In a Village Called Dedde

Above the flank of Qalamoun, near the sea; beneath the slope of Dhahr al-Qadib, far from the snow; a bird's flight from al-Fayhaa and a tinful of gasoline from the capital... stands "Dedde," one of the villages of the green Koura!..

And the people of Dedde, who at every sunrise receive the sun's first kiss with smiles, load the sun at every setting with tears and longings for those who yesterday stood by the thousand on the "threshing-floors of the almonds," and leapt from that lookout over the sea; the surging waves carried them off to the New World, as they had carried their forefathers, long ago, to new worlds!.. But those men came back to build up their Lebanon, while these have settled in exile, building themselves a Lebanon on every shore!..

***

Come to the automobile now, for in Tripoli there is no other car passing by Dedde today... And there is the driver, urging on the "motor" that has slept the whole day through — with waiting!...

These roads that we climb, winding upward, were cut by the men of Dedde with their own hands, an easy path for those to whom life has been made easy... And many are they who cross them on foot, or take shortcuts among the mountains and the valleys!...

And these trees that keep you company — olive and almond, vine and fig — welcome your coming!.. And this monastery on your right says to you: welcome, and welcome again — you have arrived!..

You are a stranger, and the stranger in a Lebanese village is the guest of the whole village — so where shall you lodge?..

Do not hesitate; go straight to the house of the Ayyubid emirate... Do not wait for a man of Dedde to invite you to his house or his hut before you set down your traveling bag with Emir Husayn, heir of generosity and honor from his first Ayyubid ancestor, Saladin!...

This is the entrance of the great house... a paved passage, with gardens, birds, and beasts on either side... Do not fear the dog "Ghadab," for he knows from your dress that you are a visitor of letters!.. And these who receive you at the door are men in the Emir's service, working in tranquil trust of their master and his generous humanity...

And these two — the lady and the young miss who shake your hand in welcome — are the Emir's wife and his daughter... You ask them after the master of the house, and they answer that he is overseeing the planting and the sowing, the lambs and the udders, guiding the workmen and the peasants and looking in on kinsfolk and countrymen... The mother excuses herself to attend to the affairs of the house with the maidservants she has about her... And Miss Ilda — or Hala, as she likes to be called — takes up the conversation with you on everything old or new, and you feel at once that you are before a noble girl of lofty refinement, versed in every circle of culture, society, and politics; she understands you and you understand her — and you forget that you are before a maiden abundantly endowed with elegance, comeliness, and charm, who turns you from the magic of her eyes to the magic of her speech, from the beauty of her face to the beauty of her mind, from the harmony of her figure to the harmony of her phrasing!..

And the coffee grows cold in the cup while you listen to the talk of the young Emira, who has carried your thoughts back to one of the young women of Beirut, splendid in form and in character... And the coffee keeps waiting for your lips, until an "American cigarette" recalls you to it, offered by the hand of the fair one — born of America and reared by Lebanon!..

And while you sip the coffee, marveling at the tongue of a girl of eighteen who speaks to you classical Arabic, or English, or Spanish, or French, her father the Emir appears — a man on whom the years have set their dignity and labor its bearing, and in whose face are such writings and readings of a lifetime as spare him writing and reading... He sits facing you, welcoming with heart and tongue, generous by nature and in his hospitality, luminous in his questions and his answers!..

And night has scarcely darkened over the house before it opens its arms, after supper, to gather circles of men and young men who have come to bid you welcome and to hold a night of vigil in your honor, in which poetry sings to you — classical and artless, or masterly zajal — in a mellow voice from supple throats. And no sooner do you hear the singer say, in love-verse:

"The bees have forsaken the roses
and hover about your lips"

than you remember the latest piece by our poet al-Akhtal al-Saghir, and remember the finest thing in it:

"And the butterflies wearied of the blossoms
when the breezes told them of your lips"

And between one song and the next there falls an evening's converse, in whose depths life itself appears to you, and in it you hear an aging man talk to you of the cities and the villages; and you recall what al-Manfaluti, the great departed man of letters of Egypt, said on this subject, and you find no great difference in the meaning!..

***

And you are invited to visit the night school which...