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Now the Sultan Schahriar had a wife whom he loved more than all the world, and his greatesthappiness was to surround her with splendour, and to give her the finest dresses and the mostbeautiful jewels. It was therefore with the deepest shame and sorrow that he accidentally discovered, after several years, that she had deceived him completely, and her whole conduct turned out to havebeen so bad, that he felt himself obliged to carry out the law of the land, and order the grand-vizir toput her to death. The blow was so heavy that his mind almost gave way, and he declared that he wasquite sure that at bottom all women were as wicked as the sultana, if you could only find them out, and that the fewer the world contained the better. So every evening he married a fresh wife and hadher strangled the following morning before the grand-vizir, whose duty it was to provide theseunhappy brides for the Sultan. The poor man fulfilled his task with reluctance, but there was noescape, and every day saw a girl married and a wife dea