Then
I rose and went away, leaving the fifty dinars with her as
before. I found the ass-driver at the door and mounting, rode to
the Khan, where I slept awhile, then went out to prepare the
evening-meal. I took a brace of geese with broth on two platters
of dressed rice, together with colocasia-roots[FN#79], fried and
soaked in honey, and wax candles and fruits and conserves and
flowers and nuts and almonds, and sent them all to her. As soon
as it was night, I mounted the ass as usual, taking with me fifty
dinars in a handkerchief, and rode to the house, where we ate and
drank and lay together till morning, when I left the handkerchief
and dinars with her and rode back to the Khan. I ceased not to
lead this life, till one fine morning I found myself without a
single dirhem and said, 'This is Satan's doing!' And I repeated
the following verses:
When a rich man grows poor, his lustre dies away, Like to the
setting sun that pales with ended day.
Absent, his name is not remembered among men: Present, he hath no
part in life and its array.
He passes through the streets and fain would hide his head And
pours out floods of tears in every desert way.
By Allah, when distress and want descend on men, But strangers
midst their kin and countrymen are they.
Then I left the Khan and walked along Bein el Kesrein till I came
to the Zuweyleh Gate, where I found the folk crowded together and
the gate blocked up for the much people.
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