He learned everything about his wife by living with her. She emerged as a past master at cooking and making clothes. She filled him up with different kinds of food, especially sweetmeats, which she was particularly good at making. She was gluttonous and infected the people with whom she ate with the same vice. Her prowess at innocent games like backgammon and conquian11 gave her a great deal of pleasure. She was a devotee of the cinema and the comic theater even though her primary education had been almost completely erased from her memory; all she retained of it was a meager ability to read and to write a poor letter. A woman in every sense of the word, she had a fiery temperament, allowing him no complaints on that score. However, he did worry about the way she jumped down his throat every time she could. It seemed that she had an unconscious desire to make a husband, father, and son out of him at one and the same time; this may have had something to do with her sad but overwhelming longing for children, and the way she expressed her suppressed emotions through worried looks and sudden nervous movements that did not suit her staid and ample person. Misery, Isa thought, seems to be the greatest common denominator among people everywhere; and then he thought how insignificant appearances really are. What could be the hidden reason for this absurdity? he wondered; it is fortunate that we can at least hide our thoughts from other people. I wonder what ideas about me are going around in that small head of hers covered with thick hair. Would she be upset, for example, if she knew the real reasons for my having to give up my post?

He thought of Salwa and the wound she had gouged in his heart, and felt even more unnerved. He thought of Riri as well; he frowned bitterly, and a black look came over his face. He was aware of his own limitless insignificance, and recalled how the ministry used to quake when he got out of his government Chevrolet in the morning. He also remembered a day when he had wanted to put himself forward as a candidate for the Al-Wayiliyya district. But Abd al-Halim Pasha Shukri had advised him to hold off till the coming elections because he was sure that he would be nominated as under secretary in the ministry!