“I lived there with my mother: she was poor, she was old, she was blind.
“I loved my mother, as the unhappy love those who love them.
“My mother was sad, sad, very sad, after she had lost her sight.
“I went into the valley to look for flowers.
“She tried to console herself for not seeing their smiling faces by inhaling their perfume.
“The voice of a son is always sweet to the ear of a mother.
“I spoke to her; sometimes she smiled.
“But never to see! never to see! that filled her with sorrow.
“She sank by degrees into a mute despair.
“Before sinking into this despair, leaning on my arm, she went out; she loved to go at set of sun and sit under the orange-trees in the garden of the young and brave emir of our tribe.