A Man of Letters by Taha Huseein

Author:Taha Huseein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press

10

“Did I not tell you the day before yesterday that I would become a hero before tomorrow was half over? As of yesterday, I have in fact become a hero—a fact I doubt you will contest after having read the letter I sent you a while ago.” He said this, then lightly struck the table before him with his cane. When the waiter arrived he asked him for a kettle of tea. Tired and weary, he resumed, his voice broken and dispirited, “Yes, as of yesterday I am become a hero, the hero of an episode which might be thoroughly solemn and which might be thoroughly absurd or which might be a combination of both. It is nonetheless an episode which must, in any case, have its hero. I chose, or circumstances chose, or invisible destiny chose, that I should become this hero. For it is not a simple matter that a man sets out to divorce a woman he loves and fancies, to whom he is indebted for favors which he can neither reckon nor reward. Such a thing is not easy, especially when that woman possesses dignity, graciousness, piety of heart, and purity of conscience, when her husband can neither reprimand her for a transgression or accuse her of a wrongdoing, when he suffers from her only that which pleases, appeases, and satisfies him.

“In spite all this, I embarked on this horrible deed motivated by a longing for learning, or say, if you like, a longing to ameliorate and elevate my station, or, if you like, to avoid lying to the university and to evade possible—no probable, no certain—adultery. I know that you did not approve of this and that you disputed it with me. But that guffaw with which I responded when you had barely started to speak interrupted our argument and almost ruined our relationship.

“Now that you have read my letter and have learned what you have of my affairs, now that you are rid of that tepidity toward me which I sensed yesterday, we may resume this conversation and you may come to realize that I was not at fault in my intentions and that I am not at fault in what I have done. I am not at fault in becoming separated from my wife before leaving for Europe.” The waiter arrived with the tea and filled a glass for me and another for him, saying, “This is the fifth glass you have drunk since you arrived early in the morning.”

My friend then resumed our conversation from where it had been interrupted at his home. He said, “You were admonishing me for anticipating sin, deliberating it, premeditating it, and preparing for it by separating from my wife. You felt that my determination in all this was, in itself, a sin—no, heresy and dissent. The mention of heresy amazed me since I did not expect it from you after having known you as a free thinker, one deeply devoted to modernization. Forgive me for having displayed astonishment.

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