As soon as it was day, I rose and changed my clothes and
perfumed myself with essences and sweet-scented smoke. Then I
took fifty dinars in a handkerchief and went out to the Zuweyleh
Gate, where I hired an ass, bidding the driver carry me to the
Hebbaniyeh. So he set off with me and brought me in the twinkling
of an eye to a by-street called El Munkeri, where I bade him go
in and enquire for the Syndic's house. After a little he returned
and said, 'Alight.' But I made him guide me to the house, where I
dismounted and giving him a quarter-dinar, said, 'Come back
to-morrow at daybreak and fetch me away.' 'In the name of God,'
answered he, and went away. Then I knocked at the gate and there
came out two young girls, high-bosomed maids, as they were moons,
and said to me, 'Enter, for our mistress awaits thee, and she
slept not last night for joyance in thee.' So I entered and they
brought me, through a vestibule, into an upper chamber with seven
doors, paved with vari-coloured marbles and furnished with
hangings and carpets of coloured silk. The walls were plastered
with stucco-royal, in which one might see his own face, and the
roof was ribbed with gold and bordered with inscriptions
emblazoned in ultramarine. All around were latticed windows
overlooking a garden, full of fruits of all colours, with streams
running and birds singing on the branches, and midmost the hall
was a fountain, at whose angles stood birds fashioned in red
gold, spouting forth water as it were pearls and jewels; and
indeed the place comprised all kinds of beauty and dazzled the
beholder with its radiance.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326