Two Fateful Letters

She sat down at her desk anxious, distraught, angry, and before her lay two letters she had to answer.

She began to write the first, to her only son; her pen ran on wandering, without pause, and her face was moved, pale, indignant.

My son,

It has become plain to me that you have counted yourself a stranger to me and regarded me as an enemy, not a mother. I went away from you for six weeks only, and to my ill luck I did not cross your mind once in all that short time, during which you might have shown regard for my health and my circumstances — you who know everything about my wretched, careworn life, about my misery and my ill fortune, about my pains and the bitter cares I have tasted for your sake and your father's. O God!! You add to my torment and press upon my heart... What plan are you following in your life? Did I not show you tenderness in your ordeal? Did I not watch over you during your illness? Is it conceivable that you should repay me with forgetfulness and neglect? You confessed to me in your last letter that you went into the school examinations without preparation: that is a shameful act and a great negligence, which leaves me perplexed about you, unable to make out your character and your inclinations.

Before leaving the house I implored you to change your course of life for the whole time of my absence and to keep steadily at work; you swore an oath and assured me you would do as I bade you. But ah, how ringing and sweet your words were, how lavish your promises, and how I wanted to believe them, and to have faith in you, and to forget your lies and your assorted hollow pledges. Now you tell me you are burdened with debts and exposed to prison and punishment! Yes, this is a tale that has repeated itself until it has become the one lesson you know and no other; I have listened to it long, and I want no more of it, and I will accept it no longer. It has bred me pains enough in these last years; I endured and was patient, and my portion was misery and grievous mishaps. Ah, I cannot conceive that you are trifling with your life and mine.

No, no, and a thousand times no — my heart can bear no more... in vain would you mend your ways... I shall not come back... You are stripped of every human feeling; you love no one but yourself and give rein to nothing but your pleasures and your desires. My soul is worn out with so much pleading, my patience exhausted by so much forgiveness — when, oh when, will your injustice and your oppression come to rest!! You have shattered the boundless tenderness that I hoarded for no one but you. Know, then, that you are not worthy of one instant of my past sacrifices — of my consecrating my tears, my pains, my sleepless watching, my strength, and my life for your comfort. From now on I shall let you be; I shall spend months and years far away from you, and it is for you to choose which of the two courses suits you better. Forget that I am alive, as though you no longer had a mother and I no longer had a son.

***

The pen roamed without settling, tracing harsh lines and words and sentences which her heart dictated and her tongue gave voice to.

She wrote the address, sealed the envelope, closed her eyelids, and remained a few minutes rigid, pained, bewildered.

She took up a second sheet to answer the other letter, and suddenly her features changed; she forgot her campaign against her son, her pains and her sorrows and her forebodings melted away, and her rancor and indignation subsided.

"In three days he will be here — in three days."

At this potent recollection a flood of burning warmth stole into her heart and ran through all her veins; a great tremor came over her and she sat motionless, spellbound by the beauty of her imaginings, which began to play upon her gladness; and her feelings burst forth from her electrified heart in full flood. Her pen ran in a stream, and she wrote:

My happiness, my only one, my beloved: you left me, and the joy of life left me. The minutes crawl; they ring like vast notes, frightening and mournful, as though they were months and years. I went for the first time to the verdant gardens where we used to meet, and they reminded me of our old meetings; I visited them all, and my last glances found them solitary, and I almost cried out: where is he? And there, beside the clear, restless brook murmuring among the thickets and the flowers, I sat on our bench, still crouched there trembling, and the picture of the beautiful past rose before me; I remembered you, and everything seemed to me a nothingness. The sweet rippling waters — I saw them glide by gray-hued, sullen and rancorous, because you were not here with me to make everything beautiful and alive. Be assured, beloved, that the white, fragrant lily held its breath, and the tender cricket wailed, weeping and complaining, repeating: where is he... where is he... And my strength failed when your beloved phantom appeared to me, and I went straight to the hotel; and there your letter was waiting for me — it was life come back to me. For you are everything to me: you alone, and no one else.

At this moment the telephone rang. She went up to the instrument and took the receiver... The voice was distant, menacing, repeating broken, unintelligible words, announcing a catastrophe; and the terrible, bloody words resounded despite the stammering and the muffled, gasping, discordant tone: "A car... a collision... killed..." Then nothing... then a faint, jarring commotion that began to die away little by little. She imagined that sharp arrows had pierced her entrails and torn them to shreds, and she seemed to hear the scream of a savage madman repeating always the same words: Who? Who? Answer... who? When she heard the name — repeated several times, sinking into her head and recognized by her mind — she rose as though waking from a deep dream, and breathed a sigh of relief.

She took a sheet from among the scattered papers and wrote this telegram:
"I am coming to you at once, this very minute. Kisses. Give my greetings to your mother."
On that desk the second letter remained, struck down, unfinished...
When was all this, I wonder? On this day? Yesterday? On some day or other?
And afterwards she took the vain, lying pages and the sealed envelope and tore them to shreds...
And then she gave way, and began to weep bitterly, quietly, with lamentation... sighing and moaning, gasping and sobbing from her depths like the weeping of children... She was weeping for herself...
And she murmured with trembling, whitened lips, in a faint, burning voice: "I thank Thee, my God, I thank Thee."
Her beloved, to whom she had been writing the second letter, was dead!!
And her only son remained alive.

From the French — Layla Hamada