With one hand Randa clutched the coins, and fortified them with the fingers of the other hand... and she flung herself on the edge of the bed, panting with exhaustion as though she had just come out of a battle! Behind her eyes two great thoughts contended, and it was hard for the child to decide between them on the spot... To what fate would this precious handful go? It was a fortune! How long she had denied herself the delights of chocolate and cake, watching over every piaster lest it be wasted... And she fixed her eyes on the fistful of coins, calling back her memories: —
She does not deny that the blessing crept into the hoard on the morrow of her birthday. The day she blew out the ten candles on the white cake, amid the clapping of her companions and their singing...
What pleased her most among the presents was a colored money box brought — what taste she had! — by her companion Souad. That night she dropped into the money box the five liras — all that had come to her in cash... and she harbored in her heart a design she confided to no one. And perhaps it was this very secrecy that endeared to her the sacrifice and the waiting... Could it be that today she would go back on that weighty design? Was it conceivable she would turn from what had seemed to her, until only yesterday, the summit of all her wishes?
For months something had been
gnawing at her soul... that beautiful arched cage, empty and abandoned on top of the wardrobe. In it had once frolicked "Fifi,"
her yellow canary. He used to delight the people of the quarter and stir their hearts with his lively, merry trills... For her he
was more than a diversion! How quickly she and Fifi came to understand each other... Heavens! With what a glance he would tease her, with what a peck and flutter of wing he would play with her, and how he accepted her fondling; she would single him out with tender hearts of lettuce, and contrive displays of the pulp of fresh fruit to please his greedy appetite...
She will never forget how, one mid-morning, with Fifi pouring out his song, he suddenly choked upon the melody and began to flounder and tumble blindly, scattering his feathers about the cage... And what did she see, when she rushed to him, but the neighbors' black cat, its fur bristling, poised for a second,
