... Ours ...
The masked horseman said, astride his jet-black steed:
— I forgot, old uncle... I forgot to tell you... Abu al-Fahd has been killed!...
— Abu al-Fahd?!... What are you saying?!...
— Yesterday... in broad daylight... by the roadside... with a single bullet from the mouth of this pistol!...
He said this, brandishing in his hand a pistol he had drawn from his belt, and gave a stifled laugh that died away in a gunshot the valley echoed back; then he gathered his cloak, spurred his horse, and sped off racing the wind...
The old man looked at his aged wife with a bewildered look, full of questioning and full of wonder, and said:
— And who might this masked man be?!... And why does he turn aside to us at this early hour of the morning?!... For a drink of water?! I do not understand!
But Umm Husni was still struck dumb, sending out her dim eyes and seeing nothing but a storm of dust subsiding and subsiding, straining her heavy ears and hearing nothing but the fall of hoofbeats fading and fading, until, when everything had subsided and everything had faded, she answered as if waking from a swoon or recovering a memory:
— Like a dream... so it seemed to me... like a dream coming to pass!...
As for Husni, he was in turmoil, and he was in calm. He saw this bewilderment in his father's bewildered eyes, and this stupor showed to him on his mother's wrinkled face, while the like of
that bewilderment sank deep in his own eyes, and the like of that stupor floated on his own face, and what had stirred within him of misery and disappointment and deprivation was smothered in his depths. He strained his hearing toward this wind that had begun
to blow, and stretched his sight toward these clouds that had begun to race, and he wished he could say something, but he did not know what to say; instead he turned from his mother and father toward the hut, made ready the yoke and the plow and the team of oxen, and went down the knoll to the valley.
•
Pale shadows crept over the slopes of the knoll, and faint sounds spread through the folds of the valley. Morning had begun to breathe, the plow began to cleave the earth, and the fleeting memories began to toy with Husni's thoughts as the wind toys with these clouds — scattering and dispersing when they scattered and dispersed, then racing and overtaking one another when they raced and overtook — until it seemed that these clouds massing
thick and dusky in the sky were these cares knotting heavy and black upon the brow, leaving in the eye something of wonder and on the lip something of questioning. It was as if Husni remembered this masked man — remembered his cool voice and his two black eyes — yet he did not know why he passed by the quarter in the morning, nor what he was to Abu al-Fahd, or to al-Fahd, or to al-Fahd's sister — that dark girl, companion of childhood, intimate of youth, the sweet basil of the valley, who never leaves the heart in any waking hour of day and never leaves the heart in any slumber of night; the sweet basil of the valley whose memory still flutters over the valley, hovering and wafting, until time itself seems to stand still, and life to run backward, to those last moments when she knelt at her father's feet, imploring, weeping:
— Leave me in the valley, father... leave me...
And that father shouted in her face, enraged:
— Shame on you, disgraceful girl... sister of a disgrace... You are leaving this wasteland, whether you will or no... Then he dragged her by her hair, his tongue never ceasing to hurl insults, while she writhed in his grip and moaned, in her eyes a glance toward the home grounds, and on her lips a cry to the people of the quarter...
Husni tried to drive away these returning memories, and busied himself with these two oxen surrendering to the yoke, this plow cleaving the earth, this soil parting on either side; he took pleasure in the lowing that filled his ears, grew calm at the soft soil that filled his eyes, softened to the sweet wafting scent that filled his nose... Then thoughts went roaming through his head: this evening he would finish the plowing, and tomorrow morning he would begin the work. This bank he would plant with cucumbers and snake cucumbers; there, on the shoulder of the knoll, he would set out orange and lemon trees; and above,
from the top of the