•  A thorn in the heart

144- He said: “O king, make the house empty; send away both kinsfolk and strangers.
145- Let no one listen in the entrance-halls, that I may ask certain things of this handmaiden.”
146- The house was left empty, and not one inhabitant remained; nobody saves the physician and that sick girl.
147- Very gently he said to her, “Where is your native town? For the treatment suitable to the people of each town is separate.
148- And in that town who is related to you? With what have you kinship and affinity?”
149- He laid his hand on her pulse and put questions, one by one, about the problems of life and the injustice of Heaven.
150- When a thorn darts into anyone's foot, he sets his foot upon his knee,
151- And keeps searching for its head with the point of the needle, and if he does not find it, he keeps moistening it with his lip.
152- A thorn in the foot is so hard to find; how is it with a thorn in the heart? Answer that!
153- If every base fellow was able to see the thorn in the heart, when would sorrows be able to gain the upper hand over anyone? When would sorrows be able to overcome anyone?
154- Somebody sticks a thorn under a donkey's tail, the donkey does not know how to get rid of it; he starts jumping.
155- He jumps, and the thorn strikes more firmly the thorn pierces deeper; it needs an intelligent person to extract a thorn.
156- In order to get rid of the thorn, the donkey from irritation and pain went on kicking and dealing blows in a hundred places,
157- But that thorn-removing physician was an expert; putting his hand on one spot after another, he tested it.
158- He inquired of the girl concerning her friends, by way of narrative,
159- And she disclosed to the physician many circumstances touching her home and former masters and fellow-townsmen.
160- He listened to her story while he continued to observe her pulse and its beating,
161- So that at whosoever's name her pulse should begin to throb and beat, he might know that person is the object of her soul's desire in the world.
162- He counted up the friends in her native town; then he mentioned another town by name.
163- He said: “When you went forth from your own town, in which town did you live mostly?”
164- She mentioned the name of a certain town and from that too she passed on to speak of another, and meanwhile there was no change in the color of her face or in her pulse.
165- Masters and towns, one by one, she told of, and about dwelling-place and the food that they had eaten together.
166- She told stories of many towns and many houses, and still no vein of her quivered nor did her cheek grow pale.
167- Her pulse remained in its normal state, unimpaired, till he asked about Samarkand, the city sweet as candy.
168- Thereat her pulse jumped and her face went red and pale by turns, for she had been parted from a man of Samarkand, a goldsmith.