“It is the last thing I ought to speak about,” he went on, “but what can I do?”

Her brown face flushed darker, but she stayed where she was sitting submissively as if waiting for more.

“I’m not a young man, as you see.” He was quiet for a long while and then went on: “And I’m married.” What was it he wanted? Perhaps what he didn’t want was to face the possibility of failure or in the end death, all alone; without the warmth of love and without children.

“But what can I do?” he said again. “I’m in love.”

Silence reigned again. Nothing mattered any longer and he asked her almost jokingly, “What do you say to that?”

She smiled and mumbled something indistinct.

“Maybe you think I’m selfish?”

“No, I don’t,” she whispered.

“Or senile?”

She laughed softly and answered, “Don’t do yourself an injustice!”

“What you say is very kind but what shall we do?” For the third time there was silence.

“I really do want to know what you think,” he said again.

“It’s a delicate situation and rather bewildering,” she said gravely. “And I don’t like to be inhuman or cruel.”

“Are you hinting at my wife?”

“That’s something you surely must consider.”

“Leave that to me, it’s my responsibility.”

“Very well.”

“But I want to know what you think apart from that.”

She was now in much better control of her emotions and said, “Haven’t I already made that clear in what I’ve been saying?”

“I’m so happy, Radiya, to hear that…It shows that my love for you has your blessing.”

“Yes, it does,” she said without hesitation. He was drunk with rapture.

“I don’t mind what happens now!” he said with royal abandon, and then added in a voice that pleaded for sympathy: “I must tell you that I have never known happiness.”

“Can that really be so?”

“I’ve had a difficult life and a miserable marriage!”

“You never gave me that impression.”

“How so?”

“You have always seemed such a wise person to me, and it’s my belief that wise people are happy people.”

“What an idea!”

“I’m sorry.”

“But your love makes me happy.”

He believed he had won the greatest prize of his life and that next to the power of almighty God, the power of love was the greatest.

Later on he went with her to her place in al-Sayyida Zaynab. She introduced him to her old spinster aunt. From the beginning it was obvious to him that the woman was not in favor of the marriage and she made her feelings only too clear. The matter was discussed from all aspects.

“Divorce your wife first!” she said.

But he rejected the idea, explaining apologetically that his wife “was ill.”

“You are an old man and an untrustworthy one,” she blurted out sharply.

Radiya rushed to his defense.