"wherein have I deserved
your displeasure?" "You are a villain," said she in a furious
passion, "to eat garlic, and not wash your hands! Do you think I
would suffer such a polluted wretch to poison me? Down with him,
down with him on the ground," continued she, addressing herself
to the ladies, "and bring me a bastinado." They immediately did
as they were desired; and while some held my hands, and others my
feet, my wife, who was presently furnished with a weapon, laid on
me as long as she could stand. She then said to the ladies, "Take
him, send him to the judge, and let the hand be cut off with
which he fed upon the garlic dish."

"Alas!" cried I, "must I be beaten unmercifully, and, to complete
my affliction, have my hand cut off, for partaking of a dish
seasoned with garlic, and forgetting to wash my hands? What
proportion is there between the punishment and the crime? Curse
on the dish, on the cook who dressed it, and on him who served it
up."

All the ladies who had seen me receive the thousand strokes,
took pity on me, when they heard the cutting off of my hand
mentioned. "Dear madam, dear sister," said they to the favourite
lady, "you carry your resentment too far. We own he is a man
quite ignorant of the world, of your quality, and the respect
that is due to you: but we beseech you to overlook and pardon his
fault." "I have not received adequate satisfaction," said she; "I
will teach him to know the world; I will make him bear sensible
marks of his impertinence, and be cautious hereafter how he
tastes a dish seasoned with garlic without washing his hands."
They renewed their solicitations, fell down at her feet, and
kissing her fair hands, said, "Good madam, moderate your anger,
and grant us the favour we supplicate." She made no reply, but
got up, and after uttering a thousand reproaches against me,
walked out of the chamber: all the ladies followed her, leaving
me in inconceivable affliction.

I continued thus ten days, without seeing any body but an old
female slave that brought me victuals. I asked her what was
become of the favourite lady. "She is sick," said the old woman;
"she is sick of the poisoned smell with which you infected her.
Why did you not take care to wash your hands after eating of that
cursed dish?" "Is it possible," thought I, "that these ladies
can be so nice, and so vindictive for such a trifling fault!" I
loved my wife notwithstanding all her cruelty, and could not help
pitying