Sharawï and her brother thus knew that these slaves were not indigenous to Egypt, but they had been there so long, and had been in the household so long, that the pain of their separation from their own families and the mem- ories of their own childhoods were candlelight stories, told and remembered like lullaby folktales. It is hard to tell from the memoirs how Sharawï incor- porated this knowledge of the slaves' pasts, but it may explain why the only person who could give her comfort when she was engaged to her much older cousin was Sa`ïd Agha, who whispered into her ear not to cry, not to dis- honor her father's memory or make her mother sick. Who else, she implies, could understand as well the meaning of passage into captivity?

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 853