My Soul Asks for a Friend

I awoke today to find my soul moaning within me, complaining of the pain of loneliness and asking for a friend. How deep is the soul's moaning, and how sharp its pain, when it feels alone... how sharp its pain when it searches for the lost half of its spirit, to rest at its side, and does not find it.

I turned to my soul and spoke to it, saying: "You have remained a sociable creature, my soul; the years have not changed you, nor culture, nor civilization. In your insistent longing you are an exact copy of your simple village sister, who feeds her stomach on the plainest of foods and then hurries off to the neighbor to feed her spirit on her company... Indeed, you have remained as you were of old, when you were in Paradise, searching for a friend to lighten the pains of your loneliness; and when such a one was not to be found among the children of men, you turned to the animal... It would have better become you, my soul, to learn a lesson from the tragedy of that time, after the serpent's friendship wronged you and brought you — and brought us — to where you suffered and we suffered."

I said all this to my soul, and more; but it went on moaning, complaining of the pain of loneliness and asking for the friend.

I carried my soul on my palm as a peddler carries his wares and said: Come, you will find your heart's desire among the many companions. And I chose her good of heart, pure of conscience; I chose her and said to my soul: Run free, after your nature, for you have found the friend. But my soul shrank within me and began to say: The foundation of friendship is the mingling of two spirits united by an equal culture. I want a friend to share enjoyment with me; she and I together would befriend the book and the author of the book, exchanging views on all that we read and reaping delight and pleasure from it. I want a friend with whom I am one in inclinations and tastes, our two spirits soaring far, far from the talk of visits and visiting ladies; my soul has wearied of the problems of servants, and the newest clothes, and the backbiting of yesterday's companions, today's enemies... In the open air we would recover the clearness of our two spirits, after the filth of painted manners has soiled them. Shall I find my heart's desire here? How badly you have mistaken my meaning, my friend. And it whispered within me: the bitter truth.

And I carried my soul on my hand once more and went searching for a friend for it, and I fancied I had found her; but my soul shrank once more and began to say: The foundation of friendship is mutual trust. Cares grow heavy on the breast, and the friend pours them out to his friend, and feels as though the weight of mountains were lifting from his chest. Shall I find my heart's desire here?? Here secrets are given away — how am I to know that my secret will be kept?? Where shall I find, among this kind of women, one who knows that a secret has its sanctity, and that only if you had the right to dispose of money placed in your trust would you have the right to dispose of a secret deposited with you? Where shall I find, among this kind of women, one who understands that so long as we guard the dirham because it is not our own property, all the more ought we to guard the secret; for our squandering of the dirham may cost no more than a material loss, while our squandering of the secret may cost the honor of a human being and the destiny of a human being — indeed, perhaps the honor of a family and the destiny of a family.

And I took up my soul again — my perplexed, weary soul — and brought it forward again, and I fancied I had found her; but my soul refused to unbend, and set to whispering in my ear: The foundation of friendship is mutual feeling, and a delicate sense filled with sympathy and tenderness — that when you suffer, you feel there is a compassionate heart that understands you and suffers for your suffering. Here is a hard, overbearing creature who mocks at the pains of others and laughs at the misery of the wretched. So once more I endured the truth.

And we drew near to another, I and my soul, once more; but my soul found no rest. It asks for loyalty and faithfulness. It said: Do you think she holds constant to an affection? Yesterday she was the friend of this one, and before that the friend of that one; she is fickle and changeable — indeed she is like certain people of this age of whom al-Manfaluti said: The friends of this age fear the contagion of poverty as they fear the contagion of disease; they neither visit the poor man nor call upon the sick.

And I passed with my soul from this one to that one to that one... then I took it up again, the two of us alone and heavy-footed. The silent chamber closed about us, and I said, reproaching it: How much you wish for, my soul! It said: I shall give more than I ask. I shall give all the requisites of true friendship: trust and discretion, sympathy and tenderness, faithfulness and loyalty. And then, friendship, my friend, is the most precious thing in the world after love, as they say — nay, more precious than love itself, as I believe. Indeed, what is love worth without friendship? Is it not those passing impulses that pass away with youth, which the poet bids farewell with his words:

I did not say to youth, "Go in God's ease,"
nor bid it God's keeping, the morning it departed —
a visitor who came and stayed upright a season,
blackened the pages with sins, and went his way.

Has friendship ever blackened the pages? Passion may cool, and boredom may creep into it; but if we can turn it into a mutual friendship, there lies happiness... Yes, it is friendship, my friend, the book of living memories. The days of childhood pass, and between its two covers are recorded the sweet amusements of childhood; the days of youth pass, and it records the wishes and hopes and glories of youth; the family is founded, and there it stands between husband and wife — trust and mutual support, and standing shoulder to shoulder before the problems of married life; and the days carry us on toward middle age, and it records the fulfillment of the hopes pursued. Then comes old age, somber old age, and behold, the two heads that the years have bowed and gray hair has crowned open the book of their friendship, filled with its happenings, to delight together in reading it through hours that are all rapture and love — until the appointed hour falls, and they part, to meet again in a better world; and the half that remains feels the loss of the dearest thing it possessed, and whispers, while a hot tear runs down the wrinkled cheek: The world has become a desert.

My soul fell silent, and I fell silent, gazing at the splendid picture it had painted; but then I began to say: But you are asking for perfection in this world — perfection in woman. It said: Rather, I ask for some measure of perfection. And if it is beyond woman to take pride in character, what then has she gained from this renaissance of hers? She demanded liberty and won it; she demanded learning and became educated; but what I fear most for her is that she may have gained everything and lost her character — as though she had lost many times over what she gained... What is the worth of learning acquired, if it is not joined to good breeding?? What is the worth of liberty obtained, if sound character is not preserved along with it? What is the worth of the renaissance, if we look about us and see morals collapsed, and find ourselves wishing for the fetters once more??

What I fear most for woman is that she should content herself with the husks of learning, then melt into that same milieu with no care but visits and parties and frequenting the cinema houses; and the years pass, and there she is at the rear, and there we are, mourning for the foster-child of the desert, the dweller in tents, the flower of the literary gatherings.

What I fear most for her is that she should become a great talker — but like the new radio set that has suffered no breakdown or damage. Indeed the radio may be more faithful than she, for it broadcasts what is delivered to it letter for letter, while God alone knows how much faithfulness and exactness there is in her broadcasting.

What I fear most for her is that work should coarsen her and her feelings harden, so that she looks upon the pains of society as the soldier on the battlefield looks upon the corpses of the slain, moved by neither mercy nor pity.

What I fear most for her is that she should learn from the age its speed of movement, so that faithfulness becomes in her eyes an "old fashion" — so that when she sees two friends whose friendship has stood a long test, she wonders at their patience, and at boredom's failure to seep into their two souls, and tosses her head in mockery, saying: "Like folk of the old days."

And I fear, now that she has won her liberty, that she may be prodigal in the use of it, taking from the West everything it flings our way, forgetting that we are an Eastern nation which has its traditions and its virtues. And welcome to liberty, so long as it does not touch these traditions and these virtues.

My soul moans within me, asking for a friend... asking to find in her the wisdom of the old and their gravity, the delicacy of womanhood and its tenderness, the loyalty of faithful hearts, the culture of the twentieth century, the manners of the East and its virtues. Where, then, shall I find what my soul asks?

I looked about me and saw the people moving in the carnival of life — this one dancing the dance of the slaughtered, that one singing the song of the caged nightingale, this one guffawing and that one denying. So I searched for my laughing mask and masked myself with it, and walked on in the carnival of life, playful and dancing, with all that the soul holds within it...

Acre — Palestine