After an hour spent between pain and regret, Hamid finally drifted into dreamless oblivion. He continued to sleep in the house, putting up with the oppression of his dark room, from which he could see neither moon nor stars, and whenever he withdrew into himself to reflect, he stubbornly resisted the shame that accompanied him.
Nobody else noticed any of this. They considered him to be everything an educated young man ought to be: diligent, upright and religious. To be honest he did not pray but that did not enter into the general assessment of boys still at school.
* * *
As days seemed to cancel out one another, each casting a thick veil over the one that passed, Hamid began to recover that former quietude which hung over his life like a robe in which he moved from one day to the next
