Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/121

 *plain. To avert the punishment which is allotted in the other world to the women who have not done his will, I exhort him, according to the prescribed magics. It is said that if during these rites, some time, a child should come, it is Allah himself who sends it, to show that he understands and forgives—and you came, yavroum, the other night."

She bent over and kissed me gratefully.

"I shall work all my life for nothing, doing everything to help others, in the hope that when I die, I shall be made very young and very beautiful and shall be given to the lord, my lover. And maybe, yavroum," she added, almost in a whisper, "I may have a baby like you—for you are a Greek baby, and he was a Greek."

I cuddled very close to her and kissed her, my arms wound around her neck, and went to sleep.

After that I no longer minded her being a halaïc, and even at times being the donkey. For wherever I saw her, and in whatever occupation, her background was always the Elysian fields. There she walked in the glory of her beauty, and in company with her Greek lover.