Mantic uttaïr, The old mother and the young girl

A mother was weeping over her daughter’s tomb. A passer-by who saw her cried out: “This woman is truly superior to men, for she knows what we do not know; that is to say, from whom one remains distant and lost, and how one thus becomes impatient. Happy is the person who knows the state of things and knows for whom she must weep! As for me, poor sufferer, my condition is most grievous. Day and night I sit in mourning. I know not whether I should give myself over to sorrow or for whom I should weep like rain. I do not even know from whom I am distant, so great is my bewilderment, as I am beside myself. This woman wins the ball of excellence over thousands of people like me, because she has found the scent of the being she has lost! As for me, I have not found that scent, and so grief has spilled my blood and made me perish in my stupefaction. In such a place, where the heart has no access, a place that is even invisible, reason has let go its reins, and the door to the dwelling of thought can no longer be found. Whoever reaches this place will lose his head; he will find no opening in this four-walled enclosure. But if someone should find his way, he would in an instant find, in its entirety, the secret he seeks.”