`` Not Abu Nowas , it is his wife , '' he will reply , and they will quarrel over it , and all the time we shall be sitting here enjoying ourselves . Oh , if they only knew , how angry they would be ! ' As Abu Nowas had foreseen , the Sultan went , in the evening after his business was over , to pay his usual visit to the Sultana . ` Poor Abu Nowas is dead ! ' said Subida when he entered the room . ` It is not Abu Nowas , but his wife who is dead , ' answered the Sultan . ` No ; really you are quite wrong . She came to tell me herself only a couple of hours ago , ' replied Subida , ` and as he had spent all their money , I gave her something to bury him with . ' ` You must be dreaming , ' exclaimed the Sultan . ` Soon after midday Abu Nowas came into the hall , his eyes streaming with tears , and when I asked him the reason he answered that his wife was dead , and they had sold everything they had , and he had nothing left , not so much as would buy her a shroud , far less for her burial . ' For a long time they talked , and neither would listen to the other , till the Sultan sent for the door-keeper and bade him go instantly to the house of Abu Nowas and see if it was the man or his wife who was dead . But Abu Nowas happened to be sitting with his wife behind the latticed window , which looked on the street , and he saw the man coming , and sprang up at once . ` There is the Sultan 's door-keeper ! They have sent him here to find out the truth . Quick ! throw yourself on the bed and pretend that you are dead . ' And in a moment the wife was stretched out stiffly , with a linen sheet spread across her , like a corpse . She was only just in time , for the sheet was hardly drawn across her when the door opened and the porter came in . ` Has anything happened ? ' asked he .
` My poor wife is dead , ' replied Abu XXXXX .
Nowas Subida Sultan Sultana business door-keeper evening left room shroud