"I will go with you if you go — I swear it."
March 26. Lord, forgiveness! My God, mercy! Today I committed the greatest crime and the gravest sin... I shed no blood, I severed no head from any body — and yet I killed... I killed with my tongue... with
wild, mad words... I killed a heart and shook a soul from its roots... I do not know how to flee from myself! I do not know how to tear my torment out of my breast...
March 27 Yesterday he did not speak to me at all, and this
morning at the table he said to us suddenly: "I have resolved to travel — to America, perhaps." My father asked him, laughing, not believing: "Why?" He did not lift his head from his plate as he answered: "A change and a variation"... How still he was as he said it — how dead!! They rose and gathered around him, objecting, bewildered, asking the reason; he refused to answer or state his motives. My sister Dalal cried: "I will go with you if you go — I swear it." He laid his hand tenderly on her arm and said in a hoarse voice: "Do not oppose me, if you truly love me." She whispered, weeping: "Love you? I worship you, Sabah, and I boast to the world of having you for a brother — so how can I let you go away, how?" And I fled, before I could be asked the reason...
April 3... Bewilderment torments them... He has not told them what happened between us, and I have not told them, because I am a vile coward... I did not sleep last night, thinking of my crime. I knocked at his door at dawn, and when he opened it and saw me he stood frozen, saying nothing. I said, agitated: "Forgive me, Sabah — do not punish me by going away"...
He did not answer... He was looking far away... gazing into emptiness... I stepped back and returned to my room, despairing, anguished...
April 10...
He is preparing himself for the