Fouad Suleiman

I carried to her a bouquet of roses and violets. That was on the eighteenth of February, in the depth of winter, after she came out of the hospital.

In that hour, “May” was not, in my mind, a tormented woman, but a woman of my country who had raised my country's head.

“This is a bouquet of the colors of your country, May; it carries to you the feeling of its young people.”

The woman stretched out on her bed smiled, and pressed my hand.

And she said, in a deep tone: Thank you. May did not know who I was, and when I left the room there was in my mind a pale woman stretched out on a red bed.

And “May” remains in my mind thus, to this very hour.