hands and minds and forces and produced what it produced... what shall I say of the statues of Rome, standing in the streets and gardens and at the entrances of palaces, mansions, and public buildings?
No great one in Europe is lost, though circumstances were harsh with him in his lifetime and wronged him... he who gives must be thanked... he who spends himself must be immortalized.
In the streets — whether in France, or in the cities of Italy, or even in Switzerland — you are met by statues of the great, the likes of Goethe and Corneille and Garibaldi and Cavour and Bernini and others... as though they were living alongside you, forming for you a link that joins the past to the present!
As for Venice — oh, her sweetness... the sweetness of her beauty, mellowed in her water and her houses and her palace, whose halls yield nothing in beauty to the halls of Versailles, and her piazza, which never ceases to be a stage for the doves and the tourists alike... The piazza of Venice — Napoleon described it as the most beautiful salon in the world.
And the gondola... how shall I forget it, when it is far more beautiful than any Buick or Cadillac... why blame Abdel Wahab if he laments, among all he laments, at the memory of its nights?
And I remembered my own country the moment I reached Naples...
Strange, how that Italian city resembles Beirut! For she joins together what is old and what is modern... what is grand and what is wretched... In Naples there is a Long Souk, and a Souk Sursock, and a quarter like the Karantina quarter, where rags are on display, spread out over roofs and windows and balconies... and a quarter for "their Sursocks" on lofty hills... and in Naples too there is a corniche they call the road of "Memories"!
What passed, passed... and behold me, on an evening I know not how to describe, returning to
the Samsun, I and my companions of the party... Whither? To Beirut... Beirut, with all my heart — but how quickly the days of joy run out!
And so I folded up a long, many-colored page, to come back and fill pages such as I have so often filled!
Europe — I loved her! In her I came to know images of grandeur and beauty I had not known in my own country. And yet... among us are better than they... but it is outside our country that they shine... a secret to make one laugh and weep!!
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