Nay, it is the eternal curse that passes from the two spouses to the children, then to the grandchildren, then to the whole of society. But love — love is the open gardens and the fragrant flowers. The wretched hut is transformed, by the magic of enduring love, into one of the palaces of the Thousand and One Nights. It is the perpetual smile on the lips and the perpetual springtime of love; it is the happiness of life and the secret of existence.'

Nothing woke her from her heedlessness, and from her out-pouring description of her hidden love, but the ringing of the bell. She fell silent, became aware of her situation, and hung her head, ashamed of this scandalously expressive outpouring. And she was astonished when, a few days later, she felt that the description of her love, which had found itself an outlet in Professor Hamdi's class, was being twisted away from the truth: the whisperings multiplied around her, and the professor's name flew about her wherever she went. And on a stormy day — as though she and the storms kept an appointed tryst — Ahmad stopped coming to the university, and she began to live in a hell, far from his tender glances. Can the absence of one single person from this clamorous life make it as still as the stillness of graveyards, and alter the features of all created things — so that the flowers no longer breathe fragrance, and nature is no longer laughing and radiant, and the air of the school is no longer steeped in gladness and love, and the moist, refreshing breezes of morning no longer carry that beloved touch? Ah — everything had changed with Ahmad's absence, and she stumbles through life as one walking in darkness stumbles.

Events developed with a speed she had never dreamed of. The professor's glances in class came to rest on no one but her, and he began to invent chances and occasions to stay alone

with her, if only for moments. Then one evening, on her return home, she was surprised by her mother, who kissed her and said: Congratulations, my daughter! Today the wealthy notable, the father of Professor Hamdi, came forward to ask your hand for

his son. So congratulations on wealth, beauty, and learning! Ah — what is this she hears? What is this overwhelming joy in the house? What are these beaming faces — her mother, her father, the servants, even her little sister? How wretched are