human
You know, now you've been with us even these few days, Ourïeda said,
gpt
Is it long since you parted?
human
We parted more than once, because when our two mothers died, one after another, of the same sickness--typhoid fever--Manöel was sent away to school. He's nine years older than I am--twenty-five now; a little more than three years younger than Tahar. My father sent him to the university in Algiers, because, you see, he was Christian--or, rather, he was nothing at all then; he had not settled to any belief. Tahar was like Aunt Mabrouka, very religious, and did not care much to study, except the Koran and a little French. He went once to Paris, but he didn't stay long. He said he was homesick. Oh, he is clever in his way! He has known how to make himself necessary to my father.
gpt
And Manöel Valdez?
human
My father loved him when he was a boy, because he was of the same blood as my mother. Although Aunt Mabrouka was jealous even then--for she ruled in the house after my mother's death--she couldn't prejudice my father's mind against Manöel, hard as she tried. Manöel was free to come here when he liked, for his holidays, or to the _douar_ if we were there; and he loved life under the great tent. He had a wonderful voice, and he could sing our Arab songs as no one else ever could. Father wished him to be a lawyer, and gave money for his education, because we Arabs often need lawyers who understand us. But Manöel cared more for music than anything else--except for me. When I was eight and he was seventeen I told him I meant to marry him when I grew up, and he said he would wait for me. I suppose he was only joking then; but the thought of him and the love of him in my heart made me begin to grow into a woman sooner than if I had had only the thoughts of a child. It was like the sun opening a flower bud. When he was away I felt hardly alive. When he came back from Spain to our house or to our tent in the _douar_ I lived--lived every minute! It was three years ago, when I was thirteen, that he began to love me as a woman. I shall never forget the day he told me! I was not _hadjaba_ yet. Do you know what that means? I was considered to be a child still, and I could go out with my aunt to the baths, or with one of our servants, unveiled. I was not shut up in the house as I am now. But in my heart I was a woman, because of Manöel. And when he came home after nearly a year in Seville and other parts of Spain he felt and saw the difference in me. We were in the _douar_, and life was free and beautiful. For three months Manöel and I kept our secret. He said he would do anything to have me for his wife. He would even become Mohammedan, since religion meant little to him, and love everything. He had no money of his own, but he had been told that he could make a fortune with his voice, singing in opera, and he had been taking lessons without telling my father. A Frenchman--is impresario
gpt
engaged,
human
Have you never seen him since?