened promptly.
When Aladdin had gone down from the princess’s apartments, leaving by the same door, he looked around and saw a peasant who was setting off on the road which led into the country. The peasant had already gone past the palace and was a little way off, so Aladdin hastened his steps; when he had caught up with him, he offered to change clothes with him, pressing him until the peasant finally agreed. The exchange was done behind a nearby bush; and when they had parted company, Aladdin took the road back to the town. Once there, he went along the road leading from the city gate and then passed into the most frequented streets. On coming to the place where all the merchants and artisans had their own particular street, he entered that of the apothecaries where he sought out the largest and best-supplied store and asked the merchant if he had a certain powder which he named.
The merchant, who, from his clothes, imagined Aladdin to be poor and that he had not enough money to pay him, said he had but that it was expensive. Aladdin, guessing what was on the merchant’s mind, pulled out his purse and, showing him gold coins, asked for half a drachm of the powder. The merchant weighed it out, wrapped it up and, as he gave it to Aladdin, asked him for a gold coin. Aladdin handed it to him and, stopping only long enough in the town to eat something, he returned to his palace. He did not have to wait at the secret door, which was immediately opened to him, and he went up to the princess’s apartments.
‘Princess,’ he said, ‘the aversion you have shown me you feel for your kidnapper will perhaps make it difficult for you to follow the advice I’m going to give you. But allow me to tell you that it is advisable that you should conceal this and even go against your own feelings if you wish to deliver yourself from his persecution and give the sultan, your father and my lord, the satisfaction of seeing you again. If you want to follow my advice,’ continued Aladdin, ‘you must begin right now by putting on one of your most beautiful dresses, and when the magician comes, you must be prepared to welcome him as warmly as possible, without affectation or strain, and with a happy smile, in such a way that, should there still remain a hint of sadness, he will think it will go away with time. In your conversation, give him to understand that you are doing your best to forget me; and so that he should be all the more persuaded of your sincerity, invite him to have supper with you and indicate to him that you would be very pleased to taste some of the best wine his country has to offer. He will then have to leave you to go and find some. Then, while waiting for him to return, when the food is laid out, pour this powder into one of the goblets out of which you usually drink. Put it aside and tell the slave girl who serves you your drink to bring it to you filled with wine after you have given her a pre-arranged signal. Warn her to take care and not to make a mistake. When the magician returns and you are seated at table and when you have eaten and drunk what you think is sufficient, ask for the goblet containing the powder to be brought to you and exchange it for his. He will think you will be doing him such a favour that he won’t be able to refuse you, but no sooner will he have emptied it than you will see him fall down backwards. If you don’t like drinking from his goblet, just pretend to drink; you can do so without fear, for the effect of the powder will be so swift that he won’t have time to notice whether you are drinking or not.’
When Aladdin had finished speaking, the princess said: ‘I must admit I find it very distasteful to have to agree to make advances towards the magician, even though I know I must; but what can one not resolve to do when faced with a cruel enemy! I will do as you advise me, for on it depends my peace of mind no less than yours.’ Having made these arrangements with the princess, Aladdin took his leave and went to spend the rest of the day near the palace, waiting for night to fall before returning to the secret door.
From the moment of her painful separation, Princess Badr – inconsolable not only at seeing herself separated from her beloved husband, Aladdin, whom she had loved and whom she continued to love more out of inclination than out of duty, but also from the sultan, her father, whom she cherished and who loved her tenderly – had remained very neglectful of her person. She had even, one may say, forgotten the neatness which so becomes persons of her sex, particularly after the first time the magician had come to her and she discovered through her slave girls, who recognized him, that it was he who had taken the old lamp in exchange for a new one. Following her discovery of this outrageous swindle, he had become an object of horror to her, and the opportunity to take the revenge on him that he deserved, and sooner than she had dared hope for, made her content to fall in with Aladdin’s plans. Thus, as soon as he had gone, she sat down at her dressing table; her slave girls dressed her hair in the most becoming fashion and she took out her most glamorous dress, searching for the one which would best serve her purpose. She then put on a belt of gold mounted with the largest of diamonds, all beautifully matched; to go with it she chose a necklace all of pearls, of which the six on both sides of the central pearl – which was the largest and the most precious – were so proportioned that the greatest queens and the wives of the grandest sultans would have thought themselves happy to have a string of pearls the size of the two smallest pearls in the princess’s necklace. The bracelets of diamonds interspersed with rubies wonderfully complemented the richness of the belt and the necklace.
When the princess was fully dressed, she looked in her mirror and consulted her maids for their opinion on her dress. Then, having checked that she lacked none of the charms which might arouse the magician’s mad passion, she sat down on the sofa to await his arrival.
The magician came at his usual hour. As soon as she saw him come into the room of the twenty-four windows where she awaited him, she arose apparelled in all her beauty and charm, and showed him to the place of honour where she wanted him to take his seat so as to sit down at the same time as he did, a mark of courtesy she had not shown him before. The magician, more dazzled by the beauty of the princess’s sparkling eyes than by the brilliance of the jewellery with which she was adorned, was very surprised. Her stately air and a certain grace with which she welcomed him were so different from the rebuffs he had up till then received from her. In his confusion, he would have sat down on the edge of the sofa but, seeing the princess did not want to take her seat until he had sat down where she wished him to, he obeyed.
Once the magician was seated where she had indicated, the princess, to help him out of the embarrassment she could see he was in, was the first to speak. Looking at him in such a manner as to make him believe that he was no longer odious to her, as she had previously made him out to be, she said: ‘No doubt you are astonished to see me appear so different today compared to what you have seen of me up till now. But you will no longer be surprised when I tell you that sadness and melancholy, griefs and worries, are not part of my nature, and that I try to dispel such things as quickly as possible when I discover there is no longer a reason for them. Now, I have been thinking about what you told me of Aladdin’s fate and, knowing my father’s temper, I am convinced as you are that Aladdin cannot have avoided the terrible effects of his wrath. And I can see that if I persist in weeping for him all my life, all my tears would not bring him back. That is why, after I have performed for him the final rites and duties that my love dictates, now that he is in his grave it seems to me that I should look for ways of consoling myself. This is the reason for the change you see in me. As a start, to remove any cause for sadness, I have resolved to banish it completely; and, believing you very much wish to keep me company, I have given orders for supper to be prepared for us. However, as I only have wine from China and I am now in Africa, I fancied trying some that is produced here and I thought that, if there is any, you would be able to procure some of the best.’
The magician, who had thought it would be impossible for him to be so fortunate as to find favour so quickly and so easily with the princess, told her he could not find words sufficient to express how much he appreciated her kindness. But to finish a conversation which he would otherwise have found difficult to bring to an end, once he had embarked on it, he seized upon the subject of African wine that she had mentioned. He told her that one of the main advantages of which Africa could boast was that it produced excellent wines, particularly in the region where she now found herself; he had a seven-year-old cask which had not yet been opened, whose excellence, not to set too high a value on it, surpassed the most exquisite wines in the whole of the world. ‘If my princess will give me leave, I will go and fetch two bottles and I will be back immediately,’ he added. ‘I would be sorry to put you to such trouble,’ the princess replied. ‘It might be better if you sent someone else.’ ‘But I shall have to go myself,’ said the magician, ‘as only I know where the key of the storeroom is, and only I know the secret of how to open it.’ ‘If that is the case,’ said the princess, ‘then go, but come back quickly. The longer you take, the more impatient I will be to see you again, and bear in mind that we will sit down to eat as soon as you return.’
Filled with hope at his imagined good fortune, the magician did not so much run as fly to fetch his seven-year-old wine, and returned very quickly. The princess, well aware that he would make haste, had herself put the powder that Aladdin had brought her into a goblet which she had set aside and had then started to serve the dishes. They sat down opposite each other to eat, the magician so placed that his back was turned to the refreshments. The princess presented him with all the best dishes, saying to him: ‘If you wish, I will entertain you with singing and music, but as there are only the two of us, it seems to me that conversation would give us more pleasure.’ The magician regarded this as one more favour granted him by the princess.
After they had eaten a few mouthfuls, the princess asked for wine to be brought. She then drank to the health of the magician, after which she said to him: ‘You were right to sing the praises of your wine. I have never drunk anything so delicious.’ ‘Charming princess,’ replied the magician, holding the goblet he had just been given, ‘my wine acquires an extra virtue by your approval.’ ‘Then drink to my health,’ said the princess, ‘and you will see for yourself what an expert I am.’ The magician drank to the princess’s health, saying to her as he handed back the goblet: ‘Princess, I consider myself fortunate for having kept this wine for such a happy occasion, and I, too, must admit that I have never before drunk any so excellent in so many ways.’
At last, when they had finished eating and had drunk three more times of the wine, the princess, who had succeeded in charming the magician with her gracious and attentive ways, beckoned to the slave girl who served the wine and told her to fill her goblet with wine and at the same time fill that of the magician and give it to him. When they both had their goblets in their hands, the princess said to the magician: ‘I don’t know what one does here when one is in love and drinks together, as we are doing. Back home, in China, lovers exchange goblets and drink each other’s health.’ As she was speaking, she gave him the goblet she had, in one hand, while holding out the other to receive his. The magician hastened to make this exchange, which he did all the more gladly as he regarded this favour the surest sign that he had completely won over the heart of the princess. His happiness was complete. Before he drank to her, holding his goblet in his hand, he said: ‘Princess, we Africans are by no means as skilled in the refinements of the art and pleasures of love as the Chinese. I learned from you something I did not know and at the same time I have learned how much I should appreciate the favour you grant me. Dear princess, I will never forget this: by drinking out of your goblet, I rediscovered a life I would have despaired of, had your cruelty towards me continued.’
Princess Badr, bored by the magician’s endless ramblings, interrupted him, saying: ‘Let us drink first; you can then say what you wish later.’ At the same time, she raised the goblet to her mouth but only touched it with her lips, while the magician, who was in a hurry to drink first, drained his goblet without leaving a drop behind. In his haste to empty the goblet, when he finished, he leaned backwards a little and remained a while in this pose until the princess, her goblet still only touching her lips, saw his eyes begin to roll as he fell, lifeless, on his back.
She had no need to order the secret door to be opened for Aladdin: as soon as the word was given that the magician had fallen upon his back, her slave girls, who were standing several paces from each other outside the room and all the way down to the foot of the staircase, immediately opened the door. Aladdin went up and entered the room. When he saw the magician stretched out on the sofa, the princess got up and was coming towards him to express her joy and embrace him, but he stopped her, saying: ‘Princess, now is not yet the time. Please would you go back to your apartments and see that I am left alone while I try to arrange to have you transported back to China as quickly as you were brought from there.’
As soon as the princess and her slave girls and eunuchs were out of the room, Aladdin closed the door and, going up to the magician’s lifeless corpse, opened up his shirt and drew out the lamp which was wrapped up as the princess had described to him. He unwrapped it and as soon as he rubbed it, the jinni appeared with his usual greeting. ‘Jinni,’ said Aladdin, ‘I have summoned you to command you, on behalf of the lamp in whose service you are, to have this palace transported immediately back to China, to the same part and to the same spot from where it was brought here.’ The jinni nodded to show he was willing to obey and then disappeared. Immediately, the palace was transported to China, with only two slight shocks to indicate the removal had taken place – one when the palace was lifted up from where it was in Africa and the other when it was set down again in China, opposite the sultan’s palace. All this happened in a very short space of time.
