Countess. [Aside.] This is too much. I could hardly endure to have him so beloved by another, even at the extremity of the earth. [To Zaida.] You would not lead him into perdition?
Zaida. I have led him (Allah be praised!) to his wife and children. It was for those I left my father. He whom we love might have stayed with me at home: but there he would have been only half happy, even had he been free. I could not often let him see me through the lattice; I was too afraid; and I dared only once let fall the water-melon; it made such a noise in dropping and rolling on the terrace: but, another day, when I had pared it nicely, and had swathed it up well among vine-leaves, dipped in sugar and sherbet, I was quite happy. I leaped and danced to have been so ingenious. I wonder what creature could have found and eaten it. I wish he were here, that I might ask him if he knew.
Countess. He quite forgot home then!
Zaida. When we could speak together at all, he spoke perpetually of those whom the calamity of war had separated from him.
Countess. It appears that you could comfort him in his distress, and did it willingly.
Zaida. It is delightful to kiss the eye-lashes of the beloved: is it not? but never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.
Countess. And even this too? you did this?
Zaida. Fifty times.
Countess. Insupportable!
He often then spoke about me?