VALEH's heart was sated with desert travel and he at last came down to the sea and took ship for India.* As the ship moved away from the shore, he turned his face towards Isfahan.

He landed at Tate, and would have stayed there but he was still restless and continued his wanderings. He made for the Punjaub and visited its cities and went about the land till he came to Delhi. That city became his resting-place, and he filled it with the smoke from the fire of his sighs. This is the reason of the heat of Delhi; let him who blames all things blame Delhi. Delhi is warm, but it warms the hearts of lovers; the true lover loves Delhi as the salamander loves the fire.

And since he was a Persian noble,* the nobles and captains of the city came to greet him; and they brought news of him to the Emperor. And the Emperor* bade them bring him before him. But Valeh's heart was taken up with love, and he had little leisure to talk with king or beggar. The world had lost its savour to him; king and beggar were alike to him. Hard it seemed to obey the Emperor's command; easy to remain alone. But at last the nobles prevailed on him to go to Court. And when he came the Emperor treated him courteously and gave him a robe of honour. His honour was great among the peers, and he received high rank; the Emperor also gave him a village for his sustenance.

And that love-sick one only mourned the more. “Who am I,” he said, “to receive honours and lands? I am ashamed when I think of my King, who is Love. For his slave am I; from him have I received honour and favour; if I serve another king I am a traitor and idolater. What have I to do in this Emperor's Court? My station is in love's garden.”

So he spoke to himself and went sorrowfully back to his house from the Emperor's presence, there to sit alone lamenting. Or if he was with his friends it was in semblance only, for his heart and mind were with his love. Sometimes at Court grief would become too strong for him, and he fled home that the bonds of heart and eyes might be unloosed. And not one moment did he forget. And in the stillness of night his cry would arise: “Oh Hadijeh, my love, my own, your love has destroyed me; see me, what I am. I am dying; and if I do not die when I have lost thee I should be ashamed to live.”

[Written on the margin in Valeh's handwriting: “My heart is gone from me and she knows it not; I burn and she knows not of my burning. I am like a lamp that is extinguished in a room where one is sleeping, that goes out because it is not tended, and he that sleeps knows it not. I am a slave parted from his master. If I meet her again, how could I look into her face? I am parted from her and still live.”

“I had rather be a beggar at your doors than a prince in Delhi. The days I knew you fled as swiftly as the sun­rise; will the day come when you will enter my door? Will it ever come?”]

This which I tell you, this story which I relate, is only one letter of the book of Valeh's lamentation. And yet with all this boiling within him, he kept his secret so that few knew it. And in such misery he spent fourteen years.*

And now my pen will cross the seas and fly to Isfahan. [written above in Valeh's handwriting:

“Magnun, chief of madmen, was saner than I; he makes confession of my greater merit; he says: ‘Valeh, you are as my brother.’ And wert thou a friend of the garden of love, oh reader, I would call thee as witness. I could find a hundred faults in Magnun, if it were seemly to reproach my brother.”]