The nurse Esther Wakim

That was an ordeal that shook the Arab world..

May is ill.

No one knew — except a few individuals who knew that "May" was ill in her nerves, that she was in Lebanon, and that she was in the dreadful hospital of Hazmiyeh. How did "May" enter the hospital, and why was she put there?

No one knew...

And none of her friends asked after her...

Lebanon, which had set her in the place of the apple of its eye.

Lebanon, which had held celebra-tions in her name.

Lebanon, her beloved homeland — "May" comes down to it, or comes down into the ugliest of its hospitals, and no one in Lebanon knows of her, and no one from Lebanon asks after her.

And "May," in her great ordeal, was circled about by the violent, silent tragedy, as though she were wandering in a dark tomb... no — "May" was herself a dark tomb in which phantoms crept.

A cruel ordeal passed over the greatest of women of letters; in it her soul turned fierce and her conscience darkened, until in her conscience all people were scorpions...

And at last her friends knew — they knew everything...

"May" shall not waste away between the walls of her prison, gripped by the cruel fingers of pain..

And they fought for her sake a war without softness and without truce, and she came out of her tomb into life.

In these pages we tell the story

of that tragedy as we came to know it, and as it is told to us by a well-informed friend who accompanied the chapters of that bloodied tragedy and did much for the great Lebanese genius.

He said:

It never crossed my mind that I would accompany that crowded stretch of the life of the great writer of the Arabs, May Ziadeh. Nor did I expect to be a witness to the chapters of that violent tragedy — I who did not know this woman and had never seen her face in my life.

True, I had heard her name, and I knew that my kinsman Dr. Yacoub Sarrouf took a serious interest in her...

But life decrees for us other than what we decree for our-selves, and works in the hidden its silent, deep work; and the destinies of thousands of people are bound together, by the will of life, without knowledge and without intent.

And so it was: life bound me to May in an hour I had not expected, and in circum-stances that had never entered my mind.

One day a friend of mine came to me with the news of her transfer from the Asfouriyeh to the hospital of Dr. Nicolas Rebeiz in Ras Beirut.

This friend told me that "May" received no one and was not permitted to receive anyone, and that at the hospital they say she refuses to eat. Ameen Rihani and Jirji Baz had come to see her, and she refused... Ah, if you could hear her talk — if you could hear

her complaint.

— And how did you learn all this?

— From the nurse, Miss Esther Wakim; it was she who told me her story.

It occurred to me to work toward meeting the great writer, so I asked him:

— Can I see her?

— Impossible!

But I did not despair. I tried to see her — I do not know what drove me to it. I went to Dr. Rebeiz's hospital.. I asked for the nurse there; she said: impossible.

Impossible! What am I to do, O Lord.

Suddenly an idea flashed into my head... I knew that her tie with Dr. Yacoub Sarrouf had been strong, and Dr. Sarrouf was my relative.

I said to the nurse: a kinsman of Dr. Sarrouf wishes to see her. Ask her.

The nurse came back saying: Come in. Come in — you are the first person she will have received.

... Here is a woman of whom