Struggle (Story of the Issue)

Your picture — I look at it and fall silent... Your eyes — I stare into them and ache... Is it true that you have gone and departed, as the winter sun departs, suddenly and without warning of its going?

My wife, my soul: you created me after I was grown; you made of me a mind that sees with keen, seeing eyes and a heart that feels with supple, steady fingers... People knew you as a devil overflowing with evil, scattering it over their good earth — and I knew you as an angel in whom light and goodness and strength lay hidden... If only they had seen you take my fevered head, that long night, between your palms and whisper encouragement to me with the gentlest touch that ever brushed a human being... If only they had seen you, the hour I came back to you with hands empty of work, carrying my failure between them, as you looked at me with steadiness and love and said: "I do not call this failure; it is a small stone your foot stumbled on — and who among us does not stumble on stones!?" If only they had seen you laugh with gladness and shyness after the doctor's good news, pressing to your heart the pure dream of motherhood and setting it at the loftiest height of sanctity!

I never saw you a mother — ah, my grief! — I never saw you a shining face and gleaming eyes, carrying a little one as tenderly as ever a human being carried... And now I look at your eyes in a picture, and ache... When did I see those eyes for the first time? It was years ago, when I was a young student... I was coming home late, lagging behind my schoolfellows, when a small, angry voice struck my ear, rising through the stillness. I stopped, drew near the narrow lane hidden from sight, and stood looking. I saw your eyes blaze and flash, and heard you scream in anger: "Get away from me, you scoundrel, or I will kill you" — and your hand rose, slapping with force, restoring honor with fire. I ran to you, throwing my protection about you; the coward fled, and we were left alone, staring at each other... Yes, that was the first time I saw those eyes... Would that people had seen that too; would that they had seen you shaking with anger, wiping away tears that broke loose in spite of you — you, the strong, the steadfast... Would that they had seen you bow your head afterward, murmur your thanks, and go your way, sad and wilted...

I saw you often after that; sometimes you would talk with me, and sometimes you passed by in silence... I learned from you that you worked and studied, that you were helping your mother in the struggle — the struggle for bread and for life... that you worked at the school for a paltry wage; and my admiration for you grew, and my attachment to your strength...

Then we would sit sometimes in the public gardens, eating little cakes you made for me with your own hands; I laughed when you laughed, and my soul drank a deep contentment... Yes, I saw in you all the honor and firmness and beauty in the world...

After that I lost your shadow, and went searching for you like a madman every evening after school, and did not find you. My wits flew from me, and I ran to my mother and told her, weeping on her breast. She smiled and said: "Your first love? Oh, you will forget it soon." The blood boiled in my veins, and I fell to telling her of your person; she knit her brows and patted my shoulder in consolation... And so that page was folded shut, sealed with a spot of blood from the first wound whose pain ever made me weep.

The years rolled on, and I finished my secondary studies; then my father's straitened means pressed harder still, and I could not continue. My parents' eyes went searching for a good wife for me, after my father had found me work in an office...

Once a friend of mine invited me to visit him, and whispered to me as we were walking to his house: "Pity the man who marries — and you will soon be pitiable yourself! I hate the fetter, my friend, and prisons." And when we reached the door of the house he whispered, winking: "I'll show you Jamila, the maid, whom I told you

of your work, of your pain, of your torment...

We married; my mother went wild, and my father went wild, and my friend went wild — the friend who took to talking to my father and my mother, and whispering about you to everyone; he took to telling of what you had taken in payment! So I went to him and gave him his fill of blows and contempt, and came back to you weary, pain and the struggle of doubt storming in my glances. You lowered your gaze, clasped your hands in despair, and said:

"Let me go... I do not want this torment for you! I do not want you to hear whispering and talk every day, and to live humbled, carrying my sin on your shoulder when no part of the sin is yours." You spoke like a homeless child trying to find some corner apart, wide enough for her and her sorrows... I went mad with tenderness for you, and ran to you and pressed you to me, to shield you from every harm — you, who never harmed anyone but yourself...

You looked at me long, then hid your tired head against my breast and wept, whispering: "I will be the best of wives to you, and I will make you the happiest of husbands"...

And so you were, and so you made me. People fled my company because I had married you, and people fled you because in their eyes you were a devil overflowing with evil, scattering it over their good earth... They did not know that you had created of me a man, a person, a being... You taught me to pay no heed to obstacles or hardships; you showed me that people's envy is weakness and their persecution ignorance... You taught me true faith in all that is true and noble and beautiful... You wiped sickness from my face and weariness from my body. I loved my mother and my father because they gave me being; I forgave them their hatred of you and their loathing of you, and so rose above them in reason and rightness... Lord, how beautiful you were! Ah, how sweet you were!!

I remember the day you learned that motherhood was drawing near you — the day you filled the house with joy and flowers, and our little table with cheer and food! I too was coming home to you with news of a promotion and a small gift... And when I came in, you read in my face the gladness and the glad tidings, and your eyes lit up, and I asked you: "Do you not see news in my face?" And you said: "Yes — and you, do you not see news in mine?" So you gave me your good news and I gave you mine, and we fell to dancing like two children whose hands had filled with dolls and with hope. And I said to you, reeling like a drunkard with joy: You are the world! You are life! And here is the world in my arms!

And you set about drawing up plans, preparing names, sewing garments — all of it for a child you were making ready for me! And all I knew afterward was your being suddenly in the hospital, ill, hanging between death and life, after the unborn child was lost from you. I did not leave you for a moment, and did not sleep until the shadow of danger had gone from you; and when you came home wilted and frail, I hovered over you in anxious tenderness, watching your gaiety melt swiftly away from you... And it would seem to me that you were hiding from me some great secret that weighed upon your breast; I did not ask you about it, for I knew you hid only what you preferred to hide — so I kept silent!... And the days passed, and a year passed