course of life. No longer would I measure women’s feet. I sold my stock, closed my shop, and entered the monastery.
I heard afterwards that she married that young cobbler; emigrated with him to America; deserted him there; returned to her native village; married again, and fled with her second husband to South Africa.
Allah be praised! even He appreciates the difference between a shoemaker and a cobbler; and the bad woman He gives to the bad craftsman. That is why I say, Never be a cobbler, whatever you do.
“ ‘But in the monastery—draw near, I will speak freely—in the monastery, too, there are cobblers and shoemakers. There, too, is much ungodliness, much treachery, much cobbling. Ah me, I must not speak thus. Forgive me, Allah! But I promised to tell you the whole story. Therefore, I will speak freely.
After passing some years in the monastery, years of probation and grief they were, I fell sick with a virulent fever. The abbot, seeing that there was little chance of my recovery, would not send for the physician. And so, I languished for weeks, suffering from thirst and burning pains and hunger. I raved and chattered in my delirium. I betrayed myself, too, they told me. The monks my brothers, even during my suffering, made a scandal of the love affair I related. They said that I exposed my wounds and my broken heart before the Virgin, that I sinned in thought and word on my deathbed. Allah forgive them. It may be, however; for I know not what I said and what I did.
But when I recovered, I was determined not to remain in the monastery, and not to return to the world. The wicked world, I disentangled myself absolutely from its poisoned meshes. I came to the Hermitage, to this place. And never, since I made my second remove until now, have I known disease, or sorrow, nor treachery, which is worse than both. Allah be praised! One’s people, one’s brothers, one’s lovers and friends, are a