My lover loves me and seeks me in his own works, but he will find me only in the works of God. He seeks union with me in a palace of glory that he builds upon the skulls of the weak or in gold and silver. I will appear to him only in a simple house built by the gods on the banks of the emotions’ stream. He seeks to kiss me before tyrants and murderers, but I will only allow him to taste of my mouth in solitude among the pure flowers. He would make deceit an intermediary between us, but I desire no intermediary save the stainless deed, the selfless act.

My lover has learned to cry and lament from my enemy, Matter; but I shall teach him to shed tears of entreaty from the eye of his soul and to sigh as he seeks contentment. My lover is mine, and I am his.

ROSE AL-HANI

I

I will tell you of an unhappy man who loved a girl. He took her as his life’s companion, poured at her feet the sweat of his brow and the blood of his heart, placed in her open hands the fruits of his toil and the produce of his labor. He sought to buy her heart with days of toil and sleepless nights, but suddenly he found that she had given it to another man who would find pleasure in its hidden parts and delight in the secrets of its love.

I will tell you of an unhappy woman. She awoke from the thoughtlessness of youth to find herself in the house of a man who poured out his wealth as gifts to her, who clothed her in honor and affection, but who was unable to touch her heart with the spark of vivifying love, who could not intoxicate her spirit with that celestial wine that God pours from the eyes of a man into the heart of a woman.

I had known Rasheed Bey Nu’man since my childhood. His family had come from Mount Lebanon, but he was born and lived in Beirut. He was descended from an old and wealthy family that cherished the memory of its past glories. He was fond of retelling the stories that bespoke the nobility of his ancestors. He followed their ways and beliefs, preferring to follow them rather than the Western fashions that had begun to fill the sky of the East like flocks of birds.