Dr. Qoula Fayyad

The platform brought me together with her for the first time in Cairo in the year 1918. The subject of her address was “Universal Brotherhood,” and mine was “Pain”; and behold, we met in idea and in aim, though we differed in title. Dr. Sarruf, one of the proprietors of al-Muqtataf, was among the listeners, and he admired her intensely and said to me: I have come to love this girl like my own daughters, and I shall write myself about this gathering in tomorrow's “Muqattam.”

Then I visited her at her home, which was a place of pilgrimage for the people of letters and merit; the most famous men of Cairo, writers and politicians, resorted to it, and the conversation there took up all manner of subjects—literature, learning, and art. Nor was May, as a conversationalist, any less enchanting than as an orator; indeed in her conversation she was perhaps unique of her kind. She spoke with ease and in correct language, while over her eyes and on her lips there spread a delicate cloud of light betraying the sweetness behind it, the self-confidence, the faith, and the breadth of spirit; and you would see whoever listened to her held fast by that melody coming from the depths, carrying the signs of eloquence to ears and minds. And she might pass in conversation from Arabic to other tongues, for she was versed in many languages, besides what she knew of the fine arts, such as painting and music; so her gatherings knew no tedium, and the visitor left her presence as though leaving a banquet at which he had tasted the finest perfumes and the finest wines.

The letters and articles that May's skill embroidered in the various newspapers and magazines, and her published works of literature and criticism, show that she was a writer of fastidious refinement, just as she was a talker and an orator.

I learned of her coming to Beirut from a friend of mine, and how great were my sorrow and my astonishment when I entered her room and saw her in bed, utterly changed. I would speak to her, and she would smile at me without uttering a syllable, and all my attempts to draw her into talk went for nothing. So I left after half an hour, having made certain that what I had seen was a ghost bearing the name of May, and that life had begun to seep out of this chosen vessel. And when news later came to me of her improvement and her return to the normal state, fear haunted me that this improvement might be a blaze of straw, quick to fade and go out.

May had lived in a perfumed air of love and affection, with which she carried the weight of life without weariness; and before she reached the end of the road she lost all that had been nourishment for her heart. So her nerves collapsed, and she lost her guide, and tedium took hold of her, and despair overcame hope within her, weakened her powers, and struck her down.

May died two years before her death, and that interval between the two deaths was enough for people to forget her, so that when she gave up the spirit she found around her no friend or companion. And that temple … its walls with pictures and books, and as … in it the greatest of the people, fate closed … the spider its expanses; so she passed days in the hospital and left it … no one walked in her funeral.

Your pen, O May, roams … on a subject you never treated, namely the … of man and his ingratitude. You sang of glory and … and friendship; your spirit, to see the … of everything, even glory and fame and … and friendship.

You gave your age wine to drink and … let it enjoy it as it will. You will not be … in fortune than others among the heroes in …

... no friend or companion. And that temple whose walls she had adorned with pictures and books, and where she used to receive the greatest of the people—fate locked its doors and the spider draped its expanses; so she passed her last days in the hospital and went from it to the grave, and no one walked in her funeral.

Where is your pen, O May, to make its accustomed round on a subject you never treated: man's ingratitude and his thanklessness. You sang of glory, of fame, of love, and of friendship; where is your spirit, to see today the vanity of all things—even glory and fame, even love and friendship.

You gave your age its fill of wine and sated it with enchantment; let it enjoy them as it will. You shall be no more fortunate than any other of the heroes in the hands of annihilation.