altogether your fault that these things happened to me; for, if you remember, I desired you to shut the door after you, which you neglected, and the devil, finding it open, entered and put this dream into my head, which, though it was very agreeable, was the cause of the misfortune I complain of:  you therefore, for your negligence, are answerable for the horrid and detestable crime I have committed in lifting my hand against my mother, whom I might have killed (I blush for shame when I think of it), because she said I was her son, and would not acknowledge me for commander of the faithful, as I thought and positively insisted on to her that I was.  You are the cause of the offence I have given my neighbours, when, running in at the cries of my poor mother, they surprised me in the horrid act of felling her at my feet; which would never have happened, if you had taken care to shut my door when you went away, as I desired you.  They would not have come into my house without my leave; and, what troubles me most of all, they would not have been witnesses of my folly.  I should not have been obliged to strike them in my own defence, and they would not have bound and fettered me, to carry and shut me up in the hospital for madmen, where I assure you every day that I remained confined in that hell, I received a score of strokes with a bastinado.”  Abou Hassan recounted his complaints with great warmth and vehemence to the caliph, who knew as well as himself what had passed, and was delighted to find that he had succeeded so well in his plan to throw him into the vagaries from which he still was not entirely free.  He could not help laughing at the simplicity wherewith he related them.

Abou Hassan, who thought that his story should rather have moved compassion, and that every one ought to be as much concerned at it as himself, warmly resented the pretended Moussul merchant’s laughter.  “What!” said he, “do you make a jest of me and laugh in my face, or do you believe I laugh at you when I speak seriously?  If you want proof of what I advance, look yourself and see whether or no I tell you the truth ;” with that, stooping down and baring his shoulders, he shewed the caliph the scars and weals which the bastinado had left.

The caliph could not behold these marks of cruelty without horror.  He pitied Abou Hassan, and felt sorry he had carried the jest so far.  “Come, rise, dear brother,” said he to him eagerly, and embracing Abou Hassan heartily in his arms; “let me go to your house, and enjoy the happiness of being merry with you to-night; and to-morrow, if it please God, all things will go well.”

Abou Hassan, notwithstanding his resolution never to admit the same stranger a second time, could not resist the caresses of the caliph, whom he still took for a merchant of Moussul.  “I will consent,” said he, “if you will swear to shut my door after you, that the devil may not come in to distract my brain again.”  The caliph promised that he would; upon which they both arose, walked towards the city, and, followed by the caliph’s slave, reached Abou Hassan’s house by the time it was dark.