'Aziz and bis two wives
his time with the new bride, who lived across the stream. I
will say in his defence that things were not made too pleasant
for him when he did come to his old home. The eagle-faced
old lady, his mother, stood up for him staunchly, but the
offended wife would not hear of compromise. Like Medea,
and many lesser ladies, she held up to him with tactless reitera-
tion the mirror of the past with aU his faults recorded, ever
since their wedding sixteen years before, when she was four-
teen and he sixteen. Even the best of men could not be
expected to enjoy this, but the poor woman's grief was so deep
that it was useless to point out how much worse she made the
matter by railing. Love, like broken porcelain, should be
wept over and buried, for nothing but a miracle will resuscitate
it: but who in this world has not for some wild moments
thought to recall the irrecoverable with words e
*Aziz enjoyed the situation in a shamefaced sort of way,
being teased for a gay dog by his friends, and being no litde in
love with the new lady, a determined sort of beauty with
black hair and iron muscles who could crush the litde man to
powder with one hand, and will no doubt be doing so one of
these days.
" What do you feel about it?" he asked me in confidence, and
looked rather glum when I remarked that, in my opinion, a
man's days of peace are over when he has married two wives
simultaneously.
Everyone joined in bearing with my pretty friend in the old
house, listening to her outbursts with compassion, as to a
regrettable but natural disease—a sad episode to be expected
in woman's life of sorrow in this world. But when she became
too violent in her remarks, her father, a mild old man who sat
in a corner over his long pipe, would pull her up, reminding
her that she had nothing out of the way to complain about, for
the general opinion naturally gave *Aziz a perfect right to a
[273]