Samia Abu al-Jabin raised the question of the drivers at the international airport... Toma explains to her.

of loudspeakers in the cafés and pleasure haunts,

which creates in our beautiful, quiet summer resorts the hateful din of Burj Square. And although this is forbidden by law, you have not taken legal measures against the offenders, and this is intolerable. What are you people actually doing over there at Tourism and Summering??"

"Allow me, Madam, to answer this point," Michel Toma interrupted her. "I do not deny..." But Anna Tabet cut him off: "Please, let me finish enumerating those matters that turn summering into a hell. The honking of cars never stops, night or day, until you would think you were at a honking contest among the drivers — and the vendors of ice cream, kerosene, and vegetables answer them... The clatter, the shrieking, and the honking rise from dawn, and no sooner do they end than they begin and start all over again.

The attack on the drivers and their horns came from Anna Tabet and Linda Majdalani

"Let me finish," Anna went on, as Michel Toma seemed to her to be shifting in his seat as though itching on hot coals to interrupt her. "Then there is the problem of the mazout cars... What a distressing state of affairs! Last year you promised us that this summer we would not see those hateful black clouds rising behind a great number of cars. It is true that this year we have not seen them rising from below upward — but we now see them coming down upon us as a terrifying black rain. And what justification do you, in the Commissariat of Tourism and Summering, have for permitting this recklessness, which spoils our beautiful mountain scenery, fouls the limpid air of our villages, and makes us flee from one din to another still uglier and more hateful? What is your answer, Monsieur Toma?" said Anna in something like anger and indigna-tion, turning to the company to see the effect of her words on their faces!!

Expressions of agreement and noddings of heads rose from everyone. The Commissioner of Tourism and Summering smiled his well-practiced smile in the face of this critical ardor and said: "Ah, Madam, how glad I am to hear such frank criticisms. I am with you in everything you have mentioned... and more... I see all these shortcomings and I strive as far as possible to remedy them. Summer today is no longer the summer of twenty years ago... And the question of noise is truly one of the most vexing of vexations. For this reason we met a month ago with all the responsible officials at the Ministry of the Interior to study that problem, and I asked to be given the necessary powers. Loudspeakers are forbidden by law, night and day, and we shall forbid them in practice, God willing —