These he commanded to go
and take Bedreddin out of the chest, to strip him to his shirt
and drawers, conduct him in that condition to the hall, leave him
there all alone, and shut the door upon him. Bedreddin, though
overwhelmed with grief, had been asleep all the while; insomuch
that the vizier's domestics had taken him put of the chest, and
stripped him, before he awaked, and carried him so suddenly into
the hall, that they did not give him time to bethink himself
where he was. When he found himself alone in the hall, he looked
round, and the objects of his sight recalling to his memory the
circumstances of his marriage, he perceived with astonishment
that it was the same hall where he had seen the sultan's groom of
the stables. His surprise was still greater, when, approaching
softly to the door of a chamber which he found open, he espied
his clothes in the very place where he remembered to have left
them on his wedding-night. My God! said he, rubbing his eyes, am
I asleep or awake?
His wife, who in the mean time was diverting herself with his
astonishment, suddenly opened the curtains of her bed; and,
bending her head forward, My dear lord, said she, with a tender
air, what do you there? Pr'ythee come to bed again; you have been
out of it a long time. I was strangely surprised, when I awaked,
at not finding you by me.
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