The Garden Of Allah

R >> Robert Hichens >> The Garden Of Allah


That love of Africa was at an end. Was not everything at an end? Yet
Larbi still played upon his flute in the garden of Count Anteoni, still
played the little tune that was as the _leit motif_ of the eternal
renewal of life. And within herself she carried God's mystery of
renewal, even she, with her numbed mind, her tired heart. She, too, was
to help to carry forward the banner of life.

She had come to Beni-Mora in the sunset, and now, in the sunset, she was
leaving it. But she did not lean from the carriage window to watch the
pageant that was flaming in the west. Instead, she shut her eyes
and remembered it as it was on that evening when they, who now were
journeying away from the desert together, had been journeying towards it
together. Strangers who had never spoken to each other. And the evening
came, and the train stole into the gorge of El-Akbara, and still she
kept her eyes closed. Only when the desert was finally left behind,
divided from them by the great wall of rock, did she look up and speak
to Androvsky.

"We met here, Boris," she said.

"Yes," he answered, "at the gate of the desert. I shall never be here
again."

Soon the night fell around them.

* * * * *

In the evening of the following day they reached Tunis, and drove to the
Hotel d'Orient, where they had written to engage rooms for one night.
They had expected that the city would be almost deserted by its European
inhabitants now the summer had set in, but when they drove up to the
door of the hotel the proprietor came out to inform them that, owing
to the arrival of a ship full of American tourists who, personally
conducted, were "viewing" Tunis after an excursion to the East and
to the Holy Land, he had been unable to keep for them a private
sitting-room. With many apologies he explained that all the
sitting-rooms in the house had been turned into bedrooms, but only for
one night. On the morrow the personally-conducted ones would depart and
Madame and Monsieur could have a charming salon. They listened silently
to his explanations and apologies, standing in the narrow entrance
hall, which was blocked up with piles of luggage. "Tomorrow," he kept on
repeating, "to-morrow" all would be different.

Domini glanced at Androvsky, who stood with his head bent down, looking
on the ground.

"Shall we try another hotel?" she asked.

"If you wish," he answered in a low voice.

"It would be useless, Madame," said the proprietor. "All the hotels are
full. In the others you will not find even a bedroom."

"Perhaps we had better stay here," she said to Androvsky.

Her voice, too, was low and tired. In her heart something seemed to say,
"Do not strive any more. In the garden it was finished. Already you are
face to face with the end."

When she was alone in her small bedroom, which was full of the noises
of the street, and had washed and put on another dress, she began to
realise how much she had secretly been counting on one more evening
alone with Androvsky. She had imagined herself dining with him in their
sitting-room unwatched, sitting together afterwards, for an hour or two,
in silence perhaps, but at least alone. She had imagined a last solitude
with him with the darkness of the African night around them. She had
counted upon that. She realised it now. Her whole heart and soul had
been asking for that, believing that at least that would be granted to
her. But it was not to be. She must go down with him into a crowd of
American tourists, must--her heart sickened. It seemed to her for a
moment that if only she could have this one more evening quietly with
the man she loved she could brace herself to bear anything afterwards,
but that if she could not have it she must break down. She felt
desperate.

A gong sounded below. She did not move, though she heard it, knew what
it meant. After a few minutes there was a tap at the door.

"What is it?" she said.

"Dinner is ready, Madame," said a voice in English with a strong foreign
accent.

Domini went to the door and opened it.

"Does Monsieur know?"

"Monsieur is already in the hall waiting for Madame."

She went down and found Androvsky.

They dined at a small table in a room fiercely lit up with electric
light and restless with revolving fans. Close to them, at an immense
table decorated with flowers, dined the American tourists. The women
wore hats with large hanging veils. The men were in travelling suits.
They looked sunburnt and gay, and talked and laughed with an intense
vivacity. Afterwards they were going in a body to see the dances of the
Almees. Androvsky shot one glance at them as he came in, then looked
away quickly. The lines near his mouth deepened. For a moment he
shut his eyes. Domini did not speak to him, did not attempt to talk.
Enveloped by the nasal uproar of the gay tourists they ate in silence.
When the short meal was over they got up and went out into the hall. The
public drawing-room opened out of it on the left. They looked into it
and saw red plush settees, a large centre table covered with a rummage
of newspapers, a Jew with a bald head writing a letter, and two old
German ladies with caps drinking coffee and knitting stockings.

"The desert!" Androvsky whispered.

Suddenly he drew away from the door and walked out into the street.
Lines of carriages stood there waiting to be hired. He beckoned to one,
a victoria with a pair of small Arab horses. When it was in front of the
hotel he said to Domini:

"Will you get in, Domini?"

She obeyed. Androvsky said to the mettse driver:

"Drive to the Belvedere. Drive round the park till I tell you to
return."

The man whipped his horses, and they rattled down the broad street, past
the brilliantly-lighted cafes, the Cercle Militaire, the palace of the
Resident, where Zouaves were standing, turned to the left and were soon
out on a road where a tram line stretched between villas, waste ground
and flat fields. In front of them rose a hill with a darkness of trees
scattered over it. They reached it, and began to mount it slowly. The
lights of the city shone below them. Domini saw great sloping lawns
dotted with streets and by trees. Scents of hidden flowers came to her
in the night, and she heard a whirr of insects. Still they mounted, and
presently reached the top of the hill.

"Stop!" said Androvsky to the driver.

He drew up his horses.

"Wait for us here."

Androvsky got out.

"Shall we walk a little way?" he said to Domini.

"Yes--yes."

She got out too, and they walked slowly along the deserted road. Below
them she saw the lights of ships gliding upon the lakes, the bright
eyes of a lighthouse, the distant lamps of scattered villages along the
shores, and, very far off, a yellow gleam that dominated the sea beyond
the lakes and seemed to watch patiently all those who came and went, the
pilgrims to and from Africa. That gleam shone in Carthage.

From the sea over the flats came to them a breeze that had a savour of
freshness, of cool and delicate life.

They walked for some time without speaking, then Domini said:

"From the cemetery of El-Largani you looked out over this, didn't you,
Boris?"

"Yes, Domini," he answered. "It was then that the voice spoke to me."

"It will never speak again. God will not let it speak again."

"How can you know that?"

"We are tried in the fire, Boris, but we are not burnt to death."

She said it for herself, to reassure herself, to give a little comfort
to her own soul.

"To-night I feel as if it were not so," he answered. "When we came to
the hotel it seemed--I thought that I could not go on."

"And now?"

"Now I do not know anything except that this is my last night with you.
And, Domini, that seems to me to be absolutely incredible although I
know it. I cannot imagine any future away from you, any life in which
I do not see you. I feel as if in parting from you I am parting from
myself, as if the thing left would be no more a man, but only a broken
husk. Can I pray without you, love God without you?"

"Best without me."

"But can I live without you, Domini? Can I wake day after day to the
sunshine, and know that I shall never see you again, and go on living?
Can I do that? I don't feel as if it could be. Perhaps, when I have done
my penance, God will have mercy."

"How, Boris?"

"Perhaps He will let me die."

"Let us fix all the thoughts of our hearts on the life in which He
may let us be together once more. Look, Boris, there are lights in the
darkness, there will always be lights."

"I can't see them," he said.

She looked at him and saw that tears were running down his cheeks.
Again, on this last night of companionship, God summoned her to be
strong for him. On the edge of the hill, close to them, she saw a
Moorish temple built of marble, with narrow arches and columns, and
marble seats.

"Let us sit here for a moment, Boris," she said.

He followed her up the marble steps. Two or three times he stumbled, but
she did not give him her hand. They sat down between the slender columns
and looked out over the city, whose blanched domes and minarets were
faintly visible in the night. Androvsky was shaken with sobs.

"How can I part from you?" he said brokenly. "How am I to do it? How can
I--how can I? Why was I given this love for you, this terrible thing,
this crying out, this reaching out of the flesh and heart and soul
to you? Domini--Domini--what does it all mean--this mystery of
torture--this scourging of the body--this tearing in pieces of my soul
and yours? Domini, shall we know--shall we ever know?"

"I am sure we shall know, we shall all know some day, the meaning of the
mystery of pain. And then, perhaps, then surely, we shall each of us
be glad that we have suffered. The suffering will make the glory of our
happiness. Even now sometimes when I am suffering, Boris, I feel as if
there were a kind of splendour, even a kind of nobility in what I am
doing, as if I were proving my own soul, proving the force that God has
put into me. Boris, let us--you and I--learn to say in all this terror,
'I am unconquered, I am unconquerable.'"

"I feel that I could say that, be it in the most frightful
circumstances, if only I could sometimes see you--even far away as now I
see those lights."

"You will see me in your prayers every day, and I shall see you in
mine."

"But the cry of the body, Domini, of the eyes, of the hands, to see, to
touch--it's so fierce, it's so--it's so--"

"I know, I hear it too, always. But there is another voice, which will
be strong when the other has faded into eternal silence. In all bodily
things, even the most beautiful, there is something finite. We must
reach out our poor, feeble, trembling hands to the infinite. I think
everyone who is born does that through life, often without being
conscious of it. We shall do it consciously, you and I. We shall be able
to do it because of our dreadful suffering. We shall want, we shall have
to do it, you--where you are going, and I----"

"Where will you be?"

"I don't know, I don't know. I won't think of the afterwards now, in
these last few hours--in these last----"

Her voice faltered and broke. Then the tears came to her also, and for a
while she could not see the distant lights.

Then she spoke again; she said:

"Boris, let us go now."

He got up without a word. They found the carriage and drove back to
Tunis.

When they reached the hotel they came into the midst of the American
tourists, who were excitedly discussing the dances they had seen, and
calling for cooling drinks to allay the thirst created by the heat of
the close rooms of Oriental houses.

Early next morning a carriage was at the door. When they had got into it
the coachman looked round.

"Where shall I drive to, Monsieur?"

Androvsky looked at him and made no reply.

"To El-Largani," Domini said.

"To the monastery, Madame?"

He whistled to his horses gaily. As they trotted on bells chimed about
their necks, chimed a merry peal to the sunshine that lay over the land.
They passed soldiers marching, and heard the call of bugles, the rattle
of drums. And each sound seemed distant and each moving figure far
away. This world of Africa, fiercely distinct in the clear air under
the cloudless sky, was unreal to them both, was vague as a northern
land wrapped in a mist of autumn. The unreal was about them. Within
themselves was the real. They sat beside each other without speaking.
Words to them now were useless things. What more had they to say?
Everything and nothing. Lifetimes would not have been long enough for
them to speak their thoughts for each other, of each other, to speak
their emotions, all that was in their minds and hearts during that drive
from the city to the monastery that stood upon the hill. Yet did not
their mutual action of that morning say all that need be said? The
silence of the Trappists surely floated out to them over the plains and
the pale waters of the bitter lakes and held them silent.

But the bells on the horses' necks rang always gaily, and the coachman,
who would presently drive Domini back alone to Tunis, whistled and sang
on his high seat.

Presently they came to a great wooden cross standing on a pedestal of
stone by the roadside at the edge of a grove of olive trees. It marked
the beginning of the domain of El-Largani. When Domini saw it she looked
at Androvsky, and his eyes answered her silent question. The coachman
whipped his horses into a canter, as if he were in haste to reach his
destination. He was thinking of the good red wine of the monks. In a
cloud of white dust the carriage rolled onwards between vineyards in
which, here and there, labourers were working, sheltered from the sun by
immense straw hats. A long line of waggons, laden with barrels and drawn
by mules covered with bells, sheltered from the flies by leaves, met
them. In the distance Domini saw forests of eucalyptus trees. Suddenly
it seemed to her as if she saw Androvsky coming from them towards
the white road, helping a man who was pale, and who stumbled as if
half-fainting, yet whose face was full of a fierce passion of joy--the
stranger whose influence had driven him out of the monastery into the
world. She bent down her head and hid her face in her hands, praying,
praying with all her strength for courage in this supreme moment of her
life. But almost directly the prayers died on her lips and in her heart,
and she found herself repeating the words of _The Imitation_:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not
tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it is
not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mounteth
upwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth the
cry of this voice."

Again and again she said the words: "It securely passeth through
all--it securely passeth through all." Now, at last, she was to know
the uttermost truth of those words which she had loved in her happiness,
which she clung to now as a little child clings to its father's hand.

The carriage turned to the right, went on a little way, then stopped.

Domini lifted her face from her hands. She saw before her a great door
which stood open. Above it was a statue of the Madonna and Child, and
on either side were two angels with swords and stars. Underneath was
written, in great letters:

JANUA COELI.

Beyond, through the doorway, she saw an open space upon which the
sunlight streamed, three palm trees, and a second door which was shut.
Above this second door was written:

"_Les dames n'entrent pas ici._"

As she looked the figure of a very old monk with a long white beard
shuffled slowly across the patch of sunlight and disappeared.

The coachman turned round.

"You descend here," he said in a cheerful voice. "Madame will be
entertained in the parlour on the right of the first door, but Monsieur
can go on to the _hotellerie_. It's over there."

He pointed with his whip and turned his back to them again.

Domini sat quite still. Her lips moved, once more repeating the words of
_The Imitation_. Androvsky got up from his seat, stepped heavily out of
the carriage, and stood beside it. The coachman was busy lighting a
long cigar. Androvsky leaned forward towards Domini with his arms on the
carriage and looked at her with tearless eyes.

"Domini," at last he whispered. "Domini!"

Then she turned to him, bent towards him, put her hands on his shoulders
and looked into his face for a long time, as if she were trying to see
it now for all the years that were perhaps to come. Her eyes, too, were
tearless.

At last she leaned down and touched his forehead with her lips.

She said nothing. Her hands dropped from his shoulders, she turned away
and her lips moved once more.

Then Androvsky moved slowly in through the doorway of the monastery,
crossed the patch of sunlight, lifted his hand and rang the bell at the
second door.

"Drive back to Tunis, please."

"Madame!" said the coachman.

"Drive back to Tunis."

"Madame is not going to enter! But Monsieur--"

"Drive back to Tunis!"

Something in the voice that spoke to him startled the coachman. He
hesitated a moment, staring at Domini from his seat, then, with
a muttered curse, he turned his horses' heads and plied the whip
ferociously.

* * * * *

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not
tired. When weary--it--is not--tired."

Domini's lips ceased to move. She could not speak any more. She could
not even pray without words.

Yet, in that moment, she did not feel alone.



CHAPTER XXXI

In the garden of Count Anteoni, which has now passed into other hands,
a little boy may often be seen playing. He is gay, as children are, and
sometimes he is naughty and, as if out of sheer wantonness, he destroys
the pyramids of sand erected by the Arab gardeners upon the narrow paths
between the hills, or tears off the petals of the geraniums and scatters
them to the breezes that whisper among the trees. But when Larbi's flute
calls to him he runs to hear. He sits at the feet of that persistent
lover, and watches the big fingers fluttering at the holes of the
reed, and his small face becomes earnest and dreamy, as if it looked
on far-off things, or watched the pale pageant of the mirages rising
mysteriously out of the sunlit spaces of the sands to fade again,
leaving no trace behind.

Only one other song he loves more than the twittering tune of Larbi.

Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls
him to her, to the white wall where she is sitting beneath a jamelon
tree.

"Listen, Boris!" she whispers.

The little boy climbs up on her knee, leans his face against her breast
and obeys. An Arab is passing below on the desert track, singing to
himself as he goes towards his home in the oasis:

"No one but God and I
Knows what is in my heart."

He is singing the song of the freed negroes. When his voice has died
away the mother puts the little boy down. It is bed time, and Smain is
there to lead him to the white villa, where he will sleep dreamlessly
till morning.

But the mother stays alone by the wall till the night falls and the
desert is hidden.

"No one but God and I
Knows what is in my heart."

She whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night blows over
the vast spaces of the Sahara and touches her cheek, reminding her of
the wind that, at Arba, carried fire towards her as she sat before the
tent, reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the passion that
came to her soul like fire in the desert.

But she does not rebel.

For always, when night falls, she sees the form of a man praying who
once fled from prayer in the desert; she sees a wanderer who at last has
reached his home.