I understood Madame Hanie’s heart, and I rejoiced in her decision to leave riches for love. Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires the poets,

I could not give him my love and affection in reward for I emerged from their dark dungeon and directed my eyes towards the light where sincerity, truth and justice prevail. Heaven does not want me to weep and suffer. life. 'Is this the wife of Rashid Bey Namaan, or his adopted daughter?' After a few years of absence, I returned to the City of Beyrouth. do not be greedy for the light.' This is my drama which the people of Beyrouth call ‘A curse upon the lips of life,’ and ‘An ailment in the body of society.’ But one day love will arouse their hearts like the sun rays that bring forth the flowers even from contaminated earth. These people from whom I have freed myself are the ones who become attracted by the body and repelled by the spirit, and who know naught of Love and Beauty. I closed They pass their verdicts with ignorance, and judge with blindness, making the criminal and the innocent, the good and the bad, equal. I felt all these things and knew that a woman’s happiness does not come through man’s glory and honour, nor through his generosity and affection, but through love that unites both of their hearts and affections, making them one member of life’s body and one word upon the lips of God. It will not end unless the days of slavery and superiority of the strong over the weak are abolished. They are like the deserted caves of the mountains that echo voices whose meanings are not understood. Yes, I was an adulteress and a criminal when the people viewed me as the most honourable and faithful wife; today I am pure and noble in spirit, but in their opinion I am polluted, for they judge the soul by the outcome of the body and measure the spirit by the standard of matter.”Then she looked through the window and pointed out with her right hand toward the city as if she had seen the ghost of corruption and the shadow of shame among its magnificent buildings. After having led a life of filth and putrefaction, he married a woman about whom he knew nothing except that her father was one of the Sultan’s dignitaries. 1 talking about this. As I looked at her beautiful bright eyes, and heard her sincere voice, I When her first husband died, she inherited all his money and estate; then she selected a man with a weak mind and feeble body and became his wife to protect herself from the evil tongues, and to use him as a shield for her abominations.

It is best to follow the dictates of God’s love, than to be a slave to the laws of man. He fell in love with me, according to what the people say, I have said all these things to show you the reality of the people from whom I have escaped against their will. spoken evil and imagined as a serpent disguised in the form of a beautiful bird?"

"One dark day, as I looked behind the heavy skies, I saw a gentle light pouring from In such a battlefield I was lying yesterday, but I gathered the remnants of my strength, and unchained my irons of cowardice, and untied my wings from the swaddles of weakness and arose into the spacious sky of love and freedom.“Today I am one with the man I love; he and I sprang out as one torch from the hand of God before the beginning of the world. Allow me to reveal to you the full contents of my heart so you may know that Rose Hanie never was an unfaithful woman.“I was scarcely eighteen years of age when fate led me to Rashid Bey Namaan, who was then forty years old. near the Emir's palace and could not pick it up on account of fear, or leave it because