This is a lively journalistic tour undertaken by the representative of "The Woman's Voice," Miss Nur Salman, a student at the American University who is about to take her master's degree in Arabic literature... So let the reader accompany Miss Nur Salman on this journalistic tour of hers, and listen to whatever the candidates for marriage may have to say about the girls of their dreams!... And in the coming issue we shall bring our readers the opinions of a company holding the opposing points of view....
*
Much has been said about man and woman, and among the things said: "Men are locked boxes that even the keys of Peter may fail to open," and "Woman is a bewildering riddle understood by none but God." All of which, of course, is proof of the misleading obscurity and vexing secretiveness in their character, making each one of them a world unto himself, or a book crammed with symbols, riddles, question marks, and exclamation points...
In the name of The Woman's Voice I tried to challenge these sayings, which have become traditional social rules... So I set out among the young men and young women, gathering from some of them whatever had ripened of the fruit of their opinions on a fundamental and entertaining subject. Some of them — not to say most of them — tried to escape this embarrassing "experiment," for no other reason than that it would lead them to express their private dreams and cast a glimmer of light upon the recesses of their thoughts and the secret of their trade...
The doors of the American University opened wide before me, and I entered in good cheer and set out roaming its spacious grounds. From afar a white coat caught my eye, and I imagined its wearer an angel of mercy descended upon me from heaven to rescue me from the depths of my perplexity — but this was nothing but a deceptive dream... Can the likes of Dr. Fouad
Ashkar really be counted among the angels of mercy?!...
I asked him about the ideal woman in his eyes — the one he dreams of, or will dream of in the future. He
Can the likes of Dr. Fouad Ashkar really be counted among the angels of mercy?!...
smiled and said: she is the woman mature in mind, not in years; cultivated; balanced — that is, one who keeps her own personality; free of every hateful ugliness; light of blood, not of weight; and possessed of the spirit of wit, so that she can understand his jokes and his drolleries — naturally, for he is one of the most brilliant actors of the American University. Does not the proverb say: like is drawn unto like?!...
As for Raja Abou el-Jebine, one of the prominent students of the American University, he received The Woman's Voice's question
As for Raja Abou el-Jebine, one of the students of...
with his familiar Everest-like coolness. He raised his eyes from his book with the utmost deliberation and slowness, and began to lecture with great animation on the beauty of soul and spirit in woman — apparently he had been reading some of Plato's immortal works. Mr. Raja carried me around the world of his ideals for a few minutes, so that I fancied myself in Dante's paradise... And there appeared his "Beatrice": pure of spirit, beautiful of soul, of refined sensibility, intelligent, of striking femininity, and possessed of an elevated artistic taste...
Bodily beauty, in his eyes, is a secondary quality in a woman... so his words came — whether he knew it or not — as a consolation to great numbers of the fair sex. May God multiply his like...
*
On one of the university's green benches sat Mr. George Homsi with some men of the police, chatting, all of them awaiting
the arrival of His Excellency the President for the opening ceremony of the medical congress at the American University. Mr. Homsi is preparing his thesis for a master's degree in political science; he is one of those whom time has ripened early, and so some of his comrades have nicknamed him "the venerable judge."
The Woman's Voice's question pleased him; he settled his spectacles firmly on his nose and began to pour forth speech, as though he and The