"Give me a book, a drink, and a beautiful woman. Then throw me in the sea."
"Ha-ha. The book will spoil the effect of the drink, the beautiful woman, and the sea."
"We don't agree on the meaning of pleasure. You think it's fun and games. To me it's something extremely serious. This captivating intoxication is the secret of life and its ultimate goal. Alcohol's only the precursor and the symbol for it. In a similar fashion, a bird like the kite was the forerunner of the airplane and observation of fish was a first step in the invention of the submarine. Thus wine's a necessary scout for human happiness. The question boils down to this: How can we turn life into a perpetual state of intoxication without resort to alcohol? We won't find the answer through debate, productivity, fighting, or exertion. All those are means to an end, not ends in themselves. Happiness will never be realized until we free ourselves from the exploitation of any means whatsoever. Then we can live a purely intellectual and spiritual life untainted by anything. This is the happiness for which alcohol provides us a representation. Every action could be a way of obtaining this. If it's not, it serves no end."
"May God devastate your home."
"Why?"
"I hoped I'd find you a charming, witty conversationalist when drunk. But you're like a sick man whose malady only becomes more severe with drink. I wonder what you'd talk about if you had a third drink?"
"I won't have another. I'm happy now and feel capable of soliciting any woman I like."
"Shouldn't you wait a little?"
"Not a single minute."
Kamal walked along bravely and resolutely, arm in arm with his friend. They fell in with the flow of men going their way and ran into another stream coming from the opposite direction, for the curving street was too narrow for its pedestrian traffic. The men swiveled their heads from right to left at prostitutes who stood or sat on either side. From faces veiled by brilliant makeup, eyes glanced around with a seductive look of welcome. At every instant a man would break ranks to approach one of the women. She would follow him inside, the alluring look in her eyes replaced by a serious, businesslike expression. Lamps mounted above the doors of the brothels and the coffeehouses gave off a brilliant light in which accumulated the clouds of smoke rising from incense burners and water pipes. Voices were blended and intermingled in a tumultuous swirl around which eddied laughter, shouts, the squeaking of doors and windows, piano and accordion music, rollicking handclaps, a policeman's bark, braying, grunts, coughs of hashish addicts and screams of drunkards, anonymous calls for help, raps of a stick, and singing by individuals and groups. Above all this, the sky, which seemed close to the roofs of the shabby buildings, stared down at the earth with unblinking eyes. Eyaery beautiful woman there was available and would generously reveal her beauty and secrets in exchange for only ten piasters. Who could believe this without seeing it?
Kamal commented to Isma'il, "Harun al-Rashid struts through his harem."
Laughing, Isma'il asked, "Commander of the Faithful, hasn't one of die maidens found favor with you?"
"She was standing in that empty doorway. Where do you suppose she went?"
"She's with a customer inside, Commander of the Faithful. Will Your Majesty wait while one of his subjects accomplishes his objective?"
"How about you? Haven't you found what you're looking for?"
"I'm a habitue of the street and its inhabitants, but I won't tend to my interests until I've delivered you to your girlfriend. What did you like about her? There are many prettier."
She had a brown complexion, and makeup did not conceal her color. The sound of her voice was slightly reminiscent of that immortal music of A'ida. After all, an eye might even see some resemblance between the skin coloring of a man being strangled and the pure blue surface of the sky.
"Do you know her?"
"Here she's called Rose. Her real name is Ayusha."
"Ayusha-Rose!" Kamal exclaimed to himself. "If only a person could change his essence as easily as he changes his name. There's something of this Ayusha-Rose combination about Ai'da herself, and about religion, Abd al-Hamid Bey Shaddad, and vast dreams. Alas! But wine's raising you to the throne of the gods. So watch these contradictions drown pathetically in waves of uproarious jests."
He felt an elbow nudge him in the side as Isma'il said, "Your turn."
Kamal looked toward the doorway and saw a man leave the house hurriedly. Then the woman returned to her post where he had first seen her. He advanced toward her with firm steps, and she received him with a smile. He went inside, trailed by her. She was singing, "Let down the curtain around us". Finding the narrow stairway, he started climbing it with a pounding heart. At the top was a hallway leading into a parlor. Her voice caught up with him, saying now, "Go right," then, "Go left," and finally, "The door that's partway open."
It was a small room decorated with wallpaper, containing a bed, a dressing table, a clothes rack, a wooden chair, a basin, and a pitcher. Confused, Kamal stood in the center of the room as he examined it. She proceeded to close the door and the window, through which the rattling of a tambourine, whistling, and clapping could be heard. Her face seemed so grave and even glowering and stern that he wondered ironically what she had in mind for him. She confronted him and looked him up and down. When her eyes reached his head and nose, he felt apprehensive. Wishing to quell his anxiety, he moved toward her and put out his arms.
But she brusquely gestured for him to stay back and said, "Wait". So he scood stock-still where he was.
Determined to overcome all obstacles, he said with an innocent smile, "My name's Kamal."
Staring at him in astonishment, she replied, "We're honored."
"Call to me. Say, 'Kamal.'"
All the more amazed, she answered, "Why should I call you when you're staring me in the face like a calamity?"
"I take refuge in God!" he exclaimed to himself Was she making fun of him?
Ever more resolved to rescue the situation, he said, "You told me to wait. What am I waiting for?"
"You're right to ask that," she said. Then she removed her dress with a theatrical gesture and leaped onto the bed, which creaked from her weight. She stretched out on her back and began to caress her belly with hennaed fingers. His eyes opened wide with disapproval. He had not been expecting this acrobatic performance and sensed they were on different sides of a mountain. What a distance there was between the valley of pleasure and that of work. In one moment everything he had built up in his imagination over the past few days was demolished. There was a bitter taste of resentment in his mouth, but his curiosity was still intense. So he overcame his dismay and ran his eyes down the naked body until they reached their target. For a moment it seemed he could not believe his eyes. With uneasy aversion he looked more closely, but in the end experienced something close to alarm. Was this what women really looked like or had he picked a poor example? But even if he had chosen poorly, would that affect the essential characteristics?
"We claim to love the truth," he told himself. "People have been terribly unfair about your head and nose."
His soul instructed him to flee, and he was on the verge of obeying. But he suddenly wondered why the man before him had not fled and what Isma'il would say if Kamal returned right away. No, he would not flee. He would proceed with the ordeal.
"Why are you standing there like a statue?"