When Ahmed awoke from his restful sleep, he found his mother still supporting his head and still gazing fondly down into his face. For a few moments he lay, returning her smiles. Suddenly his face clouded.
"Mother, why is it that you can never leave this house, this walled-in courtyard; why is it that you cannot ride out with me in the open and look upon the trees and the grass and the blue sky? It does not seem right that I should be allowed to look upon all these things and you not."
"Hush, my son!" answered his mother. "It is the law of the Prophet. What he commands must be right. But, see, there is the blue sky, and here are my green tree and my grass and sometimes I even may ride out in an ekka and peep through the curtains, and once, my son, many years ago, I rode on a railway train and saw through the shutters miles and miles of green grass and flowers and so many, many beautiful things that I shall always be happy because of that sight."
Ahmed looked from the beautiful but sad face of his mother up at the patch of sky bounded by the four gray, brick walls; he looked at the lone, gray-green tree trying to grow in a foot or two of garden in the middle of the paved courtyard, and at the grass, already giving up its struggle for life, about its roots, and his heart ached for this lonely woman. For he knew that although she was his father's only wife at present, because she had borne him, Ahmed, to Ben Emeal, he knew that she saw little of his father, for there were many concubines in the home who not only usurped her place in her husband's life but who, also, in many, many ways made her life far from happy in the home. He knew that really he himself was her only joy and comfort and he rebelled. Ahmed had been taught that a woman has no soul. Did he doubt the words of his teachers as he gazed into his mother's eyes?
"Mother, why are you called 'Ahmed's mother' instead of your own name when the people of the household speak to you? Why are you so 'blest in' me as they say?"
"Because, my son—surely you must know by this time that a woman is no better than a beast; 'a cow' the Prophet calls her; and that she can only enjoy life through the son that she bears. Ah, how rich I am in you! But suppose you had not come to me, Ahmed, my son!" and her face became drawn with the thought. "Suppose I had been as my sister who has no son!"
The youth could not bear to add to his mother's unhappiness by having her dwell upon such thoughts and so he playfully pulled down her face and kissed her and teased her to show him the wedding garments which she was embroidering for him.
"When is it to be?" he asked.
"After the month of fasting, my son."