absent one, the one beyond the seas, mourning to him her mother — the last beloved shade of her kin, that had hovered over her life. And she was weeping...

And through her tears, the dark vision came back to her... In the fog, and the waves, from the far end of the sea, another grave appeared to her, walking on the waves and in the fog... drawing near, and still drawing near, until it reached the borders of Cairo...

Here it is on its way through the quarters...

Here it is entering the courtyard of the house...

Here it is in her room...

Here it is...

Days later there came to her, from beyond the sea, the death-notice of that one whom she had counted a father and a brother and a mother and a sister and a husband...

•

What have you done, May?... said the fearful emptiness that was left to her, winding round her...

They were alone, the two of them — "she" and "the Emptiness."

I snatched you from your mother's womb to press out the fruits of your youth and to shake the tree of your riper years, till not a leaf nor a fruit should remain on you...

I filled your house with glory and fame, coming to you from every quarter.

I left the men — poets, and men of letters — at your feet, May, balls rolling in the courtyard of the house...

I bound velvet and silk upon your head, and I bound a black ribbon upon your heart...

I opened to you the chambers of gold, and the doors of hearts, and you entered into them, May; and I made you forget your own heart, and you closed it upon the emptiness that is I...

I diverted you with ink and paper, and you blackened thousands of shining pages — and you blackened your heart, and nothing cried out in it but the desolation that is my sister...

I am the Emptiness, and Desolation is my sister...

What do you mean, May, to history?

What might history say of you, May...? What can it say!?

A tree heavy with good things, scattered down in the winds!!

A vessel touched by perfume: the fragrance grew rich within its heart, and no heart ever breathed it..!!

A heart of gold, of gold's purity, turned into a bounty neither sold nor bought.

Womanhood in the loveliest of its vessels, disfigured by pride...

Who are you now, May...?

A severed string in which no melody rings...

A poor, simple woman who squandered her life in the emptiness.

You say:

And this flame that I set alight among the Arabs — who but I, among the women of the Arabs, set alight its like? I carried the West to the shores of my country.

Who among women but I has done this??

You say: I alone am a summit among the Arabs...

In my age woman became a summit.

No, May: you are feeding your heart from the wounds of your heart...

Greater than all you ever did, May, is your life — you have squandered your life...

Greater than all you ever sang, May, is a song at a child's bed, which you never sang — and how you longed to sing it...

Greater than all you ever did, May, and all the wounds among people you ever soothed, is sweat you might have wiped from a beloved's brow — how you longed to do that, May... and you never did.

Your life was lost in the pride of fame.

And here am I, and you, alone...

No one is left to you but me, May. I am your father, and I am your mother, and I am your brother, and I am your husband... We shall live together forever...

And wherever you journey on the earth, none shall be with you but me — I, the Emptiness.....

And never after today will you write anything great, May... except your life with me...

•

... And in the most magnificent of tragedies, in the cruelest cut a knife can make in flesh! —

in all that is in man of pain, and desolation, and darkness; in all that is in man of savagery and genius, of flame and ashes —

this great woman wrote the tragedy of her life.

Beirut, October 19, 1949