Marta al-Baniyah⁶

I

Her father perished while she yet lay in the cradle and her mother died before she reached ten, so she was left an orphan to be raised in the home of an impoverished neighbor. He lived, with his wife and children, off the fruits of the earth on an isolated farm amidst the splendid valleys of Lebanon.

Her father perished, bequeathing her naught save his name and a mean hovel among walnut and white poplar groves; and her mother died, leaving her nothing save tears of distress and the abasement of orphanhood. She remained destitute in the land of her birth, alone among those high boulders and dense coppices, every day making her way, barefoot and in tattered clothes, behind a milch cow toward a valley rich in pasture. She would sit in the shade of branches, humming with songbirds, weeping to the purling of the brooks, envying the cow her grassy cornucopia, wistfully musing on the budding flowers and fluttering butterflies. When the sun set and hunger gnawed at her, she would return to her hut and sit with the little girl of her guardian, greedily tearing at a crust of millet bread with a little dried fruit and some legumes in vinegar and oil. Then she would sprawl on some parched straw, head resting on her forearms, and sleep, sighing, wishing all of life were a profound slumber uninterrupted by dreams and never ended by wakefulness. When dawn came, her guardian would chidingly awaken her to fulfill some wish of his, and she would leap up from her resting place, trembling with fright at his tantrums and his tirades.

Thus passed the years for penniless Marta, amidst those distant hills and valleys, and she grew up like a wild plant. In her heart emotions sprouted, just as nectar arises in the depths of a flower, and she encountered dreams and misgivings, rather as a herd crosses one rivulet, then another. She became a thoughtful girl, like good, virgin soil in which knowledge had not sown its seeds and upon which the feet of experience had not trodden. She possessed a great, pure soul, banished by the edict of fate to that farm where life changed with the seasons of the year, as though it were the shadow of an unknown god seated between heaven and earth.

We who spend the bulk of our lives in densely populated cities know virtually nothing of the lives of those who inhabit the secluded villages and farms of Lebanon. We have joined the tide of modern civilization, coming to forget or ignore the philosophy of that lovely, simple life filled with purity and goodness. Whenever we contemplate that life, we find it radiant in the springtime, heavy laden in the summer, fruitful in the fall, cozy in the winter. It resembles Mother Nature in all her phases. We exceed the villagers in our wealth, but they are more noble than we in their souls; we sow much but reap nothing, while they harvest whatever they sow. We are slaves to our ambitions, while they are children of their contentment. We imbibe the elixir of life mixed with bitterness, despair, fear, and ennui, whereas they drink it pure.