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Then she turned her eyes away from
me as if she remembered the past that made her ashamed to face me, but
she continued, "Those people who go to back to eternity before
they taste the sweetness of real life are unable to understand the
meaning of a woman's suffering. Especially when she devotes her soul
to a man she loves by the will of God, and her body to another whom
she caresses by the enforcement of earthly law. It is a tragedy
written with the blood of the woman's blood and tears which the man
reads with ridicule because he cannot understand it; yet, if he does
understand, his laughter will turn into scorn and blasphemy that act
like fire upon her heart. It is a drama enacted by the black nights
upon the stage of a woman's soul, whose body is tied up into a man,
known to her as husband, ere she perceives God's meaning of marriage.
She finds her soul hovering about the man whom she adores by all
agencies of pure and true love and beauty. It is a terrible agony that
began with the existence of weakness in a woman and the commencement
of strength in a man. It will not end unless the days of slavery and
superiority of the strong over the weak are abolished. It is a
horrible war between the corrupt law of humanity and the sacred
affections and holy purpose of the heart. In such a battlefield I was
lying yesterday, but I gathered the remnants of my strength, and
unchained my irons of cowardice, and untied my wings from the swaddles
of weakness and arose into the spacious sky of love and freedom.
"Today I am one with the man
I love; he and I sprang out as one torch from the hand of God before
the beginning of the world. There is no power under the sun that can
take my happiness from me, because it emanated from two embraced
spirits, engulfed by understanding, radiated by Love, and protected by
heaven."
She looked at me as if she wanted
to penetrate my heart with her eyes in order to to discover the
impression of her words upon me, and to hear the echo of her voice
from within me; but I remained silent and she continued. Her voice was
full of bitterness of memory and sweetness of sincerity and freedom
when she said, "The people will tell you that Rose Hanie is an
heretic and unfaithful woman who followed her desires by leaving the
man who elated her into him and made her the elegance of his home.
They will tell you that she is an adulteress and prostitute who
destroyed with her filthy hands the wreath of a sacred marriage and
replaced it with a besmirched union woven of the thorns of hell. She
took off the garment of virtue and put on the cloak of sin and
disgrace. They will tell you more than that, because the ghosts of
their fathers are still living in their bodies. They are like the
deserted caves of the mountains that echo voices whose meanings are
not understood. They neither understand the law of God, nor comprehend
the true intent of veritable religion, nor distinguish between a
sinner and an innocent. They look only at the surface of objects
without knowing their secrets. They pass their verdicts with
ignorance, and judge with blindness, making the criminal and the
innocent, the good and the bad, equal. Woe to those who prosecute and
judge the people. . . .
"In God's eyes I was
unfaithful and an adulteress only while at the home of Rashid Bey
Namaan, because he made me his wife according to the customs and
traditions and by the force of haste, before heaven had made him mine
in conformity with the spiritual law of Love and Affection. I was a
sinner in the eyes of God and myself when I ate his bread and offered
him my body in reward for his generosity. Now I am pure and clean
because the law of Love has freed me and made me honourable and
faithful. I ceased selling my body for shelter and my days for
clothes. Yes, I was an adulteress and a criminal when the people
viewed me as the most honourable and faithful wife; today I am pure
and noble in spirit, but in their opinion I am polluted, for they
judge the soul by the outcome of the body and measure the spirit by
the standard of matter."
Then she looked through the
window and pointed out with her right hand toward the city as if she
had seen the ghost of corruption and the shadow of shame among its
magnificent buildings. She said pityingly, "Look at those
majestic mansions and sublime palaces where hypocrisy resides; in
those edifices and between their beautifully decorated walls resides
Treason beside Putridity; under the ceiling painted with melted gold
lives Falsehood beside Pretension. Notice those gorgeous homes that
represent happiness, glory and domination; they are naught but caverns
of misery and distress. They are plastered graves in which Treason of
the weak woman hides behind her kohled eyes and crimsoned lips; in
their corners selfishness exists, and the animality of man through his
gold and silver rules supreme.
"If those high and
impregnable buildings scented the odor of hatred, deceit and
corruption, they would have cracked and fallen. The poor villager
looks upon those residences with tearful eyes, but when he finds that
the hearts of the occupants are empty of that pure love that exists in
the heart of his wife and fills its domain, he will smile and go back
to his fields contented."
And then she took hold of my hand
and led me to the side of the window and said, "Come, I will show
you the unveiled secrets of those people whose path I refused to
follow. Look at that palace with giant columns. IN it lives a rich man
who inherited his gold from his father. After having led a life of
filth and putrefaction, he married a woman about whom he knew nothing
except that her father was one of the Sultan's dignitaries. As soon as
the wedding trip was over he became disgusted and commenced
associations with women who sell their bodies for pieces of silver.
His wife was left alone in that palace like an empty bottle left by a
drunkard. She cried and suffered for the first time; then she realized
that her tears were more precious than her degenerate husband. Now she
is busying herself in the love and devotion of a young man upon whom
she showers her joyous hours, and into whose heart she pours her
sincere love and affection.
"Let me take you now to that
gorgeous home surrounded by beautiful gardens. It is the home of a man
who comes from a noble family which ruled the country for many
generations, but whose standards, wealth, and prestige have declined
due to their indulgence in mad spending and slothfulness. A few years
ago this man married an ugly but rich woman. After he acquired her
fortune, he ignored her completely and commenced devoting himself to
an attractive young woman. His wife today is devoting her time to
curling her hair, painting her lips and perfuming her body. She wears
the most expensive clothes and hopes that some young man will smile
and come to visit her, but it is all in vain, for she cannot succeed
except in receiving a smile from her ugly self in the mirror.
"Observe that big manor,
encircled with the marble statuary; it is the home of a beautiful
woman who posseses strange character. When her first husband died, she
inherited all his money and estate; then she selected a man with a
weak mind and feeble body and became his wife to protect herself from
the evil tongues, and to use him as a shield for her abominations. She
is now among her admirers like a bee that sucks the sweetest and most
delicious flowers.
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