So I ate my
fill and when the dishes had been taken away and we had washed
our hands, she called for fruits and bade me eat of them; after
which she bade one of the waiting-women bring the wine-service.
So they set on flagons of divers kinds of wine and burned
perfumes in all the censers, what while a damsel like the moon
rose and served us with wine, to the sound of the smitten
strings. We sat and drank, the lady and I, till we were warm with
wine, whilst I doubted not but that all this was an illusion of
sleep. Presently, she signed to one of the damsels to spread us a
bed in such a place, which being done, she took me by the hand
and led me thither. So I lay with her till the morning, and as
often as I pressed her in my arms, I smelt the delicious
fragrance of musk and other perfumes that exhaled from her and
could think no otherwise but that I was in Paradise or in the
mazes of a dream. When it was day, she asked me where I lodged
and I told her, "In such a place;" whereupon she gave me a
handkerchief gold and silver wrought, with somewhat tied in it,
and bade me depart, saying, "Go to the bath with this." So I
rejoiced and said to myself, "If there be but five farthings
here, it will buy me the morning meal.
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