Explore "Veiled Women" by Marmaduke Pickthall on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Her boy was her delight in life. No other woman was allowed to scold him. When Yûsuf slapped him in the cause of order, which happened often, for the child was naughty, she made it up to him with sugarplums and fond caresses. In his father's absence Muhammad was the lord of the harem; all vied to please him. His foster-mother and the servants told him fairy stories in which good children killed all kinds of monsters. One, which he never tired of hearing, ended thus:
"Then little Hâfiz took a sword and reaped the head of the atrocious ghoul; and beat to death the hag who had ill-used him, and with the help of all the neighbours, who acclaimed his goodness, burnt all his wicked little cousins in a cheerful fire."