her fingers, playing with it, her eyes fixed on his eyes as though reading in them what her ques-tion had wrought in his heart.

— Why these questions, qar-qoura? ... But if God granted us a “bridegroom,” as these people you are so weary of wish for us, would not our happiness be com-plete, and our love be doubled?

No sooner had Jamileh heard this answer than the fingers of her right hand went slack and her husband’s mustache fell from between them, and she turned her gaze to the floor. So then — Aziz’s happiness in her love was not complete. So then — his love for her had not yet reached its limit, and was still capable of increase and doubling. And why had her own love for him stretched and widened until it flooded her whole life like a sweeping wave, so that Aziz had become the all in all of her life? Why did she seek no increase of happiness, and ask of her Lord only that what she now possessed should remain hers? She did not hate children — no; she desired with all her heart to become a mother. But that desire — whether fulfilled or not — neither added to her happiness nor took away from it, so long as Aziz’s love warmed her and circled with the blood of her heart to every member of her body. Why then did Aziz speak of “the fullness of happiness” and the doubling of love? ... These thoughts turned in Jamileh’s head in less than the twinkling of an eye, and she found herself driven to sound her husband’s depths to the very end. So she raised her eyes again to his face, trying to restore to them all the gentleness, tenderness, and surrender that had been in them before, and said, taking her husband’s right hand:

— Forgive me, qarqour, these dull questions, but ... but sup-pose ...

She said this and stopped, as though afraid to utter the rest of the words turning on the tip of her tongue.

— Suppose what?

— Suppose ... suppose God did not grant us ... suppose God were grudging toward us with

a “bridegroom” or a “bride” ... would ... would your love for me weaken then, and would you count your happiness lacking?

— God — how many questions you have tonight! I told you: if God favors us with a “bridegroom,” our happiness will be complete and our love doubled. And if ... and if God should not will to give us offspring ... (here Aziz swallowed as though something had choked him) and if God should not will to give us offspring ... wh— what could we

do? Nothing would remain for us but to submit to His will. Let us leave this talk — it is useless — and come, let us sleep!

Aziz took his wife by the hand and pressed her to his breast. And for the first time since their crowning he kissed her without feeling any warmth steal from her body into his, without sensing the beating of her heart against his breast or the coolness of her breath upon his face.

As for Umm Aziz, no aim remained to her in this world but

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