forward asking for your hand. I knew him through and through, and knew that he was worthy of you; and my tongue hastened, in spite of me, to extol his virtues and set forth his merits. My happiness was of your happiness, my survival of your survival, and I felt that in your marriage to that young man lay every felicity — though I was convinced that you would find no peace of mind except at my side. With my own eyes I watched the effect of my words: your betrothal took place, then its quiet days ran out, and the wedding celebration followed.

And circumstance willed that my mother return from Egypt on the very night of your wedding, so that there was no chance to speak of your family in our house; rather I asked her, once she had rested from the weariness of the journey, to make haste and prepare to accompany me to the celebration. We arrived, and there was your mother waiting for you; and there was an embrace and a reliving of memories that brought back to me the image of that ill-omened night. And while the company around me was busy amusing itself, I was in another world. Then suddenly my ear caught a few words that fell from my mother's lips; they reached me with a clearness that paralyzed my thought and struck me dumb. Would that my mother had come back from Egypt before that day — nay, would that she had never come back at all, for she brought with her the cruelest surprise, one my heart could not bear.

You were not my sister, Amal — it was your elder sister. Your mother erred in recounting that incident, and the result of her error was my withdrawal from the world and my remaining here in this remote hermitage.

— God curse the war and its miseries, my neighbor! You are mistaken: the one you nursed along with Shawkat was Dalal, not Amal. You say Shawkat wrote to me telling me the story — but his letter never reached me, or I should have answered it from there.

In these words my mother's voice stole to my ear — and when? At the very moment I glimpsed you on your husband's arm on your way to the bridal dais. What, then, could I have done? I saw you smiling and thought you happy, and I chose to sacrifice my heart and my peace for the sake of your happiness — you who were, and still are, the source of my peace and my happiness. I strove my utmost to keep this truth from you, and asked your mother to let you go on counting me your brother, while I told my own mother the whole story. And fate stood mocking me anew — it still lies in wait for its chances to strike at me, as though it and I stood at opposite poles.

After your marriage I lived nearer to the dead than to the living, no mind to guide me and no feeling to

inspire me. I learned that you had left Lebanon to follow your husband to the seat of his work, and I asked after you and was told that you were happy, God having favored you with a generous husband of wealth and standing. And I was asked, what more does a woman want than this? — and I laughed at them and at myself and said: poor souls, they think a woman lives without a heart, and that if such a thing exists, it is not fitting she should think with it or walk by its guidance. By God they wronged you, my beloved, when they said you were happy; for on no day were you more wretched than in what you were after your wedding. You ask me how I knew it, and I say: I read it in your letters to your mother. I read the lines and what lay between the lines, and out of the words I composed long pages about your state. You professed happiness while it stood far from you; you sought peace of mind while it kept clear of you. They spoke truly when they judged you happy, for they saw you with gladness filling your lips; but had they tried to enter into your depths, they would have drawn back humbled before the proofs of your devotion and your tenderness toward one who was everything to you — one on whose account the days bestowed on you nothing.

And today, when five full years have passed over your marriage, years in which you have become a mother, nothing is left me but to whisper in your ear a few simple words — perhaps they will carry to you the memory of our former days:

— Be a bondmaid to him and he will be a slave to you. And beware, my beloved, of repeating your mother's tale. Let your child die rather than give him any breast but your own; stop your ears against the crying of your neighbor's baby, lest your hand reach out to him and give him your milk — for who knows, perhaps fate will show mercy and go on to finish its story, and join two pure hearts together, to atone thereby for the anguish and the heartburnings it has left in ours.

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