He took the tram to Al-Ibrahimiyya and then went to the Corniche for a gentle walk along the seawall to calm his nerves. The salty air rose up around his head, which was reeling from the alcohol he had drunk. The stars were shining in the wide gaps between the clouds, and the sea was calm, like someone asleep in the dark. In the distance, the rows of lights attached to the fishing boats stretched out in a line. There was no one to be seen on the road. The sense of total abandonment came back again and he sat down on a stone bench to savor this feeling of silence and sympathy. He would not go back to his empty home till drowsiness persuaded him: since coming to Alexandria, he’d been living his own life, not following anyone’s orders or conforming with any customs, satisfying his own whims in absolute freedom, going to sleep when he could not stay awake any longer, waking up when he got tired of sleeping, eating when he was hungry, and going out when he was bored. He’d never enjoyed freedom like this before.

Something to his left attracted his attention, as though some hidden temptation were trying to contact one or more of his senses—a figure coming toward him from a distance. When it came closer under the streetlight and the features became clear, he saw that it was a girl. The cheap cotton flannel dress, the defiant look untinged by reserve or haughtiness, and the very fact that she was walking alone at night, all these things showed that she was a Corniche girl. He examined her as she walked past him through the narrow space between his bench and the seawall. He could see she was young and had quite nice features, but her appearance was very common, and she had an air of ready response to some gesture that would take her in, like a stray dog looking for any passerby to follow. She walked past till she reached the next bench and sat down on it, eyes fixed in his direction. What a bunch of scavengers these whores are, Isa thought. But what else is there once the summer season is over and Alexandria folds up totally, looking as though its doors were locked in the face of strangers? Deep down inside he felt disgusted. But his pulse was throbbing insanely with desire. The director of the minister’s office with designs on the minister’s chair was dead and buried. That much was quite clear. All that was left of him at the moment was a drunkard alone in the dark whose desires were crawling all over like nocturnal insects. It was as though an irresistible impulse to wallow in the dust were blowing through his brain.