A Lesson from Life

We were gathered with some friends, passing the evening in talk, each of us telling some amusing story she had heard or had witnessed herself, when my companion "A." stood up, raising her hand, her features showing that she wished to tell us a story that had filled her soul. Do you know, my friends, that Waked Sarofim has come back from his long journey — but come back no longer that merry man you used to know? He is now a man of shattered nerves and broken strength; not a trace remains on him of that handsomeness and that charm which set him apart from other men. He keeps company with no one, and stays shut up in his room all the time, passing his days reading books and pruning the flowers in his garden. Listen, and I will tell you what drove this man to become so: on this last journey of mine I happened upon one of my mother's friends and stayed with her some days, and our talk came round to Waked — that young man who left his town long ago and of whom we no longer knew anything. I asked her for news of him, and my friend said to me: Have you not heard of his marriage, and of the calamities it brought upon him? Lend me an attentive ear to what I shall tell you:

We came to know Waked when he arrived in this town of ours. He was an elegant, agreeable young man who loved company and mixed much with the higher class, and so he was the focus of the girls' eyes; for he was by nature generous of character, ready of wit, sweet of speech, and it is no wonder that all the girls inclined toward him and vied to win his favor. Then one day we heard that Waked had become engaged to the daughter of one of the wealthy merchants. We all knew the matter would end in his marrying; but we had never expected Waked to become engaged to this girl — that shy creature who cared to mix with no one but the nuns in whose care she had been reared and to whom she was attached. Was it money that tempted him, she being a rich girl and her parents' only child? Or was it that shyness and modesty which never left her — he whose soul had wearied of the brazenness displayed by the girls of this age, who hide it under the veil of refinement and polish?

We know nothing, except that Waked set about completing his new house and furnishing it with the finest furniture and appointments, in keeping with his eminent standing. And from the time of his marriage his friends forgot him, for he withdrew from among them completely: he no longer came to the evening gatherings, no longer frequented the amusement places and cafés he used so often to frequent. So we all lost him. It remains to learn what drove this man to shun the company of his friends and shut himself up in his own house. Was it that he came to hate their society? Or had he renounced the world? No, and again no. Waked, that merry, life-loving young man, married in order to add a new color of gaiety and cheer to his life; but he found himself in a barren desert where nothing of feeling or affection would grow. This wife of his was like arid soil to which love could find no way: love, in her eyes, was depravity, and feeling was illusion and deceit. He set about fostering in her soul a love of life, and read her romantic books, hoping she might come out of her isolation; but she met these attentions of his with nothing but coldness, claiming they made her lose her purity and her decorum.

She understood life ill, and did not know that love is a sacred flame that purifies the heart of sin and transgression.

How could she know — she, so withdrawn into herself — that this sacred bond that tied her to her husband was the very thing to nourish it and knit its ties, making of her home a delicious paradise from which the two together might pluck the fruits of love, devotion, and sacrifice?

Consider, my friend, what befell this poor husband when he despaired of drawing her out of her isolation. Was this his hope in life? Had he married to be wretched? Was this the beautiful nest he had built to sing in with his beloved? Were these the castles he had been building all those days, now plunging into the depths of the abyss?

Little by little he woke from his dreams and found the world dark before his face. He took to spending his days in forgetting himself, hoping to escape his cares and his pains, while she paid no heed to his gloom and his clouded brow — until at last his soul wearied of life, and he left that unhappy wife and returned to his town, broken in heart and in feeling, aged as though he were eighty, he who had not yet reached his fortieth spring.

Thus, my friend, did the days fold up the page of Waked Sarofim from among us, and we heard nothing more of him, except to remember him with pity.

My friend finished telling her story, her eyes streaming with abundant tears of compassion for this despairing husband.

This is a story of what is acted out every day and every hour upon the stage of life. Have you profited by it — you who are all in the flower of youth and the blaze of feeling, awaiting the husband to come and dreaming of the happy, tranquil home? For you will make of life an immortal lyre upon whose strings two united hearts play, a father and a mother rewarded in little children who fill the happy home with mirth and gladness. And so I commend you to God's keeping — remember me with kindness and with thanks.