VALEH'S MOTHER VISITS HADIJEH'S MOTHER, AND COMPLAINS THAT HADIJEH HAS STOLEN HER SON'S HEART AND SPOILT HIS LIFE

AND Valeh's mother went to the house of Hadijeh and said to her: “Behold your daughter, what she has done to my son. Her beauty is her poison: every new dress she puts on gives him a new madness. He speaks to her dog as if the beast were God Himself* . He has no fruit of sense and wisdom, and no pleasure in man or woman. Her dog is his only friend, and he has no shame. Your daughter is the curse of my life and the ruin of my honour. How long will this tyranny endure? Veil her face: shut the doors on your daughter: it were better that she should be no more seen. For if the candle be put out, the moths will seek the beams no more: and if the rose hides her face the nightingale leaves his lamentation”

And when Hadijeh's mother heard her she was wroth and cried aloud: “Oh cursed woman, will you whet my scorn with your words? Why reproach Hadijeh? you should curse your own folly: you yourself were your own son's enemy, you yourself blinded in your own folly. You say I should make Hadijeh veil herself and shut her out from her kin. Among my people* you know the women go unveiled: and among my tribe a cousin is as a brother. And now there is idle talk in the market-place: they say my daughter does foolishness with her father's brother's son: with their taunts they make me bathe in blood; but were I to close my doors, and draw the curtain, and veil her face, surely they would say, ‘The tale is true and Hadijeh has sinned.’”

And when Valeh's mother heard these words she knew that her embassy was in vain, and she went home in utter hopelessness. Her joy in her son was gone; she knew she could do no more, and that all her effort was vain; and therefore she resolved on separation. What boots it to make war on love? As well strike your fist against a sword's point.