"A Story"

Are they letters and the blackness of ink, or lights and dances of light? Is it a page to be folded and opened, or a flood of fragrance to be breathed and embraced? A tear welled in his eye and shut out his sight for a moment; he plucked it away, heart pounding, hand trem-bling, and set his gaze running breathlessly along the lines:

•

To you — everything about every-thing, from beginning to end... I remember, and I shall begin from where I remember, from the first thing of everything... My mother said to me — I was lying with my small head in her lap, contem-plating the night and gazing at the stars: "Do you see that lone star in the corner of the sky? She is the friend of good children. Gather your wishes in the clasp of your hand and lift them up to her, and she will grant them to you."

I looked at my wishes to gather them, and found them one great wish with no partner and no like; so I clasped it in my hand and lifted it to the corner of the sky and whispered: "O my star, keep Wasi for me, make him happy, and keep him with me, for he is mad about me, as my father loved me before — so much, so much..." And my mother laughed and laughed aloud; but I did not laugh until the star's light shone on my face and I knew that she had heard and had bowed her head... That was in the calm, translucent summer...

And my mother fell ill on that stormy day, the day the pale yellow autumn leaves were scattered. I would weep upon her

breast one moment and run to the garden the next, gathering the dying leaves that rolled along the ground and flinging them far away in fury and spite, and coming back to see the earth wrap itself in others — and to see my mother's face outdo the earth's coverlet in yellowness...

And in the night the thunder roared and my mother died. I shrieked in terror and ran panic-stricken toward the night, searching in it for my star; the wind slapped me and the rain pricked me, and when the night wept I knew that I had lost my mother and lost my star — and both were lost to me forever.

And yet my happiness stayed with me, because you were with me...

We grew up together; you became a young man and I a young woman, and you were I and I was you...

We drew our plans and spread out our hopes, and we dreamed and were intoxicated, and we walked and walked — until one day a stranger, an intruder, stood before my uncle and asked for my hand. I looked into his eyes, frightened and timid, and found them admiring and content. And before I could hurl a resounding "No," my uncle said: "Congratulations." There we stopped, and there the road came to its end!...

I brought you the news. I said nothing; I only looked long into your eyes, and you cried: "What is it — are you ill?" And the answer came to you from the direction of our house: a loud ululation that struck your ears without mercy...

You were stunned at first, then

you understood, and a yellow film fell over your face like the pallor of grave illness, and you cried out as you clasped me to you: "No, no, you are..." And I did not know what to say, and I said to myself: "O God, will these hammers pounding my head not be silent a little, that I may see and hear?" Suddenly everything fell silent except your muffled sobbing; and pain stung me — a sting so sharp that it made me draw my hand from your hands and run...

Then you wrote; and I carried your letter and went about my room with it, pressing it gently and tenderly, as a mother presses her child! I armed myself with its lines and ran to my uncle, saying with fervor: "Uncle, my heart recoils from this suitor; spare me marriage to him." He answered me with a terrible look that snuffed me out, and I went back, overpowered, to your letter, kissing it as though it were you, standing and speaking...

And I stayed in the house, prisoner of my bed, a week, never leaving it. And when I was able to stand in the garden and stretch my gaze toward you, I saw your windows shut, as though they were saying: "A last letter came to me from him, for you: he has departed"...

So — two words only, and they were everything...

And I became the wife of that stranger who had cut off our road...

An iron stubbornness governed my life — a silent revolt my soul could not suppress.

I would be silent when he asked