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he prayed my sister to end as it ended in his version: with the double marriage of herself to your brother and me to you, and our living happily together until overtaken by the Destroyer of Delights and Severer of Societies, et cetera.
    “While I tried to assimilate this astonishing news about myself, Sherry asked with a smile whether by ‘his version’ the Genie meant that copy of the Nights from which he’d been assisting us or the story he himself was in midst of inventing; for she liked to imagine, and profoundly hoped it so, that our connection had not been to her advantage only: that one way or another, she and I and our situation were among those ‘ancient narrative materials’ which he had found useful for his present purposes. How did his version end?
    “The Genie closed his eyes for a moment, pushed back his glasses with his thumb, and repeated that he was still in the middle of that third novella in the series, and so far from drafting the climax and dénouement, had yet even to plot them in outline. Turning then to me, to my great surprise he announced that the title of the story was Dunyazadiad; that its central character was not my sister but myself, the image of whose circumstances, on my ‘wedding-night-to-come,’ he found as arresting for taletellers of his particular place and time as was my sister’s for the estate of narrative artists in general.
    “ ‘All those nights at the foot of the bed, Dunyazade!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ve had the whole literary tradition transmitted to you—and the whole erotic tradition, too! There’s no story you haven’t heard; there’s no way of making love that you haven’t seen again and again. I think of you, little sister, a virgin in both respects: All that innocence! All that sophistication! And now it’s your turn: Shahryar has told young Shah Zaman about his wonderful mistress, how he loves her as much for herself as for her stories— which he also passes on; the two brothers marry the two sisters; it’s your wedding night, Dunyazade… But wait! Look here! Shahryar deflowered and killed a virgin a night for a thousand and one nights before he met Scheherazade; Shah Zaman has been doing the same thing, but it’s only now, a thousand nights and a night later, that he learns about Scheherazade—that means he’s had two thousand and two young women at the least since he killed his wife, and not one has pleased him enough to move him to spend a second night with her, much less spare her life! What are you going to do to entertain him, little sister? Make love in exciting new ways? There are none! Tell him stories, like Scheherazade? He’s heard them all! Dunyazade, Dunyazade! Who can tell your story?’
    “More dead than alive with fright, I clung to my sister, who begged the Genie please to stop alarming me. All apologies, he assured us that what he was describing was not The Thousand and One Nights frame-story (which ended happily without mention of these terrors), but his own novella, a pure fiction—to which also he would endeavor with all his heart to find some conclusion in keeping with his affection for me. Sherry further eased my anxiety by adding that she too had given long thought to my position as the Genie described it, and was not without certain plans with respect to our wedding night; these, as a final favor to our friend, she had made written note of in the hope that whether or not they succeeded, he might find them useful for his story; but she would prefer to withhold them from me for the present.
    “ ‘You sense as I do, then,’ the Genie said thoughtfully, ‘that we won’t be seeing each other again.’
    “Sherry nodded. ‘You have other stories to tell. I’ve told mine.’
    “Already he’d begun to fade. ‘My best,’ he said, ‘will be less than your least. And I’ll always love you, Scheherazade! Dunyazade, I’m your brother! Good night, sisters! Fare well!’
    “We kissed; he disappeared with Sherry’s