free schools. They are still small. He is thirteen years old, and they are younger than he.

He heard his mother say that his father died of the effects of his wounds. Yes, he remembers... there... when the men came car-rying his father, dyed in his own blood. The treacherous Jews had struck him with their bullets. He cannot forget how the sound of the shots would crackle and strike the shutters of the windows, above all in the night, driving sleep from their eyelids... After that they came to Beirut, leaving behind all their furniture and belongings. How many beautiful things there were in his room... things he loved and took comfort in! What, he wonders, has become of them now?

His father died in Beirut, after a stretch of time whose length he does not know... He died weep-ing... because he was a stranger, and he wanted the fragrant soil of his own country to enfold him.

One of his comrades came up to Nadim, pressing him to share his kaak with him. He refused, excusing himself... while in his soul a hunger insisted and craved. No — he does not like kaak... Confusion assailed him for a moment, and the feeling of hunger came back upon him in spite of himself, and went with him into the classroom, fierce and cruel.

Noon came, and he saw the pupils scattering to their homes for lunch — some in their private cars, some in the big school cars, others boarding the tram, or going into the restaurant of "Abu Shafiq" near the school, to eat there whatever they wish. He

has all kinds of delicious dishes, and serves the customers what they want; sometimes they tell him what they want early in the morning, so that they need not wait while hungry. Nadim took his bundle out of his book satchel and slipped it secretly into his pocket. He did not want any of his comrades to see him eating that dried-out piece of bread with its few dry figs. They might pity him... or ask questions... or wonder — and he wanted none of all that. His house was far away; he could not reach it in less than an hour's walk, and that weariness, morning and evening, was enough for him. So, as usual, he would go to the "orchard" near the school. It is deserted; no one comes near it at noon. It is beautiful, wide, and grassy; in some places its growth has run tall, fresh and dewy, till it almost hides whoever sits among its rippling, luxuriant thickets.

How sweet is this sitting-place of his! Below him the sea spreads out, proud in its splendid blue, and the music of its waves reaches him and touches his soul, soft and sweet — so long as no one comes upon him... and no companion troubles his peace. And here he has sat down on the ground near a low wall, the grasses swaying and dancing about him. He laid his bundle in his lap, took the dry bread from it, and began to nibble it with the dried figs... He wished there were water beside him to drink, to make it easier to eat what he had. He is hungry, he wants to eat — but not this kind of food. His mind wandered; he gazed far off along the whole stretch of the sea below him, and roamed in his imagination... He loves this sea, which joins him to his country, over there... Its waves clap upon its shores... Ah,

if only he could go with those waves and look down upon those dear places... whose features are engraved upon his heart.

What, he wonders, has become of those birds and animals... that his father loved, in their spacious orange grove whose end the eye could not reach? In it the branches of the lemon trees interlaced, their fruit flashing gold amid a splendid green whose beauty he has never seen matched... and their blossoms of purest white, like scattered snows, trembling with joy at the touch of the breeze and spreading their sweet fragrance far and wide. Those trees bear their fruit many times in a single year. And that great pool with its massive, high walls... from which Abu Amin sent the water along the channels to irrigate the crops. And the lovely bridge... there, at the edge of the grove, over the little river whose waters tumble bubbling and clamorous, above all over the weir, like a waterfall. There his father would take him by the hand when he wanted to cross, for fear his foot might slip and he fall into the water. And the sparrows that Amin used to catch for him... and the quail... how delicious their taste, O God... If only he could live again that happy life in those beloved haunts! Do they care for them now, he wonders — those thieves who usurped them from us? And do they love them as we love them? Impossible! It is our country... and they are strangers to it... and no man can love a foreign land as much as he loves his own true country.

And his school in Jaffa? It was a small one, for children, near the well-stocked shop of Abd al-Halim, from which he so often bought delicious things to eat... He had no choosing then of