anyone but me.

— Very well, my lady — but what is my fault if a smile escapes me in spite of myself?

At this point the argument broke off — not because it had run long, but because one of the children came asking his mother to help him undo his belt... before going into the bathroom.

- 3 -

Salah noticed that the state of mind his wife displays, whenever she starts a new quarrel, had become a diseased state; but the specialists in psychological medicine have not yet reached this spot of the world, and he does not want to put her into a hospital for outright mental illness. Still, he once made bold, after seeing her pick a quarrel deliberately for the third time in a single month, to ask his wife:

— A small question, my dear: are you in... your special monthly condition?

The woman flares up violently at this question and answers:

— What are you saying? I am not mad! No — I will not have you go into this subject with me.

— And why do you get angry like this? I am asking a... medical, legitimate question.

— No medicine and no legiti-macy! I am in full possession of my wits. Every time I ask you why you were late past six o'clock, you answer me with vague answers. I have come to suspect you!

— My dear, do not be angry and do not suspect. I am a respectable man, with honorable social relations, and it cannot be

expected of me that I return from my work straight home "like a schoolboy" coming from school.

— Of course — you are a great "professor"! — That is the very truth, and it is guarantee enough

for you and restraint enough on me, standing between me and corrup-tion, were I one of its devotees... And you know better than anyone how far I keep from vices, and from excess in anything harmful...