Bedreddin Hassan, though overwhelmed with grief, had been asleep all the while, insomuch that the vizier’s domestics had taken him out of the chest, and stripped him before he awaked, and carried him so suddenly into the hall, that they did not give him time to bethink himself where he was. When he found himself all alone in the hall, he looked round him, and the objects of his sight recalling to memory the circumstances of his marriage, he perceived, with astonishment, that it was the same hall where he had seen the sultan’s groom of the stables. His surprise was still the greater, when approaching softly to the door of a chamber which he found open, he spied within his own clothes in the same place 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 all on a sudden, and bending her head forward, My dear lord, said she, with a soft, tender air, what do you do at the door? Prithee come to bed again! You have been out of bed a long time. I was strangely surprised when I awaked in not finding you by me. Bedreddin Hassan’s countenance changed when he perceived that the lady who spoke to him was that charming person that he had lain with before: so he entered the room, but calling up the thoughts of all that had passed for a ten years’ interval, and not being able to persuade himself that it all could have happened in the compass of one night, he went to the place where his clothes lay, and the purse of sequins, and after examining them very carefully, By the living God, cried he, these are things that I can by no means comprehend! The lady, who was pleased to see his confusion, said, once more, My lord, come to bed again; what do you stand at? Then he stepped towards the bed, and said to her, Pray; madam, tell me, is it long since I left you? --The question, answered she, surprises me. Did not you rise from me but now? Sure your thoughts are very busy. --Madam, replied Bedreddin, 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 lived since ten years at Damascus. Now, if I was actually in bed with you this night, I cannot have been with you so long. These two things 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, Bedreddin laughed out heartily, and said, What a comical fancy is this! I assure you, madam, this dream 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 a halloo of a mob that followed and insulted