Gibran Stories Omnibus

creation, but her love for
beauty becomes a terrible famine. Thou dost make her drink life in the
cup of death, and death in the cup of life. Thou purifiest her with
tears, and in tears her life streams away. Oh, Lord, Thou hast opened
my eyes with love, and with love Thou hast blinded me. Thou hast kissed
me with Thy lips and struck me with Thy strong hand. Thou has planted
in my heart a white rose, but around the rose a barrier of thorns. Thou
hast tied my present with the spirit of a young man whom I love, but my
life with the body of an unknown man. So help me, my Lord, to be strong
in this deadly struggle and assist me to be truthful and virtuous until
death. Thy will be done. Oh , Lord God.”
      Silence continued. Selma looked down, pale and frail; her arms
dropped, and her head bowed and it seemed to me as if a tempest had
broken a branch from a tree and cast it down to dry and perish.
      I took her cold hand and kissed it, but when I attempted to console
her it was I who needed consolation more than she did. I kept silent,
thinking of our plight and listening to my heartbeats. Neither of us
said more.
      Extreme torture is mute, and so we sat silent, petrified, like
columns of marble buried under the sand of an earthquake. Neither
wished to listen to the other because our heart-threads had become weak
and even breathing would have broken them.
      It was midnight, and we could see the crescent moon rising from
behind Mount Sunnin, and it looked in the midst of the stars, like the
face of a corpse, in a coffin surrounded by the dim lights of candles.
And Lebanon looked like an old man whose back was bent with age and
whose eyes were a haven for insomnia, watching the dark and waiting for
dawn, like asking sitting on the ashes of his throne in the debris of
his palace.
      The mountains, trees, and rivers change their appearance with the
vicissitudes of times and seasons, as a man changes with his
experiences and emotions. The lofty poplar that resembles a bride in
the daytime, will look like a column of smoke in the evening; the huge
rock that stands impregnable at noon, will appear to be a miserable
pauper at night, with earth for his bed and the sky for his cover; and
the rivulet that we see glittering in the morning and hear singing the
hymn of Eternity, will, in the evening, turn to a stream of tears
wailing like a mother bereft of her child, and Lebanon, that had looked
dignified a week before, when the moon was full and our spirits were
happy, looked sorrowful and lonesome that night.
      We stood up and bade each other farewell, but love and despair stood
between us like two ghosts, one stretching his wings with his fingers
over our throats, one weeping and the other laughing hideously.
      As I took Selma's hand and put it to my lips, she came close to me
and placed a kiss on my forehead, then dropped on the wooden bench. She
shut her eyes and whispered softly, “Oh, Lord God, have mercy on me and
mend my broken wings!”
      As I left Selma in the garden, I felt as if my senses were covered
with a thick veil, like a lake whose surface is concealed by fog.
      The beauty of trees, the moonlight, the deep silence, everything
about me looked ugly and horrible. The true light that had showed me
the beauty and wonder of the universe was converted to a great flame of
fire that seared my heart; and the Eternal music I used to hear became
a clamour, more frightening than the roar of a lion.
      I reached my room, and like a wounded bird shot down by a hunter, I
fell on my bed, repeating the words of Selma: “Oh, Lord God, have mercy
on me and mend my broken wings!”

BEFORE THE THRONE OF DEATH
         
      Marriage in these days is a mockery whose management is in the hands
of young men and parents. In most countries the young men win while the
parents lose. The woman is looked upon as a commodity, purchased and
delivered from one house to another. In time her beauty fades and she
becomes like an old piece of furniture left in a dark corner.
      Modern civilization has made woman a little wiser, but it has
increased her suffering because of man's covetousness. The woman of
yesterday was a happy wife, but the woman of today is a miserable
mistress. In the past she walked blindly in the light, but now she
walks open-eyed in the dark. She was beautiful in her