Hacine's Unrequited Love for Ghizlane

Hacine's Unrequited Love for Ghizlane is a brief, mostly unspoken attachment that ends when Ghizlane marries and leaves for Fez. The relationship matters less as a developed romance than as a concentrated disappointment: Hacine waits for someone he barely speaks with, and her departure helps turn his attention toward the pursuit of money.

Introduction and Circumstances

During Hacine’s time in Morocco, the sea and beach offer some solace, and Ghizlane, his neighbor’s daughter, becomes another focus of his attention. The family presents her as his cousin, making clear from their first meeting that he should not expect the attachment to become a relationship. Yet the narrative also establishes that they are drawn to each other from the beginning.

Ghizlane is described as playful and calculating, and as illiterate. Their connection develops with very little conversation: they speak together no more than three times. Hacine’s feelings therefore take shape less through shared confidences than through his longing and the expectation he builds around her.

Hacine’s Attachment

Despite their limited exchanges, Hacine finds himself waiting for Ghizlane. For a year, he dreams of her, while the warning implicit in calling her his cousin remains between them. The mismatch between his sustained private attachment and their sparse contact gives the relationship its defining quality: attraction is present, but it does not become a mutual commitment.

Ghizlane secretly gives Hacine a pair of striped kittens, a small, concrete gesture of connection within an otherwise distant relationship. The gift does not alter its course. There is no account of a conversation in which either of them defines their feelings, and the narrative moves instead from this quiet intimacy to her sudden marriage.

Departure and Aftermath

Without warning, Ghizlane marries Yazid, a teacher, and the two leave to live in Fez. Her decision ends Hacine’s hope of waiting for her, without a confrontation or a negotiated parting. The abruptness of the change contrasts with the year-long duration of his private longing.

The episode is presented as the latest among several disappointments in Hacine’s life, rather than as the sole cause of what follows. In its wake, he turns toward another passion: getting rich. He comes to regard profit as a way of holding death at a distance and throws himself into the available means of making money in Tétouan. Ghizlane’s departure thus marks a shift in the object of his pursuit—from an attachment he could not secure to wealth he believes he can acquire.