He told himself there was no doubt that she was mad and that was why she was a whore. But she was the only recreation in his rigorous life and she gave him comfort of sorts. Sometimes he yearned for real love and its charms which gave life a different savor. He would remember Sayyida and the steps of the forlorn fountain and the desert, but in the end he would surrender to the harsh jests of life, resting content with himself, despite the torment in his soul, for having chosen the arduous path attended by the blessing of God and His lofty glory.

One night Qadriyya said to him, “Why don’t the two of us go on a picnic on Friday morning?”

He was astonished and said, “I steal my way to you in the dark like a thief…”

“What are you afraid of?”

What could he say? She understood nothing. “It wouldn’t be right if anyone saw me…” he replied in a tone of apology.

“Are you committing a crime?”

“The people…”

“You are the bull who carries the earth on its horns…” she said satirically.

He was a godly and righteous man with a good reputation to take proper care of.

“You could keep me all to yourself for a whole night,” she said seductively. “We could make an arrangement…”

“And the cost?” he said warily.

“Fifty piastres.”

He contemplated the idea with concern. It would bring him, despite the terrible price, real consolation. And he needed consolation.

“A good idea,” he said. “Let it be once a month.”

“Would once a month be enough for you?”

“I might come more often, but in the normal way.”

He admitted he could not live without her. She was his age, but she appeared insensible to time and the effect it was rapidly making on her. She lived without love and without glory as if, in a kind of fury, she had made a pact with the devil. And how it galled him when she once confessed to him that she had taken part in a demonstration.

“A demonstration!” he shouted angrily.

“What’s the matter? Yes. A demonstration…Even this back street felt patriotic once…”

He told himself that insanity was more widespread than he had reckoned. Political interests exasperated and amazed him. Yet he was determined not to pay attention to them. He believed that man had only one path along which he had to trek without flinching and all alone, taking no part in politics and demonstrations, that only a solitary man could be aware of God and what He wished him to do in this life, and that man’s glory was fulfilled in his muddled but conscious effort to distinguish good and evil and in resisting death until the last moment.

THIRTEEN