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"
'The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise magi,'"
continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed by
these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of her
husband--"'the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are every
thing that is accomplished and refined; and would be every thing that is
interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them,
and from which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and
fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities come in
certain shapes, and some in others--but this of which I speak has come
in the shape of a crotchet.'"
"A what?" said the king.
"
'A crotchet'" said Scheherazade. "'One of the evil genii, who are
perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of
these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personal
beauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the region which lies
not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they
say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been long
possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the
days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman from
a dromedary-'"
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