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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.06/12/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com +and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz + + + + +THE GARDEN OF ALLAH + +BY + +ROBERT HICHENS + + + +PREPARER'S NOTE + + This text was prepared from an edition published by Grosset & + Dunlap, New York. It was originally published in 1904. + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I. PRELUDE +BOOK II. THE VOICE OF PRAYER +BOOK III. THE GARDEN +BOOK IV. THE JOURNEY +BOOK V. THE REVELATION +BOOK VI. THE JOURNEY BACK + + + + + +THE GARDEN OF ALLAH + + + + +BOOK I. PRELUDE + + + +CHAPTER I + +The fatigue caused by a rough sea journey, and, perhaps, the +consciousness that she would have to be dressed before dawn to catch +the train for Beni-Mora, prevented Domini Enfilden from sleeping. +There was deep silence in the Hotel de la Mer at Robertville. The +French officers who took their pension there had long since ascended +the hill of Addouna to the barracks. The cafes had closed their doors +to the drinkers and domino players. The lounging Arab boys had +deserted the sandy Place de la Marine. In their small and dusky +bazaars the Israelites had reckoned up the takings of the day, and +curled themselves up in gaudy quilts on their low divans to rest. Only +two or three /gendarmes/ were still about, and a few French and +Spaniards at the Port, where, moored against the wharf, lay the +steamer /Le General Bertrand/, in which Domini had arrived that +evening from Marseilles. + +In the hotel the fair and plump Italian waiter, who had drifted to +North Africa from Pisa, had swept up the crumbs from the two long +tables in the /salle-a-manger/, smoked a thin, dark cigar over a copy +of the /Depeche Algerienne/, put the paper down, scratched his blonde +head, on which the hair stood up in bristles, stared for a while at +nothing in the firm manner of weary men who are at the same time +thoughtless and depressed, and thrown himself on his narrow bed in the +dusty corner of the little room on the stairs near the front door. +Madame, the landlady, had laid aside her front and said her prayer to +the Virgin. Monsieur, the landlord, had muttered his last curse +against the Jews and drunk his last glass of rum. They snored like +honest people recruiting their strength for the morrow. In number two +Suzanne Charpot, Domini's maid, was dreaming of the Rue de Rivoli. + +But Domini with wide-open eyes, was staring from her big, square +pillow at the red brick floor of her bedroom, on which stood various +trunks marked by the officials of the Douane. There were two windows +in the room looking out towards the Place de la Marine, below which +lay the station. Closed /persiennes/ of brownish-green, blistered wood +protected them. One of these windows was open. Yet the candle at +Domini's bedside burnt steadily. The night was warm and quiet, without +wind. + +As she lay there, Domini still felt the movement of the sea. The +passage had been a bad one. The ship, crammed with French recruits for +the African regiments, had pitched and rolled almost incessantly for +thirty-one hours, and Domini and most of the recruits had been ill. +Domini had had an inner cabin, with a skylight opening on to the lower +deck, and heard above the sound of the waves and winds their groans +and exclamations, rough laughter, and half-timid, half-defiant +conversations as she shook in her berth. At Marseilles she had seen +them come on board, one by one, dressed in every variety of poor +costume, each one looking anxiously around to see what the others were +like, each one carrying a mean yellow or black bag or a carefully-tied +bundle. On the wharf stood a Zouave, in tremendous red trousers and a +fez, among great heaps of dull brown woollen rugs. And as the recruits +came hesitatingly along he stopped them with a sharp word, examined +the tickets they held out, gave each one a rug, and pointed to the +gangway that led from the wharf to the vessel. Domini, then leaning +over the rail of the upper deck, had noticed the different expressions +with which the recruits looked at the Zouave. To all of them he was a +phenomenon, a mystery of Africa and of the new life for which they +were embarking. He stood there impudently and indifferently among the +woollen rugs, his red fez pushed well back on his short, black hair +cut /en brosse/, his bronzed face twisted into a grimace of fiery +contempt, throwing, with his big and muscular arms, rug after rug to +the anxious young peasants who filed before him. They all gazed at his +legs in the billowing red trousers; some like children regarding a +Jack-in-the-box which had just sprung up into view, others like +ignorant, but superstitious, people who had unexpectedly come upon a +shrine by the wayside. One or two seemed disposed to laugh nervously, +as the very stupid laugh at anything they see for the first time. But +fear seized them. They refrained convulsively and shambled on to the +gangway, looking sideways, like fowls, and holding their rugs +awkwardly to their breasts with their dirty, red hands. + +To Domini there was something pitiful in the sight of all these lads, +uprooted from their homes in France, stumbling helplessly on board +this ship that was to convey them to Africa. They crowded together. +Their poor bundles and bags jostled one against the other. With their +clumsy boots they trod on each other's feet. And yet all were lonely +strangers. No two in the mob seemed to be acquaintances. And every +lad, each in his different way, was furtively on the defensive, +uneasily wondering whether some misfortune might not presently come to +him from one of these unknown neighbours. + +A few of the recruits, as they came on board, looked up at Domini as +she leant over the rail; and in all the different coloured and shaped +eyes she thought she read a similar dread and nervous hope that things +might turn out pretty well for them in the new existence that had to +be faced. The Zouave, wholly careless or unconscious of the fact that +he was an incarnation of Africa to these raw peasants, who had never +before stirred beyond the provinces where they were born, went on +taking the tickets, and tossing the woollen rugs to the passing +figures, and pointing ferociously to the gangway. He got very tired of +his task towards the end, and showed his fatigue to the latest comers, +shoving their rugs into their arms with brusque violence. And when at +length the wharf was bare he spat on it, rubbed his short-fingered, +sunburnt hands down the sides of his blue jacket, and swaggered on +board with the air of a dutiful but injured man who longed to do harm +in the world. By this time the ship was about to cast off, and the +recruits, ranged in line along the bulwarks of the lower deck, were +looking in silence towards Marseilles, which, with its tangle of tall +houses, its forest of masts, its long, ugly factories and workshops, +now represented to them the whole of France. The bronchial hoot of the +siren rose up menacingly. Suddenly two Arabs, in dirty white burnouses +and turbans bound with cords of camel's hair, came running along the +wharf. The siren hooted again. The Arabs bounded over the gangway with +grave faces. All the recruits turned to examine them with a mixture of +superiority and deference, such as a schoolboy might display when +observing the agilities of a tiger. The ropes fell heavily from the +posts of the quay into the water, and were drawn up dripping by the +sailors, and /Le General Bertrand/ began to move out slowly among the +motionless ships. + +Domini, looking towards the land with the vague and yet inquiring +glance of those who are going out to sea, noticed the church of Notre +dame de la Garde, perched on its high hill, and dominating the noisy +city, the harbour, the cold, grey squadrons of the rocks and Monte +Cristo's dungeon. At the time she hardly knew it, but now, as she lay +in bed in the silent inn, she remembered that, keeping her eyes upon +the church, she had murmured a confused prayer to the Blessed Virgin +for the recruits. What was the prayer? She could scarcely recall it. A +woman's petition, perhaps, against the temptations that beset men +shifting for themselves in far-off and dangerous countries; a woman's +cry to a woman to watch over all those who wander. + +When the land faded, and the white sea rose, less romantic +considerations took possession of her. She wished to sleep, and drank +a dose of a drug. It did not act completely, but only numbed her +senses. Through the long hours she lay in the dark cabin, looking at +the faint radiance that penetrated through the glass shutters of the +skylight. The recruits, humanised and drawn together by misery, were +becoming acquainted. The incessant murmur of their voices dropped down +to her, with the sound of the waves, and of the mysterious cries and +creaking shudders that go through labouring ships. And all these +noises seemed to her hoarse and pathetic, suggestive, too, of danger. + +When they reached the African shore, and saw the lights of houses +twinkling upon the hills, the pale recruits were marshalled on the +white road by Zouaves, who met them from the barracks of Robertville. +Already they looked older than they had looked when they embarked. +Domini saw them march away up the hill. They still clung to their bags +and bundles. Some of them, lifting shaky voices, tried to sing in +chorus. One of the Zouaves angrily shouted to them to be quiet. They +obeyed, and disappeared heavily into the shadows, staring about them +anxiously at the feathery palms that clustered in this new and dark +country, and at the shrouded figures of Arabs who met them on the way. + +The red brick floor was heaving gently, Domini thought. She found +herself wondering how the cane chair by the small wardrobe kept its +footing, and why the cracked china basin in the iron washstand, +painted bright yellow, did not stir and rattle. Her dressing-bag was +open. She could see the silver backs and tops of the brushes and +bottles in it gleaming. They made her think suddenly of England. She +had no idea why. But it was too warm for England. There, in the autumn +time, an open window would let in a cold air, probably a biting blast. +The wooden shutter would be shaking. There would be, perhaps, a sound +of rain. And Domini found herself vaguely pitying England and the +people mewed up in it for the winter. Yet how many winters she had +spent there, dreaming of liberty and doing dreary things--things +without savour, without meaning, without salvation for brain or soul. +Her mind was still dulled to a certain extent by the narcotic she had +taken. She was a strong and active woman, with long limbs and well- +knit muscles, a clever fencer, a tireless swimmer, a fine horsewoman. +But to-night she felt almost neurotic, like one of the weak or +dissipated sisterhood for whom "rest cures" are invented, and by whom +bland doctors live. That heaving red floor continually emphasised for +her her present feebleness. She hated feebleness. So she blew out the +candle and, with misplaced energy, strove resolutely to sleep. +Possibly her resolution defeated its object. She continued in a +condition of dull and heavy wakefulness till the darkness became +intolerable to her. In it she saw perpetually the long procession of +the pale recruits winding up the hill of Addouna with their bags and +bundles, like spectres on a way of dreams. Finally she resolved to +accept a sleepless night. She lit her candle again and saw that the +brick floor was no longer heaving. Two of the books that she called +her "bed-books" lay within easy reach of her hand. One was Newman's +/Dream of Gerontius/, the other a volume of the Badminton Library. She +chose the former and began to read. + +Towards two o'clock she heard a long-continued rustling. At first she +supposed that her tired brain was still playing her tricks. But the +rustling continued and grew louder. It sounded like a noise coming +from something very wide, and spread out as a veil over an immense +surface. She got up, walked across the floor to the open window and +unfastened the /persiennes/. Heavy rain was falling. The night was +very black, and smelt rich and damp, as if it held in its arms strange +offerings--a merchandise altogether foreign, tropical and alluring. As +she stood there, face to face with a wonder that she could not see, +Domini forgot Newman. She felt the brave companionship of mystery. In +it she divined the beating pulses, the hot, surging blood of freedom. + +She wanted freedom, a wide horizon, the great winds, the great sun, +the terrible spaces, the glowing, shimmering radiance, the hot, +entrancing moons and bloomy, purple nights of Africa. She wanted the +nomad's fires and the acid voices of the Kabyle dogs. She wanted the +roar of the tom-toms, the dash of the cymbals, the rattle of the +negroes' castanets, the fluttering, painted figures of the dancers. +She wanted--more than she could express, more than she knew. It was +there, want, aching in her heart, as she drew into her nostrils this +strange and wealthy atmosphere. + +When Domini returned to her bed she found it impossible to read any +more Newman. The rain and the scents coming up out of the hidden earth +of Africa had carried her mind away, as if on a magic carpet. She was +content now to lie awake in the dark. + +Domini was thirty-two, unmarried, and in a singularly independent-- +some might have thought a singularly lonely--situation. Her father, +Lord Rens, had recently died, leaving Domini, who was his only child, +a large fortune. His life had been a curious and a tragic one. Lady +Rens, Domini's mother, had been a great beauty of the gipsy type, the +daughter of a Hungarian mother and of Sir Henry Arlworth, one of the +most prominent and ardent English Catholics of his day. A son of his +became a priest, and a famous preacher and writer on religious +subjects. Another child, a daughter, took the veil. Lady Rens, who was +not clever, although she was at one time almost universally considered +to have the face of a muse, shared in the family ardour for the +Church, but was far too fond of the world to leave it. While she was +very young she met Lord Rens, a Lifeguardsman of twenty-six, who +called himself a Protestant, but who was really quite happy without +any faith. He fell madly in love with her and, in order to marry her, +became a Catholic, and even a very devout one, aiding his wife's +Church by every means in his power, giving large sums to Catholic +charities, and working, with almost fiery zeal, for the spread of +Catholicism in England. + +Unfortunately, his new faith was founded only on love for a human +being, and when Lady Rens, who was intensely passionate and impulsive, +suddenly threw all her principles to the winds, and ran away with a +Hungarian musician, who had made a furor one season in London by his +magnificent violin-playing, her husband, stricken in his soul, and +also wounded almost to the death in his pride, abandoned abruptly the +religion of the woman who had converted and betrayed him. + +Domini was nineteen, and had recently been presented at Court when the +scandal of her mother's escapade shook the town, and changed her +father in a day from one of the happiest to one of the most cynical, +embittered and despairing of men. She, who had been brought up by both +her parents as a Catholic, who had from her earliest years been +earnestly educated in the beauties of religion, was now exposed to the +almost frantic persuasions of a father who, hating all that he had +formerly loved, abandoning all that, influenced by his faithless wife, +he had formerly clung to, wished to carry his daughter with him into +his new and most miserable way of life. But Domini, who, with much of +her mother's dark beauty, had inherited much of her quick vehemence +and passion, was also gifted with brains, and with a certain largeness +of temperament and clearness of insight which Lady Rens lacked. Even +when she was still quivering under the shock and shame of her mother's +guilt and her own solitude, Domini was unable to share her father's +intensely egoistic view of the religion of the culprit. She could not +be persuaded that the faith in which she had been brought up was +proved to be a sham because one of its professors, whom she had above +all others loved and trusted, had broken away from its teachings and +defied her own belief. She would not secede with her father; but +remained in the Church of the mother she was never to see again, and +this in spite of extraordinary and dogged efforts on the part of Lord +Rens to pervert her to his own Atheism. His mind had been so warped by +the agony of his heart that he had come to feel as if by tearing his +only child from the religion he had been led to by the greatest sinner +he had known, he would be, in some degree at least, purifying his life +tarnished by his wife's conduct, raising again a little way the pride +she had trampled in the dust. + +Her uncle, Father Arlworth, helped Domini by his support and counsel +in this critical period of her life, and Lord Rens in time ceased from +the endeavour to carry his child with him as companion in his tragic +journey from love and belief to hatred and denial. He turned to the +violent occupations of despair, and the last years of his life were +hideous enough, as the world knew and Domini sometimes suspected. But +though Domini had resisted him she was not unmoved or wholly +uninfluenced by her mother's desertion and its effect upon her father. +She remained a Catholic, but she gradually ceased from being a devout +one. Although she had seemed to stand firm she had in truth been +shaken, if not in her belief, in a more precious thing--her love. She +complied with the ordinances, but felt little of the inner beauty of +her faith. The effort she had made in withstanding her father's +assault upon it had exhausted her. Though she had had the strength to +triumph, at the moment, a partial and secret collapse was the price +she had afterwards to pay. Father Arlworth, who had a subtle +understanding of human nature, noticed that Domini was changed and +slightly hardened by the tragedy she had known, and was not surprised +or shocked. Nor did he attempt to force her character back into its +former way of beauty. He knew that to do so would be dangerous, that +Domini's nature required peace in which to become absolutely normal +once again after the shock it had sustained. + +When Domini was twenty-one he died, and her safest guide, the one who +understood her best, went from her. The years passed. She lived with +her embittered father; and drifted into the unthinking worldliness of +the life of her order. Her home was far from ideal. Yet she would not +marry. The wreck of her parents' domestic life had rendered her +mistrustful of human relations. She had seen something of the terror +of love, and could not, like other women, regard it as safety and as +sweetness. So she put it from her, and strove to fill her life with +all those lesser things which men and women grasp, as the Chinese +grasp the opium pipe, those things which lull our comprehension of +realities to sleep. + +When Lord Rens died, still blaspheming, and without any of the +consolations of religion, Domini felt the imperious need of change. +She did not grieve actively for the dead man. In his last years they +had been very far apart, and his death relieved her from the perpetual +contemplation of a tragedy. Lord Rens had grown to regard his daughter +almost with enmity in his enmity against her mother's religion, which +was hers. She had come to think of him rather with pity than with +love. Yet his death was a shock to her. When he could speak no more, +but only lie still, she remembered suddenly just what he had been +before her mother's flight. The succeeding period, long though it had +been and ugly, was blotted out. She wept for the poor, broken life now +ended, and was afraid for his future in the other world. His departure +into the unknown roused her abruptly to a clear conception of how his +action and her mother's had affected her own character. As she stood +by his bed she wondered what she might have been if her mother had +been true, her father happy, to the end. Then she felt afraid of +herself, recognising partially, and for the first time, how all these +years had seen her long indifference. She felt self-conscious too, +ignorant of the real meaning of life, and as if she had always been, +and still remained, rather a complicated piece of mechanism than a +woman. A desolate enervation of spirit descended upon her, a sort of +bitter, and yet dull, perplexity. She began to wonder what she was, +capable of what, of how much good or evil, and to feel sure that she +did not know, had never known or tried to find out. Once, in this +state of mind, she went to confession. She came away feeling that she +had just joined with the priest in a farce. How can a woman who knows +nothing about herself make anything but a worthless confession? she +thought. To say what you have done is not always to say what you are. +And only what you are matters eternally. + +Presently, still in this perplexity of spirit, she left England with +only her maid as companion. After a short tour in the south of Europe, +with which she was too familiar, she crossed the sea to Africa, which +she had never seen. Her destination was Beni-Mora. She had chosen it +because she liked its name, because she saw on the map that it was an +oasis in the Sahara Desert, because she knew it was small, quiet, yet +face to face with an immensity of which she had often dreamed. Idly +she fancied that perhaps in the sunny solitude of Beni-Mora, far from +all the friends and reminiscences of her old life, she might learn to +understand herself. How? She did not know. She did not seek to know. +Here was a vague pilgrimage, as many pilgrimages are in this world-- +the journey of the searcher who knew not what she sought. And so now +she lay in the dark, and heard the rustle of the warm African rain, +and smelt the perfumes rising from the ground, and felt that the +unknown was very near her--the unknown with all its blessed +possibilities of change. + + + +CHAPTER II + +Long before dawn the Italian waiter rolled off his little bed, put a +cap on his head, and knocked at Domini's and at Suzanne Charpot's +doors. + +It was still dark, and still raining, when the two women came out to +get into the carriage that was to take them to the station. The place +de la Marine was a sea of mud, brown and sticky as nougat. Wet palms +dripped by the railing near a desolate kiosk painted green and blue. +The sky was grey and low. Curtains of tarpaulin were let down on each +side of the carriage, and the coachman, who looked like a Maltese, and +wore a round cap edged with pale yellow fur, was muffled up to the +ears. Suzanne's round, white face was puffy with fatigue, and her dark +eyes, generally good-natured and hopeful, were dreary, and squinted +slightly, as she tipped the Italian waiter, and handed her mistress's +dressing-bag and rug into the carriage. The waiter stood an the +discoloured step, yawning from ear to ear. Even the tip could not +excite him. Before the carriage started he had gone into the hotel and +banged the door. The horses trotted quickly through the mud, +descending the hill. One of the tarpaulin curtains had been left +unbuttoned by the coachman. It flapped to and fro, and when its +movement was outward Domini could catch short glimpses of mud, of +glistening palm-leaves with yellow stems, of gas-lamps, and of +something that was like an extended grey nothingness. This was the +sea. Twice she saw Arabs trudging along, holding their skirts up in a +bunch sideways, and showing legs bare beyond the knees. Hoods hid +their faces. They appeared to be agitated by the weather, and to be +continually trying to plant their naked feet in dry places. Suzanne, +who sat opposite to Domini, had her eyes shut. If she had not from +time to time passed her tongue quickly over her full, pale lips she +would have looked like a dead thing. The coquettish angle at which her +little black hat was set on her head seemed absurdly inappropriate to +the occasion and her mood. It suggested a hat being worn at some +festival. Her black, gloved hands were tightly twisted together in her +lap, and she allowed her plump body to wag quite loosely with the +motion of the carriage, making no attempt at resistance. She had +really the appearance of a corpse sitting up. The tarpaulin flapped +monotonously. The coachman cried out in the dimness to his horses like +a bird, prolonging his call drearily, and then violently cracking his +whip. Domini kept her eyes fixed on the loose tarpaulin, so that she +might not miss one of the wet visions it discovered by its reiterated +movement. She had not slept at all, and felt as if there was a gritty +dryness close behind her eyes. She also felt very alert and enduring, +but not in the least natural. Had some extraordinary event occurred; +had the carriage, for instance, rolled over the edge of the road into +the sea, she was convinced that she could not have managed to be +either surprised or alarmed, If anyone had asked her whether she was +tired she would certainly have answered "No." + +Like her mother, Domini was of a gipsy type. She stood five feet ten, +had thick, almost coarse and wavy black hair that was parted in the +middle of her small head, dark, almond-shaped, heavy-lidded eyes, and +a clear, warmly-white skin, unflecked with colour. She never flushed +under the influence of excitement or emotion. Her forehead was broad +and low. Her eyebrows were long and level, thicker than most women's. +The shape of her face was oval, with a straight, short nose, a short, +but rather prominent and round chin, and a very expressive mouth, not +very small, slightly depressed at the corners, with perfect teeth, and +red lips that were unusually flexible. Her figure was remarkably +athletic, with shoulders that were broad in a woman, and a naturally +small waist. Her hands and feet were also small. She walked +splendidly, like a Syrian, but without his defiant insolence. In her +face, when it was in repose, there was usually an expression of still +indifference, some thought of opposition. She looked her age, and had +never used a powderpuff in her life. She could smile easily and easily +become animated, and in her animation there was often fire, as in her +calmness there was sometimes cloud. Timid people were generally +disconcerted by her appearance, and her manner did not always reassure +them. Her obvious physical strength had something surprising in it, +and woke wonder as to how it had been, or might be, used. Even when +her eyes were shut she looked singularly wakeful. + +Domini and Suzanne got to the station of Robertville much too early. +The large hall in which they had to wait was miserably lit, blank and +decidedly cold. The ticket-office was on the left, and the room was +divided into two parts by a broad, low counter, on which the heavy +luggage was placed before being weighed by two unshaven and hulking +men in blue smocks. Three or four Arab touts, in excessively shabby +European clothes and turbans, surrounded Domini with offers of +assistance. One, the dirtiest of the group, with a gaping eye-socket, +in which there was no eye, succeeded by his passionate volubility and +impudence in attaching himself to her in a sort of official capacity. +He spoke fluent, but faulty, French, which attracted Suzanne, and, +being abnormally muscular and active, in an amazingly short time got +hold of all their boxes and bags and ranged them on the counter. He +then indulged in a dramatic performance, which he apparently +considered likely to rouse into life and attention the two unshaven +men in smocks, who were smoking cigarettes, and staring vaguely at the +metal sheet on which the luggage was placed to be weighed. Suzanne +remained expectantly in attendance, and Domini, having nothing to do, +and seeing no bench to rest on, walked slowly up and down the hall +near the entrance. + +It was now half-past four in the morning, and in the air Domini +fancied that she felt the cold breath of the coming dawn. Beyond the +opening of the station, as she passed and repassed in her slow and +aimless walk, she saw the soaking tarpaulin curtains of the carriage +she had just left glistening in the faint lamp-light. After a few +minutes the Arabs she had noticed on the road entered. Their brown, +slipperless feet were caked with sticky mud, and directly they found +themselves under shelter in a dry place they dropped the robes they +had been holding up, and, bending down, began to flick it off on to +the floor with their delicate fingers. They did this with +extraordinary care and precision, rubbed the soles of their feet +repeatedly against the boards, and then put on their yellow slippers +and threw back the hoods which had been drawn over their heads. + +A few French passengers straggled in, yawning and looking irritable. +The touts surrounded them, with noisy offers of assistance. The men in +smocks still continued to smoke and to stare at the metal sheet on the +floor. Although the luggage now extended in quite a long line upon the +counter they paid no attention to it, or to the violent and reiterated +cries of the Arabs who stood behind it, anxious to earn a tip by +getting it weighed and registered quickly. Apparently they were +wrapped in savage dreams. At length a light shone through the small +opening of the ticket-office, the men in smocks stirred and threw down +their cigarette stumps, and the few travellers pressed forward against +the counter, and pointed to their boxes with their sticks and hands. +Suzanne Charpot assumed an expression of attentive suspicion, and +Domini ceased from walking up and down. Several of the recruits came +in hastily, accompanied by two Zouaves. They were wet, and looked +dazed and tired out. Grasping their bags and bundles they went towards +the platform. A train glided slowly in, gleaming faintly with lights. +Domini's trunks were slammed down on the weighing machine, and +Suzanne, drawing out her purse, took her stand before the shining hole +of the ticket-office. + +In the wet darkness there rose up a sound like a child calling out an +insulting remark. This was followed immediately by the piping of a +horn. With a jerk the train started, passed one by one the station +lamps, and, with a steady jangling and rattling, drew out into the +shrouded country. Domini was in a wretchedly-lit carriage with three +Frenchmen, facing the door which opened on to the platform. The man +opposite to her was enormously fat, with a coal-black beard growing up +to his eyes. He wore black gloves and trousers, a huge black cloth +hat, and a thick black cloak with a black buckle near the throat. His +eyes were shut, and his large, heavy head drooped forward. Domini +wondered if he was travelling to the funeral of some relative. The two +other men, one of whom looked like a commercial traveller, kept +shifting their feet upon the hot-water tins that lay on the floor, +clearing their throats and sighing loudly. One of them coughed, let +down the window, spat, drew the window up, sat sideways, put his legs +suddenly up on the seat and groaned. The train rattled more harshly, +and shook from side to side as it got up speed. Rain streamed down the +window-panes, through which it was impossible to see anything. + +Domini still felt alert, but an overpowering sensation of dreariness +had come to her. She did not attribute this sensation to fatigue. She +did not try to analyse it. She only felt as if she had never seen or +heard anything that was not cheerless, as if she had never known +anything that was not either sad, or odd, or inexplicable. What did +she remember? A train of trifles that seemed to have been enough to +fill all her life; the arrival of the nervous and badly-dressed +recruits at the wharf, their embarkation, their last staring and +pathetic look at France, the stormy voyage, the sordid illness of +almost everyone on board, the approach long after sundown to the small +and unknown town, of which it was impossible to see anything clearly, +the marshalling of the recruits pale with sickness, their pitiful +attempt at cheerful singing, angrily checked by the Zouaves in charge +of them, their departure up the hill carrying their poor belongings, +the sleepless night, the sound of the rain falling, the scents rising +from the unseen earth. The tap of the Italian waiter at the door, the +damp drive to the station, the long wait there, the sneering signal, +followed by the piping horn, the jerking and rattling of the carriage, +the dim light within it falling upon the stout Frenchman in his +mourning, the streaming water upon the window-panes. These few sights, +sounds, sensations were like the story of a life to Domini just then, +were more, were like the whole of life; always dull noise, strange, +flitting, pale faces, and an unknown region that remained perpeturally +invisible, and that must surely be ugly or terrible. + +The train stopped frequently at lonely little stations. Domini looked +out, letting down the window for a moment. At each station she saw a +tiny house with a peaked roof, a wooden railing dividing the platform +from the country road, mud, grass bending beneath the weight of water- +drops, and tall, dripping, shaggy eucalyptus trees. Sometimes the +station-master's children peered at the train with curious eyes, and +depressed-looking Arabs, carefully wrapped up, their mouths and chins +covered by folds of linen, got in and out slowly. + +Once Domini saw two women, in thin, floating white dresses and +spangled veils, hurrying by like ghosts in the dark. Heavy silver +ornaments jangled on their ankles, above their black slippers splashed +with mud. Their sombre eyes stared out from circles of Kohl, and, with +stained, claret-coloured hands, whose nails were bright red, they +clasped their light and bridal raiment to their prominent breasts. +They were escorted by a gigantic man, almost black, with a zigzag scar +across the left side of his face, who wore a shining brown burnous +over a grey woollen jacket. He pushed the two women into the train as +if he were pushing bales, and got in after them, showing enormous bare +legs, with calves that stuck out like lumps of iron. + +The darkness began to fade, and presently, as the grey light grew +slowly stronger, the rain ceased, and it was possible to see through +the glass of the carriage window. + +The country began to discover itself, as if timidly, to Domini's eyes. +She had recently noticed that the train was going very slowly, and she +could now see why. They were mounting a steep incline. The rich, damp +earth of the plains beyond Robertville, with its rank grass, its moist +ploughland and groves of eucalyptus, was already left behind. The +train was crawling in a cup of the hills, grey, sterile and abandoned, +without roads or houses, without a single tree. Small, grey-green +bushes flourished here and there on tiny humps of earth, but they +seemed rather to emphasise than to diminish the aspect of poverty +presented by the soil, over which the dawn, rising from the wet arms +of night, shed a cold and reticent illumination. By a gash in the +rounded hills, where the earth was brownish yellow, a flock of goats +with flapping ears tripped slowly, followed by two Arab boys in rags. +One of the boys was playing upon a pipe coverd with red arabesques. +Domini heard two or three bars of the melody. They were ineffably wild +and bird-like, very clear and sweet. They seemed to her to match +exactly the pure and ascetic light cast by the dawn over these bare, +grey hills, and they stirred her abruptly from the depressed lassitude +in which the dreary chances of recent travel had drowned her. She +began, with a certain faint excitement, to realise that these low, +round-backed hills were Africa, that she was leaving behind the sea, +so many of whose waves swept along European shores, that somewhere, +beyond the broken and near horizon line toward which the train was +creeping, lay the great desert, her destination, with its pale sands +and desolate cities, its sunburnt tribes of workers, its robbers, +warriors and priests, its ethereal mysteries of mirage, its tragic +splendours of colour, of tempest and of heat. A sense of a wider world +than the compressed world into which physical fatigue had decoyed her +woke in her brain and heart. The little Arab, playing carelessly upon +his pipe with the red arabesques, was soon invisible among his goats +beside the dry water-course that was probably the limit of his +journeying, but Domini felt that like a musician at the head of a +procession he had played her bravely forward into the dawn and Africa. + +At Ah-Souf Domini changed into another train and had the carriage to +herself. The recruits had reached their destination. Hers was a longer +pilgramage and still towards the sun. She could not afterwards +remember what she thought about during this part of her journey. +Subsequent events so coloured all her memories of Africa that every +fold of its sun-dried soil was endowed in her mind with the +significance of a living thing. Every palm beside a well, every +stunted vine and clambering flower upon an /auberge/ wall, every form +of hill and silhouette of shadow, became in her heart intense with the +beauty and the pathos she used, as a child, to think must lie beyond +the sunset. + +And so she forgot. + +A strange sense of leaving all things behind had stolen over her. She +was really fatigued by travel and by want of sleep, but she did not +know it. Lying back in her seat, with her head against the dirty white +covering of the shaking carriage, she watched the great change that +was coming over the land. + +It seemed as if God were putting forth His hand to withdraw gradually +all things of His creation, all the furniture He had put into the +great Palace of the world; as if He meant to leave it empty and +utterly naked. + +So Domini thought. + +First He took the rich and shaggy grass, and all the little flowers +that bloomed modestly in it. Then He drew away the orange groves, the +oleander and the apricot trees, the faithful eucalyptus with its pale +stems and tressy foliage, the sweet waters that fertilised the soil, +making it soft and brown where the plough seamed it into furrows, the +tufted plants and giant reeds that crowd where water is. And still, as +the train ran on, His gifts were fewer. At last even the palms were +gone, and the Barbary fig displayed no longer among the crumbling +boulders its tortured strength, and the pale and fantastic evolutions +of its unnatural foliage. Stones lay everywhere upon the pale yellow +or grey-brown earth. Crystals glittered in the sun like shallow +jewels, and far away, under clouds that were dark and feathery, +appeared hard and relentless mountains, which looked as if they were +made of iron carved into horrible and jagged shapes. Where they fell +into ravines they became black. Their swelling bosses and flanks, +sharp sometimes as the spines of animals, were steel coloured. Their +summits were purple, deepening where the clouds came down to ebony. + +Journeying towards these terrible fastnesses were caravans on which +Domini looked with a heavy and lethargic interest. Many Kabyles, +fairer than she was, moved slowly on foot towards their rock villages. + +Over the withered earth they went towards the distant mountains and +the clouds. The sun was hidden. The wind continued to rise. Sand found +its way in through the carriage windows. The mountains, as Domini saw +them more clearly, looked more gloomy, more unearthly. There was +something unnatural in their hard outlines, in the rigid mystery of +their innumerable clefts. That all these people should be journeying +towards them was pathetic, and grieved the imagination. + +The wind seemed so cold, now the sun was hidden, that she had drawn +both the windows up and thrown a rug over her. She put her feet up on +the opposite seat, and half closed her eyes. But she still turned them +towards the glass on her left, and watched. It seemed to her quite +impossible that this shaking and slowly moving train had any +destination. The desolation of the country had become so absolute that +she could not conceive of anything but still greater desolation lying +beyond. She had no feeling that she was merely traversing a tract of +sterility. Her sensation was that she had passed the boundary of the +world God had created, and come into some other place, upon which He +had never looked and of which He had no knowledge. + +Abruptly she felt as if her father had entered into some such region +when he forced his way out of his religion. And in this region he had +died. She had stood on the verge of it by his deathbed. Now she was in +it. + +There were no Arabs journeying now. No tents huddled among the low +bushes. The last sign of vegetation was obliterated. The earth rose +and fell in a series of humps and depressions, interspersed with piles +of rock. Every shade of yellow and of brown mingled and flowed away +towards the foot of the mountains. Here and there dry water-courses +showed their teeth. Their crumbling banks were like the rind of an +orange. Little birds, the hue of the earth, with tufted crests, +tripped jauntily among the stones, fluttered for a few yards and +alighted, with an air of strained alertness, as if their minute bodies +were full of trembling wires. They were the only living things Domini +could see. + +She thought again of her father. In some such region as this his soul +must surely be wandering, far away from God. + +She let down the glass. + +The wind was really cold and blowing gustily. She drank it in as if +she were tasting a new wine, and she was conscious at once that she +had never before breathed such air. There was a wonderful, a startling +flavour in it, the flavour of gigantic spaces and of rolling leagues +of emptiness. Neither among mountains nor upon the sea had she ever +found an atmosphere so fiercely pure, clean and lively with +unutterable freedom. She leaned out to it, shutting her eyes. And now +that she saw nothing her palate savoured it more intensely. The +thought of her father fled from her. All detailed thoughts, all the +minutia of the mind were swept away. She was bracing herself to an +encounter with something gigantic, something unshackled, the being +from whose lips this wonderful breath flowed. + +When two lovers kiss their breath mingles, and, if they really love, +each is conscious that in the breath of the loved one is the loved +one's soul, coming forth from the temple of the body through the +temple door. As Domini leaned out, seeing nothing, she was conscious +that in this breath she drank there was a soul, and it seemed to her +that it was the soul which flames in the centre of things, and beyond. +She could not think any longer of her father as an outcast because he +had abandoned a religion. For all religions were surely here, marching +side by side, and behind them, background to them, there was something +far greater than any religion. Was it snow or fire? Was it the +lawlessness of that which has made laws, or the calm of that which has +brought passion into being? Greater love than is in any creed, or +greater freedom than is in any human liberty? Domini only felt that if +she had ever been a slave at this moment she would have died of joy, +realising the boundless freedom that circles this little earth. + +"Thank God for it!" she murmured aloud. + +Her own words woke her to a consciousness of ordinary things--or made +her sleep to the eternal. + +She closed the window and sat down. + +A little later the sun came out again, and the various shades of +yellow and of orange that played over the wrinkled earth deepened and +glowed. Domini had sunk into a lethargy so complete that, though not +asleep, she was scarcely aware of the sun. She was dreaming of +liberty. + +Presently the train slackened and stopped. She heard a loud chattering +of many voices and looked out. The sun was now shining brilliantly, +and she saw a station crowded with Arabs in white burnouses, who were +vociferously greeting friends in the train, were offering enormous +oranges for sale to the passengers, or were walking up and down gazing +curiously into the carriages, with the unblinking determination and +indifference to a return of scrutiny which she had already noticed and +thought animal. A guard came up, told her the place was El-Akbara, and +that the train would stay there ten minutes to wait for the train from +Beni-Mora. She decided to get out and stretch her cramped limbs. On +the platform she found Suzanne, looking like a person who had just +been slapped. One side of the maid's face was flushed and covered with +a faint tracery of tiny lines. The other was greyish white. Sleep hung +in her eyes, over which the lids drooped as if they were partially +paralysed. Her fingers were yellow from peeling an orange, and her +smart little hat was cocked on one side. There were grains of sand on +her black gown, and when she saw her mistress she at once began to +compress her lips, and to assume the expression of obstinate patience +characteristic of properly-brought-up servants who find themselves +travelling far from home in outlandish places. + +"Have you been asleep, Suzanne?" + +"No, Mam'zelle." + +"You've had an orange?" + +"I couldn't get it down, Mam'zelle." + +"Would you like to see if you can get a cup of coffee here?" + +"No, thank you, Mam'zelle. I couldn't touch this Arab stuff." + +"We shall soon be there now." + +Suzanne made all her naturally small features look much smaller, +glanced down at her skirt, and suddenly began to shake the grains of +sand from it in an outraged manner, at the same time extending her +left foot. Two or three young Arabs came up and stood, staring, round +her. Their eyes were magnificent, and gravely observant. Suzanne went +on shaking and patting her skirt, and Domini walked away down the +platform, wondering what a French maid's mind was like. Suzanne's +certainly had its limitations. It was evident that she was horrified +by the sight of bare legs. Why? + +As Domini walked along the platform among the fruit-sellers, the +guides, the turbaned porters with their badges, the staring children +and the ragged wanderers who thronged about the train, she thought of +the desert to which she was now so near. It lay, she knew, beyond the +terrific wall of rock that faced her. But she could see no opening. +The towering summits of the cliffs, jagged as the teeth of a wolf, +broke crudely upon the serene purity of the sky. Somewhere, concealed +in the darkness of the gorge at their feet, was the mouth from which +had poured forth that wonderful breath, quivering with freedom and +with unearthly things. The sun was already declining, and the light it +cast becoming softened and romantic. Soon there would be evening in +the desert. Then there would be night. And she would be there in the +night with all things that the desert holds. + +A train of camels was passing on the white road that descended into +the shadow of the gorge. Some savage-looking men accompanied them, +crying continually, "Oosh! Oosh!" They disappeared, desert-men with +their desert-beasts, bound no doubt on some tremendous journey through +the regions of the sun. Where would they at last unlade the groaning +camels? Domini saw them in the midst of dunes red with the dying fires +of the west. And their shadows lay along the sands like weary things +reposing. + +She started when a low voice spoke to her in French, and, turning +round, saw a tall Arab boy, magnificently dressed in pale blue cloth +trousers, a Zouave jacket braided with gold, and a fez, standing near +her. She was struck by the colour of his skin, which was faint as the +colour of /cafe au lait/, and by the contrast between his huge bulk +and his languid, almost effeminate, demeanour. As she turned he smiled +at her calmly, and lifted one hand toward the wall of rock. + +"Madame has seen the desert?" he asked. + +"Never," answered Domini. + +"It is the garden of oblivion," he said, still in a low voice, and +speaking with a delicate refinement that was almost mincing. "In the +desert one forgets everything; even the little heart one loves, and +the desire of one's own soul." + +"How can that be?" asked Domini. + +"Shal-lah. It is the will of God. One remembers nothing any more." + +His eyes were fixed upon the gigantic pinnacles of the rocks. There +was something fanatical and highly imaginative in their gaze. + +"What is your name?" Domini asked. + +"Batouch, Madame. You are going to Beni-Mora?" + +"Yes, Batouch." + +"I too. To-night, under the mimosa trees, I shall compose a poem. It +will be addressed to Irena, the dancing-girl. She is like the little +moon when it first comes up above the palm trees." + +Just then the train from Beni-Mora ran into the station, and Domini +turned to seek her carriage. As she was coming to it she noticed, with +the pang of the selfish traveller who wishes to be undisturbed, that a +tall man, attended by an Arab porter holding a green bag, was at the +door of it and was evidently about to get in. He glanced round as +Domini came up, half drew back rather awkwardly as if to allow her to +precede him, then suddenly sprang in before her. The Arab lifted in +the bag, and the man, endeavouring hastily to thrust some money into +his hand, dropped the coin, which fell down between the step of the +carriage and the platform. The Arab immediately made a greedy dive +after it, interposing his body between Domini and the train; and she +was obliged to stand waiting while he looked for it, grubbing +frantically in the earth with his brown fingers, and uttering muffled +exclamations, apparently of rage. Meanwhile, the tall man had put the +green bag up on the rack, gone quickly to the far side of the +carriage, and sat down looking out of the window. + +Domini was struck by the mixture of indecision and blundering haste +which he had shown, and by his impoliteness. Evidently he was not a +gentleman, she thought, or he would surely have obeyed his first +impulse and allowed her to get into the train before him. It seemed, +too, as if he were determined to be discourteous, for he sat with his +shoulder deliberately turned towards the door, and made no attempt to +get his Arab out of the way, although the train was just about to +start. Domini was very tired, and she began to feel angry with him, +contemptuous too. The Arab could not find the money, and the little +horn now piped its warning of departure. It was absolutely necessary +for her to get in at once if she did not mean to stay at El-Akbara. +She tried to pass the grovelling Arab, but as she did so he suddenly +sprang up, jumped on to the step of the carriage, and, thrusting his +body half through the doorway, began to address a torrent of Arabic to +the passenger within. The horn sounded again, and the carriage jerked +backwards preparatory to starting on its way to Beni-Mora. + +Domini caught hold of the short European jacket the Arab was wearing, +and said in French: + +"You must let me get in at once. The train is going." + +The man, however, intent on replacing the coin he had lost, took no +notice of her, but went on vociferating and gesticulating. The +traveller said something in Arabic. Domini was now very angry. She +gripped the jacket, exerted all her force, and pulled the Arab +violently from the door. He alighted on the platform beside her and +nearly fell. Before he had recovered himself she sprang up into the +train, which began to move at that very moment. As she got in, the man +who had caused all the bother was leaning forward with a bit of silver +in his hand, looking as if he were about to leave his seat. Domini +cast a glance of contempt at him, and he turned quickly to the window +again and stared out, at the same time putting the coin back into his +pocket. A dull flush rose on his cheek, but he attempted no apology, +and did not even offer to fasten the lower handle of the door. + +"What a boor!" Domini thought as she bent out of the window to do it. + +When she turned from the door, after securing the handle, she found +the carriage full of a pale twilight. The train was stealing into the +gorge, following the caravan of camels which she had seen +disappearing. She paid no more attention to her companion, and her +feeling of acute irritation against him died away for the moment. The +towering cliffs cast mighty shadows, the darkness deepened, the train, +quickening its speed, seemed straining forward into the arms of night. +There was a chill in the air. Domini drank it into her lungs again, +and again was startled, stirred, by the life and the mentality of it. +She was conscious of receiving it with passion, as if, indeed, she +held her lips to a mouth and drank some being's very nature into hers. +She forgot her recent vexation and the man who had caused it. She +forgot everything in mere sensation. She had no time to ask, "Whither +am I going?" She felt like one borne upon a wave, seaward, to the +wonder, to the danger, perhaps, of a murmuring unknown. The rocks +leaned forward; their teeth were fastened in the sky; they enclosed +the train, banishing the sun and the world from all the lives within +it. She caught a fleeting glimpse of rushing waters far beneath her; +of crumbling banks, covered with debris like the banks of a disused +quarry; of shattered boulders, grouped in a wild disorder, as if they +had been vomited forth from some underworld or cast headlong from the +sky; of the flying shapes of fruit trees, mulberries and apricot +trees, oleanders and palms; of dull yellow walls guarding pools the +colour of absinthe, imperturbable and still. A strong impression of +increasing cold and darkness grew in her, and the noises of the train +became hollow, and seemed to be expanding, as if they were striving to +press through the impending rocks and find an outlet into space; +failing, they rose angrily, violently, in Domini's ears, protesting, +wrangling, shouting, declaiming. The darkness became like the darkness +of a nightmare. All the trees vanished, as if they fled in fear. The +rocks closed in as if to crush the train. There was a moment in which +Domini shut her eyes, like one expectant of a tremendous blow that +cannot be avoided. + +She opened them to a flood of gold, out of which the face of a man +looked, like a face looking out of the heart of the sun. + + + +CHAPTER III + +It flashed upon her with the desert, with the burning heaps of +carnation and orange-coloured rocks, with the first sand wilderness, +the first brown villages glowing in the late radiance of the afternoon +like carven things of bronze, the first oasis of palms, deep green as +a wave of the sea and moving like a wave, the first wonder of Sahara +warmth and Sahara distance. She passed through the golden door into +the blue country, and saw this face, and, for a moment, moved by the +exalted sensation of a magical change in all her world, she looked at +it simply as a new sight presented, with the sun, the mighty rocks, +the hard, blind villages, and the dense trees, to her eyes, and +connected it with nothing. It was part of this strange and glorious +desert region to her. That was all, for a moment. + +In the play of untempered golden light the face seemed pale. It was +narrow, rather long, with marked and prominent features, a nose with a +high bridge, a mouth with straight, red lips, and a powerful chin. The +eyes were hazel, almost yellow, with curious markings of a darker +shade in the yellow, dark centres that looked black, and dark outer +circles. The eyelashes were very long, the eyebrows thick and strongly +curved. The forehead was high, and swelled out slightly above the +temples. There was no hair on the face, which was closely shaved. Near +the mouth were two faint lines that made Domini think of physical +suffering, and also of mediaeval knights. Despite the glory of the +sunshine there seemed to be a shadow falling across the face. + +This was all that Domini noticed before the spell of change and the +abrupt glory was broken, and she knew that she was staring into the +face of the man who had behaved so rudely at the station of El-Akbara. +The knowledge gave her a definite shock, and she thought that her +expression must have changed abruptly, for a dull flush rose on the +stranger's thin cheeks and mounted to his rugged forehead. He glanced +out of the window and moved his hands uneasily. Domini noticed that +they scarcely tallied with his face. Though scrupulously clean, they +looked like the hands of a labourer, hard, broad, and brown. Even his +wrists, and a small section of his left forearm, which showed as he +lifted his left hand from one knee to the other, were heavily tinted +by the sun. The spaces between the fingers were wide, as they usually +are in hands accustomed to grasping implements, but the fingers +themselves were rather delicate and artistic. + +Domini observed this swiftly. Then she saw that her neighbour was +unpleasantly conscious of her observation. This vexed her vaguely, +perhaps because even so trifling a circumstance was like a thin link +between them. She snapped it by ceasing to look at or think of him. +The window was down. A delicate and warm breeze drifted in, coming +from the thickets of the palms. In flashing out of the darkness of the +gorge Domini had had the sensation of passing into a new world and a +new atmosphere. The sensation stayed with her now that she was no +longer dreaming or giving the reins to her imagination, but was calmly +herself. Against the terrible rampart of rock the winds beat across +the land of the Tell. But they die there frustrated. And the rains +journey thither and fail, sinking into the absinthe-coloured pools of +the gorge. And the snows and even the clouds stop, exhausted in their +pilgrimage. The gorge is not their goal, but it is their grave, and +the desert never sees their burial. So Domini's first sense of casting +away the known remained, and even grew, but now strongly and quietly. +It was well founded, she thought. For she looked out of the carriage +window towards the barrier she was leaving, and saw that on this side, +guarding the desert from the world that is not desert, it was pink in +the evening light, deepening here and there to rose colour, whereas on +the far side it had a rainy hue as of rocks in England. And there was +a lustre of gold in the hills, tints of glowing bronze slashed with a +red line as the heart of a wound, but recalling the heart of a flower. +The folds of the earth glistened. There was flame down there in the +river bed. The wreckage of the land, the broken fragments, gleamed as +if braided with precious things. Everywhere the salt crystals sparkled +with the violence of diamonds. Everywhere there was a strength of +colour that hurled itself to the gaze, unabashed and almost savage, +the colour of summer that never ceases, of heat that seldom dies, in a +land where there is no autumn and seldom a flitting cold. + +Down on the road near the village there were people; old men playing +the "lady's game" with stones set in squares of sand, women peeping +from flat roofs and doorways, children driving goats. A man, like a +fair and beautiful Christ, with long hair and a curling beard, beat on +the ground with a staff and howled some tuneless notes. He was dressed +in red and green. No one heeded him. A distant sound of the beating of +drums rose in the air, mingled with piercing cries uttered by a nasal +voice. And as if below it, like the orchestral accompaniment of a +dramatic solo, hummed many blending noises; faint calls of labourers +in the palm-gardens and of women at the wells; chatter of children in +dusky courts sheltered with reeds and pale-stemmed grasses; dim +pipings of homeward-coming shepherds drowned, with their pattering +charges, in the golden vapours of the west; soft twitterings of birds +beyond brown walls in green seclusions; dull barking of guard dogs; +mutter of camel drivers to their velvet-footed beasts. + +The caravan which Domini had seen descending into the gorge +reappeared, moving deliberately along the desert road towards the +south. A watch-tower peeped above the palms. Doves were circling round +it. Many of them were white. They flew like ivory things above this +tower of glowing bronze, which slept at the foot of the pink rocks. On +the left rose a mass of blood-red earth and stone. Slanting rays of +the sun struck it, and it glowed mysteriously like a mighty jewel. + +As Domini leaned out of the window, and the salt crystals sparkled to +her eyes, and the palms swayed languidly above the waters, and the +rose and mauve of the hills, the red and orange of the earth, streamed +by in the flames of the sun before the passing train like a barbaric +procession, to the sound of the hidden drums, the cry of the hidden +priest, and all the whispering melodies of these strange and unknown +lives, tears started into her eyes. The entrance into this land of +flame and colour, through its narrow and terrific portal, stirred her +almost beyond her present strength. The glory of this world mounted to +her heart, oppressing it. The embrace of Nature was so violent that it +crushed her. She felt like a little fly that had sought to wing its +way to the sun and, at a million miles' distance from it, was being +shrivelled by its heat. When all the voices of the village fainted +away she was glad, although she strained her ears to hear their fading +echoes. Suddenly she knew that she was very tired, so tired that +emotions acted upon her as physical exertion acts upon an exhausted +man. She sat down and shut her eyes. For a long time she stayed with +her eyes shut, but she knew that on the windows strange lights were +glittering, that the carriage was slowly filling with the ineffable +splendours of the west. Long afterwards she often wondered whether she +endowed the sunset of that day with supernatural glories because she +was so tired. Perhaps the salt mountain of El-Alia did not really +sparkle like the celestial mountains in the visions of the saints. +Perhaps the long chain of the Aures did not really look as if all its +narrow clefts had been powdered with the soft and bloomy leaves of +unearthly violets, and the desert was not cloudy in the distance +towards the Zibans with the magical blue she thought she saw there, a +blue neither of sky nor sea, but like the hue at the edge of a flame +in the heart of a wood fire. She often wondered, but she never knew. + +The sound of a movement made her look up. Her companion was changing +his place and going to the other side of the compartment. He walked +softly, no doubt with the desire not to disturb Domini. His back was +towards her for an instant, and she noticed that he was a powerful +man, though very thin, and that his gait was heavy. It made her think +again of his labourer's hands, and she began to wonder idly what was +his rank and what he did. He sat down in the far corner on the same +side as herself and stared out of his window, crossing his legs. He +wore large boots with square toes, clumsy and unfashionable, but +comfortable and good for walking in. His clothes had obviously been +made by a French tailor. The stuff of them was grey and woolly, and +they were cut tighter to the figure than English clothes generally +are. He had on a black silk necktie, and a soft brown travelling hat +dented in the middle. By the way in which he looked out of the window, +Domini judged that he, too, was seeing the desert for the first time. +There was something almost passionately attentive in his attitude, +something of strained eagerness in that part of his face which she +could see from where she was sitting. His cheek was not pale, as she +had thought at first, but brown, obviously burnt by the sun of Africa. +But she felt that underneath the sunburn there was pallor. She fancied +he might be a painter, and was noting all the extraordinary colour +effects with the definiteness of a man who meant, perhaps, to +reproduce them on canvas. + +The light, which had now the peculiar, almost supernatural softness +and limpidity of light falling at evening from a declining sun in a +hot country, came full upon him, and brightened his hair. Domini saw +that it was brown with some chestnut in it, thick, and cut extremely +short, as if his head had recently been shaved. She felt convinced +that he was not French. He might be an Austrian, perhaps, or a Russian +from the south of Russia. He remained motionless in that attitude of +profound observation. It suggested great force not merely of body, but +also of mind, an almost abnormal concentration upon the thing +observed. This was a man who could surely shut out the whole world to +look at a grain of sand, if he thought it beautiful or interesting. + +They were near Beni-Mora now. Its palms appeared far off, and in the +midst of them a snow-white tower. The Sahara lay beyond and around it, +rolling away from the foot of low, brown hills, that looked as if they +had been covered with a soft powder of bronze. A long spur of rose- +coloured mountains stretched away towards the south. The sun was very +near his setting. Small, red clouds floated in the western quarter of +the sky, and the far desert was becoming mysteriously dim and blue, +like a remote sea. Here and there thin wreaths of smoke ascended from +it, and lights glittered in it, like earth-bound stars. + +Domini had never before understood how strangely, how strenuously, +colour can at moments appeal to the imagination. In this pageant of +the East she saw arise the naked soul of Africa; no faded, gentle +thing, fearful of being seen, fearful of being known and understood; +but a phenomenon vital, bold and gorgeous, like the sound of a trumpet +pealing a great /reveille/. As she looked on this flaming land laid +fearlessly bare before her, disdaining the clothing of grass, plant +and flower, of stream and tree, displaying itself with an almost +brazen /insouciance/, confident in its spacious power, and in its +golden pride, her heart leaped up as if in answer to a deliberate +appeal. The fatigue in her died. She responded to this /reveille/ like +a young warrior who, so soon as he is wakened, stretches out his hand +for his sword. The sunset flamed on her clear, white cheeks, giving +them its hue of life. And her nature flamed to meet it. In the huge +spaces of the Sahara her soul seemed to hear the footsteps of Freedom +treading towards the south. And all her dull perplexities, all her +bitterness of /ennui/, all her questionings and doubts, were swept +away on the keen desert wind into the endless plains. She had come +from her last confession asking herself, "What am I?" She had felt +infinitely small confronted with the pettiness of modern, civilised +life in a narrow, crowded world. Now she did not torture herself with +any questions, for she knew that something large, something capable, +something perhaps even noble, rose up within her to greet all this +nobility, all this mighty frankness and fierce, undressed sincerity of +nature. This desert and this sun would be her comrades, and she was +not afraid of them. + +Without being aware of it she breathed out a great sigh, feeling the +necessity of liberating her joy of spirit, of letting the body, +however inadequately and absurdly, make some demonstration in response +to the secret stirring of the soul. The man in the far corner of the +carriage turned and looked at her. When she heard this movement Domini +remembered her irritation against him at El-Akbara. In this splendid +moment the feeling seemed to her so paltry and contemptible that she +had a lively impulse to make amends for the angry look she had cast at +him. Possibly, had she been quite normal, she would have checked such +an impulse. The voice of conventionality would have made itself heard. +But Domini could act vigorously, and quite carelessly, when she was +moved. And she was deeply moved now, and longed to lavish the +humanity, the sympathy and ardour that were quick in her. In answer to +the stranger's movement she turned towards him, opening her lips to +speak to him. Afterwards she never knew what she meant to say, +whether, if she had spoken, the words would have been French or +English. For she did not speak. + +The man's face was illuminated by the setting sun as he sat half round +on his seat, leaning with his right hand palm downwards on the +cushions. The light glittered on his short hair. He had pushed back +his soft hat, and exposed his high, rugged forehead to the air, and +his brown left hand gripped the top of the carriage door. The large, +knotted veins on it, the stretched sinews, were very perceptible. The +hand looked violent. Domini's eyes fell on it as she turned. The +impulse to speak began to fail, and when she glanced up at the man's +face she no longer felt it at all. For, despite the glory of the +sunset on him, there seemed to be a cold shadow in his eyes. The faint +lines near his mouth looked deeper than before, and now suggested most +powerfully the dreariness, the harshness of long-continued suffering. +The mouth itself was compressed and grim, and the man's whole +expression was fierce and startling as the expression of a criminal +bracing himself to endure inevitable detection. So crude and piercing +indeed was this mask confronting her that Domini started and was +inclined to shudder. For a minute the man's eyes held hers, and she +thought she saw in them unfathomable depths of misery or of +wickedness. She hardly knew which. Sorrow was like crime, and crime +like the sheer desolation of grief to her just then. And she thought +of the outer darkness spoken of in the Bible. It came before her in +the sunset. Her father was in it, and this stranger stood by him. The +thing was as vital, and fled as swiftly as a hallucination in a +madman's brain. + +Domini looked down. All the triumph died out in her, all the exquisite +consciousness of the freedom, the colour, the bigness of life. For +there was a black spot on the sun--humanity, God's mistake in the +great plan of Creation. And the shadow cast by humanity tempered, even +surely conquered, the light. She wondered whether she would always +feel the cold of the sunless places in the golden dominion of the sun. + +The man had dropped his eyes too. His hand fell from the door to his +knee. He did not move till the train ran into Beni-Mora, and the eager +faces of countless Arabs stared in upon them from the scorched field +of manoeuvres where Spahis were exercising in the gathering twilight. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Having given her luggage ticket to a porter, Domini passed out of the +station followed by Suzanne, who looked and walked like an exhausted +marionette. Batouch, who had emerged from a third-class compartment +before the train stopped, followed them closely, and as they reached +the jostling crowd of Arabs which swarmed on the roadway he joined +them with the air of a proprietor. + +"Which is Madame's hotel?" + +Domini looked round. + +"Ah, Batouch!" + +Suzanne jumped as if her string had been sharply pulled, and cast a +glance of dreary suspicion upon the poet. She looked at his legs, then +upwards. + +He wore white socks which almost met his pantaloons. Scarcely more +than an inch of pale brown skin was visible. The gold buttons of his +jacket glittered brightly. His blue robe floated majestically from his +broad shoulders, and the large tassel of his fez fell coquettishly +towards his left ear, above which was set a pale blue flower with a +woolly green leaf. + +Suzanne was slightly reassured by the flower and the bright buttons. +She felt that they needed a protector in this mob of shouting brown +and black men, who clamoured about them like savages, exposing bare +legs and arms, even bare chests, in a most barbarous manner. + +"We are going to the Hotel du Desert," Domini continued. "Is it far?" + +"Only a few minutes, Madame." + +"I shall like to walk there." + +Suzanne collapsed. Her bones became as wax with apprehension. She saw +herself toiling over leagues of sand towards some nameless hovel. + +"Suzanne, you can get into the omnibus and take the handbags." + +At the sweet word omnibus a ray of hope stole into the maid's heart, +and when a nicely-dressed man, in a long blue coat and indubitable +trousers, assisted her politely into a vehicle which was unmistakable +she almost wept for joy. + +Meanwhile Domini, escorted serenely by the poet, walked towards the +long gardens of Beni-Mora. She passed over a wooden bridge. White dust +was flying from the road, along which many of the Arab aristocracy +were indolently strolling, carrying lightly in their hands small red +roses or sprigs of pink geranium. In their white robes they looked, +she thought, like monks, though the cigarettes many of them were +smoking fought against the illusion. Some of them were dressed like +Batouch in pale-coloured cloth. They held each other's hands loosely +as they sauntered along, chattering in soft contralto voices. Two or +three were attended by servants, who walked a pace or two behind them +on the left. These were members of great families, rulers of tribes, +men who had influence over the Sahara people. One, a shortish man with +a coal-black beard, moved so majestically that he seemed almost a +giant. His face was very pale. On one of his small, almost white, +hands glittered a diamond ring. A boy with a long, hooked nose +strolled gravely near him, wearing brown kid gloves and a turban +spangled with gold. + +"That is the Kaid of Tonga, Madame," whispered Batouch, looking at the +pale man reverently. "He is here /en permission/." + +"How white he is." + +"They tried to poison him. Ever since he is ill inside. That is his +brother. The brown gloves are very chic." + +A light carriage rolled rapidly by them in a white mist of dust. It +was drawn by a pair of white mules, who whisked their long tails as +they trotted briskly, urged on by a cracking whip. A big boy with +heavy brown eyes was the coachman. By his side sat a very tall young +negro with a humorous pointed nose, dressed in primrose yellow. He +grinned at Batouch out of the mist, which accentuated the coal-black +hue of his whimsical, happy face. + +"That is the Agha's son with Mabrouk." + +They turned aside from the road and came into a long tunnel formed by +mimosa trees that met above a broad path. To right and left were other +little paths branching among the trunks of fruit trees and the narrow +twigs of many bushes that grew luxuriantly. Between sandy brown banks, +carefully flattened and beaten hard by the spades of Arab gardeners, +glided streams of opaque water that were guided from the desert by a +system of dams. The Kaid's mill watched over them and the great wall +of the fort. In the tunnel the light was very delicate and tinged with +green. The noise of the water flowing was just audible. A few Arabs +were sitting on benches in dreamy attitudes, with their heelless +slippers hanging from the toes of their bare feet. Beyond the entrance +of the tunnel Domini could see two horsemen galloping at a tremendous +pace into the desert. Their red cloaks streamed out over the sloping +quarters of their horses, which devoured the earth as if in a frenzy +of emulation. They disappeared into the last glories of the sun, which +still lingered on the plain and blazed among the summits of the red +mountains. + +All the contrasts of this land were exquisite to Domini and, in some +mysterious way, suggested eternal things; whispering through colour, +gleam, and shadow, through the pattern of leaf and rock, through the +air, now fresh, now tenderly warm and perfumed, through the silence +that hung like a filmy cloud in the golden heaven. + +She and Batouch entered the tunnel, passing at once into definite +evening. The quiet of these gardens was delicious, and was only +interrupted now and then by the sound of wheels upon the road as a +carriage rolled by to some house which was hidden in the distance of +the oasis. The seated Arabs scarcely disturbed it by their murmured +talk. Many of them indeed said nothing, but rested like lotus-eaters +in graceful attitudes, with hanging hands, and eyes, soft as the eyes +of gazelles, that regarded the shadowy paths and creeping waters with +a grave serenity born of the inmost spirit of idleness. + +But Batouch loved to talk, and soon began a languid monologue. + +He told Domini that he had been in Paris, where he had been the guest +of a French poet who adored the East; that he himself was +"instructed," and not like other Arabs; that he smoked the hashish and +could sing the love songs of the Sahara; that he had travelled far in +the desert, to Souf and to Ouargla beyond the ramparts of the Dunes; +that he composed verses in the night when the uninstructed, the +brawlers, the drinkers of absinthe and the domino players were +sleeping or wasting their time in the darkness over the pastimes of +the lewd, when the sybarites were sweating under the smoky arches of +the Moorish baths, and the /marechale/ of the dancing-girls sat in her +flat-roofed house guarding the jewels and the amulets of her gay +confederation. These verses were written both in Arabic and in French, +and the poet of Paris and his friends had found them beautiful as the +dawn, and as the palm trees of Ourlana by the Artesian wells. All the +girls of the Ouled Nails were celebrated in these poems--Aishoush and +Irena, Fatma and Baali. In them also were enshrined legends of the +venerable marabouts who slept in the Paradise of Allah, and tales of +the great warriors who had fought above the rocky precipices of +Constantine and far off among the sands of the South. They told the +stories of the Koulouglis, whose mothers were Moorish slaves, and +romances in which figured the dark-skinned Beni M'Zab and the freed +negroes who had fled away from the lands in the very heart of the sun. + +All this information, not wholly devoid of a naive egoism, Batouch +poured forth gently and melodiously as they walked through the +twilight in the tunnel. And Domini was quite content to listen. The +strange names the poet mentioned, his liquid pronunciation of them, +his allusions to wild events that had happened long ago in desert +places, and to the lives of priests of his old religion, of fanatics, +and girls who rode on camels caparisoned in red to the dancing-houses +of Sahara cities--all these things cradled her humour at this moment +and seemed to plant her, like a mimosa tree, deep down in this sand +garden of the sun. + +She had forgotten her bitter sensation in the railway carriage when it +was recalled to her mind by an incident that clashed with her present +mood. + +Steps sounded on the path behind them, going faster than they were, +and presently Domini saw her fellow-traveller striding along, +accompanied by a young Arab who was carrying the green bag. The +stranger was looking straight before him down the tunnel, and he went +by swiftly. But his guide had something to say to Batouch, and altered +his pace to keep beside them for a moment. He was a very thin, lithe, +skittish-looking youth, apparently about twenty-three years old, with +a chocolate-brown skin, high cheek bones, long, almond-shaped eyes +twinkling with dissipated humour, and a large mouth that smiled +showing pointed white teeth. A straggling black moustache sprouted on +his upper lip, and long coarse strands of jet-black hair escaped from +under the front of a fez that was pushed back on his small head. His +neck was thin and long, and his hands were wonderfully delicate and +expressive, with rosy and quite perfect nails. When he laughed he had +a habit of throwing his head forward and tucking in his chin, letting +the tassel of his fez fall over his temple to left or right. He was +dressed in white with a burnous, and had a many-coloured piece of silk +with frayed edges wound about his waist, which was as slim as a young +girl's. + +He spoke to Batouch with intense vivacity in Arabic, at the same time +shooting glances half-obsequious, half-impudent, wholly and even +preternaturally keen and intelligent at Domini. Batouch replied with +the dignified languor that seemed peculiar to him. The colloquy +continued for two or three minutes. Domini thought it sounded like a +quarrel, but she was not accustomed to Arabs' talk. Meanwhile, the +stranger in front had slackened his pace, and was obviously lingering +for his neglectful guide. Once or twice he nearly stopped, and made a +movement as if to turn round. But he checked it and went on slowly. +His guide spoke more and more vehemently, and suddenly, tucking in his +chin and displaying his rows of big and dazzling teeth, burst into a +gay and boyish laugh, at the same time shaking his head rapidly. Then +he shot one last sly look at Domini and hurried on, airily swinging +the green bag to and fro. His arms had tiny bones, but they were +evidently strong, and he walked with the light ease of a young animal. +After he had gone he turned his head once and stared full at Domini. +She could not help laughing at the vanity and consciousness of his +expression. It was childish. Yet there was something ruthless and +wicked in it too. As he came up to the stranger the latter looked +round, said something to him, and then hastened forward. Domini was +struck by the difference between their gaits. For the stranger, +although he was so strongly built and muscular, walked rather heavily +and awkwardly, with a peculiar shuffling motion of his feet. She began +to wonder how old he was. About thirty-five or thirty-seven, she +thought. + +"That is Hadj," said Batouch in his soft, rich voice. + +"Hadj?" + +"Yes. He is my cousin. He lives in Beni-Mora, but he, too, has been in +Paris. He has been in prison too." + +"What for?" + +"Stabbing." + +Batouch gave this piece of information with quiet indifference, and +continued + +"He likes to laugh. He is lazy. He has earned a great deal of money, +and now he has none. To-night he is very gay, because he has a +client." + +"I see. Then he is a guide?" + +"Many people in Beni-Mora are guides. But Hadj is always lucky in +getting the English." + +"That man with him isn't English!" Domini exclaimed. + +She had wondered what the traveller's nationality was, but it had +never occurred to her that it might be the same as her own. + +"Yes, he is. And he is going to the Hotel du Desert. You and he are +the only English here, and almost the only travellers. It is too early +for many travellers yet. They fear the heat. And besides, few English +come here now. What a pity! They spend money, and like to see +everything. Hadj is very anxious to buy a costume at Tunis for the +great /fete/ at the end of Ramadan. It will cost fifty or sixty +francs. He hopes the Englishman is rich. But all the English are rich +and generous." + +Here Batouch looked steadily at Domini with his large, unconcerned +eyes. + +"This one speaks Arabic a little." + +Domini made no reply. She was surprised by this piece of information. +There was something, she thought, essentially un-English about the +stranger. He was certainly not dressed by an English tailor. But it +was not only that which had caused her mistake. His whole air and +look, his manner of holding himself, of sitting, of walking--yes, +especially of walking--were surely foreign. Yet, when she came to +think about it, she could not say that they were characteristic of any +other country. Idly she had said to herself that the stranger might be +an Austrian or a Russian. But she had been thinking of his colouring. +It happened that two /attaches/ of those two nations, whom she had met +frequently in London, had hair of that shade of rather warm brown. + +"He does not look like an Englishman," she said presently. + +"He can talk in French and in Arabic, but Hadj says he is English." + +"How should Hadj know?" + +"Because he has the eyes of the jackal, and has been with many +English. We are getting near to the Catholic church, Madame. You will +see it through the trees. And there is Monsieur the Cure coming +towards us. He is coming from his house, which is near the hotel." + +At some distance in the twilight of the tunnel Domini saw a black +figure in a soutane walking very slowly towards them. The stranger, +who had been covering the ground rapidly with his curious, shuffling +stride, was much nearer to it than they were, and, if he kept on at +his present pace, would soon pass it. But suddenly Domini saw him +pause and hesitate. He bent down and seemed to be doing something to +his boot. Hadj dropped the green bag, and was evidently about to kneel +down, and assist him when he lifted himself up abruptly and looked +before him, as if at the priest who was approaching, then turned +sharply to the right into a path which led out of the garden to the +arcades of the Rue Berthe. Hadj followed, gesticulating frantically, +and volubly explaining that the hotel was in the opposite direction. +But the stranger did not stop. He only glanced swiftly back over his +shoulder once, and then continued on his way. + +"What a funny man that is!" said Batouch. "What does he want to do?" + +Domini did not answer him, for the priest was just passing them, and +she saw the church to the left among the trees. It was a plain, +unpretending building, with a white wooden door set in an arch. Above +the arch were a small cross, two windows with rounded tops, a clock, +and a white tower with a pink roof. She looked at it, and at the +priest, whose face was dark and meditative, with lustrous, but sad, +brown eyes. Yet she thought of the stranger. + +Her attention was beginning to be strongly fixed upon the unknown man. +His appearance and manner were so unusual that it was impossible not +to notice him. + +"There is the hotel, Madame!" said Batouch. + +Domini saw it standing at right angles to the church, facing the +gardens. A little way back from the church was the priest's house, a +white building shaded by date palms and pepper trees. As they drew +near the stranger reappeared under the arcade, above which was the +terrace of the hotel. He vanished through the big doorway, followed by +Hadj. + +While Suzanne was unpacking Domini came out on to the broad terrace +which ran along the whole length of the Hotel du Desert. Her bedroom +opened on to it in front, and at the back communicated with a small +salon. This salon opened on to a second and smaller terrace, from +which the desert could be seen beyond the palms. There seemed to be no +guests in the hotel. The verandah was deserted, and the peace of the +soft evening was profound. Against the white parapet a small, round +table and a cane armchair had been placed. A subdued patter of feet in +slippers came up the stairway, and an Arab servant appeared with a +tea-tray. He put it down on the table with the precise deftness which +Domini had already observed in the Arabs at Robertville, and swiftly +vanished. She sat down in the chair and poured out the tea, leaning +her left arm on the parapet. + +Her head was very tired and her temples felt compressed. She was +thankful for the quiet round her. Any harsh voice would have been +intolerable to her just then. There were many sounds in the village, +but they were vague, and mingled, flowing together and composing one +sound that was soothing, the restrained and level voice of Life. It +hummed in Domini's ears as she sipped her tea, and gave an under-side +of romance to the peace. The light that floated in under the round +arches of the terrace was subdued. The sun had just gone down, and the +bright colours bloomed no more upon the mountains, which looked like +silent monsters that had lost the hue of youth and had suddenly become +mysteriously old. The evening star shone in a sky that still held on +its Western border some last pale glimmerings of day, and, at its +signal, many dusky wanderers folded their loose garments round them, +slung their long guns across their shoulders, and prepared to start on +their journey, helped by the cool night wind that blows in the desert +when the sun departs. + +Domini did not know of them, but she felt the near presence of the +desert, and the feeling quieted her nerves. She was thankful at this +moment that she was travelling without any woman friend and was not +persecuted by any sense of obligation. In her fatigue, to rest passive +in the midst of quiet, and soft light, calm in the belief, almost the +certainty, that this desert village contained no acquaintance to +disturb her, was to know all the joy she needed for the moment. She +drank it in dreamily. Liberty had always been her fetish. What woman +had more liberty than she had, here on this lonely verandah, with the +shadowy trees below? + +The bell of the church near by chimed softly, and the familiar sound +fell strangely upon Domini's ears out here in Africa, reminding her of +many sorrows. Her religion was linked with terrible memories, with +cruel struggles, with hateful scenes of violence. Lord Rens had been a +man of passionate temperament. Strong in goodness when he had been led +by love, he had been equally strong in evil when hate had led him. +Domini had been forced to contemplate at close quarters the raw +character of a warped man, from whom circumstance had stripped all +tenderness, nearly all reticence. The terror of truth was known to +her. She had shuddered before it, but she had been obliged to watch it +during many years. In coming to Beni-Mora she had had a sort of vague, +and almost childish, feeling that she was putting the broad sea +between herself and it. Yet before she had started it had been buried +in the grave. She never wished to behold such truth again. She wanted +to look upon some other truth of life--the truth of beauty, of calm, +of freedom. Lord Rens had always been a slave, the slave of love, most +of all when he was filled with hatred, and Domini, influenced by his +example, instinctively connected love with a chain. Only the love a +human being has for God seemed to her sometimes the finest freedom; +the movement of the soul upward into the infinite obedient to the call +of the great Liberator. The love of man for woman, of woman for man, +she thought of as imprisonment, bondage. Was not her mother a slave to +the man who had wrecked her life and carried her spirit beyond the +chance of heaven? Was not her father a slave to her mother? She shrank +definitely from the contemplation of herself loving, with all the +strength she suspected in her heart, a human being. In her religion +only she had felt in rare moments something of love. And now here, in +this tremendous and conquering land, she felt a divine stirring in her +love for Nature. For that afternoon Nature, so often calm and +meditative, or gently indifferent, as one too complete to be aware of +those who lack completeness, had impetuously summoned her to worship, +had ardently appealed to her for something more than a temperate +watchfulness or a sober admiration. There had been a most definite +demand made upon her. Even in her fatigue and in this dreamy twilight +she was conscious of a latent excitement that was not lulled to sleep. + +And as she sat there, while the darkness grew in the sky and spread +secretly along the sandy rills among the trees, she wondered how much +she held within her to give in answer to this cry to her of self- +confident Nature. Was it only a little? She did not know. Perhaps she +was too tired to know. But however much it was it must seem meagre. +What is even a woman's heart given to the desert or a woman's soul to +the sea? What is the worship of anyone to the sunset among the hills, +or to the wind that lifts all the clouds from before the face of the +moon? + +A chill stole over Domini. She felt like a very poor woman, who can +never know the joy of giving, because she does not possess even a +mite. + +The church bell chimed again among the palms. Domini heard voices +quite clearly below her under the arcade. A French cafe was installed +there, and two or three soldiers were taking their /aperitif/ before +dinner out in the air. They were talking of France, as people in exile +talk of their country, with the deliberateness that would conceal +regret and the child's instinctive affection for the mother. Their +voices made Domini think again of the recruits, and then, because of +them, of Notre Dame de la Garde, the mother of God, looking towards +Africa. She remembered the tragedy of her last confession. Would she +be able to confess here to the Father whom she had seen strolling in +the tunnel? Would she learn to know here what she really was? + +How warm it was in the night, and how warmth, as it develops the +fecundity of the earth, develops also the possibilities in many men +and women. Despite her lassitude of body, which kept her motionless as +an idol in her chair, with her arm lying along the parapet of the +verandah, Domini felt as if a confused crowd of things indefinable, +but violent, was already stirring within her nature, as if this new +climate was calling armed men into being. Could she not hear the +murmur of their voices, the distant clashing of their weapons? + +Without being aware of it she was dropping into sleep. The sound of a +footstep on the wooden floor of the verandah recalled her. It was at +some distance behind her. It crossed the verandah and stopped. She +felt quite certain that it was the step of her fellow-traveller, not +because she knew he was staying in the hotel, but rather because of +the curious, uneven heaviness of the tread. + +What was he doing? Looking over the parapet into the fruit gardens, +where the white figures of the Arabs were flitting through the trees? + +He was perfectly silent. Domini was now wide awake. The feeling of +calm serenity had left her. She was nervously troubled by this +presence near her, and swiftly recalled the few trifling incidents of +the day which had begun to delineate a character for her. They were, +she found, all unpleasant, all, at least, faintly disagreeable. Yet, +in sum, what was their meaning? The sketch they traced was so slight, +so confused, that it told little. The last incident was the strangest. +And again she saw the long and luminous pathway of the tunnel, +flickering with light and shade, carpeted with the pale reflections of +the leaves and narrow branches of the trees, the black figure of the +priest far down it, and the tall form of the stranger in an attitude +of painful hesitation. Each time she had seen him, apparently desirous +of doing something definite, hesitation had overtaken him. In his +indecision there was something horrible to her, something alarming. + +She wished he was not standing behind her, and her discomfort +increased. She could still hear the voices of the soldiers in the +cafe. Perhaps he was listening to them. They sounded louder. + +The speakers were getting up from their seats. There was a jingling of +spurs, a tramp of feet, and the voices died away. The church bell +chimed again. As it did so Domini heard heavy and uneven steps cross +the verandah hurriedly. An instant later she heard a window shut +sharply. + +"Suzanne!" she called. + +Her maid appeared, yawning, with various parcels in her hands. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle." + +"I sha'n't go down to the /salle-a-manger/ to-night. Tell them to give +me some dinner in my /salon/." + +"Yes, Mademoiselle." + +"You did not see who was on the verandah just now?" + +The maid looked surprised. + +"I was in Mademoiselle's room." + +"Yes. How near the church is." + +"Mademoiselle will have no difficulty in getting to Mass. She will not +be obliged to go among all the Arabs." + +Domini smiled. + +"I have come here to be among the Arabs, Suzanne." + +"The porter of the omnibus tells me they are dirty and very dangerous. +They carry knives, and their clothes are full of fleas." + +"You will feel quite differently about them in the morning. Don't +forget about dinner." + +"I will speak about it at once, Mademoiselle." + +Suzanne disappeared, walking as one who suspects an ambush. + +After dinner Domini went again to the verandah. She found Batouch +there. He had now folded a snow-white turban round his head, and +looked like a young high priest of some ornate religion. He suggested +that Domini should come out with him to visit the Rue des Ouled Nails +and see the strange dances of the Sahara. But she declined. + +"Not to-night, Batouch. I must go to bed. I haven't slept for two +nights." + +"But I do not sleep, Madame. In the night I compose verses. My brain +is alive. My heart is on fire." + +"Yes, but I am not a poet. Besides, I may be here for a long time. I +shall have many evenings to see the dances." + +The poet looked displeased. + +"The gentleman is going," he said. "Hadj is at the door waiting for +him now. But Hadj is afraid when he enters the street of the dancers." + +"Why?" + +"There is a girl there who wishes to kill him. Her name is Aishoush. +She was sent away from Beni-Mora for six months, but she has come +back, and after all this time she still wishes to kill Hadj." + +"What has he done to her?" + +"He has not loved her. Yes, Hadj is afraid, but he will go with the +gentleman because he must earn money to buy a costume for the /fete/ +of Ramadan. I also wish to buy a new costume." + +He looked at Domini with a dignified plaintiveness. His pose against +the pillar of the verandah was superb. Over his blue cloth jacket he +had thrown a thin white burnous, which hung round him in classic +folds. Domini could scarcely believe that so magnificent a creature +was touting for a franc. The idea certainly did occur to her, but she +banished it. For she was a novice in Africa. + +"I am too tired to go out to-night," she said decisively. + +"Good-night, Madame. I shall be here to-morrow morning at seven +o'clock. The dawn in the garden of the gazelles is like the flames of +Paradise, and you can see the Spahis galloping upon horses that are +beautiful as--" + +"I shall not get up early to-morrow." + +Batouch assumed an expression that was tragically submissive and +turned to go. Just then Suzanne appeared at the French window of her +bedroom. She started as she perceived the poet, who walked slowly past +her to the staircase, throwing his burnous back from his big +shoulders, and stood looking after him. Her eyes fixed themselves upon +the section of bare leg that was visible above his stockings white as +the driven snow, and a faintly sentimental expression mingled with +their defiance and alarm. + +Domini got up from her chair and leaned over the parapet. A streak of +yellow light from the doorway of the hotel lay upon the white road +below, and in a moment she saw two figures come out from beneath the +verandah and pause there. Hadj was one, the stranger was the other. +The stranger struck a match and tried to light a cigar, but failed. He +struck another match, and then another, but still the cigar would not +draw. Hadj looked at him with mischievous astonishment. + +"If Monsieur will permit me--" he began. + +But the stranger took the cigar hastily from his mouth and flung it +away. + +"I don't want to smoke," Domini heard him say in French. + +Then he walked away with Hadj into the darkness. + +As they disappeared Domini heard a faint shrieking in the distance. It +was the music of the African hautboy. + +The night was marvellously dry and warm. The thickly growing trees in +the garden scarcely moved. It was very still and very dark. Suzanne, +standing at her window, looked like a shadow in her black dress. Her +attitude was romantic. Perhaps the subtle influence of this Sahara +village was beginning to steal even over her obdurate spirit. + +The hautboy went on crying. Its notes, though faint, were sharp and +piercing. Once more the church bell chimed among the date palms, and +the two musics, with their violently differing associations, clashing +together smote upon Domini's heart with a sense of trouble, almost of +tragedy. The pulses in her temples throbbed, and she clasped her hands +tightly together. That brief moment, in which she heard the duet of +those two voices, was one of the most interesting, yet also one of the +most painful she had ever known. The church bell was silent now, but +the hautboy did not cease. It was barbarous and provocative, shrill +with a persistent triumph. + +Domini went to bed early, but she could not sleep. Just before +midnight she heard someone walking up and down on the verandah. The +step was heavy and shuffling. It came and went, came and went, without +pause till she was in a fever of uneasiness. Only when two chimed from +the church did it cease at last. + +She whispered a prayer to Notre Dame de la Garde, The Blessed Virgin, +looking towards Africa. For the first time she felt the loneliness of +her situation and that she was far away. + + + +CHAPTER V + +Towards morning Domini slept. It was nearly eight o'clock when she +awoke. The room was full of soft light which told of the sun outside, +and she got up at once, put on a pair of slippers and opened the +French window on to the verandah. Already Beni-Mora was bathed in +golden beams and full of gentle activities. A flock of goats pattered +by towards the edge of the oasis. The Arab gardeners were lazily +sweeping small leaves from the narrow paths under the mimosa and +pepper trees. Soldiers in loose white suits, dark blue sashes and the +fez, were hastening from the Fort towards the market. A distant bugle +rang out and the snarl of camels was audible from the village. Domini +stood on the verandah for a moment, drinking in the desert air. It +made her feel very pure and clean, as if she had just bathed in clear +water. She looked up at the limpid sky, which seemed full of hope and +of the power to grant blessings, and she was glad that she had come to +Beni-Mora. Her lonely sensation of the previous night had gone. As she +stood in the sun she was conscious that she needed re-creation and +that here she might find it. The radiant sky, the warm sun and the +freedom of the coming day and of many coming desert days, filled her +heart with an almost childish sensation. She felt younger than she had +felt for years, and even foolishly innocent, like a puppy dog or a +kitten. Her thick black hair, unbound, fell in a veil round her +strong, active body, and she had the rare consciousness that behind +that other more mysterious veil her soul was to-day a less unfit +companion for its mate than it had been since her mother's sin. + +Cleanliness--what a blessed condition that was, a condition to breed +bravery. In this early morning hour Beni-Mora looked magically clean. +Domini thought of the desperate dirt of London mornings, of the sooty +air brooding above black trees and greasy pavements. Surely it was +difficult to be clean of soul there. Here it would be easy. One would +tune one's lyre in accord with Nature and be as a singing palm tree +beside a water-spring. She took up a little vellum-bound book which +she had laid at night upon her dressing-table. It was /Of the +Imitation of Christ/, and she opened it at haphazard and glanced down +on a sunlit page. Her eyes fell on these words: + + "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." + +The sunlight on the page of the little book was like the vivid flame +and the burning torch spoken of in it. Heat, light, a fierce vitality. +Domini had been weary so long, weary of soul, that she was almost +startled to find herself responding quickly to the sacred passion on +the page, to the bright beam that kissed it as twin kisses twin. She +knelt down to say her morning prayer, but all she could whisper was: + +"O, God, renew me. O, God, renew me. Give me power to feel, keenly, +fiercely, even though I suffer. Let me wake. Let me feel. Let me be a +living thing once more. O, God, renew me, renew me!" + +While she prayed she pressed her face so hard against her hands that +patches of red came upon her cheeks. And afterwards it seemed to her +as if her first real, passionate prayer in Beni-Mora had been almost +like a command to God. Was not such a fierce prayer perhaps a +blasphemy? + +She rose from that prayer to the first of her new days. + +After breakfast she looked over the edge of the verandah and saw +Batouch and Hadj squatting together in the shadow of the trees below. +They were smoking cigarettes and talking eagerly. Their conversation, +which was in Arabic, sounded violent. The accented words were like +blows. Domini had not looked over the parapet for more than a minute +before the two guides saw her and rose smiling to their feet. + +"I am waiting to show the village to Madame," said Batouch, coming out +softly into the road, while Hadj remained under the trees, exposing +his teeth in a sarcastic grin, which plainly enough conveyed to Domini +his pity for her sad mistake in not engaging him as her attendant. + +Domini nodded, went back into her room and put on a shady hat. Suzanne +handed her a large parasol lined with green, and she descended the +stairs rather slowly. She was not sure whether she wanted a companion +in her first walk about Beni-Mora. There would be more savour of +freedom in solitude. Yet she had hardly the heart to dismiss Batouch, +with all his dignity and determination. She resolved to take him for a +little while and then to get rid of him on some pretext. Perhaps she +would make some purchases in the bazaars and send him to the hotel +with them. + +"Madame has slept well?" asked the poet as she emerged into the sun. + +"Pretty well," she answered, nodding again to Hadj, whose grin became +more mischievous, and opening her parasol. "Where are we going?" + +"Wherever Madame wishes. There is the market, the negro village, the +mosque, the casino, the statue of the Cardinal, the bazaars, the +garden of the Count Ferdinand Anteoni." + +"A garden," said Domini. "Is it a beautiful one?" + +Batouch was about to burst into a lyric ecstasy, but he checked +himself and said: + +"Madame shall see for herself and tell me afterwards if in all Europe +there is one such garden." + +"Oh, the English gardens are wonderful," she said, smiling at his +patriotic conceit. + +"No doubt. Madame shall tell me, Madame shall tell me," he repeated +with imperturbable confidence. + +"But first I wish to go for a moment into the church," she said. "Wait +for me here, Batouch." + +She crossed the road, passed the modest, one-storied house of the +priest, and came to the church, which looked out on to the quiet +gardens. Before going up the steps and in at the door she paused for a +moment. There was something touching to her, as a Catholic, in this +symbol of her faith set thus far out in the midst of Islamism. The +cross was surely rather lonely, here, raised above the white-robed men +to whom it meant nothing. She was conscious that since she had come to +this land of another creed, and of another creed held with fanaticism, +her sentiment for her own religion, which in England for many years +had been but lukewarm, had suddenly gained in strength. She had an +odd, almost manly, sensation that it was her duty in Africa to stand +up for her faith, not blatantly in words to impress others, but +perseveringly in heart to satisfy herself. Sometimes she felt very +protective. She felt protective today as she looked at this humble +building, which she likened to one of the poor saints of the Thebaid, +who dwelt afar in desert places, and whose devotions were broken by +the night-cries of jackals and by the roar of ravenous beasts. With +this feeling strong upon her she pushed open the door and went in. + +The interior was plain, even ugly. The walls were painted a hideous +drab. The stone floor was covered with small, hard, straw-bottomed +chairs and narrow wooden forms for the patient knees of worshippers. +In the front were two rows of private chairs, with velvet cushions of +various brilliant hues and velvet-covered rails. On the left was a +high stone pulpit. The altar, beyond its mean black and gold railing, +was dingy and forlorn. On it there was a tiny gold cross with a gold +statuette of Christ hanging, surmounted by a canopy with four pillars, +which looked as if made of some unwholesome sweetmeat. Long candles of +blue and gold and bouquets of dusty artificial flowers flanked it. +Behind it, in a round niche, stood a painted figure of Christ holding +a book. The two adjacent side chapels had domed roofs representing the +firmament. Beneath the pulpit stood a small harmonium. At the opposite +end of the church was a high gallery holding more chairs. The mean, +featureless windows were filled with glass half white, half staring +red dotted with yellow crosses. Round the walls were reliefs of the +fourteen stations of the Cross in white plaster on a gilt ground +framed in grey marble. From the roof hung vulgar glass chandeliers +with ropes tied with faded pink ribands. Several frightful plaster +statues daubed with scarlet and chocolate brown stood under the +windows, which were protected with brown woollen curtains. Close to +the entrance were a receptacle for holy water in the form of a shell, +and a confessional of stone flanked by boxes, one of which bore the +words, "Graces obtenues," the other, "Demandes," and a card on which +was printed, "Litanies en honneur de Saint Antoine de Padoue." + +There was nothing to please the eye, nothing to appeal to the senses. +There was not even the mystery which shrouds and softens, for the +sunshine streamed in through the white glass of the windows, +revealing, even emphasising, as if with deliberate cruelty, the cheap +finery, the tarnished velvet, the crude colours, the meretricious +gestures and poses of the plaster saints. Yet as Domini touched her +forehead and breast with holy water, and knelt for a moment on the +stone floor, she was conscious that this rather pitiful house of God +moved her to an emotion she had not felt in the great and beautiful +churches to which she was accustomed in England and on the Continent. +Through the windows she saw the outlines of palm leaves vibrating in +the breeze; African fingers, feeling, with a sort of fluttering +suspicion, if not enmity, round the heart of this intruding religion, +which had wandered hither from some distant place, and, stayed, +confronting the burning glance of the desert. Bold, little, humble +church! Domini knew that she would love it. But she did not know then +how much. + +She wandered round slowly with a grave face. Yet now and then, as she +stood by one of the plaster saints, she smiled. They were indeed +strange offerings at the shrine of Him who held this Africa in the +hollow of His hand, of Him who had ordered the pageant of the sun +which she had seen last night among the mountains. And presently she +and this little church in which she stood alone became pathetic in her +thoughts, and even the religion which the one came to profess in the +other pathetic too. For here, in Africa, she began to realise the +wideness of the world, and that many things must surely seem to the +Creator what these plaster saints seemed just then to her. + +"Oh, how little, how little!" she whispered to herself. "Let me be +bigger! Oh, let me grow, and here, not only hereafter!" + +The church door creaked. She turned her head and saw the priest whom +she had met in the tunnel entering. He came up to her at once, saluted +her, and said: + +"I saw you from my window, Madame, and thought I would offer to show +you our little church here. We are very proud of it." + +Domini liked his voice and his naive remark. His face, too, though +undistinguished, looked honest, kind, and pathetic, but with a pathos +that was unaffected and quite unconscious. The lower part of it was +hidden by a moustache and beard. + +"Thank you," she answered. "I have been looking round already." + +"You are a Catholic, Madame?" + +"Yes." + +The priest looked pleased. There was something childlike in the +mobility of his face. + +"I am glad," he said simply. "We are not a rich community in Beni- +Mora, but we have been fortunate in bygone years. Our great Cardinal, +the Father of Africa, loved this place and cherished his children +here." + +"Cardinal Lavigerie?" + +"Yes, Madame. His house is now a native hospital. His statue faces the +beginning of the great desert road, But we remember him and his spirit +is still among us." + +The priest's eyes lit up as he spoke. The almost tragic expression of +his face changed to one of enthusiasm. + +"He loved Africa, I believe," Domini said. + +"His heart was here. And what he did! I was to have been one of his +/freres armes/, but my health prevented, and afterwards the +association was dissolved." + +The sad expression returned to his face. + +"There are many temptations in such a land and climate as this," he +said. "And men are weak. But there are still the White Fathers whom he +founded. Glorious men. They carry the Cross into the wildest places of +the world. The most fanatical Arabs respect the White Marabouts." + +"You wish you were with them?" + +"Yes, Madame. But my health only permits me to be a humble parish +priest here. Not all who desire to enter the most severe life can do +so. If it were otherwise I should long since have been a monk. The +Cardinal himself showed me that my duty lay in other paths." + +He pointed out to Domini one or two things in the church which he +admired and thought worthy; the carving of the altar rail into grapes, +ears of corn, crosses, anchors; the white embroidered muslin that +draped the tabernacle; the statue of a bishop in a red and gold mitre +holding a staff and Bible, and another statue representing a saint +with a languid and consumptive expression stretching out a Bible, on +the leaves of which a tiny, smiling child was walking. + +As they were about to leave the church he made Domini pause in front +of a painting of Saint Bruno dressed in a white monkish robe, beneath +which was written in gilt letters: + + "Saint Bruno ordonne a ses disciples + De renoncer aux biens terrestres + Pour acquerir les biens celestes." + +The disciples stood around the saint in grotesque attitudes of pious +attention. + +"That, I think, is very beautiful," he said. "Who could look at it +without feeling that the greatest act of man is renunciation?" + +His dark eyes flamed. Just then a faint soprano bark came to them from +outside the church door, a very discreet and even humble, but at the +same time anxious, bark. The priest's face changed. The almost +passionate asceticism of it was replaced by a soft and gentle look. + +"Bous-Bous wants me," he said, and he opened the door for Domini to +pass out. + +A small white and yellow dog, very clean and well brushed, was sitting +on the step in an attentive attitude. Directly the priest appeared it +began to wag its short tail violently and to run round his feet, +curving its body into semi-circles. He bent down and patted it. + +"My little companion, Madame," he said. "He was not with me yesterday, +as he was being washed." + +Then he took off his hat and walked towards his house, accompanied by +Bous-Bous, who had suddenly assumed an air of conscious majesty, as of +one born to preside over the fate of an important personage. + +Domini stood for a moment under the palm trees looking after them. +There was a steady shining in her eyes. + +"Madame is a Catholic too?" asked Batouch, staring steadily at her. + +Domini nodded. She did not want to discuss religion with an Arab minor +poet just then. + +"Take me to the market," she said, mindful of her secret resolve to +get rid of her companion as soon as possible. + +They set out across the gardens. + +It was a celestial day. All the clear, untempered light of the world +seemed to have made its home in Beni-Mora. Yet the heat was not +excessive, for the glorious strength of the sun was robbed of its +terror, its possible brutality, by the bright and feathery dryness and +coolness of the airs. She stepped out briskly. Her body seemed +suddenly to become years younger, full of elasticity and radiant +strength. + +"Madame is very strong. Madame walks like a Bedouin." + +Batouch's voice sounded seriously astonished, and Domini burst out +laughing. + +"In England there are many strong women. But I shall grow stronger +here. I shall become a real Arab. This air gives me life." + +They were just reaching the road when there was a clatter of hoofs, +and a Spahi, mounted on a slim white horse, galloped past at a +tremendous pace, holding his reins high above the red peak of his +saddle and staring up at the sun. Domini looked after him with +critical admiration. + +"You've got some good horses here," she said when the Spahi had +disappeared. + +"Madame knows how to ride?" + +She laughed again. + +"I've ridden ever since I was a child." + +"You can buy a fine horse here for sixteen pounds," remarked Batouch, +using the pronoun "tu," as is the custom of the Arabs. + +"Find me a good horse, a horse with spirit, and I'll buy him," Domini +said. "I want to go far out in the desert, far away from everything." + +"You must not go alone." + +"Why not?" + +"There are bandits in the desert." + +"I'll take my revolver," Domini said carelessly. "But I will go +alone." + +They were in sight of the market now, and the hum of voices came to +them, with nasal cries, the whine of praying beggars, and the fierce +braying of donkeys. At the end of the small street in which they were +Domini saw a wide open space, in the centre of which stood a quantity +of pillars supporting a peaked roof. Round the sides of the square +were arcades swarming with Arabs, and under the central roof a mob of +figures came and went, as flies go and come on a piece of meat flung +out into a sunny place. + +"What a quantity of people! Do they all live in Beni-Mora?" she asked. + +"No, they come from all parts of the desert to sell and to buy. But +most of those who sell are Mozabites." + +Little children in bright-coloured rags came dancing round Domini, +holding out their copper-coloured hands, and crying shrilly, "'Msee, +M'dame! 'Msee, M'dame!" A deformed man, who looked like a distorted +beetle, crept round her feet, gazing up at her with eyes that squinted +horribly, and roaring in an imperative voice some Arab formula in +which the words "Allah-el-Akbar" continually recurred. A tall negro, +with a long tuft of hair hanging from his shaven head, followed hard +upon her heels, rolling his bulging eyes, in which two yellow flames +were caught, and trying to engage her attention, though with what +object she could not imagine. From all directions tall men with naked +arms and legs, and fluttering white garments, came slowly towards her, +staring intently at her with lustrous eyes, whose expression seemed to +denote rather a calm and dignified appraisement than any vulgar +curiosity. Boys, with the whitest teeth she had ever beheld, and +flowers above their well-shaped, delicate ears, smiled up at her with +engaging impudence. Her nostrils were filled with a strange crowd of +odours, which came from humanity dressed in woollen garments, from +fruits exposed for sale in rush panniers, from round close bouquets of +roses ringed with tight borders of green leaves, from burning incense +twigs, from raw meat, from amber ornaments and strong perfumes in +glass phials figured with gold attar of rose, orange blossom, geranium +and white lilac. In the shining heat of the sun sounds, scents and +movements mingled, and were almost painfully vivid and full of meaning +and animation. Never had a London mob on some great /fete/ day seemed +so significant and personal to Domini as this little mob of desert +people, come together for the bartering of beasts, the buying of +burnouses, weapons, skins and jewels, grain for their camels, charms +for their women, ripe glistening dates for the little children at home +in the brown earth houses. + +As she made her way slowly through the press, pioneered by Batouch, +who forced a path with great play of his huge shoulders and mighty +arms, she was surprised to find how much at home she felt in the midst +of these fierce and uncivilised-looking people. She had no sense of +shrinking from their contact, no feeling of personal disgust at their +touch. When her eyes chanced to meet any of the bold, inquiring eyes +around her she was inclined to smile as if in recognition of these +children of the sun, who did not seem to her like strangers, despite +the unknown language that struggled fiercely in their throats. +Nevertheless, she did not wish to stay very long among them now. She +was resolved to get a full and delicately complete first impression of +Beni-Mora, and to do that she knew that she must detach herself from +close human contact. She desired the mind's bird's-eye view--a height, +a watchtower and a little solitude. So, when the eager Mozabite +merchants called to her she did not heed them, and even the busy +patter of the informing Batouch fell upon rather listless ears. + +"I sha'n't stay here," she said to him. "But I'll buy some perfumes. +Where can I get them?" + +A thin youth, brooding above a wooden tray close by, held up in his +delicate fingers a long bottle, sealed and furnished with a tiny +label, but Batouch shook his head. + +"For perfumes you must go to Ahmeda, under the arcade." + +They crossed a sunlit space and stood before a dark room, sunk lightly +below the level of the pathway in a deserted corner. Shadows +congregated here, and in the gloom Domini saw a bent white figure +hunched against the blackened wall, and heard an old voice murmuring +like a drowsy bee. The perfume-seller was immersed in the Koran, his +back to the buying world. Batouch was about to call upon him, when +Domini checked the exclamation with a quick gesture. For the first +time the mystery that coils like a great black serpent in the shining +heart of the East startled and fascinated her, a mystery in which +indifference and devotion mingle. The white figure swayed slowly to +and fro, carrying the dull, humming voice with it, and now she seemed +to hear a far-away fanaticism, the bourdon of a fatalism which she +longed to understand. + +"Ahmeda!" + +Batouch shouted. His voice came like a stone from a catapult. The +merchant turned calmly and without haste, showing an aquiline face +covered with wrinkles, tufted with white hairs, lit by eyes that shone +with the cruel expressiveness of a falcon's. After a short colloquy in +Arabic he raised himself from his haunches, and came to the front of +the room, where there was a small wooden counter. He was smiling now +with a grace that was almost feminine. + +"What perfume does Madame desire?" he said in French. + +Domini gazed at him as at a deep mystery, but with the searching +directness characteristic of her, a fearlessness so absolute that it +embarrassed many people. + +"Please give me something that is of the East--not violets, not +lilac." + +"Amber," said Batouch. + +The merchant, still smiling, reached up to a shelf, showing an arm +like a brown twig, and took down a glass bottle covered with red and +green lines. He removed the stopper, made Domini take off her glove, +touched her bare hand with the stopper, then with his forefinger +gently rubbed the drop of perfume which had settled on her skin till +it was slightly red. + +"Now, smell it," he commanded. + +Domini obeyed. The perfume was faintly medicinal, but it filled her +brain with exotic visions. She shut her eyes. Yes, that was a voice of +Africa too. Oh! how far away she was from her old life and hollow +days. The magic carpet had been spread indeed, and she had been wafted +into a strange land where she had all to learn. + +"Please give me some of that," she said. + +The merchant poured the amber into a phial, where it lay like a thread +in the glass, weighed it in a scales and demanded a price. Batouch +began at once to argue with vehemence, but Domini stopped him. + +"Pay him," she said, giving Batouch her purse. + +The perfume-seller took the money with dignity, turned away, squatted +upon his haunches against the blackened wall, and picked up the broad- +leaved volume which lay upon the floor. He swayed gently and +rhythmically to and fro. Then once more the voice of the drowsy bee +hummed in the shadows. The worshipper and the Prophet stood before the +feet of Allah. + +And the woman--she was set afar off, as woman is by white-robed men in +Africa. + +"Now, Batouch, you can carry the perfume to the hotel and I will go to +that garden." + +"Alone? Madame will never find it." + +"I can ask the way." + +"Impossible! I will escort Madame to the gate. There I will wait for +her. Monsieur the Count does not permit the Arabs to enter with +strangers." + +"Very well," Domini said. + +The seller of perfumes had led her towards a dream. She was not +combative, and she would be alone in the garden. As they walked +towards it in the sun, through narrow ways where idle Arabs lounged +with happy aimlessness, Batouch talked of Count Anteoni, the owner of +the garden. + +Evidently the Count was the great personage of Beni-Mora. Batouch +spoke of him with a convinced respect, describing him as fabulously +rich, fabulously generous to the Arabs. + +"He never gives to the French, Madame, but when he is here each +Friday, upon our Sabbath, he comes to the gate with a bag of money in +his hand, and he gives five franc pieces to every Arab who is there." + +"And what is he? French?" + +"He is Italian; but he is always travelling, and he has made gardens +everywhere. He has three in Africa alone, and in one he keeps many +lions. When he travels he takes six Arabs with him. He loves only the +Arabs." + +Domini began to feel interested in this wandering maker of gardens, +who was a pilgrim over the world like Monte Cristo. + +"Is he young?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Married?" + +"Oh, no! He is always alone. Sometimes he comes here and stays for +three months, and is never once seen outside the garden. And sometimes +for a year he never comes to Beni-Mora. But he is here now. Twenty +Arabs are always working in the garden, and at night ten Arabs with +guns are always awake, some in a tent inside the door and some among +the trees. + +"Then there is danger at night?" + +"The garden touches the desert, and those who are in the desert +without arms are as birds in the air without wings." + +They had come out from among the houses now into a broad, straight +road, bordered on the left by land that was under cultivation, by +fruit trees, and farther away by giant palms, between whose trunks +could be seen the stony reaches of the desert and spurs of grey-blue +and faint rose-coloured mountains. On the right was a shady garden +with fountains and stone benches, and beyond stood a huge white palace +built in the Moorish style, and terraced roofs and a high tower +ornamented with green and peacock-blue tiles. In the distance, among +more palms, appeared a number of low, flat huts of brown earth. The +road, as far as the eyes could see, stretched straight forward through +enormous groves of palms, whose feathery tops swayed gently in the +light wind that blew from the desert. Upon all things rained a flood +of blue and gold. A blinding radiance made all things glad. + +"How glorious light is!" Domini exclaimed, as she looked down the road +to the point where its whiteness was lost in the moving ocean of the +trees. + +Batouch assented without enthusiasm, having always lived in the light. + +"As we return from the garden we will visit the tower," he said, +pointing to the Moorish palace. "It is a hotel, and is not yet open, +but I know the guardian. From the tower Madame will see the whole of +Beni-Mora. Here is the negro village." + +They traversed its dusty alleys slowly. On the side where the low +brown dwellings threw shadows some of the inhabitants were dreaming or +chattering, wrapped in garments of gaudy cotton. Little girls in the +fiercest orange colour, with tattooed foreheads and leathern amulets, +darted to and fro, chasing each other and shrieking with laughter. +Naked babies, whose shaven heads made a warm resting-place for flies, +stared at Domini with a lustrous vacancy of expression. At the corners +of the alleys unveiled women squatted, grinding corn in primitive +hand-mills, or winding wool on wooden sticks. Their heads were covered +with plaits of imitation hair made of wool, in which barbaric silver +ornaments were fastened, and their black necks and arms jingled with +chains and bangles set with squares of red coral and large dull blue +and green stones. Some of them called boldly to Batouch, and he +answered them with careless impudence. The palm-wood door of one of +the houses stood wide open, and Domini looked in. She saw a dark space +with floor and walls of earth, a ceiling of palm and brushwood, a low +divan of earth without mat or covering of any kind. + +"They have no furniture?" she asked Batouch. + +"No. What do they want with it? They live out here in the sun and go +in to sleep." + +Life simplified to this extent made her smile. Yet she looked at the +squatting figures in the gaudy cotton rags with a stirring of envy. +The memory of her long and complicated London years, filled with a +multitude of so-called pleasures which had never stifled the dull pain +set up in her heart by the rude shock of her mother's sin and its +result, made this naked, sunny, barbarous existence seem desirable. +She stood for a moment to watch two women sorting grain for cous-cous. +Their guttural laughter, their noisy talk, the quick and energetic +movements of their busy black hands, reminded her of children's +gaiety. And Nature rose before her in the sunshine, confronting +artifice and the heavy languors of modern life in cities. How had she +been able to endure the yoke so long? + +"Will Madame take me to London with her when she returns?" said +Batouch, slyly. + +"I am not going back to London for a very long time," she replied with +energy. + +"You will stay here many weeks?" + +"Months, perhaps. And perhaps I shall travel on into the desert. Yes, +I must do that." + +"If we followed the white road into the desert, and went on and on for +many days, we should come at last to Tombouctou," said Batouch. "But +very likely we should be killed by the Touaregs. They are fierce and +they hate strangers." + +"Would you be afraid to go?" Domini asked him, curiously. + +"Why afraid?" + +"Of being killed?" + +He looked calmly surprised. "Why should I be afraid to die? All must +pass through that door. It does not matter whether it is to-day or +to-morrow." + +"You have no fear of death, then?" + +"Of course not. Have you, Madame?" He gazed at Domini with genuine +astonishment. + +"I don't know," she answered. + +And she wondered and could not tell. + +"There is the Villa Anteoni." + +Batouch lifted his hand and pointed. They had turned aside from the +way to Tombouctou, left the village behind them, and come into a +narrow track which ran parallel to the desert. The palm trees rustled +on their right, the green corn waved, the narrow cuttings in the earth +gleamed with shallow water. But on their other side was limitless +sterility; the wide, stony expanse of the great river bed, the Oued- +Beni-Mora, then a low earth cliff, and then the immense airy flats +stretching away into the shining regions of the sun. At some distance, +raised on a dazzling white wall above the desert in an unshaded place, +Domini saw a narrow, two-sided white house, with a flat roof and a few +tiny loopholes instead of windows. One side looked full upon the +waterless river bed, the other, at right angles to it, ran back +towards a thicket of palms and ended in an arcade of six open Moorish +arches, through which the fierce blue of the cloudless sky stared, +making an almost theatrical effect. Beyond, masses of trees were +visible, looking almost black against the intense, blinding pallor of +wall, villa and arcade, the intense blue above. + +"What a strange house!" Domini said. "There are no windows." + +"They are all on the other side, looking into the garden." + +The villa fascinated Domini at once. The white Moorish arcade framing +bare, quivering blue, blue from the inmost heart of heaven, intense as +a great vehement cry, was beautiful as the arcade of a Geni's home in +Fairyland. Mystery hung about this dwelling, a mystery of light, not +darkness, secrets of flame and hidden things of golden meaning. She +felt almost like a child who is about to penetrate into the red land +of the winter fire, and she hastened her steps till she reached a tall +white gate set in an arch of wood, and surmounted with a white coat of +arms and two lions. Batouch struck on it with a white knocker and then +began to roll a cigarette. + +"I will wait here for Madame." + +Domini nodded. A leaf of wood was pulled back softly in the gate, and +she stepped into the garden and confronted a graceful young Arab +dressed in pale green, who saluted her respectfully and gently closed +the door. + +"May I walk about the garden a little?" she asked. + +She did not look round her yet, for the Arab's face interested and +even charmed her. It was aristocratic, enchantingly indolent, like the +face of a happy lotus-eater. The great, lustrous eyes were tender as a +gazelle's and thoughtless as the eyes of a sleepy child. His +perfectly-shaped feet were bare on the shining sand. In one hand he +held a large red rose and in the other a half-smoked cigarette. + +Domini could not kelp smiling at him as she put her question, and he +smiled contentedly back at her as he answered, in a low, level voice: + +"You can go where you will. Shall I show you the paths?" + +He lifted his hand and calmly smelt his red rose, keeping his great +eyes fixed upon her. Domini's wish to be alone had left her. This was +surely the geni of the garden, and his company would add to its +mystery and fragrance. + +"You need not stay by the door?" she asked. + +"No one will come. There is no one in Beni-Mora. And Hassan will +stay." + +He pointed with his rose to a little tent that was pitched close to +the gate beneath a pepper tree. In it Domini saw a brown boy curled up +like a dog and fast asleep. She began to feel as if she had eaten +hashish. The world seemed made for dreaming. + +"Thank you, then." + +And now for the first time she looked round to see whether Batouch had +implied the truth. Must the European gardens give way to this Eastern +garden, take a lower place with all their roses? + +She stood on a great expanse of newly-raked smooth sand, rising in a +very gentle slope to a gigantic hedge of carefully trimmed evergreens, +which projected at the top, forming a roof and casting a pleasant +shade upon the sand. At intervals white benches were placed under this +hedge. To the right was the villa. She saw now that it was quite +small. There were two lines of windows--on the ground floor and the +upper story. The lower windows opened on to the sand, those above on +to a verandah with a white railing, which was gained by a white +staircase outside the house built beneath the arches of the arcade. +The villa was most delicately simple, but in this riot of blue and +gold its ivory cleanliness, set there upon the shining sand which was +warm to the foot, made it look magical to Domini. She thought she had +never known before what spotless purity was like. + +"Those are the bedrooms," murmured the Arab at her side. + +"There are only bedrooms?" she asked in surprise. + +"The other rooms, the drawing-room of Monsieur the Count, the dining- +room, the smoking-room, the Moorish bath, the room of the little dog, +the kitchen and the rooms for the servants are in different parts of +the garden. There is the dining-room." + +He pointed with his rose to a large white building, whose dazzling +walls showed here and there through the masses of trees to the left, +where a little raised sand-path with flattened, sloping sides wound +away into a maze of shadows diapered with gold. + +"Let us go down that path," Domini said almost in a whisper. + +The spell of the place was descending upon her. This was surely a home +of dreams, a haven where the sun came to lie down beneath the trees +and sleep. + +"What is your name?" she added. + +"Smain," replied the Arab. "I was born in this garden. My father, +Mohammed, was with Monsieur the Count." + +He led the way over the sand, moving silently on his long, brown feet, +straight as a reed in a windless place. Domini followed, holding her +breath. Only sometimes she let her strong imagination play utterly at +its will. She let it go now as she and Smain turned into the golden +diapered shadows of the little path and came into the swaying mystery +of the trees. The longing for secrecy, for remoteness, for the beauty +of far away had sometimes haunted her, especially in the troubled +moments of her life. Her heart, oppressed, had overleaped the horizon +line in answer to a calling from hidden things beyond. Her emotions +had wandered, seeking the great distances in which the dim purple +twilight holds surely comfort for those who suffer. But she had never +thought to find any garden of peace that realised her dreams. +Nevertheless, she was already conscious that Smain with his rose was +showing her the way to her ideal, that her feet were set upon its +pathway, that its legendary trees were closing round her. + +Behind the evergreen hedge she heard the liquid bubbling of a hidden +waterfall, and when they had left the untempered sunlight behind them +this murmur grew louder. It seemed as if the green gloom in which they +walked acted as a sounding-board to the delicious voice. The little +path wound on and on between two running rills of water, which slipped +incessantly away under the broad and yellow-tipped leaves of dwarf +palms, making a music so faint that it was more like a remembered +sound in the mind than one which slid upon the ear. On either hand +towered a jungle of trees brought to this home in the desert from all +parts of the world. + +There were many unknown to Domini, but she recognised several +varieties of palms, acacias, gums, fig trees, chestnuts, poplars, +false pepper trees, the huge olive trees called Jamelons, white +laurels, indiarubber and cocoanut trees, bananas, bamboos, yuccas, +many mimosas and quantities of tall eucalyptus trees. Thickets of +scarlet geranium flamed in the twilight. The hibiscus lifted languidly +its frail and rosy cup, and the red gold oranges gleamed amid leaves +that looked as if they had been polished by an attentive fairy. + +As she went with Smain farther into the recesses of the garden the +voice of the waterfall died away. No birds were singing. Domini +thought that perhaps they dared not sing lest they might wake the sun +from its golden reveries, but afterwards, when she knew the garden +better, she often heard them twittering with a subdued, yet happy, +languor, as if joining in a nocturn upon the edge of sleep. Under the +trees the sand was yellow, of a shade so voluptuously beautiful that +she longed to touch it with her bare feet like Smain. Here and there +it rose in symmetrical little pyramids, which hinted at absent +gardeners, perhaps enjoying a siesta. + +Never before had she fully understood the enchantment of green, quite +realised how happy a choice was made on that day of Creation when it +was showered prodigally over the world. But now, as she walked +secretly over the yellow sand between the rills, following the +floating green robe of Smain, she rested her eyes, and her soul, on +countless mingling shades of the delicious colour; rough, furry green +of geranium leaves, silver green of olives, black green of distant +palms from which the sun held aloof, faded green of the eucalyptus, +rich, emerald green of fan-shaped, sunlit palms, hot, sultry green of +bamboos, dull, drowsy green of mulberry trees and brooding chestnuts. +It was a choir of colours in one colour, like a choir of boys all with +treble voices singing to the sun. + +Gold flickered everywhere, weaving patterns of enchantment, quivering, +vital patterns of burning beauty. Down the narrow, branching paths +that led to inner mysteries the light ran in and out, peeping between +the divided leaves of plants, gliding over the slippery edges of the +palm branches, trembling airily where the papyrus bent its antique +head, dancing among the big blades of sturdy grass that sprouted in +tufts here and there, resting languidly upon the glistening magnolias +that were besieged by somnolent bees. All the greens and all the golds +of Creation were surely met together in this profound retreat to prove +the perfect harmony of earth with sun. + +And now, growing accustomed to the pervading silence, Domini began to +hear the tiny sounds that broke it. They came from the trees and +plants. The airs were always astir, helping the soft designs of +Nature, loosening a leaf from its stem and bearing it to the sand, +striking a berry from its place and causing it to drop at Domini's +feet, giving a faded geranium petal the courage to leave its more +vivid companions and resign itself to the loss of the place it could +no longer fill with beauty. Very delicate was the touch of the dying +upon the yellow sand. It increased the sense of pervading mystery and +made Domini more deeply conscious of the pulsing life of the garden. + +"There is the room of the little dog," said Smain. + +They had come out into a small open space, over which an immense +cocoanut tree presided. Low box hedges ran round two squares of grass +which were shadowed by date palms heavy with yellow fruit, and beneath +some leaning mulberry trees Domini saw a tiny white room with two +glass windows down to the ground. She went up to it and peeped in, +smiling. + +There, in a formal salon, with gilt chairs, oval, polished tables, +faded rugs and shining mirrors, sat a purple china dog with his tail +curled over his back sternly staring into vacancy. His expression and +his attitude were autocratic and determined, betokening a tyrannical +nature, and Domini peeped at him with precaution, holding herself very +still lest he should become aware of her presence and resent it. + +"Monsieur the Count paid much money for the dog," murmured Smain. "He +is very valuable." + +"How long has he been there?" + +"For many years. He was there when I was born, and I have been married +twice and divorced twice." + +Domini turned from the window and looked at Smain with astonishment. +He was smelling his rose like a dreamy child. + +"You have been divorced twice?" + +"Yes. Now I will show Madame the smoking-room." + +They followed another of the innumerable alleys of the garden. This +one was very narrow and less densely roofed with trees than those they +had already traversed. Tall shrubs bent forward on either side of it, +and their small leaves almost meeting, were transformed by the radiant +sunbeams into tongues of pale fire, quivering, well nigh transparent. +As she approached them Domini could not resist the fancy that they +would burn her. A brown butterfly flitted forward between them and +vanished into the golden dream beyond. + +"Oh, Smain, how you must love this garden!" she said. + +A sort of ecstasy was waking within her. The pure air, the caressing +warmth, the enchanted stillness and privacy of this domain touched her +soul and body like the hands of a saint with power to bless her. + +"I could live here for ever," she added, "without once wishing to go +out into the world." + +Smain looked drowsily pleased. + +"We are coming to the centre of the garden," he said, as they passed +over a palm-wood bridge beneath which a stream glided under the red +petals of geraniums. + +The tongues of flame were left behind. Green darkness closed in upon +them and the sand beneath their feet looked blanched. The sense of +mystery increased, for the trees were enormous and grew densely here. +Pine needles lay upon the ground, and there was a stirring of sudden +wind far up above their heads in the tree-tops. + +"This is the part of the garden that Monsieur the Count loves," said +Smain. "He comes here every day." + +"What is that?" said Domini, suddenly stopping on the pale sand. + +A thin and remote sound stole to them down the alley, clear and frail +as the note of a night bird. + +"It is Larbi playing upon the flute. He is in love. That is why he +plays when he ought to be watering the flowers and raking out the +sand." + +The distant love-song of the flute seemed to Domini the last touch of +enchantment making this indeed a wonderland. She could not move, and +held up her hands to stay the feet of Smain, who was quite content to +wait. Never before had she heard any music that seemed to mean and +suggest so much to her as this African tune played by an enamoured +gardener. Queer and uncouth as it was, distorted with ornaments and +tricked out with abrupt runs, exquisitely unnecessary grace notes, and +sudden twitterings prolonged till a strange and frivolous Eternity +tripped in to banish Time, it grasped Domini's fancy and laid a spell +upon her imagination. For it sounded as naively sincere as the song of +a bird, and as if the heart from which it flowed were like the heart +of a child, a place of revelation, not of concealment. The sun made +men careless here. They opened their windows to it, and one could see +into the warm and glowing rooms. Domini looked at the gentle Arab +youth beside her, already twice married and twice divorced. She +listened to Larbi's unending song of love. And she said to herself, +"These people, uncivilised or not, at least live, and I have been dead +all my life, dead in life." That was horribly possible. She knew it as +she felt the enormously powerful spell of Africa descending upon her, +enveloping her quietly but irresistibly. The dream of this garden was +quick with a vague and yet fierce stirring of realities. There was a +murmuring of many small and distant voices, like the voices of +innumerable tiny things following restless activities in a deep +forest. As she stood there the last grain of European dust was lifted +from Domini's soul. How deeply it had been buried, and for how many +years. + +"The greatest act of man is the act of renunciation." She had just +heard those words. The eyes of the priest had flamed as he spoke them, +and she had caught the spark of his enthusiasm. But now another fire +seemed lit within her, and she found herself marvelling at such +austerity. Was it not a fanatical defiance flung into the face of the +sun? She shrank from her own thought, like one startled, and walked on +softly in the green darkness. + +Larbi's flute became more distant. Again and again it repeated the +same queer little melody, changing the ornamentation at the fantasy of +the player. She looked for him among the trees but saw no one. He must +be in some very secret place. Smain touched her. + +"Look!" he said, and his voice was very low. + +He parted the branches of some palms with his delicate hands, and +Domini, peering between them, saw in a place of deep shadows an +isolated square room, whose white walls were almost entirely concealed +by masses of purple bougainvillea. It had a flat roof. In three of its +sides were large arched window-spaces without windows. In the fourth +was a narrow doorway without a door. Immense fig trees and palms and +thickets of bamboo towered around it and leaned above it. And it was +circled by a narrow riband of finely-raked sand. + +"That is the smoking-room of Monsieur the Count," said Smain. "He +spends many hours there. Come and I will show the inside to Madame." + +They turned to the left and went towards the room. The flute was close +to them now. "Larbi must be in there," Domini whispered to Smain, as a +person whispers in a church. + +"No, he is among the trees beyond." + +"But someone is there." + +She pointed to the arched window-space nearest to them. A thin spiral +of blue-grey smoke curled through it and evaporated into the shadows +of the trees. After a moment it was followed gently and deliberately +by another. + +"It is not Larbi. He would not go in there. It must be----" + +He paused. A tall, middle-aged man had come to the doorway of the +little room and looked out into the garden with bright eyes. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Domini drew back and glanced at Smain. She was not accustomed to +feeling intrusive, and the sudden sensation rendered her uneasy. + +"It is Monsieur the Count," Smain said calmly and quite aloud. + +The man in the doorway took off his soft hat, as if the words effected +an introduction between Domini and him. + +"You were coming to see my little room, Madame?" he said in French. +"If I may show it to you I shall feel honoured." + +The timbre of his voice was harsh and grating, yet it was a very +interesting, even a seductive, voice, and, Domini thought, peculiarly +full of vivid life, though not of energy. His manner at once banished +her momentary discomfort. There is a freemasonry between people born +in the same social world. By the way in which Count Anteoni took off +his hat and spoke she knew at once that all was right. + +"Thank you, Monsieur," she answered. "I was told at the gate you gave +permission to travellers to visit your garden." + +"Certainly." + +He spoke a few words in fluent Arabic to Smain, who turned away and +disappeared among the trees. + +"I hope you will allow me to accompany you through the rest of the +garden," he said, turning again to Domini. "It will give me great +pleasure." + +"It is very kind of you." + +The way in which the change of companion had been effected made it +seem a pleasant, inevitable courtesy, which neither implied nor +demanded anything. + +"This is my little retreat," Count Anteoni continued, standing aside +from the doorway that Domini might enter. + +She drew a long breath when she was within. + +The floor was of fine sand, beaten flat and hard, and strewn with +Eastern rugs of faint and delicate hues, dim greens and faded rose +colours, grey-blues and misty topaz yellows. Round the white walls ran +broad divans, also white, covered with prayer rugs from Bagdad, and +large cushions, elaborately worked in dull gold and silver thread, +with patterns of ibises and flamingoes in flight. In the four angles +of the room stood four tiny smoking-tables of rough palm wood, holding +hammered ash-trays of bronze, green bronze torches for the lighting of +cigarettes, and vases of Chinese dragon china filled with velvety red +roses, gardenias and sprigs of orange blossom. Leather footstools, +covered with Tunisian thread-work, lay beside them. From the arches of +the window-spaces hung old Moorish lamps of copper, fitted with small +panes of dull jewelled glass, such as may be seen in venerable church +windows. In a round copper brazier, set on one of the window-seats, +incense twigs were drowsily burning and giving out thin, dwarf columns +of scented smoke. Through the archways and the narrow doorway the +dense walls of leafage were visible standing on guard about this airy +hermitage, and the hot purple blossoms of the bougainvillea shed a +cloud of colour through the bosky dimness. + +And still the flute of Larbi showered soft, clear, whimsical music +from some hidden place close by. + +Domini looked at her host, who was standing by the doorway, leaning +one arm against the ivory-white wall. + +"This is my first day in Africa," she said simply. "You may imagine +what I think of your garden, what I feel in it. I needn't tell you. +Indeed, I am sure the travellers you so kindly let in must often have +worried you with their raptures." + +"No," he answered, with a still gravity which yet suggested kindness, +"for I leave nearly always before the travellers come. That sounds a +little rude? But you would not be in Beni-Mora at this season, Madame, +if it could include you." + +"I have come here for peace," Domini replied simply. + +She said it because she felt as if it was already understood by her +companion. + +Count Anteoni took down his arm from the white wall and pulled a +branch of the purple flowers slowly towards him through the doorway. + +"There is peace--what is generally called so, at least--in Beni-Mora," +he answered rather slowly and meditatively. "That is to say, there is +similarity of day with day, night with night. The sun shines +untiringly over the desert, and the desert always hints at peace." + +He let the flowers go, and they sprang softly back, and hung quivering +in the space beyond his thin figure. Then he added: + +"Perhaps one should not say more than that." + +"No." + +Domini sat down for a moment. She looked up at him with her direct +eyes and at the shaking flowers. The sound of Larbi's flute was always +in her ears. + +"But may not one think, feel a little more?" she asked. + +"Oh, why not? If one can, if one must? But how? Africa is as fierce +and full of meaning as a furnace, you know." + +"Yes, I know--already," she replied. + +His words expressed what she had already felt here in Beni-Mora, +surreptitiously and yet powerfully. He said it, and last night the +African hautboy had said it. Peace and a flame. Could they exist +together, blended, married? + +"Africa seems to me to agree through contradiction," she added, +smiling a little, and touching the snowy wall with her right hand. +"But then, this is my first day." + +"Mine was when I was a boy of sixteen." + +"This garden wasn't here then?" + +"No. I had it made. I came here with my mother. She spoilt me. She let +me have my whim." + +"This garden is your boy's whim?" + +"It was. Now it is a man's----" + +He seemed to hesitate. + +"Paradise," suggested Domini. + +"I think I was going to say hiding-place." + +There was no bitterness in his odd, ugly voice, yet surely the words +implied bitterness. The wounded, the fearful, the disappointed, the +condemned hide. Perhaps he remembered this, for he added rather +quickly: + +"I come here to be foolish, Madame, for I come here to think. This is +my special thinking place." + +"How strange!" Domini exclaimed impulsively, and leaning forward on +the divan. + +"Is it?" + +"I only mean that already Beni-Mora has seemed to me the ideal place +for that." + +"For thought?" + +"For finding out interior truth." + +Count Anteoni looked at her rather swiftly and searchingly. His eyes +were not large, but they were bright, and held none of the languor so +often seen in the eyes of his countrymen. His face was expressive +through its mobility rather than through its contours. The features +were small and refined, not noble, but unmistakably aristocratic. The +nose was sensitive, with wide nostrils. A long and straight moustache, +turning slightly grey, did not hide the mouth, which had unusually +pale lips. The ears were set very flat against the head, and were +finely shaped. The chin was pointed. The general look of the whole +face was tense, critical, conscious, but in the defiant rather than in +the timid sense. Such an expression belongs to men who would always be +aware of the thoughts and feelings of others concerning them, but who +would throw those thoughts and feelings off as decisively and +energetically as a dog shakes the waterdrops from its coat on emerging +from a swim. + +"And sending it forth, like Ishmael, to shift for itself in the +desert," he said. + +The odd remark sounded like neither statement nor question, merely +like the sudden exclamation of a mind at work. + +"Will you allow me to take you through the rest of the garden, +Madame?" he added in a more formal voice. + +"Thank you," said Domini, who had already got up, moved by the +examining look cast at her. + +There was nothing in it to resent, and she had not resented it, but it +had recalled her to the consciousness that they were utter strangers +to each other. + +As they came out on the pale riband of sand which circled the little +room Domini said: + +"How wild and extraordinary that tune is!" + +"Larbi's. I suppose it is, but no African music seems strange to me. I +was born on my father's estate, near Tunis. He was a Sicilian; but +came to North Africa each winter. I have always heard the tomtoms and +the pipes, and I know nearly all the desert songs of the nomads." + +"This is a love-song, isn't it?" + +"Yes. Larbi is always in love, they tell me. Each new dancer catches +him in her net. Happy Larbi!" + +"Because he can love so easily?" + +"Or unlove so easily. Look at him, Madame." + +At a little distance, under a big banana tree, and half hidden by +clumps of scarlet geraniums, Domini saw a huge and very ugly Arab, +with an almost black skin, squatting on his heels, with a long yellow +and red flute between his thick lips. His eyes were bent down, and he +did not see them, but went on busily playing, drawing from his flute +coquettish phrases with his big and bony fingers. + +"And I pay him so much a week all the year round for doing that," the +Count said. + +His grating voice sounded kind and amused. They walked on, and Larbi's +tune died gradually away. + +"Somehow I can't be angry with the follies and vices of the Arabs," +the Count continued. "I love them as they are; idle, absurdly amorous, +quick to shed blood, gay as children, whimsical as--well, Madame, were +I talking to a man I might dare to say pretty women." + +"Why not?" + +"I will, then. I glory in their ingrained contempt of civilisation. +But I like them to say their prayers five times in the day as it is +commanded, and no Arab who touches alcohol in defiance of the +Prophet's law sets foot in my garden." + +There was a touch of harshness in his voice as he said the last words, +the sound of the autocrat. Somehow Domini liked it. This man had +convictions, and strong ones. That was certain. There was something +oddly unconventional in him which something in her responded to. He +was perfectly polite, and yet, she was quite sure, absolutely careless +of opinion. Certainly he was very much a man. + +"It is pleasant, too," he resumed, after a slight pause, "to be +surrounded by absolutely thoughtless people with thoughtful faces and +mysterious eyes--wells without truth at the bottom of them." + +She laughed. + +"No one must think here but you!" + +"I prefer to keep all the folly to myself. Is not that a grand +cocoanut?" + +He pointed to a tree so tall that it seemed soaring to heaven. + +"Yes, indeed. Like the one that presides over the purple dog." + +"You have seen my fetish?" + +"Smain showed him to me, with reverence." + +"Oh, he is king here. The Arabs declare that on moonlight nights they +have heard him joining in the chorus of the Kabyle dogs." + +"You speak almost as if you believed it." + +"Well, I believe more here than I believe anywhere else. That is +partly why I come here." + +"I can understand that--I mean believing much here." + +"What! Already you feel the spell of Beni-Mora, the desert spell! Yes, +there is enchantment here--and so I never stay too long." + +"For fear of what?" + +Count Anteoni was walking easily beside her. He walked from the hips, +like many Sicilians, swaying very slightly, as if he liked to be aware +how supple his body still was. As Domini spoke he stopped. They were +now at a place where four paths joined, and could see four vistas of +green and gold, of magical sunlight and shadow. + +"I scarcely know; of being carried who knows where--in mind or heart. +Oh, there is danger in Beni-Mora, Madame, there is danger. This +startling air is full of influences, of desert spirits." + +He looked at her in a way she could not understand--but it made her +think of the perfume-seller in his little dark room, and of the sudden +sensation she had had that mystery coils, like a black serpent, in the +shining heart of the East. + +"And now, Madame, which path shall we take? This one leads to my +drawing-room, that on the right to the Moorish bath." + +"And that?" + +"That one goes straight down to the wall that overlooks the Sahara." + +"Please let us take it." + +"The desert spirits are calling to you? But you are wise. What makes +this garden remarkable is not its arrangement, the number and variety +of its trees, but the fact that it lies flush with the Sahara--like a +man's thoughts of truth with Truth, perhaps." + +He turned up the tail of the sentence and his harsh voice gave a +little grating crack. + +"I don't believe they are so different from one another as the garden +and the desert." + +She looked at him directly. + +"It would be too ironical." + +"But nothing is," the Count said. + +"You have discovered that in this garden?" + +"Ah, it is new to you, Madame!" + +For the first time there was a sound of faint bitterness in his voice. + +"One often discovers the saddest thing in the loveliest place," he +added. "There you begin to see the desert." + +Far away, at the small orifice of the tunnel of trees down which they +were walking, appeared a glaring patch of fierce and quivering +sunlight. + +"I can only see the sun," Domini said. + +"I know so well what it hides that I imagine I actually see the +desert. One loves one's kind, assiduous liar. Isn't it so?" + +"The imagination? But perhaps I am not disposed to allow that it is a +liar." + +"Who knows? You may be right." + +He looked at her kindly with his bright eyes. It had not seem to +strike him that their conversation was curiously intimate, considering +that they were strangers to one another, that he did not even know her +name. Domini wondered suddenly how old he was. That look made him seem +much older than he had seemed before. There was such an expression in +his eyes as may sometimes be seen in eyes that look at a child who is +kissing a rag doll with deep and determined affection. "Kiss your +doll!" they seemed to say. "Put off the years when you must know that +dolls can never return a kiss." + +"I begin to see the desert now," Domini said after a moment of +silent walking. "How wonderful it is!" + +"Yes, it is. The most wonderful thing in Nature. You will think it +much more wonderful when you fancy you know it well." + +"Fancy!" + +"I don't think anyone can ever really know the desert. It is the thing +that keeps calling, and does not permit one to draw near." + +"But then, one might learn to hate it." + +"I don't think so. Truth does just the same, you know. And yet men +keep on trying to draw near." + +"But sometimes they succeed." + +"Do they? Not when they live in gardens." + +He laughed for the first time since they had been together, and all +his face was covered with a network of little moving lines. + +"One should never live in a garden, Madame." + +"I will try to take your word for it, but the task will be difficult." + +"Yes? More difficult, perhaps, when you see what lies beside my +thoughts of truth." + +As he spoke they came out from the tunnel and were seized by the +fierce hands of the sun. It was within half an hour of noon, and the +radiance was blinding. Domini put up her parasol sharply, like one +startled. She stopped. + +"But how tremendous!" she exclaimed. + +Count Anteoni laughed again, and drew down the brim of his grey hat +over his eyes. The hand with which he did it was almost as burnt as an +Arab's. + +"You are afraid of it?" + +"No, no. But it startled me. We don't know the sun really in Europe." + +"No. Not even in Southern Italy, not even in Sicily. It is fierce +there in summer, but it seems further away. Here it insists on the +most intense intimacy. If you can bear it we might sit down for a +moment?" + +"Please." + +All along the edge of the garden, from the villa to the boundary of +Count Anteoni's domain, ran a straight high wall made of earth bricks +hardened by the sun and topped by a coping of palm wood painted white. +This wall was some eight feet high on the side next to the desert, but +the garden was raised in such a way that the inner side was merely a +low parapet running along the sand path. In this parapet were cut +small seats, like window-seats, in which one could rest and look full +upon the desert as from a little cliff. Domini sat down on one of +them, and the Count stood by her, resting one foot on the top of the +wall and leaning his right arm on his knee. + +"There is the world on which I look for my hiding-place," he said. "A +vast world, isn't it?" + +Domini nodded without speaking. + +Immediately beneath them, in the narrow shadow of the wall, was a path +of earth and stones which turned off at the right at the end of the +garden into the oasis. Beyond lay the vast river bed, a chaos of hot +boulders bounded by ragged low earth cliffs, interspersed here and +there with small pools of gleaming water. These cliffs were yellow. +From their edge stretched the desert, as Eternity stretches from the +edge of Time. Only to the left was the immeasurable expanse intruded +upon by a long spur of mountains, which ran out boldly for some +distance and then stopped abruptly, conquered and abashed by the +imperious flats. Beneath the mountains were low, tent-like, cinnamon- +coloured undulations, which reminded Domini of those made by a shaken- +out sheet, one smaller than the other till they melted into the level. +The summits of the most distant mountains, which leaned away as if in +fear of the desert, were dark and mistily purple. Their flanks were +iron grey at this hour, flecked in the hollows with the faint mauve +and pink which became carnation colour when the sun set. + +Domini scarcely looked at them. Till now she had always thought that +she loved mountains. The desert suddenly made them insignificant, +almost mean to her. She turned her eyes towards the flat spaces. It +was in them that majesty lay, mystery, power, and all deep and +significant things. In the midst of the river bed, and quite near, +rose a round and squat white tower with a small cupola. Beyond it, on +the little cliff, was a tangle of palms where a tiny oasis sheltered a +few native huts. At an immense distance, here and there, other oases +showed as dark stains show on the sea where there are hidden rocks. +And still farther away, on all hands, the desert seemed to curve up +slightly like a shallow wine-hued cup to the misty blue horizon line, +which resembled a faintly seen and mysterious tropical sea, so distant +that its sultry murmur was lost in the embrace of the intervening +silence. + +An Arab passed on the path below the wall. He did not see them. A +white dog with curling lips ran beside him. He was singing to himself +in a low, inward voice. He went on and turned towards the oasis, still +singing as he walked slowly. + +"Do you know what he is singing?" the Count asked. + +Domini shook her head. She was straining her ears to hear the melody +as long as possible. + +"It is a desert song of the freed negroes of Touggourt--'No one but +God and I knows what is in my heart.'" + +Domini lowered her parasol to conceal her face. In the distance she +could still hear the song, but it was dying away. + +"Oh! what is going to happen to me here?" she thought. + +Count Anteoni was looking away from her now across the desert. A +strange impulse rose up in her. She could not resist it. She put down +her parasol, exposing herself to the blinding sunlight, knelt down on +the hot sand, leaned her arms on the white parapet, put her chin in +the upturned palms of her hands and stared into the desert almost +fiercely. + +"No one but God and I knows what is in my heart," she thought. "But +that's not true, that's not true. For I don't know." + +The last echo of the Arab's song fainted on the blazing air. Surely it +had changed now. Surely, as he turned into the shadows of the palms, +he was singing, "No one but God knows what is in my heart." Yes, he +was singing that. "No one but God--no one but God." + +Count Anteoni looked down at her. She did not notice it, and he kept +his eyes on her for a moment. Then he turned to the desert again. + +By degrees, as she watched, Domini became aware of many things +indicative of life, and of many lives in the tremendous expanse that +at first had seemed empty of all save sun and mystery. She saw low, +scattered tents, far-off columns of smoke rising. She saw a bird pass +across the blue and vanish towards the mountains. Black shapes +appeared among the tiny mounds of earth, crowned with dusty grass and +dwarf tamarisk bushes. She saw them move, like objects in a dream, +slowly through the shimmering gold. They were feeding camels, guarded +by nomads whom she could not see. + +At first she persistently explored the distances, carried forcibly by +an /elan/ of her whole nature to the remotest points her eyes could +reach. Then she withdrew her gaze gradually, reluctantly, from the +hidden summoning lands, whose verges she had with difficulty gained, +and looked, at first with apprehension, upon the nearer regions. But +her apprehension died when she found that the desert transmutes what +is close as well as what is remote, suffuses even that which the hand +could almost touch with wonder, beauty, and the deepest, most strange +significance. + +Quite near in the river bed she saw an Arab riding towards the desert +upon a prancing black horse. He mounted a steep bit of path and came +out on the flat ground at the cliff top. Then he set his horse at a +gallop, raising his bridle hand and striking his heels into the flanks +of the beast. And each of his movements, each of the movements of his +horse, was profoundly interesting, and held the attention of the +onlooker in a vice, as if the fates of worlds depended upon where he +was carried and how soon he reached his goal. A string of camels laden +with wooden bales met him on the way, and this chance encounter seemed +to Domini fraught with almost terrible possibilities. Why? She did not +ask herself. Again she sent her gaze further, to the black shapes +moving stealthily among the little mounds, to the spirals of smoke +rising into the glimmering air. Who guarded those camels? Who fed +those distant fires? Who watched beside them? It seemed of vital +consequence to her that she should know. + +Count Anteoni took out his watch and glanced at it. + +"I am looking to see if it is nearly the hour of prayer," he said. +"When I am in Beni-Mora I usually come here then." + +"You turn to the desert as the faithful turn towards Mecca?" + +"Yes. I like to see men praying in the desert." + +He spoke indifferently, but Domini felt suddenly sure that within him +there were depths of imagination, of tenderness, even perhaps of +mysticism. + +"An atheist in the desert is unimaginable," he added. "In cathedrals +they may exist very likely, and even feel at home. I have seen +cathedrals in which I could believe I was one, but--how many human +beings can you see in the desert at this moment, Madame?" + +Domini, still with her round chin in her hands, searched the blazing +region with her eyes. She saw three running figures with the train of +camels which was now descending into the river bed. In the shadow of +the low white tower two more were huddled, motionless. She looked away +to right and left, but saw only the shallow pools, the hot and +gleaming boulders, and beyond the yellow cliffs the brown huts peeping +through the palms. The horseman had disappeared. + +"I can see five," she answered. + +"Ah! you are not accustomed to the desert." + +"There are more?" + +"I could count up to a dozen. Which are yours?" + +"The men with the camels and the men under that tower." + +"There are four playing the /jeu des dames/ in the shadow of the cliff +opposite to us. There is one asleep under a red rock where the path +ascends into the desert. And there are two more just at the edge of +the little oasis--Filiash, as it is called. One is standing under a +palm, and one is pacing up and down." + +"You must have splendid eyes." + +"They are trained to the desert. But there are probably a score of +Arabs within sight whom I don't see." + +"Oh! now I see the men at the edge of the oasis. How oddly that one is +moving. He goes up and down like a sailor on the quarter-deck." + +"Yes, it is curious. And he is in the full blaze of the sun. That +can't be an Arab." + +He drew a silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket, put it to his lips +and sounded a call. In a moment Smain same running lightly over the +sand. Count Anteoni said something to him in Arabic. He disappeared, +and speedily returned with a pair of field-glasses. While he was gone +Domini watched the two doll-like figures on the cliff in silence. One +was standing under a large isolated palm tree absolutely still, as +Arabs often stand. The other, at a short distance from him and full in +the sun, went to and fro, to and fro, always measuring the same space +of desert, and turning and returning at two given points which never +varied. He walked like a man hemmed in by walls, yet around him were +the infinite spaces. The effect was singularly unpleasant upon Domini. +All things in the desert, as she had already noticed, became almost +terribly significant, and this peculiar activity seemed full of some +extraordinary and even horrible meaning. She watched it with straining +eyes. + +Count Anteoni took the glasses from Smain and looked through them, +adjusting them carefully to suit his sight. + +"/Ecco!/" he said. "I was right. That man is not an Arab." + +He moved the glasses and glanced at Domini. + +"You are not the only traveller here, Madame." + +He looked through the glasses again. + +"I knew that," she said. + +"Indeed?" + +"There is one at my hotel." + +"Possibly this is he. He makes me think of a caged tiger, who has been +so long in captivity that when you let him out he still imagines the +bars to be all round him. What was he like?" + +All the time he was speaking he was staring intently through the +glasses. As Domini did not reply he removed them from his eyes and +glanced at her inquiringly. + +"I am trying to think what he looked like," she said slowly. "But I +feel that I don't know. He was quite unlike any ordinary man." + +"Would you care to see if you can recognise him? These are really +marvellous glasses." + +Domini took them from him with some eagerness. + +"Twist them about till they suit your eyes." + +At first she could see nothing but a fierce yellow glare. She turned +the screw and gradually the desert came to her, startlingly distinct. +The boulders of the river bed were enormous. She could see the veins +of colour in them, a lizard running over one of them and disappearing +into a dark crevice, then the white tower and the Arabs beneath it. +One was an old man yawning; the other a boy. He rubbed the tip of his +brown nose, and she saw the henna stains upon his nails. She lifted +the glasses slowly and with precaution. The tower ran away. She came +to the low cliff, to the brown huts and the palms, passed them one by +one, and reached the last, which was separated from its companions. +Under it stood a tall Arab in a garment like a white night-shirt. + +"He looks as if he had only one eye!" she exclaimed. + +"The palm-tree man--yes." + +She travelled cautiously away from him, keeping the glasses level. + +"Ah!" she said on an indrawn breath. + +As she spoke the thin, nasal cry of a distant voice broke upon her +ears, prolonging a strange call. + +"The Mueddin," said Count Anteoni. + +And he repeated in a low tone the words of the angel to the prophet: +"Oh thou that art covered arise . . . and magnify thy Lord; and purify +thy clothes, and depart from uncleanness." + +The call died away and was renewed three times. The old man and the +boy beneath the tower turned their faces towards Mecca, fell upon +their knees and bowed their heads to the hot stones. The tall Arab +under the palm sank down swiftly. Domini kept the glasses at her eyes. +Through them, as in a sort of exaggerated vision, very far off, yet +intensely distinct, she saw the man with whom she had travelled in the +train. He went to and fro, to and fro on the burning ground till the +fourth call of the Mueddin died away. Then, as he approached the +isolated palm tree and saw the Arab beneath it fall to the earth and +bow his long body in prayer, he paused and stood still as if in +contemplation. The glasses were so powerful that it was possible to +see the expressions on faces even at that distance. The expression on +the traveller's face was, or seemed to be, at first one of profound +attention. But this changed swiftly as he watched the bowing figure, +and was succeeded by a look of uneasiness, then of fierce disgust, +then--surely--of fear or horror. He turned sharply away like a driven +man, and hurried off along the cliff edge in a striding walk, +quickening his steps each moment till his departure became a flight. +He disappeared behind a projection of earth where the path sank to the +river bed. + +Domini laid the glasses down on the wall and looked at Count Anteoni. + +"You say an atheist in the desert is unimaginable? + +"Isn't it true?" + +"Has an atheist a hatred, a horror of prayer?" + +"Chi lo sa? The devil shrank away from the lifted Cross." + +"Because he knew how much that was true it symbolised." + +"No doubt had it been otherwise he would have jeered, not cowered. But +why do you ask me this question, Madame?" + +"I have just seen a man flee from the sight of prayer." + +"Your fellow-traveller?" + +"Yes. It was horrible." + +She gave him back the glasses. + +"They reveal that which should be hidden," she said. + +Count Anteoni took the glasses slowly from her hands. As he bent to do +it he looked steadily at her, and she could not read the expression in +his eyes. + +"The desert is full of truth. Is that what you mean?" he asked. + +She made no reply. Count Anteoni stretched out his hand to the shining +expanse before them. + +"The man who is afraid of prayer is unwise to set foot beyond the palm +trees," he said. + +"Why unwise?" + +He answered her very gravely. + +"The Arabs have a saying: 'The desert is the garden of Allah.'" + +* * * * * * + +Domini did not ascend the tower of the hotel that morning. She had +seen enough for the moment, and did not wish to disturb her +impressions by adding to them. So she walked back to the Hotel du +Desert with Batouch. + +Count Anteoni had said good-bye to her at the door of the garden, and +had begged her to come again whenever she liked, and to spend as many +hours there as she pleased. + +"I shall take you at your word," she said frankly. "I feel that I +may." + +As they shook hands she gave him her card. He took out his. "By the +way," he said, "the big hotel you passed in coming here is mine. I +built it to prevent a more hideous one being built, and let it to the +proprietor. You might like to ascend the tower. The view at sundown is +incomparable. At present the hotel is shut, but the guardian will show +you everything if you give him my card." + +He pencilled some words in Arabic on the back from right to left. + +"You write Arabic, too?" Domini said, watching the forming of the +pretty curves with interest. + +"Oh, yes; I am more than half African, though my father was a Sicilian +and my mother a Roman." + +He gave her the card, took off his hat and bowed. When the tall white +door was softly shut by Smain, Domini felt rather like a new Eve +expelled from Paradise, without an Adam as a companion in exile. + +"Well, Madame?" said Batouch. "Have I spoken the truth?" + +"Yes. No European garden can be so beautiful as that. Now I am going +straight home." + +She smiled to herself as she said the last word. + +Outside the hotel they found Hadj looking ferocious. He exchanged some +words with Batouch, accompanying them with violent gestures. When he +had finished speaking he spat upon the ground. + +"What is the matter with him?" Domini asked. + +"The Monsieur who is staying here would not take him to-day, but went +into the desert alone. Hadj wishes that the nomads may cut his throat, +and that his flesh may be eaten by jackals. Hadj is sure that he is a +bad man and will come to a bad end." + +"Because he does not want a guide every day! But neither shall I." + +"Madame is quite different. I would give my life for Madame." + +"Don't do that, but go this afternoon and find me a horse. I don't +want a quiet one, but something with devil, something that a Spahi +would like to ride." + +The desert spirits were speaking to her body as well as to her mind. A +physical audacity was stirring in her, and she longed to give it vent. + +"Madame is like the lion. She is afraid of nothing." + +"You speak without knowing, Batouch. Don't come for me this afternoon, +but bring round a horse, if you can find one, to-morrow morning." + +"This very evening I will--" + +"No, Batouch. I said to-morrow morning." + +She spoke with a quiet but inflexible decision which silenced him. +Then she gave him ten francs and went into the dark house, from which +the burning noonday sun was carefully excluded. She intended to rest +after /dejeuner/, and towards sunset to go to the big hotel and mount +alone to the summit of the tower. + +It was half-past twelve, and a faint rattle of knives and forks from +the /salle-a-manger/ told her that /dejeuner/ was ready. She went +upstairs, washed her face and hands in cold water, stood still while +Suzanne shook the dust from her gown, and then descended to the public +room. The keen air had given her an appetite. + +The /salle-a-manger/ was large and shady, and was filled with small +tables, at only three of which were people sitting. Four French +officers sat together at one. A small, fat, perspiring man of middle +age, probably a commercial traveller, who had eyes like a melancholy +toad, was at another, eating olives with anxious rapidity, and wiping +his forehead perpetually with a dirty white handkerchief. At the third +was the priest with whom Domini had spoken in the church. His napkin +was tucked under his beard, and he was drinking soup as he bent well +over his plate. + +A young Arab waiter, with a thin, dissipated face, stood near the door +in bright yellow slippers. When Domini came in he stole forward to +show her to her table, making a soft, shuffling sound on the polished +wooden floor. The priest glanced up over his napkin, rose and bowed. +The French officers stared with an interest they were too chivalrous +to attempt to conceal. Only the fat little man was entirely +unconcerned. He wiped his forehead, stuck his fork deftly into an +olive, and continued to look like a melancholy toad entangled by fate +in commercial pursuits. + +Domini's table was by a window, across which green Venetian shutters +were drawn. It was at a considerable distance from the other guests, +who did not live in the house, but came there each day for their +meals. Near it she noticed a table laid for one person, and so +arranged that if he came to /dejeuner/ he would sit exactly opposite +to her. She wondered if it was for the man at whom she had just been +looking through Count Anteoni's field-glasses, the man who had fled +from prayer in the "Garden of Allah." As she glanced at the empty +chair standing before the knives and forks, and the white cloth, she +was uncertain whether she wished it to be filled by the traveller or +not. She felt his presence in Beni-Mora as a warring element. That she +knew. She knew also that she had come there to find peace, a great +calm and remoteness in which she could at last grow, develop, loose +her true self from cramping bondage, come to an understanding with +herself, face her heart and soul, and--as it were--look them in the +eyes and know them for what they were, good or evil. In the presence +of this total stranger there was something unpleasantly distracting +which she could not and did not ignore, something which roused her +antagonism and which at the same time compelled her attention. She had +been conscious of it in the train, conscious of it in the tunnel at +twilight, at night in the hotel, and once again in Count Anteoni's +garden. This man intruded himself, no doubt unconsciously, or even +against his will, into her sight, her thoughts, each time that she was +on the point of giving herself to what Count Anteoni called "the +desert spirits." So it had been when the train ran out of the tunnel +into the blue country. So it had been again when she leaned on the +white wall and gazed out over the shining fastnesses of the sun. He +was there like an enemy, like something determined, egoistical, that +said to her, "You would look at the greatness of the desert, at +immensity, infinity, God!--Look at me." And she could not turn her +eyes away. Each time the man had, as if without effort, conquered the +great competing power, fastened her thoughts upon himself, set her +imagination working about his life, even made her heart beat faster +with some thrill of--what? Was it pity? Was it a faint horror? She +knew that to call the feeling merely repugnance would not be sincere. +The intensity, the vitality of the force shut up in a human being +almost angered her at this moment as she looked at the empty chair and +realised all that it had suddenly set at work. There was something +insolent in humanity as well as something divine, and just then she +felt the insolence more than the divinity. Terrifically greater, more +overpowering than man, the desert was yet also somehow less than man, +feebler, vaguer. Or else how could she have been grasped, moved, +turned to curiosity, surmise, almost to a sort of dread--all at the +desert's expense--by the distant moving figure seen through the +glasses? + +Yes, as she looked at the little white table and thought of all this, +Domini began to feel angry. But she was capable of effort, whether +mental or physical, and now she resolutely switched her mind off from +the antagonistic stranger and devoted her thoughts to the priest, +whose narrow back she saw down the room in the distance. As she ate +her fish--a mystery of the seas of Robertville--she imagined his quiet +existence in this remote place, sunny day succeeding sunny day, each +one surely so like its brother that life must become a sort of dream, +through which the voice of the church bell called melodiously and the +incense rising before the altar shed a drowsy perfume. How strange it +must be really to live in Beni-Mora, to have your house, your work +here, your friendships here, your duties here, perhaps here too the +tiny section of earth which would hold at the last your body. It must +be strange and monotonous, and yet surely rather sweet, rather safe. + +The officers lifted their heads from their plates, the fat man stared, +the priest looked quietly up over his napkin, and the Arab waiter +slipped forward with attentive haste. For the swing door of the +/salle-a-manger/ at this moment was pushed open, and the traveller--so +Domini called him in her thoughts--entered and stood looking with +hesitation from one table to another. + +Domini did not glance up. She knew who it was and kept her eyes +resolutely on her plate. She heard the Arab speak, a loud noise of +stout boots tramping over the wooden floor, and the creak of a chair +receiving a surely tired body. The traveller sat down heavily. She +went on slowly eating the large Robertville fish, which was like +something between a trout and a herring. When she had finished it she +gazed straight before her at the cloth, and strove to resume her +thoughts of the priest's life in Beni-Mora. But she could not. It +seemed to her as if she were back again in Count Anteoni's garden. She +looked once more through the glasses, and heard the four cries of the +Mueddin, and saw the pacing figure in the burning heat, the Arab bent +in prayer, the one who watched him, the flight. And she was indignant +with herself for her strange inability to govern her mind. It seemed +to her a pitiful thing of which she should be ashamed. + +She heard the waiter set down a plate upon the traveller's table, and +then the noise of a liquid being poured into a glass. She could not +keep her eyes down any more. Besides, why should she? Beni-Mora was +breeding in her a self-consciousness--or a too acute consciousness of +others--that was unnatural in her. She had never been sensitive like +this in her former life, but the fierce African sun seemed now to have +thawed the ice of her indifference. She felt everything with almost +unpleasant acuteness. All her senses seemed to her sharpened. She saw, +she heard, as she had never seen and heard till now. Suddenly she +remembered her almost violent prayer--"Let me be alive! Let me feel!" +and she was aware that such a prayer might have an answer that would +be terrible. + +Looking up thus with a kind of severe determination, she saw the man +again. He was eating and was not looking towards her, and she fancied +that his eyes were downcast with as much conscious resolution as hers +had been a moment before. He wore the same suit as he had worn in the +train, but now it was flecked with desert dust. She could not "place" +him at all. He was not of the small, fat man's order. They would have +nothing in common. With the French officers? She could not imagine how +he would be with them. The only other man in the room--the servant had +gone out for the moment--was the priest. He and the priest--they would +surely be antagonists. Had he not turned aside to avoid the priest in +the tunnel? Probably he was one of those many men who actively hate +the priesthood, to whom the soutane is anathema. Could he find +pleasant companionship with such a man as Count Anteoni, an original +man, no doubt, but also a cultivated and easy man of the world? She +smiled internally at the mere thought. Whatever this stranger might be +she felt that he was as far from being a man of the world as she was +from being a Cockney sempstress or a veiled favourite in a harem. She +could not, she found, imagine him easily at home with any type of +human being with which she was acquainted. Yet no doubt, like all men, +he had somewhere friends, relations, possibly even a wife, children. + +No doubt--then why could she not believe it? + +The man had finished his fish. He rested his broad, burnt hands on the +table on each side of his plate and looked at them steadily. Then he +turned his head and glanced sideways at the priest, who was behind him +to the right. Then he looked again at his hands. And Domini knew that +all the time he was thinking about her, as she was thinking about him. +She felt the violence of his thought like the violence of a hand +striking her. + +The Arab waiter brought her some ragout of mutton and peas, and she +looked down again at her plate. + +As she left the room after /dejeuner/ the priest again got up and +bowed. She stopped for a moment to speak to him. All the French +officers surveyed her tall, upright figure and broad, athletic +shoulders with intent admiration. Domini knew it and was indifferent. +If a hundred French soldiers had been staring at her critically she +would not have cared at all. She was not a shy woman and was in nowise +uncomfortable when many eyes were fixed upon her. So she stood and +talked a little to the priest about Count Anteoni and her pleasure in +his garden. And as she did so, feeling her present calm self- +possession, she wondered secretly at the wholly unnatural turmoil--she +called it that, exaggerating her feeling because it was unusual--in +which she had been a few minutes before as she sat at her table. + +The priest spoke well of Count Anteoni. + +"He is very generous," he said. + +Then he paused, twisting his napkin, and added: + +"But I never have any real intercourse with him, Madame. I believe he +comes here in search of solitude. He spends days and even weeks alone +shut up in his garden." + +"Thinking," she said. + +The priest looked slightly surprised. + +"It would be difficult not to think, Madame, would it not?" + +"Oh, yes. But Count Anteoni thinks rather as a Bashi-Bazouk fights, I +fancy." + +She heard a chair creak in the distance and glanced over her shoulder. +The traveller had turned sideways. At once she bade the priest good- +bye and walked away and out through the swing door. + +All the afternoon she rested. The silence was profound. Beni-Mora was +enjoying a siesta in the heat. Domini revelled in the stillness. The +fatigue of travel had quite gone from her now and she began to feel +strangely at home. Suzanne had arranged photographs, books, flowers in +the little salon, had put cushions here and there, and thrown pretty +coverings over the sofa and the two low chairs. The room had an air of +cosiness, of occupation. It was a room one could sit in without +restlessness, and Domini liked its simplicity, its bare wooden floor +and white walls. The sun made everything right here. Without the sun-- +but she could not think of Beni-Mora without the sun. + +She read on the verandah and dreamed, and the hours slipped quickly +away. No one came to disturb her. She heard no footsteps, no movements +of humanity in the house. Now and then the sound of voices floated up +to her from the gardens, mingling with the peculiar dry noise of palm +leaves stirring in a breeze. Or she heard the distant gallop of +horses' feet. The church bell chimed the hours and made her recall the +previous evening. Already it seemed far off in the past. She could +scarcely believe that she had not yet spent twenty-four hours in Beni- +Mora. A conviction came to her that she would be there for a long +while, that she would strike roots into this sunny place of peace. +When she heard the church bell now she thought of the interior of the +church and of the priest with an odd sort of familiar pleasure, as +people in England often think of the village church in which they have +always been accustomed to worship, and of the clergyman who ministers +in it Sunday after Sunday. Yet at moments she remembered her inward +cry in Count Anteoni's garden, "Oh, what is going to happen to me +here?" And then she was dimly conscious that Beni-Mora was the home of +many things besides peace. It held warring influences. At one moment +it lulled her and she was like an infant rocked in a cradle. At +another moment it stirred her, and she was a woman on the edge of +mysterious possibilities. There must be many individualities among the +desert spirits of whom Count Anteoni had spoken. Now one was with her +and whispered to her, now another. She fancied the light touch of +their hands on hers, pulling gently at her, as a child pulls you to +take you to see a treasure. And their treasure was surely far away, +hidden in the distance of the desert sands. + +As soon as the sun began to decline towards the west she put on her +hat, thrust the card Count Anteoni had given her into her glove and +set out towards the big hotel alone. She met Hadj as she walked down +the arcade. He wished to accompany her, and was evidently filled with +treacherous ideas of supplanting his friend Batouch, but she gave him +a franc and sent him away. The franc soothed him slightly, yet she +could see that his childish vanity was injured. There was a malicious +gleam in his long, narrow eyes as he looked after her. Yet there was +genuine admiration too. The Arab bows down instinctively before any +dominating spirit, and such a spirit in a foreign woman flashes in his +eyes like a bright flame. Physical strength, too, appeals to him with +peculiar force. Hadj tossed his head upwards, tucked in his chin, and +muttered some words in his brown throat as he noted the elastic grace +with which the rejecting foreign woman moved till she was out of his +sight. And she never looked back at him. That was a keen arrow in her +quiver. He fell into a deep reverie under the arcade and his face +became suddenly like the face of a sphinx. + +Meanwhile Domini had forgotten him. She had turned to the left down a +small street in which some Indians and superior Arabs had bazaars. One +of the latter came out from the shadow of his hanging rugs and +embroideries as she passed, and, addressing her in a strange mixture +of incorrect French and English, begged her to come in and examine his +wares. + +She shook her head, but could not help looking at him with interest. + +He was the thinnest man she had ever seen, and moved and stood almost +as if he were boneless. The line of his delicate and yet arbitrary +features was fierce. His face was pitted with small-pox and marked by +an old wound, evidently made by a knife, which stretched from his left +cheek to his forehead, ending just over the left eyebrow. The +expression of his eyes was almost disgustingly intelligent. While they +were fixed upon her Domini felt as if her body were a glass box in +which all her thoughts, feelings, and desires were ranged for his +inspection. In his demeanour there was much that pleaded, but also +something that commanded. His fingers were unnaturally long and held a +small bag, and he planted himself right before her in the road. + +"Madame, come in, venez avec moi. Venez--venez! I have much--I will +show--j'ai des choses extraordinaires! Tenez! Look!" + +He untied the mouth of the bag. Domini looked into it, expecting to +see something precious--jewels perhaps. She saw only a quantity of +sand, laughed, and moved to go on. She thought the Arab was an +impudent fellow trying to make fun of her. + +"No, no, Madame! Do not laugh! Ce sable est du desert. Il y a des +histoires la-dedans. Il y a l'histoire de Madame. Come bazaar! I will +read for Madame--what will be--what will become--I will read--I will +tell. Tenez!" He stared down into the bag and his face became suddenly +stern and fixed. "Deja je vois des choses dans la vie de Madame. Ah! +Mon Dieu! Ah! Mon Dieu!" + +"No, no," Domini said. + +She had hesitated, but was now determined. + +"I have no time to-day." + +The man cast a quick and sly glance at her, then stared once more into +the bag. "Ah! Mon Dieu! Ah! Mon Dieu!" he repeated. "The life to come +--the life of Madame--I see it in the bag!" + +His face looked tortured. Domini walked on hurriedly. When she had got +to a little distance she glanced back. The man was standing in the +middle of the road and glaring into the bag. His voice came down the +street to her. + +"Ah! Mon Dieu! Ah! Mon Dieu! I see it--I see--je vois la vie de Madame +--Ah! Mon Dieu!" + +There was an accent of dreadful suffering in his voice. It made Domini +shudder. + +She passed the mouth of the dancers' street. At the corner there was a +large Cafe Maure, and here, on rugs laid by the side of the road, +numbers of Arabs were stretched, some sipping tea from glasses, some +playing dominoes, some conversing, some staring calmly into vacancy, +like animals drowned in a lethargic dream. A black boy ran by holding +a hammered brass tray on which were some small china cups filled with +thick coffee. Halfway up the street he met three unveiled women clad +in voluminous white dresses, with scarlet, yellow, and purple +handkerchiefs bound over their black hair. He stopped and the women +took the cups with their henna-tinted fingers. Two young Arabs joined +them. There was a scuffle. White lumps of sugar flew up into the air. +Then there was a babel of voices, a torrent of cries full of barbaric +gaiety. + +Before it had died out of Domini's ears she stood by the statue of +Cardinal Lavigerie. Rather militant than priestly, raised high on a +marble pedestal, it faced the long road which, melting at last into a +faint desert track, stretched away to Tombouctou. The mitre upon the +head was worn surely as if it were a helmet, the pastoral staff with +its double cross was grasped as if it were a sword. Upon the lower +cross was stretched a figure of the Christ in agony. And the Cardinal, +gazing with the eyes of an eagle out into the pathless wastes of sand +that lay beyond the palm trees, seemed, by his mere attitude, to cry +to all the myriad hordes of men the deep-bosomed Sahara mothered in +her mystery and silence, "Come unto the Church! Come unto me!" + +He called men in from the desert. Domini fancied his voice echoing +along the sands till the worshippers of Allah and of his Prophet heard +it like a clarion in Tombouctou. + +When she reached the great hotel the sun was just beginning to set. +She drew Count Anteoni's card from her glove and rang the bell. After +a long interval a magnificent man, with the features of an Arab but a +skin almost as black as a negro, opened the door. + +"Can I go up the tower to see the sunset?" she asked, giving him the +card. + +The man bowed low, escorted her through a long hall full of furniture +shrouded in coverings, up a staircase, along a corridor with numbered +rooms, up a second staircase and out upon a flat-terraced roof, from +which the tower soared high above the houses and palms of Beni-Mora, a +landmark visible half-a-day's journey out in the desert. A narrow +spiral stair inside the tower gained the summit. + +"I'll go up alone," Domini said. "I shall stay some time and I would +rather not keep you." + +She put some money into the Arab's hand. He looked pleased, yet +doubtful too for a moment. Then he seemed to banish his hesitation +and, with a deprecating smile, said something which she could not +understand. She nodded intelligently to get rid of him. Already, from +the roof, she caught sight of a great visionary panorama glowing with +colour and magic. She was impatient to climb still higher into the +sky, to look down on the world as an eagle does. So she turned away +decisively and mounted the dark, winding stair till she reached a +door. She pushed it open with some difficulty, and came out into the +air at a dizzy height, shutting the door forcibly behind her with an +energetic movement of her strong arms. + +The top of the tower was small and square, and guarded by a white +parapet breast high. In the centre of it rose the outer walls and the +ceiling of the top of the staircase, which prevented a person standing +on one side of the tower from seeing anybody who was standing at the +opposite side. There was just sufficient space between parapet and +staircase wall for two people to pass with difficulty and manoeuvring. + +But Domini was not concerned with such trivial details, as she would +have thought them had she thought of them. Directly she had shut the +little door and felt herself alone--alone as an eagle in the sky--she +took the step forward that brought her to the parapet, leaned her arms +on it, looked out and was lost in a passion of contemplation. + +At first she did not discern any of the multitudinous minutiae in the +great evening vision beneath and around her. She only felt conscious +of depth, height, space, colour, mystery, calm. She did not measure. +She did not differentiate. She simply stood there, leaning lightly on +the snowy plaster work, and experienced something that she had never +experienced before, that she had never imagined. It was scarcely +vivid; for in everything that is vivid there seems to be something +small, the point to which wonders converge, the intense spark to which +many fires have given themselves as food, the drop which contains the +murmuring force of innumerable rivers. It was more than vivid. It was +reliantly dim, as is that pulse of life which is heard through and +above the crash of generations and centuries falling downwards into +the abyss; that persistent, enduring heart-beat, indifferent in its +mystical regularity, that ignores and triumphs, and never grows louder +nor diminishes, inexorably calm, inexorably steady, undefeated--more-- +utterly unaffected by unnumbered millions of tragedies and deaths. + +Many sounds rose from far down beneath the tower, but at first Domini +did not hear them. She was only aware of an immense, living silence, a +silence flowing beneath, around and above her in dumb, invisible +waves. Circles of rest and peace, cool and serene, widened as circles +in a pool towards the unseen limits of the satisfied world, limits +lost in the hidden regions beyond the misty, purple magic where sky +and desert met. And she felt as if her brain, ceaselessly at work from +its birth, her heart, unresting hitherto in a commotion of desires, +her soul, an eternal flutter of anxious, passionate wings, folded +themselves together gently like the petals of roses when a summer +night comes into a garden. + +She was not conscious that she breathed while she stood there. She +thought her bosom ceased to rise and fall. The very blood dreamed in +her veins as the light of evening dreamed in the blue. + +She knew the Great Pause that seems to divide some human lives in two, +as the Great Gulf divided him who lay in Abraham's bosom from him who +was shrouded in the veil of fire. + + + + +BOOK II. THE VOICE OF PRAYER + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The music of things from below stole up through the ethereal spaces to +Domini without piercing her dream. But suddenly she started with a +sense of pain so acute that it shook her body and set the pulses in +her temples beating. She lifted her arms swiftly from the parapet and +turned her head. She had heard a little grating noise which seemed to +be near to her, enclosed with her on this height in the narrow space +of the tower. Slight as it was, and short--already she no longer heard +it--it had in an instant driven her out of Heaven, as if it had been +an angel with a flaming sword. She felt sure that there must be +something alive with her at the tower summit, something which by a +sudden movement had caused the little noise she had heard. What was +it? When she turned her head she could only see the outer wall of the +staircase, a section of the narrow white space which surrounded it, an +angle of the parapet and blue air. + +She listened, holding her breath and closing her two hands on the +parapet, which was warm from the sun. Now, caught back to reality, she +could hear faintly the sounds from below in Beni-Mora. But they did +not concern her, and she wished to shut them out from her ears. What +did concern her was to know what was with her up in the sky. Had a +bird alighted on the parapet and startled her by scratching at the +plaster with its beak? Could a mouse have shuffled in the wall? Or was +there a human being up there hidden from her by the masonry? + +This last supposition disturbed her almost absurdly for a moment. She +was inclined to walk quickly round to the opposite side of the tower, +but something stronger than her inclination, an imperious shyness, +held her motionless. She had been carried so far away from the world +that she felt unable to face the scrutiny of any world-bound creature. +Having been in the transparent region of magic it seemed to her as if +her secret, the great secret of the absolutely true, the naked +personality hidden in every human being, were set blazing in her eyes +like some torch borne in a procession, just for that moment. The +moment past, she could look anyone fearlessly in the face; but not +now, not yet. + +While she stood there, half turning round, she heard the sound again +and knew what caused it. A foot had shifted on the plaster floor. +There was someone else then looking out over the desert. A sudden idea +struck her. Probably it was Count Anteoni. He knew she was coming and +might have decided to act once more as her cicerone. He had not heard +her climbing the stairs, and, having gone to the far side of the +tower, was no doubt watching the sunset, lost in a dream as she had +been. + +She resolved not to disturb him--if it was he. When he had dreamed +enough he must inevitably come round to where she was standing in +order to gain the staircase. She would let him find her there. Less +troubled now, but in an utterly changed mood, she turned, leaned once +more on the parapet and looked over, this time observantly, prepared +to note the details that, combined and veiled in the evening light of +Africa, made the magic which had so instantly entranced her. + +She looked down into the village and could see its extent, precisely +how it was placed in the Sahara, in what relation exactly it stood to +the mountain ranges, to the palm groves and the arid, sunburnt tracts, +where its life centred and where it tailed away into suburban edges +not unlike the ragged edges of worn garments, where it was idle and +frivolous, where busy and sedulous. She realised for the first time +that there were two distinct layers of life in Beni-Mora--the life of +the streets, courts, gardens and market-place, and above it the life +of the roofs. Both were now spread out before her, and the latter, in +its domestic intimacy, interested and charmed her. She saw upon the +roofs the children playing with little dogs, goats, fowls, mothers in +rags of gaudy colours stirring the barley for cous-cous, shredding +vegetables, pounding coffee, stewing meat, plucking chickens, bending +over bowls from which rose the steam of soup; small girls, seated in +dusty corners, solemnly winding wool on sticks, and pausing, now and +then, to squeak to distant members of the home circle, or to smell at +flowers laid beside them as solace to their industry. An old +grandmother rocked and kissed a naked baby with a pot belly. A big +grey rat stole from a rubbish heap close by her, flitted across the +sunlit space, and disappeared into a cranny. Pigeons circled above the +home activities, delicate lovers of the air, wandered among the palm +tops, returned and fearlessly alighted on the brown earth parapets, +strutting hither and thither and making their perpetual, +characteristic motion of the head, half nod, half genuflection. Veiled +girls promenaded to take the evening cool, folding their arms beneath +their flowing draperies, and chattering to one another in voices that +Domini could not hear. More close at hand certain roofs in the +dancers' street revealed luxurious sofas on which painted houris were +lolling in sinuous attitudes, or were posed with a stiffness of idols, +little tables set with coffee cups, others round which were gathered +Zouaves intent on card games, but ever ready to pause for a caress or +for some jesting absurdity with the women who squatted beside them. +Some men, dressed like girls, went to and fro, serving the dancers +with sweetmeats and with cigarettes, their beards flowing down with a +grotesque effect over their dresses of embroidered muslin, their hairy +arms emerging from hanging sleeves of silk. A negro boy sat holding a +tomtom between his bare knees and beating it with supple hands, and a +Jewess performed the stomach dance, waving two handkerchiefs stained +red and purple, and singing in a loud and barbarous contralto voice +which Domini could hear but very faintly. The card-players stopped +their game and watched her, and Domini watched too. For the first +time, and from this immense height, she saw this universal dance of +the east; the doll-like figure, fantastically dwarfed, waving its tiny +hands, wriggling its minute body, turning about like a little top, +strutting and bending, while the soldiers--small almost from here as +toys taken out of a box--assumed attitudes of deep attention as they +leaned upon the card-table, stretching out their legs enveloped in +balloon-like trousers. + +Domini thought of the recruits, now, no doubt, undergoing elsewhere +their initiation. For a moment she seemed to see their coarse peasant +faces rigid with surprise, their hanging jaws, their childish, and yet +sensual, round eyes. Notre Dame de la Garde must seem very far away +from them now. + +With that thought she looked quickly away from the Jewess and the +soldiers. She felt a sudden need of something more nearly in relation +with her inner self. She was almost angry as she realised how deep had +been her momentary interest in a scene suggestive of a license which +was surely unattractive to her. Yet was it unattractive? She scarcely +knew. But she knew that it had kindled in her a sudden and very strong +curiosity, even a vague, momentary desire that she had been born in +some tent of the Ouled Nails--no, that was impossible. She had not +felt such a desire even for an instant. She looked towards the +thickets of the palms, towards the mountains full of changing, +exquisite colours, towards the desert. And at once the dream began to +return, and she felt as if hands slipped under her heart and uplifted +it. + +What depths and heights were within her, what deep, dark valleys, and +what mountain peaks! And how she travelled within herself, with +swiftness of light, with speed of the wind. What terrors of activity +she knew. Did every human being know similar terrors? + +The colours everywhere deepened as day failed. The desert spirits were +at work. She thought of Count Anteoni again, and resolved to go round +to the other side of the tower. As she moved to do this she heard once +more the shifting of a foot on the plaster floor, then a step. +Evidently she had infected him with an intention similar to her own. +She went on, still hearing the step, turned the corner and stood face +to face in the strong evening light with the traveller. Their bodies +almost touched in the narrow space before they both stopped, startled. +For a moment they stood still looking at each other, as people might +look who have spoken together, who know something of each other's +lives, who may like or dislike, wish to avoid or to draw near to each +other, but who cannot pretend that they are complete strangers, wholly +indifferent to each other. They met in the sky, almost as one bird may +meet another on the wing. And, to Domini, at any rate, it seemed as if +the depth, height, space, colour, mystery and calm--yes, even the calm +--which were above, around and beneath them, had been placed there by +hidden hands as a setting for their encounter, even as the abrupt +pageant of the previous day, into which the train had emerged from the +blackness of the tunnel, had surely been created as a frame for the +face which had looked upon her as if out of the heart of the sun. The +assumption was absurd, unreasonable, yet vital. She did not combat it +because she felt it too powerful for common sense to strive against. +And it seemed to her that the stranger felt it too, that she saw her +sensation reflected in his eyes as he stood between the parapet and +the staircase wall, barring--in despite of himself--her path. The +moment seemed long while they stood motionless. Then the man took off +his soft hat awkwardly, yet with real politeness, and stood quickly +sideways against the parapet to let her pass. She could have passed if +she had brushed against him, and made a movement to do so. Then she +checked herself and looked at him again as if she expected him to +speak to her. His hat was still in his hand, and the light desert wind +faintly stirred his short brown hair. He did not speak, but stood +there crushing himself against the plaster work with a sort of fierce +timidity, as if he dreaded the touch of her skirt against him, and +longed to make himself small, to shrivel up and let her go by in +freedom. + +"Thank you," she said in French. + +She passed him, but was unable to do so without touching him. Her left +arm was hanging down, and her bare hand knocked against the back of +the hand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment she +touched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as over-fatigued +men sometimes shiver in daylight. An extraordinary, almost motherly, +sensation of pity for him came over her. She did not know why. The +intense heat of his hand, the shiver that ran over his body, his +attitude as he shrank with a kind of timid, yet ferocious, politeness +against the white wall, the expression in his eyes when their hands +touched--a look she could not analyse, but which seemed to hold a +mingling of wistfulness and repellance, as of a being stretching out +arms for succour, and crying at the same time, "Don't draw near to me! +Leave me to myself!"--everything about him moved her. She felt that +she was face to face with a solitariness of soul such as she had never +encountered before, a solitariness that was cruel, that was weighed +down with agony. And directly she had passed the man and thanked him +formally she stopped with her usual decision of manner. She had +abruptly made up her mind to talk to him. He was already moving to +turn away. She spoke quickly, and in French. + +"Isn't it wonderful here?" she said; and she made her voice rather +loud, and almost sharp, to arrest his attention. + +He turned round swiftly, yet somehow reluctantly, looked at her +anxiously, and seemed doubtful whether he would reply. + +After a silence that was short, but that seemed, and in such +circumstances was, long, he answered, in French: + +"Very wonderful, Madame." + +The sound of his own voice seemed to startle him. He stood as if he +had heard an unusual noise which had alarmed him, and looked at Domini +as if he expected that she would share in his sensation. Very quietly +and deliberately she leaned her arms again on the parapet and spoke to +him once more. + +"We seem to be the only travellers here." + +The man's attitude became slightly calmer. He looked less momentary, +less as if he were in haste to go, but still shy, fierce and +extraordinarily unconventional. + +"Yes, Madame; there are not many here." + +After a pause, and with an uncertain accent, he added: + +"Pardon, Madame--for yesterday." + +There was a sudden simplicity, almost like that of a child, in the +sound of his voice as he said that. Domini knew at once that he +alluded to the incident at the station of El-Akbara, that he was +trying to make amends. The way he did it touched her curiously. She +felt inclined to stretch out her hand to him and say, "Of course! +Shake hands on it!" almost as an honest schoolboy might. But she only +answered: + +"I know it was only an accident. Don't think of it any more." + +She did not look at him. + +"Where money is concerned the Arabs are very persistent," she +continued. + +The man laid one of his brown hands on the top of the parapet. She +looked at it, and it seemed to her that she had never before seen the +back of a hand express so much of character, look so intense, so +ardent, and so melancholy as his. + +"Yes, Madame." + +He still spoke with an odd timidity, with an air of listening to his +own speech as if in some strange way it were phenomenal to him. It +occurred to her that possibly he had lived much in lonely places, in +which his solitude had rarely been broken, and he had been forced to +acquire the habit of silence. + +"But they are very picturesque. They look almost like some religious +order when they wear their hoods. Don't you think so?" + +She saw the brown hand lifted from the parapet, and heard her +companion's feet shift on the floor of the tower. But this time he +said nothing. As she could not see his hand now she looked out again +over the panorama of the evening, which was deepening in intensity +with every passing moment, and immediately she was conscious of two +feelings that filled her with wonder: a much stronger and sweeter +sense of the African magic than she had felt till now, and the +certainty that the greater force and sweetness of her feeling were +caused by the fact that she had a companion in her contemplation. This +was strange. An intense desire for loneliness had driven her out of +Europe to this desert place, and a companion, who was an utter +stranger, emphasised the significance, gave fibre to the beauty, +intensity to the mystery of that which she looked on. It was as if the +meaning of the African evening were suddenly doubled. She thought of a +dice-thrower who throws one die and turns up six, then throws two and +turns up twelve. And she remained silent in her surprise. The man +stood silently beside her. Afterwards she felt as if, during this +silence in the tower, some powerful and unseen being had arrived +mysteriously, introduced them to one another and mysteriously +departed. + +The evening drew on in their silence and the dream was deeper now. All +that Domini had felt when first she approached the parapet she felt +more strangely, and she grasped, with physical and mental vision, not +only the whole, but the innumerable parts of that which she looked on. +She saw, fancifully, the circles widen in the pool of peace, but she +saw also the things that had been hidden in the pool. The beauty of +dimness, the beauty of clearness, joined hands. The one and the other +were, with her, like sisters. She heard the voices from below, and +surely also the voices of the stars that were approaching with the +night, blending harmoniously and making a music in the air. The +glowing sky and the glowing mountains were as comrades, each +responsive to the emotions of the other. The lights in the rocky +clefts had messages for the shadowy moon, and the palm trees for the +thin, fire-tipped clouds about the west. Far off the misty purple of +the desert drew surely closer, like a mother coming to fold her +children in her arms. + +The Jewess still danced upon the roof to the watching Zouaves, but now +there was something mystic in her tiny movements which no longer +roused in Domini any furtive desire not really inherent in her nature. +There was something beautiful in everything seen from this altitude in +this wondrous evening light. + +Presently, without turning to her companion, she said: + +"Could anything look ugly in Beni-Mora from here at this hour, do you +think?" + +Again there was the silence that seemed characteristic of this man +before he spoke, as if speech were very difficult to him. + +"I believe not, Madame." + +"Even that woman down there on that roof looks graceful--the one +dancing for those soldiers." + +He did not answer. She glanced at him and pointed. + +"Down there, do you see?" + +She noticed that he did not follow her hand and that his face became +stern. He kept his eyes fixed on the trees of the garden of the +Gazelles near Cardinal Lavigerie's statue and replied: + +"Yes, Madame." + +His manner made her think that perhaps he had seen the dance at close +quarters and that it was outrageous. For a moment she felt slightly +uncomfortable, but determined not to let him remain under a false +impression, she added carelessly: + +"I have never seen the dances of Africa. I daresay I should think them +ugly enough if I were near, but from this height everything is +transformed." + +"That is true, Madame." + +There was an odd, muttering sound in his voice, which was deep, and +probably strong, but which he kept low. Domini thought it was the most +male voice she had ever heard. It seemed to be full of sex, like his +hands. Yet there was nothing coarse in either the one or the other. +Everything about him was vital to a point that was so remarkable as to +be not actually unnatural but very near the unnatural. + +She glanced at him again. He was a big man, but very thin. Her +experienced eyes of an athletic woman told her that he was capable of +great and prolonged muscular exertion. He was big-boned and deep- +chested, and had nervous as well as muscular strength. The timidity in +him was strange in such a man. What could it spring from? It was not +like ordinary shyness, the /gaucherie/ of a big, awkward lout +unaccustomed to woman's society but able to be at his ease and +boisterous in the midst of a crowd of men. Domini thought that he +would be timid even of men. Yet it never struck her that he might be a +coward, unmanly. Such a quality would have sickened her at once, and +she knew she would have at once divined it. He did not hold himself +very well, but was inclined to stoop and to keep his head low, as if +he were in the habit of looking much on the ground. The idiosyncrasy +was rather ugly, and suggested melancholy to her, the melancholy of a +man given to over-much meditation and afraid to face the radiant +wonder of life. + +She caught herself up at this last thought. She--thinking naturally +that life was full of radiant wonder! Was she then so utterly +transformed already by Beni-Mora? Or had the thought come to her +because she stood side by side with someone whose sorrows had been +unfathomably deeper than her own, and so who, all unconsciously, gave +her a knowledge of her own--till then unsuspected--hopefulness? + +She looked at her companion again. He seemed to have relinquished his +intention of leaving her, and was standing quietly beside her, staring +towards the desert, with his head slightly drooped forward. In one +hand he held a thick stick. He had put his hat on again. His attitude +was much calmer than it had been. Already he seemed more at ease with +her. She was glad of that. She did not ask herself why. But the +intense beauty of evening in this land and at this height made her +wish enthusiastically that it could produce a happiness such as it +created in her in everyone. Such beauty, with its voices, its colours, +its lines of tree and leaf, of wall and mountain ridge, its mystery of +shapes and movements, stillness and dreaming distance, its atmosphere +of the far off come near, chastened by journeying, fine with the +unfamiliar, its solemn changes towards the impenetrable night, was too +large a thing and fraught with too much tender and lovable invention +to be worshipped in any selfishness. It made her feel as if she could +gladly be a martyr for unseen human beings, as if sacrifice would be +an easy thing if made for those to whom such beauty would appeal. +Brotherhood rose up and cried in her, as it surely sang in the sunset, +in the mountains, the palm groves and the desert. The flame above the +hills, their purple outline, the moving, feathery trees; dark under +the rose-coloured glory of the west, and most of all the immeasurably +remote horizons, each moment more strange and more eternal, made her +long to make this harsh stranger happy. + +"One ought to find happiness here," she said to him very simply. + +She saw his hand strain itself round the wood of his stick. + +"Why?" he said. + +He turned right round to her and looked at her with a sort of anger. + +"Why should you suppose so?" he added, speaking quite quickly, and +without his former uneasiness and consciousness. + +"Because it is so beautiful and so calm." + +"Calm!" he said. "Here!" + +There was a sound of passionate surprise in his voice. Domini was +startled. She felt as if she were fighting, and must fight hard if she +were not to be beaten to the dust. But when she looked at him she +could find no weapons. She said nothing. In a moment he spoke again. + +"You find calm here," he said slowly. "Yes, I see." + +His head dropped lower and his face hardened as he looked over the +edge of the parapet to the village, the blue desert. Then he lifted +his eyes to the mountains and the clear sky and the shadowy moon. Each +element in the evening scene was examined with a fierce, painful +scrutiny, as if he was resolved to wring from each its secret. + +"Why, yes," he added in a low, muttering voice full of a sort of +terrified surprise, "it is so. You are right. Why, yes, it is calm +here." + +He spoke like a man who had been suddenly convinced, beyond power of +further unbelief, of something he had never suspected, never dreamed +of. And the conviction seemed to be bitter to him, even alarming. + +"But away out there must be the real home of peace, I think," Domini +said. + +"Where?" said the man, quickly. + +She pointed towards the south. + +"In the depths of the desert," she said. "Far away from civilisation, +far away from modern men and modern women, and all the noisy trifles +we are accustomed to." + +He looked towards the south eagerly. In everything he did there was a +flamelike intensity, as if he could not perform an ordinary action, or +turn his eyes upon any object, without calling up in his mind, or +heart, a violence of thought or of feeling. + +"You think it--you think there would be peace out there, far away in +the desert?" he said, and his face relaxed slightly, as if in +obedience to some thought not wholly sad. + +"It may be fanciful," she replied. "But I think there must. Surely +Nature has not a lying face." + +He was still gazing towards the south, from which the night was slowly +emerging, a traveller through a mist of blue. He seemed to be held +fascinated by the desert which was fading away gently, like a mystery +which had drawn near to the light of revelation, but which was now +slipping back into an underworld of magic. He bent forward as one who +watches a departure in which he longs to share, and Domini felt sure +that he had forgotten her. She felt, too, that this man was gripped by +the desert influence more fiercely even than she was, and that he must +have a stronger imagination, a greater force of projection even than +she had. Where she bore a taper he lifted a blazing torch. + +A roar of drums rose up immediately beneath them. From the negro +village emerged a ragged procession of thick-lipped men, and singing, +capering women tricked out in scarlet and yellow shawls, headed by a +male dancer clad in the skins of jackals, and decorated with mirrors, +camels' skulls and chains of animals' teeth. He shouted and leaped, +rolled his bulging eyes, and protruded a fluttering tongue. The dust +curled up round his stamping, naked feet. + +"Yah-ah-la! Yah-ah-la!" + +The howling chorus came up to the tower, with a clash of enormous +castanets, and of poles beaten rhythmically together. + +"Yi-yi-yi-yi!" went the shrill voices of the women. + +The cloud of dust increased, enveloping the lower part of the +procession, till the black heads and waving arms emerged as if from a +maelstrom. The thunder of the drums was like the thunder of a cataract +in which the singers, disappearing towards the village, seemed to be +swept away. + +The man at Domini's side raised himself up with a jerk, and all the +former fierce timidity and consciousness came back to his face. He +turned round, pulled open the door behind him, and took off his hat. + +"Excuse me, Madame," he said. "Bon soir!" + +"I am coming too," Domini answered. + +He looked uncomfortable and anxious, hesitated, then, as if driven to +do it in spite of himself, plunged downward through the narrow doorway +of the tower into the darkness. Domini waited for a moment, listening +to the heavy sound of his tread on the wooden stairs. She frowned till +her thick eyebrows nearly met and the corners of her lips turned down. +Then she followed slowly. When she was on the stairs and the footsteps +died away below her she fully realised that for the first time in her +life a man had insulted her. Her face felt suddenly very hot, and her +lips very dry, and she longed to use her physical strength in a way +not wholly feminine. In the hall, among the shrouded furniture, she +met the smiling doorkeeper. She stopped. + +"Did the gentleman who has just gone out give you his card?" she said +abruptly. + +The Arab assumed a fawning, servile expression. + +"No, Madame, but he is a very good gentleman, and I know well that +Monsieur the Count--" + +Domini cut him short. + +"Of what nationality is he?" + +"Monsieur the Count, Madame?" + +"No, no." + +"The gentleman? I do not know. But he can speak Arabic. Oh, he is a +very nice--" + +"Bon soir," said Domini, giving him a franc. + +When she was out on the road in front of the hotel she saw the +stranger striding along in the distance at the tail of the negro +procession. The dust stirred up by the dancers whirled about him. +Several small negroes skipped round him, doubtless making eager +demands upon his generosity. He seemed to take no notice of them, and +as she watched him Domini was reminded of his retreat from the praying +Arab in the desert that morning. + +"Is he afraid of women as he is afraid of prayer?" she thought, and +suddenly the sense of humiliation and anger left her, and was +succeeded by a powerful curiosity such as she had never felt before +about anyone. She realised that this curiosity had dawned in her +almost at the first moment when she saw the stranger, and had been +growing ever since. One circumstance after another had increased it +till now it was definite, concrete. She wondered that she did not feel +ashamed of such a feeling so unusual in her, and surely unworthy, like +a prying thing. Of all her old indifference that side which confronted +people had always been the most sturdy, the most solidly built. +Without affectation she had been a profoundly incurious woman as to +the lives and the concerns of others, even of those whom she knew best +and was supposed to care for most. Her nature had been essentially +languid in human intercourse. The excitements, troubles, even the +passions of others had generally stirred her no more than a distant +puppet-show stirs an absent-minded passer in the street. + +In Africa it seemed that her whole nature had been either violently +renewed, or even changed. She could not tell which. But this strong +stirring of curiosity would, she believed, have been impossible in the +woman she had been but a week ago, the woman who travelled to +Marseilles dulled, ignorant of herself, longing for change. Perhaps +instead of being angry she ought to welcome it as a symptom of the +re-creation she longed for. + +While she changed her gown for dinner that night she debated within +herself how she would treat her fellow-guest when she met him in the +/salle-a-manger/. She ought to cut him after what had occurred, she +supposed. Then it seemed to her that to do so would be undignified, +and would give him the impression that he had the power to offend her. +She resolved to bow to him if they met face to face. Just before she +went downstairs she realised how vehement her internal debate had +been, and was astonished. Suzanne was putting away something in a +drawer, bending down and stretching out her plump arms. + +"Suzanne!" Domini said. + +"Yes, Mam'zelle!" + +"How long have you been with me?" + +"Three years, Mam'zelle." + +The maid shut the drawer and turned round, fixing her shallow, blue- +grey eyes on her mistress, and standing as if she were ready to be +photographed. + +"Would you say that I am the same sort of person to-day as I was three +years ago?" + +Suzanne looked like a cat that has been startled by a sudden noise. + +"The same, Mam'zelle?" + +"Yes. Do you think I have altered in that time?" + +Suzanne considered the question with her head slightly on one side. + +"Only here, Mam'zelle," she replied at length. + +"Here!" said Domini, rather eagerly. "Why, I have only been here +twenty-six hours." + +"That is true. But Mam'zelle looks as if she had a little life here, a +little emotion. Mon Dieu! Mam'zelle will pardon me, but what is a +woman who feels no emotion? A packet. Is it not so, Mam'zelle?" + +"Well, but what is there to be emotional about here?" + +Suzanne looked vaguely crafty. + +"Who knows, Mam'zelle? Who can say? Mon Dieu! This village is dull, +but it is odd. No band plays. There are no shops for a girl to look +into. There is nothing chic except the costumes of the Zouaves. But +one cannot deny that it is odd. When Mam'zelle was away this afternoon +in the tower Monsieur Helmuth--" + +"Who is that?" + +"The Monsieur who accompanies the omnibus to the station. Monsieur +Helmuth was polite enough to escort me through the village. Mon Dieu, +Mam'zelle, I said to myself, 'Anything might occur here.'" + +"Anything! What do you mean?" + +But Suzanne did not seem to know. She only made her figure look more +tense than ever, tucked in her round little chin, which was dimpled +and unmeaning, and said: + +"Who knows, Mam'zelle? This village is dull, that is true, but it is +odd. One does not find oneself in such places every day." + +Domini could not help laughing at these Delphic utterances, but she +went downstairs thoughtfully. She knew Suzanne's practical spirit. +Till now the maid had never shown any capacity of imagination. Beni- +Mora was certainly beginning to mould her nature into a slightly +different shape. And Domini seemed to see an Eastern potter at work, +squatting in the sun and with long and delicate fingers changing the +outline of the statuette of a woman, modifying a curve here, an angle +there, till the clay began to show another woman, but with, as it +were, the shadow of the former one lurking behind the new personality. + +The stranger was not at dinner. His table was laid and Domini sat +expecting each moment to hear the shuffling tread of his heavy boots +on the wooden floor. When he did not come she thought she was glad. +After dinner she spoke for a moment to the priest and then went +upstairs to the verandah to take coffee. She found Batouch there. He +had renounced his determined air, and his /cafe-au-lait/ countenance +and huge body expressed enduring pathos, as of an injured, patient +creature laid out for the trampling of Domini's cruel feet. + +"Well?" she said, sitting down by the basket table. + +"Well, Madame?" + +He sighed and looked on the ground, lifted one white-socked foot, +removed its yellow slipper, shook out a tiny stone from the slipper +and put it on again, slowly, gracefully and very sadly. Then he pulled +the white sock up with both hands and glanced at Domini out of the +corners of his eyes. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Madame does not care to see the dances of Beni-Mora, to hear the +music, to listen to the story-teller, to enter the cafe of El Hadj +where Achmed sings to the keef smokers, or to witness the beautiful +religious ecstasies of the dervishes from Oumach. Therefore I come to +bid Madame respectfully goodnight and to take my departure." + +He threw his burnous over his left shoulder with a sudden gesture of +despair that was full of exaggeration. Domini smiled. + +"You've been very good to-day," she said. + +"I am always good, Madame. I am of a serious disposition. Not one +keeps Ramadan as I do." + +"I am sure of it. Go downstairs and wait for me under the arcade." + +Batouch's large face became suddenly a rendezvous of all the gaieties. + +"Madame is coming out to-night?" + +"Presently. Be in the arcade." + +He swept away with the ample magnificence of joyous bearing and +movement that was like a loud Te Deum. + +"Suzanne! Suzanne!" + +Domini had finished her coffee. + +"Mam'zelle!" answered Suzanne, appearing. + +"Would you like to come out with me to-night?" + +"Mam'zelle is going out?" + +"Yes, to see the village by night." + +Suzanne looked irresolute. Craven fear and curiosity fought a battle +within her, as was evident by the expressions that came and went in +her face before she answered. + +"Shall we not be murdered, Mam'zelle, and are there interesting things +to see?" + +"There are interesting things to see--dancers, singers, keef smokers. +But if you are afraid don't come." + +"Dancers, Mam'zelle! But the Arabs carry knives. And is there singing? +I--I should not like Mam'zelle to go without me. But----" + +"Come and protect me from the knives then. Bring my jacket--any one. I +don't suppose I shall put it on." + +As she spoke the distant tomtoms began. Suzanne started nervously and +looked at Domini with sincere apprehension. + +"We had better not go, Mam'zelle. It is not safe out here. Men who +make a noise like that would not respect us." + +"I like it." + +"That sound? But it is always the same and there is no music in it." + +"Perhaps there is more in it than music. The jacket?" + +Suzanne went gingerly to fetch it. The faint cry of the African +hautboy rose up above the tomtoms. The evening /fete/ was beginning. +To-night Domini felt that she must go to the distant music and learn +to understand its meaning, not only for herself, but for those who +made it and danced to it night after night. It stirred her +imagination, and made her in love with mystery, and anxious at least +to steal to the very threshold of the barbarous world. Did it stir +those who had had it in their ears ever since they were naked, +sunburned babies rolling in the hot sun of the Sahara? Could it seem +as ordinary to them as the cold uproar of the piano-organ to the +urchins of Whitechapel, or the whine of the fiddle to the peasants of +Touraine where Suzanne was born? She wanted to know. Suzanne returned +with the jacket. She still looked apprehensive, but she had put on her +hat and fastened a sprig of red geranium in the front of her black +gown. The curiosity was in the ascendant. + +"We are not going quite alone, Mam'zelle?" + +"No, no. Batouch will protect us." + +Suzanne breathed a furtive sigh. + +The poet was in the white arcade with Hadj, who looked both wicked and +deplorable, and had a shabby air, in marked contrast to Batouch's +ostentatious triumph. Domini felt quite sorry for him. + +"You come with us too," she said. + +Hadj squared his shoulders and instantly looked vivacious and almost +smart. But an undecided expression came into his face. + +"Where is Madame going?" + +"To see the village." + +Batouch shot a glance at Hadj and smiled unpleasantly. + +"I will come with Madame." + +Batouch still smiled. + +"We are going to the Ouled Nails," he said significantly to Hadj. + +"I--I will come." + +They set out. Suzanne looked gently at the poet's legs and seemed +comforted. + +"Take great care of Mademoiselle Suzanne," Domini said to the poet. +"She is a little nervous in the dark." + +"Mademoiselle Suzanne is like the first day after the fast of +Ramadan," replied the poet, majestically. "No one would harm her were +she to wander alone to Tombouctou." + +The prospect drew from Suzanne a startled gulp. Batouch placed himself +tenderly at her side and they set out, Domini walking behind with +Hadj. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The village was full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. The +night was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardens +Domini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how he +passed his solitary evenings when he went home from the hotel, and she +fancied him sitting in some plainly-furnished little room with Bous- +Bous and a few books, smoking a pipe and thinking sadly of the White +Fathers of Africa and of his frustrated desire for complete +renunciation. With this last thought blended the still remote sound of +the hautboy. It suggested anything rather than renunciation; +mysterious melancholy--successor to passion--the cry of longing, the +wail of the unknown that draws some men and women to splendid follies +and to ardent pilgrimages whose goal is the mirage. + +Hadj was talking in a low voice, but Domini did not listen to him. She +was vaguely aware that he was abusing Batouch, saying that he was a +liar, inclined to theft, a keef smoker, and in a general way steeped +to the lips in crime. But the moon was rising, the distant music was +becoming more distinct. She could not listen to Hadj. + +As they turned into the street of the sand-diviner the first ray of +the moon fell on the white road. Far away at the end of the street +Domini could see the black foliage of the trees in the Gazelles' +garden, and beyond, to the left, a dimness of shadowy palms at the +desert edge. The desert itself was not visible. Two Arabs passed, +shrouded in burnouses, with the hoods drawn up over their heads. Only +their black beards could be seen. They were talking violently and +waving their arms. Suzanne shuddered and drew close to the poet. Her +plump face worked and she glanced appealingly at her mistress. But +Domini was not thinking of her, or of violence or danger. The sound of +the tomtoms and hautboys seemed suddenly much louder now that the moon +began to shine, making a whiteness among the white houses of the +village, the white robes of the inhabitants, a greater whiteness on +the white road that lay before them. And she was thinking that the +moon whiteness of Beni-Mora was more passionate than pure, more like +the blanched face of a lover than the cool, pale cheek of a virgin. +There was excitement in it, suggestion greater even than the +suggestion of the tremendous coloured scenes of the evening that +preceded such a night. And she mused of white heat and of what it +means--the white heat of the brain blazing with thoughts that govern, +the white heat of the heart blazing with emotions that make such +thoughts seem cold. She had never known either. Was she incapable of +knowing them? Could she imagine them till there was physical heat in +her body if she was incapable of knowing them? Suzanne and the two +Arabs were distant shadows to her when that first moon-ray touched +their feet. The passion of the night began to burn her, and she +thought she would like to take her soul and hold it out to the white +flame. + +As they passed the sand-diviner's house Domini saw his spectral figure +standing under the yellow light of the hanging lantern in the middle +of his carpet shop, which was lined from floor to ceiling with dull +red embroideries and dim with the fumes of an incense brazier. He was +talking to a little boy, but keeping a wary eye on the street, and he +came out quickly, beckoning with his long hands, and calling softly, +in a half-chuckling and yet authoritative voice: + +"Venez, Madame, venez! Come! come!" + +Suzanne seized Domini's arm. + +"Not to-night!" Domini called out. + +"Yes, Madame, to-night. The vie of Madame is there in the sand to- +night. Je la vois, je la vois. C'est la dans le sable to-night." + +The moonlight showed the wound on his face. Suzanne uttered a cry and +hid her eyes with her hands. They went on towards the trees. Hadj +walked with hesitation. + +"How loud the music is getting," Domini said to him. + +"It will deafen Madame's ears if she gets nearer," said Hadj, eagerly. +"And the dancers are not for Madame. For the Arabs, yes, but for a +great lady of the most respectable England! Madame will be red with +disgust, with anger. Madame will have /mal-au-coeur/." + +Batouch began to look like an idol on whose large face the artificer +had carved an expression of savage ferocity. + +"Madame is my client," he said fiercely. "Madame trusts in me." + +Hadj laughed with a snarl: + +"He who smokes the keef is like a Mehari with a swollen tongue," he +rejoined. + +The poet looked as if he were going to spring upon his cousin, but he +restrained himself and a slow, malignant smile curled about his thick +lips like a snake. + +"I shall show to Madame a dancer who is modest, who is beautiful, +Hadj-ben-Ibrahim," he said softly. + +"Fatma is sick," said Hadj, quickly. + +"It will not be Fatma." + +Hadj began suddenly to gesticulate with his thin, delicate hands and +to look fiercely excited. + +"Halima is at the Fontaine Chaude," he cried. + +"Keltoum will be there." + +"She will not. Her foot is sick. She cannot dance. For a week she will +not dance. I know it." + +"And--Irena? Is she sick? Is she at the Hammam Salahine?" + +Hadj's countenance fell. He looked at his cousin sideways, always +showing his teeth. + +"Do you not know, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?" + +"/Ana ma 'audi ma nek oul lek!/"[*] growled Hadj in his throat. + +[*] "I have nothing to say to you." + +They had reached the end of the little street. The whiteness of the +great road which stretched straight through the oasis into the desert +lay before them, with the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie staring down it +in the night. At right angles was the street of the dancers, narrow, +bounded with the low white houses of the ouleds, twinkling with starry +lights, humming with voices, throbbing with the clashing music that +poured from the rival /cafes maures/, thronged with the white figures +of the desert men, strolling slowly, softly as panthers up and down. +The moonlight was growing brighter, as if invisible hands began to fan +the white flame of passion which lit up Beni-Mora. A patrol of +Tirailleurs Indigenes passed by going up the street, in yellow and +blue uniforms, turbans and white gaiters, their rifles over their +broad shoulders. The faint tramp of their marching feet was just +audible on the sandy road. + +"Hadj can go home if he is afraid of anything in the dancing street," +said Domini, rather maliciously. "Let us follow the soldiers." + +Hadj started as if he had been stung, and looked at Domini as if he +would like to strangle her. + +"I am afraid of nothing," he exclaimed proudly. "Madame does not know +Hadj-ben-Ibrahim." + +Batouch laughed soundlessly, shaking his great shoulders. It was +evident that he had divined his cousin's wish to supplant him and was +busily taking his revenge. Domini was amused, and as they went slowly +up the street in the wake of the soldiers she said: + +"Do you often come here at night, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?" + +"Oh, yes, Madame, when I am alone. But with ladies--" + +"You were here last night, weren't you, with the traveller from the +hotel?" + +"No, Madame. The Monsieur of the hotel preferred to visit the cafe of +the story-teller, which is far more interesting. If Madame will permit +me to take her--" + +But this last assault was too much for the poet's philosophy. He +suddenly threw off all pretence of graceful calm, and poured out upon +Hadj a torrent of vehement Arabic, accompanying it with passionate +gestures which filled Suzanne with horror and Domini with secret +delight. She liked this abrupt unveiling of the raw. There had always +lurked in her an audacity, a quick spirit of adventure more boyish +than feminine. She had reached the age of thirty-two without ever +gratifying it, or even fully realising how much she longed to gratify +it. But now she began to understand it and to feel that it was +imperious. + +"I have a barbarian in me," she thought. + +"Batouch!" she said sharply. + +The poet turned a distorted face to her. + +"Madame!" + +"That will do. Take us to the dancing-house." + +Batouch shot a last ferocious glance at Hadj and they went on into the +crowd of strolling men. + +The little street, bright with the lamps of the small houses, from +which projected wooden balconies painted in gay colours, and with the +glowing radiance of the moon, was mysterious despite its gaiety, its +obvious dedication to the cult of pleasure. Alive with the shrieking +sounds of music, the movement and the murmur of desert humanity made +it almost solemn. This crowd of boys and men, robed in white from head +to heel, preserved a serious grace in its vivacity, suggested besides +a dignified barbarity a mingling of angel, monk and nocturnal spirit. +In the distance of the moonbeams, gliding slowly over the dusty road +with slippered feet, there was something soft and radiant in their +moving whiteness. Nearer, their pointed hoods made them monastical as +a procession stealing from a range of cells to chant a midnight mass. +In the shadowy dusk of the tiny side alleys they were like wandering +ghosts intent on unholy errands or returning to the graveyard. + +On some of the balconies painted girls were leaning and smoking +cigarettes. Before each of the lighted doorways from which the shrill +noise of music came, small, intent crowds were gathered, watching the +performance that was going on inside. The robes of the Arabs brushed +against the skirts of Domini and Suzanne, and eyes stared at them from +every side with a scrutiny that was less impudent than seriously bold. + +"Madame!" + +Hadj's thin hand was pulling Domini's sleeve. + +"Well, what is it?" + +"This is the best dancing-house. The children dance here." + +Domini's height enabled her to peer over the shoulders of those +gathered before the door, and in the lighted distance of a white- +walled room, painted with figures of soldiers and Arab chiefs, she saw +a small wriggling figure between two rows of squatting men, two baby +hands waving coloured handkerchiefs, two little feet tapping +vigorously upon an earthen floor, for background a divan crowded with +women and musicians, with inflated cheeks and squinting eyes. She +stood for a moment to look, then she turned away. There was an +expression of disgust in her eyes. + +"No, I don't want to see children," she said. "That's too--" + +She glanced at her escort and did not finish. + +"I know," said Batouch. "Madame wishes for the real ouleds." + +He led them across the street. Hadj followed reluctantly. Before going +into this second dancing-house Domini stopped again to see from +outside what it was like, but only for an instant. Then a brightness +came into her eyes, an eager look. + +"Yes, take me in here," she said. + +Batouch laughed softly, and Hadj uttered a word below his breath. + +"Madame will see Irena here," said Batouch, pushing the watching Arabs +unceremoniously away. + +Domini did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on a man who was sitting in +a corner far up the room, bending forward and staring intently at a +woman who was in the act of stepping down from a raised platform +decorated with lamps and small bunches of flowers in earthen pots. + +"I wish to sit quite near the door," she whispered to Batouch as they +went in. + +"But it is much better--" + +"Do what I tell you," she said. "The left side of the room." + +Hadj looked a little happier. Suzanne was clinging to his arm. He +smiled at her with something of mischief, but he took care, when a +place was cleared on a bench for their party, to sit down at the end +next the door, and he cast an anxious glance towards the platform +where the dancing-girls attached to the cafe sat in a row, hunched up +against the bare wall, waiting their turn to perform. Then suddenly he +shook his head, tucked in his chin and laughed. His whole face was +transformed from craven fear to vivacious rascality. While he laughed +he looked at Batouch, who was ordering four cups of coffee from the +negro attendant. The poet took no notice. For the moment he was intent +upon his professional duties. But when the coffee was brought, and set +upon a round wooden stool between two bunches of roses, he had time to +note Hadj's sudden gaiety and to realise its meaning. Instantly he +spoke to the negro in a low voice. Hadj stopped laughing. The negro +sped away and returned with the proprietor of the cafe, a stout Kabyle +with a fair skin and blue eyes. + +Batouch lowered his voice to a guttural whisper and spoke in Arabic, +while Hadj, shifting uneasily on the end seat, glanced at him sideways +out of his almond-shaped eyes. Domini heard the name "Irena," and +guessed that Batouch was asking the Kabyle to send for her and make +her dance. She could not help being amused for a moment by the comedy +of intrigue, complacently malignant on both sides, that was being +played by the two cousins, but the moment passed and left her +engrossed, absorbed, and not merely by the novelty of the +surroundings, by the strangeness of the women, of their costumes, and +of their movements. She watched them, but she watched more closely, +more eagerly, rather as a spy than as a spectator, one who was +watching them with an intentness, a still passion, a fierce curiosity +and a sort of almost helpless wonder such as she had never seen +before, and could never have found within herself to put at the +service of any human marvel. + +Close to the top of the room on the right the stranger was sitting in +the midst of a mob of Arabs, whose flowing draperies almost concealed +his ugly European clothes. On the wall immediately behind him was a +brilliantly-coloured drawing of a fat Ouled Nail leering at a French +soldier, which made an unconventional background to his leaning figure +and sunburnt face, in which there seemed now to be both asceticism and +something so different and so powerful that it was likely, from moment +to moment, to drive out the asceticism and to achieve the loneliness +of all conquering things. This fighting expression made Domini think +of a picture she had once seen representing a pilgrim going through a +dark forest attended by his angel and his devil. The angel of the +pilgrim was a weak and almost childish figure, frail, bloodless, +scarcely even radiant, while the devil was lusty and bold, with a +muscular body and a sensual, aquiline face, which smiled craftily, +looking at the pilgrim. There was surely a devil in the watching +traveller which was pushing the angel out of him. Domini had never +before seemed to see clearly the legendary battle of the human heart. +But it had never before been manifested to her audaciously in the +human face. + +All around the Arabs sat, motionless and at ease, gazing on the +curious dance of which they never tire--a dance which has some +ingenuity, much sensuality and provocation, but little beauty and +little mystery, unless--as happens now and then--an idol-like woman of +the South, with all the enigma of the distant desert in her kohl- +tinted eyes, dances it with the sultry gloom of a half-awakened +sphinx, and makes of it a barbarous manifestation of the nature that +lies hidden in the heart of the sun, a silent cry uttered by a savage +body born in a savage land. + +In the cafe of Tahar, the Kabyle, there was at present no such woman. +His beauties, huddled together on their narrow bench before a table +decorated with glasses of water and sprigs of orange blossom in +earthen vases, looked dull and cheerless in their gaudy clothes. Their +bodies were well formed, but somnolent. Their painted hands hung down +like the hands of marionettes. The one who was dancing suggested Duty +clad in Eastern garb and laying herself out carefully to be wicked. +Her jerks and wrigglings, though violent, were inhuman, like those of +a complicated piece of mechanism devised by a morbid engineer. After a +glance or two at her Domini felt that she was bored by her own +agilities. Domini's wonder increased when she looked again at the +traveller. + +For it was this dance of the /ennui/ of the East which raised up in +him this obvious battle, which drove his secret into the illumination +of the hanging lamps and gave it to a woman, who felt half confused, +half ashamed at possessing it, and yet could not cast it away. + +If they both lived on, without speaking or meeting, for another half +century, Domini could never know the shape of the devil in this man, +the light of the smile upon its face. + +The dancing woman had observed him, and presently she began slowly to +wriggle towards him between the rows of Arabs, fixing her eyes upon +him and parting her scarlet lips in a greedy smile. As she came on the +stranger evidently began to realise that he was her bourne. He had +been leaning forward, but when she approached, waving her red hands, +shaking her prominent breasts, and violently jerking her stomach, he +sat straight up, and then, as if instinctively trying to get away from +her, pressed back against the wall, hiding the painting of the Ouled +Nail and the French soldier. A dark flush rose on his face and even +flooded his forehead to his low-growing hair. His eyes were full of a +piteous anxiety and discomfort, and he glanced almost guiltily to +right and left of him as if he expected the hooded Arab spectators to +condemn his presence there now that the dancer drew their attention to +it. The dancer noticed his confusion and seemed pleased by it, and +moved to more energetic demonstrations of her art. She lifted her arms +above her head, half closed her eyes, assumed an expression of languid +ecstasy and slowly shuddered. Then, bending backward, she nearly +touched the floor, swung round, still bending, and showed the long +curve of her bare throat to the stranger, while the girls, huddled on +the bench by the musicians, suddenly roused themselves and joined +their voices in a shrill and prolonged twitter. The Arabs did not +smile, but the deepness of their attention seemed to increase like a +cloud growing darker. All the luminous eyes in the room were steadily +fixed upon the man leaning back against the hideous picture on the +wall and the gaudy siren curved almost into an arch before him. The +musicians blew their hautboys and beat their tomtoms more violently, +and all things, Domini thought, were filled with a sense of climax. +She felt as if the room, all the inanimate objects, and all the +animate figures in it, were instruments of an orchestra, and as if +each individual instrument was contributing to a slow and great, and +irresistible crescendo. The stranger took his part with the rest, but +against his will, and as if under some terrible compulsion. + +His face was scarlet now, and his shining eyes looked down on the +dancer's throat and breast with a mingling of eagerness and horror. +Slowly she raised herself, turned, bent forwards quivering, and +presented her face to him, while the women twittered once more in +chorus. He still stared at her without moving. The hautboy players +prolonged a wailing note, and the tomtoms gave forth a fierce and dull +murmur almost like a death, roll. + +"She wants him to give her money," Batouch whispered to Domini. "Why +does not he give her money?" + +Evidently the stranger did not understand what was expected of him. +The music changed again to a shrieking tune, the dancer drew back, did +a few more steps, jerked her stomach with fury, stamped her feet on +the floor. Then once more she shuddered slowly, half closed her eyes, +glided close to the stranger, and falling down deliberately laid her +head on his knees, while again the women twittered, and the long note +of the hautboys went through the room like a scream of interrogation. + +Domini grew hot as she saw the look that came into the stranger's face +when the woman touched his knees. + +"Go and tell him it's money she wants!" she whispered to Batouch. "Go +and tell him!" + +Batouch got up, but at this moment a roguish Arab boy, who sat by the +stranger, laughingly spoke to him, pointing to the woman. The stranger +thrust his hand into his pocket, found a coin and, directed by the +roguish youth, stuck it upon the dancer's greasy forehead. At once she +sprang to her feet. The women twittered. The music burst into a +triumphant melody, and through the room there went a stir. Almost +everyone in it moved simultaneously. One man raised his hand to his +hood and settled it over his forehead. Another put his cigarette to +his lips. Another picked up his coffeecup. A fourth, who was holding a +flower, lifted it to his nose and smelt it. No one remained quite +still. With the stranger's action a strain had been removed, a mental +tension abruptly loosened, a sense of care let free in the room. +Domini felt it acutely. The last few minutes had been painful to her. +She sighed with relief at the cessation of another's agony. For the +stranger had certainly--from shyness or whatever cause--been in agony +while the dancer kept her head upon his knees. + +His angel had been in fear, perhaps, while his devil---- + +But Domini tried resolutely to turn her thoughts from the smiling +face. + +After pressing the money on the girl's forehead the man made a +movement as if he meant to leave the room, but once again the curious +indecision which Domini had observed in him before cut his action, as +it were, in two, leaving it half finished. As the dancer, turning, +wriggled slowly to the platform, he buttoned up his jacket with a sort +of hasty resolution, pulled it down with a jerk, glanced swiftly +round, and rose to his feet. Domini kept her eyes on him, and perhaps +they drew his, for, just as he was about to step into the narrow aisle +that led to the door he saw her. Instantly he sat down again, turned +so that she could only see part of his face, unbuttoned his jacket, +took out some matches and busied himself in lighting a cigarette. She +knew he had felt her concentration on him, and was angry with herself. +Had she really a spy in her? Was she capable of being vulgarly curious +about a man? A sudden movement of Hadj drew her attention. His face +was distorted by an expression that seemed half angry, half fearful. +Batouch was smiling seraphically as he gazed towards the platform. +Suzanne, with a pinched-up mouth, was looking virginally at her lap. +Her whole attitude showed her consciousness of the many blazing eyes +that were intently staring at her. The stomach dance which she had +just been watching had amazed her so much that she felt as if she were +the only respectable woman in the world, and as if no one would +suppose it unless she hung out banners white as the walls of Beni- +Mora's houses. She strove to do so, and, meanwhile, from time to time, +cast sideway glances towards the platform to see whether another +stomach dance was preparing. She did not see Hadj's excitement or the +poet's malignant satisfaction, but she, with Domini, saw a small door +behind the platform open, and the stout Kabyle appear followed by a +girl who was robed in gold tissue, and decorated with cascades of +golden coins. + +Domini guessed at once that this was Irena, the returned exile, who +wished to kill Hadj, and she was glad that a new incident had occurred +to switch off the general attention from the stranger. + +Irena was evidently a favourite. There was a grave movement as she +came in, a white undulation as all the shrouded forms bent slightly +forward in her direction. Only Hadj caught his burnous round him with +his thin fingers, dropped his chin, shook his hood down upon his +forehead, leaned back against the wall, and, curling his legs under +him, seemed to fall asleep. But beneath his brown lids and long black +lashes his furtive eyes followed every movement of the girl in the +sparkling robe. + +She came in slowly and languidly, with a heavy and cross expression +upon her face, which was thin to emaciation and painted white, with +scarlet lips and darkened eyes and eyebrows. Her features were narrow +and pointed. Her bones were tiny, and her body was so slender, her +waist so small, that, with her flat breast and meagre shoulders, she +looked almost like a stick crowned with a human face and hung with +brilliant draperies. Her hair, which was thick and dark brown, was +elaborately braided and covered with a yellow silk handkerchief. +Domini thought she looked consumptive, and was bitterly disappointed +in her appearance. For some unknown reason she had expected the woman +who wished to kill Hadj, and who obviously inspired him with fear, to +be a magnificent and glowing desert beauty. This woman might be +violent. She looked weary, anaemic, and as if she wished to go to bed, +and Domini's contempt for Hadj increased as she looked at her. To be +afraid of a thin, tired, sleepy creature such as that was too pitiful. +But Hadj did not seem to think so. He had pulled his hood still +further forward, and was now merely a bundle concealed in the shade of +Suzanne. + +Irena stepped on to the platform, pushed the girl who sat at the end +of the bench till she moved up higher, sat down in the vacant place, +drank some water out of the glass nearest to her, and then remained +quite still staring at the floor, utterly indifferent to the Arabs who +were devouring her with their eyes. No doubt the eyes of men had +devoured her ever since she could remember. It was obvious that they +meant nothing to her, that they did not even for an instant disturb +the current of her dreary thoughts. + +Another girl was dancing, a stout, Oriental Jewess with a thick hooked +nose, large lips and bulging eyes, that looked as if they had been +newly scoured with emery powder. While she danced she sang, or rather +shouted roughly, an extraordinary melody that suggested battle, murder +and sudden death. Careless of onlookers, she sometimes scratched her +head or rubbed her nose without ceasing her contortions. Domini +guessed that this was the girl whom she had seen from the tower +dancing upon the roof in the sunset. Distance and light had indeed +transformed her. Under the lamps she was the embodiment of all that +was coarse and greasy. Even the pitiful slenderness of Irena seemed +attractive when compared with her billowing charms, which she kept in +a continual commotion that was almost terrifying. + +"Hadj is nearly dead with fear," whispered Batouch, complacently. +Domini's lips curled. + +"Does not Madame think Irena beautiful as the moon on the waters of +the Oued Beni-Mora?" + +"Indeed I don't," she replied bluntly. "And I think a man who can be +afraid of such a little thing must be afraid of the children in the +street." + +"Little! But Irena is tall as a female palm in Ourlana." + +"Tall!" + +Domini looked at her again more carefully, and saw that Batouch spoke +the truth. Irena was unusually tall, but her excessive narrowness, her +tiny bones, and the delicate way in which she held herself deceived +the eye and gave her a little appearance. + +"So she is; but who could be afraid of her? Why, I could pick her up +and throw her over that moon of yours." + +"Madame is strong. Madame is like the lioness. But Irena is the most +terrible girl in all Beni-Mora if she loves or if she is angry, the +most terrible in all the Sahara." + +Domini laughed. + +"Madame does not know her," said Batouch, imperturbably. "But Madame +can ask the Arabs. Many of the dancers of Beni-Mora are murdered, each +season two or three. But no man would try to murder Irena. No man +would dare." + +The poet's calm and unimpassioned way of alluding to the most horrible +crimes as if they were perfectly natural, and in no way to be +condemned or wondered at, amazed Domini even more than his statement +about Irena. + +"Why do they murder the dancers?" she asked quickly. + +"For their jewels. At night, in those little rooms with the balconies +which Madame has seen, it is easy. You enter in to sleep there. You +close your eyes, you breathe gently and a little loud. The woman +hears. She is not afraid. She sleeps. She dreams. Her throat is like +that"--he threw back his head, exposing his great neck. "Just before +dawn you draw your knife from your burnous. You bend down. You cut the +throat without noise. You take the jewels, the money from the box by +the bed. You go down quietly with bare feet. No one is on the stair. +You unbar the door--and there before you is the great hiding-place." + +"The great hiding-place!" + +"The desert, Madame." He sipped his coffee. Domini looked at him, +fascinated. + +Suzanne shivered. She had been listening. The loud contralto cry of +the Jewess rose up, with its suggestion of violence and of rough +indifference. And Domini repeated softly: + +"The great hiding-place." + +With every moment in Beni-Mora the desert seemed to become more--more +full of meaning, of variety, of mystery, of terror. Was it everything? +The garden of God, the great hiding-place of murderers! She had called +it, on the tower, the home of peace. In the gorge of El-Akbara, ere he +prayed, Batouch had spoken of it as a vast realm of forgetfulness, +where the load of memory slips from the weary shoulders and vanishes +into the soft gulf of the sands. + +But was it everything then? And if it was so much to her already, in a +night and a day, what would it be when she knew it, what would it be +to her after many nights and many days? She began to feel a sort of +terror mingled with the most extraordinary attraction she had ever +known. + +Hadj crouched right back against the wall. The voice of the Jewess +ceased in a shout. The hautboys stopped playing. Only the tomtoms +roared. + +"Hadj can be happy now," observed Batouch in a voice of almost +satisfaction, "for Irena is going to dance. Look! There is the little +Miloud bringing her the daggers." + +An Arab boy, with a beautiful face and a very dark skin, slipped on to +the platform with two long, pointed knives in his hand. He laid them +on the table before Irena, between the bouquets of orange blossom, +jumped lightly down and disappeared. + +Directly the knives touched the table the hautboy players blew a +terrific blast, and then, swelling the note, till it seemed as if they +must burst both themselves and their instruments, swung into a +tremendous and magnificent tune, a tune tingling with barbarity, yet +such as a European could have sung or written down. In an instant it +gripped Domini and excited her till she could hardly breathe. It +poured fire into her veins and set fire about her heart. It was +triumphant as a great song after war in a wild land, cruel, vengeful, +but so strong and so passionately joyous that it made the eyes shine +and the blood leap, and the spirit rise up and clamour within the +body, clamour for utter liberty, for action, for wide fields in which +to roam, for long days and nights of glory and of love, for intense +hours of emotion and of life lived with exultant desperation. It was a +melody that seemed to set the soul of Creation dancing before an ark. +The tomtoms accompanied it with an irregular but rhythmical roar which +Domini thought was like the deep-voiced shouting of squadrons of +fighting men. + +Irena looked wearily at the knives. Her expression had not changed, +and Domini was amazed at her indifference. The eyes of everyone in the +room were fixed upon her. Even Suzanne began to be less virginal in +appearance under the influence of this desert song of triumph. Domini +did not let her eyes stray any more towards the stranger. For the +moment indeed she had forgotten him. Her attention was fastened upon +the thin, consumptive-looking creature who was staring at the two +knives laid upon the table. When the great tune had been played right +through once, and a passionate roll of tomtoms announced its +repetition, Irena suddenly shot out her tiny arms, brought her hands +down on the knives, seized them and sprang to her feet. She had passed +from lassitude to vivid energy with an abruptness that was almost +demoniacal, and to an energy with which both mind and body seemed to +blaze. Then, as the hautboys screamed out the tune once more, she held +the knives above her head and danced. + +Irena was not an Ouled Nail. She was a Kabyle woman born in the +mountains of Djurdjura, not far from the village of Tamouda. As a +child she had lived in one of those chimneyless and windowless mud +cottages with red tiled roofs which are so characteristic a feature of +La Grande Kabylie. She had climbed barefoot the savage hills, or +descended into the gorges yellow with the broom plant and dipped her +brown toes in the waters of the Sebaou. How had she drifted so far +from the sharp spurs of her native hills and from the ruddy-haired, +blue-eyed people of her tribe? Possibly she had sinned, as the Kabyle +women often sin, and fled from the wrath that she would understand, +and that all her fierce bravery could not hope to conquer. Or perhaps +with her Kabyle blood, itself a brew composed of various strains, +Greek, Roman, as well as Berber, were mingling some drops drawn from +desert sources, which had manifested themselves physically in her dark +hair, mentally in a nomadic instinct which had forbidden her to rest +among the beauties of Ait Ouaguennoun, whose legendary charm she did +not possess. There was the look of an exile in her face, a weariness +that dreamed, perhaps, of distant things. But now that she danced that +fled, and the gleam of flame-lit steel was in her eyes. + +Tangled and vital impressions came to Domini as she watched. Now she +saw Jael and the tent, and the nails driven into the temples of the +sleeping warrior. Now she saw Medea in the moment before she tore to +pieces her brother and threw the bloody fragments in Aetes's path; +Clytemnestra's face while Agamemnon was passing to the bath, Delilah's +when Samson lay sleeping on her knee. But all these imagined faces of +named women fled like sand grains on a desert wind as the dance went +on and the recurrent melody came back and back and back with a savage +and glorious persistence. They were too small, too individual, and +pinned the imagination down too closely. This dagger dance let in upon +her a larger atmosphere, in which one human being was as nothing, even +a goddess or a siren prodigal of enchantments was a little thing not +without a narrow meanness of physiognomy. + +She looked and listened till she saw a grander procession troop by, +garlanded with mystery and triumph: War as a shape with woman's eyes: +Night, without poppies, leading the stars and moon and all the +vigorous dreams that must come true: Love of woman that cannot be set +aside, but will govern the world from Eden to the abyss into which the +nations fall to the outstretched hands of God: Death as Life's leader, +with a staff from which sprang blossoms red as the western sky: Savage +Fecundity that crushes all barren things into the silent dust: and +then the Desert. + +That came in a pale cloud of sand, with a pale crowd of worshippers, +those who had received gifts from the Desert's hands and sought for +more: white-robed Marabouts who had found Allah in his garden and +become a guide to the faithful through all the circling years: +murderers who had gained sanctuary with barbaric jewels in their +blood-stained hands: once tortured men and women who had cast away +terrible recollections in the wastes among the dunes and in the +treeless purple distances, and who had been granted the sweet oases of +forgetfulness to dwell in: ardent beings who had striven vainly to +rest content with the world of hills and valleys, of sea-swept verges +and murmuring rivers, and who had been driven, by the labouring soul, +on and on towards the flat plains where roll for ever the golden +wheels of the chariot of the sun. She saw, too, the winds that are the +Desert's best-loved children: Health with shining eyes and a skin of +bronze: Passion, half faun, half black-browed Hercules: and Liberty +with upraised arms, beating cymbals like monstrous spheres of fire. + +And she saw palm trees waving, immense palm trees in the south. It +seemed to her that she travelled as far away from Beni-Mora as she had +travelled from England in coming to Beni-Mora. She made her way +towards the sun, joining the pale crowd of the Desert's worshippers. +And always, as she travelled, she heard the clashing of the cymbals of +Liberty. A conviction was born in her that Fate meant her to know the +Desert well, strangely well; that the Desert was waiting calmly for +her to come to it and receive that which it had to give to her; that +in the Desert she would learn more of the meaning of life than she +could ever learn elsewhere. It seemed to her suddenly that she +understood more clearly than hitherto in what lay the intense, the +over-mastering and hypnotic attraction exercised already by the Desert +over her nature. In the Desert there must be, there was--she felt it-- +not only light to warm the body, but light to illuminate the dark +places of the soul. An almost fatalistic idea possessed her. She saw a +figure--one of the Messengers--standing with her beside the corpse of +her father and whispering in her ear "Beni-Mora"; taking her to the +map and pointing to the word there, filling her brain and heart with +suggestions, till--as she had thought almost without reason, and at +haphazard--she chose Beni-Mora as the place to which she would go in +search of recovery, of self-knowledge. It had been pre-ordained. The +Messenger had been sent. The Messenger had guided her. And he would +come again, when the time was ripe, and lead her on into the Desert. +She felt it. She knew it. + +She looked round at the Arabs. She was as much a fatalist as any one +of them. She looked at the stranger. What was he? + +Abruptly in her imagination a vision rose. She gazed once more into +the crowd that thronged about the Desert having received gifts at the +Desert's hands, and in it she saw the stranger. + +He was kneeling, his hands were stretched out, his head was bowed, and +he was praying. And, while he prayed, Liberty stood by him smiling, +and her fiery cymbals were like the aureoles that illumine the +beautiful faces of the saints. + +For some reason that she could not understand her heart began to beat +fast, and she felt a burning sensation behind her eyes. + +She thought that this extraordinary music, that this amazing dance, +excited her too much. + +The white bundle at Suzanne's side stirred. Irena, holding the daggers +above her head, had sprung from the little platform and was dancing on +the earthen floor in the midst of the Arabs. + +Her thin body shook convulsively in time to the music. She marked the +accents with her shudders. Excitement had grown in her till she seemed +to be in a feverish passion that was half exultant, half despairing. +In her expression, in her movements, in the way she held herself, +leaning backwards with her face looking up, her breast and neck +exposed as if she offered her life, her love and all the mysteries in +her, to an imagined being who dominated her savage and ecstatic soul, +there was a vivid suggestion of the two elements in Passion--rapture +and melancholy. In her dance she incarnated passion whole by conveying +the two halves that compose it. Her eyes were nearly closed, as a +woman closes them when she has seen the lips of her lover descending +upon hers. And her mouth seemed to be receiving the fiery touch of +another mouth. In this moment she was a beautiful woman because she +looked like womanhood. And Domini understood why the Arabs thought her +more beautiful than the other dancers. She had what they had not-- +genius. And genius, under whatever form, shows to the world at moments +the face of Aphrodite. + +She came slowly nearer, and those by the platform turned round to +follow her with their eyes. Hadj's hood had slipped completely down +over his face, and his chin was sunk on his chest. Batouch noticed it +and looked angry, but Domini had forgotten both the comedy of the two +cousins and the tragedy of Irena's love for Hadj. She was completely +under the fascination of this dance and of the music that accompanied +it. Now that Irena was near she was able to see that, without her +genius, there would have been no beauty in her face. It was painfully +thin, painfully long and haggard. Her life had written a fatal +inscription across it as their life writes upon the faces of poor +street-bred children the one word--Want. As they have too little this +dancing woman had had too much. The sparkle of her robe of gold tissue +covered with golden coins was strong in the lamplight. Domini looked +at it and at the two sharp knives above her head, looked at her +violent, shuddering movements, and shuddered too, thinking of +Batouch's story of murdered dancers. It was dangerous to have too much +in Beni-Mora. + +Irena was quite close now. She seemed so wrapped in the ecstasy of the +dance that it did not occur to Domini at first that she was imitating +the Ouled Nail who had laid her greasy head upon the stranger's knees. +The abandonment of her performance was so great that it was difficult +to remember its money value to her and to Tahar, the fair Kabyle. Only +when she was actually opposite to them and stayed there, still +performing her shuddering dance, still holding the daggers above her +head, did Domini realise that those half-closed, passionate eyes had +marked the stranger woman, and that she must add one to the stream of +golden coins. She took out her purse but did not give the money at +once. With the pitiless scrutiny of her sex she noticed all the +dancer's disabilities. She was certainly young, but she was very worn. +Her mouth drooped. At the corners of her eyes there were tiny lines +tending downward. Her forehead had what Domini secretly called a +martyred look. Nevertheless, she was savage and triumphant. Her thin +body suggested force; the way she held herself consuming passion. Even +so near at hand, even while she was pausing for money, and while her +eyes were, doubtless, furtively reading Domini, she shed round her a +powerful atmosphere, which stirred the blood, and made the heart leap, +and created longing for unknown and violent things. As Domini watched +her she felt that Irena must have lived at moments magnificently, that +despite her almost shattered condition and permanent weariness--only +cast aside for the moment of the dance--she must have known intense +joys, that so long as she lived she would possess the capacity for +knowing them again. There was something burning within her that would +burn on so long as she was alive, a spark of nature that was eternally +red hot. It was that spark which made her the idol of the Arabs and +shed a light of beauty through her haggard frame. + +The spirit blazed. + +Domini put her hand at last into her purse and took out a piece of +gold. She was just going to give it to Irena when the white bundle +that was Hadj made a sudden, though slight, movement, as if the thing +inside it had shivered. Irena noticed it with her half-closed eyes. +Domini leaned forward and held out the money, then drew back startled. +Irena had changed her posture abruptly. Instead of keeping her head +thrown back and exposing her long throat, she lifted it, shot it +forward. Her meagre bosom almost disappeared as she bent over. Her +arms fell to her sides. Her eyes opened wide and became full of a +sharp, peering intensity. Her vision and dreams dropped out of her. +Now she was only fierce and questioning, and horribly alert. She was +looking at the white bundle. It shifted again. She sprang upon it, +showing her teeth, caught hold of it. With a swift turn of her thin +hands she tore back the hood, and out of the bundle came Hadj's head +and face livid with fear. One of the daggers flashed and came up at +him. He leaped from the seat and screamed. Suzanne echoed his cry. +Then the whole room was a turmoil of white garments and moving limbs. +In an instant everybody seemed to be leaping, calling out, grasping, +struggling. Domini tried to get up, but she was hemmed in, and could +not make a movement upward or free her arms, which were pressed +against her sides by the crowd around her. For a moment she thought +she was going to be severely hurt or suffocated. She did not feel +afraid, but only indignant, like a boy who has been struck in the face +and longs to retaliate. Someone screamed again. It was Hadj. Suzanne +was on her feet, but separated from her mistress. Batouch's arm was +round her. Domini put her hands on the bench and tried to force +herself up, violently setting her broad shoulders against the Arabs +who were towering over her and covering her head and face with their +floating garments as they strove to see the fight between Hadj and the +dancer. The heat almost stifled her, and she was suddenly aware of a +strong musky smell of perspiring humanity. She was beginning to pant +for breath when she felt two burning, hot, hard hands come down on +hers, fingers like iron catch hold of hers, go under them, drag up her +hands. She could not see who had seized her, but the life in the hands +that were on hers mingled with the life in her hands like one fluid +with another, and seemed to pass on till she felt it in her body, and +had an odd sensation as if her face had been caught in a fierce grip, +and her heart too. + +Another moment and she was on her feet and out in the moonlit alley +between the little white houses. She saw the stars, and the painted +balconies crowded with painted women looking down towards the cafe she +had left and chattering in shrill voices. She saw the patrol of +Tirailleurs Indigenes marching at the double to the doorway in which +the Arabs were still struggling. Then she saw that the traveller was +beside her. She was not surprised. + +"Thank you for getting me out," she said rather bluntly. "Where's my +maid?" + +"She got away before us with your guide, Madame." + +He held up his hands and looked at them hard, eagerly, questioningly. + +"You weren't hurt?" + +He dropped his hands quickly. "Oh, no, it wasn't----" + +He broke off the sentence and was silent. Domini stood still, drew a +long breath and laughed. She still felt angry and laughed to control +herself. Unless she could be amused at this episode she knew that she +was capable of going back to the door of the cafe and hitting out +right and left at the men who had nearly suffocated her. Any violence +done to her body, even an unintentional push against her in the street +--if there was real force in it--seemed to let loose a devil in her, +such a devil as ought surely only to dwell inside a man. + +"What people!" she said. "What wild creatures!" + +She laughed again. The patrol pushed its way roughly in at the +doorway. + +"The Arabs are always like that, Madame." + +She looked at him, then she said, abruptly: + +"Do you speak English?" + +Her companion hesitated. It was perfectly obvious to her that he was +considering whether he should answer "Yes" or "No." Such hesitation +about such a matter was very strange. At last he said, but still in +French: + +"Yes." + +And directly he had said it she saw by his face that he wished he had +said "No." + +From the cafe the Arabs began to pour into the street. The patrol was +clearing the place. The women leaning over the balconies cried out +shrilly to learn the exact history of the tumult, and the men standing +underneath, and lifting up their bronzed faces in the moonlight, +replied in violent voices, gesticulating vehemently while their +hanging sleeves fell back from their hairy arms. + +"I am an Englishwoman," Domini said. + +But she too felt obliged to speak still in French, as if a sudden +reserve told her to do so. He said nothing. They were standing in +quite a crowd now. It swayed, parted suddenly, and the soldiers +appeared holding Irena. Hadj followed behind, shouting as if in a +frenzy of passion. There was some blood on one of his hands and a +streak of blood on the front of the loose shirt he wore under his +burnous. He kept on shooting out his arms towards Irena as he walked, +and frantically appealing to the Arabs round him. When he saw the +women on their balconies he stopped for a moment and called out to +them like a man beside himself. A Tirailleur pushed him on. The women, +who had been quiet to hear him, burst forth again into a paroxysm of +chatter. Irena looked utterly indifferent and walked feebly. The +little procession disappeared in the moonlight accompanied by the +crowd. + +"She has stabbed Hadj," Domini said. "Batouch will be glad." + +She did not feel as if she were sorry. Indeed, she thought she was +glad too. That the dancer should try to do a thing and fail would have +seemed contradictory. And the streak of blood she had just seen seemed +to relieve her suddenly and to take from her all anger. Her self- +control returned. + +"Thank you once more," she said to her companion. "Goodnight." + +She remembered the episode of the tower that afternoon, and resolved +to take a definite line this time, and not to run the chance of a +second desertion. She started off down the street, but found him +walking beside her in silence. She stopped. + +"I am very much obliged to you for getting me out," she said, looking +straight at him. "And now, good-night." + +Almost for the first time he endured her gaze without any uncertainty, +and she saw that though he might be hesitating, uneasy, even +contemptible--as when he hurried down the road in the wake of the +negro procession--he could also be a dogged man. + +"I'll go with you, Madame," he said. + +"Why?" + +"It's night." + +"I'm not afraid." + +"I'll go with you, Madame." + +He said it again harshly and kept his eyes on her, frowning. + +"And if I refuse?" she said, wondering whether she was going to refuse +or not. + +"I'll follow you, Madame." + +She knew by the look on his face that he, too, was thinking of what +had happened in the afternoon. Why should she wish to deprive him of +the reparation he was anxious to make--obviously anxious in an almost +piteously determined way? It was poor pride in her, a mean little +feeling. + +"Come with me," she said. + +They went on together. + +The Arabs, stirred up by the fracas in Tahar's cafe, were seething +with excitement, and several of them, gathered together in a little +crowd, were quarrelling and shouting at the end of the street near the +statue of the Cardinal. Domini's escort saw them and hesitated. + +"I think, Madame, it would be better to take a side street," he said. + +"Very well. Let us go to the left here. It is bound to bring us to the +hotel as it runs parallel to the house of the sand diviner." + +He started. + +"The sand-diviner?" he said in his low, strong voice. + +"Yes." + +She walked on into a tiny alley. He followed her. + +"You haven't seen the thin man with the bag of sand?" + +"No, Madame." + +"He reads your past in sand from the desert and tells what your future +will be." + +The man made no reply. + +"Will you pay him a visit?" Domini asked curiously. + +"No, Madame. I do not care for such things." + +Suddenly she stood still. + +"Oh, look!" she said. "How strange! And there are others all down the +street." + +In the tiny alley the balconies of the houses nearly met. No figures +leaned on their railings. No chattering voices broke the furtive +silence that prevailed in this quarter of Beni-Mora. The moonlight was +fainter here, obscured by the close-set buildings, and at the moment +there was not an Arab in sight. The sense of loneliness and peace was +profound, and as the rare windows of the houses, minute and protected +by heavy gratings, were dark, it had seemed to Domini at first as if +all the inhabitants were in bed and asleep. But, in passing on, she +had seen a faint and blanched illumination; then another; the vague +vision of an aperture; a seated figure making a darkness against +whiteness; a second aperture and seated figure. She stopped and stood +still. The man stood still beside her. + +The alley was an alley of women. In every house on either side of the +way a similar picture of attentive patience was revealed: a narrow +Moorish archway with a wooden door set back against the wall to show a +steep and diminutive staircase winding up into mystery; upon the +highest stair a common candlestick with a lit candle guttering in it, +and, immediately below, a girl, thickly painted, covered with +barbarous jewels and magnificently dressed, her hands, tinted with +henna, folded in her lap, her eyes watching under eyebrows heavily +darkened, and prolonged until they met just above the bridge of the +nose, to which a number of black dots descended; her naked, brown +ankles decorated with large circlets of gold or silver. The candle +shed upon each watcher a faint light that half revealed her and left +her half concealed upon her white staircase bounded by white walls. +And in her absolute silence, absolute stillness, each one was wholly +mysterious as she gazed ceaselessly out towards the empty, narrow +street. + +The woman before whose dwelling Domini had stopped was an Ouled Nail, +with a square headdress of coloured handkerchiefs and feathers, a pink +and silver shawl, a blue skirt of some thin material powdered with +silver flowers, and a broad silver belt set with squares of red coral. +She was sitting upright, and would have looked exactly like an idol +set up for savage worship had not her long eyes gleamed and moved as +she solemnly returned the gaze of Domini and of the man who stood a +little behind looking over her shoulder. + +When Domini stopped and exclaimed she did not realise to what this +street was dedicated, why these women sat in watchful silence, each +one alone on her stair waiting in the night. But as she looked and saw +the gaudy finery she began to understand. And had she remained in +doubt an incident now occurred which must have enlightened her. + +A great gaunt Arab, one of the true desert men, almost black, with +high cheek bones, hollow cheeks, fierce falcon's eyes shining as if +with fever, long and lean limbs hard as iron, dressed in a rough, +sacklike brown garment, and wearing a turban bound with cords of +camel's hair, strode softly down the alley, slipped in front of +Domini, and went up to the woman, holding out something in his scaly +hand. There was a brief colloquy. The woman stretched her arm up the +staircase, took the candle, held it to the man's open hand, and bent +over counting the money that lay in the palm. She counted it twice +deliberately. Then she nodded. She got up, turned, holding the candle +above her square headdress, and went slowly up the staircase followed +by the Arab, who grasped his coarse draperies and lifted them, showing +his bare legs. The two disappeared without noise into the darkness, +leaving the stairway deserted, its white steps, its white walls +faintly lit by the moon. + +The woman had not once looked at the man, but only at the money in his +scaly hand. + +Domini felt hot and rather sick. She wondered why she had stood there +watching. Yet she had not been able to turn away. Now, as she stepped +back into the middle of the alley and walked on with the man beside +her she wondered what he was thinking of her. She could not talk to +him any more. She was too conscious of the lighted stairways, one +after one, succeeding each other to right and left of them, of the +still figures, of the watching eyes in which the yellow rays of the +candles gleamed. Her companion did not speak; but as they walked he +glanced furtively from one side to the other, then stared down +steadily on the white road. When they turned to the right and came out +by the gardens, and Domini saw the great tufted heads of the palms +black against the moon, she felt relieved and was able to speak again. + +"I should like you to know that I am quite a stranger to all African +things and people," she said. "That is why I am liable to fall into +mistakes in such a place as this. Ah, there is the hotel, and my maid +on the verandah. I want to thank you again for looking after me." + +They were at a few steps from the hotel door in the road. The man +stopped, and Domini stopped too. + +"Madame," he said earnestly, with a sort of hardly controlled +excitement, "I--I am glad. I was ashamed--I was ashamed." + +"Why?" + +"Of my conduct--of my awkwardness. But you will forgive it. I am not +accustomed to the society of ladies--like you. Anything I have done I +have not done out of rudeness. That is all I can say. I have not done +it out of rudeness." + +He seemed to be almost trembling with agitation. + +"I know, I know," she said. "Besides, it was nothing." + +"Oh, no, it was abominable. I understand that. I am not so coarse- +fibred as not to understand that." + +Domini suddenly felt that to take his view of the matter, exaggerated +though it was, would be the kindest course, even the most delicate. + +"You were rude to me," she said, "but I shall forget it from this +moment." + +She held out her hand. He grasped it, and again she felt as if a +furnace were pouring its fiery heat upon her. + +"Good-night." + +"Good-night, Madame. Thank you." + +She was going away to the hotel door, but she stopped. + +"My name is Domini Enfilden," she said in English. + +The man stood in the road looking at her. She waited. She expected him +to tell her his name. There was a silence. At last he said +hesitatingly, in English with a very slight foreign accent: + +"My name is Boris--Boris Androvsky." + +"Batouch told me you were English," she said. + +"My mother was English, but my father was a Russian from Tiflis. That +is my name." + +There was a sound in his voice as if he were insisting like a man +making an assertion not readily to be believed. + +"Good-night," Domini said again. + +And she went away slowly, leaving him standing on the moonlit road. + +He did not remain there long, nor did he follow her into the hotel. +After she had disappeared he stood for a little while gazing up at the +deserted verandah upon which the moon-rays fell. Then he turned and +looked towards the village, hesitated, and finally walked slowly back +towards the tiny, shrouded alley in which on the narrow staircases the +painted girls sat watching in the night. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +On the following morning Batouch arrived with a handsome grey Arab +horse for Domini to try. He had been very penitent the night before, +and Domini had forgiven easily enough his pre-occupation with Suzanne, +who had evidently made a strong impression upon his susceptible +nature. Hadj had been but slightly injured by Irena, but did not +appear at the hotel for a very sufficient reason. Both the dancer and +he were locked up for the moment, till the Guardians of Justice in +Beni-Mora had made up their minds who should be held responsible for +the uproar of the previous night. That the real culprit was the +smiling poet was not likely to occur to them, and did not seem to +trouble him. When Domini inquired after Hadj he showed majestic +indifference, and when she hinted at his crafty share in the causing +of the tragedy he calmly replied + +"Hadj-ben-Ibrahim will know from henceforth whether the Mehari with +the swollen tongue can bite." + +Then, leaping upon the horse, whose bridle he was holding, he forced +it to rear, caracole and display its spirit and its paces before +Domini, sitting it superbly, and shooting many sly glances at Suzanne, +who leaned over the parapet of the verandah watching, with a rapt +expression on her face. + +Domini admired the horse, but wished to mount it herself before coming +to any conclusion about it. She had brought her own saddle with her +and ordered Batouch to put it on the animal. Meanwhile she went +upstairs to change into her habit. When she came out again on to the +verandah Boris Androvsky was there, standing bare-headed in the sun +and looking down at Batouch and the horse. He turned quickly, greeted +Domini with a deep bow, then examined her costume with wondering, +startled eyes. + +"I'm going to try that horse," she said with deliberate friendliness. +"To see if I'll buy him. Are you a judge of a horse?" + +"I fear not, Madame." + +She had spoken in English and he replied in the same language. She was +standing at the head of the stairs holding her whip lightly in her +right hand. Her splendid figure was defined by the perfectly-fitting, +plain habit, and she saw him look at it with a strange expression in +his eyes, an admiration that was almost ferocious, and that was yet +respectful and even pure. It was like the glance of a passionate +schoolboy verging on young manhood, whose natural instincts were astir +but whose temperament was unwarped by vice; a glance that was a +burning tribute, and that told a whole story of sex and surely of hot, +inquiring ignorance--strange glances of a man no longer even very +young. It made something in her leap and quiver. She was startled and +almost angered by that, but not by the eyes that caused it. + +"/Au revoir/," she said, turning to go down. + +"May I--might I see you get up?" said Androvsky. + +"Get up!" she said. + +"Up on the horse?" + +She could not help smiling at his fashion of expressing the act of +mounting. He was not a sportsman evidently, despite his muscular +strength. + +"Certainly, if you like. Come along." + +Without thinking of it she spoke rather as to a schoolboy, not with +superiority, but with the sort of bluffness age sometimes uses good- +naturedly to youth. He did not seem to resent it and followed her down +to the arcade. + +The side saddle was on and the poet held the grey by the bridle. Some +Arab boys had assembled under the arcade to see what was going +forward. The Arab waiter lounged at the door with the tassel of his +fez swinging against his pale cheek. The horse fidgetted and tugged +against the rein, lifting his delicate feet uneasily from the ground, +flicking his narrow quarters with his long tail, and glancing sideways +with his dark and brilliant eyes, which were alive with a nervous +intelligence that was almost hectic. Domini went up to him and +caressed him with her hand. He reared up and snorted. His whole body +seemed a-quiver with the desire to gallop furiously away alone into +some far distant place. + +Androvsky stood near the waiter, looking at Domini and at the horse +with wonder and alarm in his eyes. + +The animal, irritated by inaction, began to plunge violently and to +get out of hand. + +"Give me the reins," Domini said to the poet. "That's it. Now put your +hand for me." + +Batouch obeyed. Her foot just touched his hand and she was in the +saddle. + +Androvsky sprang forward on to the pavement. His eyes were blazing +with anxiety. She saw it and laughed gaily. + +"Oh, he's not vicious," she said. "And vice is the only thing that's +dangerous. His mouth is perfect, but he's nervous and wants handling. +I'll just take him up the gardens and back." + +She had been reining him in. Now she let him go, and galloped up the +straight track between the palms towards the station. The priest had +come out into his little garden with Bous-Bous, and leaned over his +brushwood fence to look after her. Bous-Bous barked in a light +soprano. The Arab boys jumped on their bare toes, and one of them, who +was a bootblack, waved his board over his shaven head. The Arab waiter +smiled as if with satisfaction at beholding perfect competence. But +Androvsky stood quite still looking down the dusty road at the +diminishing forms of horse and rider, and when they disappeared, +leaving behind them a light cloud of sand films whirling in the sun, +he sighed heavily and dropped his chin on his chest as if fatigued. + +"I can get a horse for Monsieur too. Would Monsieur like to have a +horse?" + +It was the poet's amply seductive voice. Androvsky started. + +"I don't ride," he said curtly. + +"I will teach Monsieur. I am the best teacher in Beni-Mora. In three +lessons Monsieur will--" + +"I don't ride, I tell you." + +Androvsky was looking angry. He stepped out into the road. Bous-Bous, +who was now observing Nature at the priest's garden gate, emerged with +some sprightliness and trotted towards him, evidently with the +intention of making his acquaintance. Coming up to him the little dog +raised his head and uttered a short bark, at the same time wagging his +tail in a kindly, though not effusive manner. Androvsky looked down, +bent quickly and patted him, as only a man really fond of animals and +accustomed to them knows how to pat. Bous-Bous was openly gratified. +He began to wriggle affectionately. The priest in his garden smiled. +Androvsky had not seen him and went on playing with the dog, who now +made preparations to lie down on his curly back in the road in the +hope of being tickled, a process he was an amateur of. Still smiling, +and with a friendly look on his face, the priest came out of his +garden and approached the playmates. + +"Good morning, M'sieur," he said politely, raising his hat. "I see you +like dogs." + +Androvsky lifted himself up, leaving Bous-Bous in a prayerful +attitude, his paws raised devoutly towards the heavens. When he saw +that it was the priest who had addressed him his face changed, +hardened to grimness, and his lips trembled slightly. + +"That's my little dog," the priest continued in a gentle voice. "He +has evidently taken a great fancy to you." + +Batouch was watching Androvsky under the arcade, and noted the sudden +change in his expression and his whole bearing. + +"I--I did not know he was your dog, Monsieur, or I should not have +interfered with him," said Androvsky. + +Bous-Bous jumped up against his leg. He pushed the little dog rather +roughly away and stepped back to the arcade. The priest looked puzzled +and slightly hurt. At this moment the soft thud of horse's hoofs was +audible on the road and Domini came cantering back to the hotel. Her +eyes were sparkling, her face was radiant. She bowed to the priest and +reined up before the hotel door, where Androvsky was standing. + +"I'll buy him," she said to Batouch, who swelled with satisfaction at +the thought of his commission. "And I'll go for a long ride now--out +into the desert." + +"You will not go alone, Madame?" + +It was the priest's voice. She smiled down at him gaily. + +"Should I be carried off by nomads, Monsieur?" + +"It would not be safe for a lady, believe me." + +Batouch swept forward to reassure the priest. "I am Madame's guide. I +have a horse ready saddled to accompany Madame. I have sent for it +already, M'sieur." + +One of the little Arab boys was indeed visible running with all his +might towards the Rue Berthe. Domini's face suddenly clouded. The +presence of the guide would take all the edge off her pleasure, and in +the short gallop she had just had she had savoured its keenness. She +was alive with desire to be happy. + +"I don't need you, Batouch," she said. + +But the poet was inexorable, backed up by the priest. + +"It is my duty to accompany Madame. I am responsible for her safety." + +"Indeed, you cannot go into the desert alone," said the priest. + +Domini glanced at Androvsky, who was standing silently under the +arcade, a little withdrawn, looking uncomfortable and self-conscious. +She remembered her thought on the tower of the dice-thrower, and of +how the presence of the stranger had seemed to double her pleasure +then. Up the road from the Rue Berthe came the noise of a galloping +horse. The shoeblack was returning furiously, his bare legs sticking +out on either side of a fiery light chestnut with a streaming mane and +tail. + +"Monsieur Androvsky," she said. + +He started. + +"Madame?" + +"Will you come with me for a ride into the desert?" + +His face was flooded with scarlet, and he came a step forward, looking +up at her. + +"I!" he said with an accent of infinite surprise. + +"Yes. Will you?" + +The chestnut thundered up and was pulled sharply back on its haunches. +Androvsky shot a sideways glance at it and hesitated. Domini thought +he was going to refuse and wished she had not asked him, wished it +passionately. + +"Never mind," she said, almost brutally in her vexation at what she +had done. + +"Batouch!" + +The poet was about to spring upon the horse when Androvsky caught him +by the arm. + +"I will go," he said. + +Batouch looked vicious. "But Monsieur told me he did not----" + +He stopped. The hand on his arm had given him a wrench that made him +feel as if his flesh were caught between steel pincers. Androvsky came +up to the chestnut. + +"Oh, it's an Arab saddle," said Domini. + +"It does not matter, Madame." + +His face was stern. + +"Are you accustomed to them?" + +"It makes no difference." + +He took hold of the rein and put his foot in the high stirrup, but so +awkwardly that he kicked the horse in the side. It plunged. + +"Take care!" said Domini. + +Androvsky hung on, and climbed somehow into the saddle, coming down in +it heavily, with a thud. The horse, now thoroughly startled, plunged +furiously and lashed out with its hind legs. Androvsky was thrown +forward against the high red peak of the saddle with his hands on the +animal's neck. There was a struggle. He tugged at the rein violently. +The horse jumped back, reared, plunged sideways as if about to bolt. +Androvsky was shot off and fell on his right shoulder heavily. Batouch +caught the horse while Androvsky got up. He was white with dust. There +was even dust on his face and in his short hair. He looked passionate. + +"You see," Batouch began, speaking to Domini, "that Monsieur cannot--" + +"Give me the rein!" said Androvsky. + +There was a sound in his deep voice that was terrible. He was looking +not at Domini, but at the priest, who stood a little aside with an +expression of concern on his face. Bous-Bous barked with excitement at +the conflict. Androvsky took the rein, and, with a sort of furious +determination, sprang into the saddle and pressed his legs against the +horse's flanks. It reared up. The priest moved back under the palm +trees, the Arab boys scattered. Batouch sought the shelter of the +arcade, and the horse, with a short, whining neigh that was like a cry +of temper, bolted between the trunks of the trees, heading for the +desert, and disappeared in a flash. + +"He will be killed," said the priest. + +Bous-Bous barked frantically. + +"It is his own fault," said the poet. "He told me himself just now +that he did not know how to ride." + +"Why didn't you tell me so?" Domini exclaimed. + +"Madame----" + +But she was gone, following Androvsky at a slow canter lest she should +frighten his horse by coming up behind it. She came out from the shade +of the palms into the sun. The desert lay before her. She searched it +eagerly with her eyes and saw Androvsky's horse far off in the river +bed, still going at a gallop towards the south, towards that region in +which she had told him on the tower she thought that peace must dwell. +It was as if he had believed her words blindly and was frantically in +chase of peace. And she pursued him through the blazing sunlight. She +was out in the desert at length, beyond the last belt of verdure, +beyond the last line of palms. The desert wind was on her cheek and in +her hair. The desert spaces stretched around her. Under her horse's +hoofs lay the sparkling crystals on the wrinkled, sun-dried earth. The +red rocks, seamed with many shades of colour that all suggested +primeval fires and the relentless action of heat, were heaped about +her. But her eyes were fixed on the far-off moving speck that was the +horse carrying Androvsky madly towards the south. The light and fire, +the great airs, the sense of the chase intoxicated her. She struck her +horse with the whip. It leaped, as if clearing an immense obstacle, +came down lightly and strained forward into the shining mysteries at a +furious gallop. The black speck grew larger. She was gaining. The +crumbling, cliff-like bank on her left showed a rent in which a faint +track rose sharply to the flatness beyond. She put her horse at it and +came out among the tiny humps on which grew the halfa grass and the +tamarisk bushes. A pale sand flew up here about the horse's feet. +Androvsky was still below her in the difficult ground where the water +came in the floods. She gained and gained till she was parallel with +him and could see his bent figure, his arms clinging to the peak of +his red saddle, his legs set forward almost on to his horse's withers +by the short stirrups with their metal toecaps. The animal's temper +was nearly spent. She could see that. The terror had gone out of his +pace. As she looked she saw Androvsky raise his arms from the saddle +peak, catch at the flying rein, draw it up, lean against the saddle +back and pull with all his force. The horse stopped dead. + +"His strength must be enormous," Domini thought with a startled +admiration. + +She pulled up too on the bank above him and gave a halloo. He turned +his head, saw her, and put his horse at the bank, which was steep here +and without any gap. "You can't do it," she called. + +In reply he dug the heels of his heavy boots into the horse's flanks +and came on recklessly. She thought the horse would either refuse or +try to get up and roll back on its rider. It sprang at the bank and +mounted like a wild cat. There was a noise of falling stones, a shower +of scattered earth-clods dropping downward, and he was beside her, +white with dust, streaming with sweat, panting as if the labouring +breath would rip his chest open, with the horse's foam on his +forehead, and a savage and yet exultant gleam in his eyes. + +They looked at each other in silence, while their horses, standing +quietly, lowered their narrow, graceful heads and touched noses with +delicate inquiry. Then she said: + +"I almost thought----" + +She stopped. + +"Yes?" he said, on a great gasping breath that was like a sob. + +"--that you were off to the centre of the earth, or--I don't know what +I thought. You aren't hurt?" + +"No." + +He could only speak in monosyllables as yet. She looked his horse +over. + +"He won't give much more trouble just now. Shall we ride back?" + +As she spoke she threw a longing glance at the far desert, at the +verge of which was a dull green line betokening the distant palms of +an oasis. + +Androvsky shook his head. + +"But you----" She hesitated. "Perhaps you aren't accustomed to horses, +and with that saddle----" + +He shook his head again, drew a tremendous breath and said + +"I don't care, I'll go on, I won't go back." + +He put up one hand, brushed the foam from his streaming forehead, and +said again fiercely: + +"I won't go back." + +His face was extraordinary with its dogged, passionate expression +showing through the dust and the sweat; like the face of a man in a +fight to the death, she thought, a fight with fists. She was glad at +his last words and liked the iron sound in his voice. + +"Come on then." + +And they began to ride towards the dull green line of the oasis, +slowly on the sandy waste among the little round humps where the dusty +cluster of bushes grew. + +"You weren't hurt by the fall?" she said. "It looked a bad one." + +"I don't know whether I was. I don't care whether I was." + +He spoke almost roughly. + +"You asked me to ride with you," he added. "I'll ride with you." + +She remembered what Batouch had said. There was pluck in this man, +pluck that surged up in the blundering awkwardness, the hesitation, +the incompetence and rudeness of him like a black rock out of the sea. +She did not answer. They rode on, always slowly. His horse, having had +its will, and having known his strength at the end of his +incompetence, went quietly, though always with that feathery, light, +tripping action peculiar to purebred Arabs, an action that suggests +the treading of a spring board rather than of the solid earth. And +Androvsky seemed a little more at home on it, although he sat +awkwardly on the chair-like saddle, and grasped the rein too much as +the drowning man seizes the straw. Domini rode without looking at him, +lest he might think she was criticising his performance. When he had +rolled in the dust she had been conscious of a sharp sensation of +contempt. The men she had been accustomed to meet all her life rode, +shot, played games as a matter of course. She was herself an athlete, +and, like nearly all athletic women, inclined to be pitiless towards +any man who was not so strong and so agile as herself. But this man +had killed her contempt at once by his desperate determination not to +be beaten. She knew by the look she had just seen in his eyes that if +to ride with her that day meant death to him he would have done it +nevertheless. + +The womanhood in her liked the tribute, almost more than liked it. + +"Your horse goes better now," she said at last to break the silence. + +"Does it?" he said. + +"You don't know!" + +"Madame, I know nothing of horses or riding. I have not been on a +horse for twenty-three years." + +She was amazed. + +"We ought to go back then," she exclaimed. + +"Why? Other men ride--I will ride. I do it badly. Forgive me." + +"Forgive you!" she said. "I admire your pluck. But why have you never +ridden all these years?" + +After a pause he answered: + +"I--I did not--I had not the opportunity." + +His voice was suddenly constrained. She did not pursue the subject, +but stroked her horse's neck and turned her eyes towards the dark +green line on the horizon. Now that she was really out in the desert +she felt almost bewildered by it, and as if she understood it far less +than when she looked at it from Count Anteoni's garden. The thousands +upon thousands of sand humps, each crowned with its dusty dwarf bush, +each one precisely like the others, agitated her as if she were +confronted by a vast multitude of people. She wanted some point which +would keep the eyes from travelling but could not find it, and was +mentally restless as the swimmer far out at sea who is pursued by wave +on wave, and who sees beyond him the unceasing foam of those that are +pressing to the horizon. Whither was she riding? Could one have a goal +in this immense expanse? She felt an overpowering need to find one, +and looked once more at the green line. + +"Do you think we could go as far as that?" she asked Androvsky, +pointing with her whip. + +"Yes, Madame." + +"It must be an oasis. Don't you think so?" + +"Yes. I can go faster." + +"Keep your rein loose. Don't pull his mouth. You don't mind my telling +you. I've been with horses all my life." + +"Thank you," he answered. + +"And keep your heels more out. That's much better. I'm sure you could +teach me a thousand things; it will be kind of you to let me teach you +this." + +He cast a strange look at her. There was gratitude in it, but much +more; a fiery bitterness and something childlike and helpless. + +"I have nothing to teach," he said. + +Their horses broke into a canter, and with the swifter movement Domini +felt more calm. There was an odd lightness in her brain, as if her +thoughts were being shaken out of it like feathers out of a bag. The +power of concentration was leaving her, and a sensation of +carelessness--surely gipsy-like--came over her. Her body, dipped in +the dry and thin air as in a clear, cool bath, did not suffer from the +burning rays of the sun, but felt radiant yet half lazy too. They went +on and on in silence as intimate friends might ride together, isolated +from the world and content in each other's company, content enough to +have no need of talking. Not once did it strike Domini as strange that +she should go far out into the desert with a man of whom she knew +nothing, but in whom she had noticed disquieting peculiarities. She +was naturally fearless, but that had little to do with her conduct. +Without saying so to herself she felt she could trust this man. + +The dark green line showed clearer through the sunshine across the +gleaming flats. It was possible now to see slight irregularities in +it, as in a blurred dash of paint flung across a canvas by an +uncertain hand, but impossible to distinguish palm trees. The air +sparkled as if full of a tiny dust of intensely brilliant jewels, and +near the ground there seemed to quiver a maze of dancing specks of +light. Everywhere there was solitude, yet everywhere there was surely +a ceaseless movement of minute and vital things, scarce visible sun +fairies eternally at play. + +And Domini's careless feeling grew. She had never before experienced +so delicious a recklessness. Head and heart were light, reckless of +thought or love. Sad things had no meaning here and grave things no +place. For the blood was full of sunbeams dancing to a lilt of Apollo. +Nothing mattered here. Even Death wore a robe of gold and went with an +airy step. Ah, yes, from this region of quivering light and heat the +Arabs drew their easy and lustrous resignation. Out here one was in +the hands of a God who surely sang as He created and had not created +fear. + +Many minutes passed, but Domini was careless of time as of all else. +The green line broke into feathery tufts, broadened into a still far- +off dimness of palms. + +"Water!" + +Androvsky's voice spoke as if startled. Domini pulled up. Their horses +stood side by side, and at once, with the cessation of motion, the +mysticism of the desert came upon them and the marvel of its silence, +and they seemed to be set there in a wonderful dream, themselves and +their horses dreamlike. + +"Water!" he said again. + +He pointed, and along the right-hand edge of the oasis Domini saw +grey, calm waters. The palms ran out into them and were bathed by them +softly. And on their bosom here and there rose small, dim islets. Yes, +there was water, and yet-- The mystery of it was a mystery she had +never known to brood even over a white northern sea in a twilight hour +of winter, was deeper than the mystery of the Venetian /laguna morta/, +when the Angelus bell chimes at sunset, and each distant boat, each +bending rower and patient fisherman, becomes a marvel, an eerie thing +in the gold. + +"Is it mirage?" she said to him almost in a whisper. + +And suddenly she shivered. + +"Yes, it is, it must be." + +He did not answer. His left hand, holding the rein, dropped down on +the saddle peak, and he stared across the waste, leaning forward and +moving his lips. She looked at him and forgot even the mirage in a +sudden longing to understand exactly what he was feeling. His mystery +--the mystery of that which is human and is forever stretching out its +arms--was as the fluid mystery of the mirage, and seemed to blend at +that moment with the mystery she knew lay in herself. The mirage was +within them as it was far off before them in the desert, still, grey, +full surely of indistinct movement, and even perhaps of sound they +could not hear. + +At last he turned and looked at her. + +"Yes, it must be mirage," he said. "The nothing that seems to be so +much. A man comes out into the desert and he finds there mirage. He +travels right out and that's what he reaches--or at least he can't +reach it, but just sees it far away. And that's all. And is that what +a man finds when he comes out into the world?" + +It was the first time he had spoken without any trace of reserve to +her, for even on the tower, though there had been tumult in his voice +and a fierceness of some strange passion in his words, there had been +struggle in his manner, as if the pressure of feeling forced him to +speak in despite of something which bade him keep silence. Now he +spoke as if to someone whom he knew and with whom he had talked of +many things. + +"But you ought to know better than I do," she answered. + +"I!" + +"Yes. You are a man, and have been in the world, and must know what it +has to give--whether there's only mirage, or something that can be +grasped and felt and lived in, and----" + +"Yes, I'm a man and I ought to know," he replied. "Well, I don't know, +but I mean to know." + +There was a savage sound in his voice. + +"I should like to know, too," Domini said quietly. "And I feel as if +it was the desert that was going to teach me." + +"The desert--how?" + +"I don't know." + +He pointed again to the mirage. + +"But that's what there is in the desert." + +"That--and what else?" + +"Is there anything else?" + +"Perhaps everything," she answered. "I am like you. I want to know." + +He looked straight into her eyes and there was something dominating in +his expression. + +"You think it is the desert that could teach you whether the world +holds anything but a mirage," he said slowly. "Well, I don't think it +would be the desert that could teach me." + +She said nothing more, but let her horse go and rode off. He followed, +and as he rode awkwardly, yet bravely, pressing his strong legs +against his animal's flanks and holding his thin body bent forward, he +looked at Domini's upright figure and brilliant, elastic grace--that +gave in to her horse as wave gives to wind--with a passion of envy in +his eyes. + +They did not speak again till the great palm gardens of the oasis they +had seen far off were close upon them. From the desert they looked +both shabby and superb, as if some millionaire had poured forth money +to create a Paradise out here, and, when it was nearly finished, had +suddenly repented of his whim and refused to spend another farthing. +The thousands upon thousands of mighty trees were bounded by long, +irregular walls of hard earth, at the top of which were stuck +distraught thorn bushes. These walls gave the rough, penurious aspect +which was in such sharp contrast to the exotic mystery they guarded. +Yet in the fierce blaze of the sun their meanness was not +disagreeable. Domini even liked it. It seemed to her as if the desert +had thrown up waves to protect this daring oasis which ventured to +fling its green glory like a defiance in the face of the Sahara. A +wide track of earth, sprinkled with stones and covered with deep ruts, +holes and hummocks, wound in from the desert between the earthen walls +and vanished into the heart of the oasis. They followed it. + +Domini was filled with a sort of romantic curiosity. This luxury of +palms far out in the midst of desolation, untended apparently by human +hands--for no figures moved among them, there was no one on the road-- +suggested some hidden purpose and activity, some concealed personage, +perhaps an Eastern Anteoni, whose lair lay surely somewhere beyond +them. As she had felt the call of the desert she now felt the call of +the oasis. In this land thrilled eternally a summons to go onward, to +seek, to penetrate, to be a passionate pilgrim. She wondered whether +her companion's heart could hear it. + +"I don't know why it is," she said, "but out here I always feel +expectant. I always feel as if some marvellous thing might be going to +happen to me." + +She did not add "Do you?" but looked at him as if for a reply. + +"Yes, Madame," he said. + +"I suppose it is because I am new to Africa. This is my first visit +here. I am not like you. I can't speak Arabic." + +She suddenly wondered whether the desert was new to him as to her. She +had assumed that it was. Yet as he spoke Arabic it was almost certain +that he had been much in Africa. + +"I do not speak it well," he answered. + +And he looked away towards the dense thickets of the palms. The track +narrowed till the trees on either side cast patterns of moving shade +across it and the silent mystery was deepened. As far as the eye could +see the feathery, tufted foliage swayed in the little wind. The desert +had vanished, but sent in after them the message of its soul, the +marvellous breath which Domini had drunk into her lungs so long before +she saw it. That breath was like a presence. It dwells in all oases. +The high earth walls concealed the gardens. Domini longed to look over +and see what they contained, whether there were any dwellings in these +dim and silent recesses, any pools of water, flowers or grassy lawns. + +Her horse neighed. + +"Something is coming," she said. + +They turned a corner and were suddenly in a village. A mob of half- +naked children scattered from their horses' feet. Rows of seated men +in white and earth-coloured robes stared upon them from beneath the +shadow of tall, windowless earth houses. White dogs rushed to and fro +upon the flat roofs, thrusting forward venomous heads, showing their +teeth and barking furiously. Hens fluttered in agitation from one side +to the other. A grey mule, tethered to a palm-wood door and loaded +with brushwood, lashed out with its hoofs at a negro, who at once +began to batter it passionately with a pole, and a long line of +sneering camels confronted them, treading stealthily, and turning +their serpentine necks from side to side as they came onwards with a +soft and weary inflexibility. In the distance there was a vision of a +glaring market-place crowded with moving forms and humming with +noises. + +The change from mysterious peace to this vivid and concentrated life +was startling. + +With difficulty they avoided the onset of the camels by pulling their +horses into the midst of the dreamers against the walls, who rolled +and scrambled into places of safety, then stood up and surrounded +them, staring with an almost terrible interest upon them, and +surveying their horses with the eyes of connoisseurs. The children +danced up and began to ask for alms, and an immense man, with a broken +nose and brown teeth like tusks, laid a gigantic hand on Domini's +bridle and said, in atrocious French: + +"I am the guide, I am the guide. Look at my certificates. Take no one +else. The people here are robbers. I am the only honest man. I will +show Madame everything. I will take Madame to the inn. Look--my +certificates! Read them! Read what the English lord says of me. I +alone am honest here. I am honest Mustapha! I am honest Mustapha!" + +He thrust a packet of discoloured papers and dirty visiting-cards into +her hands. She dropped them, laughing, and they floated down over the +horse's neck. The man leaped frantically to pick them up, assisted by +the robbers round about. A second caravan of camels appeared, preceded +by some filthy men in rags, who cried, "Oosh! oosh!" to clear the way. +The immense man, brandishing his recovered certificates, plunged +forward to encounter them, shouting in Arabic, hustled them back, +kicked them, struck at the camels with a stick till those in front +receded upon those behind and the street was blocked by struggling +beasts and resounded with roaring snarls, the thud of wooden bales +clashing together, and the desperate protests of the camel-drivers, +one of whom was sent rolling into a noisome dust heap with his turban +torn from his head. + +"The inn! This is the inn! Madame will descend here. Madame will eat +in the garden. Monsieur Alphonse! Monsieur Alphonse! Here are clients +for /dejeuner/. I have brought them. Do not believe Mohammed. It is I +that--I will assist Madame to descend. I will----" + +Domini was standing in a tiny cabaret before a row of absinthe +bottles, laughing, almost breathless. She scarcely knew how she had +come there. Looking back she saw Androvsky still sitting on his horse +in the midst of the clamouring mob. She went to the low doorway, but +Mustapha barred her exit. + +"This is Sidi-Zerzour. Madame will eat in the garden. She is tired, +fainting. She will eat and then she will see the great Mosque of +Zerzour." + +"Sidi-Zerzour!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Androvsky, do you know where +we are? This is the famous Sidi-Zerzour, where the great warrior is +buried, and where the Arabs make pilgrimages to worship at his tomb." + +"Yes, Madame." + +He answered in a low voice. + +"As we are here we ought to see. Do you know, I think we must yield to +honest Mustapha and have /dejeuner/ in the garden. It is twelve +o'clock and I am hungry. We might visit the mosque afterwards and ride +home in the afternoon." + +He sat there hunched up on the horse and looked at her in silent +hesitation, while the Arabs stood round staring. + +"You'd rather not?" + +She spoke quietly. He shook his feet out of the stirrups. A number of +brown hands and arms shot forth to help him. Domini turned back into +the cabaret. She heard a tornado of voices outside, a horse neighing +and trampling, a scuffling of feet, but she did not glance round. In +about three minutes Androvsky joined her. He was limping slightly and +bending forward more than ever. Behind the counter on which stood the +absinthe bottle was a tarnished mirror, and she saw him glance +quickly, almost guiltily into it, put up his hands and try to brush +the dust from his hair, his shoulders. + +"Let me do it," she said abruptly. "Turn round." + +He obeyed without a word, turning his back to her. With her two hands, +which were covered with soft, loose suede gloves, she beat and brushed +the dust from his coat. He stood quite still while she did it. When +she had finished she said: + +"There, that's better." + +Her voice was practical. He did not move, but stood there. + +"I've done what I can, Monsieur Androvsky." + +Then he turned slowly, and she saw, with amazement, that there were +tears in his eyes. He did not thank her or say a word. + +A small and scrubby-looking Frenchman, with red eyelids and moustaches +that drooped over a pendulous underlip, now begged Madame to follow +him through a small doorway beyond which could be seen three just shot +gazelles lying in a patch of sunlight by a wired-in fowl-run. Domini +went after him, and Androvsky and honest Mustapha--still vigorously +proclaiming his own virtues--brought up the rear. They came into the +most curious garden she had ever seen. + +It was long and narrow and dishevelled, without grass or flowers. The +uneven ground of it was bare, sun-baked earth, hard as parquet, rising +here into a hump, falling there into a depression. Immediately behind +the cabaret, where the dead gazelles with their large glazed eyes lay +by the fowl-run, was a rough wooden trellis with vines trained over +it, making an arbour. Beyond was a rummage of orange trees, palms, +gums and fig trees growing at their own sweet will, and casting +patterns of deep shade upon the earth in sharp contrast with the +intense yellow sunlight which fringed them where the leafage ceased. +An attempt had been made to create formal garden paths and garden beds +by sticking rushes into little holes drilled in the ground, but the +paths were zig-zag as a drunkard's walk, and the round and oblong beds +contained no trace of plants. On either hand rose steep walls of +earth, higher than a man, and crowned with prickly thorn bushes. Over +them looked palm trees. At the end of the garden ran a slow stream of +muddy water in a channel with crumbling banks trodden by many naked +feet. Beyond it was yet another lower wall of earth, yet another maze +of palms. Heat and silence brooded here like reptiles on the warm mud +of a tropic river in a jungle. Lizards ran in and out of the +innumerable holes in the walls, and flies buzzed beneath the ragged +leaves of the fig trees and crawled in the hot cracks of the earth. + +The landlord wished to put a table under the vine close to the cabaret +wall, but Domini begged him to bring it to the end of the garden near +the stream. With the furious assistance of honest Mustapha he carried +it there and quickly laid it in the shadow of a fig tree, while Domini +and Androvsky waited in silence on two straw-bottomed chairs. + +The atmosphere of the garden was hostile to conversation. The sluggish +muddy stream, the almost motionless trees, the imprisoned heat between +the surrounding walls, the faint buzz of the flies caused drowsiness +to creep upon the spirit. The long ride, too, and the ardent desert +air, made this repose a luxury. Androvsky's face lost its emotional +expression as he gazed almost vacantly at the brown water shifting +slowly by between the brown banks and the brown walls above which the +palm trees peered. His aching limbs relaxed. His hands hung loose +between his knees. And Domini half closed her eyes. A curious peace +descended upon her. Lapped in the heat and silence for the moment she +wanted nothing. The faint buzz of the flies sounded in her ears and +seemed more silent than even the silence to which it drew attention. +Never before, not in Count Anteoni's garden, had she felt more utterly +withdrawn from the world. The feathery tops of the palms were like the +heads of sentinels guarding her from contact with all that she had +known. And beyond them lay the desert, the empty, sunlit waste. She +shut her eyes, and murmured to herself, "I am in far away. I am in far +away." And the flies said it in her ears monotonously. And the lizards +whispered it as they slipped in and out of the little dark holes in +the walls. She heard Androvsky stir, and she moved her lips slowly. +And the flies and the lizards continued the refrain. But she said now, +"We are in far away." + +Honest Mustapha strode forward. He had a Bashi-Bazouk tread to wake up +a world. /Dejeuner/ was ready. Domini sighed. They took their places +under the fig tree on either side of the deal table covered with a +rough white cloth, and Mustapha, with tremendous gestures, and +gigantic postures suggesting the untamed descendant of legions of +freeborn, sun-suckled men, served them with red fish, omelette, +gazelle steaks, cheese, oranges and dates, with white wine and Vals +water. + +Androvsky scarcely spoke. Now that he was sitting at a meal with +Domini he was obviously embarrassed. All his movements were self- +conscious. He seemed afraid to eat and refused the gazelle. Mustapha +broke out into turbulent surprise and prolonged explanations of the +delicious flavour of this desert food. But Androvsky still refused, +looking desperately disconcerted. + +"It really is delicious," said Domini, who was eating it. "But perhaps +you don't care about meat." + +She spoke quite carelessly and was surprised to see him look at her as +if with sudden suspicion and immediately help himself to the gazelle. + +This man was perpetually giving a touch of the whip to her curiosity +to keep it alert. Yet she felt oddly at ease with him. He seemed +somehow part of her impression of the desert, and now, as they sat +under the fig tree between the high earth walls, and at their /al +fresco/ meal in unbroken silence--for since her last remark Androvsky +had kept his eyes down and had not uttered a word--she tried to +imagine the desert without him. + +She thought of the gorge of El-Akbara, the cold, the darkness, and +then the sun and the blue country. They had framed his face. She +thought of the silent night when the voice of the African hautboy had +died away. His step had broken its silence. She thought of the garden +of Count Anteoni, and of herself kneeling on the hot sand with her +arms on the white parapet and gazing out over the regions of the sun, +of her dream upon the tower, of her vision when Irena danced. He was +there, part of the noon, part of the twilight, chief surely of the +worshippers who swept on in the pale procession that received gifts +from the desert's hands. She could no longer imagine the desert +without him. The almost painful feeling that had come to her in the +garden--of the human power to distract her attention from the desert +power--was dying, perhaps had completely died away. Another feeling +was surely coming to replace it; that Androvsky belonged to the desert +more even than the Arabs did, that the desert spirits were close about +him, clasping his hands, whispering in his ears, and laying their +unseen hands about his heart. But---- + +They had finished their meal. Domini set her chair once more in front +of the sluggish stream, while honest Mustapha bounded, with motions +suggestive of an ostentatious panther, to get the coffee. Androvsky +followed her after an instant of hesitation. + +"Do smoke," she said. + +He lit a small cigar with difficulty. She did not wish to watch him, +but she could not help glancing at him once or twice, and the +conviction came to her that he was unaccustomed to smoking. She lit a +cigarette, and saw him look at her with a sort of horrified surprise +which changed to staring interest. There was more boy, more child in +this man than in any man she had ever known. Yet at moments she felt +as if he had penetrated more profoundly into the dark and winding +valleys of experience than all the men of her acquaintance. + +"Monsieur Androvsky," she said, looking at the slow waters of the +stream slipping by towards the hidden gardens, "is the desert new to +you?" + +She longed to know. + +"Yes, Madame." + +"I thought perhaps--I wondered a little whether you had travelled in +it already." + +"No, Madame. I saw it for the first time the day before yesterday." + +"When I did." + +"Yes." + +So they had entered it for the first time together. She was silent, +watching the pale smoke curl up through the shade and out into the +glare of the sun, the lizards creeping over the hot earth, the flies +circling beneath the lofty walls, the palm trees looking over into +this garden from the gardens all around, gardens belonging to Eastern +people, born here, and who would probably die here, and go to dust +among the roots of the palms. + +On the earthen bank on the far side of the stream there appeared, +while she gazed, a brilliant figure. It came soundlessly on bare feet +from a hidden garden; a tall, unveiled girl, dressed in draperies of +vivid magenta, who carried in her exquisitely-shaped brown hands a +number of handkerchiefs--scarlet, orange, yellow green and flesh +colour. She did not glance into the /auberge/ garden, but caught up +her draperies into a bunch with one hand, exposing her slim legs far +above the knees, waded into the stream, and bending, dipped the +handkerchiefs in the water. + +The current took them. They streamed out on the muddy surface of the +stream, and tugged as if, suddenly endowed with life, they were +striving to escape from the hand that held them. + +The girl's face was beautiful, with small regular features and +lustrous, tender eyes. Her figure, not yet fully developed, was +perfect in shape, and seemed to thrill softly with the spirit of +youth. Her tint of bronze suggested statuary, and every fresh pose +into which she fell, while the water eddied about her, strengthened +the suggestion. With the golden sunlight streaming upon her, the brown +banks, the brown waters, the brown walls throwing up the crude magenta +of her bunched-up draperies, the vivid colours of the handkerchiefs +that floated from her hand, with the feathery palms beside her, the +cloudless blue sky above her, she looked so strangely African and so +completely lovely that Domini watched her with an almost breathless +attention. + +She withdrew the handkerchiefs from the stream, waded out, and spread +them one by one upon the low earth wall to dry, letting her draperies +fall. When she had finished disposing them she turned round, and, no +longer preoccupied with her task, looked under her level brows into +the garden opposite and saw Domini and her companion. She did not +start, but stood quite still for a moment, then slipped away in the +direction whence she had come. Only the brilliant patches of colour on +the wall remained to hint that she had been there and would come +again. Domini sighed. + +"What a lovely creature!" she said, more to herself than to Androvsky. + +He did not speak, and his silence made her consciously demand his +acquiescence in her admiration. + +"Did you ever see anything more beautiful and more characteristic of +Africa?" she asked. + +"Madame," he said in a slow, stern voice, "I did not look at her." + +Domini felt piqued. + +"Why not?" she retorted. + +Androvsky's face was cloudy and almost cruel. + +"These native women do not interest me," he said. "I see nothing +attractive in them." + +Domini knew that he was telling her a lie. Had she not seen him +watching the dancing girls in Tahar's cafe? Anger rose in her. She +said to herself then that it was anger at man's hypocrisy. Afterwards +she knew that it was anger at Androvsky's telling a lie to her. + +"I can scarcely believe that," she answered bluntly. + +They looked at each other. + +"Why not, Madame?" he said. "If I say it is so?" + +She hesitated. At that moment she realised, with hot astonishment, +that there was something in this man that could make her almost +afraid, that could prevent her even, perhaps, from doing the thing she +had resolved to do. Immediately she felt hostile to him, and she knew +that, at that moment, he was feeling hostile to her. + +"If you say it is so naturally I am bound to take your word for it," +she said coldly. + +He flushed and looked down. The rigid defiance that had confronted her +died out of his face. + +Honest Mustapha broke joyously upon them with the coffee. Domini +helped Androvsky to it. She had to make a great effort to perform this +simple act with quiet, and apparently indifferent, composure. + +"Thank you, Madame." + +His voice sounded humble, but she felt hard and as if ice were in all +her veins. She sipped her coffee, looking straight before her at the +stream. The magenta robe appeared once more coming out from the brown +wall. A yellow robe succeeded it, a scarlet, a deep purple. The girl, +with three curious young companions, stood in the sun examining the +foreigners with steady, unflinching eyes. Domini smiled grimly. Fate +gave her an opportunity. She beckoned to the girls. They looked at +each other but did not move. She held up a bit of silver so that the +sun was on it, and beckoned them again. The magenta robe was lifted +above the pretty knees it had covered. The yellow, the scarlet, the +deep purple robes rose too, making their separate revelations. And the +four girls, all staring at the silver coin, waded through the muddy +water and stood before Domini and Androvsky, blotting out the glaring +sunshine with their young figures. Their smiling faces were now eager +and confident, and they stretched out their delicate hands hopefully +to the silver. Domini signified that they must wait a moment. + +She felt full of malice. + +The girls wore many ornaments. She began slowly and deliberately to +examine them; the huge gold earrings that were as large as the little +ears that sustained them, the bracelets and anklets, the triangular +silver skewers that fastened the draperies across the gentle swelling +breasts, the narrow girdles, worked with gold thread, and hung with +lumps of coral, that circled the small, elastic waists. Her inventory +was an adagio, and while it lasted Androvsky sat on his low straw +chair with this wall of young womanhood before him, of young womanhood +no longer self-conscious and timid, but eager, hardy, natural, warm +with the sun and damp with the trickling drops of the water. The vivid +draperies touched him, and presently a little hand stole out to his +breast, caught at the silver chain that lay across it, and jerked out +of its hiding-place--a wooden cross. + +Domini saw the light on it for a second, heard a low, fierce +exclamation, saw Androvsky's arm push the pretty hand roughly away, +and then a thing that was strange. + +He got up violently from his chair with the cross hanging loose on his +breast. Then he seized hold of it, snapped the chain in two, threw the +cross passionately into the stream and walked away down the garden. +The four girls, with a twittering cry of excitement, rushed into the +water, heedless of draperies, bent down, knelt down, and began to feel +frantically in the mud for the vanished ornament. Domini stood up and +watched them. Androvsky did not come back. Some minutes passed. Then +there was an exclamation of triumph from the stream. The girl in +magenta held up the dripping cross with the bit of silver chain in her +dripping fingers. Domini cast a swift glance behind her. Androvsky had +disappeared. Quickly she went to the edge of the water. As she was in +riding-dress she wore no ornaments except two earrings made of large +and beautiful turquoises. She took them hastily out of her ears and +held them out to the girl, signifying by gestures that she bartered +them for the little cross and chain. The girl hesitated, but the clear +blue tint of the turquoise pleased her eyes. She yielded, snatched the +earrings with an eager, gave up the cross and chain with a reluctant, +hand. Domini's fingers closed round the wet gold. She threw some coins +across the stream on to the bank, and turned away, thrusting the cross +into her bosom. + +And she felt at that moment as if she had saved a sacred thing from +outrage. + +At the cabaret door she found Androvsky, once more surrounded by +Arabs, whom honest Mustapha was trying to beat off. He turned when he +heard her. His eyes were still full of a light that revealed an +intensity of mental agitation, and she saw his left hand, which hung +down, quivering against his side. But he succeeded in schooling his +voice as he asked: + +"Do you wish to visit the village, Madame?" + +"Yes. But don't let me bother you if you would rather--" + +"I will come. I wish to come." + +She did not believe it. She felt that he was in great pain, both of +body and mind. His fall had hurt him. She knew that by the way he +moved his right arm. The unaccustomed exercise had made him stiff. +Probably the physical discomfort he was silently enduring had acted as +an irritant to the mind. She remembered that it was caused by his +determination to be her companion, and the ice in her melted away. She +longed to make him calmer, happier. Secretly she touched the little +cross that lay under her habit. He had thrown it away in a passion. +Well, some day perhaps she would have the pleasure of giving it back +to him. Since he had worn it he must surely care for it, and even +perhaps for that which it recalled. + +"We ought to visit the mosque, I think," she said. + +"Yes, Madame." + +The assent sounded determined yet reluctant. She knew this was all +against his will. Mustapha took charge of them, and they set out down +the narrow street, accompanied by a little crowd. They crossed the +glaring market-place, with its booths of red meat made black by flies, +its heaps of refuse, its rows of small and squalid hutches, in which +sat serious men surrounded by their goods. The noise here was +terrific. Everyone seemed shouting, and the uproar of the various +trades, the clamour of hammers on sheets of iron, the dry tap of the +shoemaker's wooden wand on the soles of countless slippers, the thud +of the coffee-beater's blunt club on the beans, and the groaning grunt +with which he accompanied each downward stroke mingled with the +incessant roar of camels, and seemed to be made more deafening and +intolerable by the fierce heat of the sun, and by the innumerable +smells which seethed forth upon the air. Domini felt her nerves set on +edge, and was thankful when they came once more into the narrow alleys +that ran everywhere between the brown, blind houses. In them there was +shade and silence and mystery. Mustapha strode before to show the way, +Domini and Androvsky followed, and behind glided the little mob of +barefoot inquisitors in long shirts, speechless and intent, and always +hopeful of some chance scattering of money by the wealthy travellers. + +The tumult of the market-place at length died away, and Domini was +conscious of a curious, far-off murmur. At first it was so faint that +she was scarcely aware of it, and merely felt the soothing influence +of its level monotony. But as they walked on it grew deeper, stronger. +It was like the sound of countless multitudes of bees buzzing in the +noon among flowers, drowsily, ceaselessly. She stopped under a low mud +arch to listen. And when she listened, standing still, a feeling of +awe came upon her, and she knew that she had never heard such a +strangely impressive, strangely suggestive sound before. + +"What is that?" she said. + +She looked at Androvsky. + +"I don't know, Madame. It must be people." + +"But what can they be doing?" + +"They are praying in the mosque where Sidi-Zerzour is buried," said +Mustapha. + +Domini remembered the perfume-seller. This was the sound she had beard +in his sunken chamber, infinitely multiplied. They went on again +slowly. Mustapha had lost something of his flaring manner, and his +gait was subdued. He walked with a sort of soft caution, like a man +approaching holy ground. And Domini was moved by his sudden reverence. +It was impressive in such a fierce and greedy scoundrel. The level +murmur deepened, strengthened. All the empty and dim alleys +surrounding the unseen mosque were alive with it, as if the earth of +the houses, the palm-wood beams, the iron bars of the tiny, shuttered +windows, the very thorns of the brushwood roofs were praying +ceaselessly and intently in secret under voices. This was a world +intense with prayer as a flame is intense with heat, with prayer +penetrating and compelling, urgent in its persistence, powerful in its +deep and sultry concentration, yet almost oppressive, almost terrible +in its monotony. + +"Allah-Akbar! Allah-Akbar!" It was the murmur of the desert and the +murmur of the sun. It was the whisper of the mirage, and of the airs +that stole among the palm leaves. It was the perpetual heart-beat of +this world that was engulfing her, taking her to its warm and glowing +bosom with soft and tyrannical intention. + +"Allah! Allah! Allah!" Surely God must be very near, bending to such +an everlasting cry. Never before, not even when the bell sounded and +the Host was raised, had Domini felt the nearness of God to His world, +the absolute certainty of a Creator listening to His creatures, +watching them, wanting them, meaning them some day to be one with Him, +as she felt it now while she threaded the dingy alleys towards these +countless men who prayed. + +Androvsky was walking slowly as if in pain. + +"Your shoulder isn't hurting you?" she whispered. + +This long sound of prayer moved her to the soul, made her feel very +full of compassion for everybody and everything, and as if prayer were +a cord binding the world together. He shook his head silently. She +looked at him, and felt that he was moved also, but whether as she was +she could not tell. His face was like that of a man stricken with awe. +Mustapha turned round to them. The everlasting murmur was now so near +that it seemed to be within them, as if they, too, prayed at the tomb +of Zerzour. + +"Follow me into the court, Madame," Mustapha said, "and remain at the +door while I fetch the slippers." + +They turned a corner, and came to an open space before an archway, +which led into the first of the courts surrounding the mosque. Under +the archway Arabs were sitting silently, as if immersed in profound +reveries. They did not move, but stared upon the strangers, and Domini +fancied that there was enmity in their eyes. Beyond them, upon an +uneven pavement surrounded with lofty walls, more Arabs were gathered, +kneeling, bowing their heads to the ground, and muttering ceaseless +words in deep, almost growling, voices. Their fingers slipped over the +beads of the chaplets they wore round their necks, and Domini thought +of her rosary. Some prayed alone, removed in shady corners, with faces +turned to the wall. Others were gathered into knots. But each one +pursued his own devotions, immersed in a strange, interior solitude to +which surely penetrated an unseen ray of sacred light. There were +young boys praying, and old, wrinkled men, eagles of the desert, with +fierce eyes that did not soften as they cried the greatness of Allah, +the greatness of his Prophet, but gleamed as if their belief were a +thing of flame and bronze. The boys sometimes glanced at each other +while they prayed, and after each glance they swayed with greater +violence, and bowed down with more passionate abasement. The vision of +prayer had stirred them to a young longing for excess. The spirit of +emulation flickered through them and turned their worship into war. + +In a second and smaller court before the portal of the mosque men were +learning the Koran. Dressed in white they sat in circles, holding +squares of some material that looked like cardboard covered with +minute Arab characters, pretty, symmetrical curves and lines, dots and +dashes. The teachers squatted in the midst, expounding the sacred text +in nasal voices with a swiftness and vivacity that seemed pugnacious. +There was violence within these courts. Domini could imagine the +worshippers springing up from their knees to tear to pieces an +intruding dog of an unbeliever, then sinking to their knees again +while the blood trickled over the sun-dried pavement and the lifeless +body, lay there to rot and draw the flies. + +"Allah! Allah! Allah!" + +There was something imperious in such ardent, such concentrated and +untiring worship, a demand which surely could not be overlooked or set +aside. The tameness, the half-heartedness of Western prayer and +Western praise had no place here. This prayer was hot as the sunlight, +this praise was a mounting fire. The breath of this human incense was +as the breath of a furnace pouring forth to the gates of the Paradise +of Allah. It gave to Domini a quite new conception of religion, of the +relation between Creator and created. The personal pride which, like +blood in a body, runs through all the veins of the mind of +Mohammedanism, that measureless hauteur which sets the soul of a +Sultan in the twisted frame of a beggar at a street corner, and makes +impressive, even almost majestical, the filthy marabout, quivering +with palsy and devoured by disease, who squats beneath a holy bush +thick with the discoloured rags of the faithful, was not abased at the +shrine of the warrior, Zerzour, was not cast off in the act of +adoration. These Arabs humbled themselves in the body. Their foreheads +touched the stones. By their attitudes they seemed as if they wished +to make themselves even with the ground, to shrink into the space +occupied by a grain of sand. Yet they were proud in the presence of +Allah, as if the firmness of their belief in him and his right +dealing, the fury of their contempt and hatred for those who looked +not towards Mecca nor regarded Ramadan, gave them a patent of +nobility. Despite their genuflections they were all as men who knew, +and never forgot, that on them was conferred the right to keep on +their head-covering in the presence of their King. With their closed +eyes they looked God full in the face. Their dull and growling murmur +had the majesty of thunder rolling through the sky. + +Mustapha had disappeared within the mosque, leaving Domini and +Androvsky for the moment alone in the midst of the worshippers. From +the shadowy interior came forth a ceaseless sound of prayer to join +the prayer without. There was a narrow stone seat by the mosque door +and she sat down upon it. She felt suddenly weary, as one being +hypnotised feels weary when the body and spirit begin to yield to the +spell of the operator. Androvsky remained standing. His eyes were +fixed on the ground, and she thought his face looked almost phantom- +like, as if the blood had sunk away from it, leaving it white beneath +the brown tint set there by the sun. He stayed quite still. The dark +shadow cast by the towering mosque fell upon him, and his immobile +figure suggested to her ranges of infinite melancholy. She sighed as +one oppressed. There was an old man praying near them at the threshold +of the door, with his face turned towards the interior. He was very +thin, almost a skeleton, was dressed in rags through which his copper- +coloured body, sharp with scarce-covered bones, could be seen, and had +a scanty white beard sticking up, like a brush, at the tip of his +pointed chin. His face, worn with hardship and turned to the likeness +of parchment by time and the action of the sun, was full of senile +venom; and his toothless mouth, with its lips folded inwards, moved +perpetually, as if he were trying to bite. With rhythmical regularity, +like one obeying a conductor, he shot forth his arms towards the +mosque as if he wished to strike it, withdrew them, paused, then shot +them forth again. And as his arms shot forth he uttered a prolonged +and trembling shriek, full of weak, yet intense, fury. + +He was surely crying out upon God, denouncing God for the evils that +had beset his nearly ended life. Poor, horrible old man! Androvsky was +closer to him than she was, but did not seem to notice him. Once she +had seen him she could not take her eyes from him. His perpetual +gesture, his perpetual shriek, became abominable to her in the midst +of the bowing bodies and the humming voices of prayer. Each time he +struck at the mosque and uttered his piercing cry she seemed to hear +an oath spoken in a sanctuary. She longed to stop him. This one +blasphemer began to destroy for her the mystic atmosphere created by +the multitudes of adorers, and at last she could no longer endure his +reiterated enmity. + +She touched Androvsky's arm. He started and looked at her. + +"That old man," she whispered. "Can't you speak to him?" + +Androvsky glanced at him for the first time. + +"Speak to him, Madame? Why?" + +"He--he's horrible!" + +She felt a sudden disinclination to tell Androvsky why the old man was +horrible to her. + +"What do you wish me to say to him?" + +"I thought perhaps you might be able to stop him from doing that." + +Androvsky bent down and spoke to the old man in Arabic. + +He shot out his arms and reiterated his trembling shriek. It pierced +the sound of prayer as lightning pierces cloud. + +Domini got up quickly. + +"I can't bear it," she said, still in a whisper. "It's as if he were +cursing God." + +Androvsky looked at the old man again, this time with profound +attention. + +"Isn't it?" she said. "Isn't it as if he were cursing God while the +whole world worshipped? And that one cry of hatred seems louder than +the praises of the whole world." + +"We can't stop it." + +Something in his voice made her say abruptly: + +"Do you wish to stop it?" + +He did not answer. The old man struck at the mosque and shrieked. +Domini shuddered. + +"I can't stay here," she said. + +At this moment Mustapha appeared, followed by the guardian of the +mosque, who carried two pairs of tattered slippers. + +"Monsieur and Madame must take off their boots. Then I will show the +mosque." + +Domini put on the slippers hastily, and went into the mosque without +waiting to see whether Androvsky was following. And the old man's +furious cry pursued her through the doorway. + +Within there was space and darkness. The darkness seemed to be +praying. Vistas of yellowish-white arches stretched away in front, to +right and left. On the floor, covered with matting, quantities of +shrouded figures knelt and swayed, stood up suddenly, knelt again, +bowed down their foreheads. Preceded by Mustapha and the guide, who +walked on their stockinged feet, Domini slowly threaded her way among +them, following a winding path whose borders were praying men. To +prevent her slippers from falling off she had to shuffle along without +lifting her feet from the ground. With the regularity of a beating +pulse the old man's shriek, fainter now, came to her from without. But +presently, as she penetrated farther into the mosque, it was swallowed +up by the sound of prayer. No one seemed to see her or to know that +she was there. She brushed against the white garments of worshippers, +and when she did so she felt as if she touched the hem of the garments +of mystery, and she held her habit together with her hands lest she +should recall even one of these hearts that were surely very far off. + +Mustapha and the guardian stood still and looked round at Domini. +Their faces were solemn. The expression of greedy anxiety had gone out +of Mustapha's eyes. For the moment the thought of money had been +driven out of his mind by some graver pre-occupation. She saw in the +semi-darkness two wooden doors set between pillars. They were painted +green and red, and fastened with clamps and bolts of hammered copper +that looked enormously old. Against them were nailed two pictures of +winged horses with human heads, and two more pictures representing a +fantastical town of Eastern houses and minarets in gold on a red +background. Balls of purple and yellow glass, and crystal chandeliers, +hung from the high ceiling above these doors, with many ancient lamps; +and two tattered and dusty banners of pale pink and white silk, +fringed with gold and powdered with a gold pattern of flowers, were +tied to the pillars with thin cords of camel's hair. + +"This is the tomb of Sidi-Zerzour," whispered Mustapha. "It is opened +once a year." + +The guardian of the mosque fell on his knees before the tomb. + +"That is Mecca." + +Mustapha pointed to the pictures of the city. Then he, too, dropped +down and pressed his forehead against the matting. Domini glanced +round for Androvsky. He was not there. She stood alone before the tomb +of Zerzour, the only human being in the great, dim building who was +not worshipping. And she felt a terrible isolation, as if she were +excommunicated, as if she dared not pray, for a moment almost as if +the God to whom this torrent of worship flowed were hostile to her +alone. + +Had her father ever felt such a sensation of unutterable solitude? + +It passed quickly, and, standing under the votive lamps before the +painted doors, she prayed too, silently. She shut her eyes and +imagined a church of her religion--the little church of Beni-Mora. She +tried to imagine the voice of prayer all about her, the voice of the +great Catholic Church. But that was not possible. Even when she saw +nothing, and turned her soul inward upon itself, and strove to set +this new world into which she had come far off, she heard in the long +murmur that filled it a sound that surely rose from the sand, from the +heart and the spirit of the sand, from the heart and the spirit of +desert places, and that went up in the darkness of the mosque and +floated under the arches through the doorway, above the palms and the +flat-roofed houses, and that winged its fierce way, like a desert +eagle, towards the sun. + +Mustapha's hand was on her arm. The guardian, too, had risen from his +knees and drawn from his robe and lit a candle. She came to a tiny +doorway, passed through it and began to mount a winding stair. The +sound of prayer mounted with her from the mosque, and when she came +out upon the platform enclosed in the summit of the minaret she heard +it still and it was multiplied. For all the voices from the outside +courts joined it, and many voices from the roofs of the houses round +about. + +Men were praying there too, praying in the glare of the sun upon their +housetops. She saw them from the minaret, and she saw the town that +had sprung up round the tomb of the saint, and all the palms of the +oasis, and beyond them immeasurable spaces of desert. + +"Allah-Akbar! Allah-Akbar!" + +She was above the eternal cry now. She had mounted like a prayer +towards the sun, like a living, pulsing prayer, like the soul of +prayer. She gazed at the far-off desert and saw prayer travelling, the +soul of prayer travelling--whither? Where was the end? Where was the +halting-place, with at last the pitched tent, the camp fires, and the +long, the long repose? + +* * * * * * + +When she came down and reached the court she found the old man still +striking at the mosque and shrieking out his trembling imprecation. +And she found Androvsky still standing by him with fascinated eyes. + +She had mounted with the voice of prayer into the sunshine, surely a +little way towards God. + +Androvsky had remained in the dark shadow with a curse. + +It was foolish, perhaps--a woman's vagrant fancy--but she wished he +had mounted with her. + + + + +BOOK III. THE GARDEN + + + +CHAPTER X + +It was noon in the desert. + +The voice of the Mueddin died away on the minaret, and the golden +silence that comes out of the heart of the sun sank down once more +softly over everything. Nature seemed unnaturally still in the heat. +The slight winds were not at play, and the palms of Beni-Mora stood +motionless as palm trees in a dream. The day was like a dream, intense +and passionate, yet touched with something unearthly, something almost +spiritual. In the cloudless blue of the sky there seemed a magical +depth, regions of colour infinitely prolonged. In the vision of the +distances, where desert blent with sky, earth surely curving up to +meet the downward curving heaven, the dimness was like a voice +whispering strange petitions. The ranges of mountains slept in the +burning sand, and the light slept in their clefts like the languid in +cool places. For there was a glorious languor even in the light, as if +the sun were faintly oppressed by the marvel of his power. The +clearness of the atmosphere in the remote desert was not obscured, but +was impregnated with the mystery that is the wonder child of shadows. +The far-off gold that kept it seemed to contain a secret darkness. In +the oasis of Beni-Mora men, who had slowly roused themselves to pray, +sank down to sleep again in the warm twilight of shrouded gardens or +the warm night of windowless rooms. + +In the garden of Count Anteoni Larbi's flute was silent. + +"It is like noon in a mirage," Domini said softly. + +Count Anteoni nodded. + +"I feel as if I were looking at myself a long way off," she added. "As +if I saw myself as I saw the grey sea and the islands on the way to +Sidi-Zerzour. What magic there is here. And I can't get accustomed to +it. Each day I wonder at it more and find it more inexplicable. It +almost frightens me." + +"You could be frightened?" + +"Not easily by outside things--it least I hope not." + +"But what then?" + +"I scarcely know. Sometimes I think all the outside things, which do +what are called the violent deeds in life, are tame, and timid, and +ridiculously impotent in comparison with the things we can't see, +which do the deeds we can't describe." + +"In the mirage of this land you begin to see the exterior life as a +mirage? You are learning, you are learning." + +There was a creeping sound of something that was almost impish in his +voice. + +"Are you a secret agent?" Domini asked him. + +"Of whom, Madame?" + +She was silent. She seemed to be considering. He watched her with +curiosity in his bright eyes. + +"Of the desert," she answered at length, quite seriously. + +"A secret agent has always a definite object. What is mine?" + +"How can I know? How can I tell what the desert desires?" + +"Already you personify it!" + +The network of wrinkles showed itself in his brown face as he smiled, +surely with triumph. + +"I think I did that from the first," she answered gravely. "I know I +did." + +"And what sort of personage does the desert seem to you?" + +"You ask me a great many questions to-day." + +"Mirage questions, perhaps. Forgive me. Let us listen to the question +--or is it the demand?--of the desert in this noontide hour, the +greatest hour of all the twenty-four in such a land as this." + +They were silent again, watching the noon, listening to it, feeling +it, as they had been silent when the Mueddin's nasal voice rose in the +call to prayer. + +Count Anteoni stood in the sunshine by the low white parapet of the +garden. Domini sat on a low chair in the shadow cast by a great +jamelon tree. At her feet was a bush of vivid scarlet geraniums, +against which her white linen dress looked curiously blanched. There +was a half-drowsy, yet imaginative light in her gipsy eyes, and her +motionless figure, her quiet hands, covered with white gloves, lying +loosely in her lap, looked attentive and yet languid, as if some spell +began to bind her but had not completed its work of stilling all the +pulses of life that throbbed within her. And in truth there was a +spell upon her, the spell of the golden noon. By turns she gave +herself to it consciously, then consciously strove to deny herself to +its subtle summons. And each time she tried to withdraw it seemed to +her that the spell was a little stronger, her power a little weaker. +Then her lips curved in a smile that was neither joyous nor sad, that +was perhaps rather part perplexed and part expectant. + +After a minute of this silence Count Anteoni drew back from the sun +and sat down in a chair beside Domini. He took out his watch. + +"Twenty-five minutes," he said, "and my guests will be here." + +"Guests!" she said with an accent of surprise. + +"I invited the priest to make an even number." + +"Oh!" + +"You don't dislike him?" + +"I like him. I respect him." + +"But I'm afraid you aren't pleased?" + +Domini looked him straight in the face. + +"Why did you invite Father Roubier?" she said. + +"Isn't four better than three?" + +"You don't want to tell me." + +"I am a little malicious. You have divined it, so why should I not +acknowledge it? I asked Father Roubier because I wished to see the man +of prayer with the man who fled from prayer." + +"Mussulman prayer," she said quickly. + +"Prayer," he said. + +His voice was peculiarly harsh at that moment. It grated like an +instrument on a rough surface. Domini knew that secretly he was +standing up for the Arab faith, that her last words had seemed to +strike against the religion of the people whom he loved with an odd, +concealed passion whose fire she began to feel at moments as she grew +to know him better. + +It was plain from their manner to each other that their former slight +acquaintance had moved towards something like a pleasant friendship. + +Domini looked as if she were no longer a wonder-stricken sight-seer in +this marvellous garden of the sun, but as if she had become familiar +with it. Yet her wonder was not gone. It was only different. There was +less sheer amazement, more affection in it. As she had said, she had +not become accustomed to the magic of Africa. Its strangeness, its +contrasts still startled and moved her. But she began to feel as if +she belonged to Beni-Mora, as if Beni-Mora would perhaps miss her a +little if she went away. + +Ten days had passed since the ride to Sidi-Zerzour--days rather like a +dream to Domini. + +What she had sought in coming to Beni-Mora she was surely finding. Her +act was bringing forth its fruit. She had put a gulf, in which rolled +the sea, between the land of the old life and the land in which at +least the new life was to begin. The completeness of the severance had +acted upon her like a blow that does not stun, but wakens. The days +went like a dream, but in the dream there was the stir of birth. Her +lassitude was permanently gone. There had been no returning after the +first hours of excitement. The frost that had numbed her senses had +utterly melted away. Who could be frost-bound in this land of fire? +She had longed for peace and she was surely finding it, but it was a +peace without stagnation. Hope dwelt in it, and expectancy, vague but +persistent. As to forgetfulness, sometimes she woke from the dream and +was almost dazed, almost ashamed to think how much she was forgetting, +and how quickly. Her European life and friends--some of them intimate +and close--were like a far-off cloud on the horizon, flying still +farther before a steady wind that set from her to it. Soon it would +disappear, would be as if it had never been. Now and then, with a sort +of fierce obstinacy, she tried to stay the flight she had desired, and +desired still. She said to herself, "I will remember. It's +contemptible to forget like this. It's weak to be able to." Then she +looked at the mountains or the desert, at two Arabs playing the +ladies' game under the shadow of a cafe wall, or at a girl in dusty +orange filling a goatskin pitcher at a well beneath a palm tree, and +she succumbed to the lulling influence, smiling as they smile who hear +the gentle ripple of the waters of Lethe. + +She heard them perhaps most clearly when she wandered in Count +Anteoni's garden. He had made her free of it in their first interview. +She had ventured to take him at his word, knowing that if he repented +she would divine it. He had made her feel that he had not repented. +Sometimes she did not see him as she threaded the sandy alleys between +the little rills, hearing the distant song of Larbi's amorous flute, +or sat in the dense shade of the trees watching through a window-space +of quivering golden leaves the passing of the caravans along the +desert tracks. Sometimes a little wreath of ascending smoke, curling +above the purple petals of bougainvilleas, or the red cloud of +oleanders, told her of his presence, in some retired thinking-place. +Oftener he joined her, with an easy politeness that did not conceal +his oddity, but clothed it in a pleasant garment, and they talked for +a while or stayed for a while in an agreeable silence that each felt +to be sympathetic. + +Domini thought of him as a new species of man--a hermit of the world. +He knew the world and did not hate it. His satire was rarely quite +ungentle. He did not strike her as a disappointed man who fled to +solitude in bitterness of spirit, but rather as an imaginative man +with an unusual feeling for romance, and perhaps a desire for freedom +that the normal civilised life restrained too much. He loved thought +as many love conversation, silence as some love music. Now and then he +said a sad or bitter thing. Sometimes she seemed to be near to +something stern. Sometimes she felt as if there were a secret link +which connected him with the perfume-seller in his little darkened +chamber, with the legions who prayed about the tomb of Sidi-Zerzour. +But these moments were rare. As a rule he was whimsical and kind, with +the kindness of a good-hearted man who was human even in his +detachment from ordinary humanity. His humour was a salt with plenty +of savour. His imagination was of a sort which interested and even +charmed her. + +She felt, too, that she interested him and that he was a man not +readily interested in ordinary human beings. He had seen too many and +judged too shrewdly and too swiftly to be easily held for very long. +She had no ambition to hold him, and had never in her life consciously +striven to attract or retain any man, but she was woman enough to find +his obvious pleasure in her society agreeable. She thought that her +genuine adoration of the garden he had made, of the land in which it +was set, had not a little to do with the happy nature of their +intercourse. For she felt certain that beneath the light satire of his +manner, his often smiling airs of detachment and quiet independence, +there was something that could seek almost with passion, that could +cling with resolution, that could even love with persistence. And she +fancied that he sought in the desert, that he clung to its mystery, +that he loved it and the garden he had created in it. Once she had +laughingly called him a desert spirit. He had smiled as if with +contentment. + +They knew little of each other, yet they had become friends in the +garden which he never left. + +One day she said to him: + +"You love the desert. Why do you never go into it?" + +"I prefer to watch it," he relied. "When you are in the desert it +bewilders you." + +She remembered what she had felt during her first ride with Androvsky. + +"I believe you are afraid of it," she said challengingly. + +"Fear is sometimes the beginning of wisdom," he answered. "But you are +without it, I know." + +"How do you know?" + +"Every day I see you galloping away into the sun." + +She thought there was a faint sound of warning--or was it of rebuke-- +in his voice. It made her feel defiant. + +"I think you lose a great deal by not galloping into the sun too," she +said. + +"But if I don't ride?" + +That made her think of Androvsky and his angry resolution. It had not +been the resolution of a day. Wearied and stiffened as he had been by +the expedition to Sidi-Zerzour, actually injured by his fall--she knew +from Batouch that he had been obliged to call in the Beni-Mora doctor +to bandage his shoulder--she had been roused at dawn on the day +following by his tread on the verandah. She had lain still while it +descended the staircase, but then the sharp neighing of a horse had +awakened an irresistible curiosity in her. She had got up, wrapped +herself in a fur coat and slipped out on to the verandah. The sun was +not above the horizon line of the desert, but the darkness of night +was melting into a luminous grey. The air was almost cold. The palms +looked spectral, even terrible, the empty and silent gardens +melancholy and dangerous. It was not an hour for activity, for +determination, but for reverie, for apprehension. + +Below, a sleepy Arab boy, his hood drawn over his head, held the +chestnut horse by the bridle. Androvsky came out from the arcade. He +wore a cap pulled down to his eyebrows which changed his appearance, +giving him, as seen from above, the look of a groom or stable hand. He +stood for a minute and stared at the horse. Then he limped round to +the left side and carefully mounted, following out the directions +Domini had given him the previous day: to avoid touching the animal +with his foot, to have the rein in his fingers before leaving the +ground, and to come down in the saddle as lightly as possible. She +noted that all her hints were taken with infinite precaution. Once on +the horse he tried to sit up straight, but found the effort too great +in his weary and bruised condition. He leaned forward over the saddle +peak, and rode away in the luminous greyness towards the desert. The +horse went quietly, as if affected by the mystery of the still hour. +Horse and rider disappeared. The Arab boy wandered off in the +direction of the village. But Domini remained looking after Androvsky. +She saw nothing but the grim palms and the spectral atmosphere in +which the desert lay. Yet she did not move till a red spear was thrust +up out of the east towards the last waning star. + +He had gone to learn his lesson in the desert. + +Three days afterwards she rode with him again. She did not let him +know of her presence on the verandah, and he said nothing of his +departure in the dawn. He spoke very little and seemed much occupied +with his horse, and she saw that he was more than determined--that he +was apt at acquiring control of a physical exercise new to him. His +great strength stood him in good stead. Only a man hard in the body +could have so rapidly recovered from the effects of that first day of +defeat and struggle. His absolute reticence about his efforts and the +iron will that prompted them pleased Domini. She found them worthy of +a man. + +She rode with him on three occasions, twice in the oasis through the +brown villages, once out into the desert on the caravan road that +Batouch had told her led at last to Tombouctou. They did not travel +far along it, but Domini knew at once that this route held more +fascination for her than the route to Sidi-Zerzour. There was far more +sand in this region of the desert. The little humps crowned with the +scrub the camels feed on were fewer, so that the flatness of the +ground was more definite. Here and there large dunes of golden- +coloured sand rose, some straight as city walls, some curved like +seats in an amphitheatre, others indented, crenellated like +battlements, undulating in beastlike shapes. The distant panorama of +desert was unbroken by any visible oasis and powerfully suggested +Eternity to Domini. + +"When I go out into the desert for my long journey I shall go by this +road," she said to Androvsky. + +"You are going on a journey?" he said, looking at her as if startled. + +"Some day." + +"All alone?" + +"I suppose I must take a caravan, two or three Arabs, some horses, a +tent or two. It's easy to manage. Batouch will arrange it for me." + +Androvsky still looked startled, and half angry, she thought. + +They had pulled up their horses among the sand dunes. It was near +sunset, and the breath of evening was in the sir, making its coolness +even more ethereal, more thinly pure than in the daytime. The +atmosphere was so clear that when they glanced back they could see the +flag fluttering upon the white of the great hotel of Beni-Mora, many +kilometres away among the palms; so still that they could hear the +bark of a Kabyle off near a nomad's tent pitched in the green land by +the water-springs of old Beni-Mora. When they looked in front of them +they seemed to see thousands of leagues of flatness, stretching on and +on till the pale yellowish brown of it grew darker, merged into a +strange blueness, like the blue of a hot mist above a southern lake, +then into violet, then into--the thing they could not see, the +summoning thing whose voice Domini's imagination heard, like a remote +and thrilling echo, whenever she was in the desert. + +"I did not know you were going on a journey, Madame," Androvsky said. + +"Don't you remember?" she rejoined laughingly, "that I told you on the +tower I thought peace must dwell out there. Well, some day I shall set +out to find it." + +"That seems a long time ago, Madame," he muttered. + +Sometimes, when speaking to her, he dropped his voice till she could +scarcely hear him, and sounded like a man communing with himself. + +A red light from the sinking sun fell upon the dunes. As they rode +back over them their horses seemed to be wading through a silent sea +of blood. The sky in the west looked like an enormous conflagration, +in which tortured things were struggling and lifting twisted arms. + +Domini's acquaintance with Androvsky had not progressed as easily and +pleasantly as her intercourse with Count Anteoni. She recognised that +he was what is called a "difficult man." Now and then, as if under the +prompting influence of some secret and violent emotion, he spoke with +apparent naturalness, spoke perhaps out of his heart. Each time he did +so she noticed that there was something of either doubt or amazement +in what he said. She gathered that he was slow to rely, quick to +mistrust. She gathered, too, that very many things surprised him, and +felt sure that he hid nearly all of them from her, and would--had not +his own will sometimes betrayed him--have hidden all. His reserve was +as intense as everything about him. There was a fierceness in it that +revealed its existence. He always conveyed to her a feeling of +strength, physical and mental. Yet he always conveyed, too, a feeling +of uneasiness. To a woman of Domini's temperament uneasiness usually +implies a public or secret weakness. In Androvsky's she seemed to be +aware of passion, as if it were one to dash obstacles aside, to break +through doors of iron, to rush out into the open. And then--what then? +To tremble at the world before him? At what he had done? She did not +know. But she did know that even in his uneasiness there seemed to be +fibre, muscle, sinew, nerve--all which goes to make strength, +swiftness. + +Speech was singularly difficult to him. Silence seemed to be natural, +not irksome. After a few words he fell into it and remained in it. And +he was less self-conscious in silence than in speech. He seemed, she +fancied, to feel himself safer, more a man when he was not speaking. +To him the use of words was surely like a yielding. + +He had a peculiar faculty of making his presence felt when he was +silent, as if directly he ceased from speaking the flame in him was +fanned and leaped up at the outside world beyond its bars. + +She did not know whether he was a gentleman or not. + +If anyone had asked her, before she came to Beni-Mora, whether it +would be possible for her to take four solitary rides with a man, to +meet him--if only for a few minutes--every day of ten days, to sit +opposite to him, and not far from him, at meals during the same space +of time, and to be unable to say to herself whether he was or was not +a gentleman by birth and education--feeling set aside--she would have +answered without hesitation that it would be utterly impossible. Yet +so it was. She could not decide. She could not place him. She could +not imagine what his parentage, what his youth, his manhood had been. +She could not fancy him in any environment--save that golden light, +that blue radiance, in which she had first consciously and fully met +him face to face. She could not hear him in converse with any set of +men or women, or invent, in her mind, what he might be likely to say +to them. She could not conceive him bound by any ties of home, or +family, mother, sister, wife, child. When she looked at him, thought +about him, he presented himself to her alone, like a thing in the air. + +Yet he was more male than other men, breathed humanity--of some kind-- +as fire breathes heat. + +The child there was in him almost confused her, made her wonder +whether long contact with the world had tarnished her own original +simplicity. But she only saw the child in him now and then, and she +fancied that it, too, he was anxious to conceal. + +This man had certainly a power to rouse feeling in others. She knew it +by her own experience. By turns he had made her feel motherly, +protecting, curious, constrained, passionate, energetic, timid--yes, +almost timid and shy. No other human being had ever, even at moments, +thus got the better of her natural audacity, lack of self- +consciousness, and inherent, almost boyish, boldness. Nor was she +aware what it was in him which sometimes made her uncertain of +herself. + +She wondered. But he often woke up wonder in her. + +Despite their rides, their moments of intercourse in the hotel, on the +verandah, she scarcely felt more intimate with him than she had at +first. Sometimes indeed she thought that she felt less so, that the +moment when the train ran out of the tunnel into the blue country was +the moment in which they had been nearest to each other since they +trod the verges of each other's lives. + +She had never definitely said to herself: "Do I like him or dislike +him?" + +Now, as she sat with Count Anteoni watching the noon, the half-drowsy, +half-imaginative expression had gone out of her face. She looked +rather rigid, rather formidable. + +Androvsky and Count Anteoni had never met. The Count had seen +Androvsky in the distance from his garden more than once, but +Androvsky had not seen him. The meeting that was about to take place +was due to Domini. She had spoken to Androvsky on several occasions of +the romantic beauty of this desert garden. + +"It is like a garden of the /Arabian Nights/," she had said. + +He did not look enlightened, and she was moved to ask him abruptly +whether he had ever read the famous book. He had not. A doubt came to +her whether he had ever even heard of it. She mentioned the fact of +Count Anteoni's having made the garden, and spoke of him, sketching +lightly his whimsicality, his affection for the Arabs, his love of +solitude, and of African life. She also mentioned that he was by birth +a Roman. + +"But scarcely of the black world I should imagine," she added. + +Androvsky said nothing. + +"You should go and see the garden," she continued. "Count Anteoni +allows visitors to explore it." + +"I am sure it must be very beautiful, Madame," he replied, rather +coldly, she thought. + +He did not say that he would go. + +As the garden won upon her, as its enchanted mystery, the airy wonder +of its shadowy places, the glory of its trembling golden vistas, the +restfulness of its green defiles, the strange, almost unearthly peace +that reigned within it embalmed her spirit, as she learned not only to +marvel at it, to be entranced by it, but to feel at home in it and +love it, she was conscious of a persistent desire that Androvsky +should know it too. + +Perhaps his dogged determination about the riding had touched her more +than she was aware. She often saw before her the bent figure, that +looked tired, riding alone into the luminous grey; starting thus early +that his act, humble and determined, might not be known by her. He did +not know that she had seen him, not only on that morning, but on many +subsequent mornings, setting forth to study the new art in the +solitude of the still hours. But the fact that she had seen, had +watched till horse and rider vanished beyond the palms, had understood +why, perhaps moved her to this permanent wish that he could share her +pleasure in the garden, know it as she did. + +She did not argue with herself about the matter. She only knew that +she wished, that presently she meant Androvsky to pass through the +white gate and be met on the sand by Smain with his rose. + +One day Count Anteoni had asked her whether she had made acquaintance +with the man who had fled from prayer. + +"Yes," she said. "You know it." + +"How?" + +"We have ridden to Sidi-Zerzour." + +"I am not always by the wall." + +"No, but I think you were that day." + +"Why do you think so?" + +"I am sure you were." + +He did not either acknowledge or deny it. + +"He has never been to see my garden," he said. + +"No." + +"He ought to come." + +"I have told him so." + +"Ah? Is he coming?" + +"I don't think so." + +"Persuade him to. I have a pride in my garden--oh, you have no idea +what a pride! Any neglect of it, any indifference about it rasps me, +plays upon the raw nerve each one of us possesses." + +He spoke smilingly. She did not know what he was feeling, whether the +remote thinker or the imp within him was at work or play. + +"I doubt if he is a man to be easily persuaded," she said. + +"Perhaps not--persuade him." + +After a moment Domini said: + +"I wonder whether you recognise that there are obstacles which the +human will can't negotiate?" + +"I could scarcely live where I do without recognising that the grains +of sand are often driven by the wind. But when there is no wind!" + +"They lie still?" + +"And are the desert. I want to have a strange experience." + +"What?" + +"A /fete/ in my garden." + +"A fantasia?" + +"Something far more banal. A lunch party, a /dejeuner/. Will you +honour me?" + +"By breakfasting with you? Yes, of course. Thank you." + +"And will you bring--the second sun worshipper?" + +She looked into the Count's small, shining eyes. + +"Monsieur Androvsky?" + +"If that is his name. I can send him an invitation, of course. But +that's rather formal, and I don't think he is formal." + +"On what day do you ask us?" + +"Any day--Friday." + +"And why do you ask us?" + +"I wish to overcome this indifference to my garden. It hurts me, not +only in my pride, but in my affections." + +The whole thing had been like a sort of serious game. Domini had not +said that she would convey the odd invitation; but when she was alone, +and thought of the way in which Count Anteoni had said "Persuade him," +she knew she would, and she meant Androvsky to accept it. This was an +opportunity of seeing him in company with another man, a man of the +world, who had read, travelled, thought, and doubtless lived. + +She asked him that evening, and saw the red, that came as it comes in +a boy's face, mount to his forehead. + +"Everybody who comes to Beni-Mora comes to see the garden," she said +before he could reply. "Count Anteoni is half angry with you for being +an exception." + +"But--but, Madame, how can Monsieur the Count know that I am here? I +have not seen him." + +"He knows there is a second traveller, and he's a hospitable man. +Monsieur Androvsky, I want you to come; I want you to see the garden." + +"It is very kind of you, Madame." + +The reluctance in his voice was extreme. Yet he did not like to say +no. While he hesitated, Domini continued: + +"You remember when I asked you to ride?" + +"Yes, Madame." + +"That was new to you. Well, it has given you pleasure, hasn't it?" + +"Yes, Madame." + +"So will the garden. I want to put another pleasure into your life." + +She had begun to speak with the light persuasiveness of a woman of the +world--wishing to overcome a man's diffidence or obstinacy, but while +she said the words she felt a sudden earnestness rush over her. It +went into the voice, and surely smote upon him like a gust of the hot +wind that sometimes blows out of the desert. + +"I shall come, Madame," he said quickly. + +"Friday. I may be in the garden in the morning. I'll meet you at the +gate at half-past twelve." + +"Friday?" he said. + +Already he seemed to be wavering in his acceptance. Domini did not +stay with him any longer. + +"I'm glad," she said in a finishing tone. + +And she went away. + +Now Count Anteoni told her that he had invited the priest. She felt +vexed, and her face showed that she did. A cloud came down and +immediately she looked changed and disquieting. Yet she liked the +priest. As she sat in silence her vexation became more profound. She +felt certain that if Androvsky had known the priest was coming he +would not have accepted the invitation. She wished him to come, yet +she wished he had known. He might think that she had known the fact +and had concealed it. She did not suppose for a moment that he +disliked Father Roubier personally, but he certainly avoided him. He +bowed to him in the coffee-room of the hotel, but never spoke to him. +Batouch had told her about the episode with Bous-Bous. And she had +seen Bous-Bous endeavour to renew the intimacy and repulsed with +determination. Androvsky must dislike the priesthood. He might fancy +that she, a believing Catholic, had--a number of disagreeable +suppositions ran through her mind. She had always been inclined to +hate the propagandist since the tragedy in her family. It was a pity +Count Anteoni had not indulged his imp in a different fashion. The +beauty of the noon seemed spoiled. + +"Forgive my malice," Count Anteoni said. "It was really a thing of +thistledown. Can it be going to do harm? I can scarcely think so." + +"No, no." + +She roused herself, with the instinct of a woman who has lived much in +the world, to conceal the vexation that, visible, would cause a +depression to stand in the natural place of cheerfulness. + +"The desert is making me abominably natural," she thought. + +At this moment the black figure of Father Roubier came out of the +shadows of the trees with Bous-Bous trotting importantly beside it. + +"Ah, Father," said Count Anteoni, going to meet him, while Domini got +up from her chair, "it is good of you to come out in the sun to eat +fish with such a bad parishioner as I am. Your little companion is +welcome." + +He patted Bous-Bous, who took little notice of him. + +"You know Miss Enfilden, I think?" continued the Count. + +"Father Roubier and I meet every day," said Domini, smiling. + +"Mademoiselle has been good enough to take a kind interest in the +humble work of the Church in Beni-Mora," said the priest with the +serious simplicity characteristic of him. + +He was a sincere man, utterly without pretension, and, as such men +often are, quietly at home with anybody of whatever class or creed. + +"I must go to the garden gate," Domini said. "Will you excuse me for a +moment?" + +"To meet Monsieur Androvsky? Let us accompany you if Father Roubier--" + +"Please don't trouble. I won't be a minute." + +Something in her voice made Count Anteoni at once acquiesce, defying +his courteous instinct. + +"We will wait for you here," he said. + +There was a whimsical plea for forgiveness in his eyes. Domini's did +not reject it; they did not answer it. She walked away, and the two +men looked after her tall figure with admiration. As she went along +the sand paths between the little streams, and came into the deep +shade, her vexation seemed to grow darker like the garden ways. For a +moment she thought she understood the sensations that must surely +sometimes beset a treacherous woman. Yet she was incapable of +treachery. Smain was standing dreamily on the great sweep of sand +before the villa. She and he were old friends now, and every day he +calmly gave her a flower when she came into the garden. + +"What time is it, Smain?" + +"Nearly half-past twelve, Madame." + +"Will you open the door and see if anyone is coming?" + +He went towards the great door, and Domini sat down on a bench under +the evergreen roof to wait. She had seldom felt more discomposed, and +began to reason with herself almost angrily. Even if the presence of +the priest was unpleasant to Androvsky, why should she mind? +Antagonism to the priesthood was certainly not a mental condition to +be fostered, but a prejudice to be broken down. But she had wished-- +she still wished with ardour--that Androvsky's first visit to the +garden should be a happy one, should pass off delightfully. She had a +dawning instinct to make things smooth for him. Surely they had been +rough in the past, rougher even than for herself. And she wondered for +an instant whether he had come to Beni-Mora, as she had come, vaguely +seeking for a happiness scarcely embodied in a definite thought. + +"There is a gentleman coming, Madame." + +It was the soft voice of Smain from the gate. In a moment Androvsky +stood before it. Domini saw him framed in the white wood, with a +brilliant blue behind him and a narrow glimpse of the watercourse. He +was standing still and hesitating. + +"Monsieur Androvsky!" she called. + +He started, looked across the sand, and stepped into the garden with a +sort of reluctant caution that pained her, she scarcely knew why. She +got up and went towards him, and they met full in the sunshine. + +"I came to be your cicerone." + +"Thank you, Madame." + +There was the click of wood striking against wood as Smain closed the +gate. Androvsky turned quickly and looked behind him. His demeanour +was that of a man whose nerves were tormenting him. Domini began to +dread telling him of the presence of the priest, and, +characteristically, did without hesitation what she feared to do. + +"This is the way," she said. + +Then, as they turned into the shadow of the trees and began to walk +between the rills of water, she added abruptly: + +"Father Roubier is here already, so our party is complete." + +Androvsky stood still. + +"Father Roubier! You did not tell me he was coming." + +"I did not know it till five minutes ago." + +She stood still too, and looked at him. There was a flaming of +distrust in his eyes, his lips were compressed, and his whole body +betokened hostility. + +"I did not understand. I thought Senor Anteoni would be alone here." + +"Father Roubier is a pleasant companion, sincere and simple. Everyone +likes him." + +"No doubt, Madame. But--the fact is I"--he hesitated, then added, +almost with violence--"I do not care for priests." + +"I am sorry. Still, for once--for an hour--you can surely----" + +She did not finish the sentence. While she was speaking she felt the +banality of such phrases spoken to such a man, and suddenly changed +tone and manner. + +"Monsieur Androvsky," she said, laying one hand on his arm, "I knew +you would not like Father Roubier's being here. If I had known he was +coming I should have told you in order that you might have kept away +if you wished to. But now that you are here--now that Smain has let +you in and the Count and Father Roubier must know of it, I am sure you +will stay and govern your dislike. You intend to turn back. I see +that. Well, I ask you to stay." + +She was not thinking of herself, but of him. Instinct told her to +teach him the way to conceal his aversion. Retreat would proclaim it. + +"For yourself I ask you," she added. "If you go, you tell them what +you have told me. You don't wish to do that." + +They looked at each other. Then, without a word, he walked on again. +As she kept beside him she felt as if in that moment their +acquaintanceship had sprung forward, like a thing that had been +forcibly restrained and that was now sharply released. They did not +speak again till they saw, at the end of an alley, the Count and the +priest standing together beneath the jamelon tree. Bous-Bous ran +forward barking, and Domini was conscious that Androvsky braced +himself up, like a fighter stepping into the arena. Her keen +sensitiveness of mind and body was so infected by his secret +impetuosity of feeling that it seemed to her as if his encounter with +the two men framed in the sunlight were a great event which might be +fraught with strange consequences. She almost held her breath as she +and Androvsky came down the path and the fierce sunrays reached out to +light up their faces. + +Count Anteoni stepped forward to greet them. + +"Monsieur Androvsky--Count Anteoni," she said. + +The hands of the two men met. She saw that Androvsky's was lifted +reluctantly. + +"Welcome to my garden," Count Anteoni said with his invariable easy +courtesy. "Every traveller has to pay his tribute to my domain. I dare +to exact that as the oldest European inhabitant of Beni-Mora." + +Androvsky said nothing. His eyes were on the priest. The Count noticed +it, and added: + +"Do you know Father Roubier?" + +"We have often seen each other in the hotel," Father Roubier said with +his usual straightforward simplicity. + +He held out his hand, but Androvsky bowed hastily and awkwardly and +did not seem to see it. Domini glanced at Count Anteoni, and surprised +a piercing expression in his bright eyes. It died away at once, and he +said: + +"Let us go to the /salle-a-manger/. /Dejeuner/ will be ready, Miss +Enfilden." + +She joined him, concealing her reluctance to leave Androvsky with the +priest, and walked beside him down the path, preceded by Bous-Bous. + +"Is my /fete/ going to be a failure?" he murmured. + +She did not reply. Her heart was full of vexation, almost of +bitterness. She felt angry with Count Anteoni, with Androvsky, with +herself. She almost felt angry with poor Father Roubier. + +"Forgive me! do forgive me!" the Count whispered. "I meant no harm." + +She forced herself to smile, but the silence behind them, where the +two men were following, oppressed her. If only Androvsky would speak! +He had not said one word since they were all together. Suddenly she +turned her head and said: + +"Did you ever see such palms, Monsieur Androvsky? Aren't they +magnificent?" + +Her voice was challenging, imperative. It commanded him to rouse +himself, to speak, as a touch of the lash commands a horse to quicken +his pace. Androvsky raised his head, which had been sunk on his breast +as he walked. + +"Palms!" he said confusedly. + +"Yes, they are wonderful." + +"You care for trees?" asked the Count, following Domini's lead and +speaking with a definite intention to force a conversation. + +"Yes, Monsieur, certainly." + +"I have some wonderful fellows here. After /dejeuner/ you must let me +show them to you. I spent years in collecting my children and teaching +them to live rightly in the desert." + +Very naturally, while he spoke, he had joined Androvsky, and now +walked on with him, pointing out the different varieties of trees. +Domini was conscious of a sense of relief and of a strong feeling of +gratitude to their host. Following upon the gratitude came a less +pleasant consciousness of Androvsky's lack of good breeding. He was +certainly not a man of the world, whatever he might be. To-day, +perhaps absurdly, she felt responsible for him, and as if he owed it +to her to bear himself bravely and govern his dislikes if they clashed +with the feelings of his companions. She longed hotly for him to make +a good impression, and, when her eyes met Father Roubier's, was almost +moved to ask his pardon for Androvsky's rudeness. But the Father +seemed unconscious of it, and began to speak about the splendour of +the African vegetation. + +"Does not its luxuriance surprise you after England?" he said. + +"No," she replied bluntly. "Ever since I have been in Africa I have +felt that I was in a land of passionate growth." + +"But--the desert?" he replied with a gesture towards the long flats of +the Sahara, which were still visible between the trees. + +"I should find it there too," she answered. "There, perhaps, most of +all." + +He looked at her with a gentle wonder. She did not explain that she +was no longer thinking of growth in Nature. + +The /salle-a-manger/ stood at the end of a broad avenue of palms not +far from the villa. Two Arab servants were waiting on each side of the +white step that led into an ante-room filled with divans and coffee- +tables. Beyond was a lofty apartment with an arched roof, in the +centre of which was an oval table laid for breakfast, and decorated +with masses of trumpet-shaped scarlet flowers in silver vases. Behind +each of the four high-backed chairs stood an Arab motionless as a +statue. Evidently the Count's /fete/ was to be attended by a good deal +of ceremony. Domini felt sorry, though not for herself. She had been +accustomed to ceremony all her life, and noticed it, as a rule, almost +as little as the air she breathed. But she feared that to Androvsky it +would be novel and unpleasant. As they came into the shady room she +saw him glance swiftly at the walls covered with dark Persian +hangings, at the servants in their embroidered jackets, wide trousers, +and snow-white turbans, at the vivid flowers on the table, then at the +tall windows, over which flexible outside blinds, dull green in +colour, were drawn; and it seemed to her that he was feeling like a +trapped animal, full of a fury of uneasiness. Father Roubier's +unconscious serenity in the midst of a luxury to which he was quite +unaccustomed emphasised Androvsky's secret agitation, which was no +secret to Domini, and which she knew must be obvious to Count Anteoni. +She began to wish ardently that she had let Androvsky follow his +impulse to go when he heard of Father Roubier's presence. + +They sat down. She was on the Count's right hand, with Androvsky +opposite to her and Father Roubier on her left. As they took their +places she and the Father said a silent grace and made the sign of the +Cross, and when she glanced up after doing so she saw Androvsky's hand +lifted to his forehead. For a moment she fancied that he had joined in +the tiny prayer, and was about to make the sacred sign, but as she +looked at him his hand fell heavily to the table. The glasses by his +plate jingled. + +"I only remembered this morning that this is a /jour maigre/," said +Count Anteoni as they unfolded their napkins. "I am afraid, Father +Roubier, you will not be able to do full justice to my chef, Hamdane, +although he has thought of you and done his best for you. But I hope +Miss Enfilden and--" + +"I keep Friday," Domini interrupted quietly. + +"Yes? Poor Hamdane!" + +He looked in grave despair, but she knew that he was really pleased +that she kept the fast day. + +"Anyhow," he continued, "I hope that you, Monsieur Androvsky, will be +able to join me in testing Hamdane's powers to the full. Or are you +too----" + +He did not continue, for Androvsky at once said, in a loud and firm +voice: + +"I keep no fast days." + +The words sounded like a defiance flung at the two Catholics, and for +a moment Domini thought that Father Roubier was going to treat them as +a challenge, for he lifted his head and there was a flash of sudden +fire in his eyes. But he only said, turning to the Count: + +"I think Mademoiselle and I shall find our little Ramadan a very easy +business. I once breakfasted with you on a Friday--two years ago it +was, I think--and I have not forgotten the banquet you gave me." + +Domini felt as if the priest had snubbed Androvsky, as a saint might +snub, without knowing that he did so. She was angry with Androvsky, +and yet she was full of pity for him. Why could he not meet courtesy +with graciousness? There was something almost inhuman in his +demeanour. To-day he had returned to his worst self, to the man who +had twice treated her with brutal rudeness. + +"Do the Arabs really keep Ramadan strictly?" she asked, looking away +from Androvsky. + +"Very," said Father Roubier. "Although, of course, I am not in +sympathy with their religion, I have often been moved by their +adherence to its rules. There is something very grand in the human +heart deliberately taking upon itself the yoke of discipline." + +"Islam--the very word means the surrender of the human will to the +will of God," said Count Anteoni. "That word and its meaning lie like +the shadow of a commanding hand on the soul of every Arab, even of the +absinthe-drinking renegades one sees here and there who have caught +the vices of their conquerors. In the greatest scoundrel that the +Prophet's robe covers there is an abiding and acute sense of necessary +surrender. The Arabs, at any rate, do not buzz against their Creator, +like midges raging at the sun in whose beams they are dancing." + +"No," assented the priest. "At least in that respect they are superior +to many who call themselves Christians. Their pride is immense, but it +never makes itself ridiculous." + +"You mean by trying to defy the Divine Will?" said Domini. + +"Exactly, Mademoiselle." + +She thought of her dead father. + +The servants stole round the table, handing various dishes +noiselessly. One of them, at this moment, poured red wine into +Androvsky's glass. He uttered a low exclamation that sounded like the +beginning of a protest hastily checked. + +"You prefer white wine?" said Count Anteoni. + +"No, thank you, Monsieur." + +He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it. + +"Are you a judge of wine?" added the Count. "That is made from my own +grapes. I have vineyards near Tunis." + +"It is excellent," said Androvsky. + +Domini noticed that he spoke in a louder voice than usual, as if he +were making a determined effort to throw off the uneasiness that +evidently oppressed him. He ate heartily, choosing almost +ostentatiously dishes in which there was meat. But everything that he +did, even this eating of meat, gave her the impression that he was-- +subtly, how she did not know--defying not only the priest, but +himself. Now and then she glanced across at him, and when she did so +he was always looking away from her. After praising the wine he had +relapsed into silence, and Count Anteoni--she thought moved by a very +delicate sense of tact--did not directly address him again just then, +but resumed the interrupted conversation about the Arabs, first +explaining that the servants understood no French. He discussed them +with a minute knowledge that evidently sprang from a very real +affection, and presently she could not help alluding to this. + +"I think you love the Arabs far more than any Europeans," she said. + +He fixed his bright eyes upon her, and she thought that just then they +looked brighter than ever before. + +"Why?" he asked quietly. + +"Do you know the sound that comes into the voice of a lover of +children when it speaks of a child?" + +"Ah!--the note of a deep indulgence?" + +"I hear it in yours whenever you speak of the Arabs." + +She spoke half jestingly. For a moment he did not reply. Then he said +to the priest: + +"You have lived long in Africa, Father. Have not you something of the +same feeling towards these children of the sun?" + +"Yes, and I have noticed it in our dead Cardinal." + +"Cardinal Lavigerie." + +Androvsky bent over his plate. He seemed suddenly to withdraw his mind +forcibly from this conversation in which he was taking no active part, +as if he refused even to listen to it. + +"He is your hero, I know," the Count said sympathetically. + +"He did a great deal for me." + +"And for Africa. And he was wise." + +"You mean in some special way?" Domini said. + +"Yes. He looked deep enough into the dark souls of the desert men to +find out that his success with them must come chiefly through his +goodness to their dark bodies. You aren't shocked, Father?" + +"No, no. There is truth in that." + +But the priest assented rather sadly. + +"Mahomet thought too much of the body," he added. + +Domini saw the Count compress his lips. Then he turned to Androvsky +and said: + +"Do you think so, Monsieur?" + +It was a definite, a resolute attempt to draw his guest into the +conversation. Androvsky could not ignore it. He looked up reluctantly +from his plate. His eyes met Domini's, but immediately travelled away +from them. + +"I doubt----" he said. + +He paused, laid his hands on the table, clasping its edge, and +continued firmly, even with a sort of hard violence: + +"I doubt if most good men, or men who want to be good, think enough +about the body, consider it enough. I have thought that. I think it +still." + +As he finished he stared at the priest, almost menacingly. Then, as if +moved by an after-thought, he added: + +"As to Mahomet, I know very little about him. But perhaps he obtained +his great influence by recognising that the bodies of men are of great +importance, of tremendous--tremendous importance." + +Domini saw that the interest of Count Anteoni in his guest was +suddenly and vitally aroused by what he had just said, perhaps even +more by his peculiar way of saying it, as if it were forced from him +by some secret, irresistible compulsion. And the Count's interest +seemed to take hands with her interest, which had had a much longer +existence. Father Roubier, however, broke in with a slightly cold: + +"It is a very dangerous thing, I think, to dwell upon the importance +of the perishable. One runs the risk of detracting from the much +greater importance of the imperishable." + +"Yet it's the starved wolves that devour the villages," said +Androvsky. + +For the first time Domini felt his Russian origin. There was a +silence. Father Roubier looked straight before him, but Count +Anteoni's eyes were fixed piercingly upon Androvsky. At last he said: + +"May I ask, Monsieur, if you are a Russian?" + +"My father was. But I have never set foot in Russia." + +"The soul that I find in the art, music, literature of your country +is, to me, the most interesting soul in Europe," the Count said with a +ring of deep earnestness in his grating voice. + +Spoken as he spoke it, no compliment could have been more gracious, +even moving. But Androvsky only replied abruptly: + +"I'm afraid I know nothing of all that." + +Domini felt hot with a sort of shame, as at a close friend's public +display of ignorance. She began to speak to the Count of Russian +music, books, with an enthusiasm that was sincere. For she, too, had +found in the soul from the Steppes a meaning and a magic that had +taken her soul prisoner. And suddenly, while she talked, she thought +of the Desert as the burning brother of the frigid Steppes. Was it the +wonder of the eternal flats that had spoken to her inmost heart +sometimes in London concert-rooms, in her room at night when she read, +forgetting time, which spoke to her now more fiercely under the palms +of Africa? At the thought something mystic seemed to stand in her +enthusiasm. The mystery of space floated about her. But she did not +express her thought. Count Anteoni expressed it for her. + +"The Steppes and the Desert are akin, you know," he said. "Despite the +opposition of frost and fire." + +"Just what I was thinking!" she exclaimed. "That must be why--" + +She stopped short. + +"Yes?" said the Count. + +Both Father Roubier and Androvsky looked at her with expectancy. But +she did not continue her sentence, and her failure to do so was +covered, or at the least excused, by a diversion that secretly she +blessed. At this moment, from the ante-room, there came a sound of +African music, both soft and barbarous. First there was only one +reiterated liquid note, clear and glassy, a note that suggested night +in a remote place. Then, beneath it, as foundation to it, rose a +rustling sound as of a forest of reeds through which a breeze went +rhythmically. Into this stole the broken song of a thin instrument +with a timbre rustic and antique as the timbre of the oboe, but +fainter, frailer. A twang of softly-plucked strings supported its wild +and pathetic utterance, and presently the almost stifled throb of a +little tomtom that must have been placed at a distance. It was like a +beating heart. + +The Count and his guests sat listening in silence. Domini began to +feel curiously expectant, yet she did not recognise the odd melody. +Her sensation was that some other music must be coming which she had +heard before, which had moved her deeply at some time in her life. She +glanced at the Count and found him looking at her with a whimsical +expression, as if he were a kind conspirator whose plot would soon be +known. + +"What is it?" she asked in a low voice. + +He bent towards her. + +"Wait!" he whispered. "Listen!" + +She saw Androvsky frown. His face was distorted by an expression of +pain, and she wondered if he, like some Europeans, found the barbarity +of the desert music ugly and even distressing to the nerves. While she +wondered a voice began to sing, always accompanied by the four +instruments. It was a contralto voice, but sounded like a youth's. + +"What is that song?" she asked under her breath. "Surely I must have +heard it!" + +"You don't know?" + +"Wait!" + +She searched her heart. It seemed to her that she knew the song. At +some period of her life she had certainly been deeply moved by it--but +when? where? The voice died away, and was succeeded by a soft chorus +singing monotonously: + + "Wurra-Wurra." + +Then it rose once more in a dreamy and reticent refrain, like the +voice of a soul communing with itself in the desert, above the +instruments and the murmuring chorus. + +"You remember?" whispered the Count. + +She moved her head in assent but did not speak. She could not speak. +It was the song the Arab had sung as he turned into the shadow of the +palm trees, the song of the freed negroes of Touggourt: + + "No one but God and I + Knows what is in my heart." + +The priest leaned back in his chair. His dark eyes were cast down, and +his thin, sun-browned hands were folded together in a way that +suggested prayer. Did this desert song of the black men, children of +God like him as their song affirmed, stir his soul to some grave +petition that embraced the wants of all humanity? + +Androvsky was sitting quite still. He was also looking down and the +lids covered his eyes. An expression of pain still lingered on his +face, but it was less cruel, no longer tortured, but melancholy. And +Domini, as she listened, recalled the strange cry that had risen +within her as the Arab disappeared in the sunshine, the cry of the +soul in life surrounded by mysteries, by the hands, the footfalls, the +voices of hidden things--"What is going to happen to me here?" But +that cry had risen in her, found words in her, only when confronted by +the desert. Before it had been perhaps hidden in the womb. Only then +was it born. And now the days had passed and the nights, and the song +brought with it the cry once more, the cry and suddenly something +else, another voice that, very far away, seemed to be making answer to +it. That answer she could not hear. The words of it were hidden in the +womb as, once, the words of her intense question. Only she felt that +an answer had been made. The future knew, and had begun to try to tell +her. She was on the very edge of knowledge while she listened, but she +could not step into the marvellous land. + +Presently Count Anteoni spoke to the priest. + +"You have heard this song, no doubt, Father?" + +Father Roubier shook his head. + +"I don't think so, but I can never remember the Arab music" + +"Perhaps you dislike it?" + +"No, no. It is ugly in a way, but there seems a great deal of meaning +in it. In this song especially there is--one might almost call it +beauty." + +"Wonderful beauty," Domini said in a low voice, still listening to the +song. + +"The words are beautiful," said the Count, this time addressing +himself to Androvsky. "I don't know them all, but they begin like +this: + +"'The gazelle dies in the water, + The fish dies in the air, + And I die in the dunes of the desert sand + For my love that is deep and sad.' + +And when the chorus sounds, as now"--and he made a gesture toward the +inner room, in which the low murmur of " Wurra-Wurra" rose again, "the +singer reiterates always the same refrain: + +"'No one but God and I + Knows what is in my heart.'" + +Almost as he spoke the contralto voice began to sing the refrain. +Androvsky turned pale. There were drops of sweat on his forehead. He +lifted his glass of wine to his lips and his hand trembled so that +some of the wine was spilt upon the tablecloth. And, as once before, +Domini felt that what moved her deeply moved him even more deeply, +whether in the same way or differently she could not tell. The image +of the taper and the torch recurred to her mind. She saw Androvsky +with fire round about him. The violence of this man surely resembled +the violence of Africa. There was something terrible about it, yet +also something noble, for it suggested a male power, which might make +for either good or evil, but which had nothing to do with littleness. +For a moment Count Anteoni and the priest were dwarfed, as if they had +come into the presence of a giant. + +The Arabs handed round fruit. And now the song died softly away. Only +the instruments went on playing. The distant tomtom was surely the +beating of that heart into whose mysteries no other human heart could +look. Its reiterated and dim throbbing affected Domini almost +terribly. She was relieved, yet regretful, when at length it ceased. + +"Shall we go into the ante-room?" the Count said. "Coffee will be +brought there." + +"Oh, but--don't let us see them!" Domini exclaimed. + +"The musicians?" + +She nodded. + +"You would rather not hear any more music?" + +"If you don't mind!" + +He gave an order in Arabic. One of the servants slipped away and +returned almost immediately. + +"Now we can go," the Count said. "They have vanished." + +The priest sighed. It was evident that the music had moved him too. As +they got up he said: + +"Yes, there was beauty in that song and something more. Some of these +desert poets can teach us to think." + +"A dangerous lesson, perhaps," said the Count. "What do you say, +Monsieur Androvsky?" + +Androvsky was on his feet. His eyes were turned toward the door +through which the sound of the music had come. + +"I!" he answered. "I--Monsieur, I am afraid that to me this music +means very little. I cannot judge of it." + +"But the words?" asked the Count with a certain pressure. + +"They do not seem to me to suggest much more than the music." + +The Count said no more. As she went into the outer room Domini felt +angry, as she had felt angry in the garden at Sidi-Zerzour when +Androvsky said: + +"These native women do not interest me. I see nothing attractive in +them." + +For now, as then, she knew that he had lied. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Domini came into the ante-room alone. The three men had paused for a +moment behind her, and the sound of a match struck reached her ears as +she went listlessly forward to the door which was open to the broad +garden path, and stood looking out into the sunshine. Butterflies were +flitting here and there through the riot of gold, and she heard faint +bird-notes from the shadows of the trees, echoed by the more distant +twitter of Larbi's flute. On the left, between the palms, she caught +glimpses of the desert and of the hard and brilliant mountains, and, +as she stood there, she remembered her sensations on first entering +the garden and how soon she had learned to love it. It had always +seemed to her a sunny paradise of peace until this moment. But now she +felt as if she were compassed about by clouds. + +The vagrant movement of the butterflies irritated her eyes, the +distant sound of the flute distressed her ears, and all the peace had +gone. Once again this man destroyed the spell Nature had cast upon +her. Because she knew that he had lied, her joy in the garden, her +deeper joy in the desert that embraced it, were stricken. Yet why +should he not lie? Which of us does not lie about his feelings? Has +reserve no right to armour? + +She heard her companions entering the room and turned round. At that +moment her heart was swept by an emotion almost of hatred to +Androvsky. Because of it she smiled. A forced gaiety dawned in her. +She sat down on one of the low divans, and, as she asked Count Anteoni +for a cigarette and lit it, she thought, "How shall I punish him?" +That lie, not even told to her and about so slight a matter, seemed to +her an attack which she resented and must return. Not for a moment did +she ask herself if she were reasonable. A voice within her said, "I +will not be lied to, I will not even bear a lie told to another in my +presence by this man." And the voice was imperious. + +Count Anteoni remained beside her, smoking a cigar. Father Roubier +took a seat by the little table in front of her. But Androvsky went +over to the door she had just left, and stood, as she had, looking out +into the sunshine. Bous-Bous followed him, and snuffed affectionately +round his feet, trying to gain his attention. + +"My little dog seems very fond of your friend," the priest said to +Domini. + +"My friend!" + +"Monsieur Androvsky." + +She lowered her voice. + +"He is only a travelling acquaintance. I know nothing of him." + +The priest looked gently surprised and Count Anteoni blew forth a +fragrant cloud of smoke. + +"He seems a remarkable man," the priest said mildly. + +"Do you think so?" + +She began to speak to Count Anteoni about some absurdity of Batouch, +forcing her mind into a light and frivolous mood, and he echoed her +tone with a clever obedience for which secretly she blessed him. In a +moment they were laughing together with apparent merriment, and Father +Roubier smiled innocently at their light-heartedness, believing in it +sincerely. But Androvsky suddenly turned around with a dark and morose +countenance. + +"Come in out of the sunshine," said the Count. "It is too strong. Try +this chair. Coffee will be--ah, here it is!" + +Two servants appeared, carrying it. + +"Thank you, Monsieur," Androvsky said with reluctant courtesy. + +He came towards them with determination and sat down, drawing forward +his chair till he was facing Domini. Directly he was quiet Bous-Bous +sprang upon his knee and lay down hastily, blinking his eyes, which +were almost concealed by hair, and heaving a sigh which made the +priest look kindly at him, even while he said deprecatingly: + +"Bous-Bous! Bous-Bous! Little rascal, little pig--down, down!" + +"Oh, leave him, Monsieur!" muttered Androvsky. "It's all the same to +me." + +"He really has no shame where his heart is concerned." + +"Arab!" said the Count. "He has learnt it in Beni-Mora." + +"Perhaps he has taken lessons from Larbi," said Domini. "Hark! He is +playing to-day. For whom?" + +"I never ask now," said the Count. "The name changes so often." + +"Constancy is not an Arab fault?" Domini asked. + +"You say 'fault,' Madame," interposed the priest. + +"Yes, Father," she returned with a light touch of conscious cynicism. +"Surely in this world that which is apt to bring inevitable misery +with it must be accounted a fault." + +"But can constancy do that?" + +"Don't you think so, into a world of ceaseless change?" + +"Then how shall we reckon truth in a world of lies?" asked the Count. +"Is that a fault, too?" + +"Ask Monsieur Androvsky," said Domini, quickly. + +"I obey," said the Count, looking over at his guest. + +"Ah, but I am sure I know," Domini added. "I am sure you think truth a +thing we should all avoid in such a world as this. Don't you, +Monsieur?" + +"If you are sure, Madame, why ask me?" Androvsky replied. + +There was in his voice a sound that was startling. Suddenly the priest +reached out his hand and lifted Bous-Bous on to his knee, and Count +Anteoni very lightly and indifferently interposed. + +"Truth-telling among Arabs becomes a dire necessity to Europeans. One +cannot out-lie them, and it doesn't pay to run second to Orientals. So +one learns, with tears, to be sincere. Father Roubier is shocked by my +apologia for my own blatant truthfulness." + +The priest laughed. + +"I live so little in what is called 'the world' that I'm afraid I'm +very ready to take drollery for a serious expression of opinion." + +He stroked Bous-Bous's white back, and added, with a simple geniality +that seemed to spring rather from a desire to be kind than from any +temperamental source: + +"But I hope I shall always be able to enjoy innocent fun." + +As he spoke his eyes rested on Androvsky's face, and suddenly he +looked grave and put Bous-Bous gently down on the floor. + +"I'm afraid I must be going," he said. + +"Already?" said his host. + +"I dare not allow myself too much idleness. If once I began to be idle +in this climate I should become like an Arab and do nothing all day +but sit in the sun." + +"As I do. Father, we meet very seldom, but whenever we do I feel +myself a cumberer of the earth." + +Domini had never before heard him speak with such humbleness. The +priest flushed like a boy. + +"We each serve in our own way," he said quickly. "The Arab who sits +all day in the sun may be heard as a song of praise where He is." + +And then he took his leave. This time he did not extend his hand to +Androvsky, but only bowed to him, lifting his white helmet. As he went +away in the sun with Bous-Bous the three he had left followed him with +their eyes. For Androvsky had turned his chair sideways, as if +involuntarily. + +"I shall learn to love Father Roubier," Domini said. + +Androvsky moved his seat round again till his back was to the garden, +and placed his broad hands palm downward on his knees. + +"Yes?" said the Count. + +"He is so transparently good, and he bears his great disappointment so +beautifully." + +"What great disappointment?" + +"He longed to become a monk." + +Androvsky got up from his seat and walked back to the garden doorway. +His restless demeanour and lowering expression destroyed all sense of +calm and leisure. Count Anteoni looked after him, and then at Domini, +with a sort of playful surprise. He was going to speak, but before the +words came Smain appeared, carrying reverently a large envelope +covered with Arab writing. + +"Will you excuse me for a moment?" the Count said. + +"Of course." + +He took the letter, and at once a vivid expression of excitement shone +in his eyes. When he had read it there was a glow upon his face as if +the flames of a fire played over it. + +"Miss Enfilden," he said, "will you think me very discourteous if I +leave you for a moment? The messenger who brought this has come from +far and starts to-day on his return journey. He has come out of the +south, three hundred kilometres away, from Beni-Hassan, a sacred +village--a sacred village." + +He repeated the last words, lowering his voice. + +"Of course go and see him." + +"And you?" + +He glanced towards Androvsky, who was standing with his back to them. + +"Won't you show Monsieur Androvsky the garden?" + +Hearing his name Androvsky turned, and the Count at once made his +excuses to him and followed Smain towards the garden gate, carrying +the letter that had come from Beni-Hassan in his hand. + +When he had gone Domini remained on the divan, and Androvsky by the +door, with his eyes on the ground. She took another cigarette from the +box on the table beside her, struck a match and lit it carefully. Then +she said: + +"Do you care to see the garden?" + +She spoke indifferently, coldly. The desire to show her Paradise to +him had died away, but the parting words of the Count prompted the +question, and so she put it as to a stranger. + +"Thank you, Madame--yes," he replied, as if with an effort. + +She got up, and they went out together on to the broad walk. + +"Which way do you want to go?" she asked. + +She saw him glance at her quickly, with anxiety in his eyes. + +"You know best where we should go, Madame." + +"I daresay you won't care about it. Probably you are not interested in +gardens. It does not matter really which path we take. They are all +very much alike." + +"I am sure they are all very beautiful." + +Suddenly he had become humble, anxious to please her. But now the +violent contrasts in him, unlike the violent contrasts of nature in +this land, exasperated her. She longed to be left alone. She felt +ashamed of Androvsky, and also of herself; she condemned herself +bitterly for the interest she had taken in him, for her desire to put +some pleasure into a life she had deemed sad, for her curiosity about +him, for her wish to share joy with him. She laughed at herself +secretly for what she now called her folly in having connected him +imaginatively with the desert, whereas in reality he made the desert, +as everything he approached, lose in beauty and wonder. His was a +destructive personality. She knew it now. Why had she not realised it +before? He was a man to put gall in the cup of pleasure, to create +uneasiness, self-consciousness, constraint round about him, to call up +spectres at the banquet of life. Well, in the future she could avoid +him. After to-day she need never have any more intercourse with him. +With that thought, that interior sense of her perfect freedom in +regard to this man, an abrupt, but always cold, content came to her, +putting him a long way off where surely all that he thought and did +was entirely indifferent to her. + +"Come along then," she said. "We'll go this way." + +And she turned down an alley which led towards the home of the purple +dog. She did not know at the moment that anything had influenced her +to choose that particular path, but very soon the sound of Larbi's +flute grew louder, and she guessed that in reality the music had +attracted her. Androvsky walked beside her without a word. She felt +that he was not looking about him, not noticing anything, and all at +once she stopped decisively. + +"Why should we take all this trouble?" she said bluntly. "I hate +pretence and I thought I had travelled far away from it. But we are +both pretending." + +"Pretending, Madame?" he said in a startled voice. + +"Yes. I that I want to show you this garden, you that you want to see +it. I no longer wish to show it to you, and you have never wished to +see it. Let us cease to pretend. It is all my fault. I bothered you to +come here when you didn't want to come. You have taught me a lesson. I +was inclined to condemn you for it, to be angry with you. But why +should I be? You were quite right. Freedom is my fetish. I set you +free, Monsieur Androvsky. Good-bye." + +As she spoke she felt that the air was clearing, the clouds were +flying. Constraint at least was at an end. And she had really the +sensation of setting a captive at liberty. She turned to leave him, +but he said: + +"Please, stop, Madame." + +"Why?" + +"You have made a mistake." + +"In what?" + +"I do want to see this garden." + +"Really? Well, then, you can wander through it." + +"I do not wish to see it alone." + +"Larbi shall guide you. For half a franc he will gladly give up his +serenading." + +"Madame, if you will not show me the garden I will not see it at all. +I will go now and will never come into it again. I do not pretend." + +"Ah!" she said, and her voice was quite changed. "But you do worse." + +"Worse!" + +"Yes. You lie in the face of Africa." + +She did not wish or mean to say it, and yet she had to say it. She +knew it was monstrous that she should speak thus to him. What had his +lies to do with her? She had been told a thousand, had heard a +thousand told to others. Her life had been passed in a world of which +the words of the Psalmist, though uttered in haste, are a clear-cut +description. And she had not thought she cared. Yet really she must +have cared. For, in leaving this world, her soul had, as it were, +fetched a long breath. And now, at the hint of a lie, it instinctively +recoiled as from a gust of air laden with some poisonous and +suffocating vapour. + +"Forgive me," she added. "I am a fool. Out here I do love truth." + +Androvsky dropped his eyes. His whole body expressed humiliation, and +something that suggested to her despair. + +"Oh, you must think me mad to speak like this!" she exclaimed. "Of +course people must be allowed to arm themselves against the curiosity +of others. I know that. The fact is I am under a spell here. I have +been living for many, many years in the cold. I have been like a woman +in a prison without any light, and--" + +"You have been in a prison!" he said, lifting his head and looking at +her eagerly. + +"I have been living in what is called the great world." + +"And you call that a prison?" + +"Now that I am living in the greater world, really living at last. I +have been in the heart of insincerity, and now I have come into the +heart, the fiery heart of sincerity. It's there--there"--she pointed +to the desert. "And it has intoxicated me; I think it has made me +unreasonable. I expect everyone--not an Arab--to be as it is, and +every little thing that isn't quite frank, every pretence, is like a +horrible little hand tugging at me, as if trying to take me back to +the prison I have left. I think, deep down, I have always loathed +lies, but never as I have loathed them since I came here. It seems to +me as if only in the desert there is freedom for the body, and only in +truth there is freedom for the soul." + +She stopped, drew a long breath, and added: + +"You must forgive me. I have worried you. I have made you do what you +didn't want to do. And then I have attacked you. It is unpardonable." + +"Show me the garden, Madame," he said in a very low voice. + +Her outburst over, she felt a slight self-consciousness. She wondered +what he thought of her and became aware of her unconventionality. His +curious and persistent reticence made her frankness the more marked. +Yet the painful sensation of oppression and exasperation had passed +away from her and she no longer thought of his personality as +destructive. In obedience to his last words she walked on, and he kept +heavily beside her, till they were in the deep shadows of the closely- +growing trees and the spell of the garden began to return upon her, +banishing the thought of self. + +"Listen!" she said presently. + +Larbi's flute was very near. + +"He is always playing," she whispered. + +"Who is he?" + +"One of the gardeners. But he scarcely ever works. He is perpetually +in love. That is why he plays." + +"Is that a love-tune then?" Androvsky asked. + +"Yes. Do you think it sounds like one?" + +"How should I know, Madame?" + +He stood looking in the direction from which the music came, and now +it seemed to hold him fascinated. After his question, which sounded to +her almost childlike, and which she did not answer, Domini glanced at +his attentive face, to which the green shadows lent a dimness that was +mysterious, at his tall figure, which always suggested to her both +weariness and strength, and remembered the passionate romance to whose +existence she awoke when she first heard Larbi's flute. It was as if a +shutter, which had closed a window in the house of life, had been +suddenly drawn away, giving to her eyes the horizon of a new world. +Was that shutter now drawn back for him? No doubt the supposition was +absurd. Men of his emotional and virile type have travelled far in +that world, to her mysterious, ere they reach his length of years. +What was extraordinary to her, in the thought of it alone, was +doubtless quite ordinary to him, translated into act. Not ignorant, +she was nevertheless a perfectly innocent woman, but her knowledge +told her that no man of Androvsky's strength, power and passion is +innocent at Androvsky's age. Yet his last dropped-out question was +very deceptive. It had sounded absolutely natural and might have come +from a boy's pure lips. Again he made her wonder. + +There was a garden bench close to where they were standing. "If you +like to listen for a moment we might sit down," she said. + +He started. + +"Yes. Thank you." + +When they were sitting side by side, closely guarded by the gigantic +fig and chestnut trees which grew in this part of the garden, he +added: + +"Whom does he love?" + +"No doubt one of those native women whom you consider utterly without +attraction," she answered with a faint touch of malice which made him +redden. + +"But you come here every day?" he said. + +"I!" + +"Yes. Has he ever seen you?" + +"Larbi? Often. What has that to do with it?" + +He did not reply. + +Odd and disconnected as Larbi's melodies were, they created an +atmosphere of wild tenderness. Spontaneously they bubbled up out of +the heart of the Eastern world and, when the player was invisible as +now, suggested an ebon faun couched in hot sand at the foot of a palm +tree and making music to listening sunbeams and amorous spirits of the +waste. + +"Do you like it?" she said presently in an under voice. + +"Yes, Madame. And you?" + +"I love it, but not as I love the song of the freed negroes. That is a +song of all the secrets of humanity and of the desert too. And it does +not try to tell them. It only says that they exist and that God knows +them. But, I remember, you do not like that song." + +"Madame," he answered slowly, and as if he were choosing his words, "I +see that you understood. The song did move me though I said not. But +no, I do not like it." + +"Do you care to tell me why?" + +"Such a song as that seems to me an--it is like an intrusion. There +are things that should be let alone. There are dark places that should +be left dark." + +"You mean that all human beings hold within them secrets, and that no +allusion even should ever be made to those secrets?" + +"Yes." + +"I understand." + +After a pause he said, anxiously, she thought: + +"Am I right, Madame, or is my thought ridiculous?" + +He asked it so simply that she felt touched. + +"I'm sure you could never be ridiculous," she said quickly. "And +perhaps you are right. I don't know. That song makes me think and +feel, and so I love it. Perhaps if you heard it alone--" + +"Then I should hate it," he interposed. + +His voice was like an uncontrolled inner voice speaking. + +"And not thought and feeling--" she began. + +But he interrupted her. + +"They make all the misery that exists in the world." + +"And all the happiness." + +"Do they?" + +"They must." + +"Then you want to think deeply, to feel deeply?" + +"Yes. I would rather be the central figure of a world-tragedy than die +without having felt to the uttermost, even if it were sorrow. My whole +nature revolts against the idea of being able to feel little or +nothing really. It seems to me that when we begin to feel acutely we +begin to grow, like the palm tree rising towards the African sun." + +"I do not think you have ever been very unhappy," he said. The sound +of his voice as he said it made her suddenly feel as if it were true, +as if she had never been utterly unhappy. Yet she had never been +really happy. Africa had taught her that. + +"Perhaps not," she answered. "But--some day--" + +She stopped. + +"Yes, Madame?" + +"Could one stay long in such a world as this and not be either +intensely happy or intensely unhappy? I don't feel as if it would be +possible. Fierceness and fire beat upon one day after day and--one +must learn to feel here." + +As she spoke a sensation of doubt, almost of apprehension, came to +her. She was overtaken by a terror of the desert. For a moment it +seemed to her that he was right, that it were better never to be the +prey of any deep emotion. + +"If one does not wish to feel one should never come to such a place as +this," she added. + +And she longed to ask him why he was here, he, a man whose philosophy +told him to avoid the heights and depths, to shun the ardours of +nature and of life. + +"Or, having come, one should leave it." + +A sensation of lurking danger increased upon her, bringing with it the +thought of flight. + +"One can always do that," she said, looking at him. She saw fear in +his eyes, but it seemed to her that it was not fear of peril, but fear +of flight. So strongly was this idea borne in upon her that she +bluntly exclaimed: + +"Unless it is one's nature to face things, never to turn one's back. +Is it yours, Monsieur Androvsky?" + +"Fear could never drive me to leave Beni-Moni," he answered. + +"Sometimes I think that the only virtue in us is courage," she said, +"that it includes all the others. I believe I could forgive everything +where I found absolute courage." + +Androvsky's eyes were lit up as if by a flicker of inward fire. + +"You might create the virtue you love," he said hoarsely. + +They looked at each other for a moment. Did he mean that she might +create it in him? + +Perhaps she would have asked, or perhaps he would have told her, but +at that moment something happened. Larbi stopped playing. In the last +few minutes they had both forgotten that he was playing, but when he +ceased the garden changed. Something was withdrawn in which, without +knowing it, they had been protecting themselves, and when the music +faded their armour dropped away from them. With the complete silence +came an altered atmosphere, the tenderness of mysticism instead of the +tenderness of a wild humanity. The love of man seemed to depart out of +the garden and another love to enter it, as when God walked under the +trees in the cool of the day. And they sat quite still, as if a common +impulse muted their lips. In the long silence that followed Domini +thought of her mirage of the palm tree growing towards the African +sun, feeling growing in the heart of a human being. But was it a +worthy image? For the palm tree rises high. It soars into the air. But +presently it ceases to grow. There is nothing infinite in its growth. +And the long, hot years pass away and there it stands, never nearer to +the infinite gold of the sun. But in the intense feeling of a man or +woman is there not infinitude? Is there not a movement that is +ceaseless till death comes to destroy--or to translate? + +That was what she was thinking in the silence of the garden. And +Androvsky? He sat beside her with his head bent, his hands hanging +between his knees, his eyes gazing before him at the ordered tangle of +the great trees. His lips were slightly parted, and on his strongly- +marked face there was an expression as of emotional peace, as if the +soul of the man were feeling deeply in calm. The restlessness, the +violence that had made his demeanour so embarrassing during and after +the /dejeuner/ had vanished. He was a different man. And presently, +noticing it, feeling his sensitive serenity, Domini seemed to see the +great Mother at work about this child of hers, Nature at her tender +task of pacification. The shared silence became to her like a song of +thanksgiving, in which all the green things of the garden joined. And +beyond them the desert lay listening, the Garden of Allah attentive to +the voices of man's garden. She could hardly believe that but a few +minutes before she had been full of irritation and bitterness, not +free even from a touch of pride that was almost petty. But when she +remembered that it was so she realised the abysses and the heights of +which the heart is mingled, and an intense desire came to her to be +always upon the heights of her own heart. For there only was the light +of happiness. Never could she know joy if she forswore nobility. Never +could she be at peace with the love within her--love of something that +was not self, of something that seemed vaguer than God, as if it had +entered into God and made him Love--unless she mounted upwards during +her little span of life. Again, as before in this land, in the first +sunset, on the tower, on the minaret of the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, +Nature spoke to her intimate words of inspiration, laid upon her the +hands of healing, giving her powers she surely had not known or +conceived of till now. And the passion that is the chiefest grace of +goodness, making it the fire that purifies, as it is the little sister +of the poor that tends the suffering, the hungry, the groping beggar- +world, stirred within her, like the child not yet born, but whose +destiny is with the angels. And she longed to make some great offering +at the altar on whose lowest step she stood, and she was filled, for +the first time consciously, with woman's sacred desire for sacrifice. + +A soft step on the sand broke the silence and scattered her +aspirations. Count Anteoni was coming towards them between the trees. +The light of happiness was still upon his face and made him look much +younger than usual. His whole bearing, in its elasticity and buoyant +courage, was full of anticipation. As he came up to them he said to +Domini: + +"Do you remember chiding me?" + +"I!" she said. "For what?" + +Androvsky sat up and the expression of serenity passed away from his +face. + +"For never galloping away into the sun." + +"Oh!--yes, I do remember." + +"Well, I am going to obey you. I am going to make a journey." + +"Into the desert?" + +"Three hundred kilometers on horseback. I start to-morrow." + +She looked up at him with a new interest. He saw it and laughed, +almost like a boy. + +"Ah, your contempt for me is dying!" + +"How can you speak of contempt?" + +"But you were full of it." He turned to Androvsky. "Miss Enfilden +thought I could not sit a horse, Monsieur, unlike you. Forgive me for +saying that you are almost more dare-devil than the Arabs themselves. +I saw you the other day set your stallion at the bank of the river +bed. I did not think any horse could have done it, but you knew +better." + +"I did not know at all," said Androvsky. "I had not ridden for over +twenty years until that day." + +He spoke with a blunt determination which made Domini remember their +recent conversation on truth-telling. + +"Dio mio!" said the Count, slowly, and looking at him with undisguised +wonder. "You must have a will and a frame of iron." + +"I am pretty strong." + +He spoke rather roughly. Since the Count had joined them Domini +noticed that Androvsky had become a different man. Once more he was on +the defensive. The Count did not seem to notice it. Perhaps he was too +radiant. + +"I hope I shall endure as well as you, Monsieur," he said. "I go to +Beni-Hassan to visit Sidi El Hadj Aissa, one of the mightiest +marabouts in the Sahara. In your Church," he added, turning again to +Domini, "he would be a powerful Cardinal." + +She noticed the "your." Evidently the Count was not a professing +Catholic. Doubtless, like many modern Italians, he was a free-thinker +in matters of religion. + +"I am afraid I have never heard of him," she said. "In which direction +does Beni-Hassan lie?" + +"To go there one takes the caravan route that the natives call the +route to Tombouctou." + +An eager look came into her face. + +"My road!" she said. + +"Yours?" + +"The one I shall travel on. You remember, Monsieur Androvsky?" + +"Yes, Madame." + +"Let me into your secret," said the Count, laughingly, yet with +interest too. + +"It is no secret. It is only that I love that route. It fascinates me, +and I mean some day to make a desert journey along it." + +"What a pity that we cannot join forces," the Count said. "I should +feel it an honour to show the desert to one who has the reverence for +it, the understanding of its spell, that you have." + +He spoke earnestly, paused, and then added: + +"But I know well what you are thinking." + +"What is that?" + +"That you will go to the desert alone. You are right. It is the only +way, at any rate the first time. I went like that many years ago." + +She said nothing in assent, and Androvsky got up from the bench. + +"I must go, Monsieur." + +"Already! But have you seen the garden?" + +"It is wonderful. Good-bye, Monsieur. Thank you." + +"But--let me see you to the gate. On Fridays----" + +He was turning to Domini when she got up too. + +"Don't you distribute alms on Fridays?" she said. + +"How should you know it?" + +"I have heard all about you. But is this the hour?" + +"Yes." + +"Let me see the distribution." + +"And we will speed Monsieur Androvsky on his way at the same time." + +She noticed that there was no question in his mind of her going with +Androvsky. Did she mean to go with him? She had not decided yet. + +They walked towards the gate and were soon on the great sweep of sand +before the villa. A murmur of many voices was audible outside in the +desert, nasal exclamations, loud guttural cries that sounded angry, +the twittering of flutes and the snarl of camels. + +"Do you hear my pensioners?" said the Count. "They are always +impatient." + +There was the noise of a tomtom and of a whining shriek. + +"That is old Bel Cassem's announcement of his presence. He has been +living on me for years, the old ruffian, ever since his right eye was +gouged out by his rival in the affections of the Marechale of the +dancing-girls. Smain!" + +He blew his silver whistle. Instantly Smain came out of the villa +carrying a money-bag. The Count took it and weighed it in his hand, +looking at Domini with the joyous expression still upon his face. + +"Have you ever made a thank-offering?" he said. + +"No." + +"That tells me something. Well, to-day I wish to make a thank-offering +to the desert." + +"What has it done for you?" + +"Who knows? Who knows?" + +He laughed aloud, almost like a boy. Androvsky glanced at him with a +sort of wondering envy. + +"And I want you to share in my little distribution," he added. "And +you, Monsieur, if you don't mind. There are moments when-- Open the +gate, Smain!" + +His ardour was infectious and Domini felt stirred by it to a sudden +sense of the joy of life. She looked at Androvsky, to include him in +the rigour of gaiety which swept from the Count to her, and found him +staring apprehensively at the Count, who was now loosening the string +of the bag. Smain had reached the gate. He lifted the bar of wood and +opened it. Instantly a crowd of dark faces and turbaned heads were +thrust through the tall aperture, a multitude of dusky hands fluttered +frantically, and the cry of eager voices, saluting, begging, calling +down blessings, relating troubles, shrieking wants, proclaiming +virtues and necessities, rose into an almost deafening uproar. But not +a foot was lifted over the lintel to press the sunlit sand. The +Count's pensioners might be clamorous, but they knew what they might +not do. As he saw them the wrinkles in his face deepened and his +fingers quickened to achieve their purpose. + +"My pensioners are very hungry to-day, and, as you see, they don't +mind saying so. Hark at Bel Cassem!" + +The tomtom and the shriek that went with it made it a fierce +crescendo. + +"That means he is starving--the old hypocrite! Aren't they like the +wolves in your Russia, Monsieur? But we must feed them. We mustn't let +them devour our Beni-Mora. That's it!" + +He threw the string on to the sand, plunged his hand into the bag and +brought it out full of copper coins. The mouths opened wider, the +hands waved more frantically, and all the dark eyes gleamed with the +light of greed. + +"Will you help me?" he said to Domini. + +"Of course. What fun!" + +Her eyes were gleaming too, but with the dancing fires of a gay +impulse of generosity which made her wish that the bag contained her +money. He filled her hands with coins. + +"Choose whom you will. And now, Monsieur!" + +For the moment he was so boyishly concentrated on the immediate +present that he had ceased to observe whether the whim of others +jumped with his own. Otherwise he must have been struck by Androvsky's +marked discomfort, which indeed almost amounted to agitation. The +sight of the throng of Arabs at the gateway, the clamour of their +voices, evidently roused within him something akin to fear. He looked +at them with distaste, and had drawn back several steps upon the sand, +and now, as the Count held out to him a hand filled with money, he +made no motion to take it, and half turned as if he thought of +retreating into the recesses of the garden. + +"Here, Monsieur! here!" exclaimed the Count, with his eyes on the +crowd, towards which Domini was walking with a sort of mischievous +slowness, to whet those appetites already so voracious. + +Androvsky set his teeth and took the money, dropping one or two pieces +on the ground. For a moment the Count seemed doubtful of his guest's +participation in his own lively mood. + +"Is this boring you?" he asked. "Because if so--" + +"No, no, Monsieur, not at all! What am I to do?" + +"Those hands will tell you." + +The clamour grew more exigent. + +"And when you want more come to me!" + +Then he called out in Arabic, "Gently! Gently!" as the vehement +scuffling seemed about to degenerate into actual fighting at Domini's +approach, and hurried forward, followed more slowly by Androvsky. + +Smain, from whose velvety eyes the dreams were not banished by the +uproar, stood languidly by the porter's tent, gazing at Androvsky. +Something in the demeanour of the new visitor seemed to attract him. +Domini, meanwhile, had reached the gateway. Gently, with a capricious +deftness and all a woman's passion for personal choice, she dropped +the bits of money into the hands belonging to the faces that attracted +her, disregarding the bellowings of those passed over. The light from +all these gleaming eyes made her feel warm, the clamour that poured +from these brown throats excited her. When her fingers were empty she +touched the Count's arm eagerly. + +"More, more, please!" + +"Ecco, Signora." + +He held out to her the bag. She plunged her hands into it and came +nearer to the gate, both hands full of money and held high above her +head. The Arabs leapt up at her like dogs at a bone, and for a moment +she waited, laughing with all her heart. Then she made a movement to +throw the money over the heads of the near ones to the unfortunates +who were dancing and shrieking on the outskirts of the mob. But +suddenly her hands dropped and she uttered a startled exclamation. + +The sand-diviner of the red bazaar, slipping like a reptile under the +waving arms and between the furious bodies of the beggars, stood up +before her with a smile on his wounded face, stretched out to her his +emaciated hands with a fawning, yet half satirical, gesture of desire. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The money dropped from Domini's fingers and rolled upon the sand at +the Diviner's feet. But though he had surely come to ask for alms, he +took no heed of it. While the Arabs round him fell upon their knees +and fought like animals for the plunder, he stood gaping at Domini. +The smile still flickered about his lips. His hand was still stretched +out. + +Instinctively she had moved backwards. Something that was like a +thrill of fear, mental, not physical, went through her, but she kept +her eyes steadily on his, as if, despite the fear, she fought against +him. + +The contest of the beggars had become so passionate that Count +Anteoni's commands were forgotten. Urged by the pressure from behind +those in the front scrambled or fell over the sacred threshold. The +garden was invaded by a shrieking mob. Smain ran forward, and the +autocrat that dwelt in the Count side by side with the benefactor +suddenly emerged. He blew his whistle four times. At each call a +stalwart Arab appeared. + +"Shut the gate!" he commanded sternly. + +The attendants furiously repulsed the mob, using their fists and feet +without mercy. In the twinkling of an eye the sand was cleared and +Smain had his hand upon the door to shut it. But the Diviner stopped +him with a gesture, and in a fawning yet imperious voice called out +something to the Count. + +The Count turned to Domini. + +"This is an interesting fellow. Would you like to know him?" + +Her mind said no, yet her body assented. For she bowed her head. The +Count beckoned. The Diviner stepped stealthily on to the sand with an +air of subtle triumph, and Smain swung forward the great leaf of palm +wood. + +"Wait!" the Count cried, as if suddenly recollecting something. "Where +is Monsieur Androvsky?" + +"Isn't he----?" Domini glanced round. "I don't know." + +He went quickly to the door and looked out. The Arabs, silent now and +respectful, crowded about him, salaaming. He smiled at them kindly, +and spoke to one or two. They answered gravely. An old man with one +eye lifted his hand, in which was a tomtom of stretched goatskin, and +pointed towards the oasis, rapidly moving his toothless jaws. The +Count stepped back into the garden, dismissed his pensioners with a +masterful wave of the hand, and himself shut the door. + +"Monsieur Androvsky has gone--without saying good-bye," he said. + +Again Domini felt ashamed for Androvsky. + +"I don't think he likes my pensioners," the Count added, in amused +voice, "or me." + +"I am sure--" Domini began. + +But he stopped her. + +"Miss Enfilden, in a world of lies I look to you for truth." + +His manner chafed her, but his voice had a ring of earnestness. She +said nothing. All this time the Diviner was standing on the sand, +still smiling, but with downcast eyes. His thin body looked satirical +and Domini felt a strong aversion from him, yet a strong interest in +him too. Something in his appearance and manner suggested power and +mystery as well as cunning. The Count said some words to him in +Arabic, and at once he walked forward and disappeared among the trees, +going so silently and smoothly that she seemed to watch a panther +gliding into the depths of a jungle where its prey lay hid. She looked +at the Count interrogatively. + +"He will wait in the /fumoir/." + +"Where we first met?" + +"Yes." + +"What for?" + +"For us, if you choose." + +"Tell me about him. I have seen him twice. He followed me with a bag +of sand." + +"He is a desert man. I don't know his tribe, but before he settled +here he was a nomad, one of the wanderers who dwell in tents, a man of +the sand; as much of the sand as a viper or a scorpion. One would +suppose such beings were bred by the marriage of the sand-grains. The +sand tells him secrets." + +"He says. Do you believe it?" + +"Would you like to test it?" + +"How?" + +"By coming with me to the /fumoir/?" + +She hesitated obviously. + +"Mind," he added, "I do not press it. A word from me and he is gone. +But you are fearless, and you have spoken already, will speak much +more intimately in the future, with the desert spirits." + +"How do you know that?" + +"The 'much more intimately'?" + +"Yes." + +"I do not know it, but--which is much more--I feel it." + +She was silent, looking towards the trees where the Diviner had +disappeared. Count Anteoni's boyish merriment had faded away. He +looked grave, almost sad. + +"I am not afraid," she said at last. "No, but--I will confess it-- +there is something horrible about that man to me. I felt it the first +time I saw him. His eyes are too intelligent. They look diseased with +intelligence." + +"Let me send him away. Smain!" + +But she stopped him. Directly he made the suggestion she felt that she +must know more of this man. + +"No. Let us go to the /fumoir/." + +"Very well. Go, Smain!" + +Smain went into the little tent by the gate, sat down on his haunches +and began to smell at a sprig of orange blossoms. Domini and the Count +walked into the darkness of the trees. + +"What is his name?" she asked. + +"Aloui." + +"Aloui." + +She repeated the word slowly. There was a reluctant and yet fascinated +sound in her voice. + +"There is melody in the name," he said. + +"Yes. Has he--has he ever looked in the sand for you?" + +"Once--a long time ago." + +"May I--dare I ask if he found truth there?" + +"He found nothing for all the years that have passed since then." + +"Nothing!" + +There was a sound of relief in her voice. + +"For those years." + +She glanced at him and saw that once again his face had lit up into +ardour. + +"He found what is still to come?" she said. + +And he repeated: + +"He found what is still to come." + +Then they walked on in silence till they saw the purple blossoms of +the bougainvillea clinging to the white walls of the /fumoir/. Domini +stopped on the narrow path. + +"Is he in there?" she asked almost in a whisper. + +"No doubt." + +"Larbi was playing the first day I came here." + +"Yes." + +"I wish he was playing now." + +The silence seemed to her unnaturally intense. + +"Even his love must have repose." + +She went on a step or two till, but still from a distance, she could +look over the low plaster wall beneath the nearest window space into +the little room. + +"Yes, there he is," she whispered. + +The Diviner was crouching on the floor with his back towards them and +his head bent down. Only his shoulders could be seen, covered with a +white gandoura. They moved perpetually but slightly. + +"What is he doing?" + +"Speaking with his ancestor." + +"His ancestor?" + +"The sand. Aloui!" + +He called softly. The figure rose, without sound and instantly, and +the face of the Diviner smiled at them through the purple flowers. +Again Domini had the sensation that her body was a glass box in which +her thoughts, feelings and desires were ranged for this man's +inspection; but she walked resolutely through the narrow doorway and +sat down on one of the divans. Count Anteoni followed. + +She now saw that in the centre of the room, on the ground, there was a +symmetrical pyramid of sand, and that the Diviner was gently folding +together a bag in his long and flexible fingers. + +"You see!" said the Count. + +She nodded, without speaking. The little sand heap held her eyes. She +strove to think it absurd and the man who had shaken it out a +charlatan of the desert, but she was really gripped by an odd feeling +of awe, as if she were secretly expectant of some magical +demonstration. + +The Diviner squatted down once more on his haunches, stretched out his +fingers above the sand heap, looked at her and smiled. + +"La vie de Madame--I see it in the sable--la vie de Madame dans le +grand desert du Sahara." + +His eyes seemed to rout out the secrets from every corner of her +being, and to scatter them upon the ground as the sand was scattered. + +"Dans le grand desert du Sahara," Count Anteoni repeated, as if he +loved the music of the words. "Then there is a desert life for +Madame?" + +The Diviner dropped his fingers on to the pyramid, lightly pressing +the sand down and outward. He no longer looked at Domini. The +searching and the satire slipped away from his eyes and body. He +seemed to have forgotten the two watchers and to be concentrated upon +the grains of sand. Domini noticed that the tortured expression, which +had come into his face when she met him in the street and he stared +into the bag, had returned to it. After pressing down the sand he +spread the bag which had held it at Domini's feet, and deftly +transferred the sand to it, scattering the grains loosely over the +sacking, in a sort of pattern. Then, bending closely over them, he +stared at them in silence for a long time. His pock-marked face was +set like stone. His emaciated hands, stretched out, rested above the +grains like carven things. His body seemed entirely breathless in its +absolute immobility. + +The Count stood in the doorway, still as he was, surrounded by the +motionless purple flowers. Beyond, in their serried ranks, stood the +motionless trees. No incense was burning in the little brazier to-day. +This cloistered world seemed spell-bound. + +A low murmur at last broke the silence. It came from the Diviner. He +began to talk rapidly, but as if to himself, and as he talked he moved +again, broke up with his fingers the patterns in the sand, formed +fresh ones; spirals, circles, snake-like lines, series of mounting +dots that reminded Domini of spray flung by a fountain, curves, +squares and oblongs. So swiftly was it done and undone that the sand +seemed to be endowed with life, to be explaining itself in these +patterns, to be presenting deliberate glimpses of hitherto hidden +truths. And always the voice went on, and the eyes were downcast, and +the body, save for the moving hands and arms, was absolutely +motionless. + +Domini looked over the Diviner to Count Anteoni, who came gently +forward and sat down, bending his head to listen to the voice. + +"Is it Arabic?" she whispered. + +He nodded. + +"Can you understand it?" + +"Not yet. Presently it will get slower, clearer. He always begins like +this." + +"Translate it for me." + +"Exactly as it is?" + +"Exactly as it is." + +"Whatever it may be?" + +"Whatever it may be." + +He glanced at the tortured face of the Diviner and looked grave. + +"Remember you have said I am fearless," she said. + +He answered: + +"Whatever it is you shall know it." + +Then they were silent again. Gradually the Diviner's voice grew +clearer, the pace of its words less rapid, but always it sounded +mysterious and inward, less like the voice of a man than the distant +voice of a secret. + +"I can hear now," whispered the Count. + +"What is he saying?" + +"He is speaking about the desert." + +"Yes?" + +"He sees a great storm. Wait a moment!" + +The voice spoke for some seconds and ceased, and once again the +Diviner remained absolutely motionless, with his hands extended above +the grains like carven things. + +"He sees a great sand-storm, one of the most terrible that has ever +burst over the Sahara. Everything is blotted out. The desert vanishes. +Beni-Mora is hidden. It is day, yet there is a darkness like night. In +this darkness he sees a train of camels waiting by a church." + +"A mosque?" + +"No, a church. In the church there is a sound of music. The roar of +the wind, the roar of the camels, mingles with the chanting and drowns +it. He cannot hear it any more. It is as if the desert is angry and +wishes to kill the music. In the church your life is beginning." + +"My life?" + +"Your real life. He says that now you are fully born, that till now +there has been a veil around your soul like the veil of the womb +around a child." + +"He says that!" + +There was a sound of deep emotion in her voice. + +"That is all. The roar of the wind from the desert has silenced the +music in the church, and all is dark." + +The Diviner moved again, and formed fresh patterns in the sand with +feverish rapidity, and again began to speak swiftly. + +"He sees the train of camels that waited by the church starting on a +desert journey. The storm has not abated. They pass through the oasis +into the desert. He sees them going towards the south." + +Domini leaned forward on the divan, looking at Count Anteoni above the +bent body of the Diviner. + +"By what route?" she whispered. + +"By the route which the natives call the road to Tombouctou." + +"But--it is my journey!" + +"Upon one of the camels, in a palanquin such as the great sheikhs use +to carry their women, there are two people, protected against the +storm by curtains. They are silent, listening to the roaring of the +wind. One of them is you." + +"Two people!" + +"Two people." + +"But--who is the other?" + +"He cannot see. It is as if the blackness of the storm were deeper +round about the other and hid the other from him. The caravan passes +on and is lost in the desolation and the storm." + +She said nothing, but looked down at the thin body of the Diviner +crouched close to her knees. Was this pock-marked face the face of a +prophet? Did this skin and bone envelop the soul of a seer? She no +longer wished that Larbi was playing upon his flute or felt the +silence to be unnatural. For this man had filled it with the roar of +the desert wind. And in the wind there struggled and was finally lost +the sound of voices of her Faith chanting--what? The wind was too +strong. The voices were too faint. She could not hear. + +Once more the Diviner stirred. For some minutes his fingers were busy +in the sand. But now they moved more slowly and no words came from his +lips. Domini and the Count bent low to watch what he was doing. The +look of torture upon his face increased. It was terrible, and made +upon Domini an indelible impression, for she could not help connecting +it with his vision of her future, and it suggested to her formless +phantoms of despair. She looked into the sand, as if she, too, would +be able to see what he saw and had not told, looked till she began to +feel almost hypnotised. The Diviner's hands trembled now as they made +the patterns, and his breast heaved under his white robe. Presently he +traced in the sand a triangle and began to speak. + +The Count bent down till his ear was almost at the Diviner's lips, and +Domini held her breath. That caravan lost in the desolation of the +desert, in the storm and the darkness--where was it? What had been its +fate? Sweat ran down over the Diviner's face, and dropped upon his +robe, upon his hands, upon the sand, making dark spots. And the voice +whispered on huskily till she was in a fever of impatience. She saw +upon the face of the Count the Diviner's tortured look reflected. Was +it not also on her face? A link surely bound them all together in this +tiny room, close circled by the tall trees and the intense silence. +She looked at the triangle in the sand. It was very distinct, more +distinct than the other patterns had been. What did it represent? She +searched her mind, thinking of the desert, of her life there, of man's +life in the desert. Was it not tent-shaped? She saw it as a tent, as +her tent pitched somewhere in the waste far from the habitations of +men. Now the trembling hands were still, the voice was still, but the +sweat did not cease from dropping down upon the sand. + +"Tell me!" she murmured to the Count. + +He obeyed, seeming now to speak with an effort. + +"It is far away in the desert----" + +He paused. + +"Yes? Yes?" + +"Very far away in a sandy place. There are immense dunes, immense +white dunes of sand on every side, like mountains. Near at hand there +is a gleam of many fires. They are lit in the market-place of a desert +city. Among the dunes, with camels picketed behind it, there is a +tent----" + +She pointed to the triangle traced upon the sand. + +"I knew it," she whispered. "It is my tent." + +"He sees you there, as he saw you in the palanquin. But now it is +night and you are quite alone. You are not asleep. Something keeps you +awake. You are excited. You go out of the tent upon the dunes and look +towards the fires of the city. He hears the jackals howling all around +you, and sees the skeletons of dead camels white under the moon." + +She shuddered in spite of herself. + +"There is something tremendous in your soul. He says it is as if all +the date palms of the desert bore their fruit together, and in all the +dry places, where men and camels have died of thirst in bygone years, +running springs burst forth, and as if the sand were covered with +millions of golden flowers big as the flower of the aloe." + +"But then it is joy, it must be joy!" + +"He says it is great joy." + +"Then why does he look like that, breathe like that?" + +She indicated the Diviner, who was trembling where he crouched, and +breathing heavily, and always sweating like one in agony. + +"There is more," said the Count, slowly. + +"Tell me." + +"You stand alone upon the dunes and you look towards the city. He +hears the tomtoms beating, and distant cries as if there were a +fantasia. Then he sees a figure among the dunes coming towards you." + +"Who is it?" she asked. + +He did not answer. But she did not wish him to answer. She had spoken +without meaning to speak. + +"You watch this figure. It comes to you, walking heavily." + +"Walking heavily?" + +"That's what he says. The dates shrivel on the palms, the streams dry +up, the flowers droop and die in the sand. In the city the tomtoms +faint away and the red fires fade away. All is dark and silent. And +then he sees--" + +"Wait!" Domini said almost sharply. + +He sat looking at her. She pressed her hands together. In her dark +face, with its heavy eyebrows and strong, generous mouth, a contest +showed, a struggle between some quick desire and some more sluggish +but determined reluctance. In a moment she spoke again. + +"I won't hear anything more, please." + +"But you said 'whatever it may be.'" + +"Yes. But I won't hear anything more." + +She spoke very quietly, with determination. + +The Diviner was beginning to move his hands again, to make fresh +patterns in the sand, to speak swiftly once more. + +"Shall I stop him?" + +"Please." + +"Then would you mind going out into the garden? I will join you in a +moment. Take care not to disturb him." + +She got up with precaution, held her skirts together with her hands, +and slipped softly out on to the garden path. For a moment she was +inclined to wait there, to look back and see what was happening in the +/fumoir/. But she resisted her inclination, and walked on slowly till +she reached the bench where she had sat an hour before with Androvsky. +There she sat down and waited. In a few minutes she saw the Count +coming towards her alone. His face was very grave, but lightened with +a slight smile when he saw her. + +"He has gone?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +He was about to sit beside her, but she said quickly: + +"Would you mind going back to the jamelon tree?" + +"Where we sat this morning?" + +"Was it only--yes." + +"Certainly." + +"Oh; but you are going away to-morrow! You have a lot to do probably?" + +"Nothing. My men will arrange everything." + +She got up, and they walked in silence till they saw once more the +immense spaces of the desert bathed in the afternoon sun. As Domini +looked at them again she knew that their wonder, their meaning, had +increased for her. The steady crescendo that was beginning almost to +frighten her was maintained--the crescendo of the voice of the Sahara. +To what tremendous demonstration was this crescendo tending, to what +ultimate glory or terror? She felt that her soul was as yet too +undeveloped to conceive. The Diviner had been right. There was a veil +around it, like the veil of the womb that hides the unborn child. + +Under the jamelon tree she sat down once more. + +"May--I light a cigar?" the Count asked. + +"Do." + +He struck a match, lit a cigar, and sat down on her left, by the +garden wall. + +"Tell me frankly," he said. "Do you wish to talk or to be silent?" + +"I wish to speak to you." + +"I am sorry now I asked you to test Aloui's powers." + +"Why?" + +"Because I fear they made an unpleasant impression upon you." + +"That was not why I made you stop him." + +"No?" + +"You don't understand me. I was not afraid. I can only say that, but I +can't give you my reason for stopping him. I wished to tell you that +it was not fear." + +"I believe--I know that you are fearless," he said with an unusual +warmth. "You are sure that I don't understand you?" + +"Remember the refrain of the Freed Negroes' song!" + +"Ah, yes--those black fellows. But I know something of you, Miss +Enfilden--yes, I do." + +"I would rather you did--you and your garden." + +"And--some day--I should like you to know a little more of me." + +"Thank you. When will you come back?" + +"I can't tell. But you are not leaving?" + +"Not yet." + +The idea of leaving Beni-Mora troubled her heart strangely. + +"No, I am too happy here." + +"Are you really happy?" + +"At any rate I am happier than I have ever been before." + +"You are on the verge." + +He was looking at her with eyes in which there was tenderness, but +suddenly they flashed fire, and he exclaimed: + +"My desert land must not bring you despair." + +She was startled by his sudden vehemence. + +"What I would not hear!" she said. "You know it!" + +"It is not my fault. I am ready to tell it to you." + +"No. But do you believe it? Do you believe that man can read the +future in the sand? How can it be?" + +"How can a thousand things be? How can these desert men stand in fire, +with their naked feet set on burning brands, with burning brands under +their armpits, and not be burned? How can they pierce themselves with +skewers and cut themselves with knives and no blood flow? But I told +you the first day I met you; the desert always makes me the same gift +when I return to it." + +"What gift?" + +"The gift of belief." + +"Then you do believe in that man--Aloui?" + +"Do you?" + +"I can only say that it seemed to me as if it might be divination. If +I had not felt that I should not have stopped it. I should have +treated it as a game." + +"It impressed you as it impresses me. Well, for both of us the desert +has gifts. Let us accept them fearlessly. It is the will of Allah." + +She remembered her vision of the pale procession. Would she walk in it +at last? + +"You are as fatalistic as an Arab," she said. + +"And you?" + +"I!" she answered simply. "I believe that I am in the hands of God, +and I know that perfect love can never harm me." + +After a moment he said, gently: + +"Miss Enfilden, I want to ask something of you." + +"Yes?" + +"Will you make a sacrifice? To-morrow I start at dawn. Will you be +here to wish me God speed on my journey?" + +"Of course I will." + +"It will be good of you. I shall value it from you. And--and when--if +you ever make your long journey on that road--the route to the south-- +I will wish you Allah's blessing in the Garden of Allah." + +He spoke with solemnity, almost with passion, and she felt the tears +very near her eyes. Then they sat in silence, looking out over the +desert. + +And she heard its voices calling. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +On the following morning, before dawn, Domini awoke, stirred from +sleep by her anxiety, persistent even in what seemed unconsciousness, +to speed Count Anteoni upon his desert journey. She did not know why +he was going, but she felt that some great issue in his life hung upon +the accomplishment of the purpose with which he set out, and without +affectation she ardently desired that accomplishment. As soon as she +awoke she lit a candle and glanced at her watch. She knew by the hour +that the dawn was near, and she got up at once and made her toilet. +She had told Batouch to be at the hotel door before sunrise to +accompany her to the garden, and she wondered if he were below. A +stillness as of deep night prevailed in the house, making her +movements, while she dressed, seem unnaturally loud. When she put on +her hat, and looked into the glass to see if it were just at the right +angle, she thought her face, always white, was haggard. This departure +made her a little sad. It suggested to her the instability of +circumstance, the perpetual change that occurs in life. The going of +her kind host made her own going more possible than before, even more +likely. Some words from the Bible kept on running through her brain +"Here have we no continuing city." In the silent darkness their +cadence held an ineffable melancholy. Her mind heard them as the ear, +in a pathetic moment, hears sometimes a distant strain of music +wailing like a phantom through the invisible. And the everlasting +journeying of all created things oppressed her heart. + +When she had buttoned her jacket and drawn on her gloves she went to +the French window and pushed back the shutters. A wan semi-darkness +looked in upon her. Again she wondered whether Batouch had come. It +seemed to her unlikely. She could not imagine that anyone in all the +world was up and purposeful but herself. This hour seemed created as a +curtain for unconsciousness. Very softly she stepped out upon the +verandah and looked over the parapet. She could see the white road, +mysteriously white, below. It was deserted. She leaned down. + +"Batouch!" she called softly. "Batouch!" + +He might be hidden under the arcade, sleeping in his burnous. + +"Batouch! Batouch!" + +No answer came. She stood by the parapet, waiting and looking down the +road. + +All the stars had faded, yet there was no suggestion of the sun. She +faced an unrelenting austerity. For a moment she thought of this +atmosphere, this dense stillness, this gravity of vague and shadowy +trees, as the environment of those who had erred, of the lost spirits +of men who had died in mortal sin. + +Almost she expected to see the desperate shade of her dead father pass +between the black stems of the palm trees, vanish into the grey mantle +that wrapped the hidden world. + +"Batouch! Batouch!" + +He was not there. That was certain. She resolved to set out alone and +went back into her bedroom to get her revolver. When she came out +again with it in her hand Androvsky was standing on the verandah just +outside her window. He took off his hat and looked from her face to +the revolver. She was startled by his appearance, for she had not +heard his step, and had been companioned by a sense of irreparable +solitude. This was the first time she had seen him since he vanished +from the garden on the previous day. + +"You are going out, Madame?" he said. + +"Yes." + +"Not alone?" + +"I believe so. Unless I find Batouch below." + +She slipped the revolver into the pocket of the loose coat she wore. + +"But it is dark." + +"It will be day very soon. Look!" + +She pointed towards the east, where a light, delicate and mysterious +as the distant lights in the opal, was gently pushing in the sky. + +"You ought not to go alone." + +"Unless Batouch is there I must. I have given a promise and I must +keep it. There is no danger." + +He hesitated, looking at her with an anxious, almost a suspicious, +expression. + +"Good-bye, Monsieur Androvsky." + +She went towards the staircase. He followed her quickly to the head of +it. + +"Don't trouble to come down with me." + +"If--if Batouch is not there--might not I guard you, Madame?" She +remembered the Count's words and answered: + +"Let me tell you where I am going. I am going to say good-bye to Count +Anteoni before he starts for his desert journey." + +Androvsky stood there without a word. + +"Now, do you care to come if I don't find Batouch? Mind, I'm not the +least afraid." + +"Perhaps he is there--if you told him." He muttered the words. His +whole manner had changed. Now he looked more than suspicious--cloudy +and fierce. + +"Possibly." + +She began to descend the stairs. He did not follow her, but stood +looking after her. When she reached the arcade it was deserted. +Batouch had forgotten or had overslept himself. She could have walked +on under the roof that was the floor of the verandah, but instead she +stepped out into the road. Androvsky was above her by the parapet. She +glanced up and said: + +"He is not here, but it is of no consequence. Dawn is breaking. /Au +revoir/!" + +Slowly he took off his hat. As she went away down the road he was +holding it in his hand, looking after her. + +"He does not like the Count," she thought. + +At the corner she turned into the street where the sand-diviner had +his bazaar, and as she neared his door she was aware of a certain +trepidation. She did not want to see those piercing eyes looking at +her in the semi-darkness, and she hurried her steps. But her anxiety +was needless. All the doors were shut, all the inhabitants doubtless +wrapped in sleep. Yet, when she had gained the end of the street, she +looked back, half expecting to see an apparition of a thin figure, a +tortured face, to hear a voice, like a goblin's voice, calling after +her. Midway down the street there was a man coming slowly behind her. +For a moment she thought it was the Diviner in pursuit, but something +in the gait soon showed her her mistake. There was a heaviness in the +movement of this man quite unlike the lithe and serpentine agility of +Aloui. Although she could not see the face, or even distinguish the +costume in the morning twilight, she knew it for Androvsky. From a +distance he was watching over her. She did not hesitate, but walked on +quickly again. She did not wish him to know that she had seen him. +When she came to the long road that skirted the desert she met the +breeze of dawn that blows out of the east across the flats, and drank +in its celestial purity. Between the palms, far away towards Sidi- +Zerzour, above the long indigo line of the Sahara, there rose a curve +of deep red gold. The sun was coming up to take possession of his +waiting world. She longed to ride out to meet him, to give him a +passionate welcome in the sand, and the opening words of the Egyptian +"Adoration of the Sun by the Perfect Souls" came to her lips: + +"Hommage a Toi. Dieu Soleil. Seigneur du Ciel, Roi sur la Terre! Lion +du Soir! Grande Ame divine, vivante a toujours." + +Why had she not ordered her horse to ride a little way with Count +Anteoni? She might have pretended that she was starting on her great +journey. + +The red gold curve became a semi-circle of burnished glory resting +upon the deep blue, then a full circle that detached itself +majestically and mounted calmly up the cloudless sky. A stream of +light poured into the oasis, and Domini, who had paused for a moment +in silent worship, went on swiftly through the negro village which was +all astir, and down the track to the white villa. + +She did not glance round again to see whether Androvsky was still +following her, for, since the sun had come, she had the confident +sensation that he was no longer near. + +He had surely given her into the guardianship of the sun. + +The door of the garden stood wide open, and, as she entered, she saw +three magnificent horses prancing upon the sweep of sand in the midst +of a little group of Arabs. Smain greeted her with graceful warmth and +begged her to follow him to the /fumoir/, where the Count was waiting +for her. + +"It is good of you!" the Count said, meeting her in the doorway. "I +relied on you, you see!" + +Breakfast for two was scattered upon the little smoking-tables; +coffee, eggs, rolls, fruit, sweetmeats. And everywhere sprigs of +orange blossom filled the cool air with delicate sweetness. + +"How delicious!" she exclaimed. "A breakfast here! But--no, not +there!" + +"Why not?" + +"That is exactly where he was." + +"Aloui! How superstitious you are!" + +He moved her table. She sat down near the doorway and poured out +coffee for them both. + +"You look workmanlike." + +She glanced at his riding-dress and long whip. Smoked glasses hung +across his chest by a thin cord. + +"I shall have some hard riding, but I'm tough, though you may not +think it. I've covered many a league of my friend in bygone years." + +He tapped an eggshell smartly, and began to eat with appetite. + +"How gravely gay you are!" she said, lifting the steaming coffee to +her lips. He smiled. + +"Yes. To-day I am happy, as a pious man is happy when after a long +illness, he goes once more to church." + +"The desert seems to be everything to you." + +"I feel that I am going out to freedom, to more than freedom." He +stretched out his arms above his head. + +"Yet you have stayed always in this garden all these days." + +"I was waiting for my summons, as you will wait for yours." + +"What summons could I have?" + +"It will come!" he said with conviction. "It will come!" She was +silent, thinking of the diviner's vision in the sand, of the caravan +of camels disappearing in the storm towards the south. Presently she +asked him: + +"Are you ever coming back?" + +He looked at her in surprise, then laughed. + +"Of course. What are you thinking?" + +"That perhaps you will not come back, that perhaps the desert will +keep you." + +"And my garden?" + +She looked out across the tiny sand-path and the running rill of water +to the great trees stirred by the cool breeze of dawn. + +"It would miss you." + +After a moment, during which his bright eyes followed hers, he said: + +"Do you know, I have a great belief in the intuitions of good women?" + +"Yes?" + +"An almost fanatical belief. Will you answer me a question at once, +without consideration, without any time for thought?" + +"If you ask me to." + +"I do ask you." + +"Then----?" + +"Do you see me in this garden any more?" + +A voice answered: + +"No." + +It was her own, yet it seemed another's voice, with which she had +nothing to do. + +A great feeling of sorrow swept over her as she heard it. + +"Do come back!" she said. + +The Count had got up. The brightness of his eyes was obscured. + +"If not here, we shall meet again," he said slowly. + +"Where?" + +"In the desert." + +"Did the Diviner--? No, don't tell me." + +She got up too. + +"It is time for you to start?" + +"Nearly." + +A sort of constraint had settled over them. She felt it painfully for +a moment. Did it proceed from something in his mind or in hers? She +could not tell. They walked slowly down one of the little paths and +presently found themselves before the room in which sat the purple +dog. + +"If I am never to come back I must say good-bye to him," the Count +said. + +"But you will come back." + +"That voice said 'No.'" + +"It was a lying voice." + +"Perhaps." + +They looked in at the window and met the ferocious eyes of the dog. + +"And if I never come back will he bay the moon for his old master?" +said the Count with a whimsical, yet sad, smile. "I put him here. And +will these trees, many of which I planted, whisper a regret? Absurd, +isn't it, Miss Enfilden? I never can feel that the growing things in +my garden do not know me as I know them." + +"Someone will regret you if--" + +"Will you? Will you really?" + +"Yes." + +"I believe it." + +He looked at her. She could see, by the expression of his eyes, that +he was on the point of saying something, but was held back by some +fighting sensation, perhaps by some reserve. + +"What is it?" + +"May I speak frankly to you without offence?" he asked. "I am really +rather old, you know." + +"Do speak." + +"That guest of mine yesterday--" + +"Monsieur Androvsky?" + +"Yes. He interested me enormously, profoundly." + +"Really! Yet he was at his worst yesterday." + +"Perhaps that was why. At any rate, he interested me more than any man +I have seen for years. But--" He paused, looking in at the little +chamber where the dog kept guard. + +"But my interest was complicated by a feeling that I was face to face +with a human being who was at odds with life, with himself, even with +his Creator--a man who had done what the Arabs never do--defied Allah +in Allah's garden." + +"Oh!" + +She uttered a little exclamation of pain. It seemed to her that he was +gathering up and was expressing scattered, half formless thoughts of +hers. + +"You know," he continued, looking more steadily into the room of the +dog, "that in Algeria there is a floating population composed of many +mixed elements. I could tell you strange stories of tragedies that +have occurred in this land, even here in Beni-Mora, tragedies of +violence, of greed, of--tragedies that were not brought about by +Arabs." + +He turned suddenly and looked right into her eyes. + +"But why am I saying all this?" he suddenly exclaimed. "What is +written is written, and such women as you are guarded." + +"Guarded? By whom?" + +"By their own souls." + +"I am not afraid," she said quietly. + +"Need you tell me that? Miss Enfilden, I scarcely know why I have said +even as little as I have said. For I am, as you know, a fatalist. But +certain people, very few, so awaken our regard that they make us +forget our own convictions, and might even lead us to try to tamper +with the designs of the Almighty. Whatever is to be for you, you will +be able to endure. That I know. Why should I, or anyone, seek to know +more for you? But still there are moments in which the bravest want a +human hand to help them, a human voice to comfort them. In the desert, +wherever I may be--and I shall tell you--I am at your service." + +"Thank you," she said simply. + +She gave him her hand. He held it almost as a father or a guardian +might have held it. + +"And this garden is yours day and night--Smain knows." + +"Thank you," she said again. + +The shrill whinnying of a horse came to them from a distance. Their +hands fell apart. Count Anteoni looked round him slowly at the great +cocoanut tree, at the shaggy grass of the lawn, at the tall bamboos +and the drooping mulberry trees. She saw that he was taking a silent +farewell of them. + +"This was a waste," he said at last with a half-stifled sigh. "I +turned it into a little Eden and now I am leaving it." + +"For a time." + +"And if it were for ever? Well, the great thing is to let the waste +within one be turned into an Eden, if that is possible. And yet how +many human beings strive against the great Gardener. At any rate I +will not be one of them." + +"And I will not be one." + +"Shall we say good-bye here?" + +"No. Let us say it from the wall, and let me see you ride away into +the desert." + +She had forgotten for the moment that his route was the road through +the oasis. He did not remind her of it. It was easy to ride across the +desert and join the route where it came out from the last palms. + +"So be it. Will you go to the wall then?" + +He touched her hand again and walked away towards the villa, slowly on +the pale silver of the sand. When his figure was hidden by the trunks +of the trees Domini made her way to the wide parapet. She sat down on +one of the tiny seats cut in it, leaned her cheek in her hand and +waited. The sun was gathering strength, but the air was still +deliciously cool, almost cold, and the desert had not yet put on its +aspect of fiery desolation. It looked dreamlike and romantic, not only +in its distances, but near at hand. There must surely be dew, she +fancied, in the Garden of Allah. She could see no one travelling in +it, only some far away camels grazing. In the dawn the desert was the +home of the breeze, of gentle sunbeams and of liberty. Presently she +heard the noise of horses cantering near at hand, and Count Anteoni, +followed by two Arab attendants, came round the bend of the wall and +drew up beneath her. He rode on a high red Arab saddle, and a richly- +ornamented gun was slung in an embroidered case behind him on the +right-hand side. A broad and soft brown hat kept the sun from his +forehead. The two attendants rode on a few paces and waited in the +shadow of the wall. + +"Don't you wish you were going out?" he said. "Out into that?" And he +pointed with his whip towards the dreamlike blue of the far horizon. +She leaned over, looking down at him and at his horse, which fidgeted +and arched his white neck and dropped foam from his black flexible +lips. + +"No," she answered after a moment of thought. "I must speak the truth, +you know." + +"To me, always." + +"I feel that you were right, that my summons has not yet come to me." + +"And when it comes?" + +"I shall obey it without fear, even if I go in the storm and the +darkness." + +He glanced at the radiant sky, at the golden beams slanting down upon +the palms. + +"The Coran says: 'The fate of every man have We bound about his neck.' +May yours be as serene, as beautiful, as a string of pearls." + +"But I have never cared to wear pearls," she answered. + +"No? What are your stones?" + +"Rubies." + +"Blood! No others?" + +"Sapphires." + +"The sky at night." + +"And opals." + +"Fires gleaming across the white of moonlit dunes. Do you remember?" + +"I remember." + +"And you do not ask me for the end of the Diviner's vision even now?" + +"No." + +She hesitated for an instant. Then she added: + +"I will tell you why. It seemed to me that there was another's fate in +it as well as my own, and that to hear would be to intrude, perhaps, +upon another's secrets." + +"That was your reason?" + +"My only reason." And then she added, repeating consciously +Androvsky's words: "I think there are things that should be let +alone." + +"Perhaps you are right." + +A stronger breath of the cool wind came over the flats, and all the +palm trees rustled. Through the garden there was a delicate stir of +life. + +"My children are murmuring farewell," said the Count. "I hear them. It +is time! Good-bye, Miss Enfilden--my friend, if I may call you so. May +Allah have you in his keeping, and when your summons comes, obey it-- +alone." + +As he said the last word his grating voice dropped to a deep note of +earnest, almost solemn, gravity. Then he lifted his hat, touched his +horse with his heel, and galloped away into the sun. + +Domini watched the three riders till they were only specks on the +surface of the desert. Then they became one with it, and were lost in +the dreamlike radiance of the morning. But she did not move. She sat +with her eyes fixed up on the blue horizon. A great loneliness had +entered into her spirit. Till Count Anteoni had gone she did not +realise how much she had become accustomed to his friendship, how near +their sympathies had been. But directly those tiny, moving specks +became one with the desert she knew that a gap had opened in her life. +It might be small, but it seemed dark and deep. For the first time the +desert, which she had hitherto regarded as a giver, had taken +something from her. And now, as she sat looking at it, while the sun +grew stronger and the light more brilliant, while the mountains +gradually assumed a harsher aspect, and the details of things, in the +dawn so delicately clear, became, as it were, more piercing in their +sharpness, she realised a new and terrible aspect of it. That which +has the power to bestow has another power. She had seen the great +procession of those who had received gifts of the desert's hands. +Would she some day, or in the night when the sky was like a sapphire, +see the procession of those from whom the desert had taken away +perhaps their dreams, perhaps their hopes, perhaps even all that they +passionately loved and had desperately clung to? + +And in which of the two processions would she walk? + +She got up with a sigh. The garden had become tragic to her for the +moment, full of a brooding melancholy. As she turned to leave it she +resolved to go to the priest. She had never yet entered his house. +Just then she wanted to speak to someone with whom she could be as a +little child, to whom she could liberate some part of her spirit +simply, certain of a simple, yet not foolish, reception of it by one +to whom she could look up. She desired to be not with the friend so +much as with the spiritual director. Something was alive within her, +something of distress, almost of apprehension, which needed the +soothing hand, not of human love, but of religion. + +When she reached the priest's house Beni-Mora was astir with a +pleasant bustle of life. The military note pealed through its +symphony. Spahis were galloping along the white roads. Tirailleurs +went by bearing despatches. Zouaves stood under the palms, staring +calmly at the morning, their sunburned hands loosely clasped upon +muskets whose butts rested in the sand. But Domini scarcely noticed +the brilliant gaiety of the life about her. She was preoccupied, even +sad. Yet, as she entered the little garden of the priest, and tapped +gently at his door, a sensation of hope sprang up in her heart, born +of the sustaining power of her religion. + +An Arab boy answered her knock, said that the Father was in and led +her at once to a small, plainly-furnished room, with whitewashed +walls, and a window opening on to an enclosure at the back, where +several large palm trees reared their tufted heads above the smoothly- +raked sand. In a moment the priest came in, smiling with pleasure and +holding out his hands in welcome. + +"Father," she said at once, "I am come to have a little talk with you. +Have you a few moments to give me?" + +"Sit down, my child," he said. + +He drew forward a straw chair for her and took one opposite. + +"You are not in trouble?" + +"I don't know why I should be, but----" + +She was silent for a moment. Then she said: + +"I want to tell you a little about my life." + +He looked at her kindly without a word. + +His eyes were an invitation for her to speak, and, without further +invitation, in as few and simple words as possible, she told him why +she had come to Beni-Mora, and something of her parents' tragedy and +its effect upon her. + +"I wanted to renew my heart, to find myself," she said. "My life has +been cold, careless. I never lost my faith, but I almost forgot that I +had it. I made little use of it. I let it rust." + +"Many do that, but a time comes when they feel that the great weapon +with which alone we can fight the sorrows and dangers of the world +must be kept bright, or it may fail us in the hour of need." + +"Yes." + +"And this is an hour of need for you. But, indeed, is there ever an +hour that is not?" + +"I feel to-day, I----" + +She stopped, suddenly conscious of the vagueness of her apprehension. +It made her position difficult, speech hard for her. She felt that she +wanted something, yet scarcely knew what, or exactly why she had come. + +"I have been saying good-bye to Count Anteoni," she resumed. "He has +gone on a desert journey." + +"For long?" + +"I don't know, but I feel that it will be." + +"He comes and goes very suddenly. Often he is here and I do not even +know it." + +"He is a strange man, but I think he is a good man." + +As she spoke about him she began to realise that something in him had +roused the desire in her to come to the priest. + +"And he sees far," she added. + +She looked steadily at the priest, who was waiting quietly to hear +more. She was glad he did not trouble her mind just then by trying to +help her to go on, to be explicit. + +"I came here to find peace," she continued. "And I thought I had found +it. I thought so till to-day." + +"We only find peace in one place, and only there by our own will +according with God's." + +"You mean within ourselves." + +"Is it not so?" + +"Yes. Then I was foolish to travel in search of it." + +"I would not say that. Place assists the heart, I think, and the way +of life. I thought so once." + +"When you wished to be a monk?" + +A deep sadness came into his eyes. + +"Yes," he said. "And even now I find it very difficult to say, 'It was +not thy will, and so it is not mine.' But would you care to tell me if +anything has occurred recently to trouble you?" + +"Something has occurred, Father." + +More excitement came into her face and manner. + +"Do you think," she went on, "that it is right to try to avoid what +life seems to be bringing to one, to seek shelter from--from the +storm? Don't monks do that? Please forgive me if--" + +"Sincerity will not hurt me," he interrupted quietly. "If it did I +should indeed be unworthy of my calling. Perhaps it is not right for +all. Perhaps that is why I am here instead of--" + +"Ah, but I remember, you wanted to be one of the /freres armes/." + +"That was my first hope. But you"--very simply he turned from his +troubles to hers--"you are hesitating, are you not, between two +courses?" + +"I scarcely know. But I want you to tell me. Ought we not always to +think of others more than of ourselves?" + +"So long as we take care not to put ourselves in too great danger. The +soul should be brave, but not foolhardy." + +His voice had changed, had become stronger, even a little stern. + +"There are risks that no good Christian ought to run: it is not +cowardice, it is wisdom that avoids the Evil One. I have known people +who seemed almost to think it was their mission to convert the fallen +angels. They confused their powers with the powers that belong to God +only." + +"Yes, but--it is so difficult to--if a human being were possessed by +the devil, would not you try--would you not go near to that person?" + +"If I had prayed, and been told that any power was given me to do what +Christ did." + +"To cast out--yes, I know. But sometimes that power is given--even to +women." + +"Perhaps especially to them. I think the devil has more fear of a good +mother than of many saints." + +Domini realised almost with agony in that moment how her own soul had +been stripped of a precious armour. A feeling of bitter helplessness +took possession of her, and of contempt for what she now suddenly +looked upon as foolish pride. The priest saw that his words had hurt +her, yet he did not just then try to pour balm upon the wound. + +"You came to me to-day as to a spiritual director, did you not?" he +asked. + +"Yes, Father." + +"Yet you do not wish to be frank with me. Isn't that true?" + +There was a piercing look in the eyes he fixed upon her. + +"Yes," she answered bravely. + +"Why? Cannot you--at least will not you tell me?" + +A similar reason to that which had caused her to refuse to hear what +the Diviner had seen in the sand caused her now to answer: + +"There is something I cannot say. I am sure I am right not to say it." + +"Do you wish me to speak frankly to you, my child?" + +"Yes, you may." + +"You have told me enough of your past life to make me feel sure that +for some time to come you ought to be very careful in regard to your +faith. By the mercy of God you have been preserved from the greatest +of all dangers--the danger of losing your belief in the teachings of +the only true Church. You have come here to renew your faith which, +not killed, has been stricken, reduced, may I not say? to a sort of +invalidism. Are you sure you are in a condition yet to help"--he +hesitated obviously, then slowly--"others? There are periods in which +one cannot do what one may be able to do in the far future. The +convalescent who is just tottering in the new attempt to walk is not +wise enough to lend an arm to another. To do so may seem nobly +unselfish, but is it not folly? And then, my child, we ought to be +scrupulously aware what is our real motive for wishing to assist +another. Is it of God, or is it of ourselves? Is it a personal desire +to increase a perhaps unworthy, a worldly happiness? Egoism is a +parent of many children, and often they do not recognise their +father." + +Just for a moment Domini felt a heat of anger rise within her. She did +not express it, and did not know that she had shown a sign of it till +she heard Father Roubier say: + +"If you knew how often I have found that what for a moment I believed +to be my noblest aspirations had sprung from a tiny, hidden seed of +egoism!" + +At once her anger died away. + +"That is terribly true," she said. "Of us all, I mean." + +She got up. + +"You are going?" + +"Yes. I want to think something out. You have made me want to. I must +do it. Perhaps I'll come again." + +"Do. I want to help you if I can." + +There was such a heartfelt sound in his voice that impulsively she +held out her hand. + +"I know you do. Perhaps you will be able to." + +But even as she said the last words doubt crept into her mind, even +into her voice. + +The priest came to his gate to see Domini off, and directly she had +left him she noticed that Androvsky was under the arcade and had been +a witness of their parting. As she went past him and into the hotel +she saw that he looked greatly disturbed and excited. His face was lit +up by the now fiery glare of the sun, and when, in passing, she nodded +to him, and he took off his hat, he cast at her a glance that was like +an accusation. As soon as she gained the verandah she heard his heavy +step upon the stair. For a moment she hesitated. Should she go into +her room and so avoid him, or remain and let him speak to her? She +knew that he was following her with that purpose. Her mind was almost +instantly made up. She crossed the verandah and sat down in the low +chair that was always placed outside her French window. Androvsky +followed her and stood beside her. He did not say anything for a +moment, nor did she. Then he spoke with a sort of passionate attempt +to sound careless and indifferent. + +"Monsieur Anteoni has gone, I suppose, Madame?" + +"Yes, he has gone. I reached the garden safely, you see." + +"Batouch came later. He was much ashamed when he found you had gone. I +believe he is afraid, and is hiding himself till your anger shall have +passed away." + +She laughed. + +"Batouch could not easily make me angry. I am not like you, Monsieur +Androvsky." + +Her sudden challenge startled him, as she had meant it should. He +moved quickly, as at an unexpected touch. + +"I, Madame?" + +"Yes; I think you are very often angry. I think you are angry now." + +His face was flooded with red. + +"Why should I be angry?" he stammered, like a man completely taken +aback. + +"How can I tell? But, as I came in just now, you looked at me as if +you wanted to punish me." + +"I--I am afraid--it seems that my face says a great deal that--that--" + +"Your lips would not choose to say. Well, it does. Why are you angry +with me?" She gazed at him mercilessly, studying the trouble of his +face. The combative part of her nature had been roused by the glance +he had cast at her. What right had he, had any man, to look at her +like that? + +Her blunt directness lashed him back into the firmness he had lost. +She felt in a moment that there was a fighting capacity in him equal, +perhaps superior, to her own. + +"When I saw you come from the priest's house, Madame, I felt as if you +had been there speaking about me--about my conduct of yesterday." + +"Indeed! Why should I do that?" + +"I thought as you had kindly wished me to come--" + +He stopped. + +"Well?" she said, in rather a hard voice. + +"Madame, I don't know what I thought, what I think--only I cannot bear +that you should apologise for any conduct of mine. Indeed, I cannot +bear it." + +He looked fearfully excited and moved two or three steps away, then +returned. + +"Were you doing that?" he asked. "Were you, Madame?" + +"I never mentioned your name to Father Roubier, nor did he to me," she +answered. + +For a moment he looked relieved, then a sudden suspicion seemed to +strike him. + +"But without mentioning my name?" he said. + +"You wish to accuse me of quibbling, of insincerity, then!" she +exclaimed with a heat almost equal to his own. + +"No, Madame, no! Madame, I--I have suffered much. I am suspicious of +everybody. Forgive me, forgive me!" + +He spoke almost with distraction. In his manner there was something +desperate. + +"I am sure you have suffered," she said more gently, yet with a +certain inflexibility at which she herself wondered, yet which she +could not control. "You will always suffer if you cannot govern +yourself. You will make people dislike you, be suspicious of you." + +"Suspicious! Who is suspicious of me?" he asked sharply. "Who has any +right to be suspicious of me?" + +She looked up and fancied that, for an instant, she saw something as +ugly as terror in his eyes. + +"Surely you know that people don't ask permission to be suspicious of +their fellow-men?" she said. + +"No one here has any right to consider me or my actions," he said, +fierceness blazing out of him. "I am a free man, and can do as I will. +No one has any right--no one!" + +Domini felt as if the words were meant for her, as if he had struck +her. She was so angry that she did not trust herself to speak, and +instinctively she put her hand up to her breast, as a woman might who +had received a blow. She touched something small and hard that was +hidden beneath her gown. It was the little wooden crucifix Androvsky +had thrown into the stream at Sidi-Zerzour. As she realised that her +anger died. She was humbled and ashamed. What was her religion if, at +a word, she could be stirred to such a feeling of passion? + +"I, at least, am not suspicious of you," she said, choosing the very +words that were most difficult for her to say just then. "And Father +Roubier--if you included him--is too fine-hearted to cherish unworthy +suspicions of anyone." + +She got up. Her voice was full of a subdued, but strong, emotion. + +"Oh, Monsieur Androvsky!" she said. "Do go over and see him. Make +friends with him. Never mind yesterday. I want you to be friends with +him, with everyone here. Let us make Beni-Mora a place of peace and +good will." + +Then she went across the verandah quickly to her room, and passed in, +closing the window behind her. + +/Dejeuner/ was brought into her sitting-room. She ate it in solitude, +and late in the afternoon she went out on the verandah. She had made +up her mind to spend an hour in the church. She had told Father +Roubier that she wanted to think something out. Since she had left him +the burden upon her mind had become heavier, and she longed to be +alone in the twilight near the altar. Perhaps she might be able to +cast down the burden there. In the verandah she stood for a moment and +thought how wonderful was the difference between dawn and sunset in +this land. The gardens, that had looked like a place of departed and +unhappy spirits when she rose that day, were now bathed in the +luminous rays of the declining sun, were alive with the softly-calling +voices of children, quivered with romance, with a dreamlike, golden +charm. The stillness of the evening was intense, enclosing the +children's voices, which presently died away; but while she was +marvelling at it she was disturbed by a sharp noise of knocking. She +looked in the direction from which it came and saw Androvsky standing +before the priest's door. As she looked, the door was opened by the +Arab boy and Androvsky went in. + +Then she did not think of the gardens any more. With a radiant +expression in her eyes she went down and crossed over to the church. +It was empty. She went softly to a /prie-dieu/ near the altar, knelt +down and covered her eyes with her hands. + +At first she did not pray, or even think consciously, but just rested +in the attitude which always seems to bring humanity nearest its God. +And, almost immediately, she began to feel a quietude of spirit, as if +something delicate descended upon her, and lay lightly about her, +shrouding her from the troubles of the world. How sweet it was to have +the faith that brings with it such tender protection, to have the +trust that keeps alive through the swift passage of the years the +spirit of the little child. How sweet it was to be able to rest. There +was at this moment a sensation of deep joy within her. It grew in the +silence of the church, and, as it grew, brought with it presently a +growing consciousness of the lives beyond those walls, of other +spirits capable of suffering, of conflict, and of peace, not far away; +till she knew that this present blessing of happiness came to her, not +only from the scarce-realised thought of God, but also from the +scarce-realised thought of man. + +Close by, divided from her only by a little masonry, a few feet of +sand, a few palm trees, Androvsky was with the priest. + +Still kneeling, with her face between her hands, Domini began to think +and pray. The memory of her petition to Notre Dame de la Garde came +back to her. Before she knew Africa she had prayed for men wandering, +and perhaps unhappy, there, for men whom she would probably never see +again, would never know. And now that she was growing familiar with +this land, divined something of its wonders and its dangers, she +prayed for a man in it whom she did not know, who was very near to her +making a sacrifice of his prejudices, perhaps of his fears, at her +desire. She prayed for Androvsky without words, making of her feelings +of gratitude to him a prayer, and presently, in the darkness framed by +her hands, she seemed to see Liberty once more, as in the shadows of +the dancing-house, standing beside a man who prayed far out in the +glory of the desert. The storm, spoken of by the Diviner, did not +always rage. It was stilled to hear his prayer. And the darkness had +fled, and the light drew near to listen. She pressed her face more +strongly against her hands, and began to think more definitely. + +Was this interview with the priest the first step taken by Androvsky +towards the gift the desert held for him? + +He must surely be a man who hated religion, or thought he hated it. + +Perhaps he looked upon it as a chain, instead of as the hammer that +strikes away the fetters from the slave. + +Yet he had worn a crucifix. + +She lifted her head, put her hand into her breast, and drew out the +crucifix. What was its history? She wondered as she looked at it. Had +someone who loved him given it to him, someone, perhaps, who grieved +at his hatred of holiness, and who fancied that this very humble +symbol might one day, as the humble symbols sometimes do, prove itself +a little guide towards shining truth? Had a woman given it to him? + +She laid the cross down on the edge of the /prie-dieu/. + +There was red fire gleaming now on the windows of the church. She +realised the pageant that was marching up the west, the passion of the +world as well as the purity which lay beyond the world. Her mind was +disturbed. She glanced from the red radiance on the glass to the dull +brown wood of the cross. Blood and agony had made it the mystical +symbol that it was--blood and agony. + +She had something to think out. That burden was still upon her mind, +and now again she felt its weight, a weight that her interview with +the priest had not lifted. For she had not been able to be quite frank +with the priest. Something had held her back from absolute sincerity, +and so he had not spoken quite plainly all that was in his mind. His +words had been a little vague, yet she had understood the meaning that +lay behind them. + +Really, he had warned her against Androvsky. There were two men of +very different types. One was unworldly as a child. The other knew the +world. Neither of them had any acquaintance with Androvsky's history, +and both had warned her. It was instinct then that had spoken in them, +telling them that he was a man to be shunned, perhaps feared. And her +own instinct? What had it said? What did it say? + +For a long time she remained in the church. But she could not think +clearly, reason calmly, or even pray passionately. For a vagueness had +come into her mind like the vagueness of twilight that filled the +space beneath the starry roof, softening the crudeness of the +ornaments, the garish colours of the plaster saints. It seemed to her +that her thoughts and feelings lost their outlines, that she watched +them fading like the shrouded forms of Arabs fading in the tunnels of +Mimosa. But as they vanished surely they whispered, "That which is +written is written." + +The mosques of Islam echoed these words, and surely this little church +that bravely stood among them. + +"That which is written is written." + +Domini rose from her knees, hid the wooden cross once more in her +breast, and went out into the evening. + +As she left the church door something occurred which struck the +vagueness from her. She came upon Androvsky and the priest. They were +standing together at the latter's gate, which he was in the act of +opening to an accompaniment of joyous barking from Bous-Bous. Both men +looked strongly expressive, as if both had been making an effort of +some kind. She stopped in the twilight to speak to them. + +"Monsieur Androvsky has kindly been paying me a visit," said Father +Roubier. + +"I am glad," Domini said. "We ought all to be friends here." + +There was a perceptible pause. Then Androvsky lifted his hat. + +"Good-evening, Madame," he said. "Good-evening, Father." And he walked +away quickly. + +The priest looked after him and sighed profoundly. + +"Oh, Madame!" he exclaimed, as if impelled to liberate his mind to +someone, "what is the matter with that man? What is the matter?" + +He stared fixedly into the twilight after Androvsky's retreating form. + +"With Monsieur Androvsky?" + +She spoke quietly, but her mind was full of apprehension, and she +looked searchingly at the priest. + +"Yes. What can it be?" + +"But--I don't understand." + +"Why did he come to see me?" + +"I asked him to come." + +She blurted out the words without knowing why, only feeling that she +must speak the truth. + +"You asked him!" + +"Yes. I wanted you to be friends--and I thought perhaps you might----" + +"Yes?" + +"I wanted you to be friends." She repeated it almost stubbornly. + +"I have never before felt so ill at ease with any human being," +exclaimed the priest with tense excitement. "And yet I could not let +him go. Whenever he was about to leave me I was impelled to press him +to remain. We spoke of the most ordinary things, and all the time it +was as if we were in a great tragedy. What is he? What can he be?" (He +still looked down the road.) + +"I don't know. I know nothing. He is a man travelling, as other men +travel." + +"Oh, no!" + +"What do you mean, Father?" + +"I mean that other travellers are not like this man." + +He leaned his thin hands heavily on the gate, and she saw, by the +expression of his eyes, that he was going to say something startling. + +"Madame," he said, lowering his voice, "I did not speak quite frankly +to you this afternoon. You may, or you may not, have understood what I +meant. But now I will speak plainly. As a priest I warn you, I warn +you most solemnly, not to make friends with this man." + +There was a silence, then Domini said: + +"Please give me your reason for this warning." + +"That I can't do." + +"Because you have no reason, or because it is not one you care to tell +me?" + +"I have no reason to give. My reason is my instinct. I know nothing of +this man--I pity him. I shall pray for him. He needs prayers, yes, he +needs them. But you are a woman out here alone. You have spoken to me +of yourself, and I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most +earnestly to break off your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky." + +"Do you mean that you think him evil?" + +"I don't know whether he is evil, I don't know what he is." + +"I know he is not evil." + +The priest looked at her, wondering. + +"You know--how?" + +"My instinct," she said, coming a step nearer, and putting her hand, +too, on the gate near his. "Why should we desert him?" + +"Desert him, Madame!" + +Father Roubier's voice sounded amazed. + +"Yes. You say he needs prayers. I know it. Father, are not the first +prayers, the truest, those that go most swiftly to Heaven--acts?" + +The priest did not reply for a moment. He looked at her and seemed to +be thinking deeply. + +"Why did you send Monsieur Androvsky to me this afternoon?" he said at +last abruptly. + +"I knew you were a good man, and I fancied if you became friends you +might help him." + +His face softened. + +"A good man," he said. "Ah!" He shook his head sadly, with a sound +that was like a little pathetic laugh. "I--a good man! And I allow an +almost invincible personal feeling to conquer my inward sense of +right! Madame, come into the garden for a moment." + +He opened the gate, she passed in, and he led her round the house to +the enclosure at the back, where they could talk in greater privacy. +Then he continued: + +"You are right, Madame. I am here to try to do God's work, and +sometimes it is better to act for a human being, perhaps, even than to +pray for him. I will tell you that I feel an almost invincible +repugnance to Monsieur Androvsky, a repugnance that is almost stronger +than my will to hold it in check." He shivered slightly. "But, with +God's help, I'll conquer that. If he stays on here I'll try to be his +friend. I'll do all I can. If he is unhappy, far away from good, +perhaps--I say it humbly, Madame, I assure you--I might help him. But" +--and here his face and manner changed, became firmer, more dominating +--"you are not a priest, and--" + +"No, only a woman," she said, interrupting him. + +Something in her voice arrested him. There was a long silence in which +they paced slowly up and down on the sand between the palm trees. The +twilight was dying into night. Already the tomtoms were throbbing in +the street of the dancers, and the shriek of the distant pipes was +faintly heard. At last the priest spoke again. + +"Madame," he said, "when you came to me this afternoon there was +something that you could not tell me." + +"Yes." + +"Had it anything to do with Monsieur Androvsky?" + +"I meant to ask you to advise me about myself." + +"My advice to you was and is--be strong but not too foolhardy." + +"Believe me I will try not to be foolhardy. But you said something +else too, something about women. Don't you remember?" + +She stopped, took his hands impulsively and pressed them. + +"Father, I've scarcely ever been of any use all my life. I've scarcely +ever tried to be. Nothing within me said, 'You could be,' and if it +had I was so dulled by routine and sorrow that I don't think I should +have heard it. But here it is different. I am not dulled. I can hear. +And--suppose I can be of use for the first time! You wouldn't say to +me, 'Don't try!' You couldn't say that?" + +He stood holding her hands and looking into her face for a moment. +Then he said, half-humorously, half-sadly: + +"My child, perhaps you know your own strength best. Perhaps your +safest spiritual director is your own heart. Who knows? But whether it +be so or not you will not take advice from me." + +She knew that was true now and, for a moment, felt almost ashamed. + +"Forgive me," she said. "But--it is strange, and may seem to you +ridiculous or even wrong--ever since I have been here I have felt as +if everything that happened had been arranged beforehand, as if it had +to happen. And I feel that, too, about the future." + +"Count Anteoni's fatalism!" the priest said with a touch of impatient +irritation. "I know. It is the guiding spirit of this land. And you +too are going to be led by it. Take care! You have come to a land of +fire, and I think you are made of fire." + +For a moment she saw a fanatical expression in his eyes. She thought +of it as the look of the monk crushed down within his soul. He opened +his lips again, as if to pour forth upon her a torrent of burning +words. But the look died away, and they parted quietly like two good +friends. Yet, as she went to the hotel, she knew that Father Roubier +could not give her the kind of help she wanted, and she even fancied +that perhaps no priest could. Her heart was in a turmoil, and she +seemed to be in the midst of a crowd. + +Batouch was at the door, looking elaborately contrite and ready with +his lie. He had been seized with fever in the night, in token whereof +he held up hands which began to shake like wind-swept leaves. Only now +had he been able to drag himself from his quilt and, still afflicted +as he was, to creep to his honoured patron and crave her pardon. +Domini gave it with an abstracted carelessness that evidently hurt his +pride, and was passing into the hotel when he said: + +"Irena is going to marry Hadj, Madame." + +Since the fracas at the dancing-house both the dancer and her victim +had been under lock and key. + +"To marry her after she tried to kill him!" said Domini. + +"Yes, Madame. He loves her as the palm tree loves the sun. He will +take her to his room, and she will wear a veil, and work for him and +never go out any more." + +"What! She will live like the Arab women?" + +"Of course, Madame. But there is a very nice terrace on the roof +outside Hadj's room, and Hadj will permit her to take the air there, +in the evening or when it is hot." + +"She must love Hadj very much." + +"She does, or why should she try to kill him?" + +So that was an African love--a knife-thrust and a taking of the veil! +The thought of it added a further complication to the disorder that +was in her mind. + +"I will see you after dinner, Batouch," she said. + +She felt that she must do something, go somewhere that night. She +could not remain quiet. + +Batouch drew himself up and threw out his broad chest. His air gave +place to importance, and, as he leaned against the white pillar of the +arcade, folded his ample burnous round him, and glanced up at the sky +he saw, in fancy, a five-franc piece glittering in the chariot of the +moon. + +The priest did not come to dinner that night, but Androvsky was +already at his table when Domini came into the /salle-a-manger/. He +got up from his seat and bowed formally, but did not speak. +Remembering his outburst of the morning she realised the suspicion +which her second interview with the priest had probably created in his +mind, and now she was not free from a feeling of discomfort that +almost resembled guilt. For now she had been led to discuss Androvsky +with Father Roubier, and had it not been almost an apology when she +said, "I know he is not evil"? Once or twice during dinner, when her +eyes met Androvsky's for a moment, she imagined that he must know why +she had been at the priest's house, that anger was steadily increasing +in him. + +He was a man who hated to be observed, to be criticised. His +sensitiveness was altogether abnormal, and made her wonder afresh +where his previous life had been passed. It must surely have been a +very sheltered existence. Contact with the world blunts the fine edge +of our feeling with regard to others' opinion of us. In the world men +learn to be heedless of the everlasting buzz of comment that attends +their goings out and their comings in. But Androvsky was like a youth, +alive to the tiniest whisper, set on fire by a glance. To such a +nature life in the world must be perpetual torture. She thought of him +with a sorrow that--strangely in her--was not tinged with contempt. +That which manifested by another man would certainly have moved her to +impatience, if not to wrath, in this man woke other sensations-- +curiosity, pity, terror. + +Yes--terror. To-night she knew that. The long day, begun in the +semidarkness before the dawn and ending in the semidarkness of the +twilight, had, with its events that would have seemed to another +ordinary and trivial enough, carried her forward a stage on an +emotional pilgrimage. The half-veiled warnings of Count Anteoni and of +the priest, followed by the latter's almost passionately abrupt plain +speaking, had not been without effect. To-night something of Europe +and her life there, with its civilised experience and drastic training +in the management of woman's relations with humanity in general, crept +back under the palm trees and the brilliant stars of Africa; and +despite the fatalism condemned by Father Roubier, she was more +conscious than she had hitherto been of how others--the outside world +--would be likely to regard her acquaintance with Androvsky. She +stood, as it were, and looked on at the events in which she herself +had been and was involved, and in that moment she was first aware of a +thrill of something akin to terror, as if, perhaps, without knowing +it, she had been moving amid a great darkness, as if perhaps a great +darkness were approaching. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange +and ghastly figure of legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller +at cross roads and distinguished for an instant in an oblique +lightning flash; as Vanderdecken passing in the hurricane and throwing +a blood-red illumination from the sails of his haunted ship; as the +everlasting climber of the Brocken, as the shrouded Arab of the +Eastern legend, who announced coming disaster to the wanderers in the +desert by beating a death-roll on a drum among the dunes. + +And with Count Anteoni and the priest she set another figure, that of +the sand-diviner, whose tortured face had suggested a man looking on a +fate that was terrible. Had not he, too, warned her? Had not the +warning been threefold, been given to her by the world, the Church, +and the under-world--the world beneath the veil? + +She met Androvsky's eyes. He was getting up to leave the room. His +movement caught her away from things visionary, but not from worldly +things. She still looked on herself moving amid these events at which +her world would laugh or wonder, and perhaps for the first time in her +life she was uneasily self-conscious because of the self that watched +herself, as if that self held something coldly satirical that mocked +at her and marvelled. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"What shall I do to-night?" + +Alone in the now empty /salle-a-manger/ Domini asked herself the +question. She was restless, terribly restless in mind, and wanted +distraction. The idea of going to her room, of reading, even of +sitting quietly in the verandah, was intolerable to her. She longed +for action, swiftness, excitement, the help of outside things, of that +exterior life which she had told Count Anteoni she had begun to see as +a mirage. Had she been in a city she would have gone to a theatre to +witness some tremendous drama, or to hear some passionate or terrible +opera. Beni-Mora might have been a place of many and strange +tragedies, would be no doubt again, but it offered at this moment +little to satisfy her mood. The dances of the Cafes Maures, the songs +of the smokers of the keef, the long histories of the story-tellers +between the lighted candles--she wanted none of these, and, for a +moment, she wished she were in London, Paris, any great capital that +spent itself to suit the changing moods of men. With a sigh she got up +and went out to the Arcade. Batouch joined her immediately. + +"What can I do to-night, Batouch?" she said. + +"There are the femmes mauresques," he began. + +"No, no." + +"Would Madame like to hear the story-teller?" + +"No. I should not understand him." + +"I can explain to Madame." + +"No." + +She stepped out into the road. + +"There will be a moon to-night, won't there?" she said, looking up at +the starry sky. + +"Yes, Madame, later." + +"What time will it rise?" + +"Between nine and ten." + +She stood in the road, thinking. It had occurred to her that she had +never seen moonrise in the desert. + +"And now it is"--she looked at her watch--"only eight." + +"Does Madame wish to see the moon come up pouring upon the palms--" + +"Don't talk so much, Batouch," she said brusquely. + +To-night the easy and luscious imaginings of the poet worried her like +the cry of a mosquito. His presence even disturbed her. Yet what could +she do without him? After a pause she said: + +"Can one go into the desert at night?" + +"On foot, Madame? It would be dangerous. One cannot tell what may be +in the desert by night." + +These words made her long to go. They had a charm, a violence perhaps, +of the unknown. + +"One might ride," she said. "Why not? Who could hurt us if we were +mounted and armed?" + +"Madame is brave as the panther in the forests of the Djurdjurah." + +"And you, Batouch? Aren't you brave?" + +"Madame, I am afraid of nothing." He did not say it boastfully, like +Hadj, but calmly, almost loftily. + +"Well, we are neither of us afraid. Let us ride out on the Tombouctou +road and see the moon rise. I'll go and put on my habit." + +"Madame should take her revolver." + +"Of course. Bring the horses round at nine." + +When she had put on her habit it was only a few minutes after eight. +She longed to be in the saddle, going at full speed up the long, white +road between the palms. Physical movement was necessary to her, and +she began to pace up and down the verandah quickly. She wished she had +ordered the horses at once, or that she could do something definite to +fill up the time till they came. As she turned at the end of the +verandah she saw a white form approaching her; when it drew near she +recognised Hadj, looking self-conscious and mischievous, but a little +triumphant too. At this moment she was glad to see him. He received +her congratulations on his recovery and approaching marriage with a +sort of skittish gaiety, but she soon discovered that he had come with +a money-making reason. Having seen his cousin safely off the premises, +it had evidently occurred to him to turn an honest penny. And pennies +were now specially needful to him in view of married life. + +"Does Madame wish to see something strange and wonderful to-night?" he +asked, after a moment, looking at her sideways out of the corners of +his wicked eyes, which, as Domini could see, were swift to read +character and mood. + +"I am going out riding." + +He looked astonished. + +"In the night?" + +"Yes. Batouch has gone to fetch the horses." + +Hadj's face became a mask of sulkiness. + +"If Madame goes out with Batouch she will be killed. There are robbers +in the desert, and Batouch is afraid of--" + +"Could we see the strange and wonderful thing in an hour?" she +interrupted. + +The gay and skittish expression returned instantly to his face. + +"Yes, Madame." + +"What is it?" + +He shook his head and made an artful gesture with his hand in the air. + +"Madame shall see." + +His long eyes were full of mystery, and he moved towards the +staircase. + +"Come, Madame." + +Domini laughed and followed him. She felt as if she were playing a +game, yet her curiosity was roused. They went softly down and slipped +out of the hotel like children fearing to be caught. + +"Batouch will be angry. There will be white foam on his lips," +whispered Hadj, dropping his chin and chuckling low in his throat. +"This way, Madame." + +He led her quickly across the gardens to the Rue Berthe, and down a +number of small streets, till they reached a white house before which, +on a hump, three palm trees grew from one trunk. Beyond was waste +ground, and further away a stretch of sand and low dunes lost in the +darkness of the, as yet, moonless night. Domini looked at the house +and at Hadj, and wondered if it would be foolish to enter. + +"What is it?" she asked again. + +But he only replied, "Madame will see!" and struck his flat hand upon +the door. It was opened a little way, and a broad face covered with +little humps and dents showed, the thick lips parted and muttering +quickly. Then the face was withdrawn, the door opened wider, and Hadj +beckoned to Domini to go in. After a moment's hesitation she did so, +and found herself in a small interior court, with a tiled floor, +pillars, and high up a gallery of carved wood, from which, doubtless, +dwelling-rooms opened. In the court, upon cushions, were seated four +vacant-looking men, with bare arms and legs and long matted hair, +before a brazier, from which rose a sharply pungent perfume. Two of +these men were very young, with pale, ascetic faces and weary eyes. +They looked like young priests of the Sahara. At a short distance, +upon a red pillow, sat a tiny boy of about three years old, dressed in +yellow and green. When Domini and Hadj came into the court no one +looked at them except the child, who stared with slowly-rolling, +solemn eyes, slightly shifting on the pillow. Hadj beckoned to Domini +to seat herself upon some rugs between the pillars, sat down beside +her and began to make a cigarette. Complete silence prevailed. The +four men stared at the brazier, holding their nostrils over the +incense fumes which rose from it in airy spirals. The child continued +to stare at Domini. Hadj lit his cigarette. And time rolled on. + +Domini had desired violence, and had been conveyed into a dumbness of +mystery, that fell upon her turmoil of spirit like a blow. What struck +her as especially strange and unnatural was the fact that the men with +whom she was sitting in the dim court of this lonely house had not +looked at her, did not appear to know that she was there. Hadj had +caught the aroma of their meditations with the perfume of the incense, +for his eyes had lost their mischief and become gloomily profound, as +if they stared on bygone centuries or watched a far-off future. Even +the child began to look elderly, and worn as with fastings and with +watchings. As the fumes perpetually ascended from the red-hot coals of +the brazier the sharp smell of the perfume grew stronger. There was in +it something provocative and exciting that was like a sound, and +Domini marvelled that the four men who crouched over it and drank it +in perpetually could be unaffected by its influence when she, who was +at some distance from it, felt dawning on her desires of movement, of +action, almost a physical necessity to get up and do something +extraordinary, absurd or passionate, such as she had never done or +dreamed of till this moment. + +A low growl like that of a wild beast broke the silence. Domini did +not know at first whence it came. She stared at the four men, but they +were all gazing vacantly into the brazier, their naked arms dropping +to the floor. She glanced at Hadj. He was delicately taking a +cigarette paper from a little case. The child--no, it was absurd even +to think of a child emitting such a sound. + +Someone growled again more fiercely, and this time Domini saw that it +was the palest of the ascetic-looking youths. He shook back his long +hair, rose to his feet with a bound, and moving into the centre of the +court gazed ferociously at his companions. As if in obedience to the +glance, two of them stretched their arms backwards, found two tomtoms, +and began to beat them loudly and monotonously. The young ascetic +bowed to the tomtoms, dropping his lower jaw and jumping on his bare +feet. He bowed again as if saluting a fetish, and again and again. +Ceaselessly he bowed to the tomtoms, always jumping softly from the +pavement. His long hair fell over his face and back upon his shoulders +with a monotonous regularity that imitated the tomtoms, as if he +strove to mould his life in accord with the fetish to which he offered +adoration. Flecks of foam appeared upon his lips, and the asceticism +in his eyes changed to a bestial glare. His whole body was involved in +a long and snake-like undulation, above which his hair flew to and +fro. Presently the second youth, moving reverently like a priest about +the altar, stole to a corner and returned with a large and curved +sheet of glass. Without looking at Domini he came to her and placed it +in her hands. When the dancer saw the glass he stood still, growled +again long and furiously, threw himself on his knees before Domini, +licked his lips, then, abruptly thrusting forward his face, set his +teeth in the sheet of glass, bit a large piece off, crunched it up +with a loud noise, swallowed it with a gulp, and growled for more. She +fed him again, while the tomtoms went on roaring, and the child in its +red pillow watched with its weary eyes. And when he was full fed, only +a fragment of glass remained between her fingers, he fell upon the +ground and lay like one in a trance. + +Then the second youth bowed to the tomtoms, leaping gently on the +pavement, foamed at the mouth, growled, snuffed up the incense fumes, +shook his long mane, and placed his naked feet in the red-hot coals of +the brazier. He plucked out a coal and rolled his tongue round it. He +placed red coals under his bare armpits and kept them there, pressing +his arms against his sides. He held a coal, like a monocle, in his eye +socket against his eye. And all the time he leaped and bowed and +foamed, undulating his body like a snake. The child looked on with a +still gravity, and the tomtoms never ceased. From the gallery above +painted faces peered down, but Domini did not see them. Her attention +was taken captive by the young priests of the Sahara. For so she +called them in her mind, realising that there were religious fanatics +whose half-crazy devotion seemed to lift them above the ordinary +dangers to the body. One of the musicians now took his turn, throwing +his tomtom to the eater of glass, who had wakened from his trance. He +bowed and leaped; thrust spikes behind his eyes, through his cheeks, +his lips, his arms; drove a long nail into his head with a wooden +hammer; stood upon the sharp edge of an upturned sword blade. With the +spikes protruding from his face in all directions, and his eyes +bulging out from them like balls, he spun in a maze of hair, barking +like a dog. The child regarded him with a still attention, and the +incense fumes were cloudy in the court. Then the last of the four men +sprang up in the midst of a more passionate uproar from the tomtoms. +He wore a filthy burnous, and, with a shriek, he plunged his hand into +its hood and threw some squirming things upon the floor. They began to +run, rearing stiff tails into the air. He sank down, blew upon them, +caught them, letting them set their tail weapons in his fingers, and +lifting them thus, imbedded, high above the floor. Then again he put +them down, breathed upon each one, drew a circle round each with his +forefinger. His face had suddenly become intense, hypnotic. The +scorpions, as if mesmerised, remained utterly still, each in its place +within its imaginary circle, that had become a cage; and their master +bowed to the fetish of the tomtoms, leaped, grinned, and bowed again, +undulating his body in a maze of hair. + +Domini felt as if she, like the scorpions, had been mesmerised. She, +too, was surely bound in a circle, breathed upon by some arrogant +breath of fanaticism, commanded by some horrid power. She looked at +the scorpions and felt a sort of pity for them. From time to time the +bowing fanatic glanced at them through his hair out of the corners of +his eyes, licked his lips, shook his shoulders, and uttered a long +howl, thrilling with the note of greed. The tomtoms pulsed faster and +faster, louder and louder, and all the men began to sing a fierce +chant, the song surely of desert souls driven crazy by religion. One +of the scorpions moved slightly, reared its tail, began to run. +Instantly, as if at a signal, the dancer fell upon his knees, bent +down his head, seized it in his teeth, munched it and swallowed it. At +the same moment with the uproar of the tomtoms there mingled a loud +knocking on the door. + +Hadj's lips curled back from his pointed teeth and he looked +dangerous. + +"It is Batouch!" he snarled. + +Domini got up. Without a word, turning her back upon the court, she +made her way out, still hearing the howl of the scorpion-eater, the +roar of the tomtoms, and the knocking on the door. Hadj followed her +quickly, protesting. At the door was the man with the pitted white +face and the thick lips. When he saw her he held out his hand. She +gave him some money, he opened the door, and she came out into the +night by the triple palm tree. Batouch stood there looking furious, +with the bridles of two horses across his arm. He began to speak in +Arabic to Hadj, but she stopped him with an imperious gesture, gave +Hadj his fee, and in a moment was in the saddle and cantering away +into the dark. She heard the gallop of Batouch's horse coming up +behind her and turned her head. + +"Batouch," she said, "you are the smartest"--she used the word /chic/ +--"Arab here. Do you know what is the fashion in London when a lady +rides out with the attendant who guards her--the really smart thing to +do?" + +She was playing on his vanity. He responded with a ready smile. + +"No, Madame." + +"The attendant rides at a short distance behind her, so that no one +can come up near her without his knowledge." + +Batouch fell back, and Domini cantered on, congratulating herself on +the success of her expedient. + +She passed through the village, full of strolling white figures, +lights and the sound of music, and was soon at the end of the long, +straight road that was significant to her as no other road had ever +been. Each time she saw it, stretching on till it was lost in the +serried masses of the palms, her imagination was stirred by a longing +to wander through barbaric lands, by a nomad feeling that was almost +irresistible. This road was a track of fate to her. When she was on it +she had a strange sensation as if she changed, developed, drew near to +some ideal. It influenced her as one person may influence another. Now +for the first time she was on it in the night, riding on the crowded +shadows of its palms. She drew rein and went more slowly. She had a +desire to be noiseless. + +In the obscurity the thickets of the palms looked more exotic than in +the light of day. There was no motion in them. Each tree stood like a +delicately carven thing, silhouetted against the remote purple of the +void. In the profound firmament the stars burned with a tremulous +ardour they never show in northern skies. The mystery of this African +night rose not from vaporous veils and the long movement of winds, but +was breathed out by clearness, brightness, stillness. It was the +deepest of all mystery--the mystery of vastness and of peace. + +No one was on the road. The sound of the horse's feet were sharply +distinct in the night. On all sides, but far off, the guard dogs were +barking by the hidden homes of men. The air was warm as in a hothouse, +but light and faintly impregnated with perfume shed surely by the +mystical garments of night as she glided on with Domini towards the +desert. From the blackness of the palms there came sometimes thin +notes of the birds of night, the whizzing noise of insects, the glassy +pipe of a frog in the reeds by a pool behind a hot brown wall. + +She rode through one of the villages of old Beni-Mora, silent, +unlighted, with empty streets and closed cafes maures, touched her +horse with the whip, and cantered on at a quicker pace. As she drew +near to the desert her desire to be in it increased. There was some +coarse grass here. The palm trees grew less thickly. She heard more +clearly the barking of the Kabyle dogs, and knew that tents were not +far off. Now, between the trunks of the trees, she saw the twinkling +of distant fires, and the sound of running water fell on her ears, +mingling with the persistent noise of the insects, and the faint cries +of the birds and frogs. In front, where the road came out from the +shadows of the last trees, lay a vast dimness, not wholly unlike +another starless sky, stretched beneath the starry sky in which the +moon had not yet risen. She set her horse at a gallop and came into +the desert, rushing through the dark. + +"Madame! Madame!" + +Batouch's voice was calling her. She galloped faster, like one in +flight. Her horse's feet padded over sand almost as softly as a +camel's. The vast dimness was surely coming to meet her, to take her +to itself in the night. But suddenly Batouch rode furiously up beside +her, his burnous flying out behind him over his red saddle. + +"Madame, we must not go further, we must keep near the oasis." + +"Why?" + +"It is not safe at night in the desert, and besides--" + +His horse plunged and nearly rocketed against hers. She pulled in. His +company took away her desire to keep on. + +"Besides?" + +Leaning over his saddle peak he said, mysteriously: + +"Besides, Madame, someone has been following us all the way from Beni- +Mora." + +"Who?" + +"A horseman. I have heard the beat of the hoofs on the hard road. Once +I stopped and turned, but I could see nothing, and then I could hear +nothing. He, too, had stopped. But when I rode on again soon I heard +him once more. Someone found out we were going and has come after us." + +She looked back into the violet night without speaking. She heard no +sound of a horse, saw nothing but the dim track and the faint, shadowy +blackness where the palms began. Then she put her hand into the pocket +of her saddle and silently held up a tiny revolver. + +"I know, but there might be more than one. I am not afraid, but if +anything happens to Madame no one will ever take me as a guide any +more." + +She smiled for a moment, but the smile died away, and again she looked +into the night. She was not afraid physically, but she was conscious +of a certain uneasiness. The day had been long and troubled, and had +left its mark upon her. Restlessness had driven her forth into the +darkness, and behind the restlessness there was a hint of the terror +of which she had been aware when she was left alone in the /salle-a- +manger/. Was it not that vague terror which, shaking the restlessness, +had sent her to the white house by the triple palm tree, had brought +her now to the desert? she asked herself, while she listened, and the +hidden horseman of whom Batouch had spoken became in her imagination +one with the legendary victims of fate; with the Jew by the cross +roads, the mariner beating ever about the rock-bound shores of the +world, the climber in the witches' Sabbath, the phantom Arab in the +sand. Still holding her revolver, she turned her horse and rode slowly +towards the distant fires, from which came the barking of the dogs. At +some hundreds of yards from them she paused. + +"I shall stay here," she said to Batouch. "Where does the moon rise?" + +He stretched his arm towards the desert, which sloped gently, almost +imperceptibly, towards the east. + +"Ride back a little way towards the oasis. The horseman was behind us. +If he is still following you will meet him. Don't go far. Do as I tell +you, Batouch." + +With obvious reluctance he obeyed her. She saw him pull up his horse +at a distance where he had her just in sight. Then she turned so that +she could not see him and looked towards the desert and the east. The +revolver seemed unnaturally heavy in her hand. She glanced at it for a +moment and listened with intensity for the beat of horse's hoofs, and +her wakeful imagination created a sound that was non-existent in her +ears. With it she heard a gallop that was spectral as the gallop of +the black horses which carried Mephistopheles and Faust to the abyss. +It died away almost at once, and she knew it for an imagination. +To-night she was peopling the desert with phantoms. Even the fires of +the nomads were as the fires that flicker in an abode of witches, the +shadows that passed before them were as goblins that had come up out +of the sand to hold revel in the moonlight. Were they, too, waiting +for a signal from the sky? + +At the thought of the moon she drew up the reins that had been lying +loosely on her horse's neck and rode some paces forward and away from +the fires, still holding the revolver in her hand. Of what use would +it be against the spectres of the Sahara? The Jew would face it +without fear. Why not the horseman of Batouch? She dropped it into the +pocket of the saddle. + +Far away in the east the darkness of the sky was slowly fading into a +luminous mystery that rose from the underworld, a mystery that at +first was faint and tremulous, pale with a pallor of silver and +primrose, but that deepened slowly into a live and ardent gold against +which a group of three palm trees detached themselves from the desert +like messengers sent forth by it to give a salutation to the moon. +They were jet black against the gold, distinct though very distant. +The night, and the vast plain from which they rose, lent them a +significance that was unearthly. Their long, thin stems and drooping, +feathery leaves were living and pathetic as the night thoughts of a +woman who has suffered, but who turns, with a gesture of longing that +will not be denied, to the luminance that dwells at the heart of the +world. And those black palms against the gold, that stillness of +darkness and light in immensity, banished Domini's faint sense of +horror. The spectres faded away. She fixed her eyes on the palms. + +Now all the notes of the living things that do not sleep by night, but +make music by reedy pools, in underwood, among the blades of grass and +along the banks of streams, were audible to her again, filling her +mind with the mystery of existence. The glassy note of the frogs was +like a falling of something small and pointed upon a sheet of crystal. +The whirs of the insects suggested a ceaselessly active mentality. The +faint cries of the birds dropped down like jewels slipping from the +trees. And suddenly she felt that she was as nothing in the vastness +and the complication of the night. Even the passion that she knew lay, +like a dark and silent flood, within her soul, a flood that, once +released from its boundaries, had surely the power to rush +irresistibly forward to submerge old landmarks and change the face of +a world--even that seemed to lose its depth for a moment, to be +shallow as the first ripple of a tide upon the sand. And she forgot +that the first ripple has all the ocean behind it. + +Red deepened and glowed in the gold behind the three palms, and the +upper rim of the round moon, red too as blood, crept about the desert. +Domini, leaning forward with one hand upon her horse's warm neck, +watched until the full circle was poised for a moment on the horizon, +holding the palms in its frame of fire. She had never seen a moon look +so immense and so vivid as this moon that came up into the night like +a portent, fierce yet serene, moon of a barbaric world, such as might +have shone upon Herod when he heard the voice of the Baptist in his +dungeon, or upon the wife of Pilate when in a dream she was troubled. +It suggested to her the powerful watcher of tragic events fraught with +long chains of consequence that would last on through centuries, as it +turned its blood-red gaze upon the desert, upon the palms, upon her, +and, leaning upon her horse's neck, she too--like Pilate's wife--fell +into a sort of strange and troubled dream for a moment, full of +strong, yet ghastly, light and of shapes that flitted across a +background of fire. + +In it she saw the priest with a fanatical look of warning in his eyes, +Count Anteoni beneath the trees of his garden, the perfume-seller in +his dark bazaar, Irena with her long throat exposed and her thin arms +drooping, the sand-diviner spreading forth his hands, Androvsky +galloping upon a horse as if pursued. This last vision returned again +and again. As the moon rose a stream of light that seemed tragic fell +across the desert and was woven mysteriously into the light of her +waking dream. The three palms looked larger. She fancied that she saw +them growing, becoming monstrous as they stood in the very centre of +the path of the nocturnal glory, and suddenly she remembered her +thought when she sat with Androvsky in the garden, that feeling grew +in human hearts like palms rising in the desert. But these palms were +tragic and aspired towards the blood-red moon. Suddenly she was seized +with a fear of feeling, of the growth of an intense sensation within +her, and realised, with an almost feverish vividness, the impotence of +a soul caught in the grip of a great passion, swayed hither and +thither, led into strange paths, along the edges, perhaps into depths +of immeasurable abysses. She had said to Androvsky that she would +rather be the centre of a world tragedy than die without having felt +to the uttermost even if it were sorrow. Was that not the speech of a +mad woman, or at least of a woman who was so ignorant of the life of +feeling that her words were idle and ridiculous? Again she felt +desperately that she did not know herself, and this lack of the most +essential of all knowledge reduced her for a moment to a bitterness of +despair that seemed worse than the bitterness of death. The vastness +of the desert appalled her. The red moon held within its circle all +the blood of the martyrs, of life, of ideals. She shivered in the +saddle. Her nature seemed to shrink and quiver, and a cry for +protection rose within her, the cry of the woman who cannot face life +alone, who must find a protector, and who must cling to a strong arm, +who needs man as the world needs God. + +Then again it seemed to her that she saw Androvsky galloping upon a +horse as if pursued. + +Moved by a desire to do something to combat this strange despair, born +of the moonrise and the night, she sat erect in her saddle, and +resolutely looked at the desert, striving to get away from herself in +a hard contemplation of the details that surrounded her, the outward +things that were coming each moment into clearer view. She gazed +steadily towards the palms that sharply cut the moonlight. As she did +so something black moved away from them, as if it had been part of +them and now detached itself with the intention of approaching her +along the track. At first it was merely a moving blot, formless and +small, but as it drew nearer she saw that it was a horseman riding +slowly, perhaps stealthily, across the sand. She glanced behind her, +and saw Batouch not far off, and the fires of the nomads. Then she +turned again to watch the horseman. He came steadily forward. + +"Madame!" + +It was the voice of Batouch. + +"Stay where you are!" she called out to him. + +She heard the soft sound of the horse's feet and could see the +attitude of its rider. He was leaning forward as if searching the +night. She rode to meet him, and they came to each other in the path +of the light she had thought tragic. + +"You followed me?" + +"I cannot see you go out alone into the desert at night," Androvsky +replied. + +"But you have no right to follow me." + +"I cannot let harm come to you, Madame." + +She was silent. A moment before she had been longing for a protector. +One had come to her, the man whom she had been setting with those +legendary figures who have saddened and appalled the imagination of +men. She looked at the dark figure of Androvsky leaning forward on the +horse whose feet were set on the path of the moon, and she did not +know whether she felt confidence in him or fear of him. All that the +priest had said rose up in her mind, all that Count Anteoni had hinted +and that had been visible in the face of the sand-diviner. This man +had followed her into the night as a guardian. Did she need someone, +something, to guard her from him? A faint horror was still upon her. +Perhaps he knew it and resented it, for he drew himself upright on his +horse and spoke again, with a decision that was rare in him. + +"Let me send Batouch back to Beni-Mora, Madame." + +"Why?" she asked, in a low voice that was full of hesitation. + +"You do not need him now." + +He was looking at her with a defiant, a challenging expression that +was his answer to her expression of vague distrust and apprehension. + +"How do you know that?" + +He did not answer the question, but only said: + +"It is better here without him. May I send him away, Madame?" + +She bent her head. Androvsky rode off and she saw him speaking to +Batouch, who shook his head as if in contradiction. + +"Batouch!" she called out. "You can ride back to Beni-Mora. We shall +follow directly." + +The poet cantered forward. + +"Madame, it is not safe." + +The sound of his voice made Domini suddenly know what she had not been +sure of before--that she wished to be alone with Androvsky. + +"Go, Batouch!" she said. "I tell you to go." + +Batouch turned his horse without a word, and disappeared into the +darkness of the distant palms. + +When they were alone together Domini and Androvsky sat silent on their +horses for some minutes. Their faces were turned towards the desert, +which was now luminous beneath the moon. Its loneliness was +overpowering in the night, and made speech at first an impossibility, +and even thought difficult. At last Androvsky said: + +"Madame, why did you look at me like that just now, as if you--as if +you hesitated to remain alone with me?" + +Suddenly she resolved to tell him of her oppression of the night. She +felt as if to do so would relieve her of something that was like a +pain at her heart. + +"Has it never occurred to you that we are strangers to each other?" +she said. "That we know nothing of each other's lives? What do you +know of me or I of you?" + +He shifted in his saddle and moved the reins from one hand to the +other, but said nothing. + +"Would it seem strange to you if I did hesitate--if even now--" + +"Yes," he interrupted violently, "it would seem strange to me." + +"Why?" + +"You would rely on an Arab and not rely upon me," he said with intense +bitterness. + +"I did not say so." + +"Yet at first you wished to keep Batouch." + +"Yes." + +"Then----" + +"Batouch is my attendant." + +"And I? Perhaps I am nothing but a man whom you distrust; whom--whom +others tell you to think ill of." + +"I judge for myself." + +"But if others speak ill of me?" + +"It would not influence me----for long." + +She added the last words after a pause. She wished to be strictly +truthful, and to-night she was not sure that the words of the priest +had made no impression upon her. + +"For long!" he repeated. Then he said abruptly, "The priest hates me." + +"No." + +"And Count Anteoni?" + +"You interested Count Anteoni greatly." + +"Interested him!" + +His voice sounded intensely suspicious in the night. + +"Don't you wish to interest anyone? It seems to me that to be +uninteresting is to live eternally alone in a sunless desert." + +"I wish--I should like to think that I--" He stopped, then said, with +a sort of ashamed determination: "Could I ever interest you, Madame?" + +"Yes," she answered quietly. + +"But you would rather be protected by an Arab than by me. The priest +has--" + +"To-night I do not seem to be myself," she said, interrupting him. +"Perhaps there is some physical reason. I got up very early, and-- +don't you ever feel oppressed, suspicious, doubtful of life, people, +yourself, everything, without apparent reason? Don't you know what it +is to have nightmare without sleeping?" + +"I! But you are different." + +"To-night I have felt--I do feel as if there were tragedy near me, +perhaps coming towards me," she said simply, "and I am oppressed, I am +almost afraid." + +When she had said it she felt happier, as if a burden she carried were +suddenly lighter. As he did not speak she glanced at him. The moon +rays lit up his face. It looked ghastly, drawn and old, so changed +that she scarcely recognised it and felt, for a moment, as if she were +with a stranger. She looked away quickly, wondering if what she had +seen was merely some strange effect of the moon, or whether Androvsky +was really altered for a moment by the action of some terrible grief, +one of those sudden sorrows that rush upon a man from the hidden +depths of his nature and tear his soul, till his whole being is +lacerated and he feels as if his soul were flesh and were streaming +with the blood from mortal wounds. The silence between them was long. +In it she presently heard a reiterated noise that sounded like +struggle and pain made audible. It was Androvsky's breathing. In the +soft and exquisite air of the desert he was gasping like a man shut up +in a cellar. She looked again towards him, startled. As she did so he +turned his horse sideways and rode away a few paces. Then he pulled up +his horse. He was now merely a black shape upon the moonlight, +motionless and inaudible. She could not take her eyes from this shape. +Its blackness suggested to her the blackness of a gulf. Her memory +still heard that sound of deep-drawn breathing or gasping, heard it +and quivered beneath it as a tender-hearted person quivers seeing a +helpless creature being ill-used. She hesitated for a moment, and +then, carried away by an irresistible impulse to try to soothe this +extremity of pain which she was unable to understand, she rode up to +Androvsky. When she reached him she did not know what she had meant to +say or do. She felt suddenly impotent and intrusive, and even horribly +shy. But before she had time for speech or action he turned to her and +said, lifting up his hands with the reins in them and then dropping +them down heavily upon his horse's neck: + +"Madame, I wanted to tell you that to-morrow I----" He stopped. + +"Yes?" she said. + +He turned his head away from her till she could not see his face. + +"To-morrow I am leaving Beni-Mora." + +"To-morrow!" she said. + +She did not feel the horse under her, the reins in her hand. She did +not see the desert or the moon. Though she was looking at Androvsky +she no longer perceived him. At the sound of his words it seemed to +her as if all outside things she had ever known had foundered, like a +ship whose bottom is ripped up by a razor-edged rock, as if with them +had foundered, too, all things within herself: thoughts, feelings, +even the bodily powers that were of the essence of her life; sense of +taste, smell, hearing, sight, the capacity of movement and of +deliberate repose. Nothing seemed to remain except the knowledge that +she was still alive and had spoken. + +"Yes, to-morrow I shall go away." + +His face was still turned from her, and his voice sounded as if it +spoke to someone at a distance, someone who could hear as man cannot +hear. + +"To-morrow," she repeated. + +She knew she had spoken again, but it did not seem to her as if she +had heard herself speak. She looked at her hands holding the reins, +knew that she looked at them, yet felt as if she were not seeing them +while she did so. The moonlit desert was surely flickering round her, +and away to the horizon in waves that were caused by the disappearance +of that ship which had suddenly foundered with all its countless +lives. And she knew of the movement of these waves as the soul of one +of the drowned, already released from the body, might know of the +movement on the surface of the sea beneath which its body was hidden. + +But the soul was evidently nothing without the body, or, at most, +merely a continuance of power to know that all which had been was no +more. All which had been was no more. + +At last her mind began to work again, and those words went through it +with persistence. She thought of the fascination of Africa, that +enormous, overpowering fascination which had taken possession of her +body and spirit. What had become of it? What had become of the romance +of the palm gardens, of the brown villages, of the red mountains, of +the white town with its lights, its white figures, its throbbing +music? And the mystical attraction of the desert--where was it now? +Its voice, that had called her persistently, was suddenly silent. Its +hand, that had been laid upon her, was removed. She looked at it in +the moonlight and it was no longer the desert, sand with a soul in it, +blue distances full of a music of summons, spaces, peopled with +spirits from the sun. It was only a barren waste of dried-up matter, +arid, featureless, desolate, ghastly with the bones of things that had +died. + +She heard the dogs barking by the tents of the nomads and the noises +of the insects, but still she did not feel the horse underneath her. +Yet she was gradually recovering her powers, and their recovery +brought with it sharp, physical pain, such as is felt by a person who +has been nearly drowned and is restored from unconsciousness. + +Androvsky turned round. She saw his eyes fastened upon her, and +instantly pride awoke in her, and, with pride, her whole self. + +She felt her horse under her, the reins in her hands, the stirrup at +her foot. She moved in her saddle. The blood tingled in her veins +fiercely, bitterly, as if it had become suddenly acrid. She felt as if +her face were scarlet, as if her whole body flushed, and as if the +flush could be seen by her companion. For a moment she was clothed +from head to foot in a fiery garment of shame. But she faced Androvsky +with calm eyes, and her lips smiled. + +"You are tired of it?" she said. + +"I never meant to stay long," he answered, looking down. + +"There is not very much to do here. Shall we ride back to the village +now?" + +She turned her horse, and as she did so cast one more glance at the +three palm trees that stood far out on the path of the moon. They +looked like three malignant fates lifting up their hands in +malediction. For a moment she shivered in the saddle. Then she touched +her horse with the whip and turned her eyes away. Androvsky followed +her and rode by her side in silence. + +To gain the oasis they passed near to the tents of the nomads, whose +fires were dying out. The guard dogs were barking furiously, and +straining at the cords which fastened them to the tent pegs, by the +short hedges of brushwood that sheltered the doors of filthy rags. The +Arabs were all within, no doubt huddled up on the ground asleep. One +tent was pitched alone, at a considerable distance from the others, +and under the first palms of the oasis. A fire smouldered before it, +casting a flickering gleam of light upon something dark which lay upon +the ground between it and the tent. Tied to the tent was a large white +dog, which was not barking, but which was howling as if in agony of +fear. Before Domini and Androvsky drew near to this tent the howling +of the dog reached them and startled them. There was in it a note that +seemed humanly expressive, as if it were a person trying to scream out +words but unable to from horror. Both of them instinctively pulled up +their horses, listened, then rode forward. When they reached the tent +they saw the dark thing lying by the fire. + +"What is it?" Domini whispered. + +"An Arab asleep, I suppose," Androvsky answered, staring at the +motionless object. + +"But the dog----" She looked at the white shape leaping frantically +against the tent. "Are you sure?" + +"It must be. Look, it is wrapped in rags and the head is covered." + +"I don't know." + +She stared at it. The howling of the dog grew louder, as if it were +straining every nerve to tell them something dreadful. + +"Do you mind getting off and seeing what it is? I'll hold the horse." + +He swung himself out of the saddle. She caught his rein and watched +him go forward to the thing that lay by the fire, bend down over it, +touch it, recoil from it, then--as if with a determined effort--kneel +down beside it on the ground and take the rags that covered it in his +hands. After a moment of contemplation of what they had hidden he +dropped the rags--or rather threw them from him with a violent gesture +--got up and came back to Domini, and looked at her without speaking. +She bent down. + +"I'll tell you," she said. "I'll tell you what it is. It's a dead +woman." + +It seemed to her as if the dark thing lying by the fire was herself. + +"Yes," he said. "It's a woman who has been strangled." + +"Poor woman!" she said. "Poor--poor woman!" + +And it seemed to her as if she said it of herself. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Lying in bed in the dark that night Domini heard the church clock +chime the hours. She was not restless, though she was wakeful. Indeed, +she felt like a woman to whom an injection of morphia had been +administered, as if she never wished to move again. She lay there +counting the minutes that made the passing hours, counting them +calmly, with an inexorable and almost cold self-possession. The +process presently became mechanical, and she was able, at the same +time, to dwell upon the events that had followed upon the discovery of +the murdered woman by the tent: Androvsky's pulling aside of the door +of the tent to find it empty, their short ride to the encampment close +by, their rousing up of the sleeping Arabs within, filthy nomads +clothed in patched garments, unveiled women with wrinkled, staring +faces and huge plaits of false hair and amulets. From the tents the +strange figures had streamed forth into the light of the moon and the +fading fires, gesticulating, talking loudly, furiously, in an uncouth +language that was unintelligible to her. Led by Androvsky they had +come to the corpse, while the air was rent by the frantic barking of +all the guard dogs and the howling of the dog that had been a witness +of the murder. Then in the night had risen the shrill wailing of the +women, a wailing that seemed to pierce the stars and shudder out to +the remotest confines of the desert, and in the cold white radiance of +the moon a savage vision of grief had been presented to her eyes: +naked arms gesticulating as if they strove to summon vengeance from +heaven, claw-like hands casting earth upon the heads from which +dangled Fatma hands, chains of tarnished silver and lumps of coral +that reminded her of congealed blood, bodies that swayed and writhed +as if stricken with convulsions or rent by seven devils. She +remembered how strange had seemed to her the vast calm, the vast +silence, that encompassed this noisy outburst of humanity, how +inflexible had looked the enormous moon, how unsympathetic the +brightly shining stars, how feverish and irritable the flickering +illumination of the flames that spurted up and fainted away like +things still living but in the agonies of death. + +Then had followed her silent ride back to Beni-Mora with Androvsky +along the straight road which had always fascinated her spirit of +adventure. They had ridden slowly, without looking at each other, +without exchanging a word. She had felt dry and weary, like an old +woman who had passed through a long life of suffering and emerged into +a region where any acute feeling is unable to exist, as at a certain +altitude from the earth human life can no longer exist. The beat of +the horses' hoofs upon the road had sounded hard, as her heart felt, +cold as the temperature of her mind. Her body, which usually swayed to +her horse's slightest movement, was rigid in the saddle. She +recollected that once, when her horse stumbled, she had thrilled with +an abrupt anger that was almost ferocious, and had lifted her whip to +lash it. But the hand had slipped down nervelessly, and she had fallen +again into her frigid reverie. + +When they reached the hotel she had dropped to the ground, heavily, +and heavily had ascended the steps of the verandah, followed by +Androvsky. Without turning to him or bidding him good-night she had +gone to her room. She had not acted with intentional rudeness or +indifference--indeed, she had felt incapable of an intention. Simply, +she had forgotten, for the first time perhaps in her life, an ordinary +act of courtesy, as an old person sometimes forgets you are there and +withdraws into himself. Androvsky had said nothing, had not tried to +attract her attention to himself. She had heard his steps die away on +the verandah. Then, mechanically, she had undressed and got into bed, +where she was now mechanically counting the passing moments. + +Presently she became aware of her own stillness and connected it with +the stillness of the dead woman, by the tent. She lay, as it were, +watching her own corpse as a Catholic keeps vigil beside a body that +has not yet been put into the grave. But in this chamber of death +there were no flowers, no lighted candles, no lips that moved in +prayer. She had gone to bed without praying. She remembered that now, +but with indifference. Dead people do not pray. The living pray for +them. But even the watcher could not pray. Another hour struck in the +belfry of the church. She listened to the chime and left off counting +the moments, and this act of cessation made more perfect the peace of +the dead woman. + +When the sun rose her sensation of death passed away, leaving behind +it, however, a lethargy of mind and body such as she had never known +before the previous night. Suzanne, coming in to call her, exclaimed: + +"Mam'selle is ill?" + +"No. Why should I be ill?" + +"Mam'selle looks so strange," the maid said, regarding her with round +and curious eyes. "As if--" + +She hesitated. + +"Give me my tea," Domini said. + +When she was drinking it she asked: + +"Do you know at what time the train leaves Beni-Mora--the passenger +train?" + +"Yes, Mam'selle. There is only one in the day. It goes soon after +twelve. Monsieur Helmuth told me." + +"Oh!" + +"What gown will--?" + +"Any gown--the white linen one I had on yesterday." + +"Yes, Mam'selle." + +"No, not that. Any other gown. Is it to be hot?" + +"Very hot, Mam'selle. There is not a cloud in the sky." + +"How strange!" Domini said, in a low voice that Suzanne did not hear. +When she was up and dressed she said: + +"I am going out to Count Anteoni's garden. I think I'll--yes, I'll +take a book with me." + +She went into her little salon and looked at the volumes scattered +about there, some books of devotion, travel, books on sport, +Rossetti's and Newman's poems, some French novels, and the novels of +Jane Austen, of which, oddly, considering her nature, she was very +fond. For the first time in her life they struck her as shrivelled, +petty chronicles of shrivelled, bloodless, artificial lives. She +turned back into her bedroom, took up the little white volume of the +/Imitation/, which lay always near her bed, and went out into the +verandah. She looked neither to right nor left, but at once descended +the staircase and took her way along the arcade. + +When she reached the gate of the garden she hesitated before knocking +upon it. The sight of the villa, the arches, the white walls and +clustering trees she knew so well hurt her so frightfully, so +unexpectedly, that she felt frightened and sick, and as if she must go +away quickly to some place which she had never seen, and which could +call up no reminiscences in her mind. + +Perhaps she would have gone into the oasis, or along the path that +skirted the river bed, had not Smain softly opened the gate and come +out to meet her, holding a great velvety rose in his slim hand. + +He gave it to her without a word, smiling languidly with eyes in which +the sun seemed caught and turned to glittering darkness, and as she +took it and moved it in her fingers, looking at the wine-coloured +petals on which lay tiny drops of water gleaming with thin and silvery +lights, she remembered her first visit to the garden, and the +mysterious enchantment that had floated out to her through the gate +from the golden vistas and the dusky shadows of the trees, the feeling +of romantic expectation that had stirred within her as she stepped on +to the sand and saw before her the winding ways disappearing into +dimness between the rills edged by the pink geraniums. + +How long ago that seemed, like a remembrance of early childhood in the +heart of one who is old. + +Now that the gate was open she resolved to go into the garden. She +might as well be there as elsewhere. She stepped in, holding the rose +in her hand. One of the drops of water slipped from an outer petal and +fell upon the sand. She thought of it as a tear. The rose was weeping, +but her eyes were dry. She touched the rose with her lips. + +To-day the garden was like a stranger to her, but a stranger with whom +she had once--long, long ago--been intimate, whom she had trusted, and +by whom she had been betrayed. She looked at it and knew that she had +thought it beautiful and loved it. From its recesses had come to her +troops of dreams. The leaves of its trees had touched her as with +tender hands. The waters of its rills had whispered to her of the +hidden things that lie in the breast of joy. The golden rays that +played through its scented alleys had played, too, through the shadows +of her heart, making a warmth and light there that seemed to come from +heaven. She knew this as one knows of the apparent humanity that +greeted one's own humanity in the friend who is a friend no longer, +and she sickened at it as at the thought of remembered intimacy with +one proved treacherous. There seemed to her nothing ridiculous in this +personification of the garden, as there had formerly seemed to her +nothing ridiculous in her thought of the desert as a being; but the +fact that she did thus instinctively personify the nature that +surrounded her gave to the garden in her eyes an aspect that was +hostile and even threatening, as if she faced a love now changed to +hate, a cold and inimical watchfulness that knew too much about her, +to which she had once told all her happy secrets and murmured all her +hopes. She did not hate the garden, but she felt as if she feared it. +The movements of its leaves conveyed to her uneasiness. The hidden +places, which once had been to her retreats peopled with tranquil +blessings, were now become ambushes in which lay lurking enemies. + +Yet she did not leave it, for to-day something seemed to tell her that +it was meant that she should suffer, and she bowed in spirit to the +decree. + +She went on slowly till she reached the /fumoir/. She entered it and +sat down. + +She had not seen any of the gardeners or heard the note of a flute. +The day was very still. She looked at the narrow doorway and +remembered exactly the attitude in which Count Anteoni had stood +during their first interview, holding a trailing branch of the +bougainvillea in his hand. She saw him as a shadow that the desert had +taken. Glancing down at the carpet sand she imagined the figure of the +sand-diviner crouching there and recalled his prophecy, and directly +she did this she knew that she had believed in it. She had believed +that one day she would ride, out into the desert in a storm, and that +with her, enclosed in the curtains of a palanquin, there would be a +companion. The Diviner had not told her who would be this companion. +Darkness was about him rendering him invisible to the eyes of the +seer. But her heart had told her. She had seen the other figure in the +palanquin. It was a man. It was Androvsky. + +She had believed that she would go out into the desert with Androvsky, +with this traveller of whose history, of whose soul, she knew nothing. +Some inherent fatalism within her had told her so. And now----? + +The darkness of the shade beneath the trees in this inmost recess of +the garden fell upon her like the darkness of that storm in which the +desert was blotted out, and it was fearful to her because she felt +that she must travel in the storm alone. Till now she had been very +much alone in life and had realised that such solitude was dreary, +that in it development was difficult, and that it checked the steps of +the pilgrim who should go upward to the heights of life. But never +till now had she felt the fierce tragedy of solitude, the utter terror +of it. As she sat in the /fumoir/, looking down on the smoothly-raked +sand, she said to herself that till this moment she had never had any +idea of the meaning of solitude. It was the desert within a human +soul, but the desert without the sun. And she knew this because at +last she loved. The dark and silent flood of passion that lay within +her had been released from its boundaries, the old landmarks were +swept away for ever, the face of the world was changed. + +She loved Androvsky. Everything in her loved him; all that she had +been, all that she was, all that she could ever be loved him; that +which was physical in her, that which was spiritual, the brain, the +heart, the soul, body and flame burning within it--all that made her +the wonder that is woman, loved him. She was love for Androvsky. It +seemed to her that she was nothing else, had never been anything else. +The past years were nothing, the pain by which she was stricken when +her mother fled, by which she was tormented when her father died +blaspheming, were nothing. There was no room in her for anything but +love of Androvsky. At this moment even her love of God seemed to have +been expelled from her. Afterwards she remembered that. She did not +think of it now. For her there was a universe with but one figure in +it--Androvsky. She was unconscious of herself except as love for him. +She was unconscious of any Creative Power to whom she owed the fact +that he was there to be loved by her. She was passion, and he was that +to which passion flowed. + +The world was the stream and the sea. + +As she sat there with her hands folded on her knees, her eyes bent +down, and the purple flowers all about her, she felt simplified and +cleansed, as if a mass of little things had been swept from her, +leaving space for the great thing that henceforth must for ever dwell +within her and dominate her life. The burning shame of which she had +been conscious on the previous night, when Androvsky told her of his +approaching departure and she was stricken as by a lightning flash, +had died away from her utterly. She remembered it with wonder. How +should she be ashamed of love? She thought that it would be impossible +to her to be ashamed, even if Androvsky knew all that she knew. Just +then the immense truth of her feeling conquered everything else, made +every other thing seem false, and she said to herself that of truth +she did not know how to be ashamed. But with the knowledge of the +immense truth of her love came the knowledge of the immense sorrow +that might, that must, dwell side by side with it. + +Suddenly she moved. She lifted her eyes from the sand and looked out +into the garden. Besides this truth within her there was one other +thing in the world that was true. Androvsky was going away. While she +sat there the moments were passing. They were making the hours that +were bent upon destruction. She was sitting in the garden now and +Androvsky was close by. A little time would pass noiselessly. She +would be sitting there and Androvsky would be far away, gone from the +desert, gone out of her life no doubt for ever. And the garden would +not have changed. Each tree would stand in its place, each flower +would still give forth its scent. The breeze would go on travelling +through the lacework of the branches, the streams slipping between the +sandy walls of the rills. The inexorable sun would shine, and the +desert would whisper in its blue distances of the unseen things that +always dwell beyond. And Androvsky would be gone. Their short +intercourse, so full of pain, uneasiness, reserve, so fragmentary, so +troubled by abrupt violences, by ignorance, by a sense of horror even +on the one side, and by an almost constant suspicion on the other, +would have come to an end. + +She was stunned by the thought, and looked round her as if she +expected inanimate Nature to take up arms for her against this fate. +Yet she did not for a moment think of taking up arms herself. She had +left the hotel without trying to see Androvsky. She did not intend to +return to it till he was gone. The idea of seeking him never came into +her mind. There is an intensity of feeling that generates action, but +there is a greater intensity of feeling that renders action +impossible, the feeling that seems to turn a human being into a shell +of stone within which burn all the fires of creation. Domini knew that +she would not move out of the /fumoir/ till the train was creeping +along the river-bed on its way from Beni-Mora. + +She had laid down the /Imitation/ upon the seat by her side, and now +she took it up. The sight of its familiar pages made her think for the +first time, "Do I love God any more?" And immediately afterwards came +the thought: "Have I ever loved him?" The knowledge of her love for +Androvsky, for this body that she had seen, for this soul that she had +seen through the body like a flame through glass, made her believe +just then that if she had ever thought--and certainly she had thought +--that she loved a being whom she had never seen, never even +imaginatively projected, she had deceived herself. The act of faith +was not impossible, but the act of love for the object on which that +faith was concentrated now seemed to her impossible. For her body, +that remained passive, was full of a riot, a fury of life. The flesh +that had slept was awakened and knew itself. And she could no longer +feel that she could love that which her flesh could not touch, that +which could not touch her flesh. And she said to herself, without +terror, even without regret, "I do not love, I never have loved, God." + +She looked into the book: + + "Unspeakable, indeed, is the sweetness of thy contemplation, which + thou bestowest on them that love thee." + +The sweetness of thy contemplation! She remembered Androvsky's face +looking at her out of the heart of the sun as they met for the first +time in the blue country. In that moment she put him consciously in +the place of God, and there was nothing within her to say, "You are +committing mortal sin." + +She looked into the book once more and her eyes fell upon the words +which she had read on her first morning in Beni-Mora: + + "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." + +She had always loved these words and thought them the most beautiful +in the book, but now they came to her with the newness of the first +spring morning that ever dawned upon the world. The depth of them was +laid bare to her, and, with that depth, the depth of her own heart. +The paralysis of anguish passed from her. She no longer looked to +Nature as one dumbly seeking help. For they led her to herself, and +made her look into herself and her own love and know it. "When +frightened it is not disturbed--it securely passeth through all." That +was absolutely true--true as her love. She looked down into her love, +and she saw there the face of God, but thought she saw the face of +human love only. And it was so beautiful and so strong that even the +tears upon it gave her courage, and she said to herself: "Nothing +matters, nothing can matter so long as I have this love within me. He +is going away, but I am not sad, for I am going with him--my love, all +that I am--that is going with him, will always be with him." + +Just then it seemed to her that if she had seen Androvsky lying dead +before her on the sand she could not have felt unhappy. Nothing could +do harm to a great love. It was the one permanent, eternally vital +thing, clad in an armour of fire that no weapon could pierce, free of +all terror from outside things because it held its safety within its +own heart, everlastingly enough, perfectly, flawlessly complete for +and in itself. For that moment fear left her, restlessness left her. +Anyone looking in upon her from the garden would have looked in upon a +great, calm happiness. + +Presently there came a step upon the sand of the garden walks. A man, +going slowly, with a sort of passionate reluctance, as if something +immensely strong was trying to hold him back, but was conquered with +difficulty by something still stronger that drove him on, came out of +the fierce sunshine into the shadow of the garden, and began to search +its silent recesses. It was Androvsky. He looked bowed and old and +guilty. The two lines near his mouth were deep. His lips were working. +His thin cheeks had fallen in like the cheeks of a man devoured by a +wasting illness, and the strong tinge of sunburn on them seemed to be +but an imperfect mark to a pallor that, fully visible, would have been +more terrible than that of a corpse. In his eyes there was a fixed +expression of ferocious grief that seemed mingled with ferocious +anger, as if he were suffering from some dreadful misery, and cursed +himself because he suffered, as a man may curse himself for doing a +thing that he chooses to do but need not do. Such an expression may +sometimes be seen in the eyes of those who are resisting a great +temptation. + +He began to search the garden, furtively but minutely. Sometimes he +hesitated. Sometimes he stood still. Then he turned back and went a +little way towards the wide sweep of sand that was bathed in sunlight +where the villa stood. Then with more determination, and walking +faster, he again made his way through the shadows that slept beneath +the densely-growing trees. As he passed between them he several times +stretched out trembling hands, broke off branches and threw them on +the sand, treading on them heavily and crushing them down below the +surface. Once he spoke to himself in a low voice that shook as if with +difficulty dominating sobs that were rising in his throat. + +"/De profundis/--" he said. "/De profundis/--/de profundis/--" + +His voice died away. He took hold of one hand with the other and went +on silently. + +Presently he made his way at last towards the /fumoir/ in which Domini +was still sitting, with one hand resting on the open page whose words +had lit up the darkness in her spirit. He came to it so softly that +she did not hear his step. He saw her, stood quite still under the +trees, and looked at her for a long time. As he did so his face +changed till he seemed to become another man. The ferocity of grief +and anger faded from his eyes, which were filled with an expression of +profound wonder, then of flickering uncertainty, then of hard, manly +resolution--a fighting expression that was full of sex and passion. +The guilty, furtive look which had been stamped upon all his features, +specially upon his lips, vanished. Suddenly he became younger in +appearance. His figure straightened itself. His hands ceased from +trembling. He moved away from the trees, and went to the doorway of +the /fumoir/. + +Domini looked up, saw him, and got up quietly, clasping her fingers +round the little book. + +Androvsky stood just beyond the doorway, took off his hat, kept it in +his hand, and said: + +"I came here to say good-bye." + +He made a movement as if to come into the /fumoir/, but she stopped it +by coming at once to the opening. She felt that she could not speak to +him enclosed within walls, under a roof. He drew back, and she came +out and stood beside him on the sand. + +"Did you know I should come?" he said. + +She noticed that he had ceased to call her "Madame," and also that +there was in his voice a sound she had not heard in it before, a note +of new self-possession that suggested a spirit concentrating itself +and aware of its own strength to act. + +"No," she answered. + +"Were you coming back to the hotel this morning?" he asked. + +"No." + +He was silent for a moment. Then he said slowly: + +"Then--then you did not wish--you did not mean to see me again before +I went?" + +"It was not that. I came to the garden--I had to come--I had to be +alone." + +"You want to be alone?" he said. "You want to be alone?" + +Already the strength was dying out of his voice and face, and the old +uneasiness was waking up in him. A dreadful expression of pain came +into his eyes. + +"Was that why you--you looked so happy?" he said in a harsh, trembling +voice. + +"When?" + +"I stood for a long while looking at you when you were in there"--he +pointed to the /fumoir/--"and your face was happy--your face was +happy." + +"Yes, I know." + +"You will be happy alone?--alone in the desert?" + +When he said that she felt suddenly the agony of the waterless spaces, +the agony of the unpeopled wastes. Her whole spirit shrank and +quivered, all the great joy of her love died within her. A moment +before she had stood upon the heights of her heart. Now she shrank +into its deepest, blackest abysses. She looked at him and said +nothing. + +"You will not be happy alone." + +His voice no longer trembled. He caught hold of her left hand, +awkwardly, nervously, but held it strongly with his close to his side, +and went on speaking. + +"Nobody is happy alone. Nothing is--men and women--children--animals." +A bird flew across the shadowy space under the trees, followed by +another bird; he pointed to them; they disappeared. "The birds, too, +they must have companionship. Everything wants a companion." + +"Yes." + +"But then--you will stay here alone in the desert?" + +"What else can I do?" she said. + +"And that journey," he went on, still holding her hand fast against +his side, "Your journey into the desert--you will take it alone?" + +"What else can I do?" she repeated in a lower voice. + +It seemed to her that he was deliberately pressing her down into the +uttermost darkness. + +"You will not go." + +"Yes, I shall go." + +She spoke with conviction. Even in that moment--most of all in that +moment--she knew that she would obey the summons of the desert. + +"I--I shall never know the desert," he said. "I thought--it seemed to +me that I, too, should go out into it. I have wanted to go. You have +made me want to go." + +"I?" + +"Yes. Once you said to me that peace must dwell out there. It was on +the tower the--the first time you ever spoke to me." + +"I remember." + +"I wondered--I often wonder why you spoke to me." + +She knew he was looking at her with intensity, but she kept her eyes +on the sand. There was something in them that she felt he must not +see, a light that had just come into them as she realised that +already, on the tower before she even knew him, she had loved him. It +was that love, already born in her heart but as yet unconscious of its +own existence, which had so strangely increased for her the magic of +the African evening when she watched it with him. But before--suddenly +she knew that she had loved Androvsky from the beginning, from the +moment when his face looked at her as if out of the heart of the sun. +That was why her entry into the desert had been full of such +extraordinary significance. This man and the desert were, had always +been, as one in her mind. Never had she thought of the one without the +other. Never had she been mysteriously called by the desert without +hearing as a far-off echo the voice of Androvsky, or been drawn onward +by the mystical summons of the blue distances without being drawn +onward, too, by the mystical summons of the heart to which her own +responded. The link between the man and the desert was indissoluble. +She could not conceive of its being severed, and as she realised this, +she realised also something that turned her whole nature into flame. + +She could not conceive of Androvsky's not loving her, of his not +having loved her from the moment when he saw her in the sun. To him, +too, the desert had made a revelation--the revelation of her face, and +of the soul behind it looking through it. In the flames of the sun, as +they went into the desert, the flames of their two spirits had been +blended. She knew that certainly and for ever. Then how could it be +possible that Androvsky should not go out with her into the desert? + +"Why did you speak to me?" he said. + +"We came into the desert together," she answered simply. "We had to +know each other." + +"And now--now--we have to say----" + +His voice ceased. Far away there was the thin sound of a chime. Domini +had never before heard the church bell in the garden, and now she felt +as if she heard it, not with her ears, but with her spirit. As she +heard she felt Androvsky's hand, which had been hot upon hers, turn +cold. He let her hand go, and again she was stricken by the horrible +sound she had heard the previous night in the desert, when he turned +his horse and rode away with her. And now, as then, he turned away +from her in silence, but she knew that this time he was leaving her, +that this movement was his final good-bye. With his head bowed down he +took a few steps. He was near to a turning of the path. She watched +him, knowing that within less than a moment she would be watching only +the trees and the sand. She gazed at the bent figure, calling up all +her faculties, crying out to herself passionately, desperately, +"Remember it--remember it as it is--there--before you--just as it is-- +for ever." As it reached the turning, in the distance of the garden +rose the twitter of the flute of Larbi. Androvsky stopped, stood still +with his back turned towards her. And Larbi, hidden and far off, +showered out his little notes of African love, of love in the desert +where the sun is everlasting, and the passion of man is hot as the +sun, where Liberty reigns, lifting her cymbals that are as spheres of +fire, and the footsteps of Freedom are heard upon the sand, treading +towards the south. + +Larbi played--played on and on, untiring as the love that blossomed +with the world, but that will not die when the world dies. + +Then Androvsky came back quickly till he reached the place where +Domini was standing. He put his hands on her shoulders. Then he sank +down on the sand, letting his hands slip down over her breast and +along her whole body till they clasped themselves round her knees. He +pressed his face into her dress against her knees. + +"I love you," he said. "I love you but don't listen to me--you mustn't +hear it--you mustn't. But I must say it. I can't--I can't go till I +say it. I love you--I love you." + +She heard him sobbing against her knees, and the sound was as the +sound of strength made audible. She put her hands against his temples. + +"I am listening," she said. "I must hear it." + +He looked up, rose to his feet, put his hands behind her shoulders, +held her, and set his lips on hers, pressing his whole body against +hers. + +"Hear it!" he said, muttering against her lips. "Hear it. I love you-- +I love you." + +The two birds they had seen flew back beneath the trees, turned in an +airy circle, rose above the trees into the blue sky, and, side by +side, winged their way out of the garden to the desert. + + + + +BOOK IV. THE JOURNEY + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +In the evening before the day of Domini's marriage with Androvsky +there was a strange sunset, which attracted even the attention and +roused the comment of the Arabs. The day had been calm and beautiful, +one of the most lovely days of the North African spring, and Batouch, +resting from the triumphant labour of superintending the final +preparations for a long desert journey, augured a morning of Paradise +for the departure along the straight road that led at last to +Tombouctou. But as the radiant afternoon drew to its end there came +into the blue sky a whiteness that suggested a heaven turning pale in +the contemplation of some act that was piteous and terrible. And under +this blanching heaven the desert, and all things and people of the +oasis of Beni-Mora, assumed an aspect of apprehension, as if they felt +themselves to be in the thrall of some power whose omnipotence they +could not question and whose purpose they feared. This whiteness was +shot, at the hour of sunset, with streaks of sulphur yellow and +dappled with small, ribbed clouds tinged with yellow-green, a bitter +and cruel shade of green that distressed the eyes as a merciless light +distresses them, but these colours quickly faded, and again the +whiteness prevailed for a brief space of time before the heavy falling +of a darkness unpierced by stars. With this darkness came a faint +moaning of hollow wind from the desert, a lamentable murmur that +shuddered over the great spaces, crept among the palms and the flat- +roofed houses, and died away at the foot of the brown mountains beyond +the Hammam Salahine. The succeeding silence, short and intense, was +like a sound of fear, like the cry of a voice lifted up in protest +against the approach of an unknown, but dreaded, fate. Then the wind +came again with a stronger moaning and a lengthened life, not yet +forceful, not yet with all its powers, but more tenacious, more +acquainted with itself and the deeds that it might do when the night +was black among the vast sands which were its birth-place, among the +crouching plains and the trembling palm groves that would be its +battle-ground. + +Batouch looked grave as he listened to the wind and the creaking of +the palm stems one against another. Sand came upon his face. He pulled +the hood of his burnous over his turban and across his cheeks, covered +his mouth with a fold of his haik and stared into the blackness, like +an animal in search of something his instinct has detected approaching +from a distance. + +Ali was beside him in the doorway of the Cafe Maure, a slim Arab boy, +bronze-coloured and serious as an idol, who was a troubadour of the +Sahara, singer of "Janat" and many lovesongs, player of the guitar +backed with sand tortoise and faced with stretched goatskin. Behind +them swung an oil lamp fastened to a beam of palm, and the red ashes +glowed in the coffee niche and shed a ray upon the shelf of small +white cups with faint designs of gold. In a corner, his black face and +arms faintly relieved against the wall, an old negro crouched, gazing +into vacancy with bulging eyes, and beating with a curved palm stem +upon an oval drum, whose murmur was deep and hollow as the murmur of +the wind, and seemed indeed its echo prisoned within the room and +striving to escape. + +"There is sand on my eyelids," said Batouch. "It is bad for to-morrow. +When Allah sends the sands we should cover the face and play the +ladies' game within the cafe, we should not travel on the road towards +the south." + +Ali said nothing, but drew up his haik over his mouth and nose, and +looked into the night, folding his thin hands in his burnous. + +"Achmed will sleep in the Bordj of Arba," continued Batouch in a low, +murmuring voice, as if speaking to himself. "And the beasts will be in +the court. Nothing can remain outside, for there will be a greater +roaring of the wind at Arba. Can it be the will of Allah that we rest +in the tents to-morrow?" + +Ali made no answer. The wind had suddenly died down. + +The sand grains came no more against their eyelids and the folds of +their haiks. Behind them the negro's drum gave out monotonously its +echo of the wind, filling the silence of the night. + +"Whatever Allah sends," Batouch went on softly after a pause, "Madame +will go. She is brave as the lion. There is no jackal in Madame. Irena +is not more brave than she is. But Madame will never wear the veil for +a man's sake. She will not wear the veil, but she could give a knife- +thrust if he were to look at another woman as he has looked at her, as +he will look at her to-morrow. She is proud as a Touareg and there is +fierceness in her. But he will never look at another woman as he will +look at her to-morrow. The Roumi is not as we are." + +The wind came back to join its sound with the drum, imprisoning the +two Arabs in a muttering circle. + +"They will not care," said Batouch. "They will go out into the storm +without fear." + +The sand pattered more sharply on his eyelids. He drew back into the +cafe. Ali followed him, and they squatted down side by side upon the +ground and looked before them seriously. The noise of the wind +increased till it nearly drowned the noise of the negro's drum. +Presently the one-eyed owner of the cafe brought them two cups of +coffee, setting the cups near their stockinged feet. They rolled two +cigarettes and smoked in silence, sipping the coffee from time to +time. Then Ali began to glance towards the negro. Half shutting his +eyes, and assuming a languid expression that was almost sickly, he +stretched his lips in a smile, gently moving his head from side to +side. Batouch watched him. Presently he opened his lips and began to +sing: + + "The love of women is like a date that is golden in the sun, + That is golden-- + The love of women is like a gazelle that comes to drink-- + To drink at the water springs-- + The love of women is like the nargileh, and like the dust of the keef + That is mingled with tobacco and with honey. + Put the reed between thy lips, O loving man! + And draw dreams from the haschish that is the love of women! + Janat! Janat! Janat!" + +The wind grew louder and sand was blown along the cafe floor and about +the coffee-cups. + + "The love of women is like the rose of the Caid's garden + That is full of silver tears-- + The love of women is like the first day of the spring + When the children play at Cora-- + The love of women is like the Derbouka that has been warmed at the fire + And gives out a sweet sound. + Take it in thy hands, O loving man! + And sing to the Derbouka that is the love of women. + Janat! Janat! Janat!" + +In the doorway, where the lamp swung from the beam, a man in European +dress stood still to listen. The wind wailed behind him and stirred +his clothes. His eyes shone in the faint light with a fierceness of +emotion in which there was a joy that was almost terrible, but in +which there seemed also to be something that was troubled. When the +song died away, and only the voices of the wind and the drum spoke to +the darkness, he disappeared into the night. The Arabs did not see +him. + + "Janat! Janat! Janat!" + +The night drew on and the storm increased. All the doors of the houses +were closely shut. Upon the roofs the guard dogs crouched, shivering +and whining, against the earthen parapets. The camels groaned in the +fondouks, and the tufted heads of the palms swayed like the waves of +the sea. And the Sahara seemed to be lifting up its voice in a summons +that was tremendous as a summons to Judgment. + +Domini had always known that the desert would summon her. She heard +its summons now in the night without fear. The roaring of the tempest +was sweet in her ears as the sound of the Derbouka to the loving man +of the sands. It accorded with the fire that lit up the cloud of +passion in her heart. Its wildness marched in step with a marching +wildness in her veins and pulses. For her gipsy blood was astir +to-night, and the recklessness of the boy in her seemed to clamour +with the storm. The sound of the wind was as the sound of the clashing +cymbals of Liberty, calling her to the adventure that love would +glorify, to the far-away life that love would make perfect, to the +untrodden paths of the sun of which she had dreamed in the shadows, +and on which she would set her feet at last with the comrade of her +soul. + +To-morrow her life would begin, her real life, the life of which men +and women dream as the prisoner dreams of freedom. And she was glad, +she thanked God, that her past years had been empty of joy, that in +her youth she had been robbed of youth's pleasures. She thanked God +that she had come to maturity without knowing love. It seemed to her +that to love in early life was almost pitiful, was a catastrophe, an +experience for which the soul was not ready, and so could not +appreciate at its full and wonderful value. She thought of it as of a +child being taken away from the world to Paradise without having known +the pain of existence in the world, and at that moment she worshipped +suffering. Every tear that she had ever shed she loved, every weary +hour, every despondent thought, every cruel disappointment. She called +around her the congregation of her past sorrows, and she blessed them +and bade them depart from her for ever. + +As she heard the roaring of the wind she smiled. The Sahara was +fulfilling the words of the Diviner. To-morrow she and Androvsky would +go out into the storm and the darkness together. The train of camels +would be lost in the desolation of the desert. And the people of Beni- +Mora would see it vanish, and, perhaps, would pity those who were +hidden by the curtains of the palanquin. They would pity her as +Suzanne pitied her, openly, with eyes that were tragic. She laughed +aloud. + +It was late in the night. Midnight had sounded yet she did not go to +bed. She feared to sleep, to lose the consciousness of her joy of the +glory which had come into her life. She was a miser of the golden +hours of this black and howling night. To sleep would be to be robbed. +A splendid avarice in her rebelled against the thought of sleep. + +Was Androvsky sleeping? She wondered and longed to know. + +To-night she was fully aware for the first time of the inherent +fearlessness of her character, which was made perfect at last by her +perfect love. Alone, she had always had courage. Even in her most +listless hours she had never been a craven. But now she felt the +completeness of a nature clothed in armour that rendered it +impregnable. It was a strange thing that man should have the power to +put the finishing touch to God's work, that religion should stoop to +be a handmaid to faith in a human being, but she did not think it +strange. Everything in life seemed to her to be in perfect accord +because her heart was in perfect accord with another heart. + +And she welcomed the storm. She even welcomed something else that came +to her now in the storm: the memory of the sand-diviner's tortured +face as he gazed down, reading her fate in the sand. For what was an +untroubled fate? Surely a life that crept along the hollows and had no +impulse to call it to the heights. Knowing the flawless perfection of +her armour she had a wild longing to prove it. She wished that there +should be assaults upon her love, because she knew she could resist +them one and all, and she wished to have the keen joy of resisting +them. There is a health of body so keen and vital that it desires +combat. The soul sometimes knows a precisely similar health and is +filled with a similar desire. + +"Put my love to the proof, O God!" was Domini's last prayer that night +when the storm was at its wildest. "Put my love to the uttermost proof +that he may know it, as he can never know it otherwise." + +And she fell asleep at length, peacefully, in the tumult of the night, +feeling that God had heard her prayer. + +The dawn came struggling like an exhausted pilgrim through the windy +dark, pale and faint, with no courage, it seemed, to grow bravely into +day. As if with the sedulous effort of something weary but of +unconquered will, it slowly lit up Beni-Mora with a feeble light that +flickered in a cloud of whirling sand, revealing the desolation of an +almost featureless void. The village, the whole oasis, was penetrated +by a passionate fog that instead of brooding heavily, phlegmatically, +over the face of life and nature travelled like a demented thing bent +upon instant destruction, and coming thus cloudily to be more free for +crime. It was an emissary of the desert, propelled with irresistible +force from the farthest recess of the dunes, and the desert itself +seemed to be hurrying behind it as if to spy upon the doing of its +deeds. + +As the sea in a great storm rages against the land, ferocious that +land should be, so the desert now raged against the oasis that +ventured to exist in its bosom. Every palm tree was the victim of its +wrath, every running rill, every habitation of man. Along the tunnels +of mimosa it went like a foaming tide through a cavern, roaring +towards the mountains. It returned and swept about the narrow streets, +eddying at the corners, beating upon the palmwood doors, behind which +the painted dancing-girls were cowering, cold under their pigments and +their heavy jewels, their red hands trembling and clasping one +another, clamouring about the minarets of the mosques on which the +frightened doves were sheltering, shaking the fences that shut in the +gazelles in their pleasaunce, tearing at the great statue of the +Cardinal that faced it resolutely, holding up the double cross as if +to exorcise it, battering upon the tall, white tower on whose summit +Domini had first spoken with Androvsky, raging through the alleys of +Count Anteoni's garden, the arcades of his villa, the window-spaces of +the /fumoir/, from whose walls it tore down frantically the purple +petals of the bougainvillea and dashed them, like enemies defeated, +upon the quivering paths which were made of its own body. + +Everywhere in the oasis it came with a lust to kill, but surely its +deepest enmity was concentrated upon the Catholic Church. + +There, despite the tempest, people were huddled, drawn together not so +much by the ceremony that was to take place within as by the desire to +see the departure of an unusual caravan. In every desert centre news +is propagated with a rapidity seldom equalled in the home of +civilisation. It runs from mouth to mouth like fire along straw. And +Batouch, in his glory, had not been slow to speak of the wonders +prepared under his superintendence to make complete the desert journey +of his mistress and Androvsky. The main part of the camp had already +gone forward, and must have reached Arba, the first halting stage +outside Beni-Mora; tents, the horses for the Roumis, the mules to +carry necessary baggage, the cooking utensils and the guard dogs. But +the Roumis themselves were to depart from the church on camel-back +directly the marriage was accomplished. Domini, who had a native +hatred of everything that savoured of ostentation, had wished for a +tiny expedition, and would gladly have gone out into the desert with +but one tent, Batouch and a servant to do the cooking. But the journey +was to be long and indefinite, an aimless wandering through the land +of liberty towards the south, without fixed purpose or time of +returning. She knew nothing of what was necessary for such a journey, +and tired of ceaseless argument, and too much occupied with joy to +burden herself with detail, at last let Batouch have his way. + +"I leave it to you, Batouch," she said. "But, remember, as few people +and beasts as possible. And as you say we must have camels for certain +parts of the journey, we will travel the first stage on camel-back." + +Consciously she helped to fulfil the prediction of the Diviner, and +then she left Batouch free. + +Now outside the church, shrouded closely in hoods and haiks, grey and +brown bundles with staring eyes, the desert men were huddled against +the church wall in the wind. Hadj was there, and Smain, sheltering in +his burnous roses from Count Anteoni's garden. Larbi had come with his +flute and the perfume-seller from his black bazaar. For Domini had +bought perfumes from him on her last day in Beni-Mora. Most of Count +Anteoni's gardeners had assembled. They looked upon the Roumi lady, +who rode magnificently, but who could dream as they dreamed, too, as a +friend. Had she not haunted the alleys where they worked and idled +till they had learned to expect her, and to miss her when she did not +come? And with those whom Domini knew were assembled their friends, +and their friends' friends, men of Beni-Mora, men from the near oasis, +and also many of those desert wanderers who drift in daily out of the +sands to the centres of buying and selling, barter their goods for the +goods of the South, or sell their loads of dates for money, and, +having enjoyed the dissipation of the cafes and of the dancing-houses, +drift away again into the pathless wastes which are their home. + +Few of the French population had ventured out, and the church itself +was almost deserted when the hour for the wedding drew nigh. + +The priest came from his little house, bending forward against the +wind, his eyes partially protected from the driving sand by blue +spectacles. His face, which was habitually grave, to-day looked sad +and stern, like the face of a man about to perform a task that was +against his inclination, even perhaps against his conscience. He +glanced at the waiting Arabs and hastened into the church, taking off +his spectacles as he did so, and wiping his eyes, which were red from +the action of the sand-grains, with a silk pocket-handkerchief. When +he reached the sacristy he shut himself into it alone for a moment. He +sat down on a chair and, leaning his arms upon the wooden table that +stood in the centre of the room, bent forward and stared before him at +the wall opposite, listening to the howling of the wind. + +Father Roubier had an almost passionate affection for his little +church of Beni-Mora. So long and ardently had he prayed and taught in +it, so often had he passed the twilight hours in it alone wrapped in +religious reveries, or searching his conscience for the shadows of +sinful thoughts, that it had become to him as a friend, and more than +a friend. He thought of it sometimes as his confessor and sometimes as +his child. Its stones were to him as flesh and blood, its altars as +lips that whispered consolation in answer to his prayers. The figures +of its saints were heavenly companions. In its ugliness he perceived +only beauty, in its tawdriness only the graces that are sweet +offerings to God. The love that, had he not been a priest, he might +have given to a woman he poured forth upon his church, and with it +that other love which, had it been the design of his Heavenly Father, +would have fitted him for the ascetic, yet impassioned, life of an +ardent and devoted monk. To defend this consecrated building against +outrage he would, without hesitation, have given his last drop of +blood. And now he was to perform in it an act against which his whole +nature revolted; he was to join indissolubly the lives of these two +strangers who had come to Beni-Mora--Domini Enfilden and Boris +Androvsky. He was to put on the surplice and white stole, to say the +solemn and irreparable "Ego Jungo," to sprinkle the ring with holy +water and bless it. + +As he sat there alone, listening to the howling of the storm outside, +he went mentally through the coming ceremony. He thought of the +wonderful grace and beauty of the prayers of benediction, and it +seemed to him that to pronounce them with his lips, while his nature +revolted against his own utterance, was to perform a shameful act, was +to offer an insult to this little church he loved. + +Yet how could he help performing this act? He knew that he would do +it. Within a few minutes he would be standing before the altar, he +would be looking into the faces of this man and woman whose love he +was called upon to consecrate. He would consecrate it, and they would +go out from him into the desert man and wife. They would be lost to +his sight in the town. + +His eye fell upon a silver crucifix that was hanging upon the wall in +front of him. He was not a very imaginative man, not a man given to +fancies, a dreamer of dreams more real to him than life, or a seer of +visions. But to-day he was stirred, and perhaps the unwonted turmoil +of his mind acted subtly upon his nervous system. Afterward he felt +certain that it must have been so, for in no other way could he +account for a fantasy that beset him at this moment. + +As he looked at the crucifix there came against the church a more +furious beating of the wind, and it seemed to him that the Christ upon +the crucifix shuddered. + +He saw it shudder. He started, leaned across the table and stared at +the crucifix with eyes that were full of an amazement that was mingled +with horror. Then he got up, crossed the room and touched the crucifix +with his finger. As he did so, the acolyte, whose duty it was to help +him to robe, knocked at the sacristy door. The sharp noise recalled +him to himself. He knew that for the first time in his life he had +been the slave of an optical delusion. He knew it, and yet he could +not banish the feeling that God himself was averse from the act that +he was on the point of committing in this church that confronted +Islam, that God himself shuddered as surely even He, the Creator, must +shudder at some of the actions of his creatures. And this feeling +added immensely to the distress of the priest's mind. In performing +this ceremony he now had the dreadful sensation that he was putting +himself into direct antagonism with God. His instinctive horror of +Androvsky had never been so great as it was to-day. In vain he had +striven to conquer it, to draw near to this man who roused all the +repulsion of his nature. His efforts had been useless. He had prayed +to be given the sympathy for this man that the true Christian ought to +feel towards every human being, even the most degraded. But he felt +that his prayers had not been answered. With every day his antipathy +for Androvsky increased. Yet he was entirely unable to ground it upon +any definite fact in Androvsky's character. He did not know that +character. The man was as much a mystery to him as on the day when +they first met. And to this living mystery from which his soul +recoiled he was about to consign, with all the beautiful and solemn +blessings of his Church, a woman whose character he respected, whose +innate purity, strength and nobility he had quickly divined, and no +less quickly learned to love. + +It was a bitter, even a horrible, moment to him. + +The little acolyte, a French boy, son of the postmaster of Beni-Mora, +was startled by the sight of the Father's face when he opened the +sacristy door. He had never before seen such an expression of almost +harsh pain in those usually kind eyes, and he drew back from the +threshold like one afraid. His movement recalled the priest to a sharp +consciousness of the necessities of the moment, and with a strong +effort he conquered his pain sufficiently to conceal all outward +expression of it. He smiled gently at the little boy and said: + +"Is it time?" + +The child looked reassured. + +"Yes, Father." + +He came into the sacristy and went towards the cupboard where the +vestments were kept, passing the silver crucifix. As he did so he +glanced at it. He opened the cupboard, then stood for a moment and +again turned his eyes to the Christ. The Father watched him. + +"What are you looking at, Paul?" he asked. + +"Nothing, Father," the boy replied, with a sudden expression of +reluctance that was almost obstinate. + +And he began to take the priest's robes out of the cupboard. + +Just then the wind wailed again furiously about the church, and the +crucifix fell down upon the floor of the sacristy. + +The priest started forward, picked it up, and stood with it in his +hand. He glanced at the wall, and saw at once that the nail to which +the crucifix had been fastened had come out of its hole. A flake of +plaster had been detached, perhaps some days ago, and the hole had +become too large to retain the nail. The explanation of the matter was +perfect, simple and comprehensible. Yet the priest felt as if a +catastrophe had just taken place. As he stared at the cross he heard a +little noise near him. The acolyte was crying. + +"Why, Paul, what's the matter?" he said. + +"Why did it do that?" exclaimed the boy, as if alarmed. "Why did it do +that?" + +"Perhaps it was the wind. Everything is shaking. Come, come, my child, +there is nothing to be afraid of." + +He laid the crucifix on the table. Paul dried his eyes with his fists. + +"I don't like to-day," he said. "I don't like to-day." + +The priest patted him on the shoulder. + +"The weather has upset you," he said, smiling. + +But the nervous behaviour of the child deepened strangely his own +sense of apprehension. When he had robed he waited for the arrival of +the bride and bridegroom. There was to be no mass, and no music except +the Wedding March, which the harmonium player, a Marseillais employed +in the date-packing trade, insisted on performing to do honour to +Mademoiselle Enfilden, who had taken such an interest in the music of +the church. Androvsky, as the priest had ascertained, had been brought +up in the Catholic religion, but, when questioned, he had said quietly +that he was no longer a practising Catholic and that he never went to +confession. Under these circumstances it was not possible to have a +nuptial mass. The service would be short and plain, and the priest was +glad that this was so. Presently the harmonium player came in. + +"I may play my loudest to-day, Father," he said, "but no one will hear +me." + +He laughed, settled the pin--Joan of Arc's face in metal--in his azure +blue necktie, and added: + +"Nom d'un chien, the wind's a cruel wedding guest!" + +The priest nodded without speaking. + +"Would you believe, Father," the man continued, "that Mademoiselle and +her husband are going to start for Arba from the church door in all +this storm! Batouch is getting the palanquin on to the camel. How they +will ever--" + +"Hush!" said the priest, holding up a warning finger. + +This idle chatter displeased him in the church, but he had another +reason for wishing to stop the conversation. It renewed his dread to +hear of the projected journey, and made him see, as in a shadowy +vision, Domini Enfilden's figure disappearing into the windy +desolation of the desert protected by the living mystery he hated. +Yes, at this moment, he no longer denied it to himself. There was +something in Androvsky that he actually hated with his whole soul, +hated even in his church, at the very threshold of the altar where +stood the tabernacle containing the sacred Host. As he thoroughly +realised this for a moment he was shocked at himself, recoiled +mentally from his own feeling. But then something within him seemed to +rise up and say, "Perhaps it is because you are near to the Host that +you hate this man. Perhaps you are right to hate him when he draws +nigh to the body of Christ." + +Nevertheless when, some minutes later, he stood within the altar rails +and saw the face of Domini, he was conscious of another thought, that +came through his mind, dark with doubt, like a ray of gold: "Can I be +right in hating what this good woman--this woman whose confession I +have received, whose heart I know--can I be right in hating what she +loves, in fearing what she trusts, in secretly condemning what she +openly enthrones?" And almost in despite of himself he felt reassured +for an instant, even happy in the thought of what he was about to do. + +Domini's face at all times suggested strength. The mental and +emotional power of her were forcibly expressed, too, through her tall +and athletic body, which was full of easy grace, but full, too, of +well-knit firmness. To-day she looked not unlike a splendid Amazon who +could have been a splendid nun had she entered into religion. As she +stood there by Androvsky, simply dressed for the wild journey that was +before her, the slight hint in her personality of a Spartan youth, +that stamped her with a very definite originality, was blended with, +even transfigured by, a womanliness so intense as to be almost fierce, +a womanliness that had the fervour, the glowing vigour of a glory that +had suddenly become fully aware of itself, and of all the deeds that +it could not only conceive, but do. She was triumph embodied in the +flesh, not the triumph that is a school-bully, but that spreads wings, +conscious at last that the human being has kinship with the angels, +and need not, should not, wait for death to seek bravely their +comradeship. She was love triumphant, woman utterly fearless because +instinctively aware that she was fulflling her divine mission. + +As he gazed at her the priest had a strange thought--of how Christ's +face must have looked when he said, "Lazarus, come forth!" + +Androvsky stood by her, but the priest did not look at him. + +The wind roared round the church, the narrow windows rattled, and the +clouds of sand driven against them made a pattering as of fingers +tapping frantically upon the glass. The buff-coloured curtains +trembled, and the dusty pink ribands tied round the ropes of the +chandeliers shook incessantly to and fro, as if striving to escape and +to join the multitudes of torn and disfigured things that were swept +through space by the breath of the storm. Beyond the windows, vaguely +seen at moments through the clouds of sand, the outlines of the palm +leaves wavered, descended, rose, darted from side to side, like hands +of the demented. + +Suzanne, who was one of the witnesses, trembled, and moved her full +lips nervously. She disapproved utterly of her mistress' wedding, and +still more of a honeymoon in the desert. For herself she did not care, +very shortly she was going to marry Monsieur Helmuth, the important +person in livery who accompanied the hotel omnibus to the station, and +meanwhile she was to remain at Beni-Mora under the chaperonage of +Madame Armande, the proprietor of the hotel. But it shocked her that a +mistress of hers, and a member of the English aristocracy, should be +married in a costume suitable for a camel ride, and should start off +to go to /le Bon Dieu/ alone knew where, shut up in a palanquin like +any black woman covered with lumps of coral and bracelets like +handcuffs. + +The other witnesses were the mayor of Beni-Mora, a middle-aged doctor, +who wore the conventional evening-dress of French ceremony, and looked +as if the wind had made him as sleepy as a bear on the point of +hibernating, and the son of Madame Armande, a lively young man, with a +bullet head and eager, black eyes. The latter took a keen interest in +the ceremony, but the mayor blinked pathetically, and occasionally +rubbed his large hooked nose as if imploring it to keep his whole +person from drooping down into a heavy doze. + +The priest, speaking in a conventional voice that was strangely +inexpressive of his inward emotion, asked Androvsky and Domini whether +they would take each other for wife and husband, and listened to their +replies. Androvsky's voice sounded to him hard and cold as ice when it +replied, and suddenly he thought of the storm as raging in some +northern land over snowbound wastes whose scanty trees were leafless. +But Domini's voice was clear, and warm as the sun that would shine +again over the desert when the storm was past. The mayor, constraining +himself to keep awake a little longer, gave Domini away, while Suzanne +dropped tears into a pocket-handkerchief edged with rose-coloured +frilling, the gift of Monsieur Helmuth. Then, when the troth had been +plighted in the midst of a more passionate roaring of the wind, the +priest, conquering a terrible inward reluctance that beset him despite +his endeavour to feel detached and formal, merely a priest engaged in +a ceremony that it was his office to carry out, but in which he had no +personal interest, spoke the fateful words: + +"/Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium in nomine Patris et Filii et +Spiritus Sancti. Amen/." + +He said this without looking at the man and woman who stood before +him, the man on the right hand and the woman on the left, but when he +lifted his hand to sprinkle them with holy water he could not forbear +glancing at them, and he saw Domini as a shining radiance, but +Androvsky as a thing of stone. With a movement that seemed to the +priest sinister in its oppressed deliberation, Androvsky placed gold +and silver upon the book and the marriage ring. + +The priest spoke again, slowly, in the uproar of the wind, after +blessing the ring: + +"/Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini/." + +After the reply the "/Domine, exaudi orationem meam/," the "/Et +clamor/," the "/Dominus vobiscum/," and the "/Et cum spiritu tuo/," +the "/Oremus/," and the prayer following, he sprinkled the ring with +holy water in the form of a cross and gave it to Androvsky to give +with gold and silver to Domini. Androvsky took the ring, repeated the +formula, "With this ring," etc., then still, as it seemed to the +priest, with the same sinister deliberation, placed it on the thumb of +the bride's uncovered hand, saying, "/In the name of the Father/," +then on her second finger, saying, "/Of the Son/," then on her third +finger, saying, "/Of the Holy Ghost/," then on her fourth finger. But +at this moment, when he should have said "/Amen/," there was a long +pause of silence. During it--why he did not know--the priest found +himself thinking of the saying of St. Isidore of Seville that the ring +of marriage is left on the fourth finger of the bride's hand because +that finger contains a vein directly connected with the heart. + +"/Amen/." + +Androvsky had spoken. The priest started, and went on with the +"/Confirma, hoc, Deus/." And from this point until the "/Per Christum +Dominum nostrum, Amen/," which, since there was no Mass, closed the +ceremony, he felt more master of himself and his emotions than at any +time previously during this day. A sensation of finality, of the +irrevocable, came to him. He said within himself, "This matter has +passed out of my hands into the hands of God." And in the midst of the +violence of the storm a calm stole upon his spirit. "God knows best!" +he said within himself. "God knows best!" + +Those words and the state of feeling that was linked with them were +and had always been to him as mighty protecting arms that uplifted him +above the beating waves of the sea of life. The Wedding March sounded +when the priest bade good-bye to the husband and wife whom he had made +one. He was able to do it tranquilly. He even pressed Androvsky's +hand. + +"Be good to her," he said. "She is--she is a good woman." + +To his surprise Androvsky suddenly wrung his hand almost passionately, +and the priest saw that there were tears in his eyes. + +That night the priest prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in +the desert. + +When Domini and Androvsky came out from the church they saw vaguely a +camel lying down before the door, bending its head and snarling +fiercely. Upon its back was a palanquin of dark-red stuff, with a roof +of stuff stretched upon strong, curved sticks, and curtains which +could be drawn or undrawn at pleasure. The desert men crowded about it +like eager phantoms in the wind, half seen in the driving mist of +sand. Clinging to Androvsky's arm, Domini struggled forward to the +camel. As she did so, Smain, unfolding for an instant his burnous, +pressed into her hands his mass of roses. She thanked him with a smile +he scarcely saw and a word that was borne away upon the wind. At +Larbi's lips she saw the little flute and his thick fingers fluttering +upon the holes. She knew that he was playing his love-song for her, +but she could not hear it except in her heart. The perfume-seller +sprinkled her gravely with essence, and for a moment she felt as if +she were again in his dark bazaar, and seemed to catch among the +voices of the storm the sound of men muttering prayers to Allah as in +the mosque of Sidi-Zazan. + +Then she was in the palanquin with Androvsky close beside her. + +At this moment Batouch took hold of the curtains of the palanquin to +draw them close, but she put out her hand and stopped him. She wanted +to see the last of the church, of the tormented gardens she had learnt +to love. + +He looked astonished, but yielded to her gesture, and told the camel- +driver to make the animal rise to its feet. The driver took his stick +and plied it, crying out, "A-ah! A-ah!" The camel turned its head +towards him, showing its teeth, and snarling with a sort of dreary +passion. + +"A-ah!" shouted the driver. "A-ah! A-ah!" + +The camel began to get up. + +As it did so, from the shrouded group of desert men one started +forward to the palanquin, throwing off his burnous and gesticulating +with thin naked arms, as if about to commit some violent act. It was +the sand-diviner. Made fantastic and unreal by the whirling sand +grains, Domini saw his lean face pitted with small-pox; his eyes, +blazing with an intelligence that was demoniacal, fixed upon her; the +long wound that stretched from his cheek to his forehead. The pleading +that had been mingled with the almost tyrannical command of his +demeanour had vanished now. He looked ferocious, arbitrary, like a +savage of genius full of some frightful message of warning or rebuke. +As the camel rose he cried aloud some words in Arabic. Domini heard +his voice, but could not understand the words. Laying his hands on the +stuff of the palanquin he shouted again, then took away his hands and +shook them above his head towards the desert, still staring at Domini +with his fanatical eyes. + +The wind shrieked, the sand grains whirled in spirals about his body, +the camel began to move away from the church slowly towards the +village. + +"A-ah!" cried the camel-driver. "A-ah!" + +In the storm his call sounded like a wail of despair. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +As the voice of the Diviner fainted away on the wind, and the vision +of his wounded face and piercing eyes was lost in the whirling sand +grains, Androvsky stretched out his hand and drew together the heavy +curtains of the palanquin. The world was shut out. They were alone for +the first time as man and wife; moving deliberately on this beast they +could not see, but whose slow and monotonous gait swung them gently to +and fro, out from the last traces of civilisation into the life of the +sands. With each soft step the camel took they went a little farther +from Beni-Mora, came a little nearer to that liberty of which Domini +sometimes dreamed, to the smiling eyes and the lifted spheres of fire. + +She shut her eyes now. She did not want to see her husband or to touch +his hand. She did not want to speak. She only wanted to feel in the +uttermost depths of her spirit this movement, steady and persistent, +towards the goal of her earthly desires, to realise absolutely the +marvellous truth that after years of lovelessness, and a dreaminess +more benumbing than acute misery, happiness more intense than any she +had been able to conceive of in her moments of greatest yearning was +being poured into her heart, that she was being taken to the place +where she would be with the one human being whose presence blotted out +even the memory of the false world and gave to her the true. And +whereas in the dead years she had sometimes been afraid of feeling too +much the emptiness and the desolation of her life, she was now afraid +of feeling too little its fulness and its splendour, was afraid of +some day looking back to this superb moment of her earthly fate, and +being conscious that she had not grasped its meaning till it was gone, +that she had done that most terrible of all things--realised that she +had been happy to the limits of her capacity for happiness only when +her happiness was numbered with the past. + +But could that ever be? Was Time, such Time as this, not Eternity? +Could such earthly things as this intense joy ever have been and no +longer be? It seemed to her that it could not be so. She felt like one +who held Eternity's hand, and went out with that great guide into the +endlessness of supreme perfection. For her, just then, the Creator's +scheme was rounded to a flawless circle. All things fell into order, +stars and men, the silent growing things, the seas, the mountains and +the plains, fell into order like a vast choir to obey the command of +the canticle: Benedicite, omnia opera!" + +"Bless ye the Lord!" The roaring of the wind about the palanquin +became the dominant voice of this choir in Domini's ears. + +"Bless ye the Lord!" It was obedient, not as the slave, but as the +free will is obedient, as her heart, which joined its voice with this +wind of the desert was obedient, because it gloriously chose with all +its powers, passions, aspirations to be so. The real obedience is only +love fulfilling its last desire, and this great song was the +fulfilling of the last desire of all created things. Domini knew that +she did not realise the joy of this moment of her life now when she +felt no longer that she was a woman, but only that she was a living +praise winging upward to God. + +A warm, strong hand clasped hers. She opened her eyes. In the dim +twilight of the palanquin she saw the darkness of Androvsky's tall +figure sitting in the crouched attitude rendered necessary by the +peculiar seat, and swaying slightly to the movement of the camel. The +light was so obscure that she could not see his eyes or clearly +discern his features, but she felt that he was gazing at her shadowy +figure, that his mind was passionately at work. Had he, too, been +silently praising God for his happiness, and was he now wishing the +body to join in the soul's delight? + +She left her hand in his passively. The sense of her womanhood, lost +for a moment in the ecstasy of worship, had returned to her, but with +a new and tremendous meaning which seemed to change her nature. +Androvsky forcibly pressed her hand with his, let it go, then pressed +it again, repeating the action with a regularity that seemed suggested +by some guidance. She imagined him pressing her hand each time his +heart pulsed. She did not want to return the pressure. As she felt his +hand thus closing and unclosing over hers, she was conscious that she, +who in their intercourse had played a dominant part, who had even +deliberately brought about that intercourse by her action on the +tower, now longed to be passive and, forgetting her own power and the +strength and force of her nature, to lose herself in the greater +strength and force of this man to whom she had given herself. Never +before had she wished to be anything but strong. Nor did she desire +weakness now, but only that his nature should rise above hers with +eagle's wings, that when she looked up she should see him, never when +she looked down. She thought that to see him below her would kill her, +and she opened her lips to say so. But something in the windy darkness +kept her silent. The heavy curtains of the palanquin shook +perpetually, and the tall wooden rods on which they were slung +creaked, making a small, incessant noise like a complaining, which +joined itself with the more distant but louder noise made by the +leaves of the thousands of palm trees dashed furiously together. From +behind came the groaning of one of the camels, borne on the gusts of +the wind, and faint sounds of the calling voices of the Arabs who +accompanied them. It was not a time to speak. + +She wondered where they were, in what part of the oasis, whether they +had yet gained the beginning of the great route which had always +fascinated her, and which was now the road to the goal of all her +earthly desires. But there was nothing to tell her. She travelled in a +world of dimness and the roar of wind, and in this obscurity and +uproar, combined with perpetual though slight motion, she lost all +count of time. She had no idea how long it was since she had come out +of the church door with Androvsky. At first she thought it was only a +few minutes, and that the camels must be just coming to the statue of +the Cardinal. Then she thought that it might be an hour, even more; +that Count Anteoni's garden was long since left behind, and that they +were passing, perhaps, along the narrow streets of the village of old +Beni-Mora, and nearing the edge of the oasis. But even in this +confusion of mind she felt that something would tell her when the last +palms had vanished in the sand mist and the caravan came out into the +desert. The sound of the wind would surely be different when they met +it on the immense flats, where there was nothing to break its fury. Or +even if it were not different, she felt that she would know, that the +desert would surely speak to her in the moment when, at last, it took +her to itself. It could not be that they would be taken by the desert +and she not know it. But she wanted Androvsky to know it too. For she +felt that the moment when the desert took them, man and wife, would be +a great moment in their lives, greater even than that in which they +met as they came into the blue country. And she set herself to listen, +with a passionate expectation, with an attention so close and +determined that it thrilled her body, and even affected her muscles. + +What she was listening for was a rising of the wind, a crescendo of +its voice. She was anticipating a triumphant cry from the Sahara, +unlimited power made audible in a sound like the blowing of the +clarion of the sands. + +Androvsky's hand was still on hers, but now it did not move as if +obeying the pulsations of his heart. It held hers closely, warmly, and +sent his strength to her, and presently, for an instant, taking her +mind from the desert, she lost herself in the mystery and the wonder +of human companionship. She realised that the touch of Androvsky's +hand on hers altered for her herself, and the whole universe as it was +presented to her, as she observed and felt it. Nothing remained as it +was when he did not touch her. There was something stupefying in the +thought, something almost terrible. The wonder that is alive in the +tiny things of love, and that makes tremendously important their +presence in, or absence from, a woman's life, took hold on her +completely for the first time, and set her forever in a changed world, +a world in which a great knowledge ruled instead of a great ignorance. +With the consciousness of exactly what Androvsky's touch meant to her +came a multiple consciousness of a thousand other things, all +connected with him and her consecrated relation to him. She quivered +with understanding. All the gates of her soul were being opened, and +the white light of comprehension of those things which make life +splendid and fruitful was pouring in upon her. Within the dim, +contained space of the palanquin, that was slowly carried onward +through the passion of the storm, there was an effulgence of unseen +glory that grew in splendour moment by moment. A woman was being born +of a woman, woman who knew herself of woman who did not know herself, +woman who henceforth would divinely love her womanhood of woman who +had often wondered why she had been created woman. + +The words muttered by the man of the sand in Count Anteoni's garden +were coming true. In the church of Beni-Mora the life of Domini had +begun more really than when her mother strove in the pains of +childbirth and her first faint cry answered the voice of the world's +light when it spoke to her. + +Slowly the caravan moved on. The camel-drivers sang low under the +folds of their haiks those mysterious songs of the East that seem the +songs of heat and solitude. Batouch, smothered in his burnous, his +large head sunk upon his chest, slumbered like a potentate relieved +from cares of State. Till Arba was reached his duty was accomplished. +Ali, perched behind him on the camel, stared into the dimness with +eyes steady and remote as those of a vulture of the desert. The houses +of Beni-Mora faded in the mist of the sand, the statue of the Cardinal +holding the double cross, the tower of the hotel, the shuddering trees +of Count Anteoni's garden. Along the white blue which was the road the +camels painfully advanced, urged by the cries and the sticks of the +running drivers. Presently the brown buildings of old Beni-Mora came +partially into sight, peeping here and there through the flying sands +and the frantic palm leaves. The desert was at hand. + +Ali began to sing, breathing his song into the back of Batouch's hood. + + "The love of women is like the holiday song that the boy sings gaily + In the sunny garden-- + The love of women is like the little moon, the little happy moon + In the last night of Ramadan. + The love of women is like the great silence that steals at dusk + To kiss the scented blossoms of the orange tree. + Sit thee down beneath the orange tree, O loving man! + That thou mayst know the kiss that tells the love of women. + + Janat! Janat! Janat!" + +Batouch stirred uneasily, pulled his hood from his eyes and looked +into the storm gravely. Then he shifted on the camel's hump and said +to Ali: + +"How shall we get to Arba? The wind is like all the Touaregs going to +battle. And when we leave the oasis----" + +"The wind is going down, Batouch-ben-Brahim," responded Ali, calmly. +"This evening the Roumis can lie in the tents." + +Batouch's thick lips curled with sarcasm. He spat into the wind, blew +his nose in his burnous, and answered: + +"You are a child, and can sing a pretty song, but--" + +Ali pointed with his delicate hand towards the south. + +"Do you not see the light in the sky?" + +Batouch stared before him, and perceived that there was in truth a +lifting of the darkness beyond, a whiteness growing where the desert +lay. + +"As we come into the desert the wind will fall," said Ali; and again +he began to sing to himself: + + "Janat! Janat! Janat!" + +Domini could not see the light in the south, and no premonition warned +her of any coming abatement of the storm. Once more she had begun to +listen to the roaring of the wind and to wait for the larger voice of +the desert, for the triumphant clarion of the sands that would +announce to her her entry with Androvsky into the life of the wastes. +Again she personified the Sahara, but now more vividly than ever +before. In the obscurity she seemed to see it far away, like a great +heroic figure, waiting for her and her passion, waiting in a region of +gold and silken airs at the back of the tempest to crown her life with +a joy wide as its dreamlike spaces, to teach her mind the inner truths +that lie beyond the crowded ways of men and to open her heart to the +most profound messages of Nature. + +She listened, holding Androvsky's hand, and she felt that he was +listening too, with an intensity strong as her own, or stronger. +Presently his hand closed upon hers more tightly, almost hurting her +physically. As it did so she glanced up, but not at him, and noticed +that the curtains of the palanquin were fluttering less fiercely. +Once, for an instant, they were almost still. Then again they moved as +if tugged by invisible hands; then were almost still once more. At the +same time the wind's voice sank in her ears like a music dropping +downward in a hollow place. It rose, but swiftly sank a second time to +a softer hush, and she perceived in the curtained enclosure a faintly +growing light which enabled her to see, for the first time since she +had left the church, her husband's features. He was looking at her +with an expression of anticipation in which there was awe, and she +realised that in her expectation of the welcome of the desert she had +been mistaken. She had listened for the sounding of a clarion, but she +was to be greeted by a still, small voice. She understood the awe in +her husband's eyes and shared it. And she knew at once, with a sudden +thrill of rapture, that in the scheme of things there are blessings +and nobilities undreamed of by man and that must always come upon him +with a glorious shock of surprise, showing him the poor faultiness of +what he had thought perhaps his most magnificent imaginings. Elisha +sought for the Lord in the fire and in the whirlwind; but in the +still, small voice onward came the Lord. + +Incomparably more wonderful than what she had waited for seemed to her +now this sudden falling of the storm, this mystical voice that came to +them out of the heart of the sands telling them that they were passing +at last into the arms of the Sahara. The wind sank rapidly. The light +grew in the palanquin. From without the voices of the camel-drivers +and of Batouch and Ali talking together reached their ears distinctly. +Yet they remained silent. It seemed as if they feared by speech to +break the spell of the calm that was flowing around them, as if they +feared to interrupt the murmur of the desert. Domini now returned the +gaze of her husband. She could not take her eyes from his, for she +wished him to read all the joy that was in her heart; she wished him +to penetrate her thoughts, to understand her desires, to be at one +with the woman who had been born on the eve of the passing of the +wind. With the coming of this mystic calm was coming surely something +else. The silence was bringing with it the fusing of two natures. The +desert in this moment was drawing together two souls into a union +which Time and Death would have no power to destroy. Presently the +wind completely died away, only a faint breeze fluttered the curtains +of the palanquin, and the light that penetrated between them here and +there was no longer white, but sparkled with a tiny dust of gold. Then +Androvsky moved to open the curtains, and Domini spoke for the first +time since their marriage. + +"Wait," she said in a low voice. + +He dropped his hand obediently, and looked at her with inquiry in his +eyes. + +"Don't let us look till we are far out," she said, "far away from +Beni-Mora." + +He made no answer, but she saw that he understood all that was in her +heart. He leaned a little nearer to her and stretched out his arm as +if to put it round her. But he did not put it round her, and she knew +why. He was husbanding his great joy as she had husbanded the dark +hours of the previous night that to her were golden. And that +unfinished action, that impulse unfulfilled, showed her more clearly +the depths of his passion for her even than had the desperate clasp of +his hands about her knees in the garden. That which he did not do now +was the greatest assertion possible of all that he would do in the +life that was before them, and made her feel how entirely she belonged +to him. Something within her trembled like a poor child before whom is +suddenly set the prospect of a day of perfect happiness. She thought +of the ending of this day, of the coming of the evening. Always the +darkness had parted them; at the ending of this day it would unite +them. In Androvsky's eyes she read her thought of the darkness +reflected, reflected and yet changed, transmuted by sex. It was as if +at that moment she read the same story written in two ways--by a woman +and by a man, as if she saw Eden, not only as Eve saw it, but as Adam. + +A long time passed, but they did not feel it to be long. When their +camel halted they unclasped their hands slowly like sleepers +reluctantly awaking. + +They heard Batouch's voice outside the palanquin. + +"Madame!" he called. "Madame!" + +"What is it?" asked Domini, stifling a sigh. + +"Madame should draw the curtains. We are halfway to Arba. It is time +for /dejeuner/. I will make the camel of Madame lie down." + +A loud "A-a-ah!" rose up, followed by a fierce groaning from the +camel, and a lethargic, yet violent, movement that threw them forward +and backward. They sank. A hand from without pulled back the curtains +and light streamed over them. They set their feet in sand, stood up, +and looked about them. + +Already they were far out in the desert, though not yet beyond the +limit of the range of red mountains, which stretched forward upon +their left but at no great distance beyond them ended in the sands. +The camels were lying down in a faintly defined track which was +bordered upon either side by the plain covered with little humps of +sandy soil on which grew dusty shrub. Above them was a sky of faint +blue, heavy with banks of clouds towards the east, and over their +heads dressed in wispy veils of vaporous white, through which the blue +peered in sections that grew larger as they looked. Towards the south, +where Arba lay on a low hill of earth, without grass or trees, beyond +a mound covered thickly with tamarisk bushes, which was a feeding- +place for immense herds of camels, the blue was clear and the light of +the sun intense. A delicate breeze travelled about them, stirring the +bushes and the robes of the Arabs, who were throwing back their hoods, +and uncovering their mouths, and smiling at them, but seriously, as +Arabs alone can smile. Beside them stood two white and yellow guard +dogs, blinking and looking weary. + +For a moment they stood still, blinking too, almost like the dogs. The +change to this immensity and light from the narrow darkness of the +palanquin overwhelmed their senses. They said nothing, but only stared +silently. Then Domini, with a large gesture, stretched her arms above +her head, drawing a deep breath which ended in a little, almost +sobbing, laugh of exultation. + +"Out of prison," she said disconnectedly. "Out of prison--into this!" +Suddenly she turned upon Androvsky and caught his arm, and twined both +of her arms round it with a strong confidence that was careless of +everything in the intensity of its happiness. + +"All my life I've been in prison," she said. "You've unlocked the +door!" And then, as suddenly as she had caught his arm, she let it go. +Something surged up in her, making her almost afraid; or, if not that, +confused. It was as if her nature were a horse taking the bit between +its teeth preparatory to a tremendous gallop. Whither? She did not +know. She was intoxicated by the growing light, the sharp, delicious +air, the huge spaces around her, the solitude with this man who held +her soul surely in his hands. She had always connected him with the +desert. Now he was hers into the desert, and the desert was hers with +him. But was it possible? Could such a fate have been held in reserve +for her? She scarcely dared even to try to realise the meaning of her +situation, lest at a breath it should be changed. Just then she felt +that if she ventured to weigh and measure her wonderful gift Androvsky +would fall dead at her feet and the desert be folded together like a +scroll. + +"There is Beni-Mora, Madame," said Batouch. + +She was glad he spoke to her, turned and followed with her eyes his +pointing hand. Far off she saw a green darkness of palms, and above it +a white tower, small, from here, as the tower of a castle of dolls. + +"The tower!" she said to Androvsky. "We first spoke in it. We must bid +it good-bye." + +She made a gesture of farewell towards it. Androvsky watched the +movement of her hand. She noticed now that she made no movement that +he did not observe with a sort of passionate attention. The desert did +not exist for him. She saw that in his eyes. He did not look towards +the tower even when she repeated: + +"We must--we owe it that." + +Batouch and Ali were busy spreading a cloth upon the sand, making it +firm with little stones, taking out food, plates, knives, glasses, +bottles from a great basket slung on one of the camels. They moved +deftly, seriously intent upon their task. The camel-drivers were +loosening the cords that bound the loads upon their beasts, who roared +venomously, opening their mouths, showing long decayed teeth, and +turning their heads from side to side with a serpentine movement. +Domini and Androvsky were not watched for a moment. + +"Why won't you look? Why won't you say good-bye?" she asked, coming +nearer to him on the sand softly, with a woman's longing to hear him +explain what she understood. + +"What do I care for it, or the palms, or the sky, or the desert?" he +answered almost savagely. "What can I care? If you were mine behind +iron bars in that prison you spoke of--don't you think it's enough for +me--too much--a cup running over?" + +And he added some words under his breath, words she could not hear. + +"Not even the desert!" she said with a catch in her voice. + +"It's all in you. Everything's in you--everything that brought us +together, that we've watched and wanted together." + +"But then," she said, and now her voice was very quiet, "am I peace +for you?" + +"Peace!" said Androvsky. + +"Yes. Don't you remember once I said that there must be peace in the +desert. Then is it in me--for you?" + +"Peace!" he repeated. "To-day I can't think of peace, or want it. +Don't you ask too much of me! Let me live to-day, live as only a man +can who--let me live with all that is in me to-day--Domini. Men ask to +die in peace. Oh, Domini--Domini!" + +His expression was like arms that crushed her, lips that pressed her +mouth, a heart that beat on hers. + +"Madame est servie!" cried Batouch in a merry voice. + +His mistress did not seem to hear him. He cried again: + +"Madame est servie!" + +Then Domini turned round and came to the first meal in the sand. Two +cushions lay beside the cloth upon an Arab quilt of white, red, and +orange colour. Upon the cloth, in vases of rough pottery, stained with +designs in purple, were arranged the roses brought by Smain from Count +Anteoni's garden. + +"Our wedding breakfast!" Domini said under her breath. + +She felt just then as if she were living in a wonderful romance. + +They sat down side by side and ate with a good appetite, served by +Batouch and Ali. Now and then a pale yellow butterfly, yellow as the +sand, flitted by them. Small yellow birds with crested heads ran +swiftly among the scrub, or flew low over the flats. In the sky the +vapours gathered themselves together and moved slowly away towards the +east, leaving the blue above their heads unflecked with white. With +each moment the heat of the sun grew more intense. The wind had gone. +It was difficult to believe that it had ever roared over the desert. A +little way from them the camel-drivers squatted beside the beasts, +eating flat loaves of yellow bread, and talking together in low, +guttural voices. The guard dogs roamed round them, uneasily hungry. In +the distance, before a tent of patched rags, a woman, scantily clad in +bright red cotton, was suckling a child and staring at the caravan. + +Domini and Androvsky scarcely spoke as they ate. Once she said: + +"Do you realise that this is a wedding breakfast?" + +She was thinking of the many wedding receptions she had attended in +London, of crowds of smartly-dressed women staring enviously at +tiaras, and sets of jewels arranged in cases upon tables, of brides +and bridegrooms, looking flushed and anxious, standing under canopies +of flowers and forcing their tired lips into smiles as they replied to +stereotyped congratulations, while detectives--poorly disguised as +gentlemen--hovered in the back-ground to see that none of the presents +mysteriously disappeared. Her presents were the velvety roses in the +earthen vases, the breezes of the desert, the sand humps, the yellow +butterflies, the silence that lay around like a blessing pronounced by +the God who made the still places where souls can learn to know +themselves and their great destiny. + +"A wedding breakfast," Androvsky said. + +"Yes. But perhaps you have never been to one." + +"Never." + +"Then you can't love this one as much as I do." + +"Much more," he answered. + +She looked at him, remembering how often in the past, when she had +been feeling intensely, she had it borne in upon her that he was +feeling even more intensely than herself. But could that be possible +now? + +"Do you think," she said, "that it is possible for you, who have never +lived in cities, to love this land as I love it?" + +Androvsky moved on his cushion and leaned down till his elbow touched +the sand. Lying thus, with his chin in his hand, and his eyes fixed +upon her, he answered: + +"But it is not the land I am loving." + +His absolute concentration upon her made her think that, perhaps, he +misunderstood her meaning in speaking of the desert, her joy in it. +She longed to explain how he and the desert were linked together in +her heart, and she dropped her hand upon his left hand, which lay palm +downwards in the warm sand. + +"I love this land," she began, "because I found you in it, because I +feel----" + +She stopped. + +"Yes, Domini?" he said. + +"No, not now. I can't tell you. There's too much light." + +"Domini," he repeated. + +Then they were silent once more, thinking of how the darkness would +come to them at Arba. + +In the late afternoon they drew near to the Bordj, moving along a +difficult route full of deep ruts and holes, and bordered on either +side by bushes so tall that they looked almost like trees. Here, +tended by Arabs who stared gravely at the strangers in the palanquin, +were grazing immense herds of camels. Above the bushes to the horizon +on either side of the way appeared the serpentine necks flexibly +moving to and fro, now bending deliberately towards the dusty twigs, +now stretched straight forward as if in patient search for some solace +of the camel's fate that lay in the remoteness of the desert. Baby +camels, many of them only a few days old, yet already vowed to the +eternal pilgrimages of the wastes, with mild faces and long, +disobedient-looking legs, ran from the caravan, nervously seeking +their morose mothers, who cast upon them glances that seemed +expressive of a disdainful pity. In front, beyond a watercourse, now +dried up, rose the low hill on which stood the Bordj, a huge, square +building, with two square towers pierced with loopholes. From a +distance it resembled a fort threatening the desert in magnificent +isolation. Its towers were black against the clear lemon of the +failing sunlight. Pigeons, that looked also black, flew perpetually +about them, and the telegraph posts, that bordered the way at regular +intervals on the left, made a diminishing series of black vertical +lines sharply cutting the yellow till they were lost to sight in the +south. To Domini these posts were like pointing fingers beckoning her +onward to the farthest distances of the sun. Drugged by the long +journey over the flats, and the unceasing caress of the air, that was +like an importunate lover ever unsatisfied, she watched from the +height on which she was perched this evening scene of roaming, feeding +animals, staring nomads, monotonous herbage and vague, surely- +retreating mountains, with quiet, dreamy eyes. Everything which she +saw seemed to her beautiful, a little remote and a little fantastic. +The slow movement of the camels, the swifter movements of the circling +pigeons about the square towers on the hill, the motionless, or +gently-gliding, Arabs with their clubs held slantwise, the telegraph +poles, one smaller than the other, diminishing till--as if magically-- +they disappeared in the lemon that was growing into gold, were woven +together for her by the shuttle of the desert into a softly brilliant +tapestry--one of those tapestries that is like a legend struck to +sleep as the Beauty in her palace. As they began to mount the hill, +and the radiance of the sky increased, this impression faded, for the +life that centred round the Bordj was vivid, though sparse in +comparison with the eddying life of towns, and had that air of +peculiar concentration which may be noted in pictures representing a +halt in the desert. + +No longer did the strongly-built Bordj seem to Domini like a fort +threatening the oncomer, but like a stalwart host welcoming him, a +host who kept open house in this treeless desolation that yet had, for +her, no feature that was desolate. It was earth-coloured, built of +stone, and had in the middle of the facade that faced them an immense +hospitable doorway with a white arch above it. This doorway gave a +partial view of a vast courtyard, in which animals and people were +moving to and fro. Round about, under the sheltering shadow of the +windowless wall, were many Arabs, some squatting on their haunches, +some standing upright with their backs against the stone, some moving +from one group to another, gesticulating and talking vivaciously. Boys +were playing a game with stones set in an ordered series of small +holes scooped by their fingers in the dust. A negro crossed the flat +space before the Bordj carrying on his head a huge earthen vase to the +well near by, where a crowd of black donkeys, just relieved of their +loads of brushwood, was being watered. From the south two Spahis were +riding in on white horses, their scarlet cloaks floating out over +their saddles; and from the west, moving slowly to a wailing sound of +indistinct music, a faint beating of tomtoms, was approaching a large +caravan in a cloud of dust which floated back from it and melted away +into the radiance of the sunset. + +When they gained the great open space before the building they were +bathed in the soft golden light, in which all these figures of +Africans, and all these animals, looked mysterious and beautiful, and +full of that immeasurable significance which the desert sheds upon +those who move in it, specially at dawn or at sundown. From the +plateau they dominated the whole of the plain they had traversed as +far as Beni-Mora, which on the morrow would fade into the blue +horizon. Its thousands of palms made a darkness in the gold, and still +the tower of the hotel was faintly visible, pointing like a needle +towards the sky. The range of mountains showed their rosy flanks in +the distance. They, too, on the morrow would be lost in the desert +spaces, the last outposts of the world of hill and valley, of stream +and sea. Only in the deceptive dream of the mirage would they appear +once more, looming in a pearl-coloured shaking veil like a fluid on +the edge of some visionary lagune. + +Domini was glad that on this first night of their journey they could +still see Beni-Mora, the place where they had found each other and +been given to each other by the Church. As the camel stopped before +the great doorway of the Bordj she turned in the palanquin and looked +down upon the desert, motioning to the camel-driver to leave the beast +for a moment. She put her arm through Androvsky's and made his eyes +follow hers across the vast spaces made magical by the sinking sun to +that darkness of distant palms which, to her, would be a sacred place +for ever. And as they looked in silence all that Beni-Mora meant to +her came upon her. She saw again the garden hushed in the heat of +noon. She saw Androvsky at her feet on the sand. She heard the chiming +church bell and the twitter of Larbi's flute. The dark blue of trees +was as the heart of the world to her and as the heart of life. It had +seen the birth of her soul and given to her another newborn soul. +There was a pathos in seeing it fade like a thing sinking down till it +became one with the immeasurable sands, and at that moment she said to +herself, "When shall I see Beni-Mora again--and how?" She looked at +Androvsky, met his eyes, and thought: "When I see it again how +different I shall be! How I shall be changed!" And in the sunset she +seemed to be saying a mute good-bye to one who was fading with Beni- +Mora. + +As soon as they had got off the camel and were standing in the group +of staring Arabs, Batouch begged them to come to their tents, where +tea would be ready. He led them round the angle of the wall towards +the west, and there, pitched in the full radiance of the sunset, with +a wide space of hard earth gleaming with gypse around it, was a white +tent. Before it, in the open air, was stretched a handsome Arab +carpet, and on this carpet were set a folding table and two folding +chairs. The table held a japanned tray with tea-cups, a milk jug and +plates of biscuits and by it, in an attitude that looked deliberately +picturesque stood Ouardi, the youth selected by Batouch to fill the +office of butler in the desert. + +Ouardi smiled a broad welcome as they approached, and having made sure +that his pose had been admired, retired to the cook's abode to fetch +the teapot, while Batouch invited Domini and Androvsky to inspect the +tent prepared for them. Domini assented with a dropped-out word. She +still felt in a dream. But Androvsky, after casting towards the tent +door a glance that was full of a sort of fierce shyness, moved away a +few steps, and stood at the edge of the hill looking down upon the +incoming caravan, whose music was now plainly audible in the stillness +of the waste. + +Domini went into the tent that was to be their home for many weeks, +alone. And she was glad just then that she was alone. For she too, +like Androvsky, felt a sort of exquisite trouble moving, like a wave, +in her heart. On some pretext, but only after an expression of +admiration, she got rid of Batouch. Then she stood and looked round. + +From the big tent opened a smaller one, which was to serve Androvsky +as a dressing-room and both of them as a baggage room. She did not go +into that, but saw, with one glance of soft inquiry, the two small, +low beds, the strips of gay carpet, the dressing-table, the stand and +the two cane chairs which furnished the sleeping-tent. Then she looked +back to the aperture. In the distance, standing alone at the edge of +the hill, she saw Androvsky, bathed in the sunset, looking out over +the hidden desert from which rose the wild sound of African music, +steadily growing louder. It seemed to her as if he must be gazing at +the plains of heaven, so magically brilliant and tender, so pellucidly +clear and delicate was the atmosphere and the colour of the sky. She +saw no other form, only his, in this poem of light, in this wide world +of the sinking sun. And the music seemed to be about his feet, to rise +from the sand and throb in its breast. + +At that moment the figure of Liberty, which she had seen in the +shadows of the dancing-house, came in at the tent door and laid, for +the first time, her lips on Domini's. That kiss was surely the +consecration of the life of the sands. But to-day there had been +another consecration. Domini had a sudden impulse to link the two +consecrations together. + +She drew from her breast the wooden crucifix Androvsky had thrown into +the stream at Sidi-Zerzour, and, softly going to one of the beds, she +pinned the crucifix above it on the canvas of the tent. Then she +turned and went out into the glory of the sunset to meet the fierce +music that was rising from the desert. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Night had fallen over the desert, a clear purple night, starry but +without a moon. Around the Bordj, and before a Cafe Maure built of +brown earth and palm-wood, opposite to it, the Arabs who were halting +to sleep at Arba on their journeys to and from Beni-Mora were huddled, +sipping coffee, playing dominoes by the faint light of an oil lamp, +smoking cigarettes and long pipes of keef. Within the court of the +Bordj the mules were feeding tranquilly in rows. The camels roamed the +plain among the tamarisk bushes, watched over by shrouded shadowy +guardians sleepless as they were. The mountains, the palms of Beni- +Mora, were lost in the darkness that lay over the desert. + +On the low hill, at some distance beyond the white tent of Domini and +Androvsky, the obscurity was lit up fiercely by the blaze of a huge +fire of brushwood, the flames of which towered up towards the stars, +flickering this way and that as the breeze took them, and casting a +wild illumination upon the wild faces of the rejoicing desert men who +were gathered about it, telling stories of the wastes, singing songs +that were melancholy and remote to Western ears, even though they +hymned past victories over the infidels, or passionate ecstasies of +love in the golden regions of the sun. The steam from bowls of cous- +cous and stews of mutton and vegetables curled up to join the thin +smoke that made a light curtain about this fantasia, and from time to +time, with a shrill cry of exultation, a half-naked form, all gleaming +eyes and teeth and polished bronze-hued limbs, rushed out of the +blackness beyond the fire, leaped through the tongues of flame and +vanished like a spectre into the embrace of the night. + +All the members of the caravan, presided over by Batouch in glory, +were celebrating the wedding night of their master and mistress. + +Domini and Androvsky had already visited them by their bonfire, had +received their compliments, watched the sword dance and the dance of +the clubs, touched with their lips, or pretended to touch, the stem of +a keef, listened to a marriage song warbled by Ali to the +accompaniment of a flute and little drums, and applauded Ouardi's +agility in leaping through the flames. Then, with many good-nights, +pressures of the hand, and auguries for the morrow, they had gone away +into the cool darkness, silently towards their tent. + +They walked slowly, a little apart from each other. Domini looked up +at the stars and saw among them the star of Liberty. Androvsky looked +at her and saw all the stars in her face. When they reached the tent +door they stopped on the warm earth. A lamp was lit within, casting a +soft light on the simple furniture and on the whiteness of the two +beds, above one of which Domini imagined, though from without she +could not see, the wooden crucifix Androvsky had once worn in his +breast. + +"Shall we stay here a little?" Domini said in a low voice. "Out here?" +There was a long pause. Then Androvsky answered: + +"Yes. Let us feel it all--all. Let us feel it to the full." + +He caught hold of her hand with a sort of tender roughness and twined +his fingers between hers, pressing his palm against hers. + +"Don't let us miss anything to-night," he said. "All my life is +to-night. I've had no life yet. To-morrow--who knows whether we shall +be dead to-morrow? Who knows? But we're alive to-night, flesh and +blood, heart and soul. And there's nothing here, there can be nothing +here to take our life from us, the life of our love to-night. For +we're out in the desert, we're right away from anyone, everything. +We're in the great freedom. Aren't we, Domini? Aren't we?" + +"Yes," she said. "Yes." + +He took her other hand in the same way. He was facing her, and he held +his hands against his heart with hers in them, then pressed her hands +against her heart, then drew them back again to his. + +"Then let us realise it. Let us forget our prison. Let us forget +everything, everything that we ever knew before Beni-Mora, Domini. +It's dead, absolutely dead, unless we make it live by thinking. And +that's mad, crazy. Thought's the great madness. Domini, have you +forgotten everything before we knew each other?" + +"Yes," she said. "Now--but only now. You've made me forget it all." + +There was a deep breathing under her voice. He held up her hands to +his shoulders and looked closely into her eyes, as if he were trying +to send all himself into her through those doors of the soul opened to +seeing him. And now, in this moment, she felt that her fierce desire +was realised, that he was rising above her on eagle's wings. And as on +the night before the wedding she had blessed all the sorrows of her +life, now she blessed silently all the long silence of Androvsky, all +his strange reticence, his uncouthness, his avoidance of her in the +beginning of their acquaintance. That which had made her pain by +being, now made her joy by having been and being no more. The hidden +man was rushing forth to her at last in his love. She seemed to hear +in the night the crash of a great obstacle, and the voice of the flood +of waters that had broken it down at length and were escaping into +liberty. His silence of the past now made his speech intensely +beautiful and wonderful to her. She wanted to hear the waters more +intensely, more intensely. + +"Speak to me," she said. "You've spoken so little. Do you know how +little? Tell me all you are. Till now I've only felt all you are. And +that's so much, but not enough for a woman--not enough. I've taken +you, but now--give me all I've taken. Give--keep on giving and giving. +From to-night to receive will be my life. Long ago I've given all I +had to you. Give to me, give me everything. You know I've given all." + +"All?" he said, and there was a throb in his deep voice, as if some +intense feeling rose from the depths of him and shook it. + +"Yes, all," she whispered. "Already--and long ago--that day in the +garden. When I--when I put my hands against your forehead--do you +remember? I gave you all, for ever." + +And as she spoke she bent down her face with a sort of proud +submission and put her forehead against his heart. + +The purity in her voice and in her quiet, simple action dazzled him +like a flame shining suddenly in his eyes out of blackness. And he, +too, in that moment saw far up above him the beating of an eagle's +wings. To each one the other seemed to be on high, and as both looked +up that was their true marriage. + +"I felt it," he said, touching her hair with his lips. "I felt it in +your hands. When you touched me that day it was as if you were giving +me the world and the stars. It frightened me to receive so much. I +felt as if I had no place to put my gift in." + +"Did your heart seem so small?" she said. + +"You make everything I have and am seem small--and yet great. What +does it mean?" + +"That you are great, as I am, because we love. No one is small who +loves. No one is poor, no one is bad, who loves. Love burns up evil. +It's the angel that destroys." + +Her words seemed to send through his whole body a quivering joy. He +took her face between his hands and lifted it from his heart. + +"Is that true? Is that true?" he said. "I've--I've tried to think +that. If you know how I've tried." + +"And don't you know it is true?" + +"I don't feel as if I knew anything that you do not tell me to-night. +I don't feel as if I have, or am, anything but what you give me, make +me to-night. Can you understand that? Can you understand what you are +to me? That you are everything, that I have nothing else, that I have +never had anything else in all these years that I have lived and that +I have forgotten? Can you understand it? You said just now 'Speak to +me, tell me all you are.' That's what I am, all I am, a man you have +made a man. You, Domini--you have made me a man, you have created me." + +She was silent. The intensity with which he spoke, the intensity of +his eyes while he was speaking, made her hear those rushing waters as +if she were being swept away by them. + +"And you?" he said. "You?" + +"I?" + +"This afternoon in the desert, when we were in the sand looking at +Beni-Mora, you began to tell me something and then you stopped. And +you said, 'I can't tell you. There's too much light.' Now the sun has +gone." + +"Yes. But--but I want to listen to you. I want----" + +She stopped. In the distance, by the great fire where the Arabs were +assembled, there rose a sound of music which arrested her attention. +Ali was singing, holding in his hand a brand from the fire like a +torch. She had heard him sing before, and had loved the timbre of his +voice, but only now did she realise when she had first heard him and +who he was. It was he who, hidden from her, had sung the song of the +freed negroes of Touggourt in the gardens of Count Anteoni that day +when she had been angry with Androvsky and had afterwards been +reconciled with him. And she knew now it was he, because, once more +hidden from her--for against the curtain of darkness she only saw the +flame from the torch he held and moved rhythmically to the burden of +his song--he was singing it again. Androvsky, when she ceased to +speak, suddenly put his arms round her, as if he were afraid of her +escaping from him in her silence, and they stood thus at the tent door +listening: + + "The gazelle dies in the water, + The fish dies in the air, + And I die in the dunes of the desert sand + For my love that is deep and sad." + +The chorus of hidden men by the fire rose in a low murmur that was +like the whisper of the desert in the night. Then the contralto voice +of Ali came to Domini and Androvsky again, but very faintly, from the +distance where the flaming torch was moving: + + "No one but God and I + Knows what is in my heart." + +When the voice died away for a moment Domini whispered the refrain. +Then she said: + +"But is it true? Can it be true for us to-night?" + +Androvsky did not reply. + +"I don't think it is true," she added. "You know--don't you?" + +The voice of Ali rose again, and his torch flickered on the soft wind +of the night. Its movement was slow and eerie. It seemed like his +voice made visible, a voice of flame in the blackness of the world. +They watched it. Presently she said once more: + +"You know what is in my heart--don't you?" + +"Do I?" he said. "All?" + +"All. My heart is full of one thing--quite full." + +"Then I know." + +"And," she hesitated, then added, "and yours?" + +"Mine too." + +"I know all that is in it then?" + +She still spoke questioningly. He did not reply, but held her more +closely, with a grasp that was feverish in its intensity. + +"Do you remember," she went on, "in the garden what you said about +that song?" + +"No." + +"You have forgotten?" + +"I told you," he said, "I mean to forget everything." + +"Everything before we came to Beni-Mora?" + +"And more. Everything before you put your hands against my forehead, +Domini. Your touch blotted out the past." + +"Even the past at Beni-Mora?" + +"Yes, even that. There are many things I did and left undone, many +things I said and never said that--I have forgotten--I have forgotten +for ever." + +There was a sternness in his voice now, a fiery intention. + +"I understand," she said. "I have forgotten them too, but not some +things." + +"Which?" + +"Not that night when you took me out of the dancing-house, not our +ride to Sidi-Zerzour, not--there are things I shall remember. When I +am dying, after I am dead, I shall remember them." + +The song faded away. The torch was still, then fell downwards and +became one with the fire. Then Androvsky drew Domini down beside him +on to the warm earth before the tent door, and held her hand in his +against the earth. + +"Feel it," he said. "It's our home, it's our liberty. Does it feel +alive to you?" + +"Yes." + +"As if it had pulses, like the pulses in our hearts, and knew what we +know?" + +"Yes. Mother Earth--I never understood what that meant till to-night." + +"We are beginning to understand together. Who can understand anything +alone?" + +He kept her hand always in his pressed against the desert as against a +heart. They both thought of it as a heart that was full of love and +protection for them, of understanding of them. Going back to their +words before the song of Ali, he said: + +"Love burns up evil, then love can never be evil." + +"Not the act of loving." + +"Or what it leads to," he said. + +And again there was a sort of sternness in his voice, as if he were +insisting on something, were bent on conquering some reluctance, or +some voice contradicting. + +"I know that you are right," he added. + +She did not speak, but--why she did not know--her thought went to the +wooden crucifix fastened in the canvas of the tent close by, and for a +moment she felt a faint creeping sadness in her. But he pressed her +hand more closely, and she was conscious only of these two warmths--- +of his hand above her hand and of the desert beneath it. Her whole +life seemed set in a glory of fire, in a heat that was life-giving, +that dominated her and evoked at the same time all of power that was +in her, causing her dormant fires, physical and spiritual, to blaze up +as if they were sheltered and fanned. The thought of the crucifix +faded. It was as if the fire destroyed it and it became ashes--then +nothing. She fixed her eyes on the distant fire of the Arabs, which +was beginning to die down slowly as the night grew deeper. + +"I have doubted many things," he said. "I've been afraid." + +"You!" she said. + +"Yes. You know it." + +"How can I? Haven't I forgotten everything--since that day in the +garden?" + +He drew up her hand and put it against his heart. + +"I'm jealous of the desert even," he whispered. "I won't let you touch +it any more tonight." + +He looked into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the distant +fire, steadily, with an intense eagerness. + +"Why do you do that?" he said. + +"To-night I like to look at fire," she answered. + +"Tell me why." + +"It is as if I looked at you, at all that there is in you that you +have never said, never been able to say to me, all that you never can +say to me but that I know all the same." + +"But," he said, "that fire is----" + +He did not finish the sentence, but put up his hand and turned her +face till she was looking, not at the fire, but at him. + +"It is not like me," he said. "Men made it, and--it's a fire that can +sink into ashes." + +An expression of sudden exaltation shone in her eyes. + +"And God made you," she said. "And put into you the spark that is +eternal." + +And now again she thought, she dared, she loved to think of the +crucifix and of the moment when he would see it in the tent. + +"And God made you love me," she said. "What is it?" + +Androvsky had moved suddenly, as if he were going to get up from the +warm ground. + +"Did you--?" + +"No," he said in a low voice. "Go on, Domini. Speak to me." + +He sat still. + +A sudden longing came to her to know if to-night he were feeling as +she was the sacredness of their relation to each other. Never had they +spoken intimately of religion or of the mysteries that lie beyond and +around human life. Once or twice, when she had been about to open her +heart to him, to let him understand her deep sense of the things +unseen, something had checked her, something in him. It was as if he +had divined her intention and had subtly turned her from it, without +speech, merely by the force of his inward determination that she +should not break through his reserve. But to-night, with his hand on +hers and the starry darkness above them, with the waste stretching +around them, and the cool air that was like the breath of liberty upon +their faces, she was unconscious of any secret, combative force in +him. It was impossible to her to think there could have been any +combat, however inward, however subtle, between them. Surely if it +were ever permitted to two natures to be in perfect accord theirs were +in perfect accord to-night. + +"I never felt the presence of God in His world so keenly as I feel it +to-night," she went on, drawing a little closer to him. "Even in the +church to-day He seemed farther away than tonight. But somehow--one +has these thoughts without knowing why--I have always believed that +the farther I went into the desert the nearer I should come to God." + +Androvsky moved again. The clasp of his hand on hers loosened, but he +did not take his hand away. + +"Why should--what should make you think that?" he asked slowly. + +"Don't you know what the Arabs call the desert?" + +"No. What do they call it?" + +"The Garden of Allah." + +"The Garden of Allah!" he repeated. + +There was a sound like fear in his voice. Even her great joy did not +prevent her from noticing it, and she remembered, with a thrill of +pain, where and under what circumstances she had first heard the +Arab's name for the desert. + +Could it be that this man she loved was secretly afraid of something +in the desert, some influence, some--? Her thought stopped short, like +a thing confused. + +"Don't you think it a very beautiful name?" she asked, with an almost +fierce longing to be reassured, to be made to know that he, like her, +loved the thought that God was specially near to those who travelled +in this land of solitude. + +"Is it beautiful?" + +"To me it is. It makes me feel as if in the desert I were specially +watched over and protected, even as if I were specially loved there." + +Suddenly Androvsky put his arm round her and strained her to him. + +"By me! By me!" he said. "Think of me to-night, only of me, as I think +only of you." + +He spoke as if he were jealous even of her thought of God, as if he +did not understand that it was the very intensity of her love for him +that made her, even in the midst of the passion of the body, connect +their love of each other with God's love of them. In her heart this +overpowering human love which, in the garden, when first she realised +it fully, had seemed to leave no room in her for love of God, now in +the moment when it was close to absolute satisfaction seemed almost to +be one with her love of God. Perhaps no man could understand how, in a +good woman, the two streams of the human love which implies the +intense desire of the flesh, and the mystical love which is absolutely +purged of that desire, can flow the one into the other and mingle +their waters. She tried to think that, and then she ceased to try. +Everything was forgotten as his arms held her fast in the night, +everything except this great force of human love which was like iron, +and yet soft about her, which was giving and wanting, which was +concentrated upon her to the exclusion of all else, plunging the +universe in darkness and setting her in light. + +"There is nothing for me to-night but you," he said, crushing her in +his arms. "The desert is your garden. To me it has always been your +garden, only that, put here for you, and for me because you love me-- +but for me only because of that." + +The Arabs' fire was rapidly dying down. + +"When it goes out, when it goes out!" Androvsky whispered it her ear. + +His breath stirred the thick tresses of her hair. + +"Let us watch it!" he whispered. + +She pressed his hand but did not reply. She could not speak any more. +At last the something wild and lawless, the something that was more +than passionate, that was hot and even savage in her nature, had risen +up in its full force to face a similar force in him, which insistently +called it and which it answered without shame. + +"It is dying," Androvsky said. "It is dying. Look how small the circle +of the flame is, how the darkness is creeping up about it! Domini--do +you see?" + +She pressed his hand again. + +"Do you long for the darkness?" he asked. "Do you, Domini? The desert +is sending it. The desert is sending it for you, and for me because +you love me." + +A log in the fire, charred by the flames, broke in two. Part of it +fell down into the heart of the fire, which sent up a long tongue of +red gold flame. + +"That is like us," he said. "Like us together in the darkness." + +She felt his body trembling, as if the vehemence of the spirit +confined within it shook it. In the night the breeze slightly +increased, making the flame of the lamp behind them in the tent +flicker. And the breeze was like a message, brought to them from the +desert by some envoy in the darkness, telling them not to be afraid of +their wonderful gift of freedom with each other, but to take it open- +handed, open-hearted, with the great courage of joy. + +"Domini, did you feel that gust of the wind? It carried away a cloud +of sparks from the fire and brought them a little way towards us. Did +you see? Fire wandering on the wind through the night calling to the +fire that is in us. Wasn't it beautiful? Everything is beautiful +to-night. There were never such stars before." + +She looked up at them. Often she had watched the stars, and known the +vague longings, the almost terrible aspirations they wake in their +watchers. But to her also they looked different to-night, nearer to +the earth, she thought, brighter, more living than ever before, like +strange tenderness made visible, peopling the night with an +unconquerable sympathy. The vast firmament was surely intent upon +their happiness. Again the breeze came to them across the waste, cool +and breathing of the dryness of the sands. Not far away a jackal +laughed. After a pause it was answered by another jackal at a +distance. The voices of these desert beasts brought home to Domini +with an intimacy not felt by her before the exquisite remoteness of +their situation, and the shrill, discordant noise, rising and falling +with a sort of melancholy and sneering mirth, mingled with bitterness, +was like a delicate music in her ears. + +"Hark!" Androvsky whispered. + +The first jackal laughed once more, was answered again. A third beast, +evidently much farther off, lifted up a faint voice like a dismal +echo. Then there was silence. + +"You loved that, Domini. It was like the calling of freedom to you-- +and to me. We've found freedom; we've found it. Let us feel it. Let us +take hold of it. It is the only thing, the only thing. But you can't +know that as I do, Domini." + +Again she was conscious that his intensity surpassed hers, and the +consciousness, instead of saddening or vexing, made her thrill with +joy. + +"I am maddened by this freedom," he said; "maddened by it, Domini. I +can't help--I can't--" + +He laid his lips upon hers in a desperate caress that almost +suffocated her. Then he took his lips away from her lips and kissed +her throat, holding her head back against his shoulder. She shut her +eyes. He was indeed teaching her to forget. Even the memory of the day +in the garden when she heard the church bell chime and the sound of +Larbi's flute went from her. She remembered nothing any more. The past +was lost or laid in sleep by the spell of sensation. Her nature +galloped like an Arab horse across the sands towards the sun, towards +the fire that sheds warmth afar but that devours all that draws near +to it. At that moment she connected Androvsky with the tremendous +fires eternally blazing in the sun. She had a desire that he should +hurt her in the passionate intensity of his love for her. Her nature, +which till now had been ever ready to spring into hostility at an +accidental touch, which had shrunk instinctively from physical contact +with other human beings, melted, was utterly transformed. She felt +that she was now the opposite of all that she had been--more woman +than any other woman who had ever lived. What had been an almost cold +strength in her went to increase the completeness of this yielding to +one stronger than herself. What had seemed boyish and almost hard in +her died away utterly under the embrace of this fierce manhood. + +"Domini," he spoke, whispering while he kissed her, "Domini, the +fire's gone out. It's dark." + +He lifted her a little in his arms, still kissing her. + +"Domini, it's dark, it's dark." + +He lifted her more. She stood up, with his arms about her, looking +towards where the fire had been. She put her hands against his face +and softly pressed it back from hers, but with a touch that was a +caress. He yielded to her at once. + +"Look!" he said. "Do you love the darkness? Tell me--tell me that you +love it." + +She let her hand glide over his cheek in answer. + +"Look at it. Love it. All the desert is in it, and our love in the +desert. Let us stay in the desert, let us stay in it for ever--for +ever. It is your garden--yours. It has brought us everything, Domini." + +He took her hand and pressed it again and again over his cheek +lingeringly. Then, abruptly, he dropped it. + +"Come!" he said. "Domini." + +And he drew her in through the tent door almost violently. + +A stronger gust of the night wind followed them. Androvsky took his +arms slowly from Domini and turned to let down the flap of the tent. +While he was doing this she stood quite still. The flame of the lamp +flickered, throwing its light now here, now there, uneasily. She saw +the crucifix lit up for an instant and the white bed beneath it. The +wind stirred her dark hair and was cold about her neck. But the warmth +there met and defied it. In that brief moment, while Androvsky was +fastening the tent, she seemed to live through centuries of intense +and complicated emotion. When the light flickered over the crucifix +she felt as if she could spend her life in passionate adoration at its +foot; but when she did not see it, and the wind, coming in from the +desert through the tent door, where she heard the movement of +Androvsky, stirred in her hair, she felt reckless, wayward, savage-- +and something more. A cry rose in her that was like the cry of a +stranger, who yet was of her and in her, and from whom she would not +part. + +Again the lamp flame flickered upon the crucifix. Quickly, while she +saw the crucifix plainly, she went forward to the bed and fell on her +knees by it, bending down her face upon its whiteness. + +When Androvsky had fastened the tent door he turned round and saw her +kneeling. He stood quite still as if petrified, staring at her. Then, +as the flame, now sheltered from the wind, burned steadily, he saw the +crucifix. He started as if someone had struck him, hesitated, then, +with a look of fierce and concentrated resolution on his face, went +swiftly to the crucifix and pulled it from the canvas roughly. He held +it in his hand for an instant, then moved to the tent door and stooped +to unfasten the cords that held it to the pegs, evidently with the +intention of throwing the crucifix out into the night. But he did not +unfasten the cords. Something--some sudden change of feeling, some +secret and powerful reluctance--checked him. He thrust the crucifix +into his pocket. Then, returning to where Domini was kneeling, he put +his arms round her and drew her to her feet. + +She did not resist him. Still holding her in his arms he blew out the +lamp. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +The Arabs have a saying, "In the desert one forgets everything, one +remembers nothing any more." + +To Domini it sometimes seemed the truest of all the true and beautiful +sayings of the East. Only three weeks had passed away since the first +halt at Arba, yet already her life at Beni-Mora was faint in her mind +as the dream of a distant past. Taken by the vast solitudes, +journeying without definite aim from one oasis to another through +empty regions bathed in eternal sunshine, camping often in the midst +of the sand by one of the wells sunk for the nomads by the French +engineers, strengthened perpetually, yet perpetually soothed, by airs +that were soft and cool, as if mingled of silk and snow, they lived +surely in a desert dream with only a dream behind them. They had +become as one with the nomads, whose home is the moving tent, whose +hearthstone is the yellow sand of the dunes, whose God is liberty. + +Domini loved this life with a love which had already become a passion. +All that she had imagined that the desert might be to her she found +that it was. In its so-called monotony she discovered eternal +interest. Of old she had thought the sea the most wonderful thing in +Nature. In the desert she seemed to possess the sea with something +added to it, a calm, a completeness, a mystical tenderness, a +passionate serenity. She thought of the sea as a soul striving to +fulfil its noblest aspirations, to be the splendid thing it knew how +to dream of. But she thought of the desert as a soul that need strive +no more, having attained. And she, like the Arabs, called it always in +her heart the Garden of Allah. For in this wonderful calm, bright as +the child's idea of heaven; clear as a crystal with a sunbeam caught +in it, silent as a prayer that will be answered silently, God seemed +to draw very near to His wandering children. In the desert was the +still, small voice, and the still, small voice was the Lord. + +Often at dawn or sundown, when, perhaps in the distance of the sands, +or near at hand beneath the shade of the palms of some oasis by a +waterspring, she watched the desert men in their patched rags, with +their lean, bronzed faces and eagle eyes turned towards Mecca, bowing +their heads in prayer to the soil that the sun made hot, she +remembered Count Anteoni's words, "I like to see men praying in the +desert," and she understood with all her heart and soul why. For the +life of the desert was the most perfect liberty that could be found on +earth, and to see men thus worshipping in liberty set before her a +vision of free will upon the heights. When she thought of the world +she had known and left, of the men who would always live in it and +know no other world, she was saddened for a moment. Could she ever +find elsewhere such joy as she had found in the simple and unfettered +life of the wastes? Could she ever exchange this life for another +life, even with Androvsky? + +One day she spoke to him of her intense joy in the wandering fate, and +the pain that came to her whenever she thought of exchanging it for a +life of civilisation in the midst of fixed groups of men. + +They had halted for the noonday rest at a place called Sidi-Hamdam, +and in the afternoon were going to ride on to a Bordj called Mogar, +where they meant to stay two or three days, as Batouch had told them +it was a good halting place, and near to haunts of the gazelle. The +tents had already gone forward, and Domini and Androvsky were lying +upon a rug spread on the sand, in the shadow of the grey wall of a +traveller's house beside a well. Behind them their horses were +tethered to an iron ring in the wall. Batouch and Ali were in the +court of the house, talking to the Arab guardian who dwelt there, but +their voices were not audible by the well, and absolute silence +reigned, the intense yet light silence that is in the desert at +noontide, when the sun is at the zenith, when the nomad sleeps under +his low-pitched tent, and the gardeners in the oasis cease even from +pretending to work among the palms. From before the well the ground +sank to a plain of pale grey sand, which stretched away to a village +hard in aspect, as if carved out of bronze and all in one piece. In +the centre of it rose a mosque with a minaret and a number of cupolas, +faintly gilded and shining modestly under the fierce rays of the sun. + +At the foot of the village the ground was white with saltpetre, which +resembled a covering of new-fallen snow. To right and left of it were +isolated groups of palms growing in threes and fours, like trees that +had formed themselves into cliques and set careful barriers of sand +between themselves and their despised brethren. Here and there on the +grey sand dark patches showed where nomads had pitched their tents. +But there was no movement of human life. No camels were visible. No +guard dogs barked. The noon held all things in its golden grip. + +"Boris!" Domini said, breaking a long silence. + +"Yes, Domini?" + +He turned towards her on the rug, stretching his long, thin body +lazily as if in supreme physical contentment. + +"You know that saying of the Arabs about forgetting everything in the +desert?" + +"Yes, Domini, I know it." + +"How long shall we stay in this world of forgetfulness?" + +He lifted himself up on his elbow quickly, and fixed his eyes on hers. + +"How long!" + +"Yes." + +"But--do you wish to leave it? Are you tired of it?" + +There was a note of sharp anxiety in his voice. + +"I don't answer such a question," she said, smiling at him. + +"Ah, then, why do you try to frighten me?" + +She put her hand in his. + +"How burnt you are!" she said. "You are like an Arab of the South." + +"Let me become more like one. There's health here." + +"And peace, perfect peace." + +He said nothing. He was looking down now at the sand. + +She laid her lips on his warm brown hand. + +"There's all I want here," she added. + +"Let us stay here." + +"But some day we must go back, mustn't we?" + +"Why?" + +"Can anything be lifelong--even our honeymoon?" + +"Suppose we choose that it shall be?" + +"Can we choose such a thing? Is anybody allowed to choose to live +always quite happily without duties? Sometimes I wonder. I love this +wandering life so much, I am so happy in it, that I sometimes think it +cannot last much longer." + +He began to sift the sand through his fingers swiftly. + +"Duties?" he said in a low voice. + +"Yes. Oughtn't we to do something presently, something besides being +happy?" + +"What do you mean, Domini?" + +"I hardly know, I don't know. You tell me." + +There was an urging in her voice, as if she wanted, almost demanded, +something of him. + +"You mean that a man must do some work in his life if he is to keep +himself a man," he said, not as if he were asking a question. + +He spoke reluctantly but firmly. + +"You know," he added, "that I have worked hard all my life, hard like +a labourer." + +"Yes, I know," she said. + +She stroked his hand, that was worn and rough, and spoke eloquently of +manual toil it had accomplished in the past. + +"I know. Before we were married, that day when we sat in the garden, +you told me your life and I told you mine. How different they have +been!" + +"Yes," he said. + +He lit a cigar and watched the smoke curling up into the gold of the +sunlit atmosphere. + +"Mine in the midst of the world and yours so far away from it. I often +imagine that little place, El Krori, the garden, your brother, your +twin-brother Stephen, that one-eyed Arab servant--what was his name?" + +"El Magin." + +"Yes, El Magin, who taught you to play Cora and to sing Arab songs, +and to eat cous-cous with your fingers. I can almost see Father Andre, +from whom you learnt to love the Classics, and who talked to you of +philosophy. He's dead too, isn't he, like your mother?" + +"I don't know whether Pere Andre is dead. I have lost sight of him," +Androvsky said. + +He still looked steadily at the rings of smoke curling up into the +golden air. There was in his voice a sound of embarrassment. She +guessed that it came from the consciousness of the pain he must have +caused the good priest who had loved him when he ceased from +practising the religion in which he had been brought up. Even to her +he never spoke frankly on religious subjects, but she knew that he had +been baptised a Catholic and been educated for a time by priests. She +knew, too, that he was no longer a practising Catholic, and that, for +some reason, he dreaded any intimacy with priests. He never spoke +against them. He had scarcely ever spoken of them to her. But she +remembered his words in the garden, "I do not care for priests." She +remembered, too, his action in the tunnel on the day of his arrival in +Beni-Mora. And the reticence that they both preserved on the subject +of religion, and its reason, were the only causes of regret in this +desert dream of hers. Even this regret, too, often faded in hope. For +in the desert, the Garden of Allah, she had it borne in upon her that +Androvsky would discover what he must surely secretly be seeking--the +truth that each man must find for himself, truth for him of the +eventual existence in which the mysteries of this present existence +will be made plain, and of the Power that has fashioned all things. + +And she was able to hope in silence, as women do for the men they +love. + +"Don't think I do not realise that you have worked," she went on after +a pause. "You told me how you always cultivated the land yourself, +even when you were still a boy, that you directed the Spanish +labourers in the vineyards, that--you have earned a long holiday. But +should it last for ever?" + +"You are right. Well, let us take an oasis; let us become palm +gardeners like that Frenchman at Meskoutine." + +"And build ourselves an African house, white, with a terrace roof." + +"And sell our dates. We can give employment to the Arabs. We can +choose the poorest. We can improve their lives. After all, if we owe a +debt to anyone it is to them, to the desert. Let us pay our debt to +the desert men and live in the desert." + +"It would be an ideal life," she said with her eyes shining on his. + +"And a possible life. Let us live it. I could not bear to leave the +desert. Where should we go?" + +"Where should we go!" she repeated. + +She was still looking at him, but now the expression of her eyes had +quite changed. They had become grave, and examined him seriously with +a sort of deep inquiry. He sat upon the Arab rug, leaning his back +against the wall of the traveller's house. + +"Why do you look at me like that, Domini?" he asked with a sudden +stirring of something that was like uneasiness. + +"I! I was wondering what you would like, what other life would suit +you." + +"Yes?" he said quickly. "Yes?" + +"It's very strange, Boris, but I cannot connect you with anything but +the desert, or see you anywhere but in the desert. I cannot even +imagine you among your vines in Tunisia." + +"They were not altogether mine," he corrected, still with a certain +excitement which he evidently endeavoured to repress. "I--I had the +right, the duty of cultivating the land." + +"Well, however it was, you were always at work; you were responsible, +weren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"I can't see you even in the vineyards or the wheat-fields. Isn't it +strange?" + +She was always looking at him with the same deep and wholly +unselfconscious inquiry. + +"And as to London, Paris--" + +Suddenly she burst into a little laugh and her gravity vanished. + +"I think you would hate them," she said. "And they--they wouldn't like +you because they wouldn't understand you." + +"Let us buy our oasis," he said abruptly. "Build our African house, +sell our dates and remain in the desert. I hear Batouch. It must be +time to ride on to Mogar. Batouch! Batouch!" + +Batouch came from the courtyard of the house wiping the remains of a +cous-cous from his languid lips. + +"Untie the horses," said Androvsky. + +"But, Monsieur, it is still too hot to travel. Look! No one is +stirring. All the village is asleep." + +He waved his enormous hand, with henna-tinted nails, towards the +distant town, carved surely out of one huge piece of bronze. + +"Untie the horses. There are gazelle in the plain near Mogar. Didn't +you tell me?" + +"Yes, Monsieur, but--" + +"We'll get there early and go out after them at sunset. Now, Domini." + +They rode away in the burning heat of the noon towards the southwest +across the vast plains of grey sand, followed at a short distance by +Batouch and Ali. + +"Monsieur is mad to start in the noon," grumbled Batouch. "But +Monsieur is not like Madame. He may live in the desert till he is old +and his hair is grey as the sand, but he will never be an Arab in his +heart." + +"Why, Batouch-ben-Brahim?" + +"He cannot rest. To Madame the desert gives its calm, but to +Monsieur--" He did not finish his sentence. In front Domini and +Androvsky had put their horses to a gallop. The sand flew up in a thin +cloud around them. + +"Nom d'un chien!" said Batouch, who, in unpoetical moments, +occasionally indulged in the expletives of the French infidels who +were his country's rulers. "What is there in the mind of Monsieur +which makes him ride as if he fled from an enemy?" + +"I know not, but he goes like a hare before the sloughi, Batouch-ben +Brahim," answered Ali, gravely. + +Then they sent their horses on in chase of the cloud of sand towards +the southwest. + +About four in the afternoon they reached the camp at Mogar. + +As they rode in slowly, for their horses were tired and streaming with +heat after their long canter across the sands, both Domini and +Androvsky were struck by the novelty of this halting-place, which was +quite unlike anything they had yet seen. The ground rose gently but +continuously for a considerable time before they saw in the distance +the pitched tents with the dark forms of the camels and mules. Here +they were out of the sands, and upon hard, sterile soil covered with +small stones embedded in the earth. Beyond the tents they could see +nothing but the sky, which was now covered with small, ribbed grey +clouds, sad-coloured and autumnal, and a lonely tower built of stone, +which rose from the waste at about two hundred yards from the tents to +the east. Although they could see so little, however, they were +impressed with a sensation that they were on the edge of some vast +vision, of some grandiose effect of Nature, that would bring to them a +new and astonishing knowledge of the desert. Perhaps it was the sight +of the distant tower pointing to the grey clouds that stirred in them +this almost excited feeling of expectation. + +"It is like a watch-tower," Domini said, pointing with her whip. "But +who could live in such a place, far from any oasis?" + +"And what can it overlook?" said Androvsky. "This is the nearest +horizon line we have seen since we came into the desert." + +"Yes, but----" + +She glanced at him as they put their horses into a gentle canter. Then +she added: + +"You, too, feel that we are coming to something tremendous, don't you? + +Her horse whinnied shrilly. Domini stroked his foam-flecked neck with +her hand. + +"Abou is as full of anticipation as we are," she said. Androvsky was +looking towards the tower. + +"That was built for French soldiers," he said. A moment afterwards he +added: + +"I wonder why Batouch chose this place for us to camp in?" + +There was a faint sound as of irritation in his voice. + +"Perhaps we shall know in a minute," Domini answered. They cantered +on. Their horses' hoofs rang with a hard sound on the stony ground. + +"It's inhospitable here," Androvsky said. She looked at him in +surprise. + +"I never knew you to take a dislike to any halting-place before," she +said. "What's the matter, Boris?" + +He smiled at her, but almost immediately his face was clouded by the +shadow of a gloom that seemed to respond to the gloom of the sky. And +he fixed his eyes again upon the tower. + +"I like a far horizon," he answered. "And there's no sun to-day." + +"I suppose even in the desert we cannot have it always," she said. And +in her voice, too, there was a touch of melancholy, as if she had +caught his mood. A minute later she added: + +"I feel exactly as if I were on a hill top and were coming to a view +of the sea." + +Almost as she spoke they cantered in among the tents of the +attendants, and reined in their horses at the edge of a slope that was +almost a precipice. Then they sat still in their saddles, gazing. + +They had been living for weeks in the midst of vastness, and had +become accustomed to see stretched out around them immense tracts of +land melting away into far blue distances, but this view from Mogar +made them catch their breath and stiffed their pulses. + +It was gigantic. There was even something unnatural in its appearance +of immensity, as if it were, perhaps, deceptive, and existed in their +vision of it only. So, surely, might look a plain to one who had taken +haschish, which enlarges, makes monstrous and threateningly terrific. +Domini had a feeling that no human eyes could really see such infinite +tracts of land and water as those she seemed to be seeing at this +moment. For there was water here, in the midst of the desert. Infinite +expanses of sea met infinite plains of snow. Or so it seemed to both +of them. And the sea was grey and calm as a winter sea, breathing its +plaint along a winter land. From it, here and there, rose islets whose +low cliffs were a deep red like the red of sandstone, a sad colour +that suggests tragedy, islets that looked desolate, and as if no life +had ever been upon them, or could be. Back from the snowy plains +stretched sand dunes of the palest primrose colour, sand dunes +innumerable, myriads and myriads of them, rising and falling, rising +and falling, till they were lost in the grey distance of this silent +world. In the foreground, at their horses' feet, wound from the hill +summit a broad track faintly marked in the deep sand, and flanked by +huge dunes shaped, by the action of the winds, into grotesque +semblances of monsters, leviathans, beasts with prodigious humps, +sphinxes, whales. This track was presently lost in the blanched +plains. Far away, immeasurably far, sea and snow blended and faded +into the cloudy grey. Above the near dunes two desert eagles were +slowly wheeling in a weary flight, occasionally sinking towards the +sand, then rising again towards the clouds. And the track was strewn +with the bleached bones of camels that had perished, or that had been +slaughtered, on some long desert march. + +To the left of them the solitary tower commanded this terrific vision +of desolation, seemed to watch it steadily, yet furtively, with its +tiny loophole eyes. + +"We have come into winter," Domini murmured. + +She looked at the white of the camels' bones, of the plains, at the +grey white of the sky, at the yellow pallor of the dunes. + +"How wonderful! How terrible!" she said. + +She drew her horse to one side, a little nearer to Androvsky's. + +"Does the Russian in you greet this land?" she asked him. + +He did not reply. He seemed to be held in thrall by the sad immensity +before them. + +"I realise here what it must be to die in the desert, to be killed by +it--by hunger, by thirst in it," she said presently, speaking, as if +to herself, and looking out over the mirage sea, the mirage snow. +"This is the first time I have really felt the terror of the desert." + +Her horse drooped its head till its nose nearly touched the earth, and +shook itself in a long shiver. She shivered too, as if constrained to +echo an animal's distress. + +"Things have died here," Androvsky said, speaking at last in a low +voice and pointing with his long-lashed whip towards the camels' +skeletons. "Come, Domini, the horses are tired." + +He cast another glance at the tower, and they dismounted by their +tent, which was pitched at the very edge of the steep slope that sank +down to the beast-like shapes of the near dunes. + +An hour later Domini said to Androvsky: + +"You won't go after gazelle this evening surely?" + +They had been having coffee in the tent and had just finished. +Androvsky got up from his chair and went to the tent door. The grey of +the sky was pierced by a gleaming shaft from the sun. + +"Do you mind if I go?" he said, turning towards her after a glance to +the desert. + +"No, but aren't you tired?" + +He shook his head. + +"I couldn't ride, and now I can ride. I couldn't shoot, and I'm just +beginning--" + +"Go," she said quickly. "Besides, we want gazelle for dinner, Batouch +says, though I don't suppose we should starve without it." She came to +the tent door and stood beside him, and he put his arm around her. + +"If I were alone here, Boris," she said, leaning against his shoulder, +"I believe I should feel horribly sad to-day." + +"Shall I stay?" + +He pressed her against him. + +"No. I shall know you are coming back. Oh, how extraordinary it is to +think we lived so many years without knowing of each other's +existence, that we lived alone. Were you ever happy?" + +He hesitated before he replied. + +"I sometimes thought I was." + +"But do you think now you ever really were?" + +"I don't know--perhaps in a lonely sort of way." + +"You can never be happy in that way now?" + +He said nothing, but, after a moment, he kissed her long and hard, and +as if he wanted to draw her being into his through the door of his +lips. + +"Good-bye," he said, releasing her. "I shall be back directly after +sundown." + +"Yes. Don't wait for the dark down there. If you were lost in the +dunes!" + +She pointed to the distant sand hills rising and falling monotonously +to the horizon. + +"If you are not back in good time," she said, "I shall stand by the +tower and wave a brand from the fire." + +"Why by the tower?" + +"The ground is highest by the tower." + +She watched him ride away on a mule, with two Arabs carrying guns. +They went towards the plains of saltpetre that looked like snow beside +the sea that was only a mirage. Then she turned back into the tent, +took up a volume of Fromentin's, and sat down in a folding-chair at +the tent door. She read a little, but it was difficult to read with +the mirage beneath her. Perpetually her eyes were attracted from the +book to its mystery and plaintive sadness, that was like the sadness +of something unearthly, of a spirit that did not move but that +suffered. She did not put away the book, but presently she laid it +down on her knees, open, and sat gazing. Androvsky had disappeared +with the Arabs into some fold of the sands. The sun-ray had vanished +with him. Without Androvsky and the sun--she still connected them +together, and knew she would for ever. + +The melancholy of this desert scene was increased for her till it +became oppressive and lay upon her like a heavy weight. She was not a +woman inclined to any morbid imaginings. Indeed, all that was morbid +roused in her an instinctive disgust. But the sudden greyness of the +weather, coming after weeks of ardent sunshine, and combined with the +fantastic desolation of the landscape, which was half real and half +unreal, turned her for the moment towards a dreariness of spirit that +was rare in her. + +She realised suddenly, as she looked and did not see Androvsky even as +a black and moving speck upon the plain; what the desert would seem to +her without him, even in sunshine, the awfulness of the desolation of +it, the horror of its distances. And realising this she also realised +the uncertainty of the human life in connection with any other human +life. To be dependent on another is to double the sum of the terrors +of uncertainty. She had done that. + +If the immeasurable sands took Androvsky and never gave him back to +her! What would she do? + +She gazed at the mirage sea with its dim red islands, and at the sad +white plains along its edge. + +Winter--she would be plunged in eternal winter. And each human life +hangs on a thread. All deep love, all consuming passion, holds a great +fear within the circle of a great glory. To-day the fear within the +circle of her glory seemed to grow. But she suddenly realised that she +ought to dominate it, to confine it--as it were--to its original and +permanent proportions. + +She got up, came out upon the edge of the hill, and walked along it +slowly towards the tower. + +Outside, freed from the shadow of the tent, she felt less oppressed, +though still melancholy, and even slightly apprehensive, as if some +trouble were coming to her and were near at hand. Mentally she had +made the tower the limit of her walk, and therefore when she reached +it she stood still. + +It was a squat, square tower, strongly constructed, with loopholes in +the four sides, and now that she was by it she saw built out at the +back of it a low house with small shuttered windows and a narrow +courtyard for mules. No doubt Androvsky was right and French soldiers +had once been here to work the optic telegraph. She thought of the +recruits and of Marseilles, of Notre Dame de la Garde, the Mother of +God, looking towards Africa. Such recruits came to live in such +strange houses as this tower lost in the desert and now abandoned. She +glanced at the shuttered windows and turned back towards the tent; but +something in the situation of the tower--perhaps the fact that it was +set on the highest point of the ground--attracted her, and she +presently made Batouch bring her out some rugs and ensconced herself +under its shadow, facing the mirage sea. + +How long she sat there she did not know. Mirage hypnotises the +imaginative and suggests to them dreams strange and ethereal, sad +sometimes, as itself. How long she might have sat there dreaming, but +for an interruption, she knew still less. It was towards evening, +however, but before evening had fallen, that a weary and travel- +stained party of three French soldiers, Zouaves, and an officer rode +slowly up the sandy track from the dunes. They were mounted on mules, +and carried their small baggage with them on two led mules. When they +reached the top of the hill they turned to the right and came towards +the tower. The officer was a little in advance of his men. He was a +smart-looking, fair man of perhaps thirty-two, with blonde moustaches, +blue eyes with blonde lashes, and hair very much the colour of the +sand dunes. His face was bright red, burnt, as a fair delicate skin +burns, by the sun. His eyes, although protected by large sun +spectacles, were inflamed. The skin was peeling from his nose. His +hair was full of sand, and he rode leaning forward over his animal's +neck, holding the reins loosely in his hands, that seemed nerveless +from fatigue. Yet he looked smart and well-bred despite his evident +exhaustion, as if on parade he would be a dashing officer. It was +evident that both he and his men were riding in from some tremendous +journey. The latter looked dog-tired, scarcely human in their +collapse. They kept on their mules with difficulty, shaking this way +and that like sacks, with their unshaven chins wagging loosely up and +down. But as they saw the tower they began to sing in chorus half +under their breath, and leaning their broad hands on the necks of the +beasts for support they looked with a sort of haggard eagerness in its +direction. + +Domini was roused from her contemplation of the mirage and the +daydreams it suggested by the approach of this small cavalcade. The +officer was almost upon her ere she heard the clatter of his mule +among the stones. She looked up, startled, and he looked down, even +more surprised, apparently, to see a lady ensconced at the foot of the +tower. His astonishment and exhaustion did not, however, get the +better of his instinctive good breeding, and sitting straight up in +the saddle he took off his sun helmet and asked Domini's pardon for +disturbing her. + +"But this is my home for the night, Madame," he added, at the same +time drawing a key from the pocket of his loose trousers. "And I'm +thankful to reach it. /Ma foi/! there have been several moments in the +last days when I never thought to see Mogar." + +Slowly he swung himself off his mule and stood up, catching on to the +saddle with one hand. + +"F-f-f-f!" he said, pursing his lips. "I can hardly stand. Excuse me, +Madame." + +Domini had got up. + +"You are tired out," she said, looking at him and his men, who had now +come up, with interest. + +"Pretty well indeed. We have been three days lost in the great dunes +in a sand-storm, and hit the track here just as we were preparing for +a--well, a great event." + +"A great event?" said Domini. + +"The last in a man's life, Madame." + +He spoke simply, even with a light touch of humour that was almost +cynical, but she felt beneath his words and manner a solemnity and a +thankfulness that attracted and moved her. + +"Those terrible dunes!" she said. + +And, turning, she looked out over them. + +There was no sunset, but the deepening of the grey into a dimness that +seemed to have blackness behind it, the more ghastly hue of the white +plains of saltpetre, and the fading of the mirage sea, whose islands +now looked no longer red, but dull brown specks in a pale mist, hinted +at the rapid falling of night. + +"My husband is out in them," she added. + +"Your husband, Madame!" + +He looked at her rather narrowly, shifted from one leg to the other as +if trying his strength, then added: + +"Not far, though, I suppose. For I see you have a camp here." + +"He has only gone after gazelle." + +As she said the last word she saw one of the soldiers, a mere boy, +lick his lips and give a sort of tragic wink at his companions. A +sudden thought struck her. + +"Don't think me impertinent, Monsieur, but--what about provisions in +your tower?" + +"Oh, as to that, Madame, we shall do well enough. Here, open the door, +Marelle!" + +And he gave the key to a soldier, who wearily dismounted and thrust it +into the door of the tower. + +"But after three days in the dunes! Your provisions must be exhausted +unless you've been able to replenish them." + +"You are too good, Madame. We shall manage a cous-cous." + +"And wine? Have you any wine?" + +She glanced again at the exhausted soldiers covered with sand and saw +that their eyes were fixed upon her and were shining eagerly. All the +"good fellow" in her nature rose up. + +"You must let me send you some," she said. "We have plenty." + +She thought of some bottles of champagne they had brought with them +and never opened. + +"In the desert we are all comrades," she added, as if speaking to the +soldiers. + +They looked at her with an open adoration which lit up their tired +faces. + +"Madame," said the officer, "you are much too good; but I accept your +offer as frankly as you have made it. A little wine will be a godsend +to us to-night. Thank you, Madame." + +The soldiers looked as if they were going to cheer. + +"I'll go to the camp--" + +"Cannot one of the men go for you, Madame? You were sitting here. +Pray, do not let us disturb you." + +"But night is falling and I shall have to go back in a moment." + +While they had been speaking the darkness had rapidly increased. She +looked towards the distant dunes and no longer saw them. At once her +mind went to Androvsky. Why had he not returned? She thought of the +signal. From the camp, behind their sleeping-tent, rose the flames of +a newly-made fire. + +"If one of your men can go and tell Batouch--Batouch--to come to me +here I shall be grateful," she answered. "And I want him to bring me a +big brand from the fire over there." + +She saw wonder dawning in the eyes fixed upon her, and smiled. + +"I want to signal to my husband," she said, "and this is the highest +point. He will see it best if I stand here." + +"Go, Marelle, ask for Batouch, and be sure you bring the brand from +the fire." + +The man saluted and rode off with alacrity. The thought of wine had +infused a gaiety into him and his companions. + +"Now, Monsieur, don't stand on ceremony," Domini said to the officer. +"Go in and make your toilet. You are longing to, I know." + +"I am longing to look a little more decent--now, Madame," he said +gallantly, and gazing at her with a sparkle of admiration in his +inflamed eyes. "You will let me return in a moment to escort you to +the camp." + +"Thank you." + +"Will you permit me--my name is De Trevignac." + +"And mine is Madame Androvsky." + +"Russian!" the officer said. "The alliance in the desert! Vive la +Russie!" + +She laughed. + +"That is for my husband, for I am English." + +"Vive l'Angleterre!" he said. + +The two soldier echoed his words impulsively, lifting up in the +gathering darkness hoarse voices. + +"Vive l'Angleterre!" + +"Thank you, thank you," she said. "Now, Monsieur, please don't let me +keep you." + +"I shall be back directly," the officer replied. + +And he turned and went into the tower, while the soldiers rode round +to the court, tugging at the cords of the led mules. + +Domini waited for the return of Marelle. Her mood had changed. A glow +of cordial humanity chased away her melancholy. The hostess that lurks +in every woman--that housewife-hostess sense which goes hand-in-hand +with the mother sense--was alive in her. She was keenly anxious to +play the good fairy simply, unostentatiously, to these exhausted men +who had come to Mogar out of the jaws of Death, to see their weary +faces shine under the influence of repose and good cheer. But the +tower looked desolate. The camp was gayer, cosier. Suddenly she +resolved to invite them all to dine in the camp that night. + +Marelle returned with Batouch. She saw them from a distance coming +through the darkness with blazing torches in their hands. When they +came to her she said: + +"Batouch, I want you to order dinner in camp for the soldiers." + +A broad and radiant smile irradiated the blunt Breton features of +Marelle. + +"And Monsieur the officer will dine with me and Monsieur. Give us all +you can. Perhaps there will be some gazelle." + +She saw him opening his lips to say that the dinner would be poor and +stopped him. + +"You are to open some of the champagne--the Pommery. We will drink to +all safe returns. Now, give me the brand and go and tell the cook." + +As he took his torch and disappeared into the darkness De Trevignac +came out from the tower. He still looked exhausted and walked with +some difficulty, but he had washed the sand from his face with water +from the artesian well behind the tower, changed his uniform, brushed +the sand from his yellow hair, and put on a smart gold-laced cap +instead of his sun-helmet. The spectacles were gone from his eyes, and +between his lips was a large Havana--his last, kept by him among the +dunes as a possible solace in the dreadful hour of death. + +"Monsieur de Trevignac, I want you to dine with us in camp to-night-- +only to dine. We won't keep you from your bed one moment after the +coffee and the cognac. You must seal the triple alliance--France, +Russia, England--in some champagne." + +She had spoken gaily, cordially. She added more gravely: + +"One doesn't escape from death among the dunes every day. Will you +come?" + +She held out her hand frankly, as a man might to another man. He +pressed it as a man presses a woman's hand when he is feeling very +soft and tender. + +"Madame, what can I say, but that you are too good to us poor fellows +and that you will find it very difficult to get rid of us, for we +shall be so happy in your camp that we shall forget all about our +tower." + +"That's settled then." + +With the brand in her hand she walked to the edge of the hill. De +Trevignac followed her. He had taken the other brand from Marelle. +They stood side by side, overlooking the immense desolation that was +now almost hidden in the night. + +"You are going to signal to your husband, Madame?" + +"Yes." + +"Let me do it for you. See, I have the other brand!" + +"Thank you--but I will do it." + +In the light of the flame that leaped up as if striving to touch her +face he saw a light in her eyes that he understood, and he drooped his +torch towards the earth while she lifted hers on high and waved it in +the blackness. + +He watched her. The tall, strong, but exquisitely supple figure, the +uplifted arm with the torch sending forth a long tongue of golden +flame, the ardent and unconscious pose, that set before him a warm +passionate heart calling to another heart without shame, made him +think of her as some Goddess of the Sahara. He had let his torch droop +towards the earth, but, as she waved hers, he had an irresistible +impulse to join her in the action she made heroic and superb. And +presently he lifted his torch, too, and waved it beside hers in the +night. + +She smiled at him in the flames. + +"He must see them surely," she said. + +From below, in the distance of the desert, there rose a loud cry in a +strong man's voice. + +"Aha!" she exclaimed. + +She called out in return in a warm, powerful voice. The man's voice +answered, nearer. She dropped her brand to the earth. + +"Monsieur, you will come then--in half an hour?" + +"Madame, with the most heartfelt pleasure. But let me accompany--" + +"No, I am quite safe. And bring your men with you. We'll make the best +feast we can for them. And there's enough champagne for all." + +Then she went away quickly, eagerly, into the darkness. + +"To be her husband!" murmured De Trevignac. "Lucky--lucky fellow!" And +he dropped his brand beside hers on the ground, and stood watching the +two flames mingle. + +"Lucky--lucky fellow!" he said again aloud. "I wonder what he's like." + + + +CHAPTER XX + +When Domini reached the camp she found it in a bustle. Batouch, +resigned to the inevitable, had put the cook upon his mettle. Ouardi +was already to be seen with a bottle of Pommery in each hand, and was +only prevented from instantly uncorking them by the representations of +his mistress and an elaborate exposition of the peculiar and +evanescent virtues of champagne. Ali was humming a mysterious song +about a lovesick camel-man, with which he intended to make glad the +hearts of the assembly when the halting time was over. And the dining- +table was already set for three. + +When Androvsky rode in with the Arabs Domini met him at the edge of +the hill. + +"You saw my signal, Boris?" + +"Yes--" + +He was going to say more, when she interrupted him eagerly. + +"Have you any gazelle? Ah----"" + +Across the mule of one of the Arabs she saw a body drooping, a +delicate head with thin, pointed horns, tiny legs with exquisite +little feet that moved as the mule moved. + +"We shall want it to-night. Take it quickly to the cook's tent, +Ahmed." Androvsky got off his mule. + +"There's a light in the tower!" he said, looking at her and then +dropping his eyes. + +"Yes." + +"And I saw two signals. There were two brands being waved together." + +"To-night, we have comrades in the desert." + +"Comrades!" he said. + +His voice sounded startled. + +"Men who have escaped from a horrible death in the dunes." + +"Arabs?" + +"French." + +Quickly she told him her story. He listened in silence. When she had +finished he said nothing. But she saw him look at the dining-table +laid for three and his expression was dark and gloomy. + +"Boris, you don't mind!" she said in surprise. "Surely you would not +refuse hospitality to these poor fellows!" + +She put her hand through his arm and pressed it. + +"Have I done wrong? But I know I haven't!" + +"Wrong! How could you do that?" + +He seemed to make an effort, to conquer something within him. + +"It's I who am wrong, Domini. The truth is, I can't bear our happiness +to be intruded upon even for a night. I want to be alone with you. +This life of ours in the desert has made me desperately selfish. I +want to be alone, quite alone, with you." + +"It's that! How glad I am!" + +She laid her cheek against his arm. + +"Then," he said, "that other signal?" + +"Monsieur de Trevignac gave it." + +Androvsky took his arm from hers abruptly. + +"Monsieur de Trevignac!" he said. "Monsieur de Trevignac?" + +He stood as if in deep and anxious thought. + +"Yes, the officer. That's his name. What is it, Boris?" + +"Nothing." + +There was a sound of voices approaching the camp in the darkness. They +were speaking French. + +"I must," said Androvsky, "I must----" + +He made an uncertain movement, as if to go towards the dunes, checked +it, and went hurriedly into the dressing-tent. As he disappeared De +Trevignac came into the camp with his men. Batouch conducted the +latter with all ceremony towards the fire which burned before the +tents of the attendants, and, for the moment, Domini was left alone +with De Trevignac. + +"My husband is coming directly," she said. "He was late in returning, +but he brought gazelle. Now you must sit down at once." + +She led the way to the dining-tent. De Trevignac glanced at the table +laid for three with an eager anticipation which he was far too natural +to try to conceal. + +"Madame," he said, "if I disgrace myself to-night, if I eat like an +ogre in a fairy tale, will you forgive me?" + +"I will not forgive you if you don't." + +She spoke gaily, made him sit down in a folding-chair, and insisted on +putting a soft cushion at his back. Her manner was cheerful, almost +eagerly kind and full of a camaraderie rare in a woman, yet he noticed +a change in her since they stood together waving the brands by the +tower. And he said to himself: + +"The husband--perhaps he's not so pleased at my appearance. I wonder +how long they've been married?" + +And he felt his curiosity to see "Monsieur Androvsky" deepen. + +While they waited for him Domini made De Trevignac tell her the story +of his terrible adventure in the dunes. He did so simply, like a +soldier, without exaggeration. When he had finished she said: + +"You thought death was certain then?" + +"Quite certain, Madame." + +She looked at him earnestly. + +"To have faced a death like that in utter desolation, utter +loneliness, must make life seem very different afterwards." + +"Yes, Madame. But I did not feel utterly alone." + +"Your men!" + +"No, Madame." + +After a pause he added, simply: + +"My mother is a devout Catholic, Madame. I am her only child, and--she +taught me long ago that in any peril one is never quite alone." + +Domini's heart warmed to him. She loved this trust in God so frankly +shown by a soldier, member of an African regiment, in this wild land. +She loved this brave reliance on the unseen in the midst of the terror +of the seen. Before they spoke again Androvsky crossed the dark space +between the tents and came slowly into the circle of the lamplight. + +De Trevignac got up from his chair, and Domini introduced the two men. +As they bowed each shot a swift glance at the other. Then Androvsky +looked down, and two vertical lines appeared on his high forehead +above his eyebrows. They gave to his face a sudden look of acute +distress. De Trevignac thanked him for his proffered hospitality with +the ease of a man of the world, assuming that the kind invitation to +him and to his men came from the husband as well as from the wife. +When he had finished speaking, Androvsky, without looking up, said, in +a voice that sounded to Domini new, as if he had deliberately assumed +it: + +"I am glad, Monsieur. We found gazelle, and so I hope--I hope you will +have a fairly good dinner." + +The words could scarcely have been more ordinary, but the way in which +they were uttered was so strange, sounded indeed so forced, and so +unnatural, that both De Trevignac and Domini looked at the speaker in +surprise. There was a pause. Then Batouch and Ouardi came in with the +soup. + +"Come!" Domini said. "Let us begin. Monsieur de Trevignac, will you +sit here on my right?" + +They sat down. The two men were opposite to each other at the ends of +the small table, with a lamp between them. Domini faced the tent door, +and could see in the distance the tents of the attendants lit up by +the blaze of the fire, and the forms of the French soldiers sitting at +their table close to it, with the Arabs clustering round them. Sounds +of loud conversation and occasional roars of laughter, that was almost +childish in its frank lack of all restraint, told her that one feast +was a success. She looked at her companions and made a sudden resolve +--almost fierce--that the other, over which she was presiding, should +be a success, too. But why was Androvsky so strange with other men? +Why did he seem to become almost a different human being directly he +was brought into any close contact with his kind? Was it shyness? Had +he a profound hatred of all society? She remembered Count Anteoni's +luncheon and the distress Androvsky had caused her by his cold +embarrassment, his unwillingness to join in conversation on that +occasion. But then he was only her friend. Now he was her husband. She +longed for him to show himself at his best. That he was not a man of +the world she knew. Had he not told her of his simple upbringing in El +Kreir, a remote village of Tunisia, by a mother who had been left in +poverty after the death of his father, a Russian who had come to +Africa to make a fortune by vine-growing, and who had had his hopes +blasted by three years of drought and by the visitation of the dreaded +phylloxera? Had he not told her of his own hard work on the rich +uplands among the Spanish workmen, of how he had toiled early and late +in all kinds of weather, not for himself, but for a company that drew +a fortune from the land and gave him a bare livelihood? Till she met +him he had never travelled--he had never seen almost anything of life. +A legacy from a relative had at last enabled him to have some freedom +and to gratify a man's natural taste for change. And, strangely, +perhaps, he had come first to the desert. She could not--she did not-- +expect him to show the sort of easy cultivation that a man acquires +only by long contact with all sorts and conditions of men and women. +But she knew that he was not only full of fire and feeling--a man with +a great temperament, but also that he was a man who had found time to +study, whose mind was not empty. He was a man who had thought +profoundly. She knew this, although even with her, even in the great +intimacy that is born of a great mutual passion, she knew him for a +man of naturally deep reserve, who could not perhaps speak all his +thoughts to anyone, even to the woman he loved. And knowing this, she +felt a fighting temper rise up in her. She resolved to use her will +upon this man who loved her, to force him to show his best side to the +guest who had come to them out of the terror of the dunes. She would +be obstinate for him. + +Her lips went down a little at the corners. De Trevignac glanced at +her above his soup-plate, and then at Androvsky. He was a man who had +seen much of society, and who divined at once the gulf that must have +separated the kind of life led in the past by his hostess from the +kind of life led by his host. Such gulfs, he knew, are bridged with +difficulty. In this case a great love must have been the bridge. His +interest in these two people, encountered by him in the desolation of +the wastes, and when all his emotions had been roused by the nearness +of peril, would have been deep in any case. But there was something +that made it extraordinary, something connected with Androvsky. It +seemed to him that he had seen, perhaps known Androvsky at some time +in his life. Yet Androvsky's face was not familiar to him. He could +not yet tell from what he drew this impression, but it was strong. He +searched his memory. + +Just at first fatigue was heavy upon him, but the hot soup, the first +glass of wine revived him. When Domini, full of her secret obstinacy, +began to talk gaily he was soon able easily to take his part, and to +join her in her effort to include Androvsky in the conversation. The +cheerful noise of the camp came to them from without. + +"I'm afraid my men are lifting up their voices rather loudly," said De +Trevignac. + +"We like it," said Domini. "Don't we, Boris?" + +There was a long peal of laughter from the distance. As it died away +Batouch's peculiar guttural chuckle, which had something negroid in +it, was audible, prolonging itself in a loneliness that spoke his +pertinacious sense of humour. + +"Certainly," said Androvsky, still in the same strained and unnatural +voice which had surprised Domini when she introduced the two men. "We +are accustomed to gaiety round the camp fire." + +"You are making a long stay in the desert, Monsieur?" asked De +Trevignac. + +"I hope so, Monsieur. It depends on my--it depends on Madame +Androvsky." + +"Why didn't he say 'my wife'?" thought De Trevignac. And again he +searched his memory. Had he ever met this man? If so, where?" + +"I should like to stay in the desert for ever," Domini said quickly, +with a long look at her husband. + +"I should not, Madame," De Trevignac said. + +"I understand. The desert has shown you its terrors." + +"Indeed it has." + +"But to us it has only shown its enchantment. Hasn't it?" She spoke to +Androvsky. After a pause he replied: + +"Yes." + +The word, when it came, sounded like a lie. + +For the first time since her marriage Domini felt a cold, like a cold +of ice about her heart. Was it possible that Androvsky had not shared +her joy in the desert? Had she been alone in her happiness? For a +moment she sat like one stunned by a blow. Then knowledge, reason, +spoke in her. She knew of Androvsky's happiness with her, knew it +absolutely. There are some things in which a woman cannot be deceived. +When Androvsky was with her he wanted no other human being. Nothing +could take that certainty from her. + +"Of course," she said, recovered, "there are places in the desert in +which melancholy seems to brood, in which one has a sense of the +terrors of the wastes. Mogar, I think, is one of them, perhaps the +only one we have been in yet. This evening, when I was sitting under +the tower, even I"--and as she said "even I" she smiled happily at +Androvsky--"knew some forebodings." + +"Forebodings?" Androvsky said quickly. "Why should you--?" He broke +off. + +"Not of coming misfortune, I hope, Madame?" said De Trevignac in a +voice that was now irresistibly cheerful. + +He was helping himself to some gazelle, which sent forth an appetising +odour, and Ouardi was proudly pouring out for him the first glass of +blithely winking champagne. + +"I hardly know, but everything looked sad and strange; I began to +think about the uncertainties of life." + +Domini and De Trevignac were sipping their champagne. Ouardi came +behind Androvsky to fill his glass. + +"Non! non!" he said, putting his hand over it and shaking his head. + +De Trevignac started. + +Ouardi looked at Domini and made a distressed grimace, pointing with a +brown finger at the glass. + +"Oh, Boris! you must drink champagne to-night!" she exclaimed. + +"I would rather not," he answered. "I am not accustomed to it." + +"But to drink our guest's health after his escape from death!" + +Androvsky took his hand from the glass and Ouardi filled it with wine. + +Then Domini raised her glass and drank to De Trevignac. Androvsky +followed her example, but without geniality, and when he put his lips +to the wine he scarcely tasted it. Then he put the glass down and told +Ouardi to give him red wine. And during the rest of the evening he +drank no more champagne. He also ate very little, much less than +usual, for in the desert they both had the appetites of hunters. + +After thanking them cordially for drinking his health, De Trevignac +said: + +"I was nearly experiencing the certainty of death. But was it Mogar +that turned you to such thoughts, Madame?" + +"I think so. There is something sad, even portentous about it." + +She looked towards the tent door, imagining the immense desolation +that was hidden in the darkness outside, the white plains, the mirage +sea, the sand dunes like monsters, the bleached bones of the dead +camels with the eagles hovering above them. + +"Don't you think so, Boris? Don't you think it looks like a place in +which--like a tragic place, a place in which tragedies ought to +occur?" + +"It is not places that make tragedies," he said, "or at least they +make tragedies far more seldom than the people in them." + +He stopped, seemed to make an effort to throw off his taciturnity, and +suddenly to be able to throw it off, at least partially. For he +continued speaking with greater naturalness and ease, even with a +certain dominating force. + +"If people would use their wills they need not be influenced by place, +they need not be governed by a thousand things, by memories, by fears, +by fancies--yes, even by fancies that are the merest shadows, but out +of which they make phantoms. Half the terrors and miseries of life lie +only in the minds of men. They even cause the very tragedies they +would avoid by expecting them." + +He said the last words with a sort of strong contempt--then, more +quietly, he added: + +"You, Domini, why should you feel the uncertainty of life, especially +at Mogar? You need not. You can choose not to. Life is the same in its +chances here as everywhere?" + +"But you," she answered--"did you not feel a tragic influence when we +arrived here? Do you remember how you looked at the tower?" + +"The tower!" he said, with a quick glance at De Trevignac. "I--why +should I look at the tower?" + +"I don't know, but you did, almost as if you were afraid of it." + +"My tower!" said De Trevignac. + +Another roar of laughter reached them from the camp fire. It made +Domini smile in sympathy, but De Trevignac and Androvsky looked at +each other for a moment, the one with a sort of earnest inquiry, the +other with hostility, or what seemed hostility, across the circle of +lamplight that lay between them. + +"A tower rising in the desert emphasises the desolation. I suppose +that was it," Androvsky said, as the laugh died down into Batouch's +throaty chuckle. "it suggests lonely people watching." + +"For something that never comes, or something terrible that comes," De +Trevignac said. + +As he spoke the last words Androvsky moved uneasily in his chair, and +looked out towards the camp, as if he longed to get up and go into the +open air, as if the tent roof above his head oppressed him. + +Trevignac turned to Domini. + +"In this case, Madame, you were the lonely watcher, and I was the +something terrible that came." + +She laughed. While she laughed De Trevignac noticed that Androvsky +looked at her with a sort of sad intentness, not reproachful or +wondering, as an older person might look at a child playing at the +edge of some great gulf into which a false step would precipitate it. +He strove to interpret this strange look, so obviously born in the +face of his host in connection with himself. It seemed to him that he +must have met Androvsky, and that Androvsky knew it, knew--what he did +not yet know--where it was and when. It seemed to him, too, that +Androvsky thought of him as the "something terrible" that had come to +this woman who sat between them out of the desert. + +But how could it be? + +A profound curiosity was roused in him and he mentally cursed his +treacherous memory--if it were treacherous. For possibly he might be +mistaken. He had perhaps never met his host before, and this strange +manner of his might be due to some inexplicable cause, or perhaps to +some cause explicable and even commonplace. This Monsieur Androvsky +might be a very jealous man, who had taken this woman away into the +desert to monopolise her, and who resented even the chance intrusion +of a stranger. De Trevignac knew life and the strange passions of men, +knew that there are Europeans with the Arab temperament, who secretly +long that their women should wear the veil and live secluded in the +harem. Androvsky might be one of these. + +When she had laughed Domini said: + +"On the contrary, Monsieur, you have turned my thoughts into a happier +current by your coming." + +"How so?" + +"You made me think of what are called the little things of life that +are more to us women than to you men, I suppose." + +"Ah," he said. "This food, this wine, this chair with a cushion, this +gay light--Madame, they are not little things I have to be grateful +for. When I think of the dunes they seem to me--they seem--" + +Suddenly he stopped. His gay voice was choked. She saw that there were +tears in his blue eyes, which were fixed on her with an expression of +ardent gratitude. He cleared his throat. + +"Monsieur," he said to Androvsky, "you will not think me presuming on +an acquaintance formed in the desert if I say that till the end of my +life I--and my men--can only think of Madame as of the good Goddess of +the desolate Sahara!" + +He did not know how Androvsky would take this remark, he did not care. +For the moment in his impulsive nature there was room only for +admiration of the woman and, gratitude for her frank kindness. +Androvsky said: + +"Thank you, Monsieur." + +He spoke with an intensity, even a fervour, that were startling. For +the first time since they had been together his voice was absolutely +natural, his manner was absolutely unconstrained, he showed himself as +he was, a man on fire with love for the woman who had given herself to +him, and who received a warm word of praise of her as a gift made to +himself. De Trevignac no longer wondered that Domini was his wife. +Those three words, and the way they were spoken, gave him the man and +what he might be in a woman's life. Domini looked at her husband +silently. It seemed to her as if her heart were flooded with light, as +if desolate Mogar were the Garden of Eden before the angel came. When +they spoke again it was on some indifferent topic. But from that +moment the meal went more merrily. Androvsky seemed to lose his +strange uneasiness. De Trevignac met him more than half-way. Something +of the gaiety round the camp fire had entered into the tent. A chain +of sympathy had been forged between these three people. Possibly, a +touch might break it, but for the moment it seemed strong. + +At the end of the dinner Domini got up. + +"We have no formalities in the desert," she said. "But I'm going to +leave you together for a moment. Give Monsieur de Trevignac a cigar, +Boris. Coffee is coming directly." + +She went out towards the camp fire. She wanted to leave the men +together to seal their good fellowship. Her husband's change from +taciturnity to cordiality had enchanted her. Happiness was dancing +within her. She felt gay as a child. Between the fire and the tent she +met Ouardi carrying a tray. On it were a coffee-pot, cups, little +glasses and a tall bottle of a peculiar shape with a very thin neck +and bulging sides. + +"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching it with her finger. + +"That is an African liqueur, Madame, that you have never tasted. +Batouch told me to bring it in honour of Monsieur the officer. They +call it--" + +"Another surprise of Batouch's!" she interrupted gaily. "Take it in! +Monsieur the officer will think we have quite a cellar in the desert." + +He went on, and she stood for a few minutes looking at the blaze of +the fire, and at the faces lit up by it, French and Arab. The happy +soldiers were singing a French song with a chorus for the delectation +of the Arabs, who swayed to and fro, wagging their heads and smiling +in an effort to show appreciation of the barbarous music of the +Roumis. Dreary, terrible Mogar and its influences were being defied by +the wanderers halting in it. She thought of Androvsky's words about +the human will overcoming the influence of place, and a sudden desire +came to her to go as far as the tower where she had felt sad and +apprehensive, to stand in its shadow for an instant and to revel in +her happiness. + +She yielded to the impulse, walked to the tower, and stood there +facing the darkness which hid the dunes, the white plains, the phantom +sea, seeing them in her mind, and radiantly defying them. Then she +began to return to the camp, walking lightly, as happy people walk. +When she had gone a very short way she heard someone coming towards +her. It was too dark to see who it was. She could only hear the steps +among the stones. They were hasty. They passed her and stopped behind +her at the tower. She wondered who it was, and supposed it must be one +of the soldiers come to fetch something, or perhaps tired and +hastening to bed. + +As she drew near to the camp she saw the lamplight shining in the +tent, where doubtless De Trevignac and Androvsky were smoking and +talking in frank good fellowship. It was like a bright star, she +thought, that gleam of light that shone out of her home, the brightest +of all the stars of Africa. She went towards it. As she drew near she +expected to hear the voices of the two men, but she heard nothing. Nor +did she see the blackness of their forms in the circle of the light. +Perhaps they had gone out to join the soldiers and the Arabs round the +fire. She hastened on, came to the tent, entered it, and was +confronted by her husband, who was standing back in an angle formed by +the canvas, in the shadow, alone. On the floor near him lay a quantity +of fragments of glass. + +"Boris!" she said. "Where is Monsieur de Trevignac?" + +"Gone," replied Androvsky in a loud, firm voice. + +She looked up at him. His face was grim and powerful, hard like the +face of a fighting man. + +"Gone already? Why?" + +"He's tired out. He told me to make his excuses to you." + +"But----" + +She saw in the table the coffee cups. Two of them were full of coffee. +The third, hers, was clean. + +"But he hasn't drunk his coffee!" she said. + +She was astonished and showed it. She could not understand a man who +had displayed such warm, even touching, appreciation of her kindness +leaving her without a word, taking the opportunity of her momentary +absence to disappear, to shirk away--for she put it like that to +herself. + +"No--he did not want coffee." + +"But was anything the matter?" + +She looked down at the broken glass, and saw stains upon the ground +among the fragments. + +"What's this?" she said. "Oh, the African liqueur!" + +Suddenly Androvsky put his arm round her with an iron grip, and led +her away out of the tent. They crossed the space to the sleeping-tent +in silence. She felt governed, and as if she must yield to his will, +but she also felt confused, even almost alarmed mentally. The +sleeping-tent was dark. When they reached it Androvsky took his arm +from her, and she heard him searching for the matches. She was in the +tent door and could see that there was a light in the tower. De +Trevignac must be there already. No doubt it was he who had passed her +in the night when she was returning to the camp. Androvsky struck a +match and lit a candle. Then he came to the tent door and saw her +looking at the light in the tower. + +"Come in, Domini," he said, taking her by the hand, and speaking +gently, but still with a firmness that hinted at command. + +She obeyed, and he quickly let down the flap of canvas, and shut out +the night. + +"What is it, Boris?" she asked. + +She was standing by one of the beds. + +"What has happened?" + +"Why--happened?" + +"I don't understand. Why did Monsieur de Trevignac go away so +suddenly?" + +"Domini, do you care whether he is here or gone? Do you care?" He sat +on the edge of the bed and drew her down beside him. + +"Do you want anyone to be with us, to break in upon our lives? Aren't +we happier alone?" + +"Boris!" she said, "you--did you let him see that you wanted him to +go?" + +It occurred to her suddenly that Androvsky, in his lack of worldly +knowledge, might perhaps have shown their guest that he secretly +resented the intrusion of a stranger upon them even for one evening, +and that De Trevignac, being a sensitive man, had been hurt and had +abruptly gone away. Her social sense revolted at this idea. + +"You didn't let him see that, Boris!" she exclaimed. "After his escape +from death! It would have been inhuman." + +"Perhaps my love for you might even make me that, Domini. And if it +did--if you knew why I was inhuman--would you blame me for it? Would +you hate me for it?" + +There was a strong excitement dawning in him. It recalled to her the +first night in the desert when they sat together on the ground and +watched the waning of the fire. + +"Could you--could you hate me for anything, Domini?" he said. "Tell me +--could you?" + +His face was close to hers. She looked at him with her long, steady +eyes, that had truth written in their dark fire. + +"No," she answered. "I could never hate you--now." + +"Not if--not if I had done you harm? Not if I had done you a wrong?" + +"Could you ever do me a wrong?" she asked. + +She sat, looking at him as if in deep thought, for a moment. + +"I could almost as easily believe that God could," she said at last +simply. + +"Then you--you have perfect trust in me?" + +"But--have you ever thought I had not?" she asked. There was wonder in +her voice. + +"But I have given my life to you," she added still with wonder. "I am +here in the desert with you. What more can I give? What more can I +do?" + +He put his arms about her and drew her head down on his shoulder. + +"Nothing, nothing. You have given, you have done everything--too much, +too much. I feel myself below you, I know myself below you--far, far +down." + +"How can you say that? I couldn't have loved you if it were so." She +spoke with complete conviction. + +"Perhaps," he said, in a low voice, "perhaps women never realise what +their love can do. It might--it might--" + +"What, Boris?" + +"It might do what Christ did--go down into hell to preach to the--to +the spirits in prison." + +His voice had dropped almost to a murmur. With one hand on her cheek +he kept her face pressed down upon his shoulder so that she could not +see his face. + +"It might do that, Domini." + +"Boris," she said, almost whispering too, for his words and manner +filled her with a sort of awe, "I want you to tell me something." + +"What is it?" + +"Are you quite happy with me here in the desert? If you are I want you +to tell me that you are. Remember--I shall believe you." + +"No other human being could ever give me the happiness you give me." + +"But--" + +He interrupted her. + +"No other human being ever has. Till I met you I had no conception of +the happiness there is in the world for man and woman who love each +other." + +"Then you are happy?" + +"Don't I seem so?" + +She did not reply. She was searching her heart for the answer-- +searching it with an almost terrible sincerity. He waited for her +answer, sitting quite still. His hand was always against her face. +After what seemed to him an eternity she said: + +"Boris!" + +"Yes." + +"Why did you say that about a woman's love being able even to go down +into hell to preach to the spirits in prison?" + +He did not answer. His hand seemed to her to lie more heavily on her +cheek. + +"I--I am not sure that you are quite happy with me," she said. + +She spoke like one who reverenced truth, even though it slew her. +There was a note of agony in her voice. + +"Hush!" he said. "Hush, Domini!" + +They were both silent. Beyond the canvas of the tent that shut out +from them the camp they heard a sound of music. Drums were being +beaten. The African pipe was wailing. Then the voice of Ali rose in +the song of the "Freed Negroes": + + "No one but God and I + Knows what is in my heart." + +At that moment Domini felt that the words were true--horribly true. + +"Boris," she said. "Do you hear?" + +"Hush, Domini." + +"I think there is something in your heart that sometimes makes you sad +even with me. I think perhaps I partly guess what it is." + +He took his hand away from her face, his arm from her shoulder, but +she caught hold of him, and her arm was strong like a man's. + +"Boris, you are with me, you are close to me, but do you sometimes +feel far away from God?" + +He did not answer. + +"I don't know; I oughtn't to ask, perhaps. I don't ask--no, I don't. +But, if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come right--here in +the desert. For the desert is the Garden of Allah. And, Boris--put out +the light." + +He extinguished the candle with his hand. + +"You feel, perhaps, that you can't pray honestly now, but some day you +may be able to. You will be able to. I know it. Before I knew I loved +you I saw you--praying in the desert." + +"I!" he whispered. "You saw me praying in the desert!" + +It seemed to her that he was afraid. She pressed him more closely with +her arms. + +"It was that night in the dancing-house. I seemed to see a crowd of +people to whom the desert had given gifts, and to you it had given the +gift of prayer. I saw you far out in the desert praying." + +She heard his hard breathing, felt it against her cheek. + +"If--if it is that, Boris, don't despair. It may come. Keep the +crucifix. I am sure you have it. And I always pray for you." + +They sat for a long while in the dark, but they did not speak again +that night. + +Domini did not sleep, and very early in the morning, just as dawn was +beginning, she stole out of the tent, shutting down the canvas flap +behind her. + +It was cold outside--cold almost as in a northern winter. The wind of +the morning, that blew to her across the wavelike dunes and the white +plains, seemed impregnated with ice. The sky was a pallid grey. The +camp was sleeping. What had been a fire, all red and gold and leaping +beauty, was now a circle of ashes, grey as the sky. She stood on the +edge of the hill and looked towards the tower. + +As she did so, from the house behind it came a string of mules, +picking their way among the stones over the hard earth. De Trevignac +and his men were already departing from Mogar. + +They came towards her slowly. They had to pass her to reach the track +by which they were going on to the north and civilisation. She stood +to see them pass. + +When they were quite near De Trevignac, who was riding, with his head +bent down on his chest, muffled in a heavy cloak, looked up and saw +her. She nodded to him. He sat up and saluted. For a moment she +thought that he was going on without stopping to speak to her. She saw +that he hesitated what to do. Then he pulled up his mule and prepared +to get off. + +"No, don't, Monsieur," she said. + +She held out her hand. + +"Good-bye," she added. + +He took her hand, then signed to his men to ride on. When they had +passed, saluting her, he let her hand go. He had not spoken a word. +His face, burned scarlet by the sun, had a look of exhaustion on it, +but also another look--of horror, she thought, as if in his soul he +was recoiling from her. His inflamed blue eyes watched her, as if in a +search that was intense. She stood beside the mule in amazement. She +could hardly believe that this was the man who had thanked her, with +tears in his eyes, for her hospitality the night before. "Good-bye," +he said, speaking at last, coldly. She saw him glance at the tent from +which she had come. The horror in his face surely deepened. "Goodbye, +Madame," he repeated. "Thank you for your hospitality." He pulled up +the rein to ride on. The mule moved a step or two. Then suddenly he +checked it and turned in the saddle. "Madame!" he said. "Madame!" + +She came up to him. It seemed to her that he was going to say +something of tremendous importance to her. His lips, blistered by the +sun, opened to speak. But he only looked again towards the tent in +which Androvsky was still sleeping, then at her. + +A long moment passed. + +Then De Trevignac, as if moved by an irresistable impulse, leaned from +the saddle and made over Domini the sign of the cross. His hand +dropped down against the mule's side, and without another word, or +look, he rode away to the north, following his men. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +That same day, to the surprise of Batouch, they left Mogar. To both +Domini and Androvsky it seemed a tragic place, a place where the +desert showed them a countenance that was menacing. + +They moved on towards the south, wandering aimlessly through the warm +regions of the sun. Then, as the spring drew into summer, and the heat +became daily more intense, they turned again northwards, and on an +evening in May pitched their camp on the outskirts of the Sahara city +of Amara. + +This city, although situated in the northern part of the desert, was +called by the Arabs "The belly of the Sahara," and also "The City of +Scorpions." It lay in the midst of a vast region of soft and shifting +sand that suggested a white sea, in which the oasis of date palms, at +the edge of which the city stood, was a green island. From the south, +whence the wanderers came, the desert sloped gently upwards for a long +distance, perhaps half a day's march, and many kilometres before the +city was reached, the minarets of its mosques were visible, pointing +to the brilliant blue sky that arched the whiteness of the sands. +Round about the city, on every side, great sand-hills rose like +ramparts erected by Nature to guard it from the assaults of enemies. +These hills were black with the tents of desert tribes, which, from +far off, looked like multitudes of flies that had settled on the +sands. The palms of the oasis, which stretched northwards from the +city, could not be seen from the south till the city was reached, and +in late spring this region was a strange and barbarous pageant of blue +and white and gold; crude in its intensity, fierce in its crudity, +almost terrible in its blazing splendour that was like the Splendour +about the portals of the sun. + +Domini and Androvsky rode towards Amara at a foot's pace, looking +towards its distant towers. A quivering silence lay around them, yet +already they seemed to hear the cries of the voices of a great +multitude, to be aware of the movement of thronging crowds of men. +This was the first Sahara city they had drawn near to, and their minds +were full of memories of the stories of Batouch, told to them by the +camp fire at night in the uninhabited places which, till now, had been +their home: stories of the wealthy date merchants who trafficked here +and dwelt in Oriental palaces, poor in aspect as seen from the dark +and narrow streets, or zgags, in which they were situated, but within +full of the splendours of Eastern luxury; of the Jew moneylenders who +lived apart in their own quarter, rapacious as wolves, hoarding their +gains, and practising the rites of their ancient and--according to the +Arabs--detestable religion; of the marabouts, or sacred men, revered +by the Mohammedans, who rode on white horses through the public ways, +followed by adoring fanatics who sought to touch their garments and +amulets, and demanded importunately miraculous blessings at their +hands--the hedgehog's foot to protect their women in the peril of +childbirth; the scroll, covered with verses of the Koran and enclosed +in a sheaf of leather, that banishes ill dreams at night and stays the +uncertain feet of the sleep-walker; the camel's skull that brings +fruit to the palm trees; the red coral that stops the flow of blood +from a knife-wound--of the dancing-girls glittering in an armour of +golden pieces, their heads tied with purple and red and yellow +handkerchiefs of silk, crowned with great bars of solid gold and +tufted with ostrich feathers; of the dwarfs and jugglers who by night +perform in the marketplace, contending for custom with the sorceresses +who tell the fates from shells gathered by mirage seas; with the +snake-charmers--who are immune from the poison of serpents and the +acrobats who come from far-off Persia and Arabia to spread their +carpets in the shadow of the Agha's dwelling and delight the eyes of +negro and Kabyle, of Soudanese and Touareg with their feats of +strength; of the haschish smokers who, assembled by night in an +underground house whose ceiling and walls were black as ebony, gave +themselves up to day-dreams of shifting glory, in which the things of +earth and the joys and passions of men reappeared, but transformed by +the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous or fairylike, +intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through which the Ouled +Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even in +Baghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which +the palms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams were +gliding silver. + +Often they had smiled over Batouch's opulent descriptions of the +marvels of Ain-Amara, which they suspected to be very far away from +the reality, and yet, nevertheless, when they saw the minarets soaring +above the sands to the brassy heaven, it seemed to them both as if, +perhaps, they might be true. The place looked intensely barbaric. The +approach to it was grandiose. + +Wide as the sands had been, they seemed to widen out into a greater +immensity of arid pallor before the city gates as yet unseen. The +stretch of blue above looked vaster here, the horizons more remote, +the radiance of the sun more vivid, more inexorable. Nature surely +expanded as if in an effort to hold her arm against some tremendous +spectacle set in its bosom by the activity of men, who were strong and +ardent as the giants of old, who had powers and a passion for +employing them persistently not known in any other region of the +earth. The immensity of Mogar brought sadness to the mind. The +immensity of Ain-Amara brought excitement. Even at this distance from +it, when its minarets were still like shadowy fingers of an unlifted +hand, Androvsky and Domini were conscious of influences streaming +forth from its battlements over the sloping sands like a procession +that welcomed them to a new phase of desert life. + +"And people talk of the monotony of the Sahara!" Domini said speaking +out of their mutual thought. "Everything is here, Boris; you've never +drawn near to London. Long before you reach the first suburbs you feel +London like a great influence brooding over the fields and the woods. +Here you feel Amara in the same way brooding over the sands. It's as +if the sands were full of voices. Doesn't it excite you?" + +"Yes," he said. "But"--and he turned in his saddle and looked back--"I +feel as if the solitudes were safer." + +"We can return to them." + +"Yes." + +"We are splendidly free. There's nothing to prevent us leaving Amara +tomorrow." + +"Isn't there?" he answered, fixing his eyes upon the minarets. + +"What can there be?" + +"Who knows?" + +"What do you mean, Boris? Are you superstitious? But you reject the +influence of place. Don't you remember--at Mogar?" + +At the mention of the name his face clouded and she was sorry she had +spoken it. Since they had left the hill above the mirage sea they had +scarcely ever alluded to their night there. They had never once talked +of the dinner in camp with De Trevignac and his men, or renewed their +conversation in the tent on the subject of religion. But since that +day, since her words about Androvsky's lack of perfect happiness even +with her far out in the freedom of the desert, Domini had been +conscious that, despite their great love for each other, their mutual +passion for the solitude in which it grew each day more deep and more +engrossing, wrapping their lives in fire and leading them on to the +inner abodes of sacred understanding, there was at moments a barrier +between them. + +At first she had striven not to recognise its existence. She had +striven to be blind. But she was essentially a brave woman and an +almost fanatical lover of truth for its own sake, thinking that what +is called an ugly truth is less ugly than the loveliest lie. To deny +truth is to play the coward. She could not long do that. And so she +quickly learned to face this truth with steady eyes and an unflinching +heart. + +At moments Androvsky retreated from her, his mind became remote--more, +his heart was far from her, and, in its distant place, was suffering. +Of that she was assured. + +But she was assured, too, that she stood to him for perfection in +human companionship. A woman's love is, perhaps, the only true +divining rod. Domini knew instinctively where lay the troubled waters, +what troubled them in their subterranean dwelling. She was certain +that Androvsky was at peace with her but not with himself. She had +said to him in the tent that she thought he sometimes felt far away +from God. The conviction grew in her that even the satisfaction of his +great human love was not enough for his nature. He demanded, sometimes +imperiously, not only the peace that can be understood gloriously, but +also that other peace which passeth understanding. And because he had +it not he suffered. + +In the Garden of Allah he felt a loneliness even though she was with +him, and he could not speak with her of this loneliness. That was the +barrier between them, she thought. + +She prayed for him: in the tent by night, in the desert under the +burning sky by day. When the muezzin cried from the minaret of some +tiny village lost in the desolation of the wastes, turning to the +north, south, east and west, and the Mussulmans bowed their shaved +heads, facing towards Mecca, she prayed to the Catholics' God, whom +she felt to be the God, too, of all the devout, of all the religions +of the world, and to the Mother of God, looking towards Africa. She +prayed that this man whom she loved, and who she believed was seeking, +might find. And she felt that there was a strength, a passion in her +prayers, which could not be rejected. She felt that some day Allah +would show himself in his garden to the wanderer there. She dared to +feel that because she dared to believe in the endless mercy of God. +And when that moment came she felt, too, that their love--hers and his +--for each other would be crowned. Beautiful and intense as it was it +still lacked something. It needed to be encircled by the protecting +love of a God in whom they both believed in the same way, and to whom +they both were equally near. While she felt close to this love and he +far from it they were not quite together. + +There were moments in which she was troubled, even sad, but they +passed. For she had a great courage, a great confidence. The hope that +dwells like a flame in the purity of prayer comforted her. + +"I love the solitudes," he said. "I love to have you to myself." + +"If we lived always in the greatest city of the world it would make no +difference," she said quietly. "You know that, Boris." + +He bent over from his saddle and clasped her hand in his, and they +rode thus up the great slope of the sands, with their horses close +together. + +The minarets of the city grew more distinct. They dominated the waste +as the thought of Allah dominates the Mohammedan world. Presently, far +away on the left, Domini and Androvsky saw hills of sand, clearly +defined like small mountains delicately shaped. On the summits of +these hills were Arab villages of the hue of bronze gleaming in the +sun. No trees stood near them. But beyond them, much farther off, was +the long green line of the palms of a large oasis. Between them and +the riders moved slowly towards the minarets dark things that looked +like serpents writhing through the sands. These were caravans coming +into the city from long journeys. Here and there, dotted about in the +immensity, were solitary horsemen, camels in twos and threes, small +troops of donkeys. And all the things that moved went towards the +minarets as if irresistibly drawn onwards by some strong influence +that sucked them in from the solitudes of the whirlpool of human life. + +Again Domini thought of the approach to London, and of the dominion of +great cities, those octopus monsters created by men, whose tentacles +are strong to seize and stronger still to keep. She was infected by +Androvsky's dread of a changed life, and through her excitement, that +pulsed with interest and curiosity, she felt a faint thrill of +something that was like fear. + +"Boris," she said, "I feel as if your thoughts were being conveyed to +me by your touch. Perhaps the solitudes are best." + +By a simultaneous impulse they pulled in their horses and listened. +Sounds came to them over the sands, thin and remote. They could not +tell what they were, but they knew that they heard something which +suggested the distant presence of life. + +"What is it?" said Domini. + +"I don't know, but I hear something. It travels to us from the +minarets." + +They both leaned forward on their horses' necks, holding each other's +hand. + +"I feel the tumult of men," Androvsky said presently. + +"And I. But it seems as if no men could have elected to build a city +here." + +"Here in the 'Belly of the desert,'" he said, quoting the Arabs' name +for Amara. + +"Boris"--she spoke in a more eager voice, clasping his hand +strongly--"you remember the /fumoir/ in Count Anteoni's garden. The +place where it stood was the very heart of the garden." + +"Yes." + +"We understood each other there." + +He pressed her hand without speaking. + +"Amara seems to me the heart of the Garden of Allah. Perhaps--perhaps +we shall----" + +She paused. Her eyes were fixed upon his face. + +"What, Domini?" he asked. + +He looked expectant, but anxious, and watched her, but with eyes that +seemed ready to look away from her at a word. + +"Perhaps we shall understand each other even better there." + +He looked down at the white sand. + +"Better!" he repeated. "Could we do that?" + +She did not answer. The far-off villages gleamed mysteriously on their +little mountains, like unreal things that might fade away as castles +fade in the fire. The sky above the minarets was changing in colour +slowly. Its blue was being invaded by a green that was a sister +colour. A curious light, that seemed to rise from below rather than to +descend from above, was transmuting the whiteness of the sands. A +lemon yellow crept through them, but they still looked cold and +strange, and immeasurably vast. Domini fancied that the silence of the +desert deepened so that, in it, they might hear the voices of Amara +more distinctly. + +"You know," she said, "when one looks out over the desert from a +height, as we did from the tower of Beni-Mora, it seems to call one. +There's a voice in the blue distance that seems to say, 'Come to me! I +am here--hidden in my retreat, beyond the blue, and beyond the mirage, +and beyond the farthest verge!'" + +"Yes, I know." + +"I have always felt, when we travelled in the desert, that the calling +thing, the soul of the desert, retreated as I advanced, and still +summoned me onward but always from an infinite distance." + +"And I too, Domini." + +"Now I don't feel that. I feel as if now we were coming near to the +voice, as if we should reach it at Amara, as if there it would tell us +its secret." + +"Imagination!" he said. + +But he spoke seriously, almost mystically. His voice was at odds with +the word it said. She noticed that and was sure that he was secretly +sharing her sensation. She even suspected that he had perhaps felt it +first. + +"Let us ride on," he said. "Do you see the change in the light? Do you +see the green in the sky? It is cooler, too. This is the wind of +evening." + +Their hands fell apart and they rode slowly on, up the long slope of +the sands. + +Presently they saw that they had come out of the trackless waste and +that though still a long way from the city they were riding on a +desert road which had been trodden by multitudes of feet. There were +many footprints here. On either side were low banks of sand, beaten +into a rough symmetry by implements of men, and shallow trenches +through which no water ran. In front of them they saw the numerous +caravans, now more distinct, converging from left and right slowly to +this great isle of the desert which stretched in a straight line to +the minarets. + +"We are on a highway," Domini said. + +Androvsky sighed. + +"I feel already as if we were in the midst of a crowd," he answered. + +"Our love for peace oughtn't to make us hate our fellowmen!" she said. +"Come, Boris, let us chase away our selfish mood!" + +She spoke in a more cheerful voice and drew her rein a little tighter. +Her horse quickened its pace. + +"And think how our stay at Amara will make us love the solitudes when +we return to them again. Contrast is the salt of life." + +"You speak as if you didn't believe what you are saying." + +She laughed. + +"If I were ever inclined to tell you a lie," she said, "I should not +dare to. Your mind penetrates mine too deeply." + +"You could not tell me a lie." + +"Do you hear the dogs barking?" she said, after a moment. "They are +among those tents that are like flies on the sands around the city. +That is the tribe of the Ouled Nails I suppose. Batouch says they camp +here. What multitudes of tents! Those are the suburbs of Amara. I +would rather live in them than in the suburbs of London. Oh, how far +away we are, as if we were at the end of the world!" + +Either her last words, or her previous change of manner to a lighter +cheerfulness, almost a briskness, seemed to rouse Androvsky to a +greater confidence, even to anticipation of possible pleasure. + +"Yes. After all it is only the desert men who are here. Amara is their +Metropolis, and in it we shall only see their life." + +His horse plunged. He had touched it sharply with his heel. + +"I believe you hate the thought of civilisation," she exclaimed. + +"And you?" + +"I never think of it. I feel almost as if I had never known it, and +could never know it." + +"Why should you? You love the wilds." + +"They make my whole nature leap. Even when I was a child it was so. I +remember once reading /Maud/. In it I came upon a passage--I can't +remember it well, but it was about the red man--" + +She thought for a moment, looking towards the city. + +"I don't know how it is quite," she murmured. "'When the red man +laughs by his cedar tree, and the red man's babe leaps beyond the sea' +--something like that. But I know that it made my heart beat, and that +I felt as if I had wings and were spreading them to fly away to the +most remote places of the earth. And now I have spread my wings, and-- +it's glorious. Come, Boris!" + +They put their horses to a canter, and soon drew near to the caravans. +They had sent Batouch and Ali, who generally accompanied them, on with +the rest of the camp. Both had many friends in Amara, and were eager +to be there. It was obvious that they and all the attendants, servants +and camel-men, thought of it as the provincial Frenchman thinks of +Paris, as a place of all worldly wonders and delights. Batouch was to +meet them at the entrance to the city, and when they had seen the +marvels of its market-place was to conduct them to the tents which +would be pitched on the sand-hills outside. + +Their horses pulled as if they, too, longed for a spell of city life +after the life of the wastes, and Domini's excitement grew. She felt +vivid animal spirits boiling up within her, the sane and healthy sense +that welcomes a big manifestation of the ceaseless enterprise and keen +activity of a brotherhood of men. The loaded camels, the half-naked +running drivers, the dogs sensitively sniffing, as if enticing smells +from the city already reached their nostrils, the chattering desert +merchants discussing coming gains, the wealthy and richly-dressed +Arabs, mounted on fine horses, and staring with eyes that glittered up +the broad track in search of welcoming friends, were sympathetic to +her mood. Amara was sucking them all in together from the solitary +places as quiet waters are sucked into the turmoils of a mill-race. +Although still out in the sands they were already in the midst of a +noise of life flowing to meet the roar of life that rose up at the +feet of the minarets, which now looked tall and majestic in the +growing beauty of the sunset. + +They passed the caravans one by one, and came on to the crest of the +long sand slope just as the sky above the city was flushing with a +bright geranium red. The track from here was level to the city wall, +and was no longer soft with sand. A broad, hard road rang beneath +their horses' hoofs, startling them with a music that was like a voice +of civilised life. Before them, under the red sky, they saw a dark +blue of distant houses, towers, and great round cupolas glittering +like gold. Forests of palm trees lay behind, the giant date palms for +which Amara was famous. To the left stretched the sands dotted with +gleaming Arab villages, to the right again the sands covered with +hundreds of tents among which quantities of figures moved lively like +ants, black on the yellow, arched by the sky that was alive with lurid +colour, red fading into gold, gold into primrose, primrose into green, +green into the blue that still told of the fading day. And to this +multi-coloured sky, from the barbaric city and the immense sands in +which it was set, rose a great chorus of life; voices of men and +beasts, cries of naked children playing Cora on the sand-hills, of +mothers to straying infants, shrill laughter of unveiled girls +wantonly gay, the calls of men, the barking of multitudes of dogs,-- +the guard dogs of the nomads that are never silent night or day,--the +roaring of hundreds of camels now being unloaded for the night, the +gibbering of the mad beggars who roam perpetually on the outskirts of +the encampments like wolves seeking what they may devour, the braying +of donkeys, the whinnying of horses. And beneath these voices of +living things, foundation of their uprising vitality, pulsed barbarous +music, the throbbing tomtoms that are for ever heard in the lands of +the sun, fetish music that suggests fatalism, and the grand monotony +of the enormous spaces, and the crude passion that repeats itself, and +the untiring, sultry loves and the untired, sultry languors of the +children of the sun. + +The silence of the sands, which Domini and Androvsky had known and +loved, was merged in the tumult of the sands. The one had been +mystical, laying the soul to rest. The other was provocative, calling +the soul to wake. At this moment the sands themselves seemed to stir +with life and to cry aloud with voices. + +"The very sky is barbarous to-night!" Domini exclaimed. "Did you ever +see such colour, Boris?" + +"Over the minarets it is like a great wound," he answered. + +"No wonder men are careless of human life in such a land as this. All +the wildness of the world seems to be concentrated here. Amara is like +the desert city of some tremendous dream. It looks wicked and +unearthly, but how superb!" + +"Look at those cupolas!" he said. "Are there really Oriental palaces +here? Has Batouch told us the truth for once?" + +"Or less than the truth? I could believe anything of Amara at this +moment. What hundreds of camels! They remind me of Arba, our first +halting-place." She looked at him and he at her. + +"How long ago that seems!" she said. + +"A thousand years ago." + +They both had a memory of a great silence, in the midst of this +growing tumult in which the sky seemed now to take its part, calling +with the voices of its fierce colours, with the voices of the fires +that burdened it in the west. + +"Silence joined us, Domini," Androvsky said. + +"Yes. Perhaps silence is the most beautiful voice in the world." + +Far off, along the great white road, they saw two horsemen galloping +to meet them from the city, one dressed in brilliant saffron yellow, +the other in the palest blue, both crowned with large and snowy +turbans. + +"Who can they be?" said Domini, as they drew near. "They look like two +princes of the Sahara." + +Then she broke into a merry laugh. + +"Batouch! and Ali!" she exclaimed. + +The servants galloped up then, without slackening speed deftly wheeled +their horses in a narrow circle, and were beside them, going with +them, one on the right hand, the other on the left. + +"Bravo!" Domini cried, delighted at this feat of horsemanship. "But +what have you been doing? You are transformed!" + +"Madame, we have been to the Bain Maure," replied Batouch, calmly, +swelling out his broad chest under his yellow jacket laced with gold. +"We have had our heads shaved till they are smooth and beautiful as +polished ivory. We have been to the perfumer"--he leaned +confidentially towards her, exhaling a pungent odour of amber--"to the +tailor, to the baboosh bazaar!"--he kicked out a foot cased in a +slipper that was bright almost as a gold piece--"to him who sells the +cherchia." He shook his head till the spangled muslin that flowed +about it trembled. "Is it not right that your servants should do you +honour in the city?" + +"Perfectly right," she answered with a careful seriousness. "I am +proud of you both." + +"And Monsieur?" asked Ali, speaking in his turn. + +Androvsky withdrew his eyes from the city, which was now near at hand. + +"Splendid!" he said, but as if attending to the Arabs with difficulty. +"You are splendid." + +As they came towards the old wall which partially surrounds Amara, and +which rises from a deep natural moat of sand, they saw that the ground +immediately before the city which, from a distance, had looked almost +fiat, was in reality broken up into a series of wavelike dunes, some +small with depressions like deep crevices between them, others large +with summits like plateaux. These dunes were of a sharp lemon yellow +in the evening light, a yellow that was cold in its clearness, almost +setting the teeth on edge. They went away into great rolling slopes of +sand on which the camps of the nomads and the Ouled Nails were +pitched, some near to, some distant from, the city, but they +themselves were solitary. No tents were pitched close to the city, +under the shadow of its wall. As Androvsky spoke, Domini exclaimed: + +"Boris---look! That is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen!" + +She put her hand on his arm. He obeyed her eyes and looked to his +right, to the small lemon-yellow dunes that were close to them. At +perhaps a hundred yards from the road was a dune that ran parallel +with it. The fire of the sinking sun caught its smooth crest, and +above this crest, moving languidly towards the city, were visible the +heads and busts of three women, the lower halves of whose bodies were +concealed by the sand of the farther side of the dune. They were +dancing-girls. On their heads, piled high with gorgeous handkerchiefs, +were golden crowns which glittered in the sun-rays, and tufts of +scarlet feathers. Their oval faces, covered with paint, were partially +concealed by long strings of gold coins, which flowed from their +crowns down over their large breasts and disappeared towards their +waists, which were hidden by the sand. Their dresses were of scarlet, +apple-green and purple silks, partially covered by floating shawls of +spangled muslin. Beneath their crowns and handkerchiefs burgeoned +forth plaits of false hair decorated with coral and silver ornaments. +Their hands, which they held high, gesticulating above the crest of +the dune, were painted blood red. + +These busts and heads glided slowly along in the setting sun, and +presently sank down and vanished into some depression of the dunes. +For an instant one blood-red hand was visible alone, waving a signal +above the sand to someone unseen. Its fingers fluttered like the wings +of a startled bird. Then it, too, vanished, and the sharply-cold lemon +yellow of the dunes stretched in vivid loneliness beneath the evening +sky. + +To both of them this brief vision of women in the sand brought home +the solitude of the desert and the barbarity of the life it held, the +ascetism of this supreme manifestation of Nature and the animal +passion which fructifies in its heart. + +"Do you know what that made me think of, Boris?" Domini said, as the +red hand with its swiftly-moving fingers disappeared. "You'll smile, +perhaps, and I scarcely know why. It made me think of the Devil in a +monastery." + +Androvsky did not smile. Nor did he answer. She felt sure that he, +too, had been strongly affected by that glimpse of Sahara life. His +silence gave Batouch an opportunity of pouring forth upon them a flood +of poetical description of the dancing-girls of Amara, all of whom he +seemed to know as intimate friends. Before he ceased they came into +the city. + +The road was still majestically broad. They looked with interest at +the first houses, one on each side of the way. And here again they +were met by the sharp contrast which was evidently to be the keynote +of Amara. The house on the left was European, built of white stone, +clean, attractive, but uninteresting, with stout white pillars of +plaster supporting an arcade that afforded shade from the sun, windows +with green blinds, and an open doorway showing a little hall, on the +floor of which lay a smart rug glowing with gay colours; that on the +right, before which the sand lay deep as if drifted there by some +recent wind of the waste, was African and barbarous, an immense and +rambling building of brown earth, brushwood and palm, windowless, with +a flat-terraced roof, upon which were piled many strange-looking +objects like things collapsed, red and dark green, with fringes and +rosettes, and tall sticks of palm pointing vaguely to the sky. + +"Why, these are like our palanquin!" Domini said. + +"They are the palanquins of the dancing-girls, Madame," said Batouch. +"That is the cafe of the dancers, and that"--he pointed to the neat +house opposite--"is the house of Monsieur the Aumonier of Amara." + +"Aumonier," said Androvsky, sharply. "Here!" + +He paused, then added more quietly: + +"What should he do here?" + +"But, Monsieur, he is for the French officers." + +"There are French officers?" + +"Yes, Monsieur, four or five, and the commandant. They live in the +palace with the cupolas." + +"I forgot," Androvsky said to Domini. "We are not out of the sphere of +French influence. This place looks so remote and so barbarous that I +imagined it given over entirely to the desert men." + +"We need not see the French," she said. "We shall be encamped outside +in the sand." + +"And we need not stay here long," he said quickly. + +"Boris," she asked him, half in jest, half in earnest, "shall we buy a +desert island to live in?" + +"Let us buy an oasis," he said. "That would be the perf--the safest +life for us." + +"The safest?" + +"The safest for our happiness. Domini, I have a horror of the world!" +He said the last words with a strong, almost fierce, emphasis. + +"Had you it always, or only since we have been married?" + +"I--perhaps it was born in me, perhaps it is part of me. Who knows?" + +He had relapsed into a gravity that was heavy with gloom, and looked +about him with eyes that seemed to wish to reject all that offered +itself to their sight. + +"I want the desert and you in it," he said. "The lonely desert, with +you." + +"And nothing else?" + +"I want that. I cannot have that taken from me." + +He looked about him quickly from side to side as they rode up the +street, as if he were a scout sent in advance of an army and suspected +ambushes. His manner reminded her of the way he had looked towards the +tower as they rode into Mogar. And he had connected that tower with +the French. She remembered his saying to her that it must have been +built for French soldiers. As they rode into Mogar he had dreaded +something in Mogar. The strange incident with De Trevignac had +followed. She had put it from her mind as a matter of small, or no, +importance, had resolutely forgotten it, had been able to forget it in +their dream of desert life and desert passion. But the entry into a +city for the moment destroyed the dreamlike atmosphere woven by the +desert, recalled her town sense, that quick-wittedness, that sharpness +of apprehension and swiftness of observation which are bred in those +who have long been accustomed to a life in the midst of crowds and +movement, and changing scenes and passing fashions. Suddenly she +seemed to herself to be reading Androvsky with an almost merciless +penetration, which yet she could not check. He had dreaded something +in Mogar. He dreaded something here in Amara. An unusual incident--for +the coming of a stranger into their lives out of their desolation of +the sand was unusual--had followed close upon the first dread. Would +another such incident follow upon this second dread? And of what was +this dread born? + +Batouch drew her attention to the fact that they were coming to the +marketplace, and to the curious crowds of people who were swarming out +of the tortuous, narrow streets into the main thoroughfare to watch +them pass, or to accompany them, running beside their horses. She +divined at once, by the passionate curiosity their entry aroused, that +he had misspent his leisure in spreading through the city lying +reports of their immense importance and fabulous riches. + +"Batouch," she said, "you have been talking about us." + +"No, Madame, I merely said that Madame is a great lady in her own +land, and that Monsieur--" + +"I forbid you ever to speak about me, Batouch," said Androvsky, +brusquely. + +He seemed worried by the clamour of the increasing mob that surrounded +them. Children in long robes like night-gowns skipped before them, +calling out in shrill voices. Old beggars, with diseased eyes and +deformed limbs, laid filthy hands upon their bridles and demanded +alms. Impudent boys, like bronze statuettes suddenly endowed with a +fury of life, progressed backwards to keep them full in view, shouting +information at them and proclaiming their own transcendent virtues as +guides. Lithe desert men, almost naked, but with carefully-covered +heads, strode beside them, keeping pace with the horses, saying +nothing, but watching them with a bright intentness that seemed to +hint at unutterable designs. And towards them, through the air that +seemed heavy and almost suffocating now that they were among +buildings, and through clouds of buzzing flies, came the noise of the +larger tumult of the market-place. + +Looking over the heads of the throng Domini saw the wide road opening +out into a great space, with the first palms of the oasis thronging on +the left, and a cluster of buildings, many with small cupolas, like +down-turned white cups, on the right. On the farther side of this +space, which was black with people clad for the most in dingy +garments, was an arcade jutting out from a number of hovel-like +houses, and to the right of them, where the market-place, making a +wide sweep, continued up hill and was hidden from her view, was the +end of the great building whose gilded cupolas they had seen as they +rode in from the desert, rising above the city with the minarets of +its mosques. + +The flies buzzed furiously about the horses' heads and flanks, and the +people buzzed more furiously, like larger flies, about the riders. It +seemed to Domini as if the whole city was intent upon her and +Androvsky, was observing them, considering them, wondering about them, +was full of a thousand intentions all connected with them. + +When they gained the market-place the noise and the watchful curiosity +made a violent crescendo. It happened to be market day and, although +the sun was setting, buying and selling were not yet over. On the hot +earth over which, whenever there is any wind from the desert, the +white sand grains sift and settle, were laid innumerable rugs of gaudy +colours on which were disposed all sorts of goods for sale; heavy +ornaments for women, piles of burnouses, haiks, gandouras, gaiters of +bright red leather, slippers, weapons--many jewelled and gilt, or rich +with patterns in silver--pyramids of the cords of camels' hair that +bind the turbans of the desert men, handkerchiefs and cottons of all +the colours of the rainbow, cheap perfumes in azure flasks powdered +with golden and silver flowers and leaves, incense twigs, panniers of +henna to dye the finger-nails of the faithful, innumerable +comestibles, vegetables, corn, red butcher's meat thickly covered with +moving insects, pale yellow cakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver +spitted on skewers--which, cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy +drunkenness more overwhelming even than that produced by haschish-- +musical instruments, derboukas, guitars, long pipes, and strange +fiddles with two strings, tomtoms, skins of animals with heads and +claws, live birds, tortoise backs, and plaits of false hair. + +The sellers squatted on the ground, their brown and hairy legs +crossed, calmly gazing before them, or, with frenzied voices and +gestures, driving bargains with the buyers, who moved to and fro, +treading carelessly among the merchandise. The tellers of fates glided +through the press, fingering the amulets that hung upon their hearts. +Conjurors proclaimed the merits of their miracles, bawling in the +faces of the curious. Dwarfs went to and fro, dressed in bright +colours with green and yellow turbans on their enormous heads, tapping +with long staves, and relating their deformities. Water-sellers +sounded their gongs. Before pyramids of oranges and dates, neatly +arranged in patterns, sat boys crying in shrill voices the luscious +virtues of their fruits. Idiots, with blear eyes and protending under- +lips, gibbered and whined. Dogs barked. Bakers hurried along with +trays of loaves upon their heads. From the low and smoky arcades to +right and left came the reiterated grunt of negroes pounding coffee. A +fanatic was roaring out his prayers. Arabs in scarlet and blue cloaks +passed by to the Bain Maure, under whose white and blue archway +lounged the Kabyle masseurs with folded, muscular arms. A marabout, +black as a coal, rode on a white horse towards the great mosque, +followed by his servant on foot. + +Native soldiers went by to the Kasba on the height, or strolled down +towards the Cafes Maures smoking cigarettes. Circles of grave men bent +over card games, dominoes and draughts--called by the Arabs the +Ladies' Game. Khodjas made their way with dignity towards the Bureau +Arabe. Veiled women, fat and lethargic, jingling with ornaments, +waddled through the arches of the arcades, carrying in their painted +and perspiring hands blocks of sweetmeats which drew the flies. +Children played in the dust by little heaps of refuse, which they +stirred up into clouds with their dancing, naked feet. In front, as if +from the first palms of the oasis, rose the roar of beaten drums from +the negroes' quarter, and from the hill-top at the feet of the +minarets came the fierce and piteous noise that is the /leit-motif/ of +the desert, the multitudinous complaining of camels dominating all +other sounds. + +As Domini and Androvsky rode into this whirlpool of humanity, above +which the sky was red like a great wound, it flowed and eddied round +them, making them its centre. The arrival of a stranger-woman was a +rare, if not an unparalleled, event in Amara, and Batouch had been +very busy in spreading the fame of his mistress. + +"Madame should dismount," said Batouch. "Ali will take the horses, and +I will escort Madame and Monsieur up the hill to the place of the +fountain. Shabah will be there to greet Madame." + +"What an uproar!" Domini exclaimed, half laughing, half confused. "Who +on earth is Shabah?" + +"Shabah is the Caid of Amara," replied Batouch with dignity. "The +greatest man of the city. He awaits Madame by the fountain." Domini +cast a glance at Androvsky. + +"Well?" she said. + +He shrugged his shoulders like a man who thinks strife useless and the +moment come for giving in to Fate. + +"The monster has opened his jaws for us," he said, forcing a laugh. +"We had better walk in, I suppose. But--O Domini!--the silence of the +wastes!" + +"We shall know it again. This is only for the moment. We shall have +all its joy again." + +"Who knows?" he said, as he had said when they were riding up the sand +slope. "Who knows?" + +Then they got off their horses and were taken by the crowd. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The tumult of Amara waked up in Domini the town-sense that had been +slumbering. All that seemed to confuse, to daze, to repel Androvsky, +even to inspire him with fear, the noise of the teeming crowds, their +perpetual movement, their contact, startled her into a vividness of +life and apprehension of its various meanings, that sent a thrill +through her. And the thrill was musical with happiness. To the sad a +great vision of human life brings sadness because they read into the +hearts of others their own misery. But to the happy such a vision +brings exultation, for everywhere they find dancing reflections of +their own joy. Domini had lived much in crowds, but always she had +been actively unhappy, or at least coldly dreary in them. Now, for the +first time, she was surrounded by masses of fellow-beings in her +splendid contentment. And the effect of this return, as it were, to +something like the former material conditions of her life, with the +mental and affectional conditions of it transformed by joy, was +striking even to herself. Suddenly she realised to the full her own +humanity, and the living warmth of sympathy that is fanned into flame +in a human heart by the presence of human life with its hopes, +desires, fears, passions, joys, that leap to the eye. Instead of +hating this fierce change from solitude with the man she loved to a +crowd with the man she loved she rejoiced in it. Androvsky was the +cause of both her joys, joy in the waste and joy in Amara, but while +he shared the one he did not share the other. + +This did not surprise her because of the conditions in which he had +lived. He was country-bred and had always dwelt far from towns. She +was returning to an old experience--old, for the London crowd and the +crowd of Amara were both crowds of men, however different--with a mind +transformed by happiness. To him the experience was new. Something +within her told her that it was necessary, that it had been ordained +because he needed it. The recalled town-sense, with its sharpness of +observation, persisted. As she rode in to Amara she had seemed to +herself to be reading Androvsky with an almost merciless penetration +which yet she could not check. Now she did not wish to check it, for +the penetration that is founded on perfect love can only yield good +fruit. It seemed to her that she was allowed to see clearly for +Androvsky what he could not see himself, almost as the mother sees for +the child. This contact with the crowds of Amara was, she thought, one +of the gifts the desert made to him. He did not like it. He wished to +reject it. But he was mistaken. For the moment his vision was clouded, +as our vision for ourselves so often is. She realised this, and, for +the first time since the marriage service at Beni-Mora, perhaps seemed +to be selfish. She opposed his wish. Hitherto there had never been any +sort of contest between them. Their desires, like their hearts, had +been in accord. Now there was not a contest, for Androvsky yielded to +Domini's preference, when she expressed it, with a quickness that set +his passion before her in a new and beautiful light. But she knew +that, for the moment, they were not in accord. He hated and dreaded +what she encountered with a vivid sensation of sympathy and joy. + +She felt that there was something morbid in his horror of the crowd, +and the same strength of her nature said to her, "Uproot it!" + +Their camp was pitched on the sand-hills, to the north of the city +near the French and Arab cemeteries. They reached it only when +darkness was falling, going out of the city on foot by the great wall +of dressed stone which enclosed the Kasba of the native soldiers, and +ascending and descending various slopes of deep sand, over which the +airs of night blew with a peculiar thin freshness that renewed +Domini's sense of being at the end of the world. Everything here +whispered the same message, said, "We are the denizens of far-away." + +In their walk to the camp they were accompanied by a little +procession. Shabah, the Caid of Amara, a shortish man whose immense +dignity made him almost gigantic, insisted upon attending them to the +tents, with his young brother, a pretty, libertine boy of sixteen, the +brother's tutor, an Arab black as a negro but without the negro's look +of having been freshly oiled, and two attendants. To them joined +himself the Caid of the Nomads, a swarthy potentate who not only +looked, but actually was, immense, his four servants, and his uncle, a +venerable person like a shepherd king. These worthies surrounded +Domini and Androvsky, and behind streamed the curious, the envious, +the greedy and the desultory Arabs, who follow in the trail of every +stranger, hopeful of the crumbs that are said to fall from the rich +man's table. Shabah spoke French and led the conversation, which was +devoted chiefly to his condition of health. Some years before an +attempt had been made upon his life by poison, and since that time, as +he himself expressed it, his stomach had been "perturbed as a guard +dog in the night when robbers are approaching." All efforts to console +or to inspire him with hope of future cure were met with a stern +hopelessness, a brusque certainty of perpetual suffering. The idea +that his stomach could again know peace evidently shocked and +distressed him, and as they all waded together through the sand, +pioneered by the glorified Batouch, Domini was obliged to yield to his +emphatic despair, and to join with him in his appreciation of the +perpetual indigestion which set him apart from the rest of the world +like some God within a shrine. The skittish boy, his brother, who wore +kid gloves, cast at her sly glances of admiration which asked for a +return. The black tutor grinned. And the Caid of the Nomads punctuated +their progress with loud grunts of heavy satisfaction, occasionally +making use of Batouch as interpreter to express his hopes that they +would visit his palace in the town, and devour a cous-cous on his +carpet. + +When they came to the tents it was necessary to entertain these +personages with coffee, and they finally departed promising a speedy +return, and full of invitations, which were cordially accepted by +Batouch on his employer's behalf before either Domini or Androvsky had +time to say a word. + +As the /cortege/ disappeared over the sands towards the city Domini +burst into a little laugh, and drew Androvsky out to the tent door to +see them go. + +"Society in the sands!" she exclaimed gaily. "Boris, this is a new +experience. Look at our guests making their way to their palaces!" + +Slowly the potentates progressed across the white dunes towards the +city. Shabah wore a long red cloak. His brother was in pink and gold, +with white billowing trousers. The Caid of the Nomads was in green. +They all moved with a large and conscious majesty, surrounded by their +obsequious attendants. Above them the purple sky showed a bright +evening star. Near it was visible the delicate silhouette of the young +moon. Scattered over the waste rose many koubbahs, grey in the white, +with cupolas of gypse. Hundreds of dogs were barking in the distance. +To the left, on the vast, rolling slopes of sand, glared the +innumerable fires kindled before the tents of the Ouled Nails. Before +the sleeping tent rose the minarets and the gilded cupolas of the city +which it dominated from its mountain of sand. Behind it was the +blanched immensity of the plain, of the lonely desert from which +Domini and Androvsky had come to face this barbaric stir of life. And +the city was full of music, of tomtoms throbbing, of bugles blowing in +the Kasba, of pipes shrieking from hidden dwellings, and of the faint +but multitudinous voices of men, carried to them on their desolate and +treeless height by the frail wind of night that seemed a white wind, +twin-brother of the sands. + +"Let us go a step or two towards the city, Boris," Domini said, as +their guests sank magnificently down into a fold of the dunes. + +"Towards the city!" he answered. "Why not--?" He glanced behind him to +the vacant, noiseless sands. + +She set her impulse against his for the first time. + +"No, this is our town life, our Sahara season. Let us give ourselves +to it. The loneliness will be its antidote some day." + +"Very well, Domini," he answered. + +They went a little way towards the city, and stood still in the sand +at the edge of their height. + +"Listen, Boris! Isn't it strange in the night all this barbaric music? +It excites me." + +"You are glad to be here." + +She heard the note of disappointment in his voice, but did not respond +to it. + +"And look at all those fires, hundreds of them in the sand!" + +"Yes," he said, "it is wonderful, but the solitudes are best. This is +not the heart of the desert, this is what the Arabs call it, 'The +belly of the Desert.' In the heart of the desert there is silence." + +She thought of the falling of the wind when the Sahara took them, and +knew that her love of the silence was intense. Nevertheless, to-night +the other part of her was in the ascendant. She wanted him to share +it. He did not. Could she provoke him to share it? + +"Yet, as we rode in, I had a feeling that the heart of the desert was +here," she said. "You know I said so." + +"Do you say so still?" + +"The heart, Boris, is the centre of life, isn't it?" + +He was silent. She felt his inner feeling fighting hers. + +"To-night," she said, putting her arm through his, and looking towards +the city. "I feel a tremendous sympathy with human life such as I +never felt before. Boris, it comes to me from you. Yes, it does. It is +born of my love for you, and seems to link me, and you with me, to all +these strangers, to all men and women, to everything that lives. It is +as if I was not quite human before, and my love for you had made me +completely human, had done something to me that even--even my love for +God had not been able to do." + +She lowered her voice at the last words. After a moment she added: + +"Perhaps in isolation, even with you, I could not come to +completeness. Perhaps you could not in isolation even with me. Boris, +I think it's good for us to be in the midst of life for a time." + +"You wish to remain here, Domini?" + +"Yes, for a time." + +The fatalistic feeling that had sometimes come upon her in this land +entered into her at this moment. She felt, "It is written that we are +to remain here." + +"Let us remain here, Domini," he said quietly. + +The note of disappointment had gone out of his voice, deliberately +banished from it by his love for her, but she seemed to hear it, +nevertheless, echoing far down in his soul. At that moment she loved +him like a woman he had made a lover, but also like a woman he had +made a mother by becoming a child. + +"Thank you, Boris," she answered very quietly. "You are good to me." + +"You are good to me," he said, remembering the last words of Father +Roubier. "How can I be anything else?" + +Directly he had spoken the words his body trembled violently. + +"Boris, what is it?" she exclaimed, startled. + +He took his arm away from hers. + +"These--these noises of the city in the night coming across the sand- +hills are extraordinary. I have become so used to silence that perhaps +they get upon my nerves. I shall grow accustomed to them presently." + +He turned towards the tents, and she went with him. It seemed to her +that he had evaded her question, that he had not wished to answer it, +and the sense sharply awakened in her by a return to life near a city +made her probe for the reason of this. She did not find it, but in her +mental search she found herself presently at Mogar. It seemed to her +that the same sort of uneasiness which had beset her husband at Mogar +beset him now more fiercely at Amara, that, as he had just said, his +nerves were being tortured by something. But it could not be the +noises from the city. + +After dinner Batouch came to the tent to suggest that they should go +down with him into the city. Domini, feeling certain that Androvsky +would not wish to go, at once refused, alleging that she was tired. +Batouch then asked Androvsky to go with him, and, to Domini's +astonishment, he said that if she did not mind his leaving her for a +short time he would like a stroll. + +"Perhaps," he said to her, as Batouch and he were starting, "perhaps +it will make me more completely human; perhaps there is something +still to be done that even you, Domini, have not accomplished." + +She knew he was alluding to her words before dinner. He stood looking +at her with a slight smile that did not suggest happiness, then added: + +"That link you spoke of between us and these strangers"--he made a +gesture towards the city--"I ought perhaps to feel it more strongly +than I do. I--I will try to feel it." + +Then he turned away, and went with Batouch across the sand-hills, +walking heavily. + +As Domini watched him going she felt chilled, because there was +something in his manner, in his smile, that seemed for the moment to +set them apart from each other, something she did not understand. + +Soon Androvsky disappeared in a fold of the sands as he had +disappeared in a fold of the sands at Mogar, not long before De +Trevignac came. She thought of Mogar once more, steadily, reviewing +mentally--with the renewed sharpness of intellect that had returned to +her, brought by contact with the city--all that had passed there, as +she never reviewed it before. + +It had been a strange episode. + +She began to walk slowly up and down on the sand before the tent. +Ouardi came to walk with her, but she sent him away. Before doing so, +however, something moved her to ask him: + +"That African liqueur, Ouardi--you remember that you brought to the +tent at Mogar--have we any more of it?" + +"The monk's liqueur, Madame?" + +"What do you mean--monk's liqueur?" + +"It was invented by a monk, Madame, and is sold by the monks of El- +Largani." + +"Oh! Have we any more of it?" + +"There is another bottle, Madame, but I should not dare to bring it +if----" + +He paused. + +"If what, Ouardi?" + +"If Monsieur were there." + +Domini was on the point of asking him why, but she checked herself and +told him to leave her. Then she walked up and down once more on the +sand. She was thinking now of the broken glass on the ground at +Androvsky's feet when she found him alone in the tent after De +Trevignac had gone. Ouardi's words made her wonder whether this +liqueur, brought to celebrate De Trevignac's presence in the camp, had +turned the conversation upon the subject of the religious orders; +whether Androvsky had perhaps said something against them which had +offended De Trevignac, a staunch Catholic; whether there had been a +quarrel between the two men on the subject of religion. It was +possible. She remembered De Trevignac's strange, almost mystical, +gesture in the dawn, following his look of horror towards the tent +where her husband lay sleeping. + +To-night her mind--her whole nature--felt terribly alive. + +She tried to think no more of Mogar, but her thoughts centred round +it, linked it with this great city, whose lights shone in the distance +below her, whose music came to her from afar over the silence of the +sands. + +Mogar and Amara; what had they to do with one another? Leagues of +desert divided them. One was a desolation, the other was crowded with +men. What linked them together in her mind? + +Androvsky's fear of both--that was the link. She kept on thinking of +the glance he had cast at the watch-tower, to which Trevignac had been +even then approaching, although they knew it not. De Trevignac! She +walked faster on the sand, to and fro before the tent. Why had he +looked at the tent in which Androvsky slept with horror? Was it +because Androvsky had denounced the religion that he reverenced and +loved? Could it have been that? But then--did Androvsky actively hate +religion? Perhaps he hated it, and concealed his hatred from her +because he knew it would cause her pain. Yet she had sometimes felt as +if he were seeking, perhaps with fear, perhaps with ignorance, perhaps +with uncertainty, but still seeking to draw near to God. That was why +she had been able to hope for him, why she had not been more troubled +by his loss of the faith in which he had been brought up, and to which +she belonged heart and soul. Could she have been wrong in her +feeling--deceived? There were men in the world, she knew, who denied +the existence of a God, and bitterly ridiculed all faith. She +remembered the blasphemies of her father. Had she married a man who, +like him, was lost, who, as he had, furiously denied God? + +A cold thrill of fear came into her heart. Suddenly she felt as if, +perhaps, even in her love, Androvsky had been a stranger to her. + +She stood upon the sand. It chanced that she looked towards the camp +of the Ouled Nails, whose fires blazed upon the dunes. While she +looked she was presently aware of a light that detached itself from +the blaze of the fires, and moved from them, coming towards the place +where she was standing, slowly. The young moon only gave a faint ray +to the night. This light travelled onward through the dimness like an +earth-bound star. She watched it with intentness, as people watch any +moving thing when their minds are eagerly at work, staring, yet +scarcely conscious that they see. + +The little light moved steadily on over the sands, now descending the +side of a dune, now mounting to a crest, and always coming towards the +place where Domini was standing, And presently this determined +movement towards her caught hold of her mind, drew it away from other +thoughts, fixed it on the light. She became interested in it, intent +upon it. + +Who was bearing it? No doubt some desert man, some Arab. She imagined +him tall, brown, lithe, half-naked, holding the lamp in his muscular +fingers, treading on bare feet silently, over the deep sand. Why had +he left the camp? What was his purpose? + +The light drew near. It was now moving over the flats and seemed, she +thought, to travel more quickly. And always it came straight towards +where she was standing. A conviction dawned in her that it was +travelling with an intention of reaching her, that it was carried by +someone who was thinking of her. But how could that be? She thought of +the light as a thing with a mind and a purpose, borne by someone who +backed up its purpose, helping it to do what it wanted. And it wanted +to come to her. + +In Mogar! Androvsky had dreaded something in Mogar. De Trevignac had +come. He dreaded something in Amara. This light came. For an instant +she fancied that the light was a lamp carried by De Trevignac. Then +she saw that it gleamed upon a long black robe, the soutane of a +priest. + +As she and Androvsky rode into Amara she had asked herself whether his +second dread would be followed, as his first dread had been, by an +unusual incident. When she saw the soutane of a priest, black in the +lamplight, moving towards her over the whiteness of the sand, she said +to herself that it was to be so followed. This priest stood in the +place of De Trevignac. + +Why did he come to her? + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +When the priest drew close to the tent Domini saw that it was not he +who carried the lantern, but a native soldier, one of the Tirailleurs, +formerly called Turcos, who walked beside him. The soldier saluted +her, and the priest took off his broad, fluffy black hat. + +"Good-evening, Madame," he said, speaking French with the accent of +Marseilles. "I am the Aumonier of Amara, and have just heard of your +arrival here, and as I was visiting my friends on the sand-hills +yonder, I thought I would venture to call and ask whether I could be +of any service to you. The hour is informal, I know, but to tell the +truth, Madame, after five years in Amara one does not know how to be +formal any longer." + +His eyes, which had a slightly impudent look, rare in a priest but not +unpleasing, twinkled cheerfully in the lamplight as he spoke, and his +whole expression betokened a highly social disposition and the most +genuine pleasure at meeting with a stranger. While she looked at him, +and heard him speak, Domini laughed at herself for the imaginations +she had just been cherishing. He had a broad figure, long arms, large +feet encased in stout, comfortable boots. His face was burnt brown by +the sun and partially concealed by a heavy black beard, whiskers and +moustache. His features were blunt and looked boyish, though his age +must have been about forty. The nose was snub, and accorded with the +expression in his eyes, which were black like his hair and full of +twinkling lights. As he smiled genially on Domini he showed two rows +of small, square white teeth. His Marseilles accent exactly suited his +appearance, which was rough but honest. Domini welcomed him gladly. +Indeed, her reception of him was more than cordial, almost eager. For +she had been vaguely expecting some tragic figure, some personality +suggestive of mystery or sorrow, and she thought of the incidents at +Mogar, and associated the moving light with the approach of further +strange events. This homely figure of her religion, beaming +satisfaction and comfortable anticipation of friendly intercourse, +laid to rest fears which only now, when she was conscious of relief, +she knew she had been entertaining. She begged the priest to come into +the dining-tent, and, taking up the little bell which was on the +table, went out into the sand and rang it for Ouardi. + +He came at once, like a shadow gliding over the waste. + +"Bring us coffee for two, Ouardi, biscuits"--she glanced at her +visitor--"bon-bons, yes, the bon-bons in the white box, and the +cigars. And take the soldier with you and entertain him well. Give him +whatever he likes." + +Ouardi went away with the soldier, talking frantically, and Domini +returned to the tent, where she found the priest gleaming with joyous +anticipation. They sat down in the comfortable basket chairs before +the tent door, through which they could see the shining of the city's +lights and hear the distant sound of its throbbing and wailing music. + +"My husband has gone to see the city," Domini said after she had told +the priest her name and been informed that his was Max Beret. + +"We only arrived this evening." + +"I know, Madame." + +He beamed on her, and stroked his thick beard with his broad, sunburnt +hand. "Everyone in Amara knows, and everyone in the tents. We know, +too, how many tents you have, how many servants, how many camels, +horses, dogs." + +He broke into a hearty laugh. + +"We know what you've just had for dinner!" + +Domini laughed too. + +"Not really!" + +"Well, I heard in the camp that it was soup and stewed mutton. But +never mind! You must forgive us. We are barbarians! We are sand- +rascals! We are ruffians of the sun!" + +His laugh was infectious. He leaned back in his chair and shook with +the mirth his own remarks had roused. + +"We are ruffians of the sun!" he repeated with gusto. "And we must be +forgiven everything." + +Although clad in a soutane he looked, at that moment, like a type of +the most joyous tolerance, and Domini could not help mentally +comparing him with the priest of Beni-Mora. What would Father Roubier +think of Father Beret? + +"It is easy to forgive in the sun," Domini said. + +The priest laid his hands on his knees, setting his feet well apart. +She noticed that his hands were not scrupulously clean. + +"Madame," he said, "it is impossible to be anything but lenient in the +sun. That is my experience. Excuse me but are you a Catholic?" + +"Yes." + +"So much the better. You must let me show you the chapel. It is in the +building with the cupolas. The congregation consists of five on a full +Sunday." His laugh broke out again. "I hope the day after to-morrow +you and your husband will make it seven. But, as I was saying, the sun +teaches one a lesson of charity. When I first came to live in Africa +in the midst of the sand-rascals--eh; Madame!--I suppose as a priest I +ought to have been shocked by their goings-on. And indeed I tried to +be, I conscientiously did my best. But it was no good. I couldn't be +shocked. The sunshine drove it all out of me. I could only say, 'It is +not for me to question /le bon Dieu/, and /le bon Dieu/ has created +these people and set them here in the sand to behave as they do.' What +is my business? I can't convert them. I can't change their morals. I +must just be a friend to them, cheer them up in their sorrows, give +them a bit if they're starving, doctor them a little. I'm a first-rate +hand at making an Arab take a pill or a powder!--when they are ill, +and make them at home with the white marabout. That's what the sun has +taught me, and every sand-rascal and sand-rascal's child in Amara is a +friend of mine." + +He stretched out his legs as if he wished to elongate his +satisfaction, and stared Domini full in the face with eyes that +confidently, naively, asked for her approval of his doctrine of the +sun. She could not help liking him, though she felt more as if she +were sitting with a jolly, big, and rather rowdy boy than with a +priest. + +"You are fond of the Arabs then?" she said. + +"Of course I am, Madame. I can speak their language, and I'm as much +at home in their tents, and more, than I should ever be at the Vatican +--with all respect to the Holy Father." + +He got up, went out into the sand, expectorated noisily, then returned +to the tent, wiping his bearded mouth with a large red cotton pocket- +handkerchief. + +"Are you staying here long, Madame?" + +He sat down again in his chair, making it creak with his substantial +weight. + +"I don't know. If my husband is happy here. But he prefers the +solitudes, I think." + +"Does he? And yet he's gone into the city. Plenty of bustle there at +night, I can tell you. Well, now, I don't agree with your husband. I +know it's been said that solitude is good for the sad, but I think +just the contrary. Ah!" + +The last sonorously joyous exclamation jumped out of Father Beret at +the sight of Ouardi, who at this moment entered with a large tray, +covered with a coffee-pot, cups, biscuits, bon-bons, cigars, and a +bulging flask of some liqueur flanked by little glasses. + +"You fare generously in the desert I see, Madame," he exclaimed. "And +so much the better. What's your servant's name?" + +Domini told him. + +"Ouardi! that means born in the time of the roses." He addressed +Ouardi in Arabic and sent him off into the darkness chuckling gaily. +"These Arab names all have their meanings--Onlagareb, mother of +scorpions, Omteoni, mother of eagles, and so on. So much the better! +Comforts are rare here, but you carry them with you. Sugar, if you +please." + +Domini put two lumps into his cup. + +"If you allow me!" + +He added two more. + +"I never refuse a good cigar. These harmless joys are excellent for +man. They help his Christianity. They keep him from bitterness, harsh +judgments. But harshness is for northern climes--rainy England, eh? +Forgive me, Madame. I speak in joke. You come from England perhaps. It +didn't occur to me that--" + +They both laughed. His garrulity was irresistible and made Domini feel +as if she were sitting with a child. Perhaps he caught her feeling, +for he added: + +"The desert has made me an /enfant terrible/, I fear. What have you +there?" + +His eyes had been attracted by the flask of liqueur, to which Domini +was stretching out her hand with the intention of giving him some. + +"I don't know." + +She leaned forward to read the name on the flask. + +"L o u a r i n e," she said. + +"Pst!" exclaimed the priest, with a start. + +"Will you have some? I don't know whether it's good. I've never tasted +it, or seen it before. Will you have some?" + +She felt so absolutely certain that he would say "Yes" that she lifted +the flask to pour the liqueur into one of the little glasses, but, +looking at him, she saw that he hesitated. + +"After all--why not?" he ejaculated. "Why not?" + +She was holding the flask over the glass. He saw that his remark +surprised her. + +"Yes, Madame, thanks." + +She poured out the liqueur and handed it to him. He set it down by his +coffee-cup. + +"The fact is, Madame--but you know nothing about this liqueur?" + +"No, nothing. What is it?" + +Her curiosity was roused by his hesitation, his words, but still more +by a certain gravity which had come into his face. + +"Well, this liqueur comes from the Trappist monastery of El-Largani." + +"The monks' liqueur!" she exclaimed. + +And instantly she thought of Mogar. + +"You do know then?" + +"Ouardi told me we had with us a liqueur made by some monks." + +"This is it, and very excellent it is. I have tasted it in Tunis." + +"But then why did you hesitate to take it here?" + +He lifted his glass up to the lamp. The light shone on its contents, +showing that the liquid was pale green. + +"Madame," he said, "the Trappists of El-Largani have a fine property. +They grow every sort of things, but their vineyards are specially +famous, and their wines bring in a splendid revenue. This is their +only liqueur, this Louarine. It, too, has brought in a lot of money to +the community, but when what they have in stock at the monastery now +is exhausted they will never make another franc by Louarine." + +"But why not?" + +"The secret of its manufacture belonged to one monk only. At his death +he was to confide it to another whom he had chosen." + +"And he died suddenly without--" + +"Madame, he didn't die." + +The gravity had returned to the priest's face and deepened there, +transforming it. He put the glass down without touching it with his +lips. + +"Then--I don't understand." + +"He disappeared from the monastery." + +"Do you mean he left it--a Trappist?" + +"Yes." + +"After taking the final vows?" + +"Oh, he had been a monk at El-Largani for over twenty years." + +"How horrible!" Domini said. She looked at the pale-green liquid. "How +horrible!" she repeated. + +"Yes. The monks would have kept the matter a secret, but a servant of +the /hotellerie/--who had taken no vow of eternal silence--spoke, and +--well, I know it here in the 'belly of the desert.'" + +"Horrible!" + +She said the word again, and as if she felt its meaning more acutely +each time she spoke it. + +"After twenty years to go!" she added after a moment. "And was there +no reason, no--no excuse--no, I don't mean excuse! But had nothing +exceptional happened?" + +"What exceptional thing can happen in a Trappist monastery?" said the +priest. "One day is exactly like another there, and one year exactly +like another." + +"Was it long ago?" + +"No, not very long. Only some months. Oh, perhaps it may be a year by +now, but not more. Poor fellow! I suppose he was a man who didn't know +himself, Madame, and the devil tempted him." + +"But after twenty years!" said Domini. + +The thing seemed to her almost incredible. + +"That man must be in hell now," she added. "In the hell a man can make +for himself by his own act. Oh, here is my husband." + +Androvsky stood in the tent door, looking in upon them with startled, +scrutinising eyes. He had come over the deep sand without noise. +Neither Domini nor the priest had heard a footstep. The priest got up +from his chair and bowed genially. + +"Good-evening, Monsieur," he said, not waiting for any introduction. +"I am the Aumonier of Amara, and----" + +He paused in the full flow of his talk. Androvsky's eyes had wandered +from his face to the table, upon which stood the coffee, the liqueur, +and the other things brought by Ouardi. It was evident even to the +self-centred priest that his host was not listening to him. There was +a moment's awkward pause. Then Domini said: + +"Boris, Monsieur l'Aumonier!" + +She did not speak loudly, but with an intention that recalled the mind +of her husband. He stepped slowly into the tent and held out his hand +in silence to the priest. As he did so the lamplight fell full upon +him. + +"Boris, are you ill?" Domini exclaimed. + +The priest had taken Androvsky's hand, but with a doubtful air. His +cheerful and confident manner had died away, and his eyes, fixed upon +his host, shone with an astonishment which was mingled with a sort of +boyish glumness. It was evident that he felt that his presence was +unwelcome. + +"I have a headache," Androvsky said. "I--that is why I returned." + +He dropped the priest's hand. He was again looking towards the table. + +"The sun was unusually fierce to-day," Domini said. "Do you think--" + +"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "That's it. I must have had a touch of the +sun." + +He put his hand to his head. + +"Excuse me, Monsieur," he said, speaking to the priest but not looking +at him. "I am really feeling unwell. Another day--" + +He went out of the tent and disappeared silently into the darkness. +Domini and the priest looked after him. Then the priest, with an air +of embarrassment, took up his hat from the table. His cigar had gone +out, but he pulled at it as if he thought it was still alight, then +took it out of his mouth and, glancing with a naive regret at the good +things upon the table, his half-finished coffee, the biscuits, the +white box of bon-bons--said: + +"Madame, I must be off. I've a good way to go, and it's getting late. +If you will allow me--" + +He went to the tent door and called, in a powerful voice: + +"Belgassem! Belgassem!" + +He paused, then called again: + +"Belgassem!" + +A light travelled over the sand from the farther tents of the +servants. Then the priest turned round to Domini and shook her by the +hand. + +"Good-night, Madame." + +"I'm very sorry," she said, not trying to detain him. "You must come +again. My husband is evidently ill, and--" + +"You must go to him. Of course. Of course. This sun is a blessing. +Still, it brings fever sometimes, especially to strangers. We sand- +rascals--eh, Madame!" he laughed, but the laugh had lost its sonorous +ring--"we can stand it. It's our friend. But for travellers sometimes +it's a little bit too much. But now, mind, I'm a bit of a doctor, and +if to-morrow your husband is no better I might--anyhow"--he looked +again longingly at the bon-bons and the cigars--"if you'll allow me +I'll call to know how he is." + +"Thank you, Monsieur." + +"Not at all, Madame, not at all! I can set him right in a minute, if +it's anything to do with the sun, in a minute. Ah, here's Belgassem!" + +The soldier stood like a statue without, bearing the lantern. The +priest hesitated. He was holding the burnt-out cigar in his hand, and +now he glanced at it and then at the cigar-box. A plaintive expression +overspread his bronzed and bearded face. It became almost piteous. +Quickly Domini wait to the table, took two cigars from the box and +came back. + +"Yon must have a cigar to smoke on the way." + +"Really, Madame, you are too good, but--well, I rarely refuse a fine +cigar, and these--upon my word--are--" + +He struck a match on his broad-toed boot. His demeanour was becoming +cheerful again. Domini gave the other cigar to the soldier. + +"Good-night, Madame. A demain then, a demain! I trust your husband may +be able to rest. A demain! A demain!" + +The light moved away over the dunes and dropped down towards the city. +Then Domini hurried across the sand to the sleeping-tent. As she went +she was acutely aware of the many distant noises that rose up in the +night to the pale crescent of the young moon, the pulsing of the +tomtoms in the city, the faint screaming of the pipes that sounded +almost like human beings in distress, the passionate barking of the +guard dogs tied up to the tents on the sand-slopes where the +multitudes of fires gleamed. The sensation of being far away, and +close to the heart of the desert, deepened in her, but she felt now +that it was a savage heart, that there was something terrible in the +remoteness. In the faint moonlight the tent cast black shadows upon +the wintry whiteness of the sands, that rose and fell like waves of a +smooth but foam-covered sea. And the shadow of the sleeping-tent +looked the blackest of them all. For she began to feel as if there was +another darkness about it than the darkness that it cast upon the +sand. Her husband's face that night as he came in from the dunes had +been dark with a shadow cast surely by his soul. And she did not know +what it was in his soul that sent forth the shadow. + +"Boris!" + +She was at the door of the sleeping-tent. He did not answer. + +"Boris!" + +He came in from the farther tent that he used as a dressing-room, +carrying a lit candle in his hand. She went up to him with a movement +of swift, ardent sincerity. + +"You felt ill in the city? Did Batouch let you come back alone?" + +"I preferred to be alone." + +He set down the candle on the table, and moved so that the light of it +did not fall upon his face. She took his hands in hers gently. There +was no response in his hands. They remained in hers, nervelessly. They +felt almost like dead things in her hands. But they were not cold, but +burning hot. + +"You have fever!" she said. + +She let one of his hands go and put one of hers to his forehead. + +"Your forehead is burning, and your pulses--how they are beating! Like +hammers! I must--" + +"Don't give me anything, Domini! It would be useless." + +She was silent. There was a sound of hopelessness in his voice that +frightened her. It was like the voice of a man rejecting remedies +because he knew that he was stricken with a mortal disease. + +"Why did that priest come here to-night?" he asked. + +They were both standing up, but now he sat down in a chair heavily, +taking his hand from hers. + +"Merely to pay a visit of courtesy." + +"At night?" + +He spoke suspiciously. Again she thought of Mogar, and of how, on his +return from the dunes, he had said to her, "There is a light in the +tower." A painful sensation of being surrounded with mystery came upon +her. It was hateful to her strong and frank nature. It was like a +miasma that suffocated her soul. + +"Oh, Boris," she exclaimed bluntly, "why should he not come at night?" + +"Is such a thing usual?" + +"But he was visiting the tents over there--of the nomads, and he had +heard of our arrival. He knew it was informal, but, as he said, in the +desert one forgets formalities." + +"And--and did he ask for anything?" + +"Ask?" + +"I saw--on the table-coffee and--and there was liqueur." + +"Naturally I offered him something." + +"He didn't ask?" + +"But, Boris, how could he?" + +After a moment of silence he said: + +"No, of course not." + +He shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, put his hands +on the arms of it, and continued: + +"What did he talk about?" + +"A little about Amara." + +"That was all?" + +"He hadn't been here long when you came--" + +"Oh." + +"But he told me one thing that was horrible," she added, obedient to +her instinct always to tell the complete truth to him, even about +trifles which had nothing to do with their lives or their relation to +each other. + +"Horrible!" Androvsky said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward in +his chair. + +She sat down by him. They both had their backs to the light and were +in shadow. + +"Yes." + +"What was it about--some crime here?" + +"Oh, no! It was about that liqueur you saw on the table." + +Androvsky was sitting upon a basket chair. As she spoke it creaked +under a violent movement that he made. + +"How could--what could there be that was horrible connected with +that?" he asked, speaking slowly. + +"It was made by a monk, a Trappist--" + +He got up from his chair and went to the opening of the tent. + +"What--" she began, thinking he was perhaps feeling the pain in his +head more severely. + +"I only want to be in the air. It's rather hot there. Stay where, you +are, Domini, and--well, what else?" + +He stepped out into the sand, and stood just outside the tent in its +shadow. + +"It was invented by a Trappist monk of the monastery of El-Largani, +who disappeared from the monastery. He had taken the final vows. He +had been there for over twenty years." + +"He--he disappeared--did the priest say?" + +"Yes." + +"Where?" + +"I don't think--I am sure he doesn't know. But what does it matter? +The awful thing is that he should leave the monastery after taking the +eternal vows--vows made to God." + +After a moment, during which neither of them spoke and Androvsky stood +quite still in the sand, she added: + +"Poor man!" + +Androvsky came a step towards her, then paused. + +"Why do you say that, Domini?" + +"I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still +alive." + +"Agony?" + +"Of mind, of heart. You--I know, Boris, you can't feel with me on +certain subjects--yet--" + +"Yet!" he said. + +"Boris"--she got up and came to the tent door, but not out upon the +sand--"I dare to hope that some day perhaps----" + +She was silent, looking towards him with her brave, steady eyes. + +"Agony of heart?" Androvsky said, recurring to her words. "You think-- +what--you pity that man then?" + +"And don't you?" + +"I--what has he to do with--us? Why should we--?" + +"I know. But one does sometimes pity men one never has seen, never +will see, if one hears something frightful about them. Perhaps--don't +smile, Boris--perhaps it was seeing that liqueur, which he had +actually made in the monastery when he was at peace with God, perhaps +it was seeing that, that has made me realise--such trifles stir the +imagination, set it working--at any rate--" + +She broke off. After a minute, during which he said nothing, she +continued: + +"I believe the priest felt something of the same sort. He could not +drink the liqueur that man had made, although he intended to." + +"But--that might have been for a different reason," Androvsky said in +a harsh voice; "priests have strange ideas. They often judge things +cruelly, very cruelly." + +"Perhaps they do. Yes; I can imagine that Father Roubier of Beni-Mora +might, though he is a good man and leads a saintly life." + +"Those are sometimes the most cruel. They do not understand." + +"Perhaps not. It may be so. But this priest--he's not like that." + +She thought of his genial, bearded face, his expression when he said, +"We are ruffians of the sun," including himself with the desert men, +his boisterous laugh. + +"His fault might be the other way." + +"Which way?" + +"Too great a tolerance." + +"Can a man be too tolerant towards his fellow-man?" said Androvsky. + +There was a strange sound of emotion in his deep voice which moved +her. It seemed to her--why, she did not know--to steal out of the +depth of something their mutual love had created. + +"The greatest of all tolerance is God's," she said. "I'm sure--quite +sure--of that." + +Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his arms +with passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force +and fire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense. + +"God will bless you," he said. "God will bless you. Whatever life +brings you at the end you must--you must be blessed by Him." + +"But He has blessed me," she whispered, through tears that rushed from +her eyes, stirred from their well-springs by his sudden outburst of +love for her. "He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, your +truth." + +Androvsky released her as abruptly as he had taken her in his arms, +turned, and went out into the desert. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +True to his promise, on the following day the priest called to inquire +after Androvsky's health. He happened to come just before /dejeuner/ +was ready, and met Androvsky on the sand before the tent door. + +"It's not fever then, Monsieur," he said, after they had shaken hands. + +"No, no," Androvsky replied. "I am quite well this morning." + +The priest looked at him closely with an unembarrassed scrutiny. + +"Have you been long in the desert, Monsieur?" he asked. + +"Some weeks." + +"The heat has tired you. I know the look--" + +"I assure you, Monsieur, that I am accustomed to heat. I have lived in +North Africa all my life." + +"Indeed. And yet by your appearance I should certainly suppose that +you needed a change from the desert. The air of the Sahara is +magnificent, but there are people--" + +"I am not one of them," Androvsky said abruptly. "I have never felt so +strong physically as since I have lived in the sand." + +The priest still looked at him closely, but said nothing further on +the subject of health. Indeed, almost immediately his attention was +distracted by the apparition of Ouardi bearing dishes from the cook's +tent. + +"I am afraid I have called at a very unorthodox time," he remarked, +looking at his watch; "but the fact is that here in Amara we--" + +"I hope you will stay to /dejeuner/," Androvsky said. + +"It is very good of you. If you are certain that I shall not put you +out." + +"Please stay." + +"I will, then, with pleasure." + +He moved his lips expectantly, as if only a sense of politeness +prevented him from smacking them. Androvsky went towards the sleeping- +tent, where Domini, who had been into the city, was washing her hands. + +"The priest has called," he said. "I have asked him to /dejeuner/." + +She looked at him with frank astonishment in her dark eyes. + +"You--Boris!" + +"Yes, I. Why not?" + +"I don't know. But generally you hate people." + +"He seems a good sort of man." + +She still looked at him with some surprise, even with curiosity. + +"Have you taken a fancy to a priest?" she asked, smiling. + +"Why not? This man is very different from Father Roubier, more human." + +"Father Beret is very human, I think," she answered. + +She was still smiling. It had just occurred to her that the priest had +timed his visit with some forethought. + +"I am coming," she added. + +A sudden cheerfulness had taken possession of her. All the morning she +had been feeling grave, even almost apprehensive, after a bad night. +When her husband had abruptly left her and gone away into the darkness +she had been overtaken by a sudden wave of acute depression. She had +felt, more painfully than ever before, the mental separation which +existed between them despite their deep love, and a passionate but +almost hopeless longing had filled her heart that in all things they +might be one, not only in love of each other, but in love of God. When +Androvsky had taken his arms from her she had seemed to feel herself +released by a great despair, and this certainty--for as he vanished +into the darkness she was no more in doubt that his love for her left +room within his heart for such an agony--had for a moment brought her +soul to the dust. She had been overwhelmed by a sensation that instead +of being close together they were far apart, almost strangers, and a +great bitterness had entered into her. It was accompanied by a desire +for action. She longed to follow Androvsky, to lay her hand on his +arm, to stop him in the sand and force him to confide in her. For the +first time the idea that he was keeping something from her, a sorrow, +almost maddened her, even made her feel jealous. The fact that she +divined what that sorrow was, or believed she divined it, did not help +her just then. She waited a long while, but Androvsky did not return, +and at last she prayed and went to bed. But her prayers were feeble, +disjointed, and sleep did not come to her, for her mind was travelling +with this man who loved her and who yet was out there alone in the +night, who was deliberately separating himself from her. Towards dawn, +when he stole into the tent, she was still awake, but she did not +speak or give any sign of consciousness, although she was hot with the +fierce desire to spring up, to throw her arms round him, to draw his +head down upon her heart, and say, "I have given myself, body, heart +and soul, to you. Give yourself to me; give me the thing you are +keeping back--your sorrow. Till I have that I have not all of you. And +till I have all of you I am in hell." + +It was a mad impulse. She resisted it and lay quite still. And when he +lay down and was quiet she slept at length. + +Now, as she heard him speak in the sunshine and knew that he had +offered hospitality to the comfortable priest her heart suddenly felt +lighter, she scarcely knew why. It seemed to her that she had been a +little morbid, and that the cloud which had settled about her was +lifted, revealing the blue. + +At /dejeuner/ she was even more reassured. Her husband seemed to get +on with the priest better than she had ever seen him get on with +anybody. He began by making an effort to be agreeable that was obvious +to her; but presently he was agreeable without effort. The simple +geniality and lack of self-consciousness in Father Beret evidently set +him at his ease. Once or twice she saw him look at his guest with an +earnest scrutiny that puzzled her, but he talked far more than usual +and with greater animation, discussing the Arabs and listening to the +priest's account of the curiosities of life in Amara. When at length +Father Beret rose to go Androvsky said he would accompany him a little +way, and they went off together, evidently on the best of terms. + +She was delighted and surprised. She had been right, then. It was time +that Androvsky was subjected to another influence than that of the +unpeopled wastes. It was time that he came into contact with men whose +minds were more akin to his than the minds of the Arabs who had been +their only companions. She began to imagine him with her in civilised +places, to be able to imagine him. And she was glad they had come to +Amara and confirmed in her resolve to stay on there. She even began to +wish that the French officers quartered there--few in number, some +five or six--would find them in the sand, and that Androvsky would +offer them hospitality. It occurred to her that it was not quite +wholesome for a man to live in isolation from his fellow-men, even +with the woman he loved, and she determined that she would not be +selfish in her love, that she would think for Androvsky, act for him, +even against her own inclination. Perhaps his idea of life in an oasis +apart from Europeans was one she ought to combat, though it fascinated +her. Perhaps it would be stronger, more sane, to face a more ordinary, +less dreamy, life, in which they would meet with people, in which they +would inevitably find themselves confronted with duties. She felt +powerful enough in that moment to do anything that would make for +Androvsky's welfare of soul. His body was strong and at ease. She +thought of him going away with the priest in friendly conversation. +How splendid it would be if she could feel some day that the health of +his soul accorded completely with that of his body! + +"Batouch!" she called almost gaily. + +Batouch appeared, languidly smoking a cigarette, and with a large +flower tied to a twig protending from behind his ear. + +"Saddle the horses. Monsieur has gone with the Pere Beret. I shall +take a ride, just a short ride round the camp over there--in at the +city gate, through the market-place, and home. You will come with me." + +Batouch threw away his cigarette with energy. Poet though he was, all +the Arab blood in him responded to the thought of a gallop over the +sands. Within a few minutes they were off. When she was in the saddle +it was at all times difficult for Domini to be sad or even pensive. +She had a native passion for a good horse, and riding was one of the +joys, and almost the keenest, of her life. She felt powerful when she +had a spirited, fiery animal under her, and the wide spaces of the +desert summoned speed as they summoned dreams. She and Batouch went +away at a rapid pace, circled round the Arab cemetery, made a detour +towards the south, and then cantered into the midst of the camps of +the Ouled Nails. It was the hour of the siesta. Only a few people were +stirring, coming and going over the dunes to and from the city on +languid errands for the women of the tents, who reclined in the shade +of their brushwood arbours upon filthy cushions and heaps of multi- +coloured rags, smoking cigarettes, playing cards with Arab and negro +admirers, or staring into vacancy beneath their heavy eyebrows as they +listened to the sound of music played upon long pipes of reed. No dogs +barked in their camp. The only guardians were old women, whose sandy +faces were scored with innumerable wrinkles, and whose withered hands +drooped under their loads of barbaric rings and bracelets. Batouch +would evidently have liked to dismount here. Like all Arabs he was +fascinated by the sight of these idols of the waste, whose painted +faces called to the surface the fluid poetry within him, but Domini +rode on, descending towards the city gate by which she had first +entered Amara. The priest's house was there and Androvsky was with the +priest. She hoped he had perhaps gone in to return the visit paid to +them. As she rode into the city she glanced at the house. The door was +open and she saw the gay rugs in the little hall. She had a strong +inclination to stop and ask if her husband were there. He might mount +Batouch's horse and accompany her home. + +"Batouch," she said, "will you ask if Monsieur Androvsky is with Pere +Beret. I think--" + +She stopped speaking. She had just seen her husband's face pass across +the window-space of the room on the right-hand side of the hall door. +She could not see it very well. The arcade built out beyond the house +cast a deep shade within, and in this shade the face had flitted like +a shadow. Batouch had sprung from his horse. But the sight of the +shadowy face had changed her mind. She resolved not to interrupt the +two men. Long ago at Beni-Mora she had asked Androvsky to call upon a +priest. She remembered the sequel to that visit. This time Androvsky +had gone of his own will. If he liked this priest, if they became +friends, perhaps--she remembered her vision in the dancing-house, her +feeling that when she drew near Amara she was drawing near to the +heart of the desert. If she should see Androvsky praying here! Yet +Father Beret hardly seemed a man likely to influence her husband, or +anyone with a strong and serious personality. He was surely too fond +of the things of this world, too obviously a lover and cherisher of +the body. Nevertheless, there was something attractive in him, a +kindness, a geniality. In trouble he would be sympathetic. Certainly +her husband must have taken a liking to him, and the chances of life +and the influences of destiny were strange and not to be foreseen. + +"No, Batouch," she said. "We won't stop." + +"But, Madame," he cried, "Monsieur is in there. I saw his face at the +window." + +"Never mind. We won't disturb them. I daresay they have something to +talk about." + +They cantered on towards the market-place. It was not market-day, and +the town, like the camp of the Ouled Nails, was almost deserted. As +she rode up the hill towards the place of the fountain, however, she +saw two handsomely-dressed Arabs, followed by a servant, slowly +strolling towards her from the doorway of the Bureau Arabe. One, who +was very tall, was dressed in green, and carried a long staff, from +which hung green ribbons. The other wore a more ordinary costume of +white, with a white burnous and a turban spangled with gold. + +"Madame!" said Batouch. + +"Yes." + +"Do you see the Arab dressed in green?" + +He spoke in an almost awestruck voice. + +"Yes. Who is he?" + +"The great marabout who lives at Beni-Hassan." + +The name struck upon Domini's ear with a strange familiarity. + +"But that's where Count Anteoni went when he rode away from Beni-Mora +that morning." + +"Yes, Madame." + +"Is it far from Amara?" + +"Two hours' ride across the desert." + +"But then Count Anteoni may be near us. After he left he wrote to me +and gave me his address at the marabout's house." + +"If he is still with the marabout, Madame." + +They were close to the fountain now, and the marabout and his +companion were coming straight towards them. + +"If Madame will allow me I will salute the marabout," said Batouch. + +"Certainly." + +He sprang off his horse immediately, tied it up to the railing of the +fountain, and went respectfully towards the approaching potentate to +kiss his hand. Domini saw the marabout stop and Batouch bend down, +then lift himself up and suddenly move back as if in surprise. The +Arab who was with the marabout seemed also surprised. He held out his +hand to Batouch, who took it, kissed it, then kissed his own hand, and +turning, pointed towards Domini. The Arab spoke a word to the +marabout, then left him, and came rapidly forward to the fountain. As +he drew close to her she saw a face browned by the sun, a very small, +pointed beard, a pair of intensely bright eyes surrounded by wrinkles. +These eyes held her. It seemed to her that she knew them, that she had +often looked into them and seen their changing expressions. Suddenly +she exclaimed: + +"Count Anteoni!" + +"Yes, it is I!" + +He held out his hand and clasped hers. + +"So you have started upon your desert journey," he added, looking +closely at her, as he had often looked in the garden. + +"Yes." + +"And as I ventured to advise--that last time, do you remember?" + +She recollected his words. + +"No," she replied, and there was a warmth of joy, almost of pride, in +her voice. "I am not alone." + +Count Anteoni was standing with one hand on her horse's neck. As she +spoke, his hand dropped down. + +"I have been away from Beni-Hassan," he said slowly. "The marabout and +I have been travelling in the south and only returned yesterday. I +have heard no news for a long time from Beni-Mora, but I know. You are +Madame Androvsky." + +"Yes," she answered; "I am Madame Androvsky." + +There was a silence between them. In it she heard the dripping water +in the fountain. At last Count Anteoni spoke again. + +"It was written," he said quietly. "It was written in the sand." + +She thought of the sand-diviner and was silent. An oppression of +spirit had suddenly come upon her. It seemed to her connected with +something physical, something obscure, unusual, such as she had never +felt before. It was, she thought, as if her body at that moment became +more alive than it had ever been, and as if that increase of life +within her gave to her a peculiar uneasiness. She was startled. She +even felt alarmed, as at the faint approach of something strange, of +something that was going to alter her life. She did not know at all +what it was. For the moment a sense of confusion and of pain beset +her, and she was scarcely aware with whom she was, or where. The +sensation passed and she recovered herself and met Count Anteoni's +eyes quietly. + +"Yes," she answered; "all that has happened to me here in Africa was +written in the sand and in fire." + +"You are thinking of the sun." + +"Yes." + +"I--where are you living?" + +"Close by on the sand-hill beyond the city wall." + +"Where you can see the fires lit at night and hear the sound of the +music of Africa?" + +"Yes." + +"As he said." + +"Yes, as he said." + +Again the overwhelming sense of some strange and formidable approach +came over her, but this time she fought it resolutely. + +"Will you come and see me?" she said. + +She had meant to say "us," but did not say it. + +"If you will allow me." + +"When?" + +"I--" she heard the odd, upward grating in his voice which she +remembered so well. "May I come now if you are riding to the tents?" + +"Please do." + +"I will explain to the marabout and follow you." + +"But the way? Shall Batouch--?" + +"No, it is not necessary." + +She rode away. When she reached the camp she found that Androvsky had +not yet returned, and she was glad. She wanted to talk to Count +Anteoni alone. Within a few minutes she saw him coming towards the +tent. His beard and his Arab dress so altered him that at a short +distance she could not recognise him, could only guess that it was he. +But directly he was near, and she saw his eyes, she forgot that he was +altered, and felt that she was with her kind and whimsical host of the +garden. + +"My husband is in the city," she said. + +"Yes." + +"With the priest." + +She saw an expression of surprise flit over Count Anteoni's face. It +went away instantly. + +"Pere Beret," he said. "He is a cheerful creature and very good to the +Arabs." + +They sat down just inside the shadow of the tent before the door, and +he looked out quietly towards the city. + +"Yes, this is the place," he said. + +She knew that he was alluding to the vision of the sand-diviner, and +said so. + +"Did you believe at the time that what he said would come true?" she +asked. + +"How could I? Am I a child?" + +He spoke with gentle irony, but she felt he was playing with her. + +"Cannot a man believe such things?" + +He did not answer her, but said: + +"My fate has come to pass. Do you not care to know what it is?" + +"Yes, do tell me." + +She spoke earnestly. She felt a change in him, a great change which as +yet she did not understand fully. It was as if he had been a man in +doubt and was now a man no longer in doubt, as if he had arrived at +some goal and was more at peace with himself than he had been. + +"I have become a Mohammedan," he said simply. + +"A Mohammedan!" + +She repeated the words as a person repeats words in surprise, but her +voice did not sound surprised. + +"You wonder?" he asked. + +After a moment she answered: + +"No. I never thought of such a thing, but I am not surprised. Now you +have told me it seems to explain you, much that I noticed in you, +wondered about in you." + +She looked at him steadily, but without curiosity. + +"I feel that you are happy now." + +"Yes, I am happy. The world I used to know, my world and yours, would +laugh at me, would say that I was crazy, that it was a whim, that I +wished for a new sensation. Simply it had to be. For years I have been +tending towards it--who knows why? Who knows what obscure influences +have been at work in me, whether there is not perhaps far back, some +faint strain of Arab blood mingled with the Sicilian blood in my +veins? I cannot understand why. What I can understand is that at last +I have fulfilled my destiny! After years of unrest I am suddenly and +completely at peace. It is a magical sensation. I have been wandering +all my life and have come upon the open door of my home." + +He spoke very quietly, but she heard the joy in his voice. + +"I remember you saying, 'I like to see men praying in the desert.'" + +"Yes. When I looked at them I was longing to be one of them. For years +from my garden wall I watched them with a passion of envy, with +bitterness, almost with hatred sometimes. They had something I had +not, something that set them above me, something that made their lives +plain through any complication, and that gave to death a meaning like +the meaning at the close of a great story that is going to have a +sequel. They had faith. And it was difficult not to hate them. But now +I am one of them. I can pray in the desert." + +"That was why you left Beni-Mora." + +"Yes. I had long been wishing to become a Mohammedan. I came here to +be with the marabout, to enter more fully into certain questions, to +see if I had any lingering doubts." + +"And you have none?" + +"None." + +She looked at his bright eyes and sighed, thinking of her husband. + +"You will go back to Beni-Mora?" she asked. + +"I don't think so. I am inclined to go farther into the desert, +farther among the people of my own faith. I don't want to be +surrounded by French. Some day perhaps I may return. But at present +everything draws me onward. Tell me"--he dropped the earnest tone in +which he had been speaking, and she heard once more the easy, half- +ironical man of the world--"do you think me a half-crazy eccentric?" + +"No!" + +"You look at me very gravely, even sadly." + +"I was thinking of the men who cannot pray," she said, "even in the +desert." + +"They should not come into the Garden of Allah. Don't you remember +that day by the garden wall, when--" + +He suddenly checked himself. + +"Forgive me," he said simply. "And now tell me about yourself. You +never wrote that you were going to be married." + +"I knew you would know it in time--when we met again." + +"And you knew we should meet again?" + +"Did not you?" + +He nodded. + +"In the heart of the desert. And you--where are you going? You are not +returning to civilisation?" + +"I don't know. I have no plans. I want to do what my husband wishes." + +"And he?" + +"He loves the desert. He has suggested our buying an oasis and setting +up as date merchants. What do you think of the idea?" + +She spoke with a smile, but her eyes were serious, even sad. + +"I cannot judge for others," he answered. + +When he got up to go he held her hand fast for a moment. + +"May I speak what is in my heart?" he asked. + +"Yes--do." + +"I feel as if what I have told you to-day about myself, about my +having come to the open door of a home I had long been wearily +seeking, had made you sad. Is it so?" + +"Yes," she answered frankly. + +"Can you tell me why?" + +"It has made me realise more sharply than perhaps I did before what +must be the misery of those who are still homeless." + +There was in her voice a sound as if she suppressed a sob. + +"Hope for them, remembering my many years of wandering." + +"Yes, yes." + +"Good-bye." + +"Will you come again?" + +"You are here for long?" + +"Some days, I think." + +"Whenever you ask me I will come." + +"I want you and my husband to meet again. I want that very much." She +spoke with a pressure of eagerness. + +"Send for me and I will come at any hour." + +"I will send--soon." + +When he was gone, Domini sat in the shadow of the tent. From where she +was she could see the Arab cemetery at a little distance, a quantity +of stones half drowned in the sand. An old Arab was wandering there +alone, praying for the dead in a loud, persistent voice. Sometimes he +paused by a grave, bowed himself in prayer, then rose and walked on +again. His voice was never silent. The sound of it was plaintive and +monotonous. Domini listened to it, and thought of homeless men, of +those who had lived and died without ever coming to that open door +through which Count Anteoni had entered. His words and the changed +look in his face had made a deep impression upon her. She realised +that in the garden, when they were together, his eyes, even when they +twinkled with the slightly ironical humour peculiar to him, had always +held a shadow. Now that shadow was lifted out of them. How deep was +the shadow in her husband's eyes. How deep had it been in the eyes of +her father. He had died with that terrible darkness in his eyes and in +his soul. If her husband were to die thus! A terror came upon her. She +looked out at the stones in the sand and imagined herself there--as +the old Arab was--praying for Androvsky buried there, hidden from her +on earth for ever. And suddenly she felt, "I cannot wait, I must act." + +Her faith was deep and strong. Nothing could shake it. But might it +not shake the doubt from another's soul, as a great, pure wind shakes +leaves that are dead from a tree that will blossom with the spring? +Hitherto a sense of intense delicacy had prevented her from ever +trying to draw near definitely to her husband's sadness. But her +interview with Count Anteoni, and the sound of this voice praying, +praying for the dead men in the sand, stirred her to an almost fierce +resolution. She had given herself to Androvsky. He had given himself +to her. They were one. She had a right to draw near to his pain, if by +so doing there was a chance that she might bring balm to it. She had a +right to look closer into his eyes if hers, full of faith, could lift +the shadow from them. + +She leaned back in the darkness of the tent. The old Arab had wandered +further on among the graves. His voice was faint in the sand, faint +and surely piteous, as if, even while he prayed, he felt that his +prayers were useless, that the fate of the dead was pronounced beyond +recall. Domini listened to him no more. She was praying for the living +as she had never prayed before, and her prayer was the prelude not to +patience but to action. It was as if her conversation with Count +Anteoni had set a torch to something in her soul, something that gave +out a great flame, a flame that could surely burn up the sorrow, the +fear, the secret torture in her husband's soul. All the strength of +her character had been roused by the sight of the peace she desired +for the man she loved; enthroned in the heart of this other man who +was only her friend. + +The voice of the old Arab died away in the distance, but before it +died away Domini had ceased from hearing it. + +She heard only a voice within her, which said to her, "If you really +love be fearless. Attack this sorrow which stands like a figure of +death between you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon-- +faith. Use it." + +It seemed to her then that through all their intercourse she had been +a coward in her love, and she resolved that she would be a coward no +longer. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Domini had said to herself that she would speak to her husband that +night. She was resolved not to hesitate, not to be influenced from her +purpose by anything. Yet she knew that a great difficulty would stand +in her way--the difficulty of Androvsky's intense, almost passionate, +reserve. This reserve was the dominant characteristic in his nature. +She thought of it sometimes as a wall of fire that he had set round +about the secret places of his soul to protect them even from her +eyes. Perhaps it was strange that she, a woman of a singularly frank +temperament, should be attracted by reserve in another, yet she knew +that she was so attracted by the reserve of her husband. Its existence +hinted to her depths in him which, perhaps, some day she might sound, +she alone, strength which was hidden for her some day to prove. + +Now, alone with her purpose, she thought of this reserve. Would she be +able to break it down with her love? For an instant she felt as if she +were about to enter upon a contest with her husband, but she did not +coldly tell over her armoury and select weapons. There was a heat of +purpose within her that beckoned her to the unthinking, to the +reckless way, that told her to be self-reliant and to trust to the +moment for the method. + +When Androvsky returned to the camp it was towards evening. A lemon +light was falling over the great white spaces of the sand. Upon their +little round hills the Arab villages glowed mysteriously. Many +horsemen were riding forth from the city to take the cool of the +approaching night. From the desert the caravans were coming in. The +nomad children played, half-naked, at Cora before the tents, calling +shrilly to each other through the light silence that floated airily +away into the vast distances that breathed out the spirit of a pale +eternity. Despite the heat there was an almost wintry romance in this +strange land of white sands and yellow radiance, an ethereal +melancholy that stole with the twilight noiselessly towards the tents. + +As Androvsky approached Domini saw that he had lost the energy which +had delighted her at /dejeuner/. He walked towards her slowly with his +head bent down. His face was grave, even sad, though when he saw her +waiting for him he smiled. + +"You have been all this time with the priest?" she said. + +"Nearly all. I walked for a little while in the city. And you?" + +"I rode out and met a friend." + +"A friend?" he said, as if startled. + +"Yes, from Beni-Mora--Count Anteoni. He has been here to pay me a +visit." + +She pulled forward a basket-chair for him. He sank into it heavily. + +"Count Anteoni here!" he said slowly. "What is he doing here?" + +"He is with the marabout at Beni-Hassan. And, Boris, he has become a +Mohammedan." + +He lifted his head with a jerk and stared at her in silence. + +"You are surprised?" + +"A Mohammedan--Count Anteoni?" + +"Yes. Do you know, when he told me I felt almost as if I had been +expecting it." + +"But--is he changed then? Is he--" + +He stopped. His voice had sounded to her bitter, almost fierce. + +"Yes, Boris, he is changed. Have you ever seen anyone who was lost, +and the same person walking along the road home? Well, that is Count +Anteoni." + +They said no more for some minutes. Androvsky was the first to speak +again. + +"You told him?" he asked. + +"About ourselves?" + +"Yes." + +"I told him." + +"What did he say?" + +"He had expected it. When we ask him he is coming here again to see us +both together." + +Androvsky got up from his chair. His face was troubled. Standing +before Domini, he said: + +"Count Anteoni is happy then, now that he--now that he has joined this +religion?" + +"Very happy." + +"And you--a Catholic--what do you think?" + +"I think that, since that is his honest belief, it is a blessed thing +for him." + +He said no more, but went towards the sleeping-tent. + +In the evening, when they were dining, he said to her: + +"Domini, to-night I am going to leave you again for a short time." + +He saw a look of keen regret come into her face, and added quickly: + +"At nine I have promised to go to see the priest. He--he is rather +lonely here. He wants me to come. Do you mind?" + +"No, no. I am glad--very glad. Have you finished?" + +"Quite." + +"Let us take a rug and go out a little way in the sand--that way +towards the cemetery. It is quiet there at night." + +"Yes. I will get a rug." He went to fetch it, threw it over his arm, +and they set out together. She had meant the Arab cemetery, but when +they reached it they found two or three nomads wandering there. + +"Let us go on," she said. + +They went on, and came to the French cemetery, which was surrounded by +a rough hedge of brushwood, in which there were gaps here and there. +Through one of these gaps they entered it, spread out the rug, and lay +down on the sand. The night was still and silence brooded here. +Faintly they saw the graves of the exiles who had died here and been +given to the sand, where in summer vipers glided to and fro, and the +pariah dogs wandered stealthily, seeking food to still the desires in +their starving bodies. They were mostly very simple, but close to +Domini and Androvsky was one of white marble, in the form of a broken +column, hung with wreaths of everlasting flowers, and engraved with +these words: + + ICI REPOSE + +JEAN BAPTISTE FABRIANI + + /Priez pour lui/. + +When they lay down they both looked at this grave, as if moved by a +simultaneous impulse, and read the words. + +"Priez pour lui!" Domini said in a low voice. + +She put out her hand and took hold of her husband's, and pressed it +down on the sand. + +"Do you remember that first night, Boris," she said, "at Arba, when +you took my hand in yours and laid it against the desert as against a +heart?" + +"Yes, Domini, I remember." + +"That night we were one, weren't we?" + +"Yes, Domini." + +"Were we"--she was almost whispering in the night--"were we truly +one?" + +"Why do you--truly one, you say?" + +"Yes--one in soul? That is the great union, greater than the union of +our bodies. Were we one in soul? Are we now?" + +"Domini, why do you ask me such questions? Do you doubt my love?" + +"No. But I do ask you. Won't you answer me?" + +He was silent. His hand lay in hers, but did not press it. + +"Boris"--she spoke the cruel words very quietly,--"we are not truly +one in soul. We have never been. I know that." + +He said nothing. + +"Shall we ever be? Think--if one of us were to die, and the other--the +one who was left--were left with the knowledge that in our love, even +ours, there had always been separation--could you bear that? Could I +bear it?" + +"Domini--" + +"Yes." + +"Why do you speak like this? We are one. You have all my love. You are +everything to me." + +"And yet you are sad, and you try to hide your sadness, your misery, +from me. Can you not give it me? I want it--more than I want anything +on earth. I want it, I must have it, and I dare to ask for it because +I know how deeply you love me and that you could never love another." + +"I never have loved another," he said. + +"I was the very first." + +"The very first. When we married, although I was a man I was as you +were." + +She bent down her head and laid her lips on his hand that was in hers. + +"Then make our union perfect, as no other union on earth has ever +been. Give me your sorrow, Boris. I know what it is." + +"How can--you cannot know," he said in a broken voice. + +"Yes. Love is a diviner, the only true diviner. I told you once what +it was, but I want you to tell me. Nothing that we take is beautiful +to us, only what we are given." + +"I cannot," he said. + +He tried to take his hand from hers, but she held it fast. And she +felt as if she were holding the wall of fire with which he surrounded +the secret places of his soul. + +"To-day, Boris, when I talked to Count Anteoni, I felt that I had been +a coward with you. I had seen you suffer and I had not dared to draw +near to your suffering. I have been afraid of you. Think of that." + +"No." + +"Yes, I have been afraid of you, of your reserve. When you withdrew +from me I never followed you. If I had, perhaps I could have done +something for you." + +"Domini, do not speak like this. Our love is happy. Leave it as it +is." + +"I can't. I will not. Boris, Count Anteoni has found a home. But you +are wandering. I can't bear that, I can't bear it. It is as if I were +sitting in the house, warm, safe, and you were out in the storm. It +tortures me. It almost makes me hate my own safety." + +Androvsky shivered. He took his hand forcibly from Domini's. + +"I have almost hated it, too," he said passionately. "I have hated it. +I'm a--I'm--" + +His voice failed. He bent forward and took Domini's face between his +hands. + +"And yet there are times when I can bless what I have hated. I do +bless it now. I--I love your safety. You--at least you are safe." + +"You must share it. I will make you share it." + +"You cannot." + +"I can. I shall. I feel that we shall be together in soul, and perhaps +to-night, perhaps even to-night." + +Androvsky looked profoundly agitated. His hands dropped down. + +"I must go," he said. "I must go to the priest." + +He got up from the sand. + +"Come to the tent, Domini." + +She rose to her feet. + +"When you come back," she said, "I shall be waiting for you, Boris." + +He looked at her. There was in his eyes a piercing wistfulness. He +opened his lips. At that moment Domini felt that he was on the point +of telling her all that she longed to know. But the look faded. The +lips closed. He took her in his arms and kissed her almost +desperately. + +"No, no," he said. "I'll keep your love--I'll keep it." + +"You could never lose it." + +"I might." + +"Never." + +"If I believed that." + +"Boris!" + +Suddenly burning tears rushed from her eyes. + +"Don't ever say a thing like that to me again!" she said with passion. + +She pointed to the grave close to them. + +"If you were there," she said, "and I was living, and you had died +before--before you had told me--I believe--God forgive me, but I do +believe that if, when you died, I were taken to heaven I should find +my hell there." + +She looked through her tears at the words: "Priez pour lui." + +"To pray for the dead," she whispered, as if to herself. "To pray for +my dead--I could not do it--I could not. Boris, if you love me you +must trust me, you must give me your sorrow." + +The night drew on. Androvsky had gone to the priest. Domini was alone, +sitting before the tent waiting for his return. She had told Batouch +and Ouardi that she wanted nothing more, that no one was to come to +the tent again that night. The young moon was rising over the city, +but its light as yet was faint. It fell upon the cupolas of the Bureau +Arabe, the towers of the mosque and the white sands, whose whiteness +it seemed to emphasise, making them pale as the face of one terror- +stricken. The city wall cast a deep shadow over the moat of sand in +which, wrapped in filthy rags, lay nomads sleeping. Upon the sand- +hills the camps were alive with movement. Fires blazed and smoke +ascended before the tents that made patches of blackness upon the +waste. Round the fires were seated groups of men devouring cous-cous +and the red soup beloved of the nomad. Behind them circled the dogs +with quivering nostrils. Squadrons of camels lay crouched in the sand, +resting after their journeys. And everywhere, from the city and from +the waste, rose distant sounds of music, thin, aerial flutings like +voices of the night winds, acrid cries from the pipes, and the far-off +rolling of the African drums that are the foundation of every desert +symphony. + +Although she was now accustomed to the music of Africa, Domini could +never hear it without feeling the barbarity of the land from which it +rose, the wildness of the people who made and who loved it. Always it +suggested to her an infinite remoteness, as if it were music sounding +at the end of the world, full of half-defined meanings, melancholy yet +fierce passion, longings that, momentarily satisfied, continually +renewed themselves, griefs that were hidden behind thin veils like the +women of the East, but that peered out with expressive eyes, hinting +their story and desiring assuagement. And tonight the meaning of the +music seemed deeper than it had been before. She thought of it as an +outside echo of the voices murmuring in her mind and heart, and the +voices murmuring in the mind and heart of Androvsky, broken voices +some of them, but some strong, fierce, tense and alive with meaning. +And as she sat there alone she thought this unity of music drew her +closer to the desert than she had ever been before, and drew Androvsky +with her, despite his great reserve. In the heart of the desert he +would surely let her see at last fully into his heart. When he came +back in the night from the priest he would speak. She was waiting for +that. + +The moon was mounting. Its light grew stronger. She looked across the +sands and saw fires in the city, and suddenly she said to herself, +"This is the vision of the sand-diviner realised in my life. He saw me +as I am now, in this place." And she remembered the scene in the +garden, the crouching figure, the extended arms, the thin fingers +tracing swift patterns in the sand, the murmuring voice. + +To-night she felt deeply expectant, but almost sad, encompassed by the +mystery that hangs in clouds about human life and human relations. +What could be that great joy of which the Diviner had spoken? A +woman's great joy that starred the desert with flowers and made the +dry places run with sweet waters. What could it be? + +Suddenly she felt again the oppression of spirit she had been +momentarily conscious of in the afternoon. It was like a load +descending upon her, and, almost instantly, communicated itself to her +body. She was conscious of a sensation of unusual weariness, +uneasiness, even dread, then again of an intensity of life that +startled her. This intensity remained, grew in her. It was as if the +principle of life, like a fluid, were being poured into her out of the +vials of God, as if the little cup that was all she had were too small +to contain the precious liquid. That seemed to her to be the cause of +the pain of which she was conscious. She was being given more than she +felt herself capable of possessing. She got up from her chair, unable +to remain still. The movement, slight though it was, seemed to remove +a veil of darkness that had hung over her and to let in upon her a +flood of light. She caught hold of the canvas of the tent. For a +moment she felt weak as a child, then strong as an Amazon. And the +sense of strength remained, grew. She walked out upon the sand in the +direction by which Androvsky would return. The fires in the city and +the camps were to her as illuminations for a festival. The music was +the music of a great rejoicing. The vast expanse of the desert, wintry +white under the moon, dotted with the fires of the nomads, blossomed +as the rose. After a few moments she stopped. She was on the crest of +a sand-bank, and could see below her the faint track in the sand which +wound to the city gate. By this track Androvsky would surely return. +From a long distance she would be able to see him, a moving darkness +upon the white. She was near to the city now, and could hear voices +coming to her from behind its rugged walls, voices of men singing, and +calling one to another, the twang of plucked instruments, the click of +negroes' castanets. The city was full of joy as the desert was full of +joy. The glory of life rushed upon her like a flood of gold, that gold +of the sun in which thousands of tiny things are dancing. And she was +given the power of giving life, of adding to the sum of glory. She +looked out over the sands and saw a moving blot upon them coming +slowly towards her, very slowly. It was impossible at this distance to +see who it was, but she felt that it was her husband. For a moment she +thought of going down to meet him, but she did not move. The new +knowledge that had come to her made her, just then, feel shy even of +him, as if he must come to her, as if she could make no advance +towards him. + +As the blackness upon the sand drew nearer she saw that it was a man +walking heavily. The man had her husband's gait. When she saw that she +turned. She had resolved to meet him at the tent door, to tell him +what she had to tell him at the threshold of their wandering home. Her +sense of shyness died when she was at the tent door. She only felt now +her oneness with her husband, and that to-night their unity was to be +made more perfect. If it could be made quite perfect! If he would +speak too! Then nothing more would be wanting. At last every veil +would have dropped from between them, and as they had long been one +flesh they would be one in spirit. + +She waited in the tent door. + +After what seemed a long time she saw Androvsky coming across the +moonlit sand. He was walking very slowly, as if wearied out, with his +head drooping. He did not appear to see her till he was quite close to +the tent. Then he stopped and gazed at her. The moon--she thought it +must be the moon--made his face look strange, like a dying man's face. +In this white face the eyes glittered feverishly. + +"Boris!" she said. + +"Domini!" + +"Come here, close to me. I have something to tell you--something +wonderful." + +He came quite up to her. + +"Domini," he said, as if he had not heard her. "Domini, I--I've been +to the priest to-night. I meant to confess to him." + +"To confess!" she said. + +"This afternoon I asked him to hear my confession, but tonight I could +not make it. I can only make it to you, Domini--only to you. Do you +hear, Domini? Do you hear?" + +Something in his face and in his voice terrified her heart. Now she +felt as if she would stop him from speaking if she dared, but that she +did not dare. His spirit was beyond domination. He would do what he +meant to do regardless of her--of anyone. + +"What is it, Boris?" she whispered. "Tell me. Perhaps I can understand +best because I love best." + +He put his arms round her and kissed her, as a man kisses the woman he +loves when he knows it may be for the last time, long and hard, with a +desperation of love that feels frustrated by the very lips it is +touching. At last he took his lips from hers. + +"Domini," he said, and his voice was steady and clear, almost hard, +"you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in our love-- +desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God, and I +have insulted Him. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him, to put +human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by the +thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was +young, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made. I +have--I have--" + +The hardness went out of his voice. He broke down for a moment and was +silent. + +"You gave yourself to God," she said. "How?" + +He tried to meet her questioning eyes, but could not. + +"I--I gave myself to God as a monk," he answered after a pause. + +As he spoke Domini saw before her in the moonlight De Trevignac. He +cast a glance of horror at the tent, bent over her, made the sign of +the Cross, and vanished. In his place stood Father Roubier, his eyes +shining, his hand upraised, warning her against Androvsky. Then he, +too, vanished, and she seemed to see Count Anteoni dressed as an Arab +and muttering words of the Koran. + +"Domini!" + +"Domini, did you hear me? Domini! Domini!" + +She felt his hands on her wrists. + +"You are the Trappist!" she said quietly, "of whom the priest told me. +You are the monk from the Monastery of El-Largani who disappeared +after twenty years." + +"Yes," he said, "I am he." + +"What made you tell me? What made you tell me?" + +There was agony now in her voice. + +"You asked me to speak, but it was not that. Do you remember last +night when I said that God must bless you? You answered, 'He has +blessed me. He has given me you, your love, your truth.' It is that +which makes me speak. You have had my love, not my truth. Now take my +truth. I've kept it from you. Now I'll give it you. It's black, but +I'll give it you. Domini! Domini! Hate me to-night, but in your hatred +believe that I never loved you as I love you now." + +"Give me your truth," she said. + + + + +BOOK V. THE REVELATION + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +They remained standing at the tent door, with the growing moonlight +about them. The camp was hushed in sleep, but sounds of music still +came to them from the city below them, and fainter music from the +tents of the Ouled Nails on the sandhill to the south. After Domini +had spoken Androvsky moved a step towards her, looked at her, then +moved back and dropped his eyes. If he had gone on looking at her he +knew he could not have begun to speak. + +"Domini," he said, "I'm not going to try and excuse myself for what I +have done. I'm not going to say to you what I daren't say to God-- +'Forgive me.' How can such a thing be forgiven? That's part of the +torture I've been enduring, the knowledge of the unforgivable nature +of my act. It can never be wiped out. It's black on my judgment book +for ever. But I wonder if you can understand--oh, I want you to +understand, Domini, what has made the thing I am, a renegade, a +breaker of oaths, a liar to God and you. It was the passion of life +that burst up in me after years of tranquillity. It was the waking of +my nature after years of sleep. And you--you do understand the passion +of life that's in some of us like a monster that must rule, must have +its way. Even you in your purity and goodness--you have it, that +desperate wish to live really and fully, as we have lived, Domini, +together. For we have lived out in the desert. We lived that night at +Arba when we sat and watched the fire and I held your hand against the +earth. We lived then. Even now, when I think of that night, I can +hardly be sorry for what I've done, for what I am." + +He looked up at her now and saw that her eyes were fixed on him. She +stood motionless, with her hands joined in front of her. Her attitude +was calm and her face was untortured. He could not read any thought of +hers, any feeling that was in her heart. + +"You must understand," he said almost violently. "You must understand +or I--. My father, I told you, was a Russian. He was brought up in the +Greek Church, but became a Freethinker when he was still a young man. +My mother was an Englishwoman and an ardent Catholic. She and my +father were devoted to each other in spite of the difference in their +views. Perhaps the chief effect my father's lack of belief had upon my +mother was to make her own belief more steadfast, more ardent. I think +disbelief acts often as a fan to the faith of women, makes the flame +burn more brightly than it did before. My mother tried to believe for +herself and for my father too, and I could almost think that she +succeeded. He died long before she did, and he died without changing +his views. On his death-bed he told my mother that he was sure there +was no other life, that he was going to the dust. That made the agony +of his farewell. The certainty on his part that he and my mother were +parting for ever. I was a little boy at the time, but I remember that, +when he was dead, my mother said to me, 'Boris, pray for your father +every day. He is still alive.' She said nothing more, but I ran +upstairs crying, fell upon my knees and prayed--trying to think where +my father was and what he could be looking like. And in that prayer +for my father, which was also an act of obedience to my mother, I +think I took the first step towards the monastic life. For I remember +that then, for the first time, I was conscious of a great sense of +responsibility. My mother's command made me say to myself, 'Then +perhaps my prayer can do something in heaven. Perhaps a prayer from me +can make God wish to do something He had not wished to do before.' +That was a tremendous thought! It excited me terribly. I remember my +cheeks burned as I prayed, and that I was hot all over as if I had +been running in the sun. From that day my mother and I seemed to be +much nearer together than we had ever been before. I had a twin +brother to whom I was devoted, and who was devoted to me. But he took +after my father. Religious things, ceremonies, church music, +processions--even the outside attractions of the Catholic Church, +which please and stimulate emotional people who have little faith-- +never meant much to him. All his attention was firmly fixed upon the +life of the present. He was good to my mother and loved her devotedly, +as he loved me, but he never pretended to be what he was not. And he +was never a Catholic. He was never anything. + +"My father had originally come to Africa for his health, which needed +a warm climate. He had some money and bought large tracts of land +suitable for vineyards. Indeed, he sunk nearly his whole fortune in +land. I told you, Domini, that the vines were devoured by the +phylloxera. Most of the money was lost. When my father died we were +left very poor. We lived quietly in a little village--I told you its +name, I told you that part of my life, all I dared tell, Domini--but +now--why did I enter the monastery? I was very young when I became a +novice, just seventeen. You are thinking, Domini, I know, that I was +too young to know what I was doing, that I had no vocation, that I was +unfitted for the monastic life. It seems so. The whole world would +think so. And yet--how am I to tell you? Even now I feel that then I +had the vocation, that I was fitted to enter the monastery, that I +ought to have made a faithful and devoted monk. My mother wished the +life for me, but it was not only that. I wished it for myself then. +With my whole heart I wished it. I knew nothing of the world. My youth +had been one of absolute purity. And I did not feel longings after the +unknown. My mother's influence upon me was strong; but she did not +force me into anything. Perhaps my love for her led me more than I +knew, brought me to the monastery door. The passion of her life, the +human passion, had been my father. After he was dead the passion of +her life was prayer for him. My love for her made me share that +passion, and the sharing of that passion eventually led me to become a +monk. I became as a child, a devotee of prayer. Oh! Domini--think--I +loved prayer--I loved it----" + +His voice broke. When he stopped speaking Domini was again conscious +of the music in the city. She remembered that earlier in the night she +had thought of it as the music of a great festival. + +"I resolved to enter the life of prayer, the most perfect life of +prayer. I resolved to become a 'religious.' It seemed to me that by so +doing I should be proving in the finest way my love for my mother. I +should be, in the strongest way, helping her. Her life was prayer for +my dead father and love for her children. By devoting myself to the +life of prayer I should show to her that I was as she was, as she had +made me, true son of her womb. Can you understand? I had a passion for +my mother, Domini--I had a passion. My brother tried to dissuade me +from the monastic life. He himself was going into business in Tunis. +He wanted me to join him. But I was firm. I felt driven towards the +cloister then as other men often feel driven towards the vicious life. +The inclination was irresistible. I yielded to it. I had to bid good- +bye to my mother. I told you--she was the passion of my life. And yet +I hardly felt sad at parting from her. Perhaps that will show you how +I was then. It seemed to me that we should be even closer together +when I wore the monk's habit. I was in haste to put it on. I went to +the monastery of El-Largani and entered it as a novice of the +Trappistine order. I thought in the great silence of the Trappists +there would be more room for prayer. When I left my home and went to +El-Largani I took with me one treasure only. Domini, it was the little +wooden crucifix you pinned upon the tent at Arba. My mother gave it to +me, and I was allowed to keep it. Everything else in the way of +earthly possessions I, of course, had to give up. + +"You have never seen El-Largani, my home for nineteen years, my prison +for one. It is lonely, but not in the least desolate. It stands on a +high upland, and, from a distance, looks upon the sea. Far off there +are mountains. The land was a desert. The monks have turned it, if not +into an Eden, at least into a rich garden. There are vineyards, +cornfields, orchards, almost every fruit-tree flourishes there. The +springs of sweet waters are abundant. At a short way from the +monastery is a large village for the Spanish workmen whom the monks +supervise in the labours of the fields. For the Trappist life is not +only a life of prayer, but a life of diligent labour. When I became a +novice I had not realised that. I had imagined myself continually upon +my knees. I found instead that I was perpetually in the fields, in +sun, and wind, and rain--that was in the winter time--working like the +labourers, and that often when we went into the long, plain chapel to +pray I was so tired--being only a boy--that my eyes closed as I stood +in my stall, and I could scarcely hear the words of Mass or +Benediction. But I had expected to be happy at El-Largani, and I was +happy. Labour is good for the body and better for the soul. And the +silence was not hard to bear. The Trappists have a book of gestures, +and are often allowed to converse by signs. We novices were generally +in little bands, and often, as we walked in the garden of the +monastery, we talked together gaily with our hands. Then the silence +is not perpetual. In the fields we often had to give directions to the +labourers. In the school, where we studied Theology, Latin, Greek, +there was heard the voice of the teacher. It is true that I have seen +men in the monastery day by day for twenty years with whom I have +never exchanged a word, but I have had permission to speak with monks. +The head of the monastery, the Reverend Pere, has the power to loose +the bonds of silence when he chooses, and to allow monks to walk and +speak with each other beyond the white walls that hem in the garden of +the monastery. Now and then we spoke, but I think most of us were not +unhappy in our silence. It became a habit. And then we were always +occupied. We had no time allowed us for sitting and being sad. Domini, +I don't want to tell you about the Trappists, their life--only about +myself, why I was as I was, how I came to change. For years I was not +unhappy at El-Largani. When my time of novitiate was over I took the +eternal vows without hesitation. Many novices go out again into the +world. It never occurred to me to do so. I scarcely ever felt a +stirring of worldly desire. I scarcely ever had one of those agonising +struggles which many people probably attribute to monks. I was +contented nearly always. Now and then the flesh spoke, but not +strongly. Remember, our life was a life of hard and exhausting labour +in the fields. The labour kept the flesh in subjection, as the prayer +lifted up the spirit. And then, during all my earlier years at the +monastery, we had an Abbe who was quick to understand the characters +and dispositions of men--Dom Andre Herceline. He knew me far better +than I knew myself. He knew, what I did not suspect, that I was full +of sleeping violence, that in my purity and devotion--or beneath it +rather--there was a strong strain of barbarism. The Russian was +sleeping in the monk, but sleeping soundly. That can be. Half a man's +nature, if all that would call to it is carefully kept from it, may +sleep, I believe, through all his life. He might die and never have +known, or been, what all the time he was. For years it was so with me. +I knew only part of myself, a real vivid part--but only a part. I +thought it was the whole. And while I thought it was the whole I was +happy. If Dom Andre Herceline had not died, today I should be a monk +at El-Largani, ignorant of what I know, contented. + +"He never allowed me to come into any sort of contact with the many +strangers who visited the monastery. Different monks have different +duties. Certain duties bring monks into connection with the travellers +whom curiosity sends to El-Largani. The monk whose business it is to +look after the cemetery on the hill, where the dead Trappists are laid +to rest, shows visitors round the little chapel, and may talk with +them freely so long as they remain in the cemetery. The monk in charge +of the distillery also receives visitors and converses with them. So +does the monk in charge of the parlour at the great door of the +monastery. He sells the souvenirs of the Trappists, photographs of the +church and buildings, statues of saints, bottles of perfumes made by +the monks. He takes the orders for the wines made at the monastery, +and for--for the--what I made, Domini, when I was there." + +She thought of De Trevignac and the fragments of glass lying upon the +ground in the tent at Mogar. + +"Had De Trevignac----" she said in a low, inward voice. + +"He had seen me, spoken with me at the monastery. When Ouardi brought +in the liqueur he remembered who I was." + +She understood De Trevignac's glance towards the tent where Androvsky +lay sleeping, and a slight shiver ran through her. Androvsky saw it +and looked down. + +"But the--the--" + +He cleared his throat, turned, looked out across the white sand as if +he longed to travel away into it and be lost for ever, then went on, +speaking quickly: + +"But the monk who has most to do with travellers is the monk who is in +charge of the /hotellerie/ of the monastery. He is the host to all +visitors, to those who come over for the day and have /dejeuner/, and +to any who remain for the night, or for a longer time. For when I was +at El-Largani it was permitted for people to stay in the /hotellerie/, +on payment of a small weekly sum, for as long as they pleased. The +monk of the /hotellerie/ is perpetually brought into contact with the +outside world. He talks with all sorts and conditions of men--women, +of course, are not admitted. The other monks, many of them, probably +envy him. I never did. I had no wish to see strangers. When, by +chance, I met them in the yard, the outbuildings, or the grounds of +the monastery, I seldom even raised my eyes to look at them. They were +not, would never be, in my life. Why should I look at them? What were +they to me? Years went on--quickly they passed--not slowly. I did not +feel their monotony. I never shrank from anything in the life. My +health was splendid. I never knew what it was to be ill for a day. My +muscles were hard as iron. The pallet on which I lay in my cubicle, +the heavy robe I wore day and night, the scanty vegetables I ate, the +bell that called me from my sleep in the darkness to go to the chapel, +the fastings, the watchings, the perpetual sameness of all I saw, all +I did, neither saddened nor fatigued me. I never sighed for change. +Can you believe that, Domini? It is true. So long as Dom Andre +Herceline lived and ruled my life I was calm, happy, as few people in +the world, or none, can ever be. But Dom Andre died, and then--" + +His face was contorted by a spasm. + +"My mother was dead. My brother lived on in Tunis, and was successful +in business. He remained unmarried. So far as I was concerned, +although the monastery was but two hours' drive from the town, he +might almost have been dead too. I scarcely ever saw him, and then +only by a special permission from the Reverend Pere, and for a few +moments. Once I visited him at Tunis, when he was ill. When my mother +died I seemed to sink down a little deeper into the monastic life. +That was all. It was as if I drew my robe more closely round me and +pulled my hood further forward over my face. There was more reason for +my prayers, and I prayed more passionately. I lived in prayer like a +sea-plant in the depths of the ocean. Prayer was about me like a +fluid. But Dom Andre Herceline died, and a new Abbe was appointed, he +who, I suppose, rules now at El-Largani. He was a good man, but, I +think, apt to misunderstand men. The Abbe of a Trappist monastery has +complete power over his community. He can order what he will. Soon +after he came to El-Largani--for some reason that I cannot divine--he +--removed the Pere Michel, who had been for years in charge of the +cemetery, from his duties there, and informed me that I was to +undertake them. I obeyed, of course, without a word. + +"The cemetery of El-Largani is on a low hill, the highest part of the +monastery grounds. It is surrounded by a white wall and by a hedge of +cypress trees. The road to it is an avenue of cypresses, among which +are interspersed niches containing carvings of the Fourteen Stations +of the Cross. At the entrance to this avenue, on the left, there is a +high yellow pedestal, surmounted by a black cross, on which hangs a +silver Christ. Underneath is written: + +"FACTUS OBEDIENS + "USQUE + "AD MORTEM + "CRUCIS. + +"I remember, on the first day when I became the guardian of the +cemetery, stopping on my way to it before the Christ and praying. My +prayer--my prayer was, Domini, that I might die, as I had lived, in +innocence. I prayed for that, but with a sort of--yes, now I think so +--insolent certainty that my prayer would of course be granted. Then I +went on to the cemetery. + +"My work there was easy. I had only to tend the land about the graves, +and sweep out the little chapel where was buried the founder of La +Trappe of El-Largani. This done I could wander about the cemetery, or +sit on a bench in the sun. The Pere Michel, who was my predecessor, +had some doves, and had left them behind in a little house by my +bench. I took care of and fed them. They were tame, and used to +flutter to my shoulders and perch on my hands. To birds and animals I +was always a friend. At El-Largani there are all sorts of beasts, and, +at one time or another, it had been my duty to look after most of +them. I loved all living things. Sitting in the cemetery I could see a +great stretch of country, the blue of the lakes of Tunis with the +white villages at their edge, the boats gliding upon them towards the +white city, the distant mountains. Having little to do, I sat day +after day for hours meditating, and looking out upon this distant +world. I remember specially one evening, at sunset, just before I had +to go to the chapel, that a sort of awe came upon me as I looked +across the lakes. The sky was golden, the waters were dyed with gold, +out of which rose the white sails of boats. The mountains were shadowy +purple. The little minarets of the mosques rose into the gold like +sticks of ivory. As I watched my eyes filled with tears, and I felt a +sort of aching in my heart, and as if--Domini, it was as if at that +moment a hand was laid, on mine, but very gently, and pulled at my +hand. It was as if at that moment someone was beside me in the +cemetery wishing to lead me out to those far-off waters, those mosque +towers, those purple mountains. Never before had I had such a +sensation. It frightened me. I felt as if the devil had come into the +cemetery, as if his hand was laid on mine, as if his voice were +whispering in my ear, 'Come out with me into that world, that +beautiful world, which God made for men. Why do you reject it?' + +"That evening, Domini, was the beginning of this--this end. Day after +day I sat in the cemetery and looked out over the world, and wondered +what it was like: what were the lives of the men who sailed in the +white-winged boats, who crowded on the steamers whose smoke I could +see sometimes faintly trailing away into the track of the sun; who +kept the sheep upon the mountains; who--who--Domini, can you imagine-- +no, you cannot--what, in a man of my age, of my blood, were these +first, very first, stirrings of the longing for life? Sometimes I +think they were like the first birth-pangs of a woman who is going to +be a mother." + +Domini's hands moved apart, then joined themselves again. + +"There was something physical in them. I felt as if my limbs had +minds, and that their minds, which had been asleep, were waking. My +arms twitched with a desire to stretch themselves towards the distant +blue of the lakes on which I should never sail. My--I was physically +stirred. And again and again I felt that hand laid closely upon mine, +as if to draw me away into something I had never known, could never +know. Do not think that I did not strive against these first stirrings +of the nature that had slept so long! For days I refused to let myself +look out from the cemetery. I kept my eyes upon the ground, upon the +plain crosses that marked the graves. I played with the red-eyed +doves. I worked. But my eyes at last rebelled. I said to myself, 'It +is not forbidden to look.' And again the sails, the seas, the towers, +the mountains, were as voices whispering to me, 'Why will you never +know us, draw near to us? Why will you never understand our meaning? +Why will you be ignorant for ever of all that has been created for man +to know?' Then the pain within me became almost unbearable. At night I +could not sleep. In the chapel it was difficult to pray. I looked at +the monks around me, to most of whom I had never addressed a word, and +I thought, 'Do they, too, hold such longings within them? Are they, +too, shaken with a desire of knowledge?' It seemed to me that, instead +of a place of peace, the monastery was, must be, a place of tumult, of +the silent tumult that has its home in the souls of men. But then I +remembered for how long I had been at peace. Perhaps all the silent +men by whom I was surrounded were still at peace, as I had been, as I +might be again. + +"A young monk died in the monastery and was buried in the cemetery. I +made his grave against the outer wall, beneath a cypress tree. Some +days afterwards, when I was sitting on the bench by the house of the +doves, I heard a sound, which came from beyond the wall. It was like +sobbing. I listened, and heard it more distinctly, and knew that it +was someone crying and sobbing desperately, and near at hand. But now +it seemed to me to come from the wall itself. I got up and listened. +Someone was crying bitterly behind, or above, the wall, just where the +young monk had been buried. Who could it be? I stood listening, +wondering, hesitating what to do. There was something in this sound of +lamentation that moved one to the depths. For years I had not looked +on a woman, or heard a woman's voice--but I knew that this was a woman +mourning. Why was she there? What could she want? I glanced up. All +round the cemetery, as I have said, grew cypress trees. As I glanced +up I saw one shake just above where the new grave was, and a woman's +voice said, 'I cannot see it, I cannot see it!' + +"I do not know why, but I felt that someone was there who wished to +see the young monk's grave. For a moment I stood there. Then I went to +the house where I kept my tools for my work in the cemetery, and got a +shears which I used for lopping the cypress trees. I took a ladder +quickly, set it against the wall, mounted it, and from the cypress I +had seen moving I lopped some of the boughs. The sobbing ceased. As +the boughs fell down from the tree I saw a woman's face, tear-stained, +staring at me. It seemed to me a lovely face. + +"'Which is his grave?' she said. I pointed to the grave of the young +monk, which could now be seen through the gap I had made, descended +the ladder, and went away to the farthest corner of the cemetery. And +I did not look again in the direction of the woman's face. + +"Who she was I do not know. When she went away I did not see. She +loved the monk who had died, and knowing that women cannot enter the +precincts of the monastery, she had come to the outside wall to cast, +if she might, a despairing glance at his grave. + +"Domini, I wonder--I wonder if you can understand how that incident +affected me. To an ordinary man it would seem nothing, I suppose. But +to a Trappist monk it seemed tremendous. I had seen a woman. I had +done something for a woman. I thought of her, of what I had done for +her, perpetually. The gap in the cypress tree reminded me of her every +time I looked towards it. When I was in the cemetery I could hardly +turn my eyes from it. But the woman never came again. I said nothing +to the Reverend Pere of what I had done. I ought to have spoken, but I +did not. I kept it back when I confessed. From that moment I had a +secret, and it was a secret connected with a woman. + +"Does it seem strange to you that this secret seemed to me to set me +apart from all the other monks--nearer the world? It was so. I felt +sometimes as if I had been out into the world for a moment, had known +the meaning that women have for men. I wondered who the woman was. I +wondered how she had loved the young monk who was dead. He used to sit +beside me in the chapel. He had a pure and beautiful face, such a +face, I supposed, as a woman might well love. Had this woman loved +him, and had he rejected her love for the life of the monastery? I +remember one day thinking of this and wondering how it had been +possible for him to do so, and then suddenly realising the meaning of +my thought and turning hot with shame. I had put the love of woman +above the love of God, woman's service above God's service. That day I +was terrified of myself. I went back to the monastery from the +cemetery, quickly, asked to see the Reverend Pere, and begged him to +remove me from the cemetery, to give me some other work. He did not +ask my reason for wishing to change, but three days afterwards he sent +for me, and told me that I was to be placed in charge of the +/hotellerie/ of the monastery, and that my duties there were to begin +upon the morrow. + +"Domini, I wonder if I can make you realise what that change meant to +a man who had lived as I had for so many years. The /hotellerie/ of +El-Largani is a long, low, one-storied building standing in a garden +full of palms and geraniums. It contains a kitchen, a number of little +rooms like cells for visitors, and two large parlours in which guests +are entertained at meals. In one they sit to eat the fruit, eggs, and +vegetables provided by the monastery, with wine. If after the meal +they wish to take coffee they pass into the second parlour. Visitors +who stay in the monastery are free to do much as they please, but they +must conform to certain rules. They rise at a certain hour, feed at +fixed times, and are obliged to go to their bedrooms at half-past +seven in the evening in winter, and at eight in summer. The monk in +charge of the /hotellerie/ has to see to their comfort. He looks after +the kitchen, is always in the parlour at some moment or another during +meals. He visits the bedrooms and takes care that the one servant +keeps everything spotlessly clean. He shows people round the garden. +His duties, you see, are light and social. He cannot go into the +world, but he can mix with the world that comes to him. It is his +task, if not his pleasure, to be cheerful, talkative, sympathetic, a +good host, with a genial welcome for all who come to La Trappe. After +my years of labour, solitude, silence, and prayer, I was abruptly put +into this new life. + +"Domini, to me it was like rushing out into the world. I was almost +dazed by the change. At first I was nervous, timid, awkward, and, +especially, tongue-tied. The habit of silence had taken such a hold +upon me that I could not throw it off. I dreaded the coming of +visitors. I did not know how to receive them, what to say to them. +Fortunately, as I thought, the tourist season was over, the summer was +approaching. Very few people came, and those only to eat a meal. I +tried to be polite and pleasant to them, and gradually I began to fall +into the way of talking without the difficulty I had experienced at +first. In the beginning I could not open my lips without feeling as if +I were almost committing a crime. But presently I was more natural, +less taciturn. I even, now and then, took some pleasure in speaking to +a pleasant visitor. I grew to love the garden with its flowers, its +orange trees, its groves of eucalyptus, its vineyard which sloped +towards the cemetery. Often I wandered in it alone, or sat under the +arcade that divided it from the large entrance court of the monastery, +meditating, listening to the bees humming, and watching the cats +basking in the sunshine. + +"Sometimes, when I was there, I thought of the woman's face above the +cemetery wall. Sometimes I seemed to feel the hand tugging at mine. +But I was more at peace than I had been in the cemetery. For from the +garden I could not see the distant world, and of the chance visitors +none had as yet set a match to the torch that, unknown to me, was +ready--at the coming of the smallest spark--to burst into a flame. + +"One day, it was in the morning towards half-past ten, when I was +sitting reading my Greek Testament on a bench just inside the doorway +of the /hotellerie/, I heard the great door of the monastery being +opened, and then the rolling of carriage wheels in the courtyard. Some +visitor had arrived from Tunis, perhaps some visitors--three or four. +It was a radiant morning of late May. The garden was brilliant with +flowers, golden with sunshine, tender with shade, and quiet--quiet and +peaceful, Domini! There was a wonderful peace in the garden that day, +a peace that seemed full of safety, of enduring cheerfulness. The +flowers looked as if they had hearts to understand it, and love it, +the roses along the yellow wall of the house that clambered to the +brown red tiles, the geraniums that grew in masses under the shining +leaves of the orange trees, the--I felt as if that day I were in the +Garden of Eden, and I remember that when I heard the carriage wheels I +had a moment of selfish sadness. I thought: 'Why does anyone come to +disturb my blessed peace, my blessed solitude?' Then I realised the +egoism of my thought and that I was there with my duty. I got up, went +into the kitchen and said to Francois, the servant, that someone had +come and no doubt would stay to /dejeuner/. And, as I spoke, already I +was thinking of the moment when I should hear the roll of wheels once +more, the clang of the shutting gate, and know that the intruders upon +the peace of the Trappists had gone back to the world, and that I +could once more be alone in the little Eden I loved. + +"Strangely, Domini, strangely, that day, of all the days of my life, I +was most in love--it was like that, like being in love--with my monk's +existence. The terrible feeling that had begun to ravage me had +completely died away. I adored the peace in which my days were passed. +I looked at the flowers and compared my happiness with theirs. They +blossomed, bloomed, faded, died in the garden. So would I wish to +blossom, bloom, fade--when my time came--die in the garden--always in +peace, always in safety, always isolated from the terrors of life, +always under the tender watchful eye of--of--Domini, that day I was +happy, as perhaps they are--perhaps--the saints in Paradise. I was +happy because I felt no inclination to evil. I felt as if my joy lay +entirely in being innocent. Oh, what an ecstasy such a feeling is! 'My +will accord with Thy design--I love to live as Thou intendest me to +live! Any other way of life would be to me a terror, would bring to me +despair.' + +"And I felt that--intensely I felt it at that moment in heart and +soul. It was as if I had God's arms round me, caressing me as a father +caresses his child." + +He moved away a step or two in the sand, came back, and went on with +an effort: + +"Within a few minutes the porter of the monastery came through the +archway of the arcade followed by a young man. As I looked up at him I +was uncertain of his nationality. But I scarcely thought about it-- +except in the first moment. For something else seized my attention-- +the intense, active misery in the stranger's face. He looked ravaged, +eaten by grief. I said he was young--perhaps twenty-six or twenty- +seven. His face was rather dark-complexioned, with small, good +features. He had thick brown hair, and his eyes shone with +intelligence, with an intelligence that was almost painful--somehow. +His eyes always looked to me as if they were seeing too much, had +always seen too much. There was a restlessness in the swiftness of +their observation. One could not conceive of them closed in sleep. An +activity that must surely be eternal blazed in them. + +"The porter left the stranger in the archway. It was now my duty to +attend to him. I welcomed him in French. He took off his hat. When he +did that I felt sure he was an Englishman--by the look of him +bareheaded--and I told him that I spoke English as well as French. He +answered that he was at home in French, but that he was English. We +talked English. His entrance into the garden had entirely destroyed my +sense of its peace--even my own peace was disturbed at once by his +appearance. + +"I felt that I was in the presence of a misery that was like a +devouring element. Before we had time for more than a very few halting +words the bell was rung by Francois. + +"'What's that for, Father?' the stranger said, with a start, which +showed that his nerves were shattered. + +"'It is time for your meal,' I answered. + +"'One must eat!' he said. Then, as if conscious that he was behaving +oddly, he added politely: + +"'I know you entertain us too well here, and have sometimes been +rewarded with coarse ingratitude. Where do I go?' + +"I showed him into the parlour. There was no one there that day. He +sat at the long table. + +"'I am to eat alone?' he asked. + +"'Yes; I will serve you.' + +"Francois, always waited on the guests, but that day--mindful of the +selfishness of my thoughts in the garden--I resolved to add to my +duties. I therefore brought the soup, the lentils, the omelette, the +oranges, poured out the wine, and urged the young man cordially to +eat. When I did so he looked up at me. His eyes were extraordinarily +expressive. It was as if I heard them say to me, 'Why, I like you!' +and as if, just for a moment, his grief were lessened. + +"In the empty parlour, long, clean, bare, with a crucifix on the wall +and the name 'Saint Bernard' above the door, it was very quiet, very +shady. The outer blinds of green wood were drawn over the window- +spaces, shutting out the gold of the garden. But its murmuring +tranquillity seemed to filter in, as if the flowers, the insects, the +birds were aware of our presence and were trying to say to us, 'Are +you happy as we are? Be happy as we are.' + +"The stranger looked at the shady room, the open windows. He sighed. + +"'How quiet it is here!' he said, almost as if to himself. 'How quiet +it is!' + +"'Yes,' I answered. 'Summer is beginning. For months now scarcely +anyone will come to us here.' + +"'Us?' he said, glancing at me with a sudden smile. + +"'I meant to us who are monks, who live always here.' + +"'May I--is it indiscreet to ask if you have been here long?' + +"I told him. + +"'More than nineteen years!' he said. + +"'Yes.' + +"'And always in this silence?' + +"He sat as if listening, resting his head on his hand. + +"'How extraordinary!' he said at last. 'How wonderful! Is it +happiness?' + +"I did not answer. The question seemed to me to be addressed to +himself, not to me. I could leave him to seek for the answer. After a +moment he went on eating and drinking in silence. When he had finished +I asked him whether he would take coffee. He said he would, and I made +him pass into the St. Joseph /salle/. There I brought him coffee and-- +and that liqueur. I told him that it was my invention. He seemed to be +interested. At any rate, he took a glass and praised it strongly. I +was pleased. I think I showed it. From that moment I felt as if we +were almost friends. Never before had I experienced such a feeling for +anyone who had come to the monastery, or for any monk or novice in the +monastery. Although I had been vexed, irritated, at the approach of a +stranger I now felt regret at the idea of his going away. Presently +the time came to show him round the garden. We went out of the shadowy +parlour into the sunshine. No one was in the garden. Only the bees +were humming, the birds were passing, the cats were basking on the +broad path that stretched from the arcade along the front of the +/hotellerie/. As we came out a bell chimed, breaking for an instant +the silence, and making it seem the sweeter when it returned. We +strolled for a little while. We did not talk much. The stranger's +eyes, I noticed, were everywhere, taking in every detail of the scene +around us. Presently we came to the vineyard, to the left of which was +the road that led to the cemetery, passed up the road and arrived at +the cemetery gate. + +"'Here I must leave you,' I said. + +"'Why?' he asked quickly. + +"'There is another Father who will show you the chapel. I shall wait +for you here.' + +"I sat down and waited. When the stranger returned it seemed to me +that his face was calmer, that there was a quieter expression in his +eyes. When we were once more before the /hotellerie/ I said: + +"'You have seen all my small domain now.' + +"He glanced at the house. + +"'But there seems to be a number of rooms,' he said. + +"'Only the bedrooms.' + +"'Bedrooms? Do people stay the night here?' + +"'Sometimes. If they please they can stay for longer than a night.' + +"'How much longer?' + +"'For any time they please, if they conform to one or two simple rules +and pay a small fixed sum to the monastery.' + +"'Do you mean that you could take anyone in for the summer?' he said +abruptly. + +"'Why not? The consent of the Reverend Pere has to be obtained. That +is all.' + +"'I should like to see the bedrooms.' + +"I took him in and showed him one. + +"'All the others are the same,' I said. + +"He glanced round at the white walls, the rough bed, the crucifix +above it, the iron basin, the paved floor, then went to the window and +looked out. + +"'Well,' he said, drawing back into the room, 'I will go now to see +the Pere Abbe, if it is permitted.' + +"On the garden path I bade him good-bye. He shook my hand. There was +an odd smile in his face. Half-an-hour later I saw him coming again +through the arcade. + +"'Father,' he said, 'I am not going away. I have asked the Pere Abbe's +permission to stay here. He has given it to me. To-morrow such luggage +as I need will be sent over from Tunis. Are you--are you very vexed to +have a stranger to trouble your peace?' + +"His intensely observant eyes were fixed upon me while he spoke. I +answered: + +"'I do not think you will trouble my peace.' + +"And my thought was: + +"'I will help you to find the peace which you have lost.' + +"Was it a presumptuous thought, Domini? Was it insolent? At the time +it seemed to me absolutely sincere, one of the best thoughts I had +ever had--a thought put into my heart by God. I didn't know then--I +didn't know." + +He stopped speaking, and stood for a time quite still, looking down at +the sand, which was silver white under the moon. At last he lifted his +head and said, speaking slowly: + +"It was the coming of this man that put the spark to that torch. It +was he who woke up in me the half of myself which, unsuspected by me, +had been slumbering through all my life, slumbering and gathering +strength in slumber--as the body does--gathering a strength that was +tremendous, that was to overmaster the whole of me, that was to make +of me one mad impulse. He woke up in me the body and the body was to +take possession of the soul. I wonder--can I make you feel why this +man was able to affect me thus? Can I make you know this man? + +"He was a man full of secret violence, violence of the mind and +violence of the body, a volcanic man. He was English--he said so--but +there must have been blood that was not English in his veins. When I +was with him I felt as if I was with fire. There was the restlessness +of fire in him. There was the intensity of fire. He could be reserved. +He could appear to be cold. But always I was conscious that if there +was stone without there was scorching heat within. He was watchful of +himself and of everyone with whom he came into the slightest contact. +He was very clever. He had an immense amount of personal charm, I +think, at any rate for me. He was very human, passionately interested +in humanity. He was--and this was specially part of him, a dominant +trait--he was savagely, yes, savagely, eager to be happy, and when he +came to live in the /hotellerie/ he was savagely unhappy. An egoist he +was, a thinker, a man who longed to lay hold of something beyond this +world, but who had not been able to do so. Even his desire to find +rest in a religion seemed to me to have greed in it, to have something +in it that was akin to avarice. He was a human storm, Domini, as well +as a human fire. Think! what a man to be cast by the world--which he +knew as they know it only who are voracious for life and free--into my +quiet existence. + +"Very soon he began to show himself to me as he was, with a sort of +fearlessness that was almost impudent. The conditions of our two lives +in the monastery threw us perpetually together in a curious isolation. +And the Reverend Pere, Domini, the Reverend Pere, set my feet in the +path of my own destruction. On the day after the stranger had arrived +the Reverend Pere sent for me to his private room, and said to me, +'Our new guest is in a very unhappy state. He has been attracted by +our peace. If we can bring peace to him it will be an action +acceptable to God. You will be much with him. Try to do him good. He +is not a Catholic, but no matter. He wishes to attend the services in +the chapel. He may be influenced. God may have guided his feet to us, +we cannot tell. But we can act--we can pray for him. I do not know how +long he will stay. It may be for only a few days or for the whole +summer. It does not matter. Use each day well for him. Each day may be +his last with us.' I went out from the Reverend Pere full of +enthusiasm, feeling that a great, a splendid interest had come into my +life, an interest such as it had never held before. + +"Day by day I was with this man. Of course there were many hours when +we were apart, the hours when I was at prayer in the chapel or +occupied with study. But each day we passed much time together, +generally in the garden. Scarcely any visitors came, and none to stay, +except, from time to time, a passing priest, and once two young men +from Tunis, one of whom had an inclination to become a novice. And +this man, as I have said, began to show himself to me with a +tremendous frankness. + +"Domini, he was suffering under what I suppose would be called an +obsession, an immense domination such as one human being sometimes +obtains over another. At that time I had never realised that there +were such dominations. Now I know that there are, and, Domini, that +they can be both terrible and splendid. He was dominated by a woman, +by a woman who had come into his life, seized it, made it a thing of +glory, broken it. He described to me the dominion of this woman. He +told me how she had transformed him. Till he met her he had been +passionate but free, his own master through many experiences, many +intrigues. He was very frank, Domini. He did not attempt to hide from +me that his life had been evil. It had been a life devoted to the +acquiring of experience, of all possible experience, mental and +bodily. I gathered that he had shrunk from nothing, avoided nothing. +His nature had prompted him to rush upon everything, to grasp at +everything. At first I was horrified at what he told me. I showed it. +I remember the second evening after his arrival we were sitting +together in a little arbour at the foot of the vineyard that sloped up +to the cemetery. It was half an hour before the last service in the +chapel. The air was cool with breath from the distant sea. An intense +calm, a heavenly calm, I think, filled the garden, floated away to the +cypresses beside the graves, along the avenue where stood the Fourteen +Stations of the Cross. And he told me, began to tell me something of +his life. + +"'You thought to find happiness in such an existence?' I exclaimed, +almost with incredulity I believe. + +"He looked at me with his shining eyes. + +"'Why not, Father? Do you think I was a madman to do so?' + +"'Surely.' + +"'Why? Is there not happiness in knowledge?' + +"'Knowledge of evil?' + +"'Knowledge of all things that exist in life. I have never sought for +evil specially; I have sought for everything. I wished to bring +everything under my observation, everything connected with human +life.' + +"'But human life,' I said more quietly, 'passes away from this world. +It is a shadow in a world of shadows.' + +"'You say that,' he answered abruptly. 'I wonder if you feel it--feel +it as you feel my hand on yours.' + +"He laid his hand on mine. It was hot and dry as if with fever. Its +touch affected me painfully. + +"'Is that hand the hand of a shadow?' he said. 'Is this body that can +enjoy and suffer, that can be in heaven or in hell--here--here--a +shadow?' + +"'Within a week it might be less than a shadow.' + +"'And what of that? This is now, this is now. Do you mean what you +say? Do you truly feel that you are a shadow--that this garden is but +a world of shadows? I feel that I, that you, are terrific realities, +that this garden is of immense significance. Look at that sky.' + +"The sky above the cypresses was red with sunset. The trees looked +black beneath it. Fireflies were flitting near the arbour where we +sat. + +"'That is the sky that roofs what you would have me believe a world of +shadows. It is like the blood, the hot blood that flows and surges in +the veins of men--in our veins. Ah, but you are a monk!' + +"The way he said the last words made me feel suddenly a sense of +shame, Domini. It was as if a man said to another man, 'You are not a +man.' Can you--can you understand the feeling I had just then? +Something hot and bitter was in me. A sort of desperate sense of +nothingness came over me, as if I were a skeleton sitting there with +flesh and blood and trying to believe, and to make it believe, that I, +too, was and had been flesh and blood. + +"'Yes, thank God, I am a monk,' I answered quietly. + +"Something in my tone, I think, made him feel that he had been brutal. + +"'I am a brute and a fool,' he said vehemently. 'But it is always so +with me. I always feel as if what I want others must want. I always +feel universal. It's folly. You have your vocation, I mine. Yours is +to pray, mine is to live.' + +"Again I was conscious of the bitterness. I tried to put it from me. + +"'Prayer is life,' I answered, 'to me, to us who are here.' + +"'Prayer! Can it be? Can it be vivid as the life of experience, as the +life that teaches one the truth of men and women, the truth of +creation--joy, sorrow, aspiration, lust, ambition of the intellect and +the limbs? Prayer--' + +"'It is time for me to go,' I said. 'Are you coming to the chapel?' + +"'Yes,' he answered almost eagerly. 'I shall look down on you from my +lonely gallery. Perhaps I shall be able to feel the life of prayer.' + +"'May it be so,' I said. + +"But I think I spoke without confidence, and I know that that evening +I prayed without impulse, coldly, mechanically. The long, dim chapel, +with its lines of monks facing each other in their stalls, seemed to +me a sad place, like a valley of dry bones--for the first time, for +the first time. + +"I ought to have gone on the morrow to the Reverend Pere. I ought to +have asked him, begged him to remove me from the /hotellerie/. I ought +to have foreseen what was coming--that this man had a strength to live +greater than my strength to pray; that his strength might overcome +mine. I began to sin that night. Curiosity was alive in me, curiosity +about the life that I had never known, was--so I believed, so I +thought I knew--never to know. + +"When I came out of the chapel into the /hotellerie/ I met our guest-- +I do not say his name. What would be the use?--in the corridor. It was +almost dark. There were ten minutes before the time for locking up the +door and going to bed. Francois, the servant, was asleep under the +arcade. + +"'Shall we go on to the path and have a last breath of air?' the +stranger said. + +"We stepped out and walked slowly up and down. + +"'Do you not feel the beauty of peace?' I asked. + +"I wanted him to say yes. I wanted him to tell me that peace, +tranquillity, were beautiful. He did not reply for a moment. I heard +him sigh heavily. + +"'If there is peace in the world at all,' he said at length, 'it is +only to be found with the human being one loves. With the human being +one loves one might find peace in hell.' + +"We did not speak again before we parted for the night. + +"Domini, I did not sleep at all that night. It was the first of many +sleepless nights, nights in which my thoughts travelled like winged +Furies--horrible, horrible nights. In them I strove to imagine all the +stranger knew by experience. It was like a ghastly, physical effort. I +strove to conceive of all that he had done--with the view, I told +myself at first, of bringing myself to a greater contentment, of +realising how worthless was all that I had rejected and that he had +grasped at. In the dark I, as it were, spread out his map of life and +mine and examined them. When, still in the dark, I rose to go to the +chapel I was exhausted. I felt unutterably melancholy. That was at +first. Presently I felt an active, gnawing hunger. But--but--I have +not come to that yet. This strange, new melancholy was the forerunner. +It was a melancholy that seemed to be caused by a sense of frightful +loneliness such as I had never previously experienced. Till now I had +almost always felt God with me, and that He was enough. Now, suddenly, +I began to feel that I was alone. I kept thinking of the stranger's +words: 'If there is peace in the world at all it is only to be found +with the human being one loves.' + +"'That is false,' I said to myself again and again. 'Peace is only to +be found by close union with God. In that I have found peace for many, +many years.' + +"I knew that I had been at peace. I knew that I had been happy. And +yet, when I looked back upon my life as a novice and a monk, I now +felt as if I had been happy vaguely, foolishly, bloodlessly, happy +only because I had been ignorant of what real happiness was--not +really happy. I thought of a bird born in a cage and singing there. I +had been as that bird. And then, when I was in the garden, I looked at +the swallows winging their way high in the sunshine, between the +garden trees and the radiant blue, winging their way towards sea and +mountains and plains, and that bitterness, like an acid that burns and +eats away fine metal, was once more at my heart. + +"But the sensation of loneliness was the most terrible of all. I +compared union with God, such as I thought I had known, with that +other union spoken of by my guest--union with the human being one +loves. I set the two unions as it were in comparison. Night after +night I did this. Night after night I told over the joys of union with +God--joys which I dared to think I had known--and the joys of union +with a loved human being. On the one side I thought of the drawing +near to God in prayer, of the sensation of approach that comes with +earnest prayer, of the feeling that ears are listening to you, that +the great heart is loving you, the great heart that loves all living +things, that you are being absolutely understood, that all you cannot +say is comprehended, and all you say is received as something +precious. I recalled the joy, the exaltation, that I had known when I +prayed. That was union with God. In such union I had sometimes felt +that the world, with all that it contained of wickedness, suffering +and death, was utterly devoid of power to sadden or alarm the humblest +human being who was able to draw near to God. + +"I had had a conquering feeling--not proud--as of one upborne, +protected for ever, lifted to a region in which no enemy could ever +be, no sadness, no faint anxiety even. + +"Then I strove to imagine--and this, Domini, was surely a deliberate +sin--exactly what it must be to be united with a beloved human being. +I strove and I was able. For not only did instinct help me, instinct +that had been long asleep, but--I have told you that the stranger was +suffering under an obsession, a terrible dominion. This dominion he +described to me with an openness that perhaps--that indeed I believe-- +he would not have shown had I not been a monk. He looked upon me as a +being apart, neither man nor woman, a being without sex. I am sure he +did. And yet he was immensely intelligent. But he knew that I had +entered the monastery as a novice, that I had been there through all +my adult life. And then my manner probably assisted him in his +illusion. For I gave--I believe--no sign of the change that was taking +place within me under his influence. I seemed to be calm, detached, +even in my sympathy for his suffering. For he suffered frightfully. +This woman he loved was a Parisian, he told me. He described her +beauty to me, as if in order to excuse himself for having become the +slave to her he was. I suppose she was very beautiful. He said that +she had a physical charm so intense that few men could resist it, that +she was famous throughout Europe for it. He told me that she was not a +good woman. I gathered that she lived for pleasure, admiration, that +she had allowed many men to love her before he knew her. But she had +loved him genuinely. She was not a very young woman, and she was not a +married woman. He said that she was a woman men loved but did not +marry, a woman who was loved by the husbands of married women, a woman +to marry whom would exclude a man from the society of good women. She +had never lived, or thought of living, for one man till he came into +her life. Nor had he ever dreamed of living for one woman. He had +lived to gain experience; she too. But when he met her--knowing +thoroughly all she was--all other women ceased to exist for him. He +became her slave. Then jealousy awoke in him, jealousy of all the men +who had been in her life, who might be in her life again. He was +tortured by loving such a woman--a woman who had belonged to many, who +would no doubt in the future belong to others. For despite the fact +that she loved him he told me that at first he had no illusions about +her. He knew the world too well for that, and he cursed the fate that +had bound him body and soul to what he called a courtesan. Even the +fact that she loved him at first did not blind him to the effect upon +character that her life must inevitably have had. She had dwelt in an +atmosphere of lies, he said, and to lie was nothing to her. Any +original refinement of feeling as regards human relations that she +might have had had become dulled, if it had not been destroyed. At +first he blindly, miserably, resigned himself to this. He said to +himself, 'Fate has led me to love this sort of woman. I must accept +her as she is, with all her defects, with her instinct for treachery, +with her passion for the admiration of the world, with her +incapability for being true to an ideal, or for isolating herself in +the adoration of one man. I cannot get away from her. She has me fast. +I cannot live without her. Then I must bear the torture that jealousy +of her will certainly bring me in silence. I must conceal it. I must +try to kill it. I must make the best of whatever she will give me, +knowing that she can never, with her nature and her training, be +exclusively mine as a good woman might be.' This he said to himself. +This plan of conduct he traced for himself. But he soon found that he +was not strong enough to keep to it. His jealousy was a devouring +fire, and he could not conceal it. Domini, he described to me minutely +the effect of jealousy in a human heart. I had never imagined what it +was, and, when he described it, I felt as if I looked down into a +bottomless pit lined with the flames of hell. By the depth of that pit +I measured the depth of his passion for this woman, and I gained an +idea of what human love--not the best sort of human love, but still +genuine, intense love of some kind--could be. Of this human love I +thought at night, putting it in comparison with the love God's +creature can have for God. And my sense of loneliness increased, and I +felt as if I had always been lonely. Does this seem strange to you? In +the love of God was calm, peace, rest, a lying down of the soul in the +Almighty arms. In the other love described to me was restlessness, +agitation, torture, the soul spinning like an atom driven by winds, +the heart devoured as by a disease, a cancer. On the one hand was a +beautiful trust, on the other a ceaseless agony of doubt and terror. +And yet I came to feel as if the one were unreal in comparison with +the other, as if in the one were a loneliness, in the other fierce +companionship. I thought of the Almighty arms, Domini, and of the arms +of a woman, and--Domini, I longed to have known, if only once, the +pressure of a woman's arms about my neck, about my breast, the touch +of a woman's hand upon my heart. + +"And of all this I never spoke at confession. I committed the deadly +sin of keeping back at confession all that." He stopped. Then he said, +"Till the end my confessions were incomplete, were false. + +"The stranger told me that as his love for this woman grew he found it +impossible to follow the plan he had traced for himself of shutting +his eyes to the sight of other eyes admiring, desiring her, of +shutting his ears to the voices that whispered, 'This it will always +be, for others as well as for you.' He found it impossible. His +jealousy was too importunate, and he resolved to make any effort to +keep her for himself alone. He knew she had love for him, but he knew +that love would not necessarily, or even probably, keep her entirely +faithful to him. She thought too little of passing intrigues. To her +they seemed trifles, meaningless, unimportant. She told him so, when +he spoke his jealousy. She said, 'I love you. I do not love these +other men. They are in my life for a moment only.' + +"'And that moment plunges me into hell!' he said. + +"He told her he could not bear it, that it was impossible, that she +must belong to him entirely and solely. He asked her to marry him. She +was surprised, touched. She understood what a sacrifice such a +marriage would be to a man in his position. He was a man of good +birth. His request, his vehement insistence on it, made her understand +his love as she had not understood it before. Yet she hesitated. For +so long had she been accustomed to a life of freedom, of changing +/amours/, that she hesitated to put her neck under the yoke of +matrimony. She understood thoroughly his character and his aim in +marrying her. She knew that as his wife she must bid an eternal +farewell to the life she had known. And it was a life that had become +a habit to her, a life that she was fond of. For she was enormously +vain, and she was a--she was a very physical woman, subject to +physical caprices. There are things that I pass over, Domini, which +would explain still more her hesitation. He knew what caused it, and +again he was tortured. But he persisted. And at last he overcame. She +consented to marry him. They were engaged. Domini, I need not tell you +much more, only this fact--which had driven him from France, destroyed +his happiness, brought him to the monastery. Shortly before the +marriage was to take place he discovered that, while they were +engaged, she had yielded to the desires of an old admirer who had come +to bid her farewell and to wish her joy in her new life. He was +tempted, he said, to kill her. But he governed himself and left her. +He travelled. He came to Tunis. He came to La Trappe. He saw the peace +there. He thought, 'Can I seize it? Can it do something for me?' He +saw me. He thought, 'I shall not be quite alone. This monk--he has +lived always in peace, he has never known the torture of women. Might +not intercourse with him help me?' + +"Such was his history, such was the history poured, with infinite +detail that I have not told you, day by day, into my ears. It was the +history, you see, of a passion that was mainly physical. I will not +say entirely. I do not know whether any great passion can be entirely +physical. But it was the history of the passion of one body for +another body, and he did not attempt to present it to me as anything +else. This man made me understand the meaning of the body. I had never +understood it before. I had never suspected the immensity of the +meaning there is in physical things. I had never comprehended the +flesh. Now I comprehended it. Loneliness rushed upon me, devoured me-- +loneliness of the body. 'God is a spirit and those that worship him +must worship him in spirit.' Now I felt that to worship in spirit was +not enough. I even felt that it was scarcely anything. Again I thought +of my life as the life of a skeleton in a world of skeletons. Again +the chapel was as a valley of dry bones. It was a ghastly sensation. I +was plunged in the void. I--I--I can't tell you my exact sensation, +but it was as if I was the loneliest creature in the whole of the +universe, and as if I need not have been lonely, as if I, in my +ignorance and fatuity, had selected loneliness thinking it was the +happiest fate. + +"And yet you will say I was face to face with this man's almost +frantic misery. I was, and it made no difference. I envied him, even +in his present state. He wanted to gain consolation from me if that +were possible. Oh, the irony of my consoling him! In secret I laughed +at it bitterly. When I strove to console him I knew that I was an +incarnate lie. He had told me the meaning of the body and, by so +doing, had snatched from me the meaning of the spirit. And then he +said to me, 'Make me feel the meaning of the spirit. If I can grasp +that I may find comfort.' He called upon me to give him what I no +longer had--the peace of God that passeth understanding. Domini, can +you feel at all what that was to me? Can you realise? Can you--is it +any wonder that I could do nothing for him, for him who had done such +a frightful thing for me? Is it any wonder? Soon he realised that he +would not find peace with me in the garden. Yet he stayed on. Why? He +did not know where to go, what to do. Life offered him nothing but +horror. His love of experiences was dead. His love of life had +completely vanished. He saw the worldly life as a nightmare, yet he +had nothing to put in the place of it. And in the monastery he was +ceaselessly tormented by jealousy. Ceaselessly his mind was at work +about this woman, picturing her in her life of change, of intrigue, of +new lovers, of new hopes and aims in which he had no part, in which +his image was being blotted out, doubtless from her memory even. He +suffered, he suffered as few suffer. But I think I suffered more. The +melancholy was driven on into a gnawing hunger, the gnawing hunger of +the flesh wishing to have lived, wishing to live, wishing to--to know. + +"Domini, to you I can't say more of that--to you whom I--whom I love +with spirit and flesh. I will come to the end, to the incident which +made the body rise up, strike down the soul, trample out over it into +the world like a wolf that was starving. + +"One day the Reverend Pere gave me a special permission to walk with +our visitor beyond the monastery walls towards the sea. Such +permission was an event in my life. It excited me more than you can +imagine. I found that the stranger had begged him to let me come. + +"'Our guest is very fond of you,' the Reverend Pere said to me. 'I +think if any human being can bring him to a calmer, happier state of +mind and spirit, you can. You have obtained a good influence over +him.' + +"Domini, when the Reverend Pere spoke to me thus my mouth was suddenly +contracted in a smile. Devil's smile, I think. I put up my hand to my +face. I saw the Reverend Pere looking at me with a dawning of +astonishment in his kind, grave eyes, and I controlled myself at once. +But I said nothing. I could not say anything, and I went out from the +parlour quickly, hot with a sensation of shame. + +"'You are coming?' the stranger said. + +"'Yes,' I answered. + +"It was a fiery day of late June. Africa was bathed in a glare of +light that hurt the eyes. I went into my cell and put on a pair of +blue glasses and my wide straw hat, the hat in which I formerly used +to work in the fields. When I came out my guest was standing on the +garden path. He was swinging a stick in one hand. The other hand, +which hung down by his side, was twitching nervously. In the glitter +of the sun his face looked ghastly. In his eyes there seemed to be +terrors watching without hope. + +"'You are ready?' he said. 'Let us go.' + +"We set off, walking quickly. + +"'Movement--pace--sometimes that does a little good,' he said. 'If one +can exhaust the body the mind sometimes lies almost still for a +moment. If it would only lie still for ever.' + +"I said nothing. I could say nothing. For my fever was surely as his +fever. + +"'Where are we going?' he asked when we reached the little house of +the keeper of the gate by the cemetery. + +"'We cannot walk in the sun,' I answered. 'Let us go into the +eucalyptus woods.' + +"The first Trappists had planted forests of eucalyptus to keep off the +fever that sometimes comes in the African summer. We made our way +along a tract of open land and came into a deep wood. Here we began to +walk more slowly. The wood was empty of men. The hot silence was +profound. He took off his white helmet and walked on, carrying it in +his hand. Not till we were far in the forest did he speak. Then he +said, 'Father, I cannot struggle on much longer.' + +"He spoke abruptly, in a hard voice. + +"'You must try to gain courage,' I said. + +"'From where?' he exclaimed. 'No, no, don't say from God. If there is +a God He hates me.' + +"When he said that I felt as if my soul shuddered, hearing a frightful +truth spoken about itself. My lips were dry. My heart seemed to +shrivel up, but I made an effort and answered: + +"'God hates no being whom He has created.' + +"'How can you know? Almost every man, perhaps every living man hates +someone. Why not--?' + +"'To compare God with a man is blasphemous,' I answered. + +"'Aren't we made in His image? Father, it's as I said--I can't +struggle on much longer. I shall have to end it. I wish now--I often +wish that I had yielded to my first impulse and killed her. What is +she doing now? What is she doing now--at this moment?' + +"He stood still and beat with his stick on the ground. + +"'You don't know the infinite torture there is in knowing that, far +away, she is still living that cursed life, that she is free to +continue the acts of which her existence has been full. Every moment I +am imagining--I am seeing--' + +"He forced his stick deep into the ground. + +"'If I had killed her,' he said in a low voice, 'at least I should +know that she was sleeping--alone--there--there--under the earth. I +should know that her body was dissolved into dust, that her lips could +kiss no man, that her arms could never hold another as they have held +me!' + +"'Hush!' I said sternly. 'You deliberately torture yourself and me.' +He glanced up sharply. + +"'You! What do you mean?' + +"'I must not listen to such things,' I said. 'They are bad for you and +for me.' + +"'How can they be bad for you--a monk?' + +"'Such talk is evil--evil for everyone.' + +"'I'll be silent then. I'll go into the silence. I'll go soon.' + +"I understood that he thought of putting an end to himself. + +"'There are few men,' I said, speaking with deliberation, with effort, +'who do not feel at some period of life that all is over for them, +that there is nothing to hope for, that happiness is a dream which +will visit them no more.' + +"'Have you ever felt like that? You speak of it calmly, but have you +ever experienced it?' + +"I hesitated. Then I said: + +"'Yes.' + +"'You, who have been a monk for so many years!' + +"'Yes.' + +"'Since you have been here?' + +"'Yes, since then.' + +"'And you would tell me that the feeling passed, that hope came again, +and the dream as you call it?' + +"'I would say that what has lived in a heart can die, as we who live +in this world shall die.' + +"'Ah, that--the sooner the better! But you are wrong. Sometimes a +thing lives in the heart that cannot die so long as the heart beats. +Such is my passion, my torture. Don't you, a monk--don't dare to say +to me that this love of mine could die.' + +"'Don't you wish it to die?' I asked. 'You say it tortures you.' + +"'Yes. But no--no--I don't wish it to die. I could never wish that.' + +"I looked at him, I believe, with a deep astonishment. + +"'Ah, you don't understand! ' he said. 'You don't understand. At all +costs one must keep it--one's love. With it I am--as you see. But +without it--man, without it, I should be nothing--no more than that.' + +"He picked up a rotten leaf, held it to me, threw it down on the +ground. I hardly looked at it. He had said to me: 'Man!' That word, +thus said by him, seemed to me to mark the enormous change in me, to +indicate that it was visible to the eyes of another, the heart of +another. I had passed from the monk--the sexless being--to the man. He +set me beside himself, spoke of me as if I were as himself. An intense +excitement surged up in me. I think--I don't know what I should have +said--done--but at that moment a boy, who acted as a servant at the +monastery, came running towards us with a letter in his hand. + +"'It is for Monsieur!' he said. 'It was left at the gate.' + +"'A letter for me!' the stranger said. + +"He held out his hand and took it indifferently. The boy gave it, and +turning, went away through the wood. Then the stranger glanced at the +envelope. Domini, I wish I could make you see what I saw then, the +change that came. I can't. There are things the eyes must see. The +tongue can't tell them. The ghastly whiteness went out of his face. A +hot flood of scarlet rushed over it up to the roots of his hair. His +hands and his whole body began to tremble violently. His eyes, which +were fixed on the envelope, shone with an expression--it was like all +the excitement in the world condensed into two sparks. He dropped his +stick and sat down on the trunk of a tree, fell down almost. + +"'Father!' he muttered, 'it's not been through the post--it's not been +through the post!' + +"I did not understand. + +"'What do you mean?' I asked. + +"'What----' + +"The flush left his face. He turned deadly white again. He held out +the letter. + +"'Read it for me!' he said. 'I can't see--I can't see anything.' + +"I took the letter. He covered his eyes with his hands. I opened it +and read: + + +"'GRAND HOTEL, TUNIS. + + "'I have found out where you are. I have come. Forgive me--if you + can. I will marry you--or I will live with you. As you please; but + I cannot live without you. I know women are not admitted to the + monastery. Come out on the road that leads to Tunis. I am there. + At least come for a moment and speak to me. VERONIQUE.' + + +"Domini, I read this slowly; and it was as if I read my own fate. When +I had finished he got up. He was still pale as ashes and trembling. + +"'Which is the way to the road?' he said. 'Do you know?' + +"'Yes.' + +"'Take me there. Give me your arm, Father.' + +"He took it, leaned on it heavily. We walked through the wood towards +the highroad. I had almost to support him. The way seemed long. I felt +tired, sick, as if I could scarcely move, as if I were bearing--as if +I were bearing a cross that was too heavy for me. We came at last out +of the shadow of the trees into the glare of the sun. A flat field +divided us from the white road. + +"'Is there--is there a carriage?' he whispered in my ear. + +"I looked across the field and saw on the road a carriage waiting. + +"'Yes,' I said. + +"I stopped, and tried to take his arm from mine. + +"'Go,' I said. 'Go on!' + +"'I can't. Come with me, Father.' + +"We went on in the blinding sun. I looked down on the dry earth as I +walked. Presently I saw at my feet the white dust of the road. At the +same time I heard a woman's cry. The stranger took his arm violently +from mine. + +"'Father,' he said. 'Good-bye--God bless you!' + +"He was gone. I stood there. In a moment I heard a roll of wheels. +Then I looked up. I saw a man and a woman together, Domini. Their +faces were like angels' faces--with happiness. The dust flew up in the +sunshine. The wheels died away--I was alone. + +"Presently--I think after a very long time--I turned and went back to +the monastery. Domini, that night I left the monastery. I was as one +mad. The wish to live had given place to the determination to live. I +thought of nothing else. In the chapel that evening I heard nothing--I +did not see the monks. I did not attempt to pray, for I knew that I +was going. To go was an easy matter for me. I slept alone in the +/hotellerie/, of which I had the key. When it was night I unlocked the +door. I walked to the cemetery--between the Stations of the Cross. +Domini, I did not see them. In the cemetery was a ladder, as I told +you. + +"Just before dawn I reached my brother's house outside of Tunis, not +far from the Bardo. I knocked. My brother himself came down to know +who was there. He, as I told you, was without religion, and had always +hated my being a monk. I told him all, without reserve. I said, 'Help +me to go away. Let me go anywhere--alone.' He gave me clothes, money. +I shaved off my beard and moustache. I shaved my head, so that the +tonsure was no longer visible. In the afternoon of that day I left +Tunis. I was let loose into life. Domini--Domini, I won't tell you +where I wandered till I came to the desert, till I met you. + +"I was let loose into life, but, with my freedom, the wish to live +seemed to die in me. I was afraid of life. I was haunted by terrors. I +had been a monk so long that I did not know how to live as other men. +I did not live, I never lived--till I met you. And then--then I +realised what life may be. And then, too, I realised fully what I was. +I struggled, I fought myself. You know--now, if you look back, I think +you know that I tried--sometimes, often--I tried to--to--I tried +to----" + +His voice broke. + +"That last day in the garden I thought that I had conquered myself, +and it was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I knew you loved +me I could fight no more. Do you understand? You have seen me, you +have lived with me, you have divined my misery. But don't--don't +think, Domini, that it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of +my lie to you, my lie to God, that--that--I can't go on--I can't tell +you--I can't tell you--you know." + +He was silent. Domini said nothing, did not move. He did not look at +her, but her silence seemed to terrify him. He drew back from it +sharply and turned to the desert. He stared across the vast spaces lit +up by the moon. Still she did not move. + +"I'll go--I'll go!" he muttered. + +And he stepped forward. Then Domini spoke. + +"Boris!" she said. + +He stopped. + +"What is it?" he murmured hoarsely. + +"Boris, now at last you--you can pray." + +He looked at her as if awe-stricken. + +"Pray!" he whispered. "You tell me I can pray--now!" + +"Now at last." + +She went into the tent and left him alone. He stood where he was for a +moment. He knew that, in the tent, she was praying. He stood, trying +to listen to her prayer. Then, with an uncertain hand, he felt in his +breast. He drew out the wooden crucifix. He bent down his head, +touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the desert. + +The music had ceased in the city. There was a great silence. + + + + +BOOK VI. THE JOURNEY BACK + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +The good priest of Amara, strolling by chance at the dinner-hour of +the following day towards the camp of the hospitable strangers, was +surprised and saddened to find only the sand-hill strewn with debris. +The tents, the camels, the mules, the horses--all were gone. No +servants greeted him. No cook was busy. No kind hostess bade him come +in and stay to dine. Forlornly he glanced around and made inquiry. An +Arab told him that in the morning the camp had been struck and ere +noon was far on its way towards the north. The priest had been on +horseback to an neighbouring oasis, so had heard nothing of this +flitting. He asked its explanation, and was told a hundred lies. The +one most often repeated was to the effect that Monsieur, the husband +of Madame, was overcome by the heat, and that for this reason the +travellers were making their way towards the cooler climate that lay +beyond the desert. + +As he heard this a sensation of loneliness came to the priest. His +usually cheerful countenance was overcast with gloom. For a moment he +loathed his fate in the sands and sighed for the fleshpots of +civilisation. With his white umbrella spread above his helmet he stood +still and gazed towards the north across the vast spaces that were +lemon-yellow in the sunset. He fancied that on the horizon he saw +faintly a cloud of sand grains whirling, and imagined it stirred up by +the strangers' caravan. Then he thought of the rich lands of the Tell, +of the olive groves of Tunis, of the blue Mediterranean, of France, +his country which he had not seen for many years. He sighed +profoundly. + +"Happy people," he thought to himself. "Rich, free, able to do as they +like, to go where they will! Why was I born to live in the sand and to +be alone?" + +He was moved by envy. But then he remembered his intercourse with +Androvsky on the previous day. + +"After all," he thought more comfortably, "he did not look a happy +man!" And he took himself to task for his sin of envy, and strolled to +the inn by the fountain where he paid his pension. + +The same day, in the house of the marabout of Beni-Hassan, Count +Anteoni received a letter brought from Amara by an Arab. It was as +follows: + + +"AMARA. + + "MY DEAR FRIEND: Good-bye. We are just leaving. I had expected to + be here longer, but we must go. We are returning to the north and + shall not penetrate farther into the desert. I shall think of you, + and of your journey on among the people of your faith. You said to + me, when we sat in the tent door, that now you could pray in the + desert. Pray in the desert for us. And one thing more. If you + never return to Beni-Mora, and your garden is to pass into other + hands, don't let it go into the hands of a stranger. I could not + bear that. Let it come to me. At any price you name. Forgive me + for writing thus. Perhaps you will return, or perhaps, even if you + do not, you will keep your garden.--Your Friend, DOMINI." + + +In a postscript was an address which would always find her. + +Count Anteoni read this letter two or three times carefully, with a +grave face. + +"Why did she not put Domini Androvsky?" he said to himself. He locked +the letter in a drawer. All that night he was haunted by thoughts of +the garden. Again and again it seemed to him that he stood with Domini +beside the white wall and saw, in the burning distance of the desert, +at the call of the Mueddin, the Arabs bowing themselves in prayer, and +the man--the man to whom now she had bound herself by the most holy +tie--fleeing from prayer as if in horror. + +"But it was written," he murmured to himself. "It was written in the +sand and in fire: 'The fate of every man have we bound about his +neck.'" + +In the dawn when, turning towards the rising sun, he prayed, he +remembered Domini and her words: "Pray in the desert for us." And in +the Garden of Allah he prayed to Allah for her, and for Androvsky. + +Meanwhile the camp had been struck, and the first stage of the journey +northward, the journey back, had been accomplished. Domini had given +the order of departure, but she had first spoken with Androvsky. + +After his narrative, and her words that followed it, he did not come +into the tent. She did not ask him to. She did not see him in the +moonlight beyond the tent, or when the moonlight waned before the +coming of the dawn. She was upon her knees, her face hidden in her +hands, striving as surely few human beings have ever had to strive in +the difficult paths of life. At first she had felt almost calm. When +she had spoken to Androvsky there had even been a strange sensation +that was not unlike triumph in her heart. In this triumph she had felt +disembodied, as if she were a spirit standing there, removed from +earthly suffering, but able to contemplate, to understand, to pity it, +removed from earthly sin, but able to commit an action that might help +to purge it. + +When she said to Androvsky, "Now you can pray," she had passed into a +region where self had no existence. Her whole soul was intent upon +this man to whom she had given all the treasures of her heart and whom +she knew to be writhing as souls writhe in Purgatory. He had spoken at +last, he had laid bare his misery, his crime, he had laid bare the +agony of one who had insulted God, but who repented his insult, who +had wandered far away from God, but who could never be happy in his +wandering, who could never be at peace even in a mighty human love +unless that love was consecrated by God's contentment with it. As she +stood there Domini had had an instant of absolutely clear sight into +the depths of another's heart, another's nature. She had seen the monk +in Androvsky, not slain by his act of rejection, but alive, sorrow- +stricken, quivering, scourged. And she had been able to tell this monk +--as God seemed to be telling her, making of her his messenger--that +now at last he might pray to a God who again would hear him, as He had +heard him in the garden of El-Largani, in his cell, in the chapel, in +the fields. She had been able to do this. Then she had turned away, +gone into the tent and fallen upon her knees. + +But with that personal action her sense of triumph passed away. As her +body sank down her soul seemed to sink down with it into bottomless +depths of blackness where no light had ever been, into an underworld, +airless, peopled with invisible violence. And it seemed to her as if +it was her previous flight upward which had caused this descent into a +place which had surely never before been visited by a human soul. All +the selflessness suddenly vanished from her, and was replaced by a +burning sense of her own personality, of what was due to it, of what +had been done to it, of what it now was. She saw it like a cloth that +had been white and that now was stained with indelible filth. And +anger came upon her, a bitter fury, in which she was inclined to cry +out, not only against man, but against God. The strength of her nature +was driven into a wild bitterness, the sweet waters became acrid with +salt. She had been able a moment before to say to Androvsky, almost +with tenderness, "Now at last you can pray." Now she was on her knees +hating him, hating--yes, surely hating--God. It was a frightful +sensation. + +Soul and body felt defiled. She saw Androvsky coming into her clean +life, seizing her like a prey, rolling her in filth that could never +be cleansed. And who had allowed him to do her this deadly wrong? God. +And she was on her knees to this God who had permitted this! She was +in the attitude of worship. Her whole being rebelled against prayer. +It seemed to her as if she made a furious physical effort to rise from +her knees, but as if her body was paralysed and could not obey her +will. She remained kneeling, therefore, like a woman tied down, like a +blasphemer bound by cords in the attitude of prayer, whose soul was +shrieking insults against heaven. + +Presently she remembered that outside Androvsky was praying, that she +had meant to join with him in prayer. She had contemplated, then, a +further, deeper union with him. Was she a madwoman? Was she a slave? +Was she as one of those women of history who, seized in a rape, +resigned themselves to love and obey their captors? She began to hate +herself. And still she knelt. Anyone coming in at the tent door would +have seen a woman apparently entranced in an ecstasy of worship. + +This great love of hers, to what had it brought her? This awakening of +her soul, what was its meaning? God had sent a man to rouse her from +sleep that she might look down into hell. Again and again, with +ceaseless reiteration, she recalled the incidents of her passion in +the desert. She thought of the night at Arba when Androvsky blew out +the lamp. That night had been to her a night of consecration. Nothing +in her soul had risen up to warn her. No instinct, no woman's +instinct, had stayed her from unwitting sin. The sand-diviner had been +wiser than she; Count Anteoni more far-seeing; the priest of Beni-Mora +more guided by holiness, by the inner flame that flickers before the +wind that blows out of the caverns of evil. God had blinded her in +order that she might fall, had brought Androvsky to her in order that +her religion, her Catholic faith, might be made hideous to her for +ever. She trembled all over as she knelt. Her life had been sad, even +tormented. And she had set out upon a pilgrimage to find peace. She +had been led to Beni-Mora. She remembered her arrival in Africa, its +spell descending upon her, her sensation of being far off, of having +left her former life with its sorrows for ever. She remembered the +entrancing quiet of Count Anteoni's garden, how as she entered it she +seemed to be entering an earthly Paradise, a place prepared by God for +one who was weary as she was weary, for one who longed to be renewed +as she longed to be renewed. And in that Paradise, in the inmost +recess of it, she had put her hands against Androvsky's temples and +given her life, her fate, her heart into his keeping. That was why the +garden was there, that she might be led to commit this frightful +action in it. Her soul felt physically sick. As to her body--but just +then she scarcely thought of the body. For she was thinking of her +soul as of a body, as if it were the core of the body blackened, +sullied, destroyed for ever. She was hot with shame, she was hot with +a fiery indignation. Always, since she was a child, if she were +suddenly touched by anyone whom she did not love, she had had an +inclination to strike a blow on the one who touched her. Now it was as +if an unclean hand had been laid on her soul. And the soul quivered +with longing to strike back. + +Again she thought of Beni-Mora, of all that had taken place there. She +realised that during her stay there a crescendo of calm had taken +place within her, calm of the spirit, a crescendo of strength, +spiritual strength, a crescendo of faith and of hope. The religion +which had almost seemed to be slipping from her she had grasped firmly +again. Her soul had arrived in Beni-Mora an invalid and had become a +convalescent. + +It had been reclining wearily, fretfully. In Beni-Mora it had stood +up, walked, sung as the morning stars sang together. But then--why? If +this was to be the end--why--why? + +And at this question she paused, as before a great portal that was +shut. She went back. She thought again of this beautiful crescendo, of +this gradual approach to the God from whom she had been if not +entirely separated at any rate set a little apart. Could it have been +only in order that her catastrophe might be the more complete, her +downfall the more absolute? + +And then, she knew not why, she seemed to see in the hands that were +pressed against her face words written in fire, and to read them +slowly as a child spelling out a great lesson, with an intense +attention, with a labour whose result would be eternal recollection: + +"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. Whosover loveth knoweth the +cry of this voice." + +The cry of this voice! At that moment, in the vast silence of the +desert, she seemed to hear it. And it was the cry of her own voice. It +was the cry of the voice of her own soul. Startled, she lifted her +face from her hands and listened. She did not look out at the tent +door, but she saw the moonlight falling upon the matting that was +spread upon the sand within the tent, and she repeated, "Love +watcheth--Love watcheth--Love watcheth," moving her lips like the +child who reads with difficulty. Then came the thought, "I am +watching." + +The passion of personal anger had died away as suddenly as it had +come. She felt numb and yet excited. She leaned forward and once more +laid her face in her hands. + +"Love watcheth--I am watching." Then a moment--then--"God is watching +me." + +She whispered the words over again and again. And the numbness began +to pass away. And the anger was dead. Always she had felt as if she +had been led to Africa for some definite end. Did not the freed +negroes, far out in the Desert, sing their song of the deeper +mysteries--"No one but God and I knows what is in my heart"? And had +not she heard it again and again, and each time with a sense of awe? +She had always thought that the words were wonderful and beautiful. +But she had thought that perhaps they were not true. She had said to +Androvsky that he knew what was in her heart. And now, in this night, +in its intense stillness, close to the man who for so long had not +dared to pray but who now was praying, again she thought that they +were not quite true. It seemed to her that she did not know what was +in her heart, and that she was waiting there for God to come and tell +her. Would He come? She waited. Patience entered into her. + +The silence was long. Night was travelling, turning her thoughts to a +distant world. The moon waned, and a faint breath of wind that was +almost cold stole over the sands, among the graves in the cemetery, to +the man and the woman who were keeping vigil upon their knees. The +wind died away almost ere it had risen, and the rigid silence that +precedes the dawn held the desert in its grasp. And God came to Domini +in the silence, Allah through Allah's garden that was shrouded still +in the shadows of night. Once, as she journeyed through the roaring of +the storm, she had listened for the voice of the desert. And as the +desert took her its voice had spoken to her in a sudden and magical +silence, in a falling of the wind. Now, in a more magical silence, the +voice of God spoke to her. And the voice of the desert and of God were +as one. As she knelt she heard God telling her what was in her heart. +It was a strange and passionate revelation. She trembled as she heard. +And sometimes she was inclined to say, "It is not so." And sometimes +she was afraid, afraid of what this--all this that was in her heart-- +would lead her to do. For God told her of a strength which she had not +known her heart possessed, which--so it seemed to her--she did not +wish it to possess, of a strength from which something within her +shrank, against which something within her protested. But God would +not be denied. He told her she had this strength. He told her that she +must use it. He told her that she would use it. And she began to +understand something of the mystery of the purposes of God in relation +to herself, and to understand, with it, how closely companioned even +those who strive after effacement of self are by selfishness--how +closely companioned she had been on her African pilgrimage. Everything +that had happened in Africa she had quietly taken to herself, as a +gift made to her for herself. + +The peace that had descended upon her was balm for her soul, and was +sent merely for that, to stop the pain she suffered from old wounds +that she might be comfortably at rest. The crescendo--the beautiful +crescendo--of calm, of strength, of faith, of hope which she had, as +it were, heard like a noble music within her spirit had been the David +sent to play upon the harp to her Saul, that from her Saul the black +demon of unrest, of despair, might depart. That was what she had +believed. She had believed that she had come to Africa for herself, +and now God, in the silence, was telling her that this was not so, +that He had brought her to Africa to sacrifice herself in the +redemption of another. And as she listened--listened, with bowed head, +and eyes in which tears were gathering, from which tears were falling +upon her clasped hands--she knew that it was true, she knew that God +meant her to put away her selfishness, to rise above it. Those eagle's +wings of which she had thought--she must spread them. She must soar +towards the place of the angels, whither good women soar in the great +moments of their love, borne up by the winds of God. On the minaret of +the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, while Androvsky remained in the dark +shadow with a curse, she had mounted, with prayer, surely a little way +towards God. And now God said to her, "Mount higher, come nearer to +me, bring another with you. That was my purpose in leading you to +Beni-Mora, in leading you far out into the desert, in leading you into +the heart of the desert." + +She had been led to Africa for a definite end, and now she knew what +that end was. On the mosque of the minaret of Sidi-Zerzour she had +surely seen prayer travelling, the soul of prayer travelling. And she +had asked herself--"Whither?" She had asked herself where was the +halting-place, with at last the pitched tent, the camp fires, and the +long, the long repose? And when she came down into the court of the +mosque and found Androvsky watching the old Arab who struck against +the mosque and cursed, she had wished that Androvsky had mounted with +her a little way towards God. + +He should mount with her. Always she had longed to see him above her. +Could she leave him below? She knew she could not. She understood that +God did not mean her to. She understood perfectly. And tears streamed +from her eyes. For now there came upon her a full comprehension of her +love for Androvsky. His revelation had not killed it, as, for a +moment, in her passionate personal anger, she had been inclined to +think. Indeed it seemed to her now that, till this hour of silence, +she had never really loved him, never known how to love. Even in the +tent at Arba she had not fully loved him, perfectly loved him. For the +thought of self, the desires of self, the passion of self, had entered +into and been mingled with her love. But now she loved him perfectly, +because she loved as God intended her to love. She loved him as God's +envoy sent to him. + +She was still weeping, but she began to feel calm, as if the stillness +of this hour before the dawn entered into her soul. She thought of +herself now only as a vessel into which God was pouring His purpose +and His love. + +Just as dawn was breaking, as the first streak of light stole into the +east and threw a frail spear of gold upon the sands, she was conscious +again of a thrill of life within her, of the movement of her unborn +child. Then she lifted her head from her hand, looking towards the +east, and whispered: + +"Give me strength for one more thing--give me strength to be silent!" + +She waited as if for an answer. Then she rose from her knees, bathed +her face and went out to the tent door to Androvsky. + +"Boris!" she said. + +He rose from his knees and looked at her, holding the little wooden +crucifix in his hand. + +"Domini?" he said in an uncertain voice. + +"Put it back into your breast. Keep it for ever, Boris." + +As if mechanically, and not removing his eyes from her, he put the +crucifix into his breast. After a moment she spoke again, quietly. + +"Boris, you never wished to stay here. You meant to stay here for me. +Let us go away from Amara. Let us go to-day, now, in the dawn." + +"Us!" he said. + +There was a profound amazement in his voice. + +"Yes," she answered. + +"Away from Amara--you and I--together?" + +"Yes, Boris, together." + +"Where--where can we go?" + +The amazement seemed to deepen in his voice. His eyes were watching +her with an almost fierce intentness. In a flash of insight she +realised that, just then, he was wondering about her as he had never +wondered before, wondering whether she was really the good woman at +whose feet his sin-stricken soul had worshipped. Yes, he was asking +himself that question. + +"Boris," she said, "will you leave yourself in my hands? We have +talked of our future life. We have wondered what we should do. Will +you let me do as I will, let the future be as I choose?" + +In her heart she said "as God chooses." + +"Yes, Domini," he answered. "I am in your hands, utterly in your +hands." + +"No," she said. + +Neither of them spoke after that till the sunlight lay above the +towers and minarets of Amara. Then Domini said: + +"We will go to-day--now." + +And that morning the camp was struck, and the new journey began--the +journey back. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A silence had fallen between Domini and Androvsky which neither seemed +able to break. They rode on side by side across the sands towards the +north through the long day. The tower of Amara faded in the sunshine +above the white crests of the dunes. The Arab villages upon their +little hills disappeared in the quivering gold. New vistas of desert +opened before them, oases crowded with palms, salt lakes and stony +ground. They passed by native towns. They saw the negro gardeners +laughing among the rills of yellow water, or climbing with bare feet +the wrinkled tree trunks to lop away dead branches. They heard tiny +goatherds piping, solitary, in the wastes. Dreams of the mirage rose +and faded far off on the horizon, rose and faded mystically, leaving +no trembling trace behind. And they were silent as the mirage, she in +her purpose, he in his wonder. And the long day waned, and towards +evening the camp was pitched and the evening meal was prepared. And +still they could not speak. + +Sometimes Androvsky watched her, and there was a great calm in her +face, but there was no rebuke, no smallness of anger, no hint of +despair. Always he had felt her strength of mind and body, but never +so much as now. Could he rest on it? Dared he? He did not know. And +the day seemed to him to become a dream, and the silence recalled to +him the silence of the monastery in which he had worshipped God before +the stranger came. He thought that in this silence he ought to feel +that she was deliberately raising barriers between them, but--it was +strange--he could not feel this. In her silence there was no +bitterness. When is there bitterness in strength? He rode on and on +beside her, and his sense of a dream deepened, helped by the influence +of the desert. Where were they going? He did not know. What was her +purpose? He could not tell. But he felt that she had a purpose, that +her mind was resolved. Now and then, tearing himself with an effort +from the dream, he asked himself what it could be. What could be in +store for him, for them, after the thing he had told? What could be +their mutual life? Must it not be for ever at an end? Was it not +shattered? Was it not dust, like the dust of the desert that rose +round their horses' feet? The silence did not tell him, and again he +ceased from wondering and the dream closed round him. Were they not +travelling in a mirage, mirage people, unreal, phantomlike, who would +presently fade away into the spaces of the sun? The sand muffled the +tread of the horses' feet. The desert understood their silence, +clothed it in a silence more vast and more impenetrable. And Androvsky +had made his effort. He had spoken the truth at last. He could do no +more. He was incapable of any further action. As Domini felt herself +to be in the hands of God, he felt himself to be in the hands of this +woman who had received his confession with this wonderful calm, who +was leading him he knew not whither in this wonderful silence. + +When the camp was pitched, however, he noticed something that caught +him sharply away from the dreamlike, unreal feeling, and set him face +to face with fact that was cold as steel. Always till now the +dressing-tent had been pitched beside their sleeping-tent, with the +flap of the entrance removed so that the two tents communicated. +To-night it stood apart, near the sleeping-tent, and in it was placed +one of the small camp beds. Androvsky was alone when he saw this. On +reaching the halting-place he had walked a little way into the desert. +When he returned he found this change. It told him something of what +was passing in Domini's mind, and it marked the transformation of +their mutual life. As he gazed at the two tents he felt stricken, yet +he felt a curious sense of something that was like--was it not like-- +relief? It was as if his body had received a frightful blow and on his +soul a saint's hand had been gently laid, as if something fell about +him in ruins, and at the same time a building which he loved, and +which for a moment he had thought tottering, stood firm before him +founded upon rock. He was a man capable of a passionate belief, +despite his sin, and he had always had a passionate belief in Domini's +religion. That morning, when she came out to him in the sand, a +momentary doubt had assailed him. He had known the thought, "Does she +love me still--does she love me more than she loves God, more than she +loves his dictates manifested in the Catholic religion?" When she said +that word "together" that had been his thought. Now, as he looked at +the two tents, a white light seemed to fall upon Domini's character, +and in this white light stood the ruin and the house that was founded +upon a rock. He was torn by conflicting sensations of despair and +triumph. She was what he had believed. That made the triumph. But +since she was that where was his future with her? The monk and the man +who had fled from the monastery stood up within him to do battle. The +monk knew triumph, but the man was in torment. + +Presently, as Androvsky looked at the two tents, the monk in him +seemed to die a new death, the man who had left the monastery to know +a new resurrection. He was seized by a furious desire to go backward +in time, to go backward but a few hours, to the moment when Domini did +not know what now she knew. He cursed himself for what he had done. At +last he had been able to pray. Yes, but what was prayer now, what was +prayer to the man who looked at the two tents and understood what they +meant? He moved away and began to walk up and down near to the two +tents. He did not know where Domini was. At a little distance he saw +the servants busy preparing the evening meal. Smoke rose up before the +cook's tent, curling away stealthily among a group of palm trees, +beneath which some Arab boys were huddled, staring with wide eyes at +the unusual sight of travellers. They came from a tiny village at a +short distance off, half hidden among palm gardens. The camels were +feeding. A mule was rolling voluptuously in the sand. At a well a +shepherd was watering his flocks, which crowded about him baaing +expectantly. The air seemed to breathe out a subtle aroma of peace and +of liberty. And this apparent presence of peace, this vision of the +calm of others, human beings and animals, added to the torture of +Androvsky. As he walked to and fro he felt as if he were being +devoured by his passions, as if he were losing the last vestiges of +self-control. Never in the monastery, never even in the night when he +left it, had he been tormented like this. For now he had a terrible +companion whom, at that time, he had not known. Memory walked with him +before the tents, the memory of his body, recalling and calling for +the past. + +He had destroyed that past himself. But for him it might have been +also the present, the future. It might have lasted for years, perhaps +till death took him or Domini. Why not? He had only had to keep +silence, to insist on remaining in the desert, far from the busy ways +of men. They could have lived as certain others lived, who loved the +free, the solitary life, in an oasis of their own, tending their +gardens of palms. Life would have gone like a sunlit dream. And death? +At that thought he shuddered. Death--what would that have been to him? +What would it be now when it came? He put the thought from him with +force, as a man thrusts away from him the filthy hand of a clamouring +stranger assailing him in the street. + +This evening he had no time to think of death. Life was enough, life +with this terror which he had deliberately placed in it. + +He thought of himself as a madman for having spoken to Domini. He +cursed himself as a madman. For he knew, although he strove furiously +not to know, how irrevocable was his act, in consequence of the great +strength of her nature. He knew that though she had been to him a +woman of fire she might be to him a woman of iron--even to him whom +she loved. + +How she had loved him! + +He walked faster before the tents, to and fro. + +How she had loved him! How she loved him still, at this moment after +she knew what he was, what he had done to her. He had no doubt of her +love as he walked there. He felt it, like a tender hand upon him. But +that hand was inflexible too. In its softness there was firmness-- +firmness that would never yield to any strength in him. + +Those two tents told him the story of her strength. As he looked at +them he was looking into her soul. And her soul was in direct conflict +with his. That was what he felt. She had thought, she had made up her +mind. Quietly, silently she had acted. By that action, without a word, +she had spoken to him, told him a tremendous thing. And the man--the +passionate man who had left the monastery--loose in him now was aflame +with an impotent desire that was like a heat of fury against her, +while the monk, hidden far down in him, was secretly worshipping her +cleanliness of spirit. + +But the man who had left the monastery was in the ascendant in him, +and at last drove him to a determination that the monk secretly knew +to be utterly vain. He made up his mind to enter into conflict with +Domini's strength. He felt that he must, that he could not quietly, +without a word, accept this sudden new life of separation symbolised +for him by the two tents standing apart. + +He stood still. In the distance, under the palms, he saw Batouch +laughing with Ouardi. Near them Ali was reposing on a mat, moving his +head from side to side, smiling with half-shut, vacant eyes, and +singing a languid song. + +This music maddened him. + +"Batouch!" he called out sharply. "Batouch!" + +Batouch stopped laughing, glanced round, then came towards him with a +large pace, swinging from his hips. + +"Monsieur?" + +"Batouch!" Androvsky said. + +But he could not go on. He could not say anything about the two tents +to a servant. + +"Where--where is Madame?" he said almost stammering. + +"Out there, Monsieur." + +With a sweeping arm the poet pointed towards a hump of sand crowned by +a few palms. Domini was sitting there, surrounded by Arab children, to +whom she was giving sweets out of a box. As Androvsky saw her the +anger in him burnt up more fiercely. This action of Domini's, simple, +natural though it was, seemed to him in his present condition cruelly +heartless. He thought of her giving the order about the tents and then +going calmly to play with these children, while he--while he---- + +"You can go, Batouch," he said. "Go away." + +The poet stared at him with a superb surprise, then moved slowly +towards Ouardi, holding his burnous with his large hands. + +Androvsky looked again at the two tents as a man looks at two enemies. +Then, walking quickly, he went towards the hump of sand. As he +approached it Domini had her side face turned towards him. She did not +see him. The little Arabs were dancing round her on their naked feet, +laughing, showing their white teeth and opening their mouths wide for +the sugar-plums--gaiety incarnate. Androvsky gazed at the woman who +was causing this childish joy, and he saw a profound sadness. Never +had he seen Domini's face look like this. It was always white, but now +its whiteness was like a whiteness of marble. She moved her head, +turning to feed one of the little gaping mouths, and he saw her eyes, +tearless, but sadder than if they had been full of tears. She was +looking at these children as a mother looks at her children who are +fatherless. He did not--how could he?--understand the look, but it +went to his heart. He stopped, watching. One of the children saw him, +shrieked, pointed. Domini glanced round. As she saw him she smiled, +threw the last sugar-plums and came towards him. + +"Do you want me?" she said, coming up to him. + +His lips trembled. + +"Yes," he said, "I want you." + +Something in his voice seemed to startle her, but she said nothing +more, only stood looking at him. The children, who had followed her, +crowded round them, touching their clothes curiously. + +"Send them away," he said. + +She made the children go, pushing them gently, pointing to the +village, and showing the empty box to them. Reluctantly at last they +went towards the village, turning their heads to stare at her till +they were a long way off, then holding up their skirts and racing for +the houses. + +"Domini--Domini," he said. "You can--you can play with children-- +to-day." + +"I wanted to feel I could give a little happiness to-day," she +answered--"even to-day." + +"To-day when--when to me--to me--you are giving----" + +But before her steady gaze all the words he had meant to say, all the +words of furious protest, died on his lips. + +"To me--to me--" he repeated. + +Then he was silent. + +"Boris," she said, "I want to give you one thing, the thing that you +have lost. I want to give you back peace." + +"You never can." + +"I must try. Even if I cannot I shall know that I have tried." + +"You are giving me--you are giving me not peace, but a sword," he +said. + +She understood that he had seen the two tents. + +"Sometimes a sword can give peace." + +"The peace of death." + +"Boris--my dear one--there are many kinds of deaths. Try to trust me. +Leave me to act as I must act. Let me try to be guided--only let me +try." + +He did not say another word. + +That night they slept apart for the first time since their marriage. + +"Domini, where are you taking me? Where are we going?" + +* * * * * * + +The camp was struck once more and they were riding through the desert. +Domini hesitated to answer his question. It had been put with a sort +of terror. + +"I know nothing," he continued. "I am in your hands like a child. It +cannot be always so. I must know, I must understand. What is our life +to be? What is our future? A man cannot--" + +He paused. Then he said: + +"I feel that you have come to some resolve. I feel it perpetually. It +is as if you were in light and I in darkness, you in knowledge and I +in ignorance. You--you must tell me. I have told you all now. You must +tell me." + +But she hesitated. + +"Not now," she answered. "Not yet." + +"We are to journey on day by day like this, and I am not to know where +we are going! I cannot, Domini--I will not." + +"Boris, I shall tell you." + +"When?" + +"Will you trust me, Boris, completely? Can you?" + +"How?" + +"Boris, I have prayed so much for you that at last I feel that I can +act for you. Don't think me presumptuous. If you could see into my +heart you would see that--indeed, I don't think it would be possible +to feel more humble than I do in regard to you." + +"Humble--you, Domini! You can feel humble when you think of me, when +you are with me." + +"Yes. You have suffered so terribly. God has led you. I feel that He +has been--oh, I don't know how to say it quite naturally, quite as I +feel it--that He has been more intent on you than on anyone I have +ever known. I feel that His meaning in regarding to you is intense, +Boris, as if He would not let you go." + +"He let me go when I left the monastery." + +"Does one never return?" + +Again a sensation almost of terror assailed him. He felt as if he were +fighting in darkness something that he could not see. + +"Return!" he said. "What do you mean?" + +She saw the expression of almost angry fear in his face. It warned her +not to give the reins to her natural impulse, which was always towards +a great frankness. + +"Boris, you fled from God, but do you not think it possible that you +could ever return to Him? Have you not taken the first step? Have you +not prayed?" His face changed, grew slightly calmer. + +"You told me I could pray," he answered, almost like a child. +"Otherwise I--I should not have dared to. I should have felt that I +was insulting God." + +"If you trusted me in such a thing, can you not trust me now?" + +"But"--he said uneasily--"but this is different, a worldly matter, a +matter of daily life. I shall have to know." + +"Yes." + +"Then why should I not know now? At any moment I could ask Batouch." + +"Batouch only knows from day to day. I have a map of the desert. I got +it before we left Beni-Mora." + +Something--perhaps a very slight hesitation in her voice just before +she said the last words--startled him. He turned on his horse and +looked at her hard. + +"Domini," he said, "are we--we are not going back to Beni-Mora?" + +"I will tell you to-night," she replied in a low voice. "Let me tell +you tonight." + +He said no more, but he gazed at her for a long time as if striving +passionately to read her thoughts. But he could not. Her white face +was calm, and she rode looking straight before her, as one that looked +towards some distant goal to which all her soul was journeying with +her body. There was something mystical in her face, in that straight, +far-seeing glance, that surely pierced beyond the blue horizon line +and reached a faroff world. What world? He asked himself the question, +but no answer came, and he dropped his eyes. A new and horrible +sadness came to him, a new sensation of separation from Domini. She +had set their bodies apart, and he had yielded. Now, was she not +setting something else apart? For, in spite of all, in spite of his +treacherous existence with her, he had so deeply and entirely loved +her that he had sometimes felt, dared to feel, that in their passion +in the desert their souls had been fused together. His was black--he +knew it--and hers was white. But had not the fire and the depth of +their love conquered all differences, made even their souls one as +their bodies had been one? And now was she not silently, subtly, +withdrawing her soul from his? A sensation of acute despair swept over +him, of utter impotence. + +"Domini!" he said, "Domini!" + +"Yes," she answered. + +And this time she withdrew her eyes from the blue distance and looked +at him. + +"Domini, you must trust me." + +He was thinking of the two tents set the one apart from the other. + +"Domini, I've borne something in silence. I haven't spoken. I wanted +to speak. I tried--but I did not. I bore my punishment--you don't +know, you'll never know what I felt last--last night--when--I've borne +that. But there's one thing I can't bear. I've lived a lie with you. +My love for you overcame me. I fell. I have told you that I fell. +Don't--don't because of that--don't take away your heart from me +entirely. Domini--Domini--don't do that." + +She heard a sound of despair in his voice. + +"Oh, Boris," she said, "if you knew! There was only one moment when I +fancied my heart was leaving you. It passed almost before it came, and +now--" + +"But," he interrupted, "do you know--do you know that since--since I +spoke, since I told you, you've--you've never touched me?" + +"Yes, I know it," she replied quietly. + +Something told him to be silent then. Something told him to wait till +the night came and the camp was pitched once more. + +They rested at noon for several hours, as it was impossible to travel +in the heat of the day. The camp started an hour before they did. Only +Batouch remained behind to show them the way to Ain-la-Hammam, where +they would pass the following night. When Batouch brought the horses +he said: + +"Does Madame know the meaning of Ain-la-Hammam?" + +"No," said Domini. "What is it?" + +"Source des tourterelles," replied Batouch. "I was there once with an +English traveller." + +"Source des tourterelles," repeated Domini. "Is it beautiful, Batouch? +It sounds as if it ought to be beautiful." + +She scarcely knew why, but she had a longing that Ain-la-Hammam might +be tender, calm, a place to soothe the spirit, a place in which +Androvsky might be influenced to listen to what she had to tell him +without revolt, without despair. Once he had spoken about the +influence of place, about rising superior to it. But she believed in +it, and she waited, almost anxiously, for the reply of Batouch. As +usual it was enigmatic. + +"Madame will see," he answered. "Madame will see. But the +Englishman----" + +"Yes?" + +"The Englishman was ravished. 'This,' he said to me, 'this, Batouch, +is a little Paradise!' And there was no moon then. To-night there will +be a moon." + +"Paradise!" exclaimed Androvsky. + +He sprang upon his horse and pulled up the reins. Domini said no more. +They had started late. It was night when they reached Ain-la-Hammam. +As they drew near Domini looked before her eagerly through the pale +gloom that hung over the sand. She saw no village, only a very small +grove of palms and near it the outline of a bordj. The place was set +in a cup of the Sahara. All around it rose low hummocks of sand. On +two or three of them were isolated clumps of palms. Here the eyes +roamed over no vast distances. There was little suggestion of space. +She drew up her horse on one of the hummocks and gazed down. She heard +doves murmuring in their soft voices among the trees. The tents were +pitched near the bordj. + +"What does Madame think?" asked Batouch. "Does Madame agree with the +Englishman?" + +"It is a strange little place," she answered. + +She listened to the voices of the doves. A dog barked by the bordj. + +"It is almost like a hiding-place," she added. + +Androvsky said nothing, but he, too, was gazing intently at the trees +below them, he, too, was listening to the voices of the doves. After a +moment he looked at her. + +"Domini," he whispered. "Here--won't you--won't you let me touch your +hand again here?" + +"Come, Boris," she answered. "It is late." + +They rode down into Ain-la-Hammam. + +The tents had all been pitched near together on the south of the +bordj, and separated by it from the tiny oasis. Opposite to them was a +Cafe Maure of the humblest kind, a hovel of baked earth and brushwood, +with earthen divans and a coffee niche. Before this was squatting a +group of five dirty desert men, the sole inhabitants of Ain-la-Hammam. +Just before dinner Domini gave an order to Batouch, and, while they +were dining, Androvsky noticed that their people were busy unpegging +the two sleeping-tents. + +"What are they doing?" he said to Domini, uneasily. In his present +condition everything roused in him anxiety. In every unusual action he +discerned the beginning of some tragedy which might affect his life. + +"I told Batouch to put our tents on the other side of the bordj," she +answered. + +"Yes. But why?" + +"I thought that to-night it would be better if we were a little more +alone than we are here, just opposite to that Cafe Maure, and with the +servants. And on the other side there are the palms and the water. And +the doves were talking there as we rode in. When we have finished +dinner we can go and sit there and be quiet." + +"Together," he said. + +An eager light had come into his eyes. He leaned forward towards her +over the little table and stretched out his hand. + +"Yes, together," she said. + +But she did not take his hand. + +"Domini!" he said, still keeping his hand on the table, "Domini!" + +An expression, that was like an expression of agony, flitted over her +face and died away, leaving it calm. + +"Let us finish," she said quietly. "Look, they have taken the tents! +In a moment we can go." + +The doves were silent. The night was very still in this nest of the +Sahara. Ouardi brought them coffee, and Batouch came to say that the +tents were ready. + +"We shall want nothing more to-night, Batouch," Domini said. "Don't +disturb us." + +Batouch glanced towards the Cafe Maure. A red light gleamed through +its low doorway. One or two Arabs were moving within. Some of the camp +attendants had joined the squatting men without. A noise of busy +voices reached the tents. + +"To-night, Madame," Batouch said proudly, "I am going to tell stories +from the /Thousand and One Nights/. I am going to tell the story of +the young Prince of the Indies, and the story of Ganem, the Slave of +Love. It is not often that in Ain-la-Hammam a poet--" + +"No, indeed. Go to them, Batouch. They must be impatient for you." + +Batouch smiled broadly. + +"Madame begins to understand the Arabs," he rejoined. "Madame will +soon be as the Arabs." + +"Go, Batouch. Look--they are longing for you." + +She pointed to the desert men, who were gesticulating and gazing +towards the tents. + +"It is better so, Madame," he answered. "They know that I am here only +for one night, and they are eager as the hungry jackal is eager for +food among the yellow dunes of the sand." + +He threw his burnous over his shoulder and moved away smiling, and +murmuring in a luscious voice the first words of Ganem, the Slave of +Love. + +"Let us go now, Boris," Domini said. + +He got up at once from the table, and they walked together round the +bordj. + +On its further side there was no sign of life. No traveller was +resting there that night, and the big door that led into the inner +court was closed and barred. The guardian had gone to join the Arabs +at the Cafe Maure. Between the shadow cast by the bordj and the shadow +cast by the palm trees stood the two tents on a patch of sand. The +oasis was enclosed in a low earth wall, along the top of which was a +ragged edging of brushwood. In this wall were several gaps. Through +one, opposite to the tents, was visible a shallow pool of still water +by which tall reeds were growing. They stood up like spears, +absolutely motionless. A frog was piping from some hidden place, +giving forth a clear flute-like note that suggested glass. It reminded +Domini of her ride into the desert at Beni-Mora to see the moon rise. +On that night Androvsky had told her that he was going away. That had +been the night of his tremendous struggle with himself. When he had +spoken she had felt a sensation as if everything that supported her in +the atmosphere of life and of happiness had foundered. And now--now +she was going to speak to him--to tell him--what was she going to tell +him? How much could she, dared she, tell him? She prayed silently to +be given strength. + +In the clear sky the young moon hung. Beneath it, to the left, was one +star like an attendant, the star of Venus. The faint light of the moon +fell upon the water of the pool. Unceasingly the frog uttered its +nocturne. + +Domini stood for a moment looking at the water listening. Then she +glanced up at the moon and the solitary star. Androvsky stood by her. + +"Shall we--let us sit on the wall, where the gap is," she said. "The +water is beautiful, beautiful with that light on it, and the palms-- +palms are always beautiful, especially at night. I shall never love +any other trees as I love palm trees." + +"Nor I," he answered. + +They sat down on the wall. At first they did not speak any more. The +stillness of the water, the stillness of reeds and palms, was against +speech. And the little flute-like note that came to them again and +again at regular intervals was like a magical measuring of the silence +of the night in the desert. At last Domini said, in a low voice: + +"I heard that note on the night when I rode out of Beni-Mora to see +the moon rise in the desert. Boris, you remember that night?" + +"Yes," he answered. + +He was gazing at the pool, with his face partly averted from her, one +hand on the wall, the other resting on his knee. + +"You were brave that night, Boris," she said. + +"I--I wished to be--I tried to be. And if I had been--" + +He stopped, then went on: "If I had been, Domini, really brave, if I +had done what I meant to do that night, what would our lives have been +to-day?" + +"I don't know. We mustn't think of that to-night. We must think of the +future. Boris, there's no life, no real life without bravery. No man +or woman is worthy of living who is not brave." + +He said nothing. + +"Boris, let us--you and I--be worthy of living to-night--and in the +future." + +"Give me your hand then," he answered. "Give it me, Domini." + +But she did not give it to him. Instead she went on, speaking a little +more rapidly: + +"Boris, don't rely too much on my strength. I am only a woman, and I +have to struggle. I have had to struggle more than perhaps you will +ever know. You--must not make--make things impossible for me. I am +trying--very hard--to--I'm--you must not touch me to-night, Boris." + +She drew a little farther away from him. A faint breath of air made +the leaves of the palm trees rustle slightly, made the reeds move for +an instant by the pool. He laid his hand again on the wall from which +he had lifted it. There was a pleading sound in her voice which made +him feel as if it were speaking close against his heart. + +"I said I would tell you to-night where we are going." + +"Tell me now." + +"We are going back to Beni-Mora. We are not very far off from Beni- +Mora to-night--not very far." + +"We are going to Beni-Mora!" he repeated in a dull voice. "We are----" + +He sat up on the wall, looking straight into her face. + +"Why?" he said. His voice was sharp now, sharp with fear. + +"Boris, do you want to be at peace, not with me, but with God? Do you +want to get rid of your burden of misery, which increases--I know it-- +day by day?" + +"How can I?" he said hopelessly. + +"Isn't expiation the only way? I think it is." + +"Expiation! How--how can--I can never expiate my sin." + +"There's no sin that cannot be expiated. God isn't merciless. Come +back with me to Beni-Mora. That little church--where you married me-- +come back to it with me. You could not confess to the--to Father +Beret. I feel as if I knew why. Where you married me you will--you +must--make your confession." + +"To the priest who--to Father Roubier!" + +There was fierce protest in his voice. + +"It does not matter who is the priest who will receive your +confession. Only make it there--make it in the church at Beni-Mora +where you married me." + +"That was your purpose! That is where you are taking me! I can't go, I +won't! Domini, think what you are doing! You are asking too much--" + +"I feel that God is asking that of you. Don't refuse Him." + +"I cannot go--at Beni-Mora where we--where everything will remind +us--" + +"Ah, don't you think I shall feel it too? Don't you think I shall +suffer?" + +He felt horribly ashamed when she said that, bowed down with an +overwhelming weight of shame. + +"But our lives"--he stammered--"but--if I go--afterwards--if I make my +confession--afterwards--afterwards?" + +"Isn't it enough to think of that one thing? Isn't it better to put +everything else, every other thought, away? It seems so clear to me +that we should go to Beni-Mora. I feel as if I had been told--as a +child is told to do something by its father." + +She looked up into the clear sky. + +"I am sure I have been told," she added. "I know I have." + +There was a long silence between them. Androvsky felt that he did not +dare to break it. Something in Domini's face and voice cast out from +him the instinct of revolt, of protest. He began to feel exhausted, +without power, like a sick man who is being carried by bearers in a +litter, and who looks at the landscape through which he is passing +with listless eyes, and who scarcely has the force to care whither he +is being borne. + +"Domini," he said at last, and his voice sounded very tired, "if you +say I must go to Beni-Mora I will go. I have done you a great wrong +and--and--" + +"Don't think of me any more," she said. "Think--think as I do--of-- +of---- What am I? I have loved you, I shall always love you, but I am +as you are, here for a little while, elsewhere for all eternity. You +told him--that man in the monastery--that we are shadows set in a +world of shadows." + +"That was a lie," he interrupted, and the weariness had gone out of +his voice. "When I said that I had never loved, I had never loved +you." + +"Or was it a half-truth? Aren't we, perhaps, shadow now in comparison +--comparison to what we shall be? Isn't this world, even this--this +desert, this pool with the light on it, this silence of the night +around us--isn't all this a shadow in comparison to the world where we +are going, you and I? Boris, I think if we are brave now we shall be +together in that world. But if we are cowards now, I think, I am sure, +that in that world--the real world--we shall be separated for ever. +You and I, whatever we may be, whatever we may have done, at least are +one thing--we are believers. We don't think this is all. If we did it +would be different. But we can't change the truth that is in our +souls, and as we can't change it we must live by it, we must act by +it. We can't do anything else. I can't--and you? Don't you feel, don't +you know, that you can't?" + +"To-night," he said, "I feel that I know nothing--nothing except that +I am suffering." + +His voice broke on the last words. Tears were shining in his eyes. +After a long silence he said: + +"Domini, take me where you will. If it is to Beni-Mora I will go. But +--but--afterwards?" + +"Afterwards----" she said. + +Then she stopped. + +The little note of the frog sounded again and again by the still water +among the reeds. The moon was higher in the sky. "Don't let us think +of afterwards, Boris," she said at length. "That song we have heard +together, that song we love--'No one but God and I knows what is in my +heart.' I hear it now so often, always almost. It seems to gather +meaning, it seems to--God knows what is in your heart and mine. He +will take care of the--afterwards. Perhaps in our hearts already He +has put a secret knowledge of the end." + +"Has He--has He put it--that knowledge--into yours?" + +"Hush!" she said. + +They spoke no more that night. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The caravan of Domini and Androvsky was leaving Arba. + +Already the tents and the attendants, with the camels and the mules, +were winding slowly along the plain through the scrub in the direction +of the mountains, and the dark shadow which indicated the oasis of +Beni-Mora. Batouch was with them. Domini and Androvsky were going to +be alone on this last stage of their desert journey. They had mounted +their horses before the great door of the bordj, said goodbye to the +Sheikh of Arba, scattered some money among the ragged Arabs gathered +to watch them go, and cast one last look behind them. + +In that mutual, instinctive look back they were both bidding a silent +farewell to the desert, that had sheltered their passion, surely taken +part in the joy of their love, watched the sorrow and the terror grow +in it to the climax at Amara, and was now whispering to them a faint +and mysterious farewell. + +To Domini the desert had always been as a great and significant +personality, a personality that had called her persistently to come to +it. Now, as she turned on her horse, she felt as if it were calling +her no longer, as if its mission to her were accomplished, as if its +voice had sunk into a deep and breathless silence. She wondered if +Androvsky felt this too, but she did not ask him. His face was pale +and severe. His eyes stared into the distance. His hands lay on his +horse's neck like tired things with no more power to grip and hold. +His lips were slightly parted, and she heard the sound of his breath +coming and going like the breath of a man who is struggling. This +sound warned her not to try his strength or hers. + +"Come, Boris," she said, and her voice held none of the passionate +regret that was in her heart, "we mustn't linger, or it will be night +before we reach Beni-Mora." + +"Let it be night," he said. "Dark night!" + +The horses moved slowly on, descending the hill on which stood the +bordj. + +"Dark--dark night!" he said again. + +She said nothing. They rode into the plain. When they were there he +said: + +"Domini, do you understand--do you realise?" + +"What, Boris?" she asked quietly. + +"All that we are leaving to-day?" + +"Yes, I understand." + +"Are we--are we leaving it for ever?" + +"We must not think of that." + +"How can we help it? What else can we think of? Can one govern the +mind?" + +"Surely, if we can govern the heart." + +"Sometimes," he said, "sometimes I wonder----" + +He looked at her. Something in her face made it impossible for him to +go on, to say what he had been going to say. But she understood the +unfinished sentence. + +"If you can wonder, Boris," she said, "you don't know me, you don't +know me at all!" + +"Domini," he said, "I don't wonder. But sometimes I understand your +strength, and sometimes it seems to me scarcely human, scarcely the +strength of a woman." + +She lifted her whip and pointed to the dark shadow far away. + +"I can just see the tower," she said. "Can't you?" + +"I will not look," he said. "I cannot. If you can, you are stronger +than I. When I remember that it was on that tower you first spoke to +me--oh, Domini, if we could only go back! It is in our power. We have +only to draw a rein and--and--" + +"I look at the tower," she said, "as once I looked at the desert. It +calls us, the shadow of the palm trees calls us, as once the desert +did." + +"But the voice--what a different voice! Can you listen to it?" + +"I have been listening to it ever since we left Amara. Yes, it is a +different voice, but we must obey it as we obeyed the voice of the +desert. Don't you feel that?" + +"If I do it is because you tell me to feel it; you tell me that I must +feel it." + +His words seemed to hurt her. An expression of pain came into her +face. + +"Boris," she said, "don't make me regret too terribly that I ever came +into your life. When you speak like that I feel almost as if you were +putting me in the place of--of--I feel as if you were depending upon +me for everything that you are doing, as if you were letting your own +will fall asleep. The desert brings dreams. I know that. But we, you +and I, we must not dream any more." + +"A dream, you call it--the life we have lived together, our desert +life?" + +"Boris, I only mean that we must live strongly now, act strongly now, +that we must be brave. I have always felt that there was strength in +you." + +"Strength!" he said bitterly. + +"Yes. Otherwise I could never have loved you. Don't ever prove to me +that I was utterly wrong. I can bear a great deal. But that--I don't +feel as if I could bear that." + +After a moment he answered: + +"I will try to give you nothing more to bear for me." + +And he lifted his eyes and fixed them upon the tower with a sort of +stern intentness, as a man looks at something cruel, terrible. + +She saw him do this. + +"Let us ride quicker," she said. "To-night we must be in Beni-Mora." + +He said nothing, but he touched his horse with his heel. His eyes were +always fixed upon the tower, as if they feared to look at the desert +any more. She understood that when he had said "I will try to give you +nothing more to bear for me," he had not spoken idly. He had waked up +from the egoism of his despair. He had been able to see more clearly +into her heart, to feel more rightly what she was feeling than he had +before. As she watched him watching the tower, she had a sensation +that a bond, a new bond between them, was chaining them together in a +new way. Was it not a bond that would be strong and lasting, that the +future, whatever it held, would not be able to break? Ties, sacred +ties, that had bound them together might, must, be snapped asunder. +And the end was not yet. She saw, as she gazed at the darkness of the +palms of Beni-Mora, a greater darkness approaching, deeper than any +darkness of palms, than any darkness of night. But now she saw also a +ray of light in the gloom, the light of the dawning strength, the +dawning unselfishness in Androvsky. And she resolved to fix her eyes +upon it as he fixed his eyes upon the tower. + +Just after sunset they rode into Beni-Mora in advance of the camp, +which they had passed upon their way. To the right were the trees of +Count Anteoni's garden. Domini felt them, but she did not look towards +them. Nor did Androvsky. They kept their eyes fixed upon the distance +of the white road. Only when they reached the great hotel, now closed +and deserted, did she glance away. She could not pass the tower +without seeing it. But she saw it through a mist of tears, and her +hands trembled upon the reins they held. For a moment she felt that +she must break down, that she had no more strength left in her. But +they came to the statue of the Cardinal holding the double cross +towards the desert like a weapon. And she looked at it and saw the +Christ. + +"Boris," she whispered, "there is the Christ. Let us think only of +that tonight." + +She saw him look at it steadily. + +"You remember," she said, at the bottom of the avenue of cypresses--at +El-Largani--/Factus obediens usque ad mortem Crucis/?" + +"Yes, Domini." + +"We can be obedient too. Let us be obedient too." + +When she said that, and looked at him, Androvsky felt as if he were on +his knees before her, as he was upon his knees in the garden when he +could not go away. But he felt, too, that then, though he had loved +her, he had not known how to love her, how to love anyone. She had +taught him now. The lesson sank into his heart like a sword and like +balm. It was as if he were slain and healed by the same stroke. + +That night, as Domini lay in the lonely room in the hotel, with the +French windows open to the verandah, she heard the church clock chime +the hour and the distant sound of the African hautboy in the street of +the dancers, she heard again the two voices. The hautboy was barbarous +and provocative, but she thought that it was no more shrill with a +persistent triumph. Presently the church bell chimed again. + +Was it the bell of the church of Beni-Mora, or the bell of the chapel +of El-Largani? Or was it not rather the voice of the great religion to +which she belonged, to which Androvsky was returning? + +When it ceased she whispered to herself, "/Factus obediens usque ad +mortem Crucis/." And with these words upon her lips towards dawn she +fell asleep. They had dined upstairs in the little room that had +formerly been Domini's salon, and had not seen Father Roubier, who +always came to the hotel to take his evening meal. In the morning, +after they had breakfasted, Androvsky said: + +"Domini, I will go. I will go now." + +He got up and stood by her, looking down at her. In his face there was +a sort of sternness, a set expression. + +"To Father Roubier, Boris?" she said. + +"Yes. Before I go won't you--won't you give me your hand?" + +She understood all the agony of spirit he was enduring, all the shame +against which he was fighting. She longed to spring up, to take him in +her arms, to comfort him as only the woman he loves and who loves him +can comfort a man, without words, by the pressure of her arms, the +pressure of her lips, the beating of her heart against his heart. She +longed to do this so ardently that she moved restlessly, looking up at +him with a light in her eyes that he had never seen in them before, +not even when they watched the fire dying down at Arba. But she did +not lift her hand to his. + +"Boris," she said, "go. God will be with you." + +After a moment she added: + +"And all my heart." + +He stood, as if waiting, a long time. She had ceased from moving and +had withdrawn her eyes from his. In his soul a voice was saying, "If +she does not touch you now she will never touch you again." And he +waited. He could not help waiting. + +"Boris," she whispered, "good-bye." + +"Good-bye?" he said. + +"Come to me--afterwards. Come to me in the garden. I shall be there +where we--I shall be there waiting for you." + +He went out without another word. + +When he was gone she went on to the verandah quickly and looked over +the parapet. She saw him come out from beneath the arcade and walk +slowly across the road to the little gate of the enclosure before the +house of the priest. As he lifted his hands to open the gate there was +the sound of a bark, and she saw Bous-Bous run out with a manner of +stern inquiry, which quickly changed to joyful welcome as he +recognised an old acquaintance. Androvsky bent down, took up the +little dog in his arms, and, holding him, walked to the house door. In +a moment it was opened and he went in. Then Domini set out towards the +garden, avoiding the village street, and taking a byway which skirted +the desert. She walked quickly. She longed to be within the shadows of +the garden behind the white wall. She did not feel much, think much, +as she walked. Without self-consciously knowing it she was holding all +her nature, the whole of herself, fiercely in check. She did not look +about her, did not see the sunlit reaches of the desert, or the walls +of the houses of Beni-Mora, or the palm trees. Only when she had +passed the hotel and the negro village and turned to the left, to the +track at the edge of which the villa of Count Anteoni stood, did she +lift her eyes from the ground. They rested on the white arcade framing +the fierce blue of the cloudless sky. She stopped short. Her nature +seemed to escape from the leash by which she had held it in with a +rush, to leap forward, to be in the garden and in the past, in the +past with its passion and its fiery hopes, its magnificent looking +forward, its holy desires of joy that would crown her woman's life, of +love that would teach her all the depth, and the height, and the force +and the submission of her womanhood. And then, from that past, it +strove on into the present. The shock was as the shock of battle. +There were noises in her ears, voices clamouring in her heart. All her +pulses throbbed like hammers, and then suddenly she felt as weak as a +little sick child, and as if she must lie down there on the dust of +the white road in the sunshine, lie down and die at the edge of the +desert that had treated her cruelly, that had slain the hopes it had +given to her and brought into her heart this terrible despair. + +For now she knew a moment of utter despair, in which all things seemed +to dissolve into atoms and sink down out of her sight. She stood +quivering in blackness. She stood absolutely alone, more absolutely +alone than any woman had ever been, than any human being had ever +been. She seemed presently, as the blackness faded into something +pale, like a ghastly twilight, to see herself--her wraith, as it were +--standing in a vast landscape, vast as the desert, companionless, +lost, forgotten, out of mind, watching for something that would never +come, listening for some voice that was hushed in eternal silence. + +That was to be her life, she thought--could she face it? Could she +endure it? And everything within her said to her that she could not. + +And then, just then, when she felt that she must sink down and give up +the battle of life, she seemed to see by her side a shape, a little +shape like a child. And it lifted up a hand to her hand. + +And she knew that the vast landscape was God's garden, the Garden of +Allah, and that no day, no night could ever pass without God walking +in it. + +Hearing a knock upon the great gate of the garden Smain uncurled +himself on his mat within the tent, rose lazily to his feet, and, +without a rose, strolled languidly to open to the visitor. Domini +stood without. When he saw her he smiled quietly, with no surprise. + +"Madame has returned?" + +Domini smiled at him, but her lips were trembling, and she said +nothing. + +Smain observed her with a dawning of curiosity. + +"Madame is changed," he said at length. "Madame looks tired. The sun +is hot in the desert now. It is better here in the garden." + +With an effort she controlled herself. + +"Yes, Smain," she answered, "it is better here. But I can not stay +here long." + +"You are going away?" + +"Yes, I am going away." + +She saw more quiet questions fluttering on his lips, and added: + +"And now I want to walk in the garden alone." + +He waved his hand towards the trees. + +"It is all for Madame. Monsieur the Count has always said so. But +Monsieur?" + +"He is in Beni-Mora. He is coming presently to fetch me." + +Then she turned away and walked slowly across the great sweep of sand +towards the trees and was taken by their darkness. She heard again the +liquid bubbling of the hidden waterfall, and was again companioned by +the mystery of this desert Paradise, but it no longer whispered to her +of peace for her. It murmured only its own personal peace and +accentuated her own personal agony and struggle. All that it had been +it still was, but all that she had been in it was changed. And she +felt the full terror of Nature's equanimity environing the fierce and +tortured lives of men. + +As she walked towards the deepest recesses of the garden along the +winding tracks between the rills she had no sensation of approaching +the hidden home of the Geni of the garden. Yet she remembered acutely +all her first feelings there. Not one was forgotten. They returned to +her like spectres stealing across the sand. They lurked like spectres +among the dense masses of the trees. She strove not to see their pale +shapes, not to hear their terrible voices. She strove to draw calm +once more from this infinite calm of silently-growing things aspiring +towards the sun. But with each step she took the torment in her heart +increased. At last she came to the deeper darkness and the blanched +sand, and saw pine needles strewed about her feet. Then she stood +still, instinctively listening for a sound that would complete the +magic of the garden and her own despair. She waited for it. She even +felt, strangely, that she wanted, that she needed it--the sound of the +flute of Larbi playing his amorous tune. But his flute to-day was +silent. Had he fallen out of an old love and not yet found a new? or +had he, perhaps, gone away? or was he dead? For a long time she stood +there, thinking about Larbi. He and his flute and his love were +mingled with her life in the desert. And she felt that she could not +leave the desert without bidding them farewell. + +But the silence lasted and she went on and came to the /fumoir/. She +went into it at once and sat down. She was going to wait for Androvsky +here. + +Her mind was straying curiously to-day. Suddenly she found herself +thinking of the fanatical religious performance she had seen with Hadj +on the night when she had ridden out to watch the moon rise. She saw +in imagination the bowing bodies, the foaming mouths, the glassy eyes +of the young priests of the Sahara. She saw the spikes behind their +eyeballs, the struggling scorpions descending into their throats, the +flaming coals under their arm-pits, the nails driven into their heads. +She heard them growling as they saw the glass, like hungry beasts at +the sight of meat. And all this was to them religion. This madness was +their conception of worship. A voice seemed to whisper to her: "And +your madness?" + +It was like the voice that whispered to Androvsky in the cemetery of +El-Largani, "Come out with me into that world, that beautiful world +which God made for men. Why do you reject it?" + +For a moment she saw all religions, all the practices, the +renunciations of the religions of the world, as varying forms of +madness. She compared the self-denial of the monk with the fetish +worship of the savage. And a wild thrill of something that was almost +like joy rushed through her, the joy that sometimes comes to the +unbelievers when they are about to commit some act which they feel +would be contrary to God's will if there were a God. It was a thrill +of almost insolent human emancipation. The soul cried out: "I have no +master. When I thought I had a master I was mad. Now I am sane." + +But it passed almost as it came, like a false thing slinking from the +sunlight, and Domini bowed her head in the obscurity of Count +Anteoni's thinking-place and returned to her true self. That moment +had been like the moment upon the tower when she saw below her the +Jewess dancing upon the roof for the soldiers, a black speck settling +for an instant upon whiteness, then carried away by a purifying wind. +She knew that she would always be subject to such moments so long as +she was a human being, that there would always be in her blood +something that was self-willed. Otherwise, would she not be already in +Paradise? She sat and prayed for strength in the battle of life, that +could never be anything else but a battle. + +At last something within her told her to look up, to look out through +the window-space into the garden. She had not heard a step, but she +knew that Androvsky was approaching, and, as she looked up, she +prepared herself for a sight that would be terrible. She remembered +his face when he came to bid her good-bye in the garden, and she +feared to see his face now. But she schooled herself to be strong, for +herself and for him. + +He was near her on the path coming towards her. As she saw him she +uttered a little cry and stood up. An immense surprise came to her, +followed in a moment by an immense joy--the greatest joy, she thought, +that she had ever experienced. For she looked on a face in which she +saw for the first time a pale dawning of peace. There was sadness in +it, there was awe, but there was a light of calm, such as sometimes +settles upon the faces of men who have died quietly without agony or +fear. And she felt fully, as she saw it, the rapture of having refused +cowardice and grasped the hand of bravery. Directly afterwards there +came to her a sensation of wonder that at this moment of their lives +she and Androvsky should be capable of a feeling of joy, of peace. +When the wonder passed it was as if she had seen God and knew for ever +the meaning of His divine compensations. + +Androvsky came to the doorway of the /fumoir/ without looking up, +stood still there--just where Count Anteoni had stood during his first +interview with Domini--and said: + +"Domini, I have been to the priest. I have made my confession." + +"Yes," she said. "Yes, Boris!" + +He came into the /fumoir/ and sat down near her, but not close to her, +on one of the divans. Now the sad look in his face had deepened and +the peace seemed to be fading. She had thought of the dawn--that pale +light which is growing into day. Now she thought of the twilight which +is fading into night. And the terrible knowledge struck her, "I am the +troubler of his peace. Without me only could he ever regain fully the +peace which he has lost." + +"Domini," he said, looking up at her, "you know the rest. You meant it +to be as it will be when we left Amara." + +"Was there any other way? Was there any other possible life for us-- +for you--for me?" + +"For you!" he said, and there was a sound almost of despair in his +voice. "But what is to be your life? I have never protected you--you +have protected me. I have never been strong for you--you have been +strong for me. But to leave you--all alone, Domini, must I do that? +Must I think of you out in the world alone?" + +For a moment she was tempted to break her silence, to tell him the +truth, that she would perhaps not be alone, that another life, sprung +from his and hers, was coming to be with her, was coming to share the +great loneliness that lay before her. But she resisted the temptation +and only said: + +"Do not think of me, Boris." + +"You tell me not to think of you!" he said with an almost fierce +wonder. "Do you--do you wish me not to think of you?" + +"What I wish--that is so little, but--no, Boris, I can't say--I don't +think I could ever truly say that I wish you to think no more of me. +After all, one has a heart, and I think if it's worth anything it must +be often a rebellious heart. I know mine is rebellious. But if you +don't think too much of me--when you are there--" + +She paused, and they looked at each other for a moment in silence. +Then she continued: + +"Surely it will be easier for you, happier for you." + +Androvsky clenched his right hand on the divan and turned round till +he was facing her full. His eyes blazed. + +"Domini," he said, "you are truthful. I'll be truthful to you. Till +the end of my life I'll think of you--every day, every hour. If it +were mortal sin to think of you I would commit it--yes, Domini, +deliberately, I would commit it. But--God doesn't ask so much of us; +no, God doesn't. I've made my confession. I know what I must do. I'll +do it. You are right--you are always right--you are guided, I know +that. But I will think of you. And I'll tell you something--don't +shirk from it, because it's truth, the truth of my soul, and you love +truth. Domini--" + +Suddenly he got up from the divan and stood before her, looking down +at her steadily. + +"Domini, I can't regret that I have seen you, that we have been +together, that we have loved each other, that we do love each other +for ever. I can't regret it; I can't even try or wish to. I can't +regret that I have learned from you the meaning of life. I know that +God has punished me for what I have done. In my love for you--till I +told you the truth, that other truth--I never had a moment of peace-- +of exultation, yes, of passionate exultation; but never, never a +moment of peace. For always, even in the most beautiful moments, there +has been agony for me. For always I have known that I was sinning +against God and you, against myself, my eternal vows. And yet now I +tell you, Domini, as I have told God since I have been able to pray +again, that I am glad, thankful, that I have loved you, been loved by +you. Is it wicked? I don't know. I can scarcely even care, because +it's true. And how can I deny the truth, strive against truth? I am as +I am, and I am that. God has made me that. God will forgive me for +being as I am. I'm not afraid. I believe--I dare to believe--that He +wishes me to think of you always till the end of my life. I dare to +believe that He would almost hate me if I could ever cease from loving +you. That's my other confession--my confession to you. I was born, +perhaps, to be a monk. But I was born, too, that I might love you and +know your love, your beauty, your tenderness, your divinity. If I had +not known you, if I had died a monk, a good monk who had never denied +his vows, I should have died--I feel it, Domini--in a great, a +terrible ignorance. I should have known the goodness of God, but I +should never have known part, a beautiful part, of His goodness. For I +should never have known the goodness that He has put into you. He has +taught me through you. He has tortured me through you; yes, but +through you, too, He has made me understand Him. When I was in the +monastery, when I was at peace, when I lost myself in prayer, when I +was absolutely pure, absolutely--so I thought--the child of God, I +never really knew God. Now, Domini, now I know Him. In the worst +moments of the new agony that I must meet at least I shall always have +that help. I shall always feel that I know what God is. I shall +always, when I think of you, when I remember you, be able to say, 'God +is love.'" + +He was silent, but his face still spoke to her, his eyes read her +eyes. And in that moment at last they understood each other fully and +for ever. "It was written"--that was Domini's thought--"it was written +by God." Far away the church bell chimed. + +"Boris," Domini said quietly, "we must go to-day. We must leave Beni- +Mora. You know that?" + +"Yes," he said, "I know." + +He looked out into the garden. The almost fierce resolution, that had +something in it of triumph, faded from him. + +"Yes," he said, "this is the end, the real end, for--there, it will +all be different--it will be terrible." + +"Let us sit here for a little while together," Domini said, "and be +quiet. Is it like the garden of El-Largani, Boris?" + +"No. But when I first came here, when I saw the white walls, the great +door, when I saw the poor Arabs gathered there to receive alms, it +made me feel almost as if I were at El-Largani. That was why----" he +paused. + +"I understand, Boris, I understand everything now." + +And then they were silent. Such a silence as theirs was then could +never be interpreted to others. In it the sorrows, the aspirations, +the struggles, the triumphs, the torturing regrets, the brave +determinations of poor, great, feeble, noble humanity were enclosed as +in a casket--a casket which contains many kinds of jewels, but surely +none that are not precious. + +And the garden listened, and beyond the garden the desert listened-- +that other garden of Allah. And in this garden was not Allah, too, +listening to this silence of his children, this last mutual silence of +theirs in the garden where they had wandered, where they had loved, +where they had learned a great lesson and drawn near to a great +victory? + +They might have sat thus for hours; they had lost all count of time. +But presently, in the distance among the trees, there rose a light, +frail sound that struck into both their hearts like a thin weapon. It +was the flute of Larbi, and it reminded them--of what did it not +remind them? All their passionate love of the body, all their +lawlessness, all the joy of liberty and of life, of the barbaric life +that is liberty, all their wandering in the great spaces of the sun, +were set before them in Larbi's fluttering tune, that was like the +call of a siren, the call of danger, the call of earth and of earthly +things, summoning them to abandon the summons of the spirit. Domini +got up swiftly. + +"Come, Boris," she said, without looking at him. + +He obeyed her and rose to his feet. + +"Let us go to the wall," she said, "and look out once more on the +desert. It must be nearly noon. Perhaps--perhaps we shall hear the +call to prayer." + +They walked down the winding alleys towards the edge of the garden. +The sound of the flute of Larbi died away gradually into silence. Soon +they saw before them the great spaces of the Sahara flooded with the +blinding glory of the summer sunlight. They stood and looked out over +it from the shelter of some pepper trees. No caravans were passing. No +Arabs were visible. The desert seemed utterly empty, given over, +naked, to the dominion of the sun. While they stood there the nasal +voice of the Mueddin rose from the minaret of the mosque of Beni-Mora, +uttered its fourfold cry, and died away. + +"Boris," Domini said, "that is for the Arabs, but for us, too, for we +belong to the garden of Allah as they do, perhaps even more than +they." + +"Yes, Domini." + +She remembered how, long ago, Count Anteoni had stood there with her +and repeated the words of the angel to the Prophet, and she murmured +them now: + +"O thou that art covered, arise, and magnify thy Lord, and purify thy +clothes, and depart from uncleanness." + +Then, standing side by side, they prayed, looking at the desert. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +In the evening of that day they left Beni-Mora. + +Domini wished to go quietly, but, knowing the Arabs, she feared it +would be impossible. Nevertheless, when she paid Batouch in the hotel +and thanked him for all his services, she said: + +"We'll say adieu here, Batouch." + +The poet displayed a large surprise. + +"But I will accompany Madame to the station. I will--" + +"It is not necessary." + +Batouch looked offended but obstinate. His ample person became almost +rigid. + +"If I am not at the station, Madame, what will Hadj think, and Ali, +and Ouardi, and--" + +"They will be there?" + +"Of course, Madame. Where else should they be? Does Madame wish to +leave us like a thief in the night, or like--" + +"No, no, Batouch. I am very grateful to you all, but especially to +you." + +Batouch began to smile. + +"Madame has entered into our hearts as no other stranger has ever +done," he remarked. "Madame understands the Arabs. We shall all come +to say /au revoir/ and to wish Madame and Monsieur a happy journey." + +For the moment the irony of her situation struck Domini so forcibly +that she could say nothing. She only looked at Batouch in silence. + +"What is it? But I know. Madame is sad at leaving the desert, at +leaving Beni-Mora." + +"Yes, Batouch. I am sad at leaving Beni-Mora." + +"But Madame will return?" + +"Who knows?" + +"I know. The desert has a spell. He who has once seen the desert must +see it again. The desert calls and its voice is always heard. Madame +will hear it when she is far away, and some day she will feel, 'I must +come back to the land of the sun and to the beautiful land of +forgetfulness.'" + +"I shall see you at the station, Batouch," Domini said quickly. "Good- +bye till then." + +The train for Tunis started at sundown, in order that the travellers +might avoid the intense heat of the day. All the afternoon they kept +within doors. The Arabs were sleeping in dark rooms. The gardens were +deserted. Domini could not sleep. She sat near the French window that +opened on to the verandah and said a silent good-bye to life. For that +was what she felt--that life was leaving her, life with its intensity, +its fierce meaning. She had come out of a sort of death to find life +in Beni-Mora, and now she felt that she was going back again to +something that would be like death. After her strife there came a +numbness of the spirit, a heavy dullness. Time passed and she sat +there without moving. Sometimes she looked at the trunks lying on the +floor ready for the journey, at the labels on which was written "Tunis +/via/ Constantine." And then she tried to imagine what it would be +like to travel in the train after her long travelling in the desert, +and what it would be like to be in a city. But she could not. The heat +was intense. Perhaps it affected her mind through her body. Faintly, +far down in her mind and heart, she knew that she was wishing, even +longing, to realise all that these last hours in Beni-Mora meant, to +gather up in them all the threads of her life and her sensations +there, to survey, as from a height, the panorama of the change that +had come to her in Africa. But she was frustrated. + +The hours fled, and she remained cold, listless. Often she was hardly +thinking at all. When the Arab servant came in to tell her that it was +time to start for the station she got up slowly and looked at him +vaguely. + +"Time to go already?" she asked. + +"Yes, Madame. I have told Monsieur." + +"Very well." + +At this moment Androvsky came into the room. + +"The carriage is waiting," he said. + +She felt almost as if a stranger was speaking to her. + +"I am ready," she said. + +And without looking round the room she went downstairs and got into +the carriage. + +They drove to the station without speaking. She had not seen Father +Roubier. Androvsky took the tickets. When they came out upon the +platform they found there a small crowd of Arab friends, with Batouch +in command. Among them were the servants who had accompanied them upon +their desert journey, and Hadj. He came forward smiling to shake +hands. When she saw him Domini remembered Irena, and, forgetting that +it is not etiquette to inquire after an Arab's womenfolk, she said: + +"Ah, Hadj, and are you happy now? How is Irena?" + +Hadj's face fell, and he showed his pointed teeth in a snarl. For a +moment he hesitated, looking round at the other Arabs. Then he said: + +"I am always happy, Madame." + +Domini saw that she had made a mistake. She took out her purse and +gave him five francs. + +"A parting present," she said. + +Hadj shook his head with recovered cheerfulness, tucked in his chin +and laughed. Domini turned away, shook hands with all her dark +acquaintances, and climbed up into the train, followed by Androvsky. +Batouch sprang upon the step as the porter shut the door. + +"Madame!" he exclaimed. + +"What is it, Batouch?" + +"To-day you have put Hadj to shame." + +He smiled broadly. + +"I? How? What have I done?" + +"Irena is dancing at Onargla, far away in the desert beyond Amara." + +"Irena! But--" + +"She could not live shut up in a room. She could not wear the veil for +Hadj." + +"But then--?" + +"She has divorced him, Madame. It is easy here. For a few francs one +can--" + +The whistle sounded. The train jerked. Batouch seized her hand, seized +Androvsky's, sprang back to the platform. + +"Good-bye, Batouch! Good-bye, Ouardi! Good-bye, Smain!" + +The train moved on. As it reached the end of the platform Domini saw +an emaciated figure standing there alone, a thin face with glittering +eyes turned towards her with a glaring scrutiny. It was the sand- +diviner. He smiled at her, and his smile contracted the wound upon his +face, making it look wicked and grotesque like the face of a demon. +She sank down on the seat. For a moment, a hideous moment, she felt as +if he personified Beni-Mora, as if this smile were Beni-Mora's +farewell to her and to Androvsky. + +And Irena was dancing at Onargla, far away in the desert. + +She remembered the night in the dancing-house, Irena's attack upon +Hadj. + +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. |