Buddir ad Deen, though overwhelmed with grief, was asleep so soundly, that the vizier’s domestics had taken him out of the chest and stripped him before he awoke; and they carried him so suddenly into the hall, that they did not give him time to see where he was.  When he found himself alone in the hall, he looked round him, and the objects he beheld recalling to his memory the circumstances of his marriage, he perceived, with astonishment, that it was the place where he had seen the sultan’s groom of the stables.  His surprise was still the greater, when approaching softly the door of a chamber which he found open, he spied his own raiments where he remembered to have left them on his wedding night.  “My God!” said he, rubbing his eyes, “am I asleep or awake?”

The beautiful lady, who in the mean time was diverting herself with his astonishment, opened the curtains of her bed suddenly, and bending her head forward, “My dear lord,” said she, with a soft, tender air, “what do you do at the door?  You have been out of bed a long time.  I was strangely surprised when I awoke in not finding you by me.”  Buddir ad Deen was enraptured; he entered the room, but reverting to all that had passed during a ten years’ interval, and not being able to persuade himself that it could all have happened in the compass of one night, he went to the place where his vestments lay with the purse of sequins; and after examining them very carefully, exclaimed, “By Allah these are mysteries which I can by no means comprehend!” The lady, who was pleased to see his confusion, said, once more, “My lord, what do you wait for?” He stepped towards the bed, and said to her, “Is it long since I left you?” “The question,” answered she, “surprises me.  Did not you rise from me but now?  Surely your mind is deranged.”  “Madam,” replied Buddir ad Deen, “I do assure you my thoughts are not very composed.  I remember indeed to have been with you, but I remember at the same time, that I have since lived ten years at Damascus.  Now, if I was actually in bed with you this night, I cannot have been from you so long.  These two points are inconsistent.  Pray tell me what I am to think; whether my marriage with you is an illusion, or whether my absence from you is only a dream?” “Yes, my lord,” cried she, “doubtless you were light-headed when you thought you were at Damascus.”  Upon this Buddir ad Deen laughed heartily, and said, “What a comical fancy is this!  I assure you, madam, this dream of mine will be very pleasant to you.  Do but imagine, if you please, that I was at the gate of Damascus in my shirt and drawers, as I am here now; that I entered the town with the halloo of a mob who followed and insulted me; that I fled to a pastry cook who adopted me, taught me his trade, and left me all he had when he died; that after his death I kept a shop.  In fine, I had an infinity of other adventures, too tedious to recount:  and all I can say is, that it was well that I awoke, for they