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.