very hour it is the heart filled with sincerity that wins me, not the coffer filled with money.
— I point you to a rich woman who gives for the sake of giving.
— Say it at last, Najwa!
— I point you to the owner of the workshop. She is a beautiful spinster who has cut her ties with life. And you poets sing of woman for nothing — so no harm if, for once, you console her at a price!
The bell rang at the kitchen, and the maid opened: — Whose name shall I announce to my lady?...
And how great was the astonishment of the mistress of the palace, when her eye beheld the one she had beheld in her longings and her dreams.
And Riyad marked her astonishment — before he greeted her. And the talk between the poor poet and the rich lady ran long, and that talk — straying from the subject — led her to show him his portrait in her hall, and to let him glimpse her heart through the crack of the door.
Najwa found her health again, but she did not find her friend. And she knew what her mistress harbored for him.
And the owner of the workshop passed before the working girls, and when she reached Najwa she fixed her with a particular look; and the suffering girl, before her mistress's particular look, could do nothing but gasp and weep. — What is it, Najwa? I have never seen you weeping until this hour. Come with me!
The two women withdrew into a room. And Najwa tried to dissemble before her mistress, but her tears betrayed her, and she said, sobbing so that her words broke: I bought him, madam, with my heart — and I sold him for nothing. — No. You have not sold the heart you bought, Najwa. Come
with me to my house; I have made ready for you what you desire.
And the palace door opened. And the two women entered.
— Here is the girl you have loved, Riyad. As for me — I am the woman whose ill fortune willed that she be drawn into this corrupt society, where hundreds of hearts lay bared before her. Yet she has not found, to this hour, one heart that beats with her heart, nor one eye that trembles with her eye. I am the woman to whom not one of those who sought her ever said that he loved another — none but you alone. So permit me to be frank, as you are, in presenting you now with two drafts: the one to spend on the printing of your collection, and the other on your blessed wedding.
Riyad said: Permit me, madam, to refuse your gift; money has
all but turned me from my path, and what I need now is a heart, not money.
And Najwa said: Were it money, I would have given it up to you, madam — but it is a heart, it is love.
The nun of the workshop lives today, with her husband, in her clean and modest house. She is the mother of several children. And many of the daughters of her sex remain spinsters still.
And the comrades of the poet — whose collection has not been printed to this day — still stand every evening on the sidewalks, sifting the girls passing by, each of them waiting to find a girl "rich in money and in beauty."
And that repentant Magdalene left her palace and her workshop and withdrew — she herself — a nun in a convent!