“Yes. To-day I am happy, as a pious man is happy when after a long illness, he goes once more to church.”
“The desert seems to be everything to you.”
“I feel that I am going out to freedom, to more than freedom.” He stretched out his arms above his head.
“Yet you have stayed always in this garden all these days.”
“I was waiting for my summons, as you will wait for yours.”
“What summons could I have?”
“It will come!” he said with conviction. “It will come!” She was silent, thinking of the diviner’s vision in the sand, of the caravan of camels disappearing in the storm towards the south. Presently she asked him:
“Are you ever coming back?”
He looked at her in surprise, then laughed.
“Of course. What are you thinking?”