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The next morning, he returned as he had promised to the widow of Mustafa the tailor and took Aladdin off with him to a wealthy merchant who sold only ready-made garments in all sorts of fine materials and for all ages and ranks. He made the merchant bring out clothes that would fit Aladdin and, after putting to one side those which pleased him best and rejecting the others that did not seem to him handsome enough, said to Aladdin: ‘My nephew, choose from among all these garments the one you like best.’ Aladdin, delighted with his new uncle’s generosity, picked one out which the magician then bought, together with all the necessary accessories, and paid for everything without bargaining.
When Aladdin saw himself so magnificently clothed from top to toe, he thanked his uncle profusely with all the thanks imaginable, and the magician repeated his promise never to abandon him and to keep him always with him. Indeed, he then took him to the most frequented parts of the city and in particular to those where the shops of the rich merchants were to be found. When he reached the street which had the shops with the richest cloths and finest fabrics, he said to Aladdin: ‘As you will soon be a merchant like these, it is a good idea for you to seek out their company so that they get to know you.’ The magician also showed him the largest and most beautiful mosques and took him to the khans where the foreign merchants lodged and to all the places in the sultan’s palace which he was free to enter. Finally, after they had wandered together through all the fairest places in the city, they came to the khan where the magician had taken lodgings. There they found several merchants whom the magician had got to know since his arrival and whom he had gathered together for the express purpose of entertaining them and at the same time introducing them to his so-called nephew.
The party did not finish until towards evening. Aladdin wanted to take leave of his uncle to return home, but the magician would not let him go back alone and himself accompanied him back to his mother. When his mother saw Aladdin in his fine new clothes, she was carried away in her delight and kept pouring a thousand blessings on the magician who had spent so much money on her child. ‘My dear relative,’ she exclaimed, ‘I don’t know how to thank you for your generosity. I know my son does not deserve all you have done for him and he would be quite unworthy of it if he was not grateful to you or failed to respond to your kind intention of giving him such a fine establishment. As for myself, once again I thank you with all my heart; I hope that you will live long enough to witness his gratitude, which he can best show by conducting himself in accordance with your good advice.’
‘Aladdin is a good boy,’ the magician replied. ‘He listens to me well enough and I believe he will turn out well. But one thing worries me – that I can’t carry out what I promised him tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday, when the shops are closed, and there is no way we can think of renting one and stocking it at a time when the merchants are only thinking of entertaining themselves. So we will have to postpone our business until Saturday, but I will come and fetch him tomorrow and I will take him for a walk in the gardens where all the best people are usually to be found. Perhaps he has never seen the amusements that are to be had there. Up until now he has only been with children, but now he must see men.’ The magician took his leave of mother and son and departed. Aladdin, however, was so delighted at being so smartly turned out that he already began to anticipate the pleasure of walking in the gardens that lay around the city. In fact, he had never been outside the city gates and had never seen the surroundings of the city, which he knew to be pleasant and beautiful.
The next day, Aladdin got up and dressed himself very early so as to be ready to leave when his uncle came to fetch him. After waiting for what seemed to him a very long time, in his impatience he opened the door and stood on the doorstep to see if he could see the magician. As soon as he spotted him, Aladdin told his mother and said goodbye to her, before shutting the door and running to meet him.
The magician embraced Aladdin warmly when he saw him. ‘Come, my child,’ he said to him, smiling, ‘today I want to show you some wonderful things.’ He took him through a gate which led to some fine, large houses, or rather, magnificent palaces, which all had very beautiful gardens that people were free to enter. At each palace that they came to, he asked Aladdin whether he thought it beautiful, but Aladdin would forestall him as soon as another palace presented itself, saying: ‘Uncle, here’s another even more beautiful than those we have just seen.’ All the while, they were advancing ever deeper into the countryside and the wily magician, who wanted to go further still in order to carry out the plan he had in mind, took the opportunity of entering one of these gardens. Seating himself near a large pool into which a beautiful jet of water poured from the nostrils of a bronze lion, he pretended to be tired in order to get Aladdin to take a rest. ‘Dear nephew,’ he said to him, ‘you, too, must be tired. Let’s sit here and recover ourselves. We shall then have more strength to continue our walk.’
When they had sat down, the magician took out from a cloth attached to his belt some cakes and several kinds of fruit which he had brought with him as provisions, and spread them out on the edge of the pool. He shared a cake with Aladdin but let him choose for himself what fruits he fancied. As they partook of this light meal, he talked to his so-called nephew, giving him numerous pieces of advice, the gist of which was to exhort Aladdin to give up associating with children, telling him rather to approach men of prudence and wisdom, to listen to them and to profit from their conversation. ‘Soon you will be a man like them,’ he said, ‘and you can’t get into the habit too soon of following their example and speaking with good sense.’ When they had finished eating, they got up and resumed their walk through the gardens, which were separated from each other only by small ditches which defined their limits without impeding access – such was the mutual trust the inhabitants of the city enjoyed that there was no need for any other boundaries to guard against them harming each other’s interests. Gradually and without Aladdin being aware of it, the magician led him far beyond the gardens, making him pass through open country which took them very close to the mountains.
Aladdin had never before travelled so far and felt very weary from such a long walk. ‘Uncle,’ he asked the magician, ‘where are we going? We have left the gardens far behind and I can see nothing but mountains. If we go any further, I don’t know if I’ll have enough strength to return to the city.’ ‘Take heart, my nephew,’ replied the bogus uncle. ‘I want to show you another garden which beats all those you have just seen. It’s not far from here, just a step away, and when we get there you yourself will tell me how cross you would have been not to have seen it after having got so close to it.’ Aladdin let himself be persuaded and the magician led him even further on, all the while entertaining him with many amusing stories in order to make the journey less tedious for him and his fatigue more bearable.
At last they came to two mountains of a moderate height and size, separated by a narrow valley. This was the very spot to which the magician had wanted to take Aladdin so that he could carry out the grand plan which had brought him all the way from the furthest part of Africa to China. ‘We are not going any further,’ he told Aladdin. ‘I want to show you some extraordinary things, unknown to any other man, and when you have seen them, you will thank me for having witnessed so many marvels that no one else in all the world will have seen but you. While I am making a fire, you go and gather the driest bushes you can find for kindling.’
There was such a quantity of brushwood that Aladdin had soon amassed more than enough in the time that the magician was still starting up the fire. He set light to the pile and the moment the twigs caught fire, the magician threw on to them some incense that he had ready at hand. A dense smoke arose, which he made to disperse right and left by pronouncing some words of magic, none of which Aladdin could understand.
At the same moment, the earth gave a slight tremor and opened up in front of Aladdin and the magician, revealing a stone about one and a half feet square and about one foot deep, lying horizontally on the ground; fixed in the middle was a ring of bronze with which to lift it up. Aladdin, terrified at what was happening before his very eyes, would have fled if the magician had not held him back, for he was necessary for this mysterious business. He scolded him soundly and gave him such a blow that he was flung to the ground with such force that his front teeth were very nearly pushed back into his mouth, judging from the blood which poured out. Poor Aladdin, trembling all over and in tears, asked his uncle: ‘What have I done for you to hit me so roughly?’ ‘I have my reasons for doing this,’ replied the magician. ‘I am your uncle and at present take the place of your father. You shouldn’t answer me back.’ Softening his tone a little, he went on: ‘But, my child, don’t be afraid. All I ask is that you obey me exactly if you want to benefit from and be worthy of the great advantages I propose to give you.’ These fine promises somewhat calmed Aladdin’s fear and resentment, and when the magician saw he was completely reassured, he went on: ‘You have seen what I have done by virtue of my incense and by the words that I pronounced. Know now that beneath the stone that you see is hidden a treasure which is destined for you and which will one day make you richer than the greatest kings in all the world. It’s true, you are the only person in the world who is allowed to touch this stone and to lift it to go inside. Even I am not allowed to touch it and to set foot in the treasure house when it is opened. Consequently, you must carry out step by step everything I am going to tell you, not omitting anything. The matter is of the utmost importance, both for you and for me.’
