After supper, she asked him again, why he was so melancholy, but could get no information, and he determined to go to bed, rather than give her the least satisfaction. Without examining how Aladdin passed the night, his mind full as it was with the beautiful charms of the princess Badr-oul-boudour, I shall only observe that as he sat next day on the sofa, over against his mother, as she was spinning cotton, he spoke to her in these words: “I perceive, mother, that my silence yesterday has very much troubled you; I was not, nor am I sick, as I fancy you believed; but I can tell you, that what I felt then, and now endure, is worse than any disease. I cannot tell what ails me, but doubt not what I am going to tell you will inform you.
“It was not known in this quarter of the town, and therefore you could know nothing of it, that the princess Badr-oul-boudour, the sultan’s daughter, was to go to the baths after dinner. I heard this as I walked about the town, and an order was issued, that, to pay all the respect that was due to that princess, all the shops should be shut up in her way thither, and everybody keep within doors, to leave the streets free for her and her attendants. As I was not then far from the bath, I had a great curiosity to see the princess’s face; and as it occurred to me that the princess, when she came nigh the door of the bath, would pull her veil off, I resolved to get behind that door. You know the situation of the door, and may imagine that I must have a full view of her, if it happened as I expected. The princess threw off her veil, and I had the happiness of seeing her lovely face with the greatest satisfaction imaginable. This, mother, was the cause of my melancholy and silence yesterday; I love the princess with so much violence, that I cannot express it; and as my lively passion increases every moment, I cannot live without the possession of the amiable princess Badr-oul-boudour, and am resolved to ask her in marriage of the sultan her father.”
Aladdin’s mother listened with attention to what her son told her; but when he talked of asking the princess Badr-oul-boudour in marriage of the sultan, she could not help bursting out into a loud laugh. Aladdin would have gone on with his discourse, but she interrupted him. “Alas! child,” said she, “what are you thinking of? You must be mad to talk so.”