FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   >>   >|  
ars and kisses, like the commerce of a mother with her first-born child, as holy in love, as sweet in mystery as pure from taint, and as deep in tenderness. While her father was with her, then only did Naomi seem to live, and her happy heart to be full of wonder at the strange new things that flowed in upon it. And when he was gone from her, she was merely a spirit barred and shut within her body's close abode, waiting to be born anew. When Israel made ready to go to Shawan, Naomi clung to him to hinder him, as if remembering his long absence when he went to Fez, and connecting it with the illness that came to her in his absence; or as seeming to see, with those eyes that were blind to the ways of the world, what was to befall him before he returned. He put her from him with many tender words, and smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, as though to chide her while he blessed her for so much love. But her dread increased, and she held to him like a child to its mother's robe. And at last, when he unloosed her hands and pushed them away as if in anger, and after that laughed lightly as if to tell her that he knew her meaning yet had no fear, her trouble rose to a storm and she fell to a fit of weeping. "Tut! tut! what is this?" he said. "I will be back to-morrow. Do you hear, my child?--tomorrow! At sunset to-morrow." When he was gone, the terror that had so suddenly possessed her seemed to increase. Her face was red, her mouth was dry, her eyelids quivered, and her hands were restless. If she sat she rose quickly; if she stood she walked again more fast. Sometimes she listened with head aside, sometimes moaned, sometimes wept outright, and sometimes she muttered to herself in noises such as none had heard from her lips before. The bondwomen could find no-way to comfort her. Indeed, the trouble of her heart took hold of them. When she plucked Fatimah by the gown, and with her blind eyes, that were also wet, seemed to look sadly into the black woman's face, as if asking for her father, like a dog for its master that is dead, Fatimah shed tears as well, partly in pity of her fears, and partly in terror of the unknown troubles still to come which God Himself might have revealed to her. "Alas! little dumb soul, what is to happen now?" cried Fatimah. "Alack! girl," said Habeebah, "the maid is sickening again." And this was all that the good souls could make of her restless agitation. She slept that night from
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Fatimah
 

partly

 

absence

 

restless

 

mother

 
father
 
terror
 

morrow

 
trouble
 

moaned


outright

 

sunset

 
bondwomen
 

muttered

 
noises
 

tomorrow

 
quickly
 
quivered
 

walked

 

eyelids


possessed

 

listened

 

Sometimes

 

increase

 

suddenly

 

happen

 

revealed

 

Himself

 

agitation

 

Habeebah


sickening

 
plucked
 

comfort

 

Indeed

 

unknown

 
troubles
 

master

 
waiting
 

Israel

 
spirit

barred
 

connecting

 
illness
 
remembering
 

Shawan

 

hinder

 
flowed
 

mystery

 
tenderness
 

kisses