The Beginning and the End Read Online Free Page A

midnight. When everybody else was gone, the family, the aunt, and her husband sat in the hall. For the twentieth time on that same sad day, their mother was relating how their father had died. Hussein and Hassanein were listening intently, while Hassan, with gloom on his face, was absorbed in his own thoughts.
    Hassanein spoke about Ahmad Bey Yousri. As much for the presence of his aunt and her husband as for his own preference not to remember it, he did not mention the inspector’s apparent ignorance of where the family lived. Compassion for his dead father filled his heart, and he kept looking sadly toward the closed bedroom door, in his sorrow and incredulity imagining the empty bed. The mother turned to her children and told them to go to bed.
    As they had spent a painful and arduous day, they obeyed her without objection, and went to their room, in which there were three small beds. They left one for their aunt’s husband, who joined them presently, and Hassanein shared Hussein’s bed. They could not sleep. Tenderly and mournfully they kept talking about their father, recalling his last days on earth and his sudden death.
    “His funeral was really appropriately dignified,” said Hassanein.
    “God be merciful to him. He was a great man; no wonder his funeral was great, too,” Amm Farag Soliman agreed. “The alley was full of people; they crowded the area from the house to Shubra Street.”
    Hassanein disliked the man’s voice; he was annoyed by his presence. Then, remembering that the man had seen the baregrave, he said indignantly, “It’s surprising that our father, who spent so much, never thought of providing a burial place becoming to the family.”
    Once more came the voice which Hassanein disliked: “How could he have ever thought of dying at this age? Your father was only fifty. In this country, lots of people marry at this age for the second or third time.” The man was silent for a while. Then he spoke again: “Don’t forget, Master Hassanein, that your father left Damietta with his grandmother for Cairo when he was your age. That’s why yours isn’t one of those Cairene families that have tombs for generations.”
    “It’s true,” Hassanein retorted; “we don’t originally come from Cairo. But all ties with our relations in Damietta have been severed.”
    Sadly, he remembered that his aunt was the only relative he knew. The obscure grave in the open would always remain a symbol of his family’s being shamefully lost in the big city. The presence of this uncle of his, occupying his bed, increased his annoyance, and to stop him from talking, Hassanein fell silent until sleep overcame them all.
    The widow, her sister, and her daughter did not stir from their places in the hall. They never tired of talking about the departed loved one. Here, grief was deeper than in the other room. Its marks appeared on Samira’s thin oval face and burning eyes. With her short nose, pointed chin, and short slim body, she gave the impression of one who had given the best part of herself to her family. Of her old vitality nothing now remained except a firm look which bespoke patience and determination.
    So deep was the change which had overtaken her with the years that it was hard to imagine how she might have looked in her youth. Nefisa, her daughter, however, who resembled her closely, was an adequate replica of what she once had been. Nefisa, too, had the same thin oval face, short, coarse nose and pointed chin. She was pale, and a little hunchbacked. She differed from her mother only in her height; she was as tall as herbrother Hassanein. She was far from handsome, indeed almost ugly. It was her misfortune to resemble her mother, whereas the boys resembled their father. In grief she was completely undone, and she looked extremely ugly. Her mind was preoccupied with memories of her beloved father.
    Her mother, despite her deep sorrow, was thinking of other things. She felt uneasy with her sister. She could