The family gathered for the first time... Mr. and Mrs. Rayyes in the center; on her right, Aref, and on their left, Farid, then Riad.

Aref... the artist, among dozens of canvases, in an unposed moment...

You — here...!

...I turned around suddenly, at the party of the National College in Aley, to glimpse Riad al-Rayyes behind me... and in a burst of joy I forgot the sting of the blow he had landed on my shoulder.

Years ago I had seen Riad for the last time, before he traveled to America for advanced study. His brother Aref was then studying at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, and his father and mother were in Africa... As for Farid, the young one, he stayed in Beirut, studying and watching over the affairs of the house — and the affairs of his little sister, little Salma, who was at the Sirat school in Aley.

I was taken aback at seeing Riad, for I had not expected to see him. He talked with me, and there opened before me in his soul horizons that had not been apparent at the start of his life, when he and I shared a single bench at school. And I remembered the thrill that shook me last year when I read that Riad al-Rayyes had been elected president of the World Students' Club, which gathers close to thirty million students of every nationality!!

— Did you come alone, Riad?

— No — the whole family came. My father and mother from Africa, Aref from France, Farid from Beirut, and I from Oklahoma, so that we might all meet at sweet little Salma's, in Aley.

And I went to the house. The second surprise was seeing Najib al-Rayyes. Would you not be surprised,

as I was, to learn that the man in this drawing, whose youthfulness towers above the young, is the