The Vine That Dreamed of the Cluster

A thousand meanings and a thousand thoughts all meet now, suddenly, in my mind and in my soul together, until I almost choke on the meanings and gag on the thoughts, before I can say a single word about this fallen man of letters, who was laid yesterday in a resting place of the earth... the earth whose love, until only days ago, he used to melt into his own soul and then pour out into other souls, in letters of perfume and light and dew and melody.

A thousand meanings and a thousand thoughts all tremble now, in my mind and in my soul, a trembling of pain — that the rose should die in the splendor of its spring, that the perfume should suffocate at the appointed hour of its confiding, that the nightingale's throat should be torn in the season of song and warbling.

Fouad Suleiman died like the vine that dreams of the cluster for years, while the secret of the cluster travels through its roots and its veins day after day, through the seasons and the months, until the dream is on the point of becoming truth, until the secret is all but formed and has gathered up all its meanings, until the blossom has set and the cluster has taken shape and "Tammuz" draws near with its secrets and its loads — and then the sinful sickle falls upon the vine at its roots, and the cluster dies together with the vine and the dream and the secret. Alas!

I met "Fouad" only once; but I used to meet "Tammuz" every morning, and never did I come to him of a morning but with longing, eagerness, and thirst; and never did I leave him of a morning without the savor of Tammuz's savor in my mouth, and in my thoughts a sweetness of the sweetness of the earth that ripens in Tammuz, and in my soul a bounty of the bounty of the summer that pours itself out, bounteous, in Tammuz.

And this "Tammuz" — who was "Fouad" himself — gave of his own self, every morning, a flood of literature that seemed to the eye a mere trickle; just as we know is the way of Tammuz, son of nature, who gives you the trickle of goodness, ripeness, and bounty — and behold, it is flood and torrent and abundance.

I often found myself, with "Fouad," in the "Tammuz" column, out of agreement in opinion more often than not; and yet — even so — my soul would open to him and be refreshed by him, would find rest in him and repose; and that was only because "Fouad" was a son of nature, like the month of Tammuz itself: in his letters the color of the earth, and the smell of the earth, and the magic of the earth...

For this I loved this man of letters: because he knew that he was a son of the earth, that the earth had a claim upon him, and held upon his conscience a trust and a bond; and I felt to the full that he believed in that claim and held that trust sacred.

And for this, too, I grieved over Fouad with the sorest of grief, since the disease struck him down before he could cast forth all his fruits and unfold all his secrets.