patriotism, facing a Western girl who was to share her only son with her. And my experience of most of the women who fight for woman's rights among us in Britain, and perhaps in the whole world, is that they are cold and rough, until they forget even their womanliness.. and see life from a stern, rigid angle.. and these traits could only be more intense in the East..
I spoke to Nadim of my fears in this matter, and what he sometimes repeated made me feel that I was right.. But one day he came in to me beaming, with a long letter which he said he had received from his mother; he had summoned his courage and written to her telling our story and our resolve to marry. We sat down to read the letter together.. I had learned enough Arabic at the Egyptian Institute in London to help me read, with my husband's assistance.. and the letter took hold of me. It was a piece of lofty humane literature.. And among its most delicate touches was her advice to me to study Arabic, because my father-in-law speaks nothing but Arabic, and she wants understanding to be complete among all the members of the family. I translated the letter into English and published it in one of the literary magazines.. It was destined afterward to be published also in the newspapers of Lebanon, and broadcast from its radio.. It contains ideal counsel for any young man about to marry. And this was the first flash of my mother-in-law's spirit that revealed itself to me!
We were married in London.. and everyone spoke to me of my mother-in-law.. Camille Chamoun, Hamid Frangieh, Abdul Hamid Karami, Riad al-Solh.. and every Lebanese I met.. and the more they told me of her, the more my awe
grew.. until the appointed day came, and the airplane began its descent with us toward Beirut airport, and I began to feel a real terror, and to wish the impossible would happen and the plane would take off with us again for some place other than Lebanon.. And while my husband, full of joy, was explaining to me the beauty of Beirut from the sky, I was in another world, thinking of my mother-in-law.. Will she hate me? Will she turn her face away from me?.. Can she possibly love me?..
We stepped down from the plane, and everyone met us with welcome, and the most welcoming of them all was my father-in-law; and I felt, from his tenderness and gentleness toward me, that I had won half the battle..
A Strong Spirit.. in a Crippled Body!
My mother-in-law is a crippled lady, who has lived in her bed for twenty years, since a painful accident.. But from her bed — and I prefer to call it her chariot — she is in touch with everything in life.. I entered trembling, and found myself surprised by a magnificent sight! She was a
stately lady, majestic, radiant.. She gave me a look that did not last a minute, but I realized that it had pierced my soul, that with it she had weighed me and learned everything about me.. Then she smiled a smile of light, and opened her arms, saying: "Come forward, my dear," and kissed me a sweet kiss, and said: "We shall be intimate friends." And so it was!
I cannot describe, or forget, the happiness I felt that day.. It was an extraordinary happiness, of a strange kind.. And I felt that in this woman there was another secret! Our meeting had kindled a spark in my soul that will remain alight forever!
A Wife.. Her Mother-in-Law's Pupil!
From that moment our relationship and our friendship began, and I learned from her the most precious lessons of my life.. I came to believe in humanity, and in woman, and in the East — not as a legend, but as a supreme truth.
I lived two long years with her in one house, and my greatest pleasure was to sit with her in her
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