Come swiftly, my friend, for I grow lonely, and need a man to talk with." To which I replied, that I returned as fast as the barge would carry me, being so heavily laden with the manuscripts that I had copied and purchased.
So I started, being, to tell truth, glad to get away, for this reason.
Two nights before, when I was walking alone from the great temple of the house, a woman dressed in many colours appeared and accosted me as such lost ones do.

I tried to shake her off, but she clung to me, and I saw that she had drunk more than enough of wine.

Presently she asked, in a voice that I thought familiar, if I knew who was the officer that had come to Thebes on the business of some Royal One and abode in the dwelling that was known as House of the Prince.

I answered that his name was Ana.
"Once I knew an Ana very well," she said, "but I left him." "Why ?" I asked, turning cold in my limbs, for although I could not see her face because of a hood she wore, now I began to be afraid.
"Because he was a poor fool," she answered, "no man at all, but one who was always thinking about writings and making them, and another came my way whom I liked better until he deserted me." "And what happened to this Ana ?" I asked.
"I do not know.

I suppose he went on dreaming, or perhaps he took another wife; if so, I am sorry for her.