Salim Awad turned again to the place that was high and distant—beyond the gaudy, dirty ceiling of the little back room—where, it may be, the form of Haleema, the star-eyed, of the slender, yielding shape of the tamarisk, floated in a radiant cloud, compassionate and glorious.
“What is my love?” he whispered. “Is it a consuming fire? Nay,” he answered, his voice rising, warm, tremulous; “rather is it a little blaze, kindled brightly in the night, that it may comfort my beloved. What is my love, O Haleema, daughter of Khouri, the star-eyed? Is it an arrow, shot from my bow, that it may tear the heart of my beloved? Nay; rather is it a shield against the arrows of sorrow—my shield, the strength of my right arm: a refuge from the cruel shafts of life. What are my arms? Are they bars of iron to imprison my beloved? Nay,” cried Salim Awad, striking his breast; “they are but a resting-place. A resting-place,” he repeated, throwing wide his arms, “to which she will not come! Oh, Haleema!” he moaned, flinging himself upon the little round table, “Haleema! Jewel of all riches! Star of the night! Flower of the world! Haleema ... Haleema....”
“Poet!” Khalil Khayyat gasped, clutching the little round table, his eyes flashing. “The child of a poet, taught of a poet, which am I!”
They were singing in the street—a riot of Irish lads, tenement-born; tramping noisily past the door of Nageeb Fiani’s pastry-shop to Battery Park. And Khalil Khayyat sat musing deeply, his ears closed to the alien song, while distance mellowed the voices, changed them to a vagrant harmony, made them one with the mutter of Washington Street; for there had come to him a great thought—a vision, high, glowing, such as only poets may know—concerning love and the infinite pain; and he sought to fashion the thought: which must be done with tender care in the classic language, lest it suffer in beauty or effect being uttered in haste or in the common speech of the people. Thus he sat: low in his chair, his head hanging loose, his eyes jumping, his brown, wrinkled face fearfully working, until every hair of his unshaven beard stood restlessly on end. And Salim Awad, looking up, perceived these throes: and thereby knew that some prophetic word was immediately to be spoken.
“They who lose at love,” Khayyat muttered, “must.... They who lose at love....”
“Khalil!”
The Language Beautiful was for once perverse. The words would not come to Khalil Khayyat. He gasped, tapped the table with impatient fingers—and bent again to the task.
“They who lose at love....”
“Khalil!” Salim Awad’s voice was plaintive. “What must they do, O Khalil,” he implored, “who lose at love? Tell me, Khalil! What must they do?”
“They who lose at love.... They who lose at love must.... They who lose at love must ... seek....”