In a quiet dwelling, embraced by trees, Samir was born, grew up, and rose to brilliance. Samir was a gifted artist—if I do not say a genius—for he was born a musician and a poet, and his passion for these two arts was rooted in the depths of his soul, so that his talents grew as his body and mind grew.

From that melancholy dwelling issued plaintive melodies that delighted the very air, then reached listening ears, and the fame of the able composer spread abroad.

Samir was handsome of counte-nance, deep of gaze, brilliant in conversation. Fine expression and eloquence of tongue are truly among the great gifts, and what added to the sweetness of Samir's talk was the clarity of his voice, whose tones were like the rhythms of his magic violin. Samir gave his days and his nights to music, and it became everything in his world! He found some comfort in the admiration of high society for his melodies, and much solace in the charming letters that showered upon his desk from the women who acclaimed him and admired his art. But... but he felt a painful loneliness... His father and his friends longed to draw him out of this isolation, so they tried to merge him into society, then broached marriage to him, thinking he would find in it rest and stability. Samir welcomed the idea and began to search for the princess of his dreams, for the partner whom he called "the sister soul." He knew a great number of

the girls of his generation—indeed he had subjected many of them to the dominion of art with his sweet melodies—yet he fell into the perplexity of choosing: which of them to choose? Rather, which one was fit to be a wife to him? There were Layla and Suad and Nahid and others, but he found in each one some fault... At last he made the acquaintance of a girl who pleased him, and the counsel of his family and friends impelled him to ask for her hand, and they married one month after the first meeting.

The honeymoon passed and the two settled in a pleasant house which Nadia proved herself able to run with skill. His wife was a beautiful girl, of good stock, of high culture, but she... but Nadia was not the "sister soul" whom Samir had taken as a bride for his music!! Poor Samir, wretched and ill-fated! For he began to feel a thirst for something he had not obtained through marriage, to thirst for things and yet more things, as does every artist in his private life. So he folded himself around his pain, and pallor returned to his face...

The years passed and Samir became the father of two children, yet he remained sad and thirsting! His friends wondered at him, and he wondered at himself, and often he would ask: "Why, O Lord, do I feel lonely beneath the sky of my flourishing home? What do I lack, when I have a good wife, two children, and a table bearing all that is delicious and fine?" How, then, to find an explanation for this dejection? Samir tried hard to forget this feeling of want, but he did not succeed! Were not

those wicked illusions the source of his gloom and his unrest? No! No! He felt the need of some unknown thing whose essence he could not discover, and for its sake he wept, but without tears, and complained, but... without pain! In this state of anxiety he composed the piece he called "Without Hope," a sorrowful piece which no one can hear without weeping—unless his heart has been hewn of iron! In this piece are embodied the loftiest human feelings: it is a gathering of anguished cries and fervent prayers, joining strength with despair, and at the end of the piece the listener imagines that these prayers have been answered by the Creator, the Maker of all! The piece "Without Hope" is the language of every suffering spirit and the tongue of every wounded heart. And do not ask what it did to bolster this musician's fame.

Samir played his splendid piece over the radio station, and parties were held in his honor. He would excuse himself and try to escape most of these invitations; but when he was invited to attend the birthday party of Miss Randa, sister of his friend Fouad, he promised to attend, because Fouad was among his dearest intimates, and because he had heard from him of his sister's passion for painting and music.

Randa did in fact care greatly for the fine arts, and hated "jazz" music and the dancing parties that join cheap amusement with drink. As for her admiration of Samir and his melodies, it was the admiration of one artist for another. When she learned that he would attend the party for her nineteenth birthday,