3.20.2
“I responded, ‘Most of these misunderstandings are generated by our language, which is so wide that it allows every expression to bear numerous possible meanings.’ She replied, ‘I would rather it were tight!’ ‘That,’ I responded, ‘goes with the other!’280 to which she responded, ‘And the other goes into this!’ ‘And on top of it,’ I said. ‘And underneath it,’ she retorted. ‘Better not to say anything then.’ ‘Not while going to it,’ I said. ‘You men,’ she said, ‘all snort, groan, and talk dirty like women when you’re having sex.’ ‘How come you know that?’ I asked. ‘Back to delusion and suspicion!’ she said. ‘Better,’ said I, ‘we return to saying our good-byes.’ ‘Indeed!’ she responded. ‘I shall travel, leaving behind no man I shall miss.’ ‘Am I,’ I asked, ‘one of the unmissed?’ ‘You’re not “a man,”’ she said. I said, ‘That too is an ambiguous statement. Am I not a man?’ ‘In one of the two meanings,’281 she said. ‘Do I still owe you one?’ I asked. ‘More than one,’ she replied. I said, ‘Do you have the accounts for that in your ledger?’ ‘I do,’ she replied. ‘The way you poets drool over poetry deceived us into thinking you were both sayers and doers, but it turns out that the only thing you do well is describe.’ ‘And who are the good doers?’ I enquired. ‘Those who are no good at description,’ she replied. ‘So where does literature get to have its say?’ I asked. ‘In scholars’ sitting rooms, not women’s dressing rooms,’ she replied.
3.20.3
“‘What you’ve just said could lead to the dismemberment of our relationship,’ I said. ‘And your saying that could lead to the dehydration of your member,’282 she countered. ‘How then can we part?’ I asked. ‘If you wish,’ she said, ‘you can make good on your arrears now. If not, leave it till you come to Cairo.’ ‘How,’ I asked, ‘can I make good in hours or days on arrears that have been outstanding for years? I’d hate to be taken before my time with a balance still to pay.’ ‘If you weren’t afraid to meet your obligation, why should it occur to you to fear early obliteration?’ she asked. I replied, ‘You have made one who had forgotten remember, and for long now I had reckoned all people to be like me.’ She said, ‘And you have made one who remembered forget, because I have seen none as ill-used as I.’ I said, ‘Remember the rooftop and forgive!’ She said, ‘There can be no forgiveness without mention of top[pling].’ ‘I meant the old kind of top[pling],’283 I said. ‘And I want the new,’ she said. I said, ‘There’s a proverb that says, “Blessing lies in what’s old.”’ She said, ‘There’s another that says, “Pleasure lies in everything that’s new.”’
3.20.4
“‘How can we part,’ I said, ‘when there’s ḍighn in your heart?’ ‘And what better than ḍighn?’ she replied. ‘If it’s in the sense of “yearning,”’ I said.284 ‘Indeed!’ she replied. ‘It’s one of the strange words that I’ve learned from you, like ʿIqyawn,285 fiṭaḥl,286 and ḥabrah.’287 ‘Maybe what appealed to you about ʿIqyawn was its closeness to ʿiqyān (“gold”), about fiṭaḥl its closeness to faḥl (“stud bull”), and about ḥabrah its closeness to ḥibarah (“a kind of wrap”).’288 ‘Tooth decay and wraps don’t go together,’ she responded. ‘They can,’ I retorted, ‘for they say that niʿmah (“luxury, comfort”) comes from nuʿūmah (“softness”).’ She replied,289 ‘And they also say that tasdīd (“the plugging of holes”) is from sadād (“proper behavior”).’ I replied, ‘No command prohibiting that has come down.’ She said, ‘It’s by analogy with its opposite.’ I said, ‘That’s seed cast on salty land’ and she said, ‘And that’s cleared land left unplowed.’ I said, ‘We were talking about seed’ and she said, ‘Food doesn’t nourish while it’s still on the palate and drink doesn’t quench till it’s passed down the throat.’” Following this duel of wits, they bade each other farewell and he saw her onto the steamer and then returned to his house gloomy and downcast, for often she had guided him to the right way and shown him the path to the correct opinion.
3.20.5
Before a few days had passed, the metropolitan’s stinks spread once more, this time more harmfully than the first, so he sent another portion to the aforementioned Committee290 and wrote to them saying, “If you don’t put a stop to the pollution of the air here by this stink, everyone with a nostril will complain about you.” When his letter reached them and they submitted it to the scholars in their country, they found that what he said was correct and deemed it proper to stop up the metropolitan’s pores to prevent them from exuding any more of this malignancy. They also decided to bring the Fāriyāq over to them to retranslate the book in question. In addition, the Fāriyāq had written a book on the state of the island’s inhabitants291 in which he reproached them for certain customs and religious and secular practices that set them apart from the Christians of his own country. Examples included dunking church bells in baptismal water and giving them the names of saints, taking the figurines and statues from the churches for an outing during the day and lighting candles in front of them, and so forth. The said book also reviled a Muslim whom the metropolitan used to visit. The metropolitan happened to pay the Fāriyāq a visit and saw the book on an occasional table and recognized its author’s handwriting. The man pretended not to notice until the Fāriyāq had left the room, then took the book and cut out of it the pages containing mention of those customs. These he then sent to the head of the infirmary for the foul of breath,292 having written on them in Italian, “Look, dear sir, and see whether or not the writer of these lines is worthy to be under your directorship.” The head, however, given his ignorance of what the pages contained, compounded by his lack of authority to dismiss an employee of the state, was obliged to return them to their author.
3.20.6
By the time the pages were returned to the Fāriyāq, the metropolitan had fled the island and the air had become free of his stink, and had he stayed longer, he would have been punished for the theft in a manner appropriate to such as him. At the same time, the Fāriyāq was invited to travel so as to carry out the mission in question, meaning the translation of the book, and he sent a letter to his wife telling her what had been decided and instructing her to return, since he wanted to remain in England after finishing the book. However, it is customary in the lands of the Franks to draw the language teachers at their universities from their own race only, even if they were ignorant. When the Fāriyāqiyyah returned, the Fāriyāq made ready for the journey. Observe him then putting his copies of the Qāmūs and al-Ashmūnī into his trunk, and observe me, rushing off to see to an urgent need. Allow me then a little time to rest.