beads the memories of

the Palestine catastrophe, which she had suffered and faced with courage. Then

Mrs. Rihan's voice rose, cut-ting through this tedium:

What has woman done now, in the tumult of the disturbances?

All eyes fell upon the face of Mr. Khallat, awaiting the man's charge against woman for lagging behind in the battle...

But Mr. Khallat was searching for a box of matches to light a cigarette — and the silence went on holding every breath, so Mrs. Rihan hastened to dispel it:

— A delegation from the women's associations met with the highest officials, and woman called for concord, and love, and peace.

At that,

Mrs. Najjar stirred in her seat, and the idea of “calling” for peace, and love, and concord roused enthusiasm in her veins, and she burst out:

— We are tired of words. I believe woman has not proven her existence by a tangible deed: by an effective, positive step.

Mrs. Karanful nodded her head slowly in agreement with Mrs. Najjar. And Mrs. Rihan replied:

Personally, we believe that woman had no intervention of any kind to stop the disturbances or to lighten their tragedies: woman had no authority before the man in revolt and the man on the defense.

And Mr. Khallat held to his silence.

Those gathered stared at the floor, pushing away a

scene of woman using her strongest weapon: “weak-ness.” In the mind of each of them an insistent question:

Has woman thrown herself upon the breast of her hus-band, or her brother, or her son, or her kinsman bristling with bullets and bombs and dynamite... imploring him — for mercy on her, on the children, on the family, on the whole homeland — to throw down his weapon and remain peaceably at home?

Did she do it, and he rebuffed her? But then, did she leave his breast and cast herself prostrate at his feet, holding him back by every means from leaving her alone to suffer widowhood, and poverty, and homelessness — and then... to scrimp on food and clothing because it was he who brought on the dangerous crisis?

And Mrs. Abou al-Jbein murmured, giving body to the thought as an admission of fact:

— Woman did not succeed in her mediation, because she did not use her “weakness.”

Mr. Khallat murmured:

— Perhaps she did use this weakness — and it is the strongest of her weapons and all her resources — and the man did not respond...

Here Mrs. Rihan hastened to finish:

— I am certain that every woman tried to turn her man away from acts of violence, but she failed, because in truth we are living through strange and difficult psychological and nervous states, and the specter of the economic crisis that will follow the disturbances throws the greatest responsibilities upon us women. What, then, are we to do?

It seemed at last that there was some movement among those present, and that the

subject of the symposium had taken hold of their minds. Mr. Khallat proposed, in his capacity as an economic expert, that each member of the symposium begin by defining the causes of the economic crisis resulting from the disturbances in Lebanon, and he explained his proposal:

— In my opinion there is exaggeration in the fear of this economic crisis. Lebanon is a country that can bear a strain on its economic balance for several weeks.

Mrs. Najjar said: Work has stopped in the villages — but the Village Welfare Society made up for this lack and spent on the unemployed a sum of a thousand liras which it had set aside.

Mr. Khallat: In Beirut not all work has stopped...

Mrs. Rihan: (interrupting). The Beirut municipality, for example, has not stopped even announcing and carrying out contracts: lighting certain quar-ters of the city, and repairing the eastern entrance of Beirut...

Mrs. Karanful: Why have the sanitation workers stopped working?

Mrs. Rihan: The municipality has not suspended a single employee from work. It is only that such a worker cannot enter the isolated, dangerous districts.

Mr. Khallat: If some work has stopped, the cause of that is individuals, not the government. The road workers (in Tripoli, for instance) were Hauranis, and they departed.

Mrs. Najjar: That will pro-duce a crisis in labor. In the Metn district a worker today asks (15 or 10 liras) a day.

Mr. Khallat: Then the worker will profit from the crisis.

Mrs. Abou al-Jbein: And the peasant will profit as well.

Mr. Khallat: How?

Mrs. Najjar: If Mrs. Abou al-Jbein means that the peasant will profit from the high price of fruit or vegetables,