Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

She squeezed me affectionately, fighting back a smile. Then she said, “Perhaps your grandfather told you that he wanted me to marry. However, he surely didn’t say that I’d agreed to it myself. The fact is that I rejected the idea from the very start, and without the least hesitation. I would have preferred that you not know anything about it. And when he offered me some time to think about it, I said.…”

Interrupting her heatedly, I said, “But what he wants for you is something that’s disgraceful and forbidden!”

She said nothing at first, but just sat gazing at me, looking startled and dismayed.

Then, disregarding my objection, she continued, “I told him it was no use giving me time to think it over, since I wasn’t willing to consider it. And I said that for your sake. For your sake alone. So, don’t you be sad or angry. And don’t think bad things about your mother.”

Her words had brought me out of the darkness of despair. Even so, I went on repeating my objection until, after some hesitation, she said, “I never said that marriage was something evil or forbidden. On the contrary, it’s an honorable relationship that God blesses. What I condemned were other things.”

My tongue was tied with shame and timidity. Then, patting me consolingly on the cheek, she said with a tinge of reproach in her voice, “What an ungrateful child you are! Don’t you think this sacrifice of mine deserves a word of thanks? Do you think you’ll remember this in the future? Of course not! On the contrary, you’ll get married yourself someday and leave me all alone!”

With an angry grimace I cried, “I’ll never leave you as long as I live!”

She reached out and stroked my hair with a smile, though her lovely eyes betrayed solemnity.

My school life proceeded with such slowness and tedium it was almost cause for despair. By the time I reached third grade I was fourteen years old. My grandfather used to say to me in exasperation, “When are you ever going to apply yourself to your studies? When will you ever realize your duty? Don’t you see that if you keep on at this rate, you’ll be retirement age by the time you finish!”

My mother was pained no end by this bitter sarcasm, and she would always ask him not to throw it in my face for fear that it might discourage me and make me even duller.

Or she’d say to him, “Intelligence is from God, and his good character is more than enough to make up for what he lacks. You couldn’t find anyone more bashful or better mannered!”

It then happened that my life underwent a critical development. I don’t recall when or how it began, and I fear that imagination may have distorted my memory of some aspects of it. A strange sort of restlessness began to course through body and soul. It flowed through my limbs as a kind of disquiet and turmoil, and when I was alone I was accosted by new sorts of dreams. When I was at school, I would be absented from my surroundings by a tendency to daydream that would focus all my sensations on myself. As the carriage took me home from school, I would gaze up at the heaven’s horizons, wishing I could soar up among its mysterious-looking blue particles. Enveloped in melancholy and gloom, I would console myself by crying my heart out. I’ll never forget the vague longings, the unnamed fears, the hushed groans, and the sprouting hairs. Lord! I thought: I’m a creature that’s bringing forth some bizarre, terrifying life force whose demons make sport of me day and night, whether I’m waking or dreaming.

I discovered on my own — under the pressure of this life force — that fiendish boyhood pastime. No one lured me into it, since I was without friends or companions. Rather, I discovered it the way it must have been discovered for the first time in the life of humanity. I received it with wonder and delight, and in it I found a fulfillment the likes of which I found nowhere else. Finding in it a panacea for my weird loneliness, I gave myself over to it to the point of addiction, while my imagination selected womanly images with which to adorn my imaginary table of love.

The strange thing is that in its ardor, my imagination never went beyond the realm of the servant women in Manyal who went about laden with vegetables and fuul. Nor was this merely a passing phenomenon. Rather, it was a hidden secret, or rather, a hidden malady, as though I’d been destined to love unattractiveness and squalor. If I saw a bright, lovely face that emanated light and beauty, I would be filled with admiration, but my animal instincts would grow cold. If, on the other hand, I was confronted with a robust but homely face, it would arouse me and take utter possession of me, and thenceforth I would include it within my store of fuel for solitude’s dreams and amusement. I went to excess as one does when ignorant of consequences, and in that consummate ignorance of mine, I imagined that no one but I was familiar with such a practice. Then one day when I was in the school’s courtyard, I heard some of the students accusing each other of it in the most shameless manner. Terribly upset, I was seized by an unbearable chagrin. From that moment on, torment was my constant companion, and my erstwhile placid waters were roiled by a troubled conscience. That didn’t keep me from persevering in the habit, however. Rather, I would spend my solitude in wild, but short-lived sensual delight followed by lingering misery.

Those monotonous days of ours would be brightened every now and then by visits from families who were either neighbors or relatives. These would include married women and girls of marriageable age, and on occasion one of the women might lightheartedly introduce her daughter, saying, “Here’s Kamil’s bride!”

My mother would receive such banter with a notable lack of enthusiasm that was lost neither on the woman addressing her, nor on me. Consequently, I felt increasingly timid, estranged, and fearful, especially toward women. Add to this the fact that once the lady visitors had departed, my mother would never fail to criticize their scandalous, decadent remarks. Meanwhile, I went on with my forlorn, friendless life, feeling restive under its constant pressure, yet doing nothing to change it. I would seize upon its covert pleasures in a state of disquiet and despair, then have nothing to show for them but a bitter sense of guilt. Trapped in an isolation that distanced me from life’s other spheres, I wondered in anguish how I would ever break free. At the same time, I was vaguely aware that there was a wider world beyond my narrow horizon. I would overhear snatches of other students’ conversations about politics, the cinema, sports, and girls as though I were listening to inhabitants of some other planet. How I wished I had a share of their expressiveness and joie de vivre . How I wished I could penetrate the solid, thick wall that barred me from their world. I would gaze at them in dejection, like a prisoner looking out through the bars of his cell at those who enjoy their freedom. Yet not once did I try to break out of my prison. After all, I wasn’t unaware of the cruelty and humiliation that awaited me in the world of freedom. Indeed, even when I was safely behind bars, as it were, I was vulnerable to a certain degree of harassment, mockery, and aggression. I said to myself: This is my prison, so let me be content with it. Here was where I found my pleasure and my pain, and here was where I found safety from fear. It was a prison with an open door, but there was no way to cross its threshold. The only release I found, I found in dreams. As I sat in class, I’d be absent from everything around me while my imagination worked miracles: warring, slaying, and vanquishing, mounting the backs of steeds, flying airplanes, storming fortresses, whisking beautiful women away, and inflicting the most grisly, humiliating punishments on the other students. There would even be times when such daydreams would betray themselves in the movements of my head and contortions in my face, while reflections of those phantoms would cause my head to rise smugly, crease my brow in a merciless glare, or evoke a menacing wave of my hand.