It was gambling, just as I had seen it in the theater. The dramas of the stage, with their heroes and victims, had moved into our house, with the difference that these people, who contested with each other on the stage, here stood solidly together all on the side of evil. They were all actors, even the critic, and nothing was sure except lies. If the Deluge came again and if good intentions are worth anything, only Mother and I would deserve a place in a lifeboat. These changes were not our doing. But even Mother went so far as to prepare the food and drink. “You shouldn’t have to serve these riffraff,” I protested.

“They are colleagues, and I am the mistress of the house,” she said by way of excuse.

“What house? It’s nothing but a whorehouse, a gambling den.”

“I’d like to get away from it, if we could only leave together. But what can we do?”

“This is why I hate money,” I said, exasperated.

“But we can’t get along without it. That’s the tragedy. In any case, you are my only hope.”

What is goodness? What is it without action? I had no energy for anything but daydreams, imagination, the domain of the theater. The house was infested with obscenity, and youth was no excuse for accepting the situation, but my hands were tied. I had no other recourse. The lives my schoolmates lived I could share only in the fire of my imagination, where beautiful words became images, not deeds, a Danse Macabre that I could only applaud from the edge of the ballroom floor.

Then Fuad Shalaby began bringing Doria, so that they could whisper together in the third room under the framed Bismallah*2 that had been a gift from my grandfather. “Shalaby and Doria, too,” I said to Mother. “We must leave.”

“Not before you’re able to,” she replied, her eyes red.

“I’m suffocating.”

“So am I, son, and more so.”

“Is only opium responsible for all this?” She didn’t answer. “Perhaps this opium itself is the result of something else. Perhaps it’s not the real reason.”

“Your father is mad,” she sighed. “But it’s my fault that I let him mislead me.”

“I’d like to kill him.”

She patted my arm. “Lose yourself in your studies,” she whispered. “You are the only hope I have left.”