"Love smote my frame so sore on parting day, * That severance severed sleep and eyes for aye. I waxt so lean that I am still a man, * But for my speaking, thou wouldst never say." Then she shed tears and wrote at the foot of the sheet, "This cometh from her who is far from her folk and her native land, the sorrowful hearted woman Nuzhat al-Zaman." In fine, she folded the sheet and gave it to the merchant, who took it and kissed it and understood its contents and exclaimed, "Glory to Him who fashioned thee!"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say. When it was the Fifty-ninth Night, She said, It reached me, O auspicious King, that Nuzhat al-Zaman wrote the letter and gave it to the merchant; and he took it and read it and understood the contents and exclaimed, "Glory to Him who fashioned thee!" Then he redoubled his kindness and made himself pleasant to her all that day, and when night came he sallied out to the bazar and bought some food, wherewith he fed her; after which he carried her to the Hammam and said to the bath woman, "As soon as thou hast made an end of washing her head, dress her and send and let me know of it." And she replied "Hearing is obeying." Meanwhile he fetched food and fruit and wax candles and set them on the bench in the outer room of the bath; and when the tire woman had done washing her, she dressed her and led her out of the bath and seated her on the bench. Then she sent to tell the merchant, and Nuzhat al-Zaman went forth to the outer room, where she found the tray spread with food and fruit. So she ate and the tire woman with her, and gave the rest to the people and keeper of the bath. Then she slept till the morning, and the merchant lay the night in a place apart from her. When he aroused himself from sleep he came to her and waking her, presented her with a shift of fine stuff and a head-kerchief worth a thousand dinars, a suit of Turkish embroidery and walking boots purfled with red gold and set with pearls and gems. Moreover, he hung in each of her ears a circlet of gold with a fine pearl therein, worth a thousand dinars, and threw round her neck a collar of gold with bosses of garnet and a chain of amber beads that hung down between her breasts over her navel. Now to this chain were attached ten balls and nine crescents, and each crescent had in its midst a bezel of ruby, and each ball a bezel of balass: the value of the chain was three thousand dinars and each of the balls was priced at twenty thousand dirhams, so that the dress she wore was worth in all a great sum of money. When she had put these on, the merchant bade her adorn herself, and she adorned herself to the utmost beauty; then she let fall her fillet over her eyes and she fared forth with the merchant preceding her. But when folk saw her, all wondered at her beauty and exclaimed, "Blessed be Allah, the most excellent Creator! O lucky the man in