And to me it seemed too vast, too lonesome, and after
advancing a few hundred yards beyond the bazaar, I turned again.
* * * * *
I found the girl still asleep at the house-door, and stirring her with
my foot, woke her. She leapt up with a start of surprise, and a
remarkable sinuous agility, and gazed an astounded moment at me, till,
separating reality from dream and habit, she realised me: but
immediately subsided to the floor again, being in evident pain. I pulled
her up, and made her limp after me through several halls to the inner
court, and the well, where I set her upon the weedy margin, took her
foot in my lap, examined it, drew water, washed it, and bandaged it with
a strip torn from my caftan-hem, now and again speaking gruffly to her,
so that she might no more follow me.
After this, I had breakfast by the kiosk-steps, and when I was
finished, put a mass of truffled _foie gras_ on a plate, brushed through
the thicket to the well, and gave it her.
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