I whispered in his hairy pointed red ear, 'Sleep! sleep!' and lulled him
with a song, and he slept, being weary with my commissioning. Then I bade
Feshnavat, my father, fetch me one of my books of magic, and read in it
of the discovery of the Identical by means of the Ring; and I took the
Ring and hung it on a hair of my own head over the head of the Genie, and
saw one of the thin lengths begin to twist and dart and writhe, and shift
lustres as a creature in anguish. So I put the Ring on my forefinger, and
turned the hair round and round it, and tugged. Lo, with a noise that
stunned me, the hair came out! O my betrothed, what shrieks and roars
were those: with which the Genie awoke, finding himself bare of the
Identical! Oolb heard them, and the sea foamed like the mouth of madness,
as the Genie sped thunder-like over it, following me in mid-air. Such a
flight was that! Now, I found it not possible to hold the Identical, for
it twisted and stung, and was nigh slipping from me while I flew. I saw
white on a corner of the Desert, a city, and I descended on it by the
shop of a clothier that sat quietly by his goods and stuffs, thinking of
fate less than of kabobs and stews and rare seasonings. That city hath
now his name. Wullahy, had I not then sown in his head that hair which he
weareth yet, how had I escaped Karaz, and met thee? Wondrous are the
decrees of Providence! Praise be to Allah for them! So the Genie, when he
found himself baffled by me, and Shagpat with the mighty hair in his
head, the Identical, he yelled, and fetched Shagpat a slap that sent him
into the middle of the street; but Kadza screamed after him, and there
was immediately such lamentation in the city about Shagpat, and such
tearing of hair about him, that I perceived at once the virtue that was
in the Identical. As for Karaz, finding his claim as possessor of the
Identical no more valid, he vanished, and has been my rebellious slave
since, till thou, O my betrothed, mad'st me spend him in curing thy folly
on the horse Garraveen, and he escaped from my circles beyond the
dominion of the Ring; yet had he his revenge, for I that was keeper of
the Lily, had, I now learned ruefully, a bond of beauty with it, and
whatever was a stain to one withered the other. Then that sorceress
Goorelka stole my beauty from me by sprinkling a blight on the petals of
the fair flower, and I became as thou first saw'st me. But what am I as I
now am? Blissful! blissful! Surely I grew humble with the loss of beauty,
and by humility wise, so that I assisted Feshnavat to become Vizier by
the Ring, and watched for thy coming to shave Shagpat, as a star
watcheth; for 'tis written, 'A barber alone shall be shearer of the
Identical'; and he only, my betrothed, hath power to plant it in Aklis,
where it groweth as a pillar, bringing due reverence to Aklis.