wife--the fact that since her death he had become a mystic and had
joined a certain sect of mystics founded by Lavater.

This is how I came to know it. My attention had been arrested by a
book lying on my father's writing-table--a large book called '_The
Veiled Queen_, by Philip Aylwin'--and I began to read it. The
statements therein were of an astounding kind, and the idea of a
beautiful woman behind a veil completely fascinated my childish mind.
And the book was full of the most amazing stories collected from all
kinds of outlandish sources. One story, called 'The Flying Donkey of
the Ruby Hills,' riveted my attention so much that it possessed me,
and even now I feel that I can repeat every word of it. It was a
story of a donkey-driver, who, having lost his wife Alawiyah, went
and lived alone in the ruby hills of Badakhshan, where the Angel of
Memory fashioned for him out of his own sorrow and tears an image of
his wife. This image was mistaken by a townsman named Hasan for his
own wife, and Ja'afar was summoned before the Ka'dee. Afterwards,
when _The Veiled Queen_ came into my possession, I noticed that this
story was quoted for motto on the title-page:

'Then quoth the Ka'dee, laughing until his grinders appeared:
"Rather, by Allah, would I take all the punishment thou dreadest,
thou most false donkey-driver of the Ruby Hills, than believe this
story of thine--this mad, mad story, that she with whom thou wast
seen was not the living wife of Hasan here (as these four legal
witnesses have sworn), but thine own dead spouse, Alawiyah,
refashioned for thee by the Angel of Memory out of thine own sorrow
and unquenchable fountain of tears."

'Quoth Ja'afar, bowing low his head: "Bold is the donkey-driver,