ast a garden! There his hand would touch
At once a curtain, back of which is all:
All kissing, laughing, all the happiness
This world can give promiscuously flung
About like balls of golden wool, such bliss
That but a drop of it on parched lips
Suffices to be lighter than a flame,
To see no more of difficulty, nor
To understand what men call ugliness!
(Almost shrieking.)
The evening ne'er must come, that with a thousand
Unfettered tongues should cry to me: why not?
Why hast thou never run in dark of night
That road? Thy feet were young, thy breath sufficient:
Why hast thou saved it, that thou mightst have plenty
To weep a thousand nights upon thy pillow?
[She turns her back to the window, clutches
the table, collapses and falls to her knees,
and remains thus, her face pressed to the
table, her body shaken with weeping. A
long pause.]

MERCHANT. And if the first door I should open wide,
The only locked one on this road of love?
[He opens the small doorway leading into
the garden on the right; the moonlight
enters.]

SOBEIDE (still kneeling by the table).
Art thou so cruel as, in this first hour,
To make a silly pastime of my weeping!
Art thou so fain to put thy scorn upon me?
Art thou so proud of holding me securely?

MERCHANT (with the utmost self-control).
How much I could have wished that thou hadst learned
To know me otherwise, but now there is
No time for that.
Thy father, if 'tis this which so constrains thee,
Thy father owes me nothing now, indeed
Within some days agreements have been made
Between us twain, from which some little profit
And so, I hope, a much belated gleam
Of joyousness may come.

[She has crept closer to him on her knees, listening.]

So then thou mightest--
Thou mayst, I mean to say, if it was this
That lamed thee most, if in this--_alien_ dwelling
Again thou feel the will to live, which thou
Hadst lost, if, as from heavy sleep aroused,
Yet not awake, thou