The Nosegay and the Test

Tales from the Tutinama | 04

The soldier’s virtuous wife, whom the Nobleman put to the test

When the sun had set and the moon had risen, Khajista hurried to the parrot. “You pay no heed to my sorrow!” she cried. “Do you not see that I am almost undone with love? Grant me leave to visit my sweetheart tonight.”

The parrot ruffled his feathers and replied, “My own heart is torn for your distress. I fear that if you go, your husband might arrive and bring shame upon you, just as once happened with the soldier’s wife and the nobleman.”

Khajista’s eyes widened. “Tell me the story,” she begged.

So the parrot began: “There lived a soldier with a wife of extraordinary beauty. Though he adored her, he was always anxious and uneasy. One day, being poor and unemployed, the wife asked him, ‘Why have you given up your work?’

He answered, ‘I cannot trust you, and so I do not seek employment elsewhere.’

She shook her head. ‘That is a foolish thought,’ she said. ‘No one can tempt a virtuous woman, and if a woman is wicked, no husband can restrain her.’”

“Have you never heard the story of the Jogi, who carried his wife upon his back and wandered through the desert, yet she was unfaithful with a hundred men?” the wife asked.

The soldier frowned. “What kind of tale is that?”

She smiled faintly and began: “Once, a man was wandering in the desert when he saw an elephant carrying a litter on its back. Startled, he climbed a nearby tree. By chance, the elephant passed beneath him, and the litter slipped off its back. The elephant went off to graze, leaving the litter behind.

To the man’s surprise, inside the litter he found a beautiful woman. She welcomed him and spoke to him with words meant to entice. Soon, they gave in to their desires.

Afterward, the woman took a string full of knots from her pocket and added another knot. The man, curious, asked, ‘Why are there so many knots, and why add yet another?’

She replied, ‘My husband is a magician. He has turned himself into an elephant and wanders the desert with me on his back. Yet, despite his watchfulness, I have been with a hundred men before this, each remembered by a knot on this string. And now, because of you, the number has grown to a hundred and one!’”

When the soldier’s wife finished her story, the soldier asked, “And what more would you have me do?”

She replied, “It is best for you to travel and seek work elsewhere. Take this nosegay with you. As long as it stays fresh, you may be sure I have done nothing wrong. Should it wither, then you will know I have been unfaithful.”

The soldier agreed and set out on his journey, carrying the nosegay with him. He entered the service of a nobleman in a distant city.

Even in the dead of winter, the nosegay remained fresh. The nobleman, astonished, asked his attendants how such a thing could be, for no flowers could be found at this time of year. The attendants admitted they, too, were puzzled.

Curious, the nobleman asked the soldier about it. “My wife gave me this nosegay,” he explained. “It is a sign of her virtue. As long as it stays fresh, her chastity is pure.”

The nobleman laughed. “Then your wife must be a sorceress or magician!”

The nobleman had two clever cooks. To one, he said, “Go to the soldier’s city and, by any trick or deceit, try to form a friendship with his wife. Bring back a full report, and we shall see whether this nosegay stays fresh or not.”

The cook obeyed. He sent a procuress to the soldier’s wife, who delivered his message. The wife did not answer directly, but said, “Send the man to me, so I may see if he is agreeable.”

When the cook arrived, she whispered in his ear, “Go away for now, and tell the procuress I will have nothing to do with her. Then come alone to my house, for such people cannot keep a secret.” The cook agreed and followed her plan.

At her house, she placed a slightly laced bed over a dry well and covered it with a sheet. When the cook sat down, he fell through with a cry of alarm.

The soldier’s wife looked down and asked, “Tell me truly, who are you, and from where have you come?”

The poor cook, embarrassed and frightened, confessed everything about the soldier and the mission he had been sent to perform.

The short of the story is this: the first cook, trapped in the clever trick of the soldier’s wife, remained stuck and helpless. When some time passed, and he did not return, the nobleman gave the second cook a large sum of money and plenty of goods, sending him to the soldier’s wife, this time pretending to be a merchant.

But the second cook met the same fate, caught in the same trap. Astonished that neither cook returned, the nobleman finally realised that some mischief must have happened. Determined to see for himself, he decided to go in person.

One day, under the pretence of a hunting trip, the nobleman set out, accompanied by the soldier. When they reached the soldier’s city, the soldier first took the nobleman to his home and presented his wife with the fresh nosegay. The wife told the nobleman everything that had happened.

The next day, the soldier led the nobleman to the house where the cooks were trapped in the well. He ordered them to put on women’s clothes, serve the meal to his guest, and then promised to set them free afterwards.

The two cooks, worn out from their ordeal in the well and their poor diet, looked completely changed. Their hair had fallen out, and their faces were pale and weary. Still, they obeyed and served the meal to the nobleman, who watched in astonishment.

The nobleman looked at the two girls in surprise. “What crime have these girls committed,” he asked the soldier, “that their hair has been shaved?”

The soldier replied, “They have done wrong; you may ask them for themselves.”

On closer inspection, the nobleman recognised them. They fell at his feet, weeping, and testified to the soldier’s wife’s innocence and virtue.

From behind a curtain, the wife called out, “My lord, I am the woman you suspected of being a sorceress. You sent men to test me and even laughed at my husband. Now you see my true character.”

The nobleman was humbled and begged forgiveness for his mistakes.

The parrot, having finished the tale of the soldier’s wife, looked at Khajista and said, “My princess, go quickly to your lover, lest your husband arrive and you face shame with your friend, just as the nobleman was confounded by the soldier’s wife.”

Khajista tried to rise and depart, but at that very moment the cock crowed and daylight appeared, and her journey had to be postponed.