Whisper of madness

It is not madness; it seems to be a mysterious state like life and death. You can know a lot about it if you look at it from the outside; but the interior, the essence, is a closed secret. Our friend now knows that he has been a guest for some time in the Khanakah, and he still remembers — even now — his past life as all rational people do, and as he knows his present. Naguib Mahfouz, the dean of Arabic novels and the knight of short stories, excels in this collection of stories, which was his first storytelling experience and included twenty-eight stories, in narrating about madness with a smooth, precise language and hidden wisdom in its whispers; madness of love, madness of greatness, madness of hunger, madness of money, pure madness. In "Whisper of Madness," he raises many questions about justice and the nature of things, and gives value to madness that grants its owner freedom regardless of others. In the story "Counterfeit," he reveals the falsehood of deceptive appearances in the aristocratic class, and the madness of jealousy and competition. As for "Delirium," the madness of love manifests when the husband, during his wife’s illness, learns of her betrayal when she utters the name of her former fiancé; he withholds her medicine so she continues to confide and rave until she dies, and he feels remorse and decides to commit suicide. In addition to other stories of harmonious madness.