But whether it be from you or from another, O Khalid, there is the ghost of it beckoning to you. Look at it. Are those the cheeks, those the eyes, this the body which a year ago was a model of rural charm and beauty and health? Is this the compensation of love? Is there anything like it dreamt of in your philosophy? There she is, who once in the ruined Temple of Venus mixed the pomegranate flower of her cheeks with the saffron of thy sickly lips. Wasted and dejected, broken in body and spirit, she sits by your bedside nursing her baby and coughing all the while. And that fixed expression of sadness, so habitual among the Arab women who carry their punks and their children on their backs and go a-begging, it seems as if it were an hundred autumns old, this sadness. But right there, only a year ago, the crimson poppies dallied with the laughing breeze; the melting rubies dilated of health and joy.
And now, deploring, imploring, she asks: “Will you not come to me, O Khalid? Will you not let me nurse you? Come; and your mother, too, will live with us. I am so lonesome, so miserable. And at night the boys cast stones at my door. My husband’s relatives put them to it because I would not give them the child. And they circulate all kinds of calumnies about me too.”
Khalid promises to come, and assures her that she will not long remain alone. “And Allah willing,” he adds, “you will recover and be happy again.”
She rises to go, when Mrs. Gotfry enters the room. Khalid introduces his cousin as his dead bride. “What do you mean?” she inquires. He promises to explain. Meanwhile, she goes to her room, brings some sweetmeats in a round box inlaid with mother-of-pearl for Khalid’s guests. And taking the babe in her arms, she fondles and kisses it, and gives its mother some advice about suckling. “Not whenever the child cries, but only at stated times,” she repeats.