The Beginning and the End by Naguib Mahfouz Page A

room or in the hall, since he threw his folded letter at her feet. She had disappeared in anger, and was, undoubtedly, indifferent to his letter and emotions. Thus the teaching hours became tedious and a torture to him. Noiselessly he climbed up the stairs until he reached the last flight. He saw the slanting rays of the setting sun level with his eyes. Waves of gentle breezes blew on his forehead. He looked all over the roof, from its front ledge overlooking the alley to its back ledge; but he found no trace of a human being. There was nothing on the roof but two wooden chicken houses. One of them faced the door to the roof, and the other, which belonged to Farid Effendi’s family, stood in a corner beside the back ledge. He silently approached the second chicken house and stood near the door, pricking his ears. At first, he heard only the cackle of chickens. Then he heard a voice clucking to the chickens. He could not tell whose voice it was.Afraid that the girl’s mother might be inside, he retreated a step. He was about to flee. But the door opened, and on its threshold appeared Bahia in a red overcoat. Her blue eyes widened in amazement, and they were fixed dumbfounded on him. She blushed so intensely that her face resembled the red velvet of her overcoat, but her blush lasted only for a few moments. Then, controlling her feelings, she crossed the threshold and closed the door. She went away from him, walking toward the door of the roof. But he did not allow her to escape, leaping to block her way. She gave him an angry look and indignantly straightened her head.
    “This is too much!” she exclaimed.
    In a mixture of daring and tenderness, he replied, “Always angry! I wonder at my bad luck, always finding you angry.”
    She looked annoyed. “Let me pass, please,” she said.
    He stretched out his arms as if to block her way altogether. “This is an opportunity I couldn’t dream of,” he said. “So I can’t allow it to slip from my hands. After your deliberate disappearance which caused me the most painful torture, I have the right to keep you for a while. Why do you disappear? Let me ask you: How did you like my letter?”
    She frowned. “You mention that paper!” she said sharply. “How brazen of you! I don’t approve of it.”
    His look at her wavered between hope and fear, and he thought:
Should I believe this anger? My heart tells me that it is exaggerated. Perhaps it is a symptom of shyness. Surely it is. If she had really wanted to force her way, I couldn’t have stopped her. I don’t want to believe it. But why did she insist on disappearing?
    “My brazenness is the result of exhausted patience!” he said to her beseechingly.
    She shook her head with annoyance. “Patience,” she muttered. “Do not play with such words, and let me go, please!”
    “I have told you nothing but the truth,” he said with warmth and sincerity, “and it was my true feeling alone which urged me to write that short letter. Every word in it is true. So I amterribly offended to find that you recoil so angrily at my feelings.”
    Panting, he swallowed hard, then corrected himself. “Yes,” he said with a sob. “I love you.”
    She turned her head away, still frowning, her brows closely knit and her lips tight. But when she kept silent for a while, a fresh gleam of hope revived in him. Then she said in a voice that was softer than before, “Let me go. Aren’t you afraid someone may come up to the roof and find us?”
    Oh God! Is she annoyed only that someone may come up to the roof?!
He was filled with ecstasy; his shining brown eyes radiated with delight.
    “Let me express my feelings to you,” he exclaimed. “I love you. I love you more than life itself. Not only that. The only good in life is that I love you. This is what I wrote, what I am saying, and what I will repeat. Believe me, and don’t keep silent, because I can’t bear it.”
    He could read seriousness and solemnity on her pure face as she