Time cuts like a sword. If you don’t kill it, it kills you. He had become an authority on getting the better of time, but had he really escaped its sharp edge? The previous day a new young employee had spoken to him privately, asking his advice on a personal matter.

“I really feel embarrassed about this, sir,” the young man had begun, “but I come to you as a father or an elder brother!”

The words sounded so strange he thought the man was being sarcastic. As a father! True, he could have had a son of his age. And why not? Yet he never failed to attend to techniques of mastering time.

One day Omm Husni said to him, “This time it’s a headmistress.”

He shook with unconcealed pleasure. But although a headmistress could perhaps make a suitable wife, yet what he really desired was someone to lift him to a higher plane. So what was to be done?

Unable to resist his curiosity, he asked the old woman, “Old?”

“In the prime of womanhood. Thirty-five years at most.”

“A widow or divorced?”

“A virgin, as God made her. Headmistresses were not allowed to marry in the old days, as you know.”

He did not think he would be any the worse for seeing her, and see her he did, in al-Sayyida. He liked her appearance and she had a good figure. (His instincts had been aroused by Saniyya before.) So he saw her and learned that she too had seen him.

Later on Omm Husni said to him, “She won’t cost you a penny.”

He realized the woman had approved of him. For here she was, offering to furnish a house and provide the wedding requirements. All he would have to attend to were minor matters.

The old woman went on: “Only the ring and a wedding present and some sundries. So, can I congratulate you?”

“Let’s be patient a little!”

“Her only condition is the promise of a hundred and fifty pounds in case of divorce.”

Everything was fine and in perfect harmony with his cautious nature. Had he wished only to satisfy his religious faith by getting married, nothing would have been more suitable. But what about his worldly ambitions? He sank in a whirlpool of thoughts, perhaps because of his feeling that he was growing old. Because of the secret revelations which enveloped him from the world of the unknown. Because of the irony and cruelty and treachery of appearances. Because of the roses he never smelled and the songs echoing beyond the range of his hearing. Because of life’s harshness and deprivations. In spite of all this he said to himself, “What’s all this brooding and hesitation for? Rubbish! All is rubbish! I will not do something crazy after all that waiting.”