Djemil the "Azra" said: "While I live, my heart will love
thee; and when I shall be no more, still will my Shadow
follow thy Shadow athwart the tombs."...
Thou hast perchance beheld it--the strong white city climbing by
terraces far up the mountain-side, with palms swaying in the blue
above its citadel towers, and the lake-waters damascened by winds,
reflecting, all-quiveringly, its Arabian gates and the golden words of
the Prophet shining upon entablatures, and the mosque-domes rounded
like eggs of the Rok, and the minarets from which the voice of the
muezzin comes to the faithful with dying redness of sunset: "O ye who
are about to sleep, commend your souls to Him who never sleeps!"
... Therein also dwelt many Christians--may their bones be ground and
the names of them forever blotted out! Yea; all save one, whose name
I have indeed forgotten. (But our master the Prophet hath written the
name; and it hath not been forgotten by Him who never forgets--though
it be the name of a woman!) Now, hard by the walls of the city there
is a place of sepulchre for good Moslems, in which thou mayst see two
graves, the foot of one being set against the foot of the other; and
upon one of these is a monument bearing a turban, while the form of the
tumulary stone upon the other hath only flowers in relief, and some
letters of an obliterated name, wherefore thou mightst know it to be
the grave of a woman. And there are cypress-trees more ancient than
Islam, making darkness like a summer's night about the place.
... Slender she was as the tulip upon its stalk, and in walking her
feet seemed kisses pressed upon the ground. But hadst thou beheld her
face unveiled, and the whiteness of her teeth between her brown lips
when she smiled!... He was likewise in the summer of his youth; and
his love was like the love of the Beni-Azra told of by Sahid Ben-Agba.
But she being a Christian maiden and he being a good Mussulman, they
could not converse together save by stealth; nor could either dare
to let the matter become known unto the parents of the other. For he
could not indeed make himself one of the infidel--whose posterity may
God blot out!--neither could she, through fear of her people, avow the
faith of the Prophet!... Only through the lattice of her window could
she betimes converse with him; and with the love of each other it came
to pass that both fell grievously ill. As to the youth, indeed, his
sickness so wrought upon him that his reason departed, and he long
remained as one mad. Then at last, recovering, he departed to another
place, even to the city of Damascus--not that he might so forget what
he could not wish to forget, but that his strength might return to him.
Now the parents of the maiden were rich, while the youth was poor.
And when the lovers had contrived to send letters one unto the other,
she sent to him a hundred dinars, begging him, as he loved her, that
he should seek out an artist in that city, and have a likeness of
himself painted for her that she might kiss it. "But knowest thou not,
beloved," he wrote, "that it is contrary unto our creed; and in the
Last Day what wilt thou say unto God when He shall demand of thee to
give life unto the image thou hast had wrought?" But she replied: "In
the Last Day, O my beloved, I shall answer, Thou knowest, O Most Holy,
that Thy creature may not create; yet if it be Thy will to animate this
image, I will forever bless Thy name, though Thou condemn me for having
loved more than mine own soul the fairest of living images Thou hast
made."...
But it came to pass in time that, returning, he fell sick again in the
city which I speak of; and lying down to die, he whispered into the
ear of his friend: "Never again in this world shall I behold her whom
my soul loveth; and I much fear, if I die a Mussulman, lest I should
not meet her in the other. Therefore I desire to abjure my faith, and
to become a Christian." And so he died. But we buried him among the
faithful, forasmuch as his mind must have been much disturbed when he
uttered those words.
And the friend of the youth hastened with all speed to the place where
the young girl dwelt, she being also at the point of death, so grievous
was the pain of her heart. Then said she to him: "Never again in this
world shall I behold him that my soul loveth; and I much fear if I die
a Christian, lest I should not meet him in the other. Therefore I give
testimony that there is no other God but God, and that Mahomet is the
prophet of God!"
Then the friend whispered unto her what had happened, to her great
astonishment. But she only answered: "Bear me to where he rests; and
bury me with my feet toward his, feet, that I may rise face to face
with him at the Day of Judgment!"