And he died full of years and full of bounty...
As for years, he always used to say to us: I have lived my life twice over — I lived one life in the day, and I lived another life in the night.
As for bounty, he inherited a little of it from his fathers, and bequeathed much of it to his sons...
In the grape vineyards of our village there was nothing like what Abu Wahib had... The clusters in his vineyards were of shape upon shape — plump, full clusters, hanging like chandeliers of gold, of silver, of crystal, of carnelian, on alluring, high, green vines, always laden, without one weak, shriveled cluster among them... as if his vineyards, alone among the vineyards, were the pampered darlings of the village...
*
Even the sparrows of his vineyards were strange among the sparrows of the vineyards... A sparrow would not leave them until the cluster was cut from its mother, and Abu Wahib's clusters were not cut until the first of winter... And the bird-hunters of the village would die for the fat sparrows of his vineyards.
*
Once I made bold against his vineyards and his sparrows — and rarely did anyone in the village make bold against him... There was a kinship between him and me that emboldened me to it... and my desire ran to the sparrows more than to the clusters... No sooner had I fired the first shot than a thundering voice boomed through the wood: My sparrows — do I raise them for people...?!.. Who are you, boy?... And I heard the fall of his footsteps drawing near me.
I steadied my heart and said: I
shall meet him with gentleness and tact... He stopped beside me, and his great shadow spread its tent over me... his stature rivaled the terebinth I stood under.
And when he knew me, his mind was set at rest... He knew I was a guest of the village, a straying amateur of a hunter, who came to the vineyards for something other than sparrow and cluster
— and rarely hit a cluster or hit a sparrow.
And he smiled and said to me: I took you for one of those accursed ones who wreck the vineyards and hit nothing but the clusters... So my heart warmed to his tone, and I set about drawing him out with talk:
Your vineyards tempt me, uncle, and your
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"Just one, Mama!"
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