The palace doorkeepers, who had just opened the gate and who had always had an unimpeded view in the direction where Aladdin’s palace now stood, were astounded to find it obstructed and to see a velvet carpet stretching from that direction right up to the gate of the sultan’s palace. At first they could not make out what it was, but their astonishment increased when they saw clearly Aladdin’s superb palace. News of the marvel quickly spread throughout the whole palace. The grand vizier, who had arrived almost the moment the gate was opened, was as astonished as the rest at the extraordinary sight and was the first to tell the sultan. He wanted to put it down to magic but the sultan rebuffed him, saying: ‘Why do you want it to be magic? You know as well as I do that it’s the palace Aladdin has had built for my daughter, the princess; I gave him permission to do so in your presence. After the sample of his wealth which we saw, is it so strange that he has built this palace in such a short time? He wanted to surprise us and to show us what miracles one can perform from one day to the next. Be honest, don’t you agree that when you talk of magic you are perhaps being a little jealous?’ He was prevented from saying anything more, as the hour to enter the council chamber had arrived.
After Aladdin had been carried home and had dismissed the jinni, he found his mother had got up and was beginning to put on the clothes that had been brought to her. At about the time that the sultan had just left the council, Aladdin made his mother go to the palace, together with the slave girls who had been brought her by the jinni’s services. He asked her that if she saw the sultan she was to tell him that she had come in order to have the honour of accompanying the princess when she was ready to go to her palace towards evening. She left and although she and the slave girls who followed her were dressed like sultanas, the crowds watching them pass were not so large, as the women were veiled and wore appropriate overgarments to cover the richness and magnificence of their clothing. As for Aladdin, he mounted his horse and, leaving his home for the last time, without forgetting the magic lamp whose help had been so helpful to him in attaining the height of happiness, he publicly left for his palace, with the same pomp as on the previous day when he had gone to present himself to the sultan.
As soon as the doorkeepers of the sultan’s palace saw Aladdin’s mother, they told the sultan. Immediately the order was given to the bands of trumpets, cymbals, drums, fifes and oboes who had been stationed in different spots on the palace terraces, and all at once the air resounded to fanfares and music which announced the rejoicings to the whole city. The merchants began to deck out their shops with fine carpets, cushions and green boughs, and to prepare illuminations for the night. The artisans left their work, and the people hastened to the great square between the sultan’s palace and that of Aladdin. But it was Aladdin’s palace that first attracted their admiration, not so much because they were accustomed to see that of the sultan but because it could not enter into comparison with Aladdin’s. The sight of such a magnificent palace in a place that, the previous day, had neither materials nor foundations, astonished them most and they could not understand by what unheard-of miracle this had come about.
Aladdin’s mother was received in the sultan’s palace with honour and admitted to the princess’s apartments by the chief eunuch. When the princess saw her, she immediately went to embrace her and made her be seated on her sofa; and while her maidservants were finishing dressing her and adorning her with the most precious jewels, which Aladdin had given her, the princess entertained her to a delicious supper. The sultan, who came to spend as much time as he could with his daughter before she left him to go to Aladdin’s palace, also paid great honour to Aladdin’s mother. He had never seen her before without a veil, although she had spoken several times to him in public, but now without her veil, though she was no longer young, one could still see from her features that she must have been reckoned among the beautiful women of her day when she was young. The sultan, who had always seen her dressed very simply, not to say shabbily, was filled with admiration at seeing her clothed as richly and as magnificently as the princess, his daughter, which made him reflect that Aladdin was equally capable, prudent and wise in everything he did.
When night fell, the princess took leave of her father, the sultan. Their parting was tender and tearful; they embraced several times in silence, and finally the princess left her apartments and set out, with Aladdin’s mother on her left, followed by a hundred slave girls, all wonderfully and magnificently dressed. All the bands of musicians, which had never stopped playing since the arrival of Aladdin’s mother, now joined up and began the procession; they were followed by a hundred sergeants and a similar number of black eunuchs, in two columns, led by their officers. Four hundred of the sultan’s young pages walked on each side of the procession, holding torches in their hands which, together with the light from illuminations coming from both the sultan’s palace and Aladdin’s, wonderfully took the place of daylight.
Accompanied in this fashion, the princess stepped on to the carpet which stretched from the sultan’s palace to Aladdin’s; as she advanced, the bands of musicians who led the procession approached and joined with those which could be heard on the terraces of Aladdin’s palace. This extraordinary confusion of sounds nonetheless formed a concert which increased the rejoicing not only of the great crowd in the main square but also of those who were in the two palaces and indeed in the whole city and far beyond.
At last the princess arrived at the new palace and Aladdin rushed with all imaginable joy to receive her at the entrance to the apartments destined for him. Aladdin’s mother had taken care to point out her son to the princess amid the officials who surrounded him, and the princess, when she saw him, found him so handsome that she was quite charmed. ‘Lovely princess,’ Aladdin addressed her, going up to her and greeting her very respectfully, ‘if I have been so unlucky as to have displeased you by my rashness in aspiring to possess so fair a lady, the daughter of the sultan, then, if I may say so, you must blame your beautiful eyes and your charms, not me.’ ‘O prince – I can rightly call you this now – I bow to my father, the sultan’s wishes; but it is enough for me to have seen you to tell you that I am happy to obey him.’
Overjoyed by such a satisfying reply, Aladdin did not keep the princess standing any longer after this unaccustomed walk. In his delight, he took her hand and kissed it, and then led her into a large room lit by innumerable candles where, thanks to the jinni, a magnificent banquet was laid out on a table. The plates were of solid gold and filled with the most delicious food. The vases, bowls and goblets, with which the side tables were well provided, were also of gold and of exquisite craftsmanship. All the other ornaments and decorations of the room were in perfect keeping with all this sumptuousness. Delighted to see so many riches gathered together in one place, the princess said to Aladdin: ‘O prince, I thought that there was nothing in the world more beautiful than my father’s palace; but seeing this room alone I realize how wrong I was.’ ‘Princess,’ said Aladdin, seating her at the place specially set for her at the table, ‘I accept such a great compliment as I ought; but I know what I should think.’
The princess, Aladdin and his mother sat down at table, and immediately a band of the most melodious instruments, played and accompanied by women, all of whom were very beautiful, started up and the music was accompanied by their equally beautiful voices; this continued uninterrupted until the end of the meal. The princess was so charmed that she said she had never heard anything like it in the palace of the sultan, her father. She did not know, of course, that these musicians were creatures chosen by the jinni of the lamp.
When the supper was over and the dishes had been swiftly cleared away, the musicians gave way to a troupe of male and female dancers who danced several kinds of dances, according to the custom of the land. They ended with two solo dances by a male and female dancer who, each in their turn, danced with surprising lightness and showed all the grace and skill they were capable of. It was nearly midnight when, according to the custom in China at that time, Aladdin rose and offered his hand to Princess Badr to dance with her and so conclude the wedding ceremony. They danced so well together that the whole company was lost in admiration. When the dance was over, Aladdin, still holding her by the hand, took the princess and together they passed through to the nuptial chamber where the marriage bed had been prepared. The princess’s maidservants helped undress her and put her to bed, and Aladdin’s servants did the same, then all withdrew. And so ended the ceremonies and festivities of the wedding of Aladdin and Princess Badr al-Budur.
The following morning, when Aladdin awoke, his servants came to dress him. They put on him a different costume from the one he had worn the day of the wedding, but one that was equally rich and magnificent. Next, he had brought to him one of the horses specially selected for him, which he mounted and then went to the sultan’s palace, surrounded by a large troupe of slaves walking in front of him and behind him and on either side. The sultan received him with the same honours as on the first occasion, embraced him and, after seating him near him on the throne, ordered breakfast to be served. ‘Sire,’ said Aladdin, ‘I ask your majesty to excuse me this honour today. I came to ask you to do me the honour of partaking of a meal in the princess’s palace, together with your grand vizier and your courtiers.’ The sultan was pleased to grant him this favour. He rose forthwith and, as it was not very far, wished to go there on foot, and so he set out, with Aladdin on his right, the grand vizier on his left and the courtiers following, preceded by the sergeants and principal court officials.
The nearer he drew to Aladdin’s palace, the more the sultan was struck by its beauty. But he was much more amazed when he entered it and never stopped praising each and every room he saw. But when, at Aladdin’s invitation, they went up to the chamber with the twenty-four windows, and the sultan saw the decorations, and above all when he caught sight of the screens studded with diamonds, rubies and emeralds – jewels all so large and so perfectly proportioned – and when Aladdin remarked that it was just as opulent on the outside, he was so astonished that he remained rooted to the spot.
After remaining motionless for a while, the sultan turned to the grand vizier standing near him and said: ‘Vizier, can there possibly be such a superb palace in my kingdom, so near to my own palace, without my having been aware of it till now?’ ‘Your majesty may recall,’ replied the grand vizier, ‘that the day before yesterday you granted Aladdin, whom you accepted as your son-in-law, permission to build a palace opposite your own; that same day, at sunset, there was as yet no palace on that spot. Yesterday I had the honour to be the first to announce to you that the palace had been built and was finished.’ ‘Yes, I remember,’ said the sultan, ‘but I would never have thought this palace would be one of the wonders of the age. Where in the whole wide world can one find a palace built of layers of solid gold and silver rather than of stone or marble, where the windows have screens set with diamonds, rubies and emeralds? Never has anything like this been heard of before!’
The sultan wished to see and admire the beauty of the twenty-four screens. When he counted them, he found that only twenty-three of the twenty-four were each equally richly decorated but that the twenty-fourth, he was very surprised to discover, had been left unfinished. Turning to the vizier, who had made it his duty always to stay at his side, he said: ‘I am surprised that a room of such magnificence should have been left unfinished.’ ‘Sire,’ the grand vizier replied, ‘Aladdin apparently was in a hurry and didn’t have time to make this window like the rest; but I imagine he has the necessary jewels and that he will have the work done at the first opportunity.’
While this was going on, Aladdin had left the sultan to give some orders and when he came back to join him again, the sultan said to him: ‘My son, of all the rooms in the world this one is the most worthy to be admired. But one thing surprises me – that is, to see this one screen left unfinished. Was it forgotten through carelessness or because the workmen didn’t have time to put the finishing touches to so fine a piece of architecture?’ ‘Sire,’ replied Aladdin, ‘it’s for neither of these reasons that the screen has remained in the state in which your majesty sees it. It was done deliberately and it was at my order that the workmen left it untouched: I wanted your majesty to have the glory of finishing this room and the palace at the same time. I beg that you will accept my good intentions so that I will be able to remember your kindness and your favours.’ ‘If that’s how you intended it, I am grateful to you and shall immediately give the orders for it to be done.’ And indeed he then summoned the jewellers with the greatest stock of jewels, together with the most skilled goldsmiths in the capital.
The sultan then went down from this chamber and Aladdin led him into the room where he had entertained the princess on the day of the wedding. The princess arrived a moment later and received her father in a manner which showed him how happy she was with her marriage. Two tables were laid with the most delicious dishes, all served in golden vessels. The sultan sat down at the first table and ate with his daughter, Aladdin and the grand vizier, while all the courtiers were served at the second table, which was very long. The sultan found the dishes very tasty and declared he had never eaten anything more exquisite. He said the same of the wine, which was, indeed, delicious. What he admired still more were four large side tables filled and laden with an abundance of flagons, bowls and goblets of solid gold, all encrusted with jewels. He was also delighted with the bands of musicians scattered around the room, while the fanfares of trumpets accompanied by drums and tambourines resounding at a suitable distance outside the room gave a most pleasing effect.
When the meal was over, the sultan was told that the jewellers and goldsmiths who had been summoned by his order had arrived. He went up again to the room with the twenty-four screens and, once there, showed the jewellers and goldsmiths who had followed him the window which had been left unfinished. ‘I have brought you here,’ he said, ‘so that you will bring this window to the same state of perfection as the others; examine them well and waste no time in making it exactly the same as the rest.’
The jewellers and goldsmiths examined the twenty-three other screens very closely, and after they had consulted together and were agreed on what each of them would for his part contribute, they returned to the sultan. The palace jeweller, acting as spokesman, then said to the sultan: ‘Sire, we are ready to employ all our skills and industry to obey your majesty, but many as we are, not one of our profession has such precious jewels and in sufficient quantities for such a great project.’ ‘But I have enough and more than enough,’ said the sultan. ‘Come to my palace; I can supply you with them and you can choose those you want.’
After the sultan had returned to the palace, he had all his jewels brought in to him and the jewellers took a great quantity of them, particularly from among those which Aladdin had given him as a present. They used all these jewels but the work did not seem to progress very much. They returned several times to fetch still more, but after a whole month they had not finished half of the work. They used all the sultan’s jewels as well as some borrowed from the grand vizier; yet, despite all these, all they managed to do was at most to complete half of the window.
Aladdin, who knew that all the sultan’s efforts to make this screen like the rest were in vain and that he would never come out of it with any credit, summoned the goldsmiths and told them not only to cease their work but even to undo everything they had done and to return to the sultan all his jewels together with those he had borrowed from the grand vizier.
In a matter of hours, the work that the jewellers and goldsmiths had taken more than six weeks to do was destroyed. They then departed and left Aladdin alone in the room. Taking out the lamp, which he had with him, he rubbed it and immediately the jinni stood before him. ‘O jinni,’ said Aladdin, ‘I ordered you to leave one of the twenty-four screens in this room unfinished and you carried out my order; I have now summoned you here to tell you that I want you to make this window just like the rest.’ The jinni disappeared and Aladdin went out of the room. When he went back in again a few moments later, he found the screen exactly as he wanted it and just like the others.
Meanwhile, the jewellers and goldsmiths had arrived at the palace and had been introduced and presented to the sultan in his apartments. The first jeweller, on behalf of all of them, presented the sultan with the jewels which they were returning and said: ‘Sire, your majesty knows how long and how hard we have been working in order to finish the commission that you charged us with. The work was far advanced when Aladdin forced us not only to stop but even to undo all we had done and to return to your majesty all these jewels of yours and those of the grand vizier.’ The sultan asked them whether Aladdin had told them why they were to do this, to which they replied no. Immediately, the sultan gave the order for a horse to be brought and when it came, he mounted and left with only a few of his men, who accompanied him on foot. On arriving at Aladdin’s palace, he dismounted at the bottom of the staircase that led to the room with the twenty-four windows. Without giving Aladdin any advance notice, he climbed the stairs where Aladdin had arrived in the nick of time to receive him at the door.
The sultan, giving Aladdin no time to complain politely that his majesty had not forewarned him of his arrival and that he had thus obliged him to fail in his duty, said to him: ‘My son, I have come myself to ask the reason why you wish to leave unfinished so magnificent and remarkable a room in your palace as this one.’
The real reason Aladdin concealed from him, which was that the sultan was not rich enough in jewels to afford such an enormous expense. However, in order to let the sultan know how far his palace surpassed not only his own, such as it was, but any other palace in the world, since the sultan had been unable to complete the smallest part of it, he said to him: ‘Sire, it is true your majesty has seen this room, unfinished; but I beg you will come now and see if there is anything lacking.’
The sultan went straight to the window where he had seen the unfinished screen and when he saw that it was like the rest, he thought he must have made a mistake. He next examined not only one or two windows but all the windows, one by one. When he was convinced that the screen on which so much time had been spent and which had cost so many days’ work had been finished in what he knew to be a very short time, he embraced Aladdin and kissed him between the eyes, exclaiming in astonishment: ‘My son, what a man you are to do such amazing things and all, almost, in the twinkling of an eye! There is no one like you in the whole wide world! The more I know you, the more I admire you.’ Aladdin received the sultan’s praises with great modesty, replying: ‘Sire, I am very honoured to merit your majesty’s kindness and approval, and I can assure you I will do all I can to deserve them both more and more.’
The sultan returned to his palace in the same manner as he had come, not allowing Aladdin to accompany him. There he found the grand vizier waiting for him and the sultan, still filled with admiration at the wonders he had just seen, proceeded to tell him all about them in terms that left the vizier in no doubt that everything was indeed as he had described it. But it also confirmed him in his belief that Aladdin’s palace was the effect of an enchantment – a belief that he had already conveyed to the sultan almost as soon as the palace appeared. The vizier started to repeat what he thought, but the sultan interrupted him: ‘Vizier, you have already told me that, but I can see that you are still thinking of my daughter’s marriage to your son.’
The grand vizier could see that the sultan was prejudiced against him and so, not wishing to enter into a dispute with him, made no attempt to disabuse him. Meanwhile, the sultan every day, as soon as he had arisen, regularly went to a small room from which he could see the whole of Aladdin’s palace and he would come here several times a day to contemplate and admire it.
As for Aladdin, he did not remain shut up in his palace but took care to let himself be seen in the city several times a week, whether to go and pray at one mosque or another or, at regular intervals, to visit the grand vizier, who affected to pay court to him on certain days, or to do honour to the leading courtiers, whom he often entertained in his palace, by going to see them in their own houses. Every time he went out, he would instruct two of his slaves, who surrounded him as he rode, to throw handfuls of gold coins into the streets and squares through which he passed and to which a great crowd of people always flocked. Furthermore, no pauper came to the gate of his palace without going away pleased with the liberality dispensed there on his orders.
Aladdin passed his time in such a way that not a week went by without him going out hunting, whether just outside the city or further afield, when he dispensed the same liberality as he rode around or passed through villages. This generous tendency caused everyone to shower blessings on him and it became the custom to swear by his head. In short, without it giving any offence to the sultan to whom he regularly paid court, one may say that Aladdin, thanks to his affable manner and generosity, won the affection of all the people and that, in general, he was more beloved than the sultan himself. Added to all these fine qualities, he showed such valour and zeal for the good of the kingdom that he could not be too highly praised. He showed this on the occasion of a revolt which took place on the kingdom’s borders: no sooner had he heard that the sultan was raising an army to put the revolt down than he begged the sultan to put him in command of it, a request which he had no difficulty in obtaining. Once at the head of the army, he marched against the rebels, and throughout this expedition he conducted himself so industriously that the sultan learned that the rebels had been defeated, punished and dispersed before he learned of Aladdin’s arrival in the army. This action, which made his name famous throughout the kingdom, did not change his good nature, for he remained as amiable after as before his victory.
Several years went by in this manner for Aladdin, when the magician, who unwittingly had given him the means of rising to such heights of fortune, was reminded of him in Africa, to where he had returned. Although he was till then convinced that Aladdin had died a wretched death in the underground cave where he had left him, the thought nonetheless came to him to find out exactly how he had died. Being a great geomancer, he took out of a cupboard a covered square box which he used to make his observations. Sitting down on his sofa, he placed the box in front of him and uncovered it. After he had prepared and levelled the sand with the intention of discovering if Aladdin had died in the cave, he made his throw, interpreted the figures and drew up the horoscope. When he examined it to ascertain its meaning, instead of discovering that Aladdin had died in the cave, he found that he had got out of it and that he was living in great splendour, being immensely rich; he had married a princess and was generally honoured and respected.
As soon as the magician had learned through the means of his diabolic art that Aladdin lived in such a state of elevation, he became red with rage. In his fury, he exclaimed to himself: ‘That wretched son of a tailor has discovered the secret and power of the lamp! I took his death for a certainty and here he is enjoying the fruit of my labours and vigils. But I will stop him enjoying them much longer, or die in the attempt.’ He did not take long in deciding what to do. The next morning, he mounted a barbary horse which he had in his stable and set off, travelling from city to city and from province to province, stopping no longer than was necessary so as not to tire his horse, until he reached China and was soon in the capital of the sultan whose daughter Aladdin had married. There he dismounted in a khan or public hostelry, where he rented a room and where he remained for the rest of the day and the night to recover from his tiring journey.
The next day, the first thing the magician wanted to find out was what people said about Aladdin. Walking around the city, he entered the bestknown and most frequented place, where the most distinguished people met to drink a certain hot drink* which was known to him from his first journey. As soon as he sat down, a cup of this drink was poured and presented to him. As he took it, he listened to the conversation going on around him and heard people talking about Aladdin’s palace. When he had finished his drink, he approached one of them, singling him out to ask him: ‘What’s this palace everybody speaks so well of?’ To which the man replied: ‘Where are you from? You must be a newcomer not to have seen or heard talk of the palace of Prince Aladdin’ – that is how he was now called since he had married Princess Badr – ‘I am not saying it is one of the wonders of the world, I say it is the only wonder of the world, for nothing so grand, so rich, so magnificent has ever been seen before or since. You must have come from very far away not to have heard talk of it. Indeed, the whole world must have been talking about it ever since it was built. Go and look at it and see if I’m not speaking the truth.’ ‘Excuse my ignorance,’ said the magician. ‘I only arrived yesterday and I have indeed come from very far away – in fact the furthest part of Africa, which its fame had not yet reached when I left. For in view of the urgent business which brings me here, my sole concern in travelling was to get here as soon as possible, without stopping and making any acquaintances. I knew nothing about it until you told me. But I will indeed go and see it; and so great is my impatience that I am ready to satisfy my curiosity this very instant, if you would be so kind as to show me the way.’
The man the magician had spoken to was only too happy to tell him the way he must take to have a view of Aladdin’s palace, and the magician rose and immediately set off. When he reached the palace and had examined it closely and from all sides, he was left in no doubt that Aladdin had made use of the lamp to build it. Without dwelling on Aladdin’s powerlessness as the son of a simple tailor, he was well aware that only jinn, the slaves of the lamp which he had failed to get hold of, were capable of performing miracles of this kind. Stung to the quick by Aladdin’s good fortune and importance, which seemed to him little different from the sultan’s own, the magician returned to the khan where he had taken up lodging.
He needed to find out where the lamp was and whether Aladdin carried it around with him, or whether he kept it in some secret spot, and this he could only discover through an act of geomancy. As soon as he reached his lodgings, he took his square box and his sand which he carried with him on all his travels. When he had completed the operation, he found that the lamp was in Aladdin’s palace and he was so delighted at this discovery that he was beside himself. ‘I am going to have this lamp,’ he said, ‘and I defy Aladdin to stop me from taking it from him and from making him sink to the depths from which he has risen to such heights!’
Unfortunately for Aladdin, it so happened that he had set off on a hunting expedition for eight days and was still away, having been gone for only three days. This is how the magician learned about it. Having performed the act of geomancy which had given him so much joy, he went to see the doorkeeper of the khan under the pretext of having a chat with him. The latter, who was of a garrulous nature, needed little encouragement, telling him that he had himself just been to see Aladdin’s palace. After listening to him describe with great exaggeration all the things he had seen which had most amazed and struck him and everyone in general, the magician said: ‘My curiosity does not stop there and I won’t be satisfied until I have seen the master to whom such a wonderful building belongs.’ ‘That will not be difficult,’ replied the doorkeeper. ‘When he is in town hardly a day goes by on which there isn’t an opportunity to see him; but three days ago, he went out on a great hunting expedition which was to last for eight days.’
The magician needed to hear no more. He took leave of the doorkeeper, saying to himself as he went back to his room: ‘Now is the time to act; I must not let the opportunity escape me.’ He went to a lamp maker’s shop which also sold lamps. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I need a dozen copper lamps – can you supply me with them?’ The lamp maker told him he did not have a dozen but, if he would be patient and wait until the following day, he could let him have the whole lot whenever he wanted. The magician agreed to this and asked that the lamps be clean and well polished, and after promising him to pay him well, he returned to the khan.
The next day, the twelve lamps were delivered to the magician, who gave the lamp maker the price he had asked for, without bargaining. He put them in a basket which he had specially acquired and, with this on his arm, he went to Aladdin’s palace. When he drew near, he began to cry out: ‘Old lamps for new!’
As he approached, the children playing in the square heard him from a distance and rushed up and gathered around him, loudly jeering at him, for they took him for a madman. The passers-by, too, laughed at what they thought was his stupidity. ‘He must have lost his mind,’ they said, ‘to offer to exchange old lamps for new ones.’ But the magician was not surprised by the children’s jeers nor by what people were saying about him, and he continued to cry out to sell his wares: ‘Old lamps for new!’
He repeated this cry so often as he went to and fro in front of and around the palace that Princess Badr, who was at that point in the room with the twenty-four windows, hearing a man’s voice crying out something but unable to make out what he was saying because of the jeers of the children who followed him and who kept increasing in number, sent down one of her slave girls to go up to him and see what he was shouting.
The slave girl was not long in returning and entered the room in fits of laughter. Her mirth was so infectious that the princess, looking at her, could not stop herself from laughing too. ‘Well, you crazy girl,’ she said, ‘tell me why you are laughing.’ Still laughing, the slave replied: ‘O princess, who couldn’t stop himself laughing at the sight of a madman with a basket on his arm full of brand new lamps wanting not to sell them but to change them for old ones? It’s the children, crowding around him so that he can hardly move and jeering at him, who are making all the noise.’
Hearing this, another slave girl interrupted: ‘Speaking of old lamps, I don’t know if the princess has observed that there is an old lamp on the cornice. Whoever owns it won’t be cross to find a new one in its place. If the princess would like, she can have the pleasure of finding out whether this madman is really mad enough to exchange a new lamp for an old one without asking anything for it in return.’
The lamp the slave girl was talking about was the magic lamp Aladdin had used to raise himself to his present high state; he himself had put it on the cornice before going out to hunt, for fear of losing it, a precaution he had taken on all previous occasions. Up until now, neither the slave girls, nor the eunuchs, nor even the princess herself had paid any attention to it during his absence, for apart from when he went out hunting, Aladdin always carried it on him. One may say that Aladdin was right to take this precaution, but he ought at least to have locked up the lamp. Mistakes like this, it is true, are always being made and always will be.
The princess, unaware how precious the lamp was and that it was in Aladdin’s great interest, not to mention her own, that no one should ever touch it and that it should be kept safe, entered into the joke. She ordered a eunuch to take the lamp and go and exchange it. The eunuch obeyed and went down from the room, and no sooner had he emerged from the palace gate when he saw the magician. He called out to him and, when he came up, he showed him the old lamp, saying: ‘Give me a new lamp for this one here.’
The magician was in no doubt that this was the lamp he was looking for – there could be no other lamp like it in Aladdin’s palace, where all the plates and dishes were either of gold or silver. He promptly took it from the eunuch’s hand and, after he had stowed it safely away in his cloak, he showed him his basket and told him to choose whichever lamp he fancied. The eunuch picked one, left the magician and took the new lamp to the princess. As soon as the exchange had taken place, the square rang out again with the shouts and jeers of the children, who laughed even more loudly than before at what they took to be the magician’s stupidity.
The magician let the children jeer at him, but not wanting to stay any longer in the vicinity of Aladdin’s palace, he gradually and quietly moved away. He stopped crying out about changing new lamps for old, for the only lamp he wanted was the one now in his possession. Seeing his silence, the children lost interest and left him to go on his way.
As soon as he was out of the square between the two palaces, the magician escaped through the less frequented streets and, when he saw there was nobody about, he set the basket down in the middle of one, since he no longer had a use for either the lamps or the basket. He then slipped down another street and hastened on until he came to one of the city gates. As he made his way through the suburbs, which were extensive, he bought some provisions before leaving them. Once in the countryside, he left the road and went to a spot out of sight of passers-by, where he stayed a while until he judged the moment was right for him to carry out the plan which had brought him there. He did not regret the barbary horse he had left behind at the khan where he had taken lodgings, for he reckoned that the treasure he had acquired was fair compensation for its loss.
The magician spent the rest of the day in this spot until night was at its darkest. He then pulled out the lamp from under his cloak and rubbed it. Thus summoned, the jinni appeared. ‘What is your wish?’ it asked him. ‘Here am I, ready to obey you, your slave and the slave of all those who hold the lamp, I and the other slaves.’ ‘I command you,’ replied the magician, ‘this very instant to remove the palace that the other slaves of the lamp have built in this city, just as it is, with all the people in it, and transport it and at the same time myself to such-and-such a place in Africa.’ Without answering him, the jinni, with the assistance of other jinn, like him slaves of the lamp, transported the magician and the entire palace in a very short time to the place in Africa he had designated, where we will leave him, the palace and Princess Badr, and describe, instead, the sultan’s surprise.
As soon as the sultan had arisen, as was his custom he went to his closet window in order to have the pleasure of gazing on and admiring Aladdin’s palace. But when he looked in the direction of where he had been accustomed to see this palace, all he could see was an empty space, such as had been before the palace had been built. Believing himself mistaken, he rubbed his eyes, but still saw nothing, although the weather was fine, the sky clear and the dawn, which was just breaking, had made everything sharp and distinct. He looked through the two windows on the right and on the left but could only see what he had been used to seeing out of them. So great was his astonishment that he remained for a long time in the same spot, his eyes turned towards where the palace had stood but was now no longer to be seen. He could not understand how so large and striking a palace as Aladdin’s, which he had seen as recently as the previous day and almost every day since he had given permission to build it, had vanished so completely that no trace was left behind. ‘I am not wrong,’ he said to himself. ‘It was there. If it had tumbled down, the materials would be there in heaps, and if the earth had swallowed it up, then there would be some trace to show that had happened.’ Although he was convinced that the palace was no more, he nonetheless waited a little longer to see if, in fact, he was mistaken. At last he withdrew and, after taking one final look before leaving, he returned to his room. There he commanded the grand vizier to be summoned in all haste and sat down, his mind so disturbed with conflicting thoughts that he did not know what he should do.
The vizier did not keep the sultan waiting long; in fact, he came in such great haste that neither he nor his officials noticed as they came that Aladdin’s palace was no longer there, nor had the doorkeepers, when they opened the palace gates, noticed its disappearance. When he came up to the sultan, the vizier addressed him: ‘Sire, the urgency with which your majesty has summoned me makes me think that something most extraordinary has happened, since you are well aware that today is the day the council meets and that I must shortly go and carry out my duties.’ ‘What has happened is indeed truly extraordinary, as you will agree. Tell me, where is Aladdin’s palace?’ asked the sultan. ‘Aladdin’s palace?’ replied the vizier in astonishment. ‘I have just passed in front of it – I thought it was there. Buildings as solid as that don’t disappear so easily.’ ‘Go and look through my closet window,’ said the sultan, ‘and then come and tell me if you can see it.’
The grand vizier went to the closet, and the same thing happened to him as had happened to the sultan. When he had quite convinced himself that Aladdin’s palace no longer stood where it had been and that there did not appear to be any trace of it, he returned to the sultan. ‘Well, did you see Aladdin’s palace?’ the sultan asked him. ‘Sire,’ he replied, ‘your majesty may remember that I had the honour to tell you that this palace, which was the subject of your admiration, with all its immense riches, was the result of magic, the work of a magician, but your majesty would not listen to this.’
The sultan, unable to disagree with what the vizier had said, flew into a great rage which was all the greater because he could not deny his incredulity. ‘Where is this wretch, this impostor?’ he cried. ‘Bring him at once so that I can have his head chopped off.’ ‘Sire,’ replied the vizier, ‘he took leave of your majesty a few days ago; we must send for him and ask him about his palace – he must know where it is.’ ‘That would be to treat him too leniently; go and order thirty of my horsemen to bring him to me bound in chains,’ commanded the sultan. The vizier went off to give the sultan’s order to the horsemen, instructing their officer in what manner to take Aladdin so that he did not escape. They set out and met Aladdin five or six miles outside the city, hunting on his return. The officer went up to him and told him that the sultan, in his impatience to see him, had sent them to inform him and to accompany him back.
Aladdin, who had not the slightest suspicion of the real reason which brought this detachment of the sultan’s guard, continued to hunt but, when he was only half a league from the city, this detachment surrounded him and the officer addressed him: ‘Prince Aladdin, it is with the greatest regret that we have to inform you of the order of the sultan to arrest you and bring you to him as a criminal of the state. We beg you not to think ill of us for carrying out our duty and we hope you will forgive us.’
