When he stared at me, his sorrowful
eyes bespoke his misery, and he said, "I am the unfortunate man
for whose love she was stoned; I loved her and she loved me since
childhood; we grew together; Love, whom we served and revered, was the
lord of our hearts. Love joined both of us and embraced our souls. One
day I absented myself from the city, and upon my return I discovered
that her father obliged her to marry a man she did not love. My life
became a perpetual struggle, and all my days were converted into one
long and dark night. I tried to be at peace with my heart, but my
heart would not be still. Finally I went to see her secretly and my
sole purpose was to have a glimpse of her beautiful eyes and hear the
sound of her serene voice. When I reached her house I found her
lonely, lamenting her unfortunate self. I sat by her; silence was our
important conversation and virtue our companion. One hour of
understanding quiet passed, when her husband entered. I cautioned him
to contain himself but he dragged her with both hands into the street
and cried out saying, 'Come, come and see the adulteress and her
lover!' All the neighbours rushed about and later the law came and
took her to the Emir, but I was not touched by the soldiers. The
ignorant Law and sodden customs punished the woman for her father's
fault and pardoned the man."
Having thus spoken, the man
turned toward the city while I remained pondering the corpse of the
thief hanging in that lofty tree and moving slightly every time the
wind shook the branches, waiting for someone to bring him down and
stretch him upon the bosom of the earth beside the Defender of Honour
and Martyr of Love. An hour later, a frail and wretched woman
appeared, crying. She stood before the hanged man and prayed
reverently. Then she struggled up into the tree and gnawed with her
teeth on the linen rope until it broke and the dead fell on the ground
like a huge wet cloth; whereupon she came down, dug a grave, and
buried the thief by the side of the other two victims. After covering
him with earth, she took two pieces of wood and fashioned a cross and
placed it over the head. When she turned her face to the city and
started to depart, I stopped her saying, "What incited you to
come and bury this thief?" She looked at me miserably and said,
"He is my faithful husband and merciful companion; he is the
father of my children -- five young ones starving to death; the oldest
is eight years of age, and the youngest is still nursing. My husband
was not a thief, but a farmer working in the monastery's land, making
our living on what little food the priests and monks gave him when he
returned home at eventide. He had been farming for them since he was
young, and when he became weak, they dismissed him, advising him to go
back home and send his children to take his place as soon as they grew
older. He begged them in the name of Jesus and the angels of heaven to
let him stay, but they took no heed of his plea. They had no mercy on
him nor on his starving children who were helplessly crying for food.
He went to the city seeking employment, but in vain, for the rich did
not employ except the strong and the healthy. Then he sat on the dusty
street stretching his hand toward all who passed, begging and
repeating the sad song of his defeat in life, while suffering from
hunger and humiliation, but the people refused to help him, saying
that lazy people did not deserve alms. On night, hunger gnawed
painfully at our children. especially the youngest, who tried
hopelessly to nurse on my dry breast. My husband's expression changed
and he left the house under the cover of the night. He entered the
monastery's bin and carried out a bushel of wheat. As he emerged, the
monks woke up from their slumber and arrested him after beating him
mercilessly. At dawn they brought him to the Emir and complained that
he came to the monastery to steal the golden vases of the altar. He
was placed in prison and hanged the second day. He was trying to fill
the stomachs of his little hungry one with the wheat he had raised by
his own labour, but the Emir killed him and used his flesh as food to
fill the stomachs of the birds and the beasts." Having spoken in
this manner, she left me alone in a sorrowful plight and departed.
I stood there before the graves like a speaker suffering wordlessness
while trying to recite a eulogy. I was speechless, but my falling
tears substitute for my words and spoke for my soul. My spirit
rebelled when I attempted to meditate a while, because the soul is
like a flower that folds its petals when dark comes, and breathes not
its fragrance into the phantoms of the night. I felt as if the earth
that enfolded the victims of oppression in that lonely place were
filling my ears with sorrowful tunes of suffering souls, and inspiring
me to talk. I resorted to silence, but if the people understood what
silence reveals to them, they would have been as close to God as the
flowers of the valleys. If the flames of my sighing soul had touched
the trees, they would have moved from their places and marched like a
strong army to fight the Emir with their branches and tear down the
monastery upon the heads of those priests and monks. I stood there
watching, and felt that the sweet feeling of mercy and the bitterness
of sorrow were pouring from my heart upon the newly dug graves -- a
grave of a young man who sacrificed his life in defending a weak
maiden, whose life and honour he had saved from between the paws and
teeth of a savage human; a youth whose head was cut off in reward for
his bravery; and his sword was planted upon his grave by the one he
saved, as a symbol of heroism before the face of the sun that shines
upon an empire laden with stupidity and corruption. A grave of a young
woman whose heart was inflamed with love before her body was taken by
greed, usurped by lust, and stoned by tyranny. . . . She kept her
faith until death; her lover placed flowers upon her grave to speak
through their withering hours of those souls whom Love had selected
and blessed among a people blinded by earthly substance and muted by
ignorance. A grave of a miserable man, weakened by hard labour in the
monastery's land, who asked for bread to feed his hungry little ones,
and was refused. He resorted to begging, but the people took no heed.
When his soul led him to restore a small part of the crop which he had
raised and gathered, he was arrested and beaten to death. His poor
widow erected a cross upon his head as a witness in the silence of the
night before the stars of heaven to testify against those priests who
converted the kind teaching of Christ into sharp swords by which they
cut the people's necks and tore the bodies of the weak.
The sun disappeared behind the
horizon as if tiring of the world's troubles and loathing the people's
submission. At that moment the evening began to weave a delicate veil
from the sinews of silence and sread it upon Nature's body. I
stretched my hand toward the graves, pointing at their symbols, lifted
my eyes toward heaven and cried out, "Oh, Bravery, this is your
sword, buried now in the earth! Oh, Love, these are your flowers,
scorched by fire! Oh, Lord Jesus, this is Thy cross, submerged in the
obscurity of the night!"
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