Free The Mirage by Naguib Mahfouz

and timidity. Then, patting me consolingly on the cheek, she said with a tinge of reproach in her voice, “What an ungrateful child you are! Don’t you think this sacrifice of mine deserves a word of thanks? Do you think you’ll remember this in the future?Of course not! On the contrary, you’ll get married yourself someday and leave me all alone!”
    With an angry grimace I cried, “I’ll never leave you as long as I live!”
    She reached out and stroked my hair with a smile, though her lovely eyes betrayed solemnity.

11
    M y school life proceeded with such slowness and tedium it was almost cause for despair. By the time I reached third grade I was fourteen years old. My grandfather used to say to me in exasperation, “When are you ever going to apply yourself to your studies? When will you ever realize your duty? Don’t you see that if you keep on at this rate, you’ll be retirement age by the time you finish!”
    My mother was pained no end by this bitter sarcasm, and she would always ask him not to throw it in my face for fear that it might discourage me and make me even duller.
    Or she’d say to him, “Intelligence is from God, and his good character is more than enough to make up for what he lacks. You couldn’t find anyone more bashful or better mannered!”
    It then happened that my life underwent a critical development. I don’t recall when or how it began, and I fear that imagination may have distorted my memory of some aspects of it. A strange sort of restlessness began to coursethrough body and soul. It flowed through my limbs as a kind of disquiet and turmoil, and when I was alone I was accosted by new sorts of dreams. When I was at school, I would be absented from my surroundings by a tendency to daydream that would focus all my sensations on myself. As the carriage took me home from school, I would gaze up at the heaven’s horizons, wishing I could soar up among its mysterious-looking blue particles. Enveloped in melancholy and gloom, I would console myself by crying my heart out. I’ll never forget the vague longings, the unnamed fears, the hushed groans, and the sprouting hairs. Lord! I thought: I’m a creature that’s bringing forth some bizarre, terrifying life force whose demons make sport of me day and night, whether I’m waking or dreaming.
    I discovered on my own—under the pressure of this life force—that fiendish boyhood pastime. No one lured me into it, since I was without friends or companions. Rather, I discovered it the way it must have been discovered for the first time in the life of humanity. I received it with wonder and delight, and in it I found a fulfillment the likes of which I found nowhere else. Finding in it a panacea for my weird loneliness, I gave myself over to it to the point of addiction, while my imagination selected womanly images with which to adorn my imaginary table of love.
    The strange thing is that in its ardor, my imagination never went beyond the realm of the servant women in Manyal who went about laden with vegetables and fuul. Nor was this merely a passing phenomenon. Rather, it was a hidden secret, or rather, a hidden malady, as though I’d been destined to love unattractiveness and squalor. If I saw a bright, lovely face that emanated light and beauty, I would be filled with admiration, but my animal instincts would grow cold.If, on the other hand, I was confronted with a robust but homely face, it would arouse me and take utter possession of me, and thenceforth I would include it within my store of fuel for solitude’s dreams and amusement. I went to excess as one does when ignorant of consequences, and in that consummate ignorance of mine, I imagined that no one but I was familiar with such a practice. Then one day when I was in the school’s courtyard, I heard some of the students accusing each other of it in the most shameless manner. Terribly upset, I was seized by an unbearable chagrin. From that moment on, torment was my constant