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 psycho-logical 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 feel-ing, so that no one sees her with-out sensing that he has somehow known her before; for from her free soul emanate airs of friendli-ness 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, sup-pressed 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