Gibran Stories Omnibus

the house. The old man accompanied me to the edge of the
garden, while my heart throbbed like the trembling lips of a thirsty
man.

THE WHITE TORCH
         
      The month of Nisan had nearly passed. I continued to visit the home
of Farris Effendi and to meet Selma in that beautiful garden, gazing
upon her beauty, marvelling at her intelligence, and hearing the
stillness of sorrow. I felt an invisible hand drawing me to her.
      Every visit gave me a new meaning to her beauty and a new insight
into her sweet spirit, Until she became a book whose pages I could
understand and whose praises I could sing, but which I could never
finish reading. A woman whom Providence has provided with beauty of
spirit and body is a truth, at the same time both open and secret,
which we can understand only by love, and touch only by virtue; and
when we attempt to describe such a woman she disappears like vapour.
      Selma Karamy had bodily and spiritual beauty, but how can I describe
her to one who never knew her? Can a dead man remember the singing of a
nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a
prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the
dawn? Is not silence more painful than death? Does pride prevent me
from describing Selma in plain words since I cannot draw her truthfully
with luminous colours? A hungry man in a desert will not refuse to eat
dry bread if Heaven does not shower him with manna and quails.
      In her white silk dress, Selma was slender as a ray of moonlight
coming through the window. She walked gracefully and rhythmically. Her
voice was low and sweet; words fell from her lips like drops of dew
falling from the petals of flowers when they are disturbed by the wind.
      But Selma's face! No words can describe its expression, reflecting
first great internal suffering, then heavenly exaltation.
      The beauty of Selma's face was not classic; it was like a dream of
revelation which cannot be measured or bound or copied by the brush of
a painter or the chisel of a sculptor. Selma's beauty was not in her
golden hair, but in the virtue of purity which surrounded it; not in
her large eyes, but in the light which emanated from them; not in her
red lips, but in the sweetness of her words; not in her ivory neck, but
in its slight bow to the front. Nor was it in her perfect figure, but
in the nobility of her spirit, burning like a white torch between earth
and sky. her beauty was like a gift of poetry. But poets care unhappy
people, for, no matter how high their spirits reach, they will still be
enclosed in an envelope of tears.
      Selma was deeply thoughtful rather than talkative, and her silence
was a kind of music that carried one to a world of dreams and made him
listen to the throbbing of his heart, and see the ghosts of his
thoughts and feelings standing before him, looking him in the eyes.
      She wore a cloak of deep sorrow through her life, which increased
her strange beauty and dignity, as a tree in blossom is more lovely
when seen through the mist of dawn.
      Sorrow linked her spirit and mine, as if each saw in the other's
face what the heart was feeling and heard the echo of a hidden voice.
God had made two bodies in one, and separation could be nothing but
agony.
      The sorrowful spirit finds rest when united with a similar one. They
join affectionately, as a stranger is cheered when he sees another
stranger in a strange land. Hearts that are united through the medium
of sorrow will not be separated by the glory of happiness. Love that is
cleansed by tears will remain externally pure and beautiful.

THE TEMPEST
         
      One day Farris Effandi invited me to dinner at his home. I accepted,
my spirit hungry for the divine bread which Heaven placed in the hands
of Selma, the spiritual bread which makes our hearts hungrier the more
we eat of it. It was this bread which Kais, the Arabian poet, Dante,
and Sappho tasted and which set their hearts afar; the bread which the
Goddess prepares with the sweetness of kisses and the bitterness of
tears.
      As I reached the home of Farris Effandi, I saw Selma sitting on a
bench in the garden resting her head against a tree and looking like a
bride in her white silk dress, or like a sentinel guarding that place.
      Silently and reverently I approached and sat by her. I could not