knew nothing of where you were staying. There was nothing before me but to wait, so I waited — but you did not come back... So I shut my eyes and cursed myself for my weakness and my weeping, and went back to what I had been, laughing at my frailty and my clinging to the frayed rope of your rescue, hating the memory of your wilted face as you watched me from afar drinking wine! Cursing your sad, pleading voice as you asked to speak with me! Mocking your angry, somber looks at my dress and my lips and my friends! And I said to myself, wrestling with sobs:

"'Why do I deceive myself with his concern! He is like my father, like my mother, like my friends, like all people — I mean nothing to him! What he has seen is enough for him, and he will strip my name out of his heart with all speed and calm of nerves! He will not come back to see me; and if he does come back, he will come back mocking and contemptuous, filled with scorn at the madness of our world...'"

My hand tightened over hers, and I could not speak...

"You will never understand what befell me. I was lost and I floun-dered, and no one took my hand... I was allowed everything, forbid-den and permitted; I was given everything in the name of modern freedom. How not, when our life is a life of absolute freedom — a life of elegance and dancing and lights, a life of noise and wine and merriment! A strange life, by God! Full and empty, elegant and threadbare, luminous and dark! Empty of every true affection, of firm love, of real fellowship... We laugh much and we are silent much; we are silent, and each of

us is to the other as one hotel guest to another... I hate my appearance, and I am not what I appear. I am tired, Raji — and how I wish I could rest"...

I could not put my arm around her then, or pass my hand over her face to wipe away those black cir-cles under her eyes and the cry for help on her lips; so I said slowly, emotion breaking my words:

"A little house shaded by fragrant rose trees, where a maiden walks, beautiful as the goddesses, who ties her hair with a red ribbon and winds a yellow bracelet around her wrist — a little house with love in it, and safety, and tenderness; no darkness in it and no emptiness... What does Nana say?"

I waited, leaving her to take in what I had said slowly, my soul imploring her to understand well and completely...

"A house for me and you? You and I?"

I said: "Yes — for you; for Nana; for Nadia."

She bent her head to hide from me the trembling of her lips and the wetness of her eyes; then she raised it, saying shyly, as she stretched out her other hand to me:

"Come, let us tell Papa and Mama — now, at once..."

And I said into her ear as I walked beside her out of the café and into the sunlight:

"And we shall ask Papa to choose the wedding dress, and Mama to cry out at the top of her voice before all the world: This is our daughter and her bridegroom — Nana and Raji..."