playing the dulcimer leaned against a tree and shut her eyes. Far below, in the valley, smoke drifted from stone houses, music stopped, they lay down around the fire, it grew darker, in the darkness, the woman's body rose and sank in rhythmic motions, abruptly coming forward, then leaning back, attacking, enveloping, releasing, the moon light covered their bodies, the mountains disappeared. Now he was walking, he arrived at a shrine, was not permitted to enter, he found refuge in a building in Baghdad, he was brandished. He spent nights in the deserts, walked in a delirium in the green pastures, then sat under a tree. He saw a caravan of beautiful women, their dandng bodies floating in the air, enticing him, wind passed through the leaves, their colour changed from green to yellow to red, they fell from the trees and filled the valley, rains and storms appeared, lightening struck, the sky became blood red. Oblivious of his body. Time and Space and Created things, he sat firm. "Everything is in the fire," at last he heard a voice, "and what is on fire 0 Bikhshu? the Eye is on fire, things perceived by the eye are on fire, the ear is on fire, sounds and symbols and shadows are on fire and the sunshine and the moonlight and the night and the stars and the earth and the seasons and the sky and the stars. Mars and Jupiter and Venus and Moon and the Self and the animals and the birds and the refuge of the air, and the call of the sea and the vow of longing and the eternal light and the day after the death and the suffering of life and the morning of Hope and the veils of mystery and Night, the conqueror and the conquered, the lover and the beloved, the dome and the sound, the Reason and the perception, the possibilities and probabilities, the wine glass and the drinker, the eternity and the beginning. . . . Three days later, Yashab returned to his city. He was feverish and still in a delirium. It was evening and the hawkers were selling their leftover stock of fruits and vegetables at discount prices. Near the northern gate of the Old City, the old boddi tree was populated with birds singing the evening hymns. "Qadir," his grandmother said, getting up to greet him, "you came back!" "Mother," Agha Khanum said, "this is Yashab." Yashab put his bag on the floor. "Has Yashab gone!" he heard his grandmother's voice before falling unconscious. Translated by the author. Annual of Urdu Studies^ #7 5^