“Why are you naked?”
“So that the sunbeams may enjoy me, and the wind, and the hills, and the valleys, and the heavens, and God.”
“How can you lie there so?”
“I have a couch here made of leaves and branches,—a soft couch for me and for those whom I invite to enjoy me. Soft is my bed and fragrant,—but even softer and more fragrant am I. Will you not feel us?”
And in utter forgetfulness, filled with a single intense desire, Rabbi Akiba approached very close to the tree and scarcely had breath to ask, “How can I get to you?”
The glorious vision uttered a magic laugh.
“Were you, then, never a little boy? What did you do when a tempting apple nodded to you from among the branches of an apple-tree? You removed your clothes, made yourself as light as possible, and climbed up the tree after the beautiful, ripening fruit. Am I less than the fruit? Is it not worth while to climb up after me? Or are you old, and have your bones become hard, and is climbing now beyond your years and your strength? Take off your clothes; you will have no need of them in any case, up here. Make yourself light, and with all the youth that has now been born anew in you, climb up to me....”
Enchanted and intoxicated, as hastily as possible, whipped on by driving impatience, Rabbi Akiba cast off his clothes and seized the trunk of the palm tree, beginning to climb aloft. With his naked hands and feet around the shaggy bark, with his burning eyes riveted upon her above, drinking in her beauty, sucking in the warm ruddiness of her veins. He did not notice that his skin was being scratched and torn by the bark of the tree, and that blood was beginning to flow over his body. He climbed higher, ever higher.
And her magic eyes drew him on as if with ropes and her fascinating voice was as a guide to him. From between her pearly teeth it poured forth like wine that robbed the senses.
“Come! Co-o-ome! Co-o-ome!”