The Beggar, the Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz Page A

eyes for some clue, some answer to his unsatisfied longings. I came not because I loved but in order to love. The complexion is clear, the scent pleasant, and the long eyelashes alluring.
    “So you’re the famous lawyer?”
    “That’s of little importance unless you have problems.”
    “My problems can’t be solved through the law courts, unfortunately.”
    “Why unfortunately?”
    “They might have been solved by you.”
    Mustapha said, laughing, “He’s trustworthy, both in court and outside it.”
    He noticed her long neck surrounded by a simple pearl strand, the bare spread of her chest, the healthy passion expressed in her full, colored lips and flowing from her eyes, and felt his being throb with a strange and unbounded desire, like the mysterious yearnings which assailed him in the late hours of the night. He wished to address the depths, and to have the depths speak tohim without an intermediary, but if the long-sought ecstasy eluded him, he would find a substitute in the firebrand of sex, the convulsive climax which consumes the wine of life and all its dreams in one gulp. He was delirious with longing, anticipation, the titillation of adventure, the effect of abandoned drinking, the scent of jasmine pressed under his glass, Warda’s encouraging glance, a star blinking through a gap in the trellis. As the club showed signs of closing, he said, “Shall we go?”
    Mustapha said his farewells and left.
    Warda was impressed by the sight of his Cadillac, an elegant little coupe de ville. “Where’s your home?” he asked.
    “It’s out of the question. Don’t you have a place?”
    “With a wife and two daughters.”
    “Then take me home as those without homes do.”
    He drove out to the desert by the pyramids, racing madly, seeking the shelter of the open sky as he had with Margaret. The half-moon was sinking toward the west. He reached toward her and gave her a light, artful kiss as a start. Then they exchanged a long kiss, incited by passions as old as the moon.
    She sighed, whispering. “This is nice.”
    He pressed her against him with a fervor which stretched into the solitudes of the desert. His fingers entwined in her hair, which was lit by moonbeams, and he said in a strange, breathless voice, “When the dawn comes.”
    With his cheek pressed against hers, they gazed at the sleepy moon, on a level with their eyes, and followed its languid beams on the sand. Its beams would die, leavingthe heart still thirsting. No power on earth can preserve this godly moment, a moment which has conferred a secret meaning to the universe. You stand on its threshold, with your hand stretched out imploringly toward the darkness, the horizon, and the depths where the moon has fallen. A firebrand seems to burn in your chest as the dawn breaks forth and fears of bankruptcy and want recede.
    “Are you a dreamer?” she asked.
    “No, I’m realistic to the point of illness.”
    She laughed. “But you’re not a woman beater.”
    “I don’t beat men either.”
    “That’s good.”
    Pressing her closer, he said, “But at one time, I was about to kill.”
    “Because of a woman?”
    “No.”
    “Don’t talk of such things in the moonlight.”
    “In the end I decided to kill myself.”
    “In my presence?”
    “In your arms.”
    “In the moonlight?”
    “Now the moon is disappearing.”
    When he returned home and switched on the bedroom light, Zeinab opened her lifeless eyes. As he greeted her indifferently, she said tensely, “It’s almost dawn.”
    “So?”
    She sat on the bed, her eyelids swollen, looking tormented and desperate.
    “I haven’t heard this tone from you in all the years we’ve been married.”
    He put on his pajamas in silence and she cried out, “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
    He muttered resignedly, “Illness is like that.”
    “How can I bear such a life?”
    “My days are spoiled. Don’t spoil the nights.”
    “The girls are asking questions.”
    “Well, let’s