Isa was at breakfast on the morning of the twenty-third of July42 when the radio interrupted its normal broadcast to announce the Army declaration. At first he did not fully comprehend what he was hearing. Then he leapt up and stared at the radio, listening dry-mouthed to these strange words which kept following each other, forming startling sentences. When he realized what he was hearing, his immediate reaction was dismay. He reeled, like someone suddenly coming out of darkness into brilliant light. What could it all mean?

He went into the sitting room and sat down next to his mother. “Very grave news,” he said.

She raised her dim eyes in his direction.

“The Army’s defying the King!” he said.

She found the news hard to digest. “Is it like the days of Urabi Pasha?”45 she asked.

Ah! Why had that thought not occurred to him? He was really in a very agitated state. “Yes,” he muttered, “like the days of Urabi.”

“Will there be war?” she asked anxiously.

What would really happen? He couldn’t get any more news now since there was no one left in Cairo to consult. The only reason why he himself was not on vacation was that he’d postponed it until the time for his trip abroad.

“No, no,” he told his mother, “the Army’s making some demands and they’ll be met. That’s all there is to it.”

He traveled to Alexandria, mulling over what had happened en route. Here was the tyrant himself being dealt a blow of steel: it should match the brutality of his own tyranny and should be final—let him burn, in the contemplation of his own crimes. Just look at the consequences of your errors and stupidity! But where would this movement stop? What would be the party’s role in it? At one moment, Isa would feel intoxicated by a sense of hope; at others, he would be overcome by a feeling much like the whimpering uneasiness dogs show immediately before an earthquake.

He found Abd al-Halim Pasha in Athenios2 wearing a white suit of natural silk with a deep red rose in the buttonhole of the jacket. In the glass on the table in front of him, all that was left was the froth of a bottle of stout, looking as though it was stained with iodine. The Pasha narrowed his eyes languorously. “Forget about the Army’s demands,” he said. “The movement’s bigger than that. The demands can be met today and the people who are putting them forward will hang tomorrow. No, no, my dear sir! But it’s very difficult to judge what’s behind it all.”

“Haven’t you any news, sir?”

“Things are moving too fast for news. Godwin, the English journalist, was sitting where you are just an hour ago, and he assured me that the King’s finished.”