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灵魂又来到了一个集市，在那里他看到了形形色色的商品和奇怪的人们。最后他看到了一队抬着轿子的黑人，在好奇心的驱动下便跟上了他们。
'At last they stopped at a square white house.
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 caftan（长袍） of green leather peered through the wicket（边门）, 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 any one 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 shouldst 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（藏红花）.
'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 of a seller of dates and waited.
When the Emperor saw me, he raised his painted eyebrows and stopped.
I stood quite still, and made him no obeisance（尊敬）.
The people marvelled at my boldness, and counselled me to flee from the city.
I paid no heed to them, but went and sat with the sellers of strange gods, who by reason of their craft are abominated（厌恶）.
When I told them what I had done, each of them gave me a god and prayed me to leave them.
'That night, as I lay on a cushion in the tea-house that is in the Street of Pomegranates, the guards of the Emperor entered and led me to the palace.
As I went in they closed each door behind me, and put a chain across it.
Inside was a great court with an arcade running all round.
The walls were of white alabaster（雪花石膏）, set here and there with blue and green tiles.
The pillars were of green marble, and the pavement of a kind of peach-blossom marble.
I had never seen anything like it before.
'As I passed across the court two veiled women looked down from a balcony and cursed me.
The guards hastened on, and the butts of the lances（柳叶刀） rang upon the polished floor.
They opened a gate of wrought ivory, and I found myself in a watered garden of seven terraces.
It was planted with tulip-cups and moonflowers, and silver-studded aloes（芦荟）.
Like a slim reed of crystal a fountain hung in the dusky air.
The cypress-trees were like burnt-out torches.
From one of them a nightingale was singing.
'At the end of the garden stood a little pavilion.
As we approached it two eunuchs（太监） came out to meet us.
Their fat bodies swayed as they walked, and they glanced curiously at me with their yellow-lidded eyes.
One of them drew aside the captain of the guard, and in a low voice whispered to him.
The other kept munching scented pastilles, which he took with an affected gesture out of an oval box of lilac enamel（珐琅）.
'After a few moments the captain of the guard dismissed the soldiers.
They went back to the palace, the eunuchs following slowly behind and plucking the sweet mulberries from the trees as they passed.
Once the elder of the two turned round, and smiled at me with an evil smile.
'Then the captain of the guard motioned me towards the entrance of the pavilion.
I walked on without trembling, and drawing the heavy curtain aside I entered in.
'The young Emperor was stretched on a couch of dyed lion skins, and a gerfalcon（矛隼） perched upon his wrist.
Behind him stood a brass- turbaned Nubian, naked down to the waist, and with heavy earrings in his split ears.
On a table by the side of the couch lay a mighty scimitar of steel.
'When the Emperor saw me he frowned, and said to me, "What is thy name? Knowest thou not that I am Emperor of this city?"
But I made him no answer.
'He pointed with his finger at the scimitar(半月形刀), and the Nubian seized it, and rushing forward struck at me with great violence.
The blade whizzed through me, and did me no hurt.
The man fell sprawling on the floor, and when he rose up his teeth chattered with terror and he hid himself behind the couch.
'The Emperor leapt to his feet, and taking a lance from a stand of arms, he threw it at me.
I caught it in its flight, and brake the shaft into two pieces.
He shot at me with an arrow, but I held up my hands and it stopped in mid-air.
Then he drew a dagger from a belt of white leather, and stabbed the Nubian in the throat lest the slave should tell of his dishonour.
The man writhed（扭动） like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.
（890 words）
-今日短语-
1. stop at停在…处
2. set down 放下
3. step out 走出来
4. marvel at 对…惊奇
5. flee from 从…逃出来
6. pay heed to 注意，留意
7. hasten on 加快脚步
8. throw sth. at sb. 朝某人丢某物
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