The Students: Women Writers of the Future

...leave me a stranger to his heart, and so he draws near me with tenderness and we make up... And how many times, in my spells of illness, have I felt that "Kamal," young as he is, surrounds me with so much of his care — sitting beside my bed, telling me stories and jokes, and bringing me the magazines I love.

My brother is sensitive and finely strung; he respects my feelings in my hours of study, and enters my room on tiptoe so as not to make a noise.

But at times the selfishness of the man shows in Kamal: he will not give up a right except after being given... a kiss.

I love my brother because I see in him the promise of a man with a great, pure heart, who respects the weak and loves the poor...

It pleased me, on the afternoon of that day, to sit in a spot overlooking the seashore, to give my soul some enjoyment and relief after the cares and worries of the day before. Could anything but this vast sea have room enough to drown one's cares? I was in private communion with myself when a glance of mine happened to catch an approaching figure! What a dignified old man he was, imposing of presence, with a thick black beard, broad shoulders, well dressed, his features bespeaking a piercing intelligence and his bearing betokening good stock and deep roots. Looking at him so absorbed me that I forgot everything around me, until he was within a fathom's length, or an arm's, of me. Then he bowed to me respectfully, looked at me with his wide black eyes, and said: Listen, my child! You are in the prime of life, the springtime of youth, the delight of girlhood — alone on a seashore; and how much you need a word of advice from me, by which you may profit and set your affairs aright. His talk astonished me — there was a charm in it — but I looked at him with eyes brimming with vagueness and perplexity, wanting clarification and more of his sweet speech. It was as if he sensed this, for he stared into my face and burst out: "Beware of people! For people

My brother Kamal is dear to my heart, like the most precious of the treasured things I love...

We often differ in opinion, but I feel within myself that he takes care not to

are all tyrants! And do not let them take advantage of you when you make a mistake."

The days folded away the figure of that dignified old man, and I saw him no more; yet his words kept ringing within me.

And fate would have it that some companions of mine agreed on an outing outside the city, for recreation, and I was one of them. The choice fell on the very place where I used to sit before.

One of us launched into talk — she was quick-witted and sharp, with a biting edge to her tongue that spared no one, and in her way of telling a story a special manner that bespoke a light spirit. She said, after swallowing hard: "It is said — and God knows best — that I had a truthful friend, a very truthful one, and my proof is that she told me one day that a brother of hers was the first man to swim the English Channel." She paused a moment to collect her scattered wits, and added: "And it so happened that one day I was at a bathing place, and there was my friend — and that world-famous champion, her brother, riding a rubber tube with consummate skill to help him float! So I shouted to him: Bravo! Bravo! Well done! This tube will cross the Channel too, God willing!" And when I looked round at my friend to see her, she had buried her face in her hands and gone with the wind... Everyone was delighted with her story and they burst out laughing... As for me, I cleared my throat and said: "Do you know that dignified-looking old man who is in the habit of visiting this shore from time to time?" They nodded yes. I said: "He once confided a word to me, saying: 'I advise you, my child, to speak nothing but lies, for lying is far more useful and profitable than truth.'"

Speak nothing but lies... These words still ring in the depths of my being... The old man said them to me once and vanished from before my eyes, leaving his voice to echo on in my heart.

A glance backward shows a generation fading away with the turning of the days, transformed with the passing of the years, so that a new generation emerges in its place — a law that has held constant since the most ancient times.

Among the crowded multitudes is a face from which shines the light of devotion and sacrifice, and from which radiate kindness and tenderness. It is my mother's face — a woman of the departed generation.

Her era was an era of turmoil, of transition from darkness into light, and the knowledge available to her was scanty, not fitting her to enter social life or to share with man in the country's work for the raising of its level. Yes, she lived in the world, and yet it is as though she lived in a strange world, far removed from the ways of modern society. Today, however, the girl who looks out upon the new generation, which has grown up since that period of transition, differs greatly from her mother. She and the daughters of her sex take part in many of the works of this world: among them are the nurses; and in the field of social life they found associations and answer the call of everyone in distress. And there are the institutes that have arisen of late for the training of the rising generation, in which the woman teacher spends a lifetime's effort in the teacher's chair, instilling sound teachings into the souls of her pupils and imparting them to them.

And as the days advance, we see girls becoming ever more prominent in sharing in the battle of life. They have cast behind them the inherited saying: "It is enough for a girl to know a little reading and writing, and no more."