speech, and in her absent-mind-edness! Her schoolmates began whispering and debating over this change that had come upon Hayfa, though the matter stayed hidden from them.

A school term passed over her; Hayfa began to fall behind in her lessons, despite her former excel-lence. How often her schoolmates had tried to rival her and failed; but this time, with all ease, they were able to rout her. She felt the bitterness of the blow, but her love made her scorn such things..

The summer holiday came, and Hayfa set about preparing to carry out her wish, to decide her fate — but how great was the second blow she received: on her arrival they told her that Sabah had become engaged to her relative Layla. Hayfa suffered, but her voice broke within her breast. She could not utter what surged in her heart, so she treated her wound by lulling it, folding in upon herself..

And in her solitude she lived with him, even though he had shattered her — shattered her wishes and her hopes and her future, shattered the castles she had built and the dreams with which she had beguiled herself..

And the days went on repeating themselves, leaving Hayfa to live in a tragedy that circumstances had written for her — a tragedy that all but drained her of her vitality and her charm. She kept trying to mingle with the members of the family when she was gathered with them, then returning to remember her dreams and to live with her memories; she took comfort in them although they were a deadly poison to her. Then she resolved to set down this page of her life on paper, and she took up the writing of her memoirs...

July 1...

How ignorant you are, Sabah, and how cruel. I thought you understood the language of love; I thought your feeling answered mine — but how quickly the harsh truth showed itself to me. Can it

be that you feared my father would rebuff your suit — my father, to whom you speak as though he were your commanding officer — and is that why you became engaged to Layla?

I had thought you the rescuer of my soul from this prison of mine — but how quickly you became the cruel jailer...

July 5...

Layla came to visit me, as though she came to add sorrow to my sorrow. I wanted to slap her across

the face — she who rivaled me and occupied your heart. Love shines in her eyes and life shows upon her face. Ah, would that I were Layla and she were Hayfa!

I tried to master my nerves before her, but I could not — how weak I am! I pretended that I was suffering from a pain in my head.

And Hayfa again made ready to go back to school, her one and only destination; there she could distract herself — fill her time and her thinking and draw away a little from her past. She resolved to

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