Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

Awakening anew to my presence, he asked me for the second time, “Won’t you smoke?”

I shook my head in the negative.

“What a good boy you are!” he exclaimed mockingly. “Your only fault is that you want to get married. Talk to me about this idea of yours. Is it just a desire to marry, or have you got a particular girl in mind?” (At this point, my heart beat wildly, and I almost got tears in my eyes.) “That’s how it seems to me. So, how is love these days? No doubt it’s still treated with the greatest of seriousness, and still has same power to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Nevertheless, I’ll say it again as a man with experience: marriage is bondage. Imagine a woman owning you. My advice to you is not to get married at all. Take it from me as a man who’s been there. Marriage is bondage. Imagine a woman owning you, and never mind what you’ve been told to the effect that you’re the one who’ll own her, since it’s a stinking lie. She’ll wear you out, rob your money, take away your freedom. And as if that weren’t enough, she’ll gradually take control of your spirit and everything you own to take care of her and her children! Then if you die, she’ll go looking for another man even before her tears have had a chance to dry. Marriage is a ridiculous affair that I couldn’t bear for more than one night!”

My heart reeled at the force of the thrust, which pierced to the quick, and in spite of myself, I uttered a groan from the depths of my being. He looked at me stupidly, and I glared back at him. I was so enraged I nearly threw the bottle in his face. However, I wasn’t the type of person who acts on such thoughts, and I felt defeated by my weakness. I also felt an urge to cry, which I resisted as best I could.

“Have I hurt you, son?” he asked in astonishment.

“Good day!” I shouted at him as I rose to my feet in a rage.

The very next moment I regretted having let these words escape. Even so, I left the place without looking back. I headed for the street, fuming and cursing all the way: I couldn’t bear it for more than one night! God! If a thousand blows had come down on the back of my neck in a public square, they wouldn’t have hurt me the way that one statement had! I was so distraught, my eyes welled up with tears and I let myself cry, taking cover in the darkness that had fallen like a pall over the universe. There was no hope of his helping me in any way. His death alone would be able to change my life. Indeed, there was no hope whatsoever in anything but his death. As I got on the tram, my wandering mind went to work as usual, dispelling my anxieties with its unruly dreams. I saw myself sitting with Medhat and my sister Radiya dividing up my father’s estate after his death. I suggested that we sell the big house, to which they agreed immediately, and in the twinkling of an eye I became the owner of a thousand pounds. Yet my mother didn’t appear in the dream even once. I met with my sweetheart’s father and spoke to him courageously of my desire to marry into his family, and everything went without a hitch. Thoughts like these brought me a satisfaction that relieved the tension that had been generated by that frightening, ill-fated visit. However, I quickly recalled how the dream hadn’t even acknowledged my mother’s existence. A tremor of fear and revulsion went through my body and my heart shrank in bitterness and remorse. How could I have allowed that satanic thought to pollute my soul again? The feeling of indignation and anger stayed with me the entire way home, and I repeated over and over, “O Lord, bless me by granting her a long life!” But it did me no good. I returned home divided and troubled, and I didn’t feel at peace with myself until I’d planted a long, fervent kiss on her forehead.

The following afternoon I went to the tram stop to enjoy the sole moments of happiness my day afforded. The morning rendezvous was rarely possible anymore. My beloved was sitting on the balcony talking to her sister, and I stood there looking at her, awaiting the sustenance that consisted of a look from her eyes. This, for me, was the water of life. My beloved’s head turned in my direction. However, no sooner had she seen me than she turned away from me in a kind of fury. Then she got up and left the balcony. I lowered my gaze in dismay, my enthusiasm now dampened. What had made her angry? Had she decided she couldn’t tolerate my inaction any longer?

Was I doomed to be deprived of her sweet glances? Had she decided to counter my inaction with rejection and disregard? I was overcome with grief, despair, and shame. My position was embarrassing, of that there was no doubt. Then something occurred to me that made my limbs grow cold. I wondered fearfully: Might one of the men who were vying with me for her affection have something to do with this new turn of events? If so, then what would I have left in life? Tell me, my love, by your tender youth: is this estrangement spawned by an affection that could bear to wait no longer, or rejection by a heart that’s attained its desire elsewhere? Never will I forget the misery of that day, nor of the days that followed. My beloved vanished from my life’s horizon. She avoided appearing on the balcony when I was at the tram stop, and on the rare occasions when we happened to meet in the morning, she made certain not to allow her glance to fall on me. I began devouring the balcony and the window with ravenous, weary eyes. I’d sometimes see the mother scrutinizing me, the brother eyeing me strangely, and the little sister looking at me with interest. As for my beloved, she’d disappeared from view, leaving the tree of life bare, its bark yellowed, and its roots withered and dry. Lord! This wasn’t simply indifference. If it had been truly indifference, it wouldn’t have required such vigilance, and her glance would have fallen on me the same way it would happen to fall on other people and objects in the street. She was avoiding me consciously and deliberately. She was displeased and angry. The story of the young man who seemed to be in love was sure to have filled the house. Nor was there any doubt that his peculiar inaction had become the subject of commentary, criticism, and inquiry. How could I have failed to anticipate the embarrassment and confusion I was causing my beloved? Ashamed and humiliated, I heaved a deep sigh and my forehead was moist with perspiration. I was bitter and angry over my miserable luck, and the flames of my rage extended to my mother, who stood invisibly behind everything! So vexed was I, it was as though a hot, beastly wind had scattered its dust over my soul, and I could find no one on whom to vent my resentment, anguish, and rage but myself. It was a long-standing bad habit of mine, when I was at my wits’ end, to rake myself over the coals, criticizing and satirizing myself and exposing all my faults and shortcomings. Hence, I denounced my utter helplessness, my all-encompassing fear of the world, people, and all other creatures, and the phony pride that made me act the tyrant for no reason at home and then, the minute it encountered the lowliest government employee, would turn me into a spineless, dutiful yes-man. I gave myself over to this type of morose thinking until I looked to myself like nothing but a mass of ugliness and ignominy. I was someone who didn’t deserve to live. The most trifling task filled me with such terror and foreboding that I found myself wishing there were some way besides a promotion to get a raise so that I’d never find myself responsible for any assignment of importance. I’ll never forget the fact that I did my best to make sure that the folks in the warehousing section assigned me the typewriter as a way of avoiding menial tasks that didn’t go beyond multiplication, addition, and subtraction. I was nothing but a bizarre, outlandish creature that had deviated from life’s true path, as evidenced by the fact that I paid no attention to anything in the world but myself and whatever happened to concern me directly. In fact, I didn’t even read the newspapers. Imagine my colleagues’ amazement when they found out by chance that I still didn’t know the name of the prime minister months after he’d taken office. They started making wisecracks about my ignorance while I sat there in morose silence. It’s as though I weren’t part of society, since I didn’t know a thing about its hopes and sufferings, its leaders and rulers, its parties and organizations. I don’t know how many times I heard the other employees talking about the economic crisis, the decline in cotton prices, and the change of constitution without making any sense of what they were saying and without it registering any response in me. I had no homeland or society, not because I’d gone beyond patriotism, but rather because I hadn’t yet realized what patriotism meant! I may have felt at times that I loved all people — people as a general, spiritual entity — but there wasn’t a single person who’d come in direct contact with me but that he’d aroused in me a feeling of alienation and dislike. Even my deep faith hadn’t been able to deliver me from this frightening savagery. Rather, all it had done was burden me with anxiety and a troubled conscience over the crazy habit that had such a hold on me.