The Sufferers by Taha Hussein

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

A Comrade

I

It was one of those hours of forenoon when the day should have lingered in its stride to cage the youth of the kuttab, confining them to that life of theirs, submitting them to the violence of the master and the cunning of the monitor. It should have lingered to delay that happy moment when they would be allowed the freedom to have the lunch they anxiously awaited, not to satisfy their need for food, but to satisfy their need for liberty and play. The children and youth of the kuttab used to feel that the coming of noon and the decline of the sun was too slow. They used to divert themselves from the irksome and loathsome waiting with bursts of a strange and sudden energy: their voices would rise in reading and the movements of their hands would accelerate when rubbing the boards to erase what had been memorized yesterday, and write what was to be memorized that day after lunch. The kuttab then would be like a beehive, full of movement, activity, and noise that would rise until it could be heard from far away, carrying distinctions and variations between the thin, high, and as yet undeveloped voices of the younger children, those of the children grown a little older and beginning to become more full, and the voices of young men that were more like men’s voices and had almost reached complete maturity.

These different voices, emitted in unison, brought sweet and clear music to the ear, bearing much harmony and fluency like music resounding from big musical instruments when the variety in the quality of their resonance is pronounced. From the intermingling of their differences there emerged a beauty that enchanted the ear and filled the soul with wonder and delight. During these hours of forenoon, and also at a later hour of the day when the muezzin is about to call people to the afternoon prayers, the enthusiasm of the pupils of the kuttab would reach its peak. It was not easy for the master or the monitor to restore silence without clapping their hands violently and letting roar from their throats a thunderous sound that caused the boys’ ears to ring and startled their souls. The children’s tongues would become tied, their hands rendered inactive, and they themselves would be reduced to a dumb silence, a stupid inertia, and a strange brooding.

In one of those hours a man beyond his youth but not yet in old age, stood at the doorstep of the kuttab. He had an aura of wealth and high position. This was evident from his elegant clothes and from his face, which emanated confidence and arrogance. He held himself high, and had the demeanor of one who is completely content with himself, perfectly settled in life, fearing nothing, suspecting nothing, and suffering no indecisiveness or vacillation.

Most probably he had at some time been an army officer before renouncing the military life for a civil one. He had shifted to this new life while retaining all, or most of, his military practices and habits.

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