Book Description

Excerpt from The Copper Pot: A Play in Two Scenes The scene shows the street and sidewalk of an Arab village. The sidewalk and as much of the street as is convenient is customarily used for tethered donkeys and sleeping camels and dogs, and for the stools of the cafe. People walk in the street. The houses, which extend along the back in an unbroken block, are one story, windowless and of baked mud or stone. The doors of the houses and cafe are of wood, with heavy iron hinges and bolts. The cafe doors are double, and the house doors about as high as a man (if the lintel of a door makes one stoop, an enemy is at a disadvantage when he tries to enter). The interior of the cafe is dark, lightened by gleams of copper or brass, a charcoal brazier, or a shaft of light on a gorgeous rug. The stools are rough, four-legged affairs, about a foot high; the benches a little higher, sometimes with a rug thrown over them. Although the scene is at twilight or early dawn, it is well to emphasize the contrast of the dark coolness of interiors and the intense blackness of shadows, with the stark, bleached and sunbaked walls and street. The contrast between glaring light and heavy shadow is very characteristic. The men wear a long white shirt to below the knees, belted, and with the heavy plain or striped abbaya (outer cloak). On their heads they wear the square keffiyeh of white cotton or dark silk, folded diagonally and held in place by a heavy double rope around the head. Salameh may wear full trousers, a short jacket and a gay turban, closely wrapped, instead. Amin should wear a close, immaculate white turban, and should have a long white beard. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.