Page:Writings of Oscar Wilde - Volume 03.djvu/133

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THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL. 107

There were no windows to it, only a little door like the door of a tomb. They set down the palanquin and knocked three times with a copper hammer. An Armenian in a craftan of green leather peered through the wicket, and when he saw them he opened, and spread a carpet on the ground, and the woman stepped out. As she went in, she turned round and smiled at me again. I had never seen anyone so pale. "When the moon rose I returned to the same place and sought for the house, but it was no longer there. ^When I saw that, I knew who the woman was, and wherefore she had smiled at me. "Certainly thou should 'st have been with me. On the feast of the New Moon the young Emperor came forth from his palace and went into the mosque to pray. His hair and beard were dyed with rose-leaves, and his cheeks were powdered with a fine gold dust. The palms of his feet and hands were yellow with saffron. "At sunrise he went forth from his palace in a robe of silver, and at sunset he returned to it again in a robe of gold. The people flung themselves on the ground and hid their faces, but I would not do so. I stood by the stall

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