on the meadow, complaining of our love and going to extremes in our complaint?
But she never sat with him, in meadow or in wood; but he
never declared any love to her nor showed her any feeling — how then can she covet all this, how can she hope that Samir would dedicate such verses to her??
And she listened with every fiber of her being to Samir courting his beloved Lubna — played by one of the women students of the university — and Suad wished she were a university student and had played this role herself; then she could have answered Samir's feeling with a feeling truer and stronger, and then she could have reached the utmost of her hopes and the sweetest of what she loves!!
The scenes of the play grow tense and its events entangled: Qays's father, having consented to his son's marriage to his beloved Lubna, goes back and insists, together with his wife, on divorce, because Lubna has borne him no child. Qays is at a loss how to reconcile his true feeling for the woman he loved and who loved him with the filial devotion he bears his parents, and he cries out from the depths of his soul: Father: would you tear ribs from my ribs? Father: would you burn two hearts and destroy them?
And Samir, as he delivered this poem, was a mass of feeling melting little by little, his tears running down his cheeks, until a large part of the audience was sobbing aloud, and Suad took from her pocket her red silk handkerchief to wipe away a hot tear she could not hold back...
And Suad marveled at herself: how had Samir been able to move her so? How could she weep — she who had never in her life cared for such painful scenes of love?
The play ended with a thousand and one questions in her
head, all of them revolving around Samir, who had managed to become the axis of her thinking and the hero of her imaginings that night.
That night was Saturday night; and on Sunday morning Suad rose early from her bed, arranged her toilette, then put on over her pajamas her splendid garnet coat and went out onto the balcony that overlooks Samir's room. Samir had preceded her, standing as was his habit, sending his wandering glances toward Suad's room. Eye met eye and heart beat for heart, and Suad smiled a smile of greeting to Samir, and he took courage and answered the greeting with a smile and a bow.
Sunday was not over before Suad had arranged an evening party for her friends, girls and young men, Samir among them. Samir was the center of the party. Everyone spoke of him and of how finely he had played the lover's role in last night's performance. The bolder of the girls began putting question after question to him: Did you mean what you said? Can an actor play his part well if he does not truly believe what he
is saying? Suad was the boldest of them all and asked him: Had he ever loved before this day, that he could play the lover's role with such skill?
And did he truly believe in this kind of chaste love?
Samir seemed embarrassed, shaken, gazing at Suad and listening to her with every fiber of his being; and when she stopped her questions he began speaking to her with all the force in him of the meaning of chaste love, of the sanctity of this love and its purity:
"The aim of love, Suad, lies in the contentment of the beloved's soul as she takes comfort in her lover; and in this spiritual delight she reigns over the lover and fills his whole being, because his beloved is happy, far from every care, free of all misery...
"If only you knew, Suad, how happy the true lover is when he sees his beloved enjoying happiness in life! If only you could taste the flavor of true love — then you would share my opinion, and you would know that the youth of today are astray,
lost in their love, not knowing how to feel their way...
As Samir spoke he was like a flame of fire, and Suad was looking into his two black eyes with glances full of cunning and guile, wishing she could silence him from this idle talk with a torrent of hot, burning kisses, to quench the smoldering love that had flared up in her heart.
The music was sending its soft melodies through the air of the salon, and the young people swayed in a transport of gaiety and frolic, all of them given over, pair by pair, to rings of dancing!!
— Don't you love music, Samir? — I melt with passion for music... — Then get up and let us dance to these enchanting tunes. — I hate dancing, Miss, and my taste cannot stomach it.
And Suad let out a peal of laughter that shook the whole house and drew the eyes of the dancers, men and girls, so that some of them came to ask what it was about. Suad said: — Did you hear what Samir says? He hates dancing and his taste rejects it... as if he were