me once that a journalist in Buenos Aires had written you a letter asking what journalists usually ask: your kind portrait?
I have thought more than once of that journalist's request, and each time I said to myself: I am no journalist, therefore I will not ask what journalists usually ask. No, I am no journalist. Were I the owner of a magazine or the editor of a newspaper, I would have asked for the portrait freely and simply, without shame and without timidity and without a preamble composed of trembling words. No, I am no journalist — so what am I to do?
Is there in your parts anyone who will and can say to me even one word of these words?
"And it is as though May had asked him about his dress, for he says to her:"
And what is the color of the suit I am wearing today? It is one of my habits to wear two suits at once: a suit of the weavers' weaving and the tailors' sewing, and a suit of flesh and blood and bone. Today, however, I am wearing a single garment, long and loose, bearing the traces of ink and colors; on the whole it differs from the dress of the dervishes only in its cleanliness.
I hate the clothes of the men of the West, for they are without meter or rhyme; and if I return to the East I shall wear nothing but the old Eastern garments.
"And she asked about smoking, and how many cigarettes he had lit since morning, and he answered:"
How sweet this question is, and how hard it is to answer! This is a smoking day: since its morning I have burned a million cigarettes (it was seven hundred cigarettes, but he struck that out). Smoking, for me, is a pleasure, not a compelling habit; a whole week may pass without my smoking a single cigarette. I said I have burned a million cigarettes — and the fault is yours; you are the one to blame, for had I been alone in this valley I would never have come back.
As for my study, it is still without roof or walls; and as for the seas of sand and the seas of ether, they are as they were yesterday — deep, many-waved, and without shores. As for the sail of the ship in which
I plunge through these seas, it is still unspread. Can you spread the sail of my ship?
And he says to her in another letter: Would that I were ill in Egypt! Would that I were ill, free of any regimen, in my own country, near those I love.
Do you know, May, that every morning and every evening I see myself in a house on the outskirts of Cairo, and I see you seated opposite me, reading the latest article I have written, or the latest of your own articles not yet published?
Aspro
Beware of this cold!
Take “Aspro”
the moment you feel its first signs!
Knowing what you ought to do is half of success — the other half is knowing when! Attacks of cold or influenza call for the right treatment at the right time. When the first signs of a cold appear — sneezing, shivering, and a running nose — that is the moment to act, by promptly taking two “Aspro” tablets. “Aspro” wastes no time — its action is safe, gentle, and swift: it brings down the fever, eases the head, and drives out the shivering and the sickly feeling that comes with it. And it would be well to make sure of taking two more “Aspro” tablets with a hot drink at bedtime.
Take two “Aspro” tablets with a hot drink tonight!
Prices in Lebanon
5 tablets — 15 piasters
25 tablets — 70 piasters
About a week ago I was struck by a cold that nearly kept me from working in my shop, so I bought some Aspro tablets, and I felt complete relief after taking the first Aspro tablet, and I am now in good health.
Mustafa Mahmoud
Agents: J. B. Sheridan “Limited,” Beirut
“Levant” Limited