A Chapter of Discord
she delighted to work for, for she was of a most generous
and affectionate heart. She and all her family had one
of the upper rooms, and I the other; and we shared the two
terraces that faced the river and the court.
Something happened to die weather on the day of niy
flitting. A low yellow cloud in the morning turned
rapidly into a dust storm. As we crossed the bridge of
boats its pontoons quivered with little white river-waves
breaking around them: across the water the landscape
had become invisible. Marie, sitting beside me in the
arabana, watched with increasing gloom as we jolted
beyond the noisy district of gramophones and shops
towards the suburbs; while Nasir and Nuri, who had both
volunteered to help, and sat among packages on the little
front seat, told her with rather forced cheerfulness of the
delights of life in the " country "—quite in vain. I was
busy attending to my more fragile household goods, as
they danced in their baskets with every lurch in the sandy
tracks among the palms.
Najla opened the gate to us with her charming smile,
Marie, I thought innocently, would now be delighted
to find a Christian friend.
But I had forgotten that one was a Syriac Catholic and
the other an Armenian, Marie no sooner saw her than
she rushed, so to speak, at her throat. "Never have I
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