Achmed Abdullah

“ Watching her husband, seeing him smile at Yasmine, hearing him ask her tender questions as to the state of her health, Nour-el-Ein's mind ran ahead of herself and climbed perilous peaks to view Hamed Ali's motives. His most ordinary words and gestures began to wear for her a sinister aspect. Suspicion clouded everything. She was no longer tolerant, no longer patient or just. She could no longer live or let live. ”

“ Take another wife unto yourself, O Moslim!"
Hamed Ali felt himself weakening. He had always known that sooner or later he would give in. Nor did he blame his friends; nor even himself. Theirs was the Moslim code. He, too, was a Moslim. There was the Koran, that stiff-necked, unbending, mercilessly logical faith and law of Islam by whose rules he clouted his life. The Koran said that children were the essence of existence. Thus, by refusing to take a second wife, he would be wrong, ethically, morally, and religiously. For Nour-el-Ein had borne him no children. ”

“ She spoke sharply to Hamed Ali, as sharply to Yasmine, who would stare at her out of tearful, uncomprehending eyes.
But the former understood; tried to explain.
"One looks carefully after the new field that is yellow with the glint of kerning corn," he said to her. "One looks carefully after the woman about to bear a child." Then, when Nour-el-Ein made no reply, he went on: "Old woman, a lion is not afraid of fishes. You are the wife of my youth, my gold wife. ”

“ He essayed a last, faint arguing, quite aware of its futility:
"I spend my days between my shop, my home, and the coffee-house. I know no girls, nor mothers of girls...."
"There is orthodox fastidiousness in such matters," replied the priest. "Ask your wife. It is both her right and her duty to choose the mother of your future children—may there be as many as there are hairs in my beard! Also, having lived in close intimacy with you for many years, she will know what type of woman is best for you."
Very suddenly Hamed Ali made up his mind. ”

“ Yet, finally, it was she who that night, while Yasmine awaited Hamed Ali's coming, slipped into the wedding chamber and finding the young bride in tears, took her into her withered arms and told her that it was fate.
"Fate," she used Hamed Ali's favorite expression, "is a swinging caravan, bobbing up and down through the desert of life. And my husband—ah—our husband—" she corrected herself with a bitter smile—"is a good man. Middle-aged? Wah! He is still strong and as handsome as an eagle. ”

“ He knew, as all the whispering harems of Tunis knew, that from the first day of their marriage Yasmine had loved him with that overpowering, unreasoning passion which once in a while—perhaps to give the lie to cut-and-dried standards, romantic or realistic—a young girl brings to a much older man. ”

“ But the years had brought them no children, not a man-child nor even a little daughter, no bone of his bone to inherit Hamed Ali's pride, his name, his blood—and there were always his friends in the Khawa-khana el-Isr commenting upon the fact with Moslim directness:
"There is none of your seed in the world. Your wife—may the Prophet intercede in her behalf on the Day of judgment—is barren. Take another wife unto yourself, O Moslim!" ”

“ Whispering; shrugging of shoulders; hands gesticulating with a tinkle-tinkle of glass bracelets; protestations that Hamed Ali was labyat-hu taiba, a "good beard."
And yet:
"He does not want to listen to them, but they will persuade him in the end. Mark my words, O daughter of the bean-seller!"
"Yes, yes"—sighing—"the fox goes at last to the shop of the furrier. W'elah! All men are alike."
"What will Nour-el-Ein say?" ”

“ Hamed Ali argued.
"But you will muddy your hand to the wrist fishing it out," came the priest's rejoinder. "Love without children is an indecency and a blasphemy"; and he reinforced his point by quoting lengthily from the religious precepts of the Marah al-Falah, and reinforced the latter by two paragraphs from the Sharh Aini.
"Shall I blame my wife because of fate?" asked Hamed Ali. "It is not the fault of the springtime that the leafless tree does not bring forth leaves. It is not the fault of the sun that the owl cannot see by daylight. ”

“ Yet again that night as she lay alone in bed, rage overtook her, shook her almost physically, when she heard, perhaps imagined she heard noises from the wedding chamber: muffled voices, soft, fleeting, a pause that was in her heart like an aching eternity, and she remembered her own wedding night; the same soft murmur of voices, and—dear God—the same man.... ”

“ Stirrup to stirrup she had ridden with him when, eager for gain and seeing no chance for it amongst the Black Tents, he had gone North, to Tunis. In that city of white, flat-roofed houses, of purple days and sunsets of dull orange, they had lived and worked side by side. ”

“ But Nour-el-Ein shook her head.
"I know the sort of girl I want," she said. "The fly knows the face of the milk-seller."
And, to an especially officious beldame who claimed that her great-granddaughter was an incarnation of all the seven virtues, not to mention all the seven passions:
"Wah!—the drum that booms most loudly is filled with wind."
It is a moot point if it was because of the matchmaking instinct congenital to all Oriental women, because she really thought it her duty, or because she meant to stifle the flames of her jealousy in the zest and hustle of the enterprise ”

“ But, being an Oriental, thus accepting facts as facts and not as a basis for shifting, harrying speculations, being further more without either physical or mental curiosity, the realization that he was loved by the woman whom he had married solely for the sake of propagating his family, while pleasant, was really without much consequence. ”

“ Yet the gossip spoke true when it said it was because of his friends' interference in his domestic affairs that Hamed Ali each evening remained longer than the other merchants in the Souk-el-Attarine, the Bazaar of the Perfume-Sellers, over his scented wares, bargaining with foreign tourists without wishing them God's speed and be gone, for the afternoon had waned to crushed pink and the sun had dipped to the spawning sands and it was time for all good Moslims to close the shutters of their shops and sip their thick, mush-flavored coffee, and—"Insh' Allah! ”

“ On the contrary, she liked her, helped her with advice and sympathy, and did not complain when the other, with the sweeping selfishness of youth, left to the older woman more than a fair share of the housework. ”