In the Hands of Fate (Story of the Issue)

Life has its systems and its laws, which, though they differ with historical stages and social environments, prepare for man a pattern of living that very often accords with their nature — so that the broad lines of the life people enter upon become known to them, and on their basis they draw up a program for their lives in which they secure some measure of stability.

Yet life also has hidden threads whose essence science has not yet been guided to grasp, so as to avert their effect on the course of certain individuals' lives — threads such that reason may prove powerless to master the path they impose upon those individuals. This is what may rightly be called fate. And this fate is not in every case the factor that shapes the life of the community and determines its nature; there remains to reason, to the human will, to science and knowledge, their part in ordering that life in a way that leads to the bettering of man's existence and the providing of conditions for it under which he can realize his humanity and live a worthy life. Man's struggle to find the order that will bring him to such a state remains one of the essential conditions justifying his existence.

This story of ours treats the life of people whom the fates hurled into deep waters of pain and psychological torment, in whose stirring neither the social conditions under which they live nor the established order in whose shelter they dwell had any hand.

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She is charming and attractive... she spreads gaiety and delight wherever she passes... light of spirit, free of soul... a sweet smile forever spread across her face... from her eyes beams a tender feeling, so that no one sees her without sensing that he has somehow known her before; for from her free soul emanate airs of friendliness that envelop her person and endear her to people's hearts... She is optimistic of temper, merry of nature. She lives in a family of comfortable means, in which all the conditions of a natural, fitting life were provided for her, relative to the milieu in which she lives. She was schooled and acquired no mean cultivation; she has a bent for music, and so mastered playing the piano.. She is beautiful, and lacks nothing of life's goods; and so she aspires to nothing more than to meet the sweet phantom of her dreams, to share with him the treasures of love and of the feeling that surges in the corners of her soul — this soul set free in the flower of its youth. She is Layla.

And Layla has come, it seems, upon the sweet stirrings of human life — those moments in which one feels as if the creeping of some obscure thing were stealing through one's inmost being, seizing all one's feelings and making one live in a self-contained universe of sweet sensations and delicious dreams.

For some time now Layla has felt a hidden, sweet tremor and a gladness of soul that pours bright colors of delight over all things, making the enjoyment of everything dear to her — ever since she met Farid and her eyes met his, sending toward her insistent glances that carried phantoms of a hesitant, suppressed love, until those glances became the image accompanying Layla's fancy wherever she turned and however she went.

And Layla lived sweet days in the flood of these obscure feelings, awaiting an event she longed for from the depths of her being — and through it all the phantom of Farid, with his insistent glances, never left her.

Each of them, Layla and Farid, sought, consciously or unconsciously, to create the circumstances and prepare the occasions for their meeting. And behold, the awaited moment comes true: their two hearts tremble, the words quiver on Farid's lips as he murmurs them in a soft, timid murmur, and Farid feels that Layla returns his love. And their two souls open upon a sweet world of bright, blossoming hopes.

And it fell to Layla and Farid that their engagement was concluded, for nothing stood in the way of realizing their wish: Farid is an engineer, a specialist in chemistry, able to secure the life of a family with an assured future, and Layla belongs to a family that makes her a fitting companion for Farid.

The two set about preparing the raising of the temple of their coming happiness — Layla plunged among fabrics and silks, entrusting to them all her soul's desires for allure and for the refinements of delicate taste, and Farid in earnest that his house should stand as proof of his ability, building it fitting and rich.

And here the fates refuse all but to show that they are able, at times, to blast everything that wills have built and intentions have prepared.

Layla wakes one morning with a dark spot on her right cheek that she cannot stop scratching.. The days pass, and behold, other spots gather round it, and beside their blackness, red lines across parts of her face; and ugliness is not slow to spread where charm and attractiveness had been. At first Layla pays the matter no heed.. but the worsening of these spots soon drove her to consult doctors and specialists. The drugs do not avail, nor do the various treatments; doubt of ever being rid of them creeps into her soul, and Farid is bewildered at it all.

A month passed, and two, and more months, during which no attempt was left untried — all in vain. Dread takes hold of Layla's heart, perplexity of Farid's soul, and sorrow of his imagination — he who was so enthralled by the charms of his Layla.

Distress and fear of the future flood Layla's soul; she weakens, and soon becomes like a child before Farid, obeying him spontaneously and timidly; her will melts away before everyone, and a kind of perpetual daze possesses her. Farid hastens to restore confidence to her soul; his loving heart and his generous youth move him to pledge to Layla that he will not forsake her however grave her condition becomes, and that after their marriage he will take her to the capitals of Europe, in the hope that there they may find someone able to cure her.

And so still other months pass over Layla, between hope and despair, between fortitude and revolt. Sometimes she goes out to stroll, even into the city; and sometimes she shuts herself in her room for days, refusing to see anyone or to be seen by anyone — not even Farid; indeed, Farid above all.

Melancholy got the better of her. She wakes one morning with residues of pain and despondency stirring restlessly in her being, spreading through it a sad calm — the calm of despair, of surrender to a reality which everything shows no power will be strong enough to turn back. She stood before the mirror, scrutinizing her face, imagining the dark destiny that awaits her in a life in which she is a frightening specter.. She let herself drift on in her musings, on this dark destiny written for her, on this fate that sometimes pounces upon people and makes them wretched and miserable; and life appeared to her like a dense procession of driven creatures marching in a monotonous pattern of beginnings and endings. She went on looking at her own image without seeing it, seized by a transport that carried her fancy soaring above that dense procession of creatures — creatures who have wills and intentions, but who, however wide their circle grows, remain in that serried rank pressing on toward the destiny decreed for it. She shook her head, smiling a bitter smile, and threw herself on her bed, mocking at pains that so possess a being like herself that all existence shrinks to the compass of her own self, while she is no more than an atom in existence, in this vast sea of creatures... And she passed days of quiet, still indifference.

But how is a human being to free himself entirely from the bonds that tie him to himself, to his own being, to this feeling that the universe, with all that is in it and all who are in it, is but the frame in which he himself dwells... above all when he stands at the dawn of his youth and it has not been given him to have a mission. So she came back to herself, to her own reality, and her pains returned to her; and here she is, taking from the table beside her bed a photograph taken of her before this malignant disease, in which she appeared in all her attractiveness and charm, and rushing to the mirror to scrutinize it — and this frightening creature she has become.

And she thinks of Farid, and of what he must feel at the nearness of a companion over whose features ugliness is spreading...
And is there anything more painful than that a beautiful woman should lose her charms, and become, after glorying in those charms, an ugly creature?? A helpless fury took hold of her; she fell to striking her face and letting out heartrending gasps — moans that verged on madness.
These fits came back upon her again and again... but she refused to surrender to so calamitous a reality.. And the expression of her will not to fall into such surrender was that she began to hate Farid — Farid, whom this fate had not struck: it had struck her; and what harm would such a disease have done him? — just as nothing in the logic of outward things required that she be the victim of this fate, neither she nor anyone else among men. Her hatred of Farid drove her also to despise him, and she took to provoking what were not the noblest inclinations in him: if she yielded to his insistence, and her mother's, to receive him, she would hasten to put on the most splendid of the attire she had prepared for her hours of intimacy, in which her body appears tempting and provocative; and she would jeer at Farid and mock his pity for her, when she possessed such allure and beauty as would captivate any man.
This state of mind overwhelmed Layla, and she came to hate all people — to hate her mother, to hate Farid, and to envy the maid, forever scrutinizing her clear skin. How many occasions she invented for this girl to enter her room, losing herself in contemplation of her clear face! And how she wished her portion of this life had been the portion of this servant girl — then she would not be living this heartbreaking tragedy, in which no fortune avails, no money serves, no rank profits...
Layla's mother awoke, one still night among the stagnant nights of May, to sad, weeping strains rising from the drawing room. She moved with soft steps toward the piano, where there appeared to her the figure of

Layla, with her beautiful loosened hair and her thin, delicate body, pouring out in melody her griefs and her pains.

She drew near her gently, choking back her tears, and took her into her arms, whispering: Layla, my darling, come to your mother's heart, my poor unhappy child; would that I could ransom your happiness with my soul and my blood, my hapless one... And the tears of a mother who in every act of her life had prepared the means of ease and happiness for her daughter mingled with the tears of this luckless daughter, whom no doubt had ever brushed, at the dawn of her youth, that anything could stand in the way of that happiness... Layla laid her tired head, heavy with pain, upon her mother's breast, softly and tenderly, and fell to kissing her, imploring her to save her from this misery, begging her to have pity on her youth.

And what a grievous hour it was for the heart of this mother, powerless to lighten the pains of her heart's own companion, who looked to her, of all people, for deliverance. She consoled her, and held out to her hopes she herself no longer trusted; she spoke to her of Farid and of his love, hoping to soften the sharpness of her loneliness and estrangement; and she reproached her gently for her treatment of him, at a time when he deserved nothing but appreciation and gratitude for his noble conduct toward her... Gratitude... how heavy the fall of these words on a heart accustomed to feeling itself a source of happiness and delight to others!!! She heaved a long sigh and murmured through her tears: “Yes — gratitude toward Farid, and toward everyone, and toward you too, mother, for the efforts you spend and the pains you bear for my sake... Yes, gratitude... that is the feeling left for me to feel in this life... An enviable role indeed, this that has been written for me to play upon the stage of this world.”

And how often these scenes were repeated... It is man, in all his humanity, standing before a fated mystery he cannot grasp, questioning in the stillness of the night that hidden will which toys with all creatures... It is man face to face with the tragedy of his existence.

It is Layla, standing on the still balcony in the flood of a moonlit night, drifting behind her musings, the dewy breeze playing with the folds of her thin white robe and with her hair streaming loose over her wasted shoulders, while she is not aware of what thoughts wander through her fancy... She will soon be done with her pains, for see — her body has begun to grow heavy; she heaved a faint sigh and turned toward her room, walking to her bed — to where she will drowse into the everlasting sleep..