Musings from the Heart — 'A Short Story in Breaths': Rebirth

We shall continue, in installments, to publish this series, honoring in the writer who has just departed from us her lofty style, and affirming that one who held a pen such as this pen of Jihan's — how should death have the power to fold it away and blot out its name...
God rest our writer Jihan!

— Rebirth —

It fell to this little lonely one — soft of down, broken of wing, a giant in thought...

It fell to her to live however it might chance, because living was decreed for her — alas — and because in that, so it seems, there was a rightness she could not but take the side of, whether she would or no.

She had to live her life whatever hardship and contriving it cost her soul; and she had likewise to prepare herself for this life with the preparation of one bent upon a matter that must be carried through.

Casting off what lay in her budding mind of the sediment of catastrophe upon catastrophe, taking shelter in the oasis of her aunt — Ilham — who had drawn her, ever since she was an infant at the crawl — with her unmistakable smiles —

as a hen's chicks take shelter under their mother's warm wings. And she would not have given her this utmost trust had she not admired beyond measure her spirit — rebellious, ceaselessly astir, filled with abounding tenderness—

that tenderness she carried for every creature that stirs and creeps upon the earth, so that her heart, for all its smallness, seemed to have room for the world and all that is in it. That is why she saw her forever brimming in spirit with whatever experience came her way, unstinting in energy to receive those values that no one heeds, though she knew beforehand that their results might not always be positive. For she believed, for example, that beauty — all beauty — lies in a person's giving without taking;

and that perfection, in its entirety, is a surpassing faith in one all-powerful Creator; and that the truth beyond all dispute is that you should allow yourself no more peace and happiness than you can allow to others;

and that goodness lies in doing it without holding it up as a favor even to yourself, to gratify your own selfishness;

and that love is a hymn without beginning or end, which cannot sink to what is low;

and that peace lies in a man's carrying his heart upon his palm, to offer it as good bread on whose crumbs the hungry may live.

— Yes, she took refuge in that shaded oasis, resting in it with some measure of ease.

But her personal regard — laid upon her by her moral nature and her peaceable upbringing, with all their influences and impressions — none of that would step aside, for one minute, from these impressions of her young girlhood.

The two were forever in give and take, in ceaseless dispute, never settling and never calling a truce—

as appears in that pessimism which had scarcely left her soul a little while before it returned, showing itself in its strongest and most violent, most indignant forms. And when at last, after long effort, strained nerves, and a weary surrender, it was granted her to grow calm, our little one fled into a long stillness — long as the growling nights of winter — and groped, in the dark of the frost-nipped evenings, for that beloved bed which stood two or three steps from her own, to throw herself heavily upon it, weeping all that choked weeping allowed, taking refuge in the memories of childhood — 'her happy childhood' — as far as stretching memory would carry her,

until, if she chanced to cast a passing glance at her hands, she felt them convulsing, congesting, burning... exactly like her mother's hands when she lay under the seizure of her death agony — and she at her side, alone, no third between them but her brother,

surrendered to the sweetness of his dreams.

Yes, alone she was, and the others in the house had gone to their beds.

Even her father...

Her father — he at whose hands his wife had so long been held sacred, and who had so often offered her the oblations of worship, exalting and reverent — he had, as it seemed to the little one then, grown weary of this long illness his wife suffered, after spending much money on its account to no avail;

so he withdrew to a room of his own, not far from hers, to take at night the rest he hoped for—

because — as he kept repeating by way of excuse — he wished to provide for a large family without wearing himself out; and should she need him in the night, she could knock at the door that divided their two rooms, and he would answer her call at once.

But the sharp-eyed little one, who kept count of everything in the household, great and small, without a word of comment or a sign,

felt in her inmost depths a disgust at what was passing before her—

an overpowering disgust that stirred her womanly pride in the bottom of her soul, and made away with what little remained of that easy assurance

she used to feel in her father's petting of her, and in the petting of the whole household.

This, beyond doubt, was dissembling; and it would surely vanish the day she grew weak, or fell ill, or faded, or her face turned plain.

What, then, does this woman mean, and what is she wanted for?

And from here the little one learned to be strong of mettle, to search out the core of a thing before its glitter could beguile her.

And from here began, in her, the unjust doubt...

And upon this belief her great love of life came to rest, showing itself in its strongest elements toward this proud mother, whom she watched suffering the two bitternesses — illness and disappointment — yet in the silence of the proud, who spares no pains to veil the truth so as to satisfy his dignity...

And for this reason she never once, on any night, knocked at the door of her father's room. Nor did her mother knock at it either... She would pass the whole night at her side, giving her no chance to object or protest: — And what is there in that, Mother? I feel warm at your side; how long I have wished to share your bed on the bitter winter nights! I find a drowning reassurance in listening to your dear breathing, and in gazing at this gentle face of yours settled into sleep, as though it were the face of a gracious angel... Oh, let me... let me, for God's sake. I tell you plainly: I love you more than ever children loved their mothers.

She could feel that her mother was weeping; and she

was weeping too.

But each of them spared no pains to hide her tears from the other.

And there came a night...

A night she could not but face.

The unsuspecting little one woke to strong breaths — screaming breaths, one hard upon another.

By the pale light of the moon she saw her mother's two eyes, bewildered, yearning.

She clasped her, gasping, and with a scorching madness fell to holding her tighter and tighter...

But the mother said not one word, for she had already surrendered to a long swoon; her fair lashes had fallen in a startled trembling.

And soft strands of her golden hair lay scattered over the white, luminous brow, and over the marble neck whose veins leapt violently with the beating of the dying heart.

A shudder took the little one...

Should she knock at the door? Should she call the household?! — No... surely not...

Let her leave this adored one at rest, at ease in this swoon, in which she fancied her floating in a crystal world, draped in loose-flowing flowers, this world left behind her as though she had never once passed through it: without regret and without reproach—

And can anyone turn aside what has been decreed to be?

After the doctors had washed their hands of this incurable disease, which clung to the young woman without mercy ever taking hold of it?

Tears swam over the little one's face, as thoughts swam through her quick, sorrowing imagination.

And she held fast to the two yellowed hands, wishing she could breathe life into them with her own burning breath.

And the two hands convulsed, congested, burned; yet the little one would not be turned from clinging to them, nor cease for one moment to kiss them...

And here is that anguished memory coming back upon her, violent and clanging, every time.

And here are her own hands.

Yes, her hands — the soft white ones — convulsing, turning blue, burning, until she fancies she is afraid to look at them; and she hides them behind her back, and under the pillow, and among the folds of the quilt, and can hardly find ease.

And she goes off into a fit of mute weeping, wrestling with herself, quieting the tumult of her griefs, lulling her pent-up feelings.

And before long she withdraws to her icy bed, then out of the stifling room, to breathe a little of the open air.

And there she would meet the aunt — Ilham — that rare kinswoman, risen for her prayers in the night; and the aunt would greet her, wondering, with much gentleness and a little of an admirer's chiding, and would ask her, pressingly:

— would she allow her to say her prayers in her room, so that she might have her company for comfort?

And there, in her room — yes... the aunt would pass a portion of the night in keeping her company, in spinning out merry talk to ease her wounded soul.

And so there began to come back to the little one some assurance that there are in life people whose souls never cease to be pure, because they weigh life in the scales of the spirit, not in the scales of matter...

And so the trust between our little one and her aunt passed back and forth and doubled and redoubled, until the two answered one another in a wonderful harmony—

if it was not love, or fellow-feeling, or familiarity... then it was that precious metal which heredity had poured into the depths of the family's soil, meeting now and again in two persons far apart in their impressions, their feelings, and their leanings.

And yet one particular point drew them together.

And on the foundation of this firm trust the little one learned religion, and clung to it; she prayed with Aunt Ilham, and worshipped to her heart's content.

And she came to know love in its noblest meanings, and kept it clear of small things and trifles.

And she made upright character good in many of her affairs; she never once put it to use for gain, and never once mocked it. And she learned the worth of womanliness, and turned away from all that would disgrace it.

And she knew the worth of learning, and drank deep from its springs — and thirsts wearily still. And she learned philosophy... and argued with the philosophizing aunt, and debated, and doubted, and then settled into faith at the hands of the wondrous Ilham.

And she knew — yes, she knew at last, at the very last: that illiteracy cannot hide a blazing intelligence, and that learning adds nothing to the flame of that intelligence.

It is, in itself, no more than general knowledge, and the widening of narrow horizons.

And that is why, when she was bereaved of her by death, after a stretch of life the two had passed together, she wrote upon her aunt's grave:

(Here lies the first illiterate woman of letters.)