NAOMI'S GREAT GIFT
With the coming of the gift of hearing, the other gifts with which Naomi had been gifted in her deafness, and the strange graces with which she had been graced, seemed suddenly to fall from her as a garment when she disrobed.
It seemed as though her old sense of touch had become confused by her new sense of hearing, She lost her way in her father's house, and though she could now hear footsteps, she did not appear to know who approached.They led her into the street, into the Feddan, into the walled lane to the great gate, into the steep arcades leading to the Kasbah; and no more as of old did she thread her way through the people, seeming to see them through the flesh of her face and to salute them with the laugh on her lips, but only followed on and on with helpless footsteps.They took her to the hill above the battery, and her breath came quick as she trod the familiar ways;but when she was come to the summit, no longer did she exult in her lofty place and drink new life from the rush of mighty winds about her, but only quaked like a child in terror as she faced the world unseen beneath and hearkened to the voices rising out of it, and heard the breeze that had once laved her cheeks now screaming in her ears.They gave Ali's harp into her hands, the same that she had played so strangely at the Kasbah on the marriage of Ben Aboo; but never again as on that day did she sweep the strings to wild rhapsodies of sound such as none had heard before and none could follow, but only touched and fumbled them with deftless fingers that knew no music.
She lost her old power to guide her footsteps and to minister to her pleasures and to cherish her affections.No longer did she seem to communicate with Nature by other organs than did the rest of the human kind.She was a radiant and joyous spirit maid no more, but only a beautiful blind girl, a sweet human sister that was weak and faint.