Gibran Stories Omnibus

terrible
cry. Then she was quiet for a moment and smiled happily. Her face
brightened as if she had discovered something, and quietly she said,
“Give me my child; bring him close to me and let me see him dead.”
      The doctor carried the dead child to Selma and placed him between
her arms. She embraced him, then turned her face toward the wall and
addressed the dead infant saying, “You have come to take me away my
child; you have come to show me the way that leads to the coast. Here I
am my child; lead me and let us leave this dark cave.
      And in a minute the sun's ray penetrated the window curtains and
fell upon two calm bodies lying on a bed, guarded by the profound
dignity of silence and shaded by the wings of death. The doctor left
the room with tears in his eyes, and as he reached the big hall the
celebrations was converted into a funeral, but Mansour Bey Galib never
uttered a word or shed a tear. He remained standing motionless like a
statue, holding a drinking cup with his right hand.
      * * * * * * * * * *
      The second day Selma was shrouded with her white wedding dress and
laid in a coffin; the child's shroud was his swaddle; his coffin was
his mother's arms; his grave was her calm breast. Two corpses were
carried in one coffin, and I walked reverently with the crowd
accompanying Selma and her infant to their resting place.
      Arriving at the cemetery, Bishop Galib commenced chanting while the
other priests prayed, and on their gloomy faces appeared a veil of
ignorance and emptiness.
      As the coffin went down, one of the bystanders whispered, “This is
the first time in my life I have seen two corpses in one coffin.”
Another one said, “It seems as if the child had come to rescue his
mother from her pitiless husband.”
      A third one said, “Look at Mansour Bey: he is gazing at the sky as
if his eyes were made of glass. He does not look like he has lost his
wife and child in one day.” A fourth one added, “His uncle, the Bishop,
will marry him again tomorrow to a wealthier and stronger woman.
      The Bishop and the priests kept on singing and chanting until the
grave digger was through filing the ditch. Then, the people,
individually, approached the Bishop and his nephew and offered their
respects to them with sweet words of sympathy, but I stood lonely aside
without a soul to console me, as if Selma and her child meant nothing
to me.
      The farewell-bidders left the cemetery; the grave digger stood by
the new grave holding a shovel with his hand.
      As I approached him, I inquired, “Do you remember where Farris
Effandi Karamy was buried?”
      He looked at me for a moment, then pointed at Selma's grave and
said, “Right here; I placed his daughter upon him and upon his
daughter's breast rests her child, and upon all I put the earth back
with this shovel.”
      Then I said, “In this ditch you have also buried my heart.”
      As the grave digger disappeared behind the poplar trees, I could not
resist anymore; I dropped down on Selma's grave and wept.