Hajj monologue (Act 1) — Kismet : $b An "Arabian night" in three acts

Whence? (_His brow clouds._) Whence? From a fool in his folly! An accursed for whom it shall weave the rope round his neck. But that’s for later. (_Chinking the purse._) This for now. (_He slips the purse in his breast._) Ha! Ha! Ha! O eyes of me! Ye should have beheld them in the hammam—the bath-keeper and his slaveboys. How they bowed before me—one and all. “O my master” here, and “O my lord” there. And such rinsings, and rubbings, and clappings, till my limbs rang aloud with smoothness! Then they laid me adown on silken sheets, the while censers fumed me sweetly from head to heel. And the bath-keeper knelt at my feet, and sung to the tom-tom a song. (_He sings, imitating the playing of a tom-tom with his hands._)