Rasheed Bey spoke these last words in a choked and agonized voice. As he stood, he shook like a reed blown in the wind and reached forward as though he wanted to grab something with the fingers of his twisted hands and tear it to pieces. The blood rose to his face, darkening his wrinkled skin. He glowered, and his eyes hardened, and he stared for a moment as though he saw a demon before him, burst forth out of nothingness to bring him death. Then he looked back at me and his features quickly changed. The fury in his body became pain and torment. Weeping, he said, “She is the woman—the woman whom I delivered from the bondage of poverty and to whom I opened the doors of my treasuries. With fine clothes and costly ornaments, stately carriages and proud horses, I made her the envy of women. The woman whom my heart loved, at whose feet I poured my affections, to whom my soul was devoted, whom I drowned in generosity and gifts—the woman to whom I was an affectionate friend, a faithful companion, a loyal husband—she has betrayed me and left me! She has gone to the house of another man to live with him in the shadows of poverty. With him she shares bread dipped in disgrace and drinks water tainted with degradation and shame. The woman whom I loved, the beautiful bird whom I fed with grains of my heart and gave to drink from the light of my eyes, for whom my ribs were a cage and my inner being a nest, has fled from me and flown to another nest, a nest woven from the twigs of the thorn tree, there to eat thistles and maggots washed down with bitter poison! That pure angel whom I made to dwell in the paradise of my love and affection has become a demon fallen into the darkness to be tormented for her sins and to torment me with her crime!”

The man fell silent and covered his face with his hands as though trying to protect himself from himself. Then he sighed, “This is all that I am able to say. Don’t ask me any more, and do not mention my affliction aloud. Rather, leave it to be a mute affliction. Perhaps it will grow in silence and kill me and give me peace.”

I rose from my place, tears flowing from my eyes and sympathy grinding my heart. I departed from him in silence, for I could find no words that would solace his wounded heart and no wise counsel that would brighten his dark soul.

II