Chapter V (3)

To the sound of these bells, in full view of all the folks riding through the dirty by-lane that leads past the wind-mill, Shasha is standing nigh his threshold; his belt is loose, and, bending downward, he holds a wooden vessel with water in one hand and with the other hand, which is wet, he is rubbing his bearded, pock-marked face, all puffy from sleep. How little does this thick-set _moujik_ in broken boots resemble the former Shasha! He appears calmer than before, yet still more morose. His hair is fearfully thick even now, but it is already shaggy, like a _moujik’s_. Having washed himself, he tears his hair apart with a wooden comb, combs out his tangled round beard, clears his throat hoarsely, and eyes his little mirror askance,--eyes his broad, porous face, with the squashed nose. He hasn’t forgotten that he looks like a hangman. And really, he does look like one,--especially now. Having combed himself, he puts on a blouse that he saves for gala occasions,--it is of red calico, and its dye will come off on his body when he will begin to perspire. On week days he becomes stultified from ennui, from over-sleeping, from the fact that no one any longer pays any attention to him, or listens to him; his boasting about his former state, his hints about that which was supposed to lurk within his soul, and his foul tattling about his runaway wife, have all long since palled upon everybody. But to-day is a holiday; to-day people would look with curiosity upon him, the erstwhile man of wealth now walking around on his uppers; to-day he would be playing before an enormous crowd, to-day he would be fearfully beaten,--beaten until he would lose conscience,--right before the eyes of all this crowd.... And lo, he is already entering into his rôle; he is already excited; his jaws are tightly clenched; his eye-brows are distorted.... Having togged himself out, he puts on a rusty cap, and, with a constrained step, resolutely and steadily sets out for the village.

The strangest part of all is the piety with which he begins this day. He goes directly toward the church, and, without looking at anybody, but with all his being feeling upon him the eyes of everybody surrounding him, he bows and makes the sign of the cross with all his might. In the church he shoves his way to the very ambo, where at one time he had had his own rightful place, and at that moment he is filled to the marrow of his bones with contempt for the _moujiks_, reminding them briefly and sternly, like one having authority, that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to wake up and stand aside. And the _moujiks_ hastily comply. Glowering like a bull from underneath his eye-brows at the officiating priests and the icons, he prays frenziedly and austerely until the very end of the mass, haughtily demonstrating to everybody that he is the only one who knows just the right time to bow and to make the sign of the cross. Just as austerely does he walk through the fair after the mass, proud of the fact that he had already had a drink or two, that he could approach some trader in his tent as an equal, shaking his hand and leaning over the counter, scooping up a handful of polly-seeds and bothering the trader with his conversations about the city, and about the state of trade.... He was also proud of the fact that he could at times yell at the droves of wenches, pressing one another against the counter, like sheep; or at some _moujik_ that, with a bag under his arm,--there would be a young pig squirming around in that bag,--has already tested all the penny whistles, all the mouth organs, and could not, for the life of him, decide which one to take. The people, pouring out of the church, have flooded the common; the belfries are pealing forth their chimes; the beggars are snufflingly clamorous; the live-stock--which is also bought and sold during the Kiriki--bleats and hee-haws; and in the dense crowd, spitting out polly-seed shells and slipping up in the mire between the tents, there are already many intoxicated men. Shasha has already managed to drink some more, and feels that the right time has come. Having had his fill of talking with the traders, he goes with resolute steps toward the carrousels. A countless multitude of people has gathered there, watching, until their heads, too, begin to go ’round and ’round, the wooden horses and their riders. Almost all of Limovo is there, and, towering a head taller above everybody, is the soldier’s wife’s husband. Shasha’s hands grow cold; his lips quiver; but he pretends not to notice his foe. He approaches his acquaintances, pulls a bottle out of his pocket, regales anybody who comes along, and drinks himself. He talks a great deal, and loudly; he smokes, and laughs unnaturally and malevolently; but all the while he is on the alert, waiting.... And now, pretending to be hopelessly drunk, in a new cap with the store’s price tag still showing white upon it, clean shaven, well-fed, with sleepy blue eyes, the soldier advances straight upon Shasha, and with all his momentum, as though without seeing him, strikes him in the chest with his shoulder. Shasha, gritting his teeth, steps to one side and continues his conversation. But the soldier comes back, again passes him,--and once more hits him in the chest with his shoulder! Whereupon, as though unable to bear such insolence, Shasha distorts his face,--distorted enough without that,--and drawls out through his teeth:

“E-eh, young fellow! Watch out that I don’t shove you in my own way!”

And the soldier, instantly checking his headlong progress, suddenly staggers backward and roars out furiously:

“What’s ’at?”

Amid the hubbub and rumble of the fair, amid the clanging of the carrousel bells and the delighted, hypocritically-sympathizing shouts of the oh’ing and parting crowd, the soldier stuns Shasha and draws his blood with the very first blow. Shasha, trying to get his fingers into the soldier’s mouth, true to an old usage of the _moujiks_, in order to tear his lips, pounces upon him like a beast,--and instantly falls down in the mire as if he were dead, underneath the iron-shod heels that beat heavily upon his chest, upon his shaggy head, upon his nose, upon his eyes,--already glazed, as in a ram with his throat cut. And all the folks “oh” and “ah” and wonder: “There’s a queer, incomprehensible fellow for you! Why, he knew, he knew beforehand how this matter would end! Why did he go into it, then?” And truly,--why did he? And toward what, in general, is he so insistently and undeviatingly heading, as he devastates his ruined dwelling from day to day, endeavouring to eradicate even to the last atom the very traces of that which was created, in such an unprecedented manner, by the uncouth genius of Roman, and ceaselessly thirsts after humiliations, disgrace, and beatings?

Within the church enclosure, on the way to the door of the chapel, there were some horrible specimens of humanity, standing ranged in two files. In her yearning for self-torture; in her yearning-loathing of the curbing bit, of toil, of her mode of existence; in her infatuation with all sorts of hideous visages (both those of the tragedian and of the scaramouche), in her dark, criminal desires, in her lack of will power, her eternal disquiet, in her misfortunes, sorrows and poverty,--Russia breeds these people from of old, and without end. In Limovo alone some half-hundred of them gather. And what faces are these, what heads! Just as if they had come out of the crude wood-cuts made in Kiev, which depict both fiends and the striving anchorites of the Mother-Desert. There are ancients with such withered heads, with such scant locks of long gray hair, with such noses, as thin as thin can be, and with the slits of their unseeing eyes so deeply fallen in, that they seem to have lain for centuries in the caverns where they had been walled up still in the time of the Kiev princes.... And they had come out of there in half-rotted tatters; they had thrown upon their remains their beggars’ wallets, fastening them cross-wise behind their shoulders with odd bits of rope, and had set off on their wanderings from one end of Russia to the other, through her forests, over her steppes, in the winds of her steppes....

There are lantern-jawed blind men,--sturdy and squat _moujiks_, that look just like pilloried convicts who have killed their scores of souls,--these have solid, square heads, their faces seem to have been hacked out by an axe, and their bare legs are swollen with livid blood and are unnaturally short, even as their arms are. There are common idiots, huge of shoulder and of leg. There are malignant dwarfs with bird-like faces. There are wedge-headed hunch-backs, who seem to be wearing pointed caps made out of horse-hair. There are monstrous marasmi, squatting back on their crooked legs like terriers. There are foreheads squeezed in at the sides and forming skulls that look like the cap of an acorn. There are bony old women, without a vestige of a nose,--for all the world like Death itself.... And all this mass, prominently displaying its tatters, its sores and cankers, vociferate in a Bulgarian, old-church sing-song, vociferates in rough basses, and castrated altos, and indescribably depraved tenors, about Lazarus and his sores, about Alexei the Man of God, who also, thirsting after poverty and martyrdom, did forsake his father’s roof, “knowing not whither he went....”

All these people, with their eye-brows writhing above their dark eyes, with an intuition, an instinct, as keen as that of certain primary sea creatures, instantly sense, surmise, the approach of a generous hand; and by now they have already grabbed up a not unconsiderable quantity of bread-crusts, of round cracknels, and of the _moujiks’_ coppers, grown green from contact with their execrable tobacco. After mass, with a chanting still more vigorous and importunate, they spread through the sea of the people, through the fair. The cripples, too, move after them,--legless creatures, crawling on their bottoms and on all fours, or lying in their eternal beds, in little carts. Here is one of these little carts. In it is a little bit of a man, about forty years of age, with his ears tied up in a woman’s kerchief; his milky-blue eyes are calm, and he has stuck out of his old rags a thin little hand,--violet-coloured, six-fingered. He is pulled about by a bright-eyed little lad, with exceedingly pointed little ears, and with fox-like down upon his head. All around him is a multitude of the fraternity, all of them, for some reason or other, also tied up with kerchiefs. And out of all this fraternity one _moujik_ with a large white face stands out he is all broken up, all maimed; there is no bottom to him at all, and he has on but one fusty bast shoe. Probably, he, too, had been beaten-up somewheres as thoroughly as Shasha: his entire kerchief, his ear, his neck and one shoulder are all in caked blood. In his long bag there are pieces of raw meat, cooked bits of mutton, bread crusts, and millet. His seat, now, is sewn up with a bit of leather,--and twisting himself all up, he squirms and starts off, on and on over the mire, extending in front of him his unshod foot, his leg half-bare, in lime-covered scabs that are oozing with matter and pasted over with strips of burdock.

“Look ye, ye faithful,--look and behold ye! This is reckoned, from of old, as the disease of leprosy!” a freckled tatterdemallion beside him is shouting in a rapid recitave, which is right rollicking....

And it is toward these people that Shasha is heading. He lives for some two or three years more in his mill; he celebrates three or four fairs more; he again enters into battle with the soldier three or four times: kind-hearted folks bring him to by throwing water out of wooden tubs upon him as he lies without breath or speech; without opening his eyes, he drags his wet head over the ground, back and forth, and moans out painfully through his clenched teeth.

“All r-r-right, good folks! I say nothing! I al-ways say nothing!”

Then he is brought to the mill; he lies for two weeks over the stove, little by little getting better, and soon he is again traipsing around the low-down inns; he brags, he lies, he curses out everybody and everything, he smites his breast with his fists, threatening all his foes,--but the soldier especially. But once the Kiriki turn out to be unfortunate,--the soldier breaks Shasha’s arm with his heel, and shatters the bridge of his nose, and knocks out his eyes. Lo, now Shasha is both blind and a cripple. The soldier’s wife abandons him; his mill, his land, is taken by good folks for his debts. And now Shasha is safe in harbour; now he is a fully-privileged member of the horde of beggars that stand in the church enclosure during the Kiriki,--bone of its bone, flesh of its flesh. All in tatters, with a round and thick beard, with his head clipped so closely that it looks like a hedge-hog, he wildly distorts his eye-brows over his empty, drawn-over sockets, and hoarsely bawls in time with the others the beggars’ soul-wringing canticles. The chorus sombrely rends the air, to the best of each member’s ability, and the voices of the leader stand out resonantly, as they bawl out every syllable:

There once lived three sisters; there were once three Marys of Egypt,--
In three parts did they their wealth divide:
One part was set aside for the blind and the sick;
One part was set aside for prisons, for dark dungeons;
The third part was set aside for churches, for cathedrals....

Shasha’s harsh voice chimes in, soaring above that of the others:

The time will come
When the earth, the sky shall be shaken;
The least stones shall crumble,
The Lord’s thrones shall tumble,
The sun and the moon shall grow dim,--
And the Lord shall cause a river of fire to flow....

And blending, swelling, attaining a sinister and a triumphant force, the entire choir becomes throatily, sonorously clamorous:

Mi-cha-el the Arch-angel,
Shall make all earthly creatures perish;
He shall blow his trumpets,
He shall say to all mankind:
Ye had your life and being,
Having your own free will;
Ye did shun church-going,--
At matins ye were sleeping,
At vespers ye were eating,--
Your paradise stands ready:
Fires never dying,
Tortures past all bearing!

_1913._

DEATH

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!...

This is a tale of the death of a prophet,--peace to his ashes!--told that the doubters may be convinced of the need for submission to The Leader.

“We have never beheld Him, nor do we behold Him now,” say they. But the sun is not at fault in that vision has been denied to the eyes of a bat. The heart of man aye seeketh faith and protection. But who would seek protection from an owl? It is better to dream of the shadow of the phœnix, even though the phœnix may never have existed in this world. But the protecting shadow of the Creator exists since the start of time.

The black-eared jackal slinks in the steps of a lion: the lion knoweth where the prey is, and the black-eared one findeth sustenance in the remnants of the lion’s repast. Thus did the Hebrews follow their prophet out of the land of Egypt. Through the favour of God did he fulfill the mighty deed he had set out to do.

In his infancy he had experienced the delight of slumber, of awakening, of endearment. The daughter of the king had rocked him in her arms, dark and rounded, smooth as a snake, but as warm as fruit in the sun. Joyously and intently did her dark eyes gaze upon him, as they shone above him; and impulsively did she kiss him, pressing him to her cold breasts; she would pretend to strangle him, as is the wont of all maidens. When recalling the like, many a one exclaims within his heart: “Why was I not a youth then!” But there is a time for all things.

The Pharaoh did bestow upon him a ring with a seal of authority, and did clothe him in the garments of a courtier. When the freshness of the morning is supplanted by the warmth of the sun; when, in the marketplace, the fennel is sprinkled to draw the scent of the purchaser; when there is a smell of burning peat floating from the chimneys, and a smell of fog from the direction of the great river, upon which towering white sails slowly float by, two abreast, the while a thin-bearded buffalo, as dove-coloured and rough-skinned as a swine, dully contemplates them, as he arises from the slime near the bank,--at such a time the prophet, conscious of his powers and alertness, did ride about in his chariot, overlooking the labours in the fields, and had the right to lash the lazy ones over the head with his scourge, to yell at them until he became red in the face, so that he might afterwards, in the sweet consciousness of a duty fulfilled, repose in the light shade of the palms, upon a dry dike among the canals.

Having attained manhood, he spent ten years in wedlock. He shared his couch with a woman rich and well-born; he took his pleasure of her in the night,--in the daytime his pleasure lay in his orders and his cares, in drink and food, in the buoyancy of his body, that liked equally well both the dry sultriness of an inner court, emanating from its heated slabs of stone, and the cool breath of a breeze throughout the house, blowing from the river and from the blossoming gardens of its island. He took pride in his children, in his household, in the respect shown to him of all men. And he was happy, even as many others are. But an unseen hand was making taut the bow of his life; it was testing the bow-string and the wood, preparing to loose the arrows of truth. And ten years more did he pass in the striving of his mind and his heart, in the silent acquirement of the wisdom of Egypt; for the wall is preceded by the foundation, and speech, by thought. And he hath said of the heathen priests: “Ye men of folly! Slaves, tormented by heat, may be forgiven for raising their arms toward the sun, and supplicating it as God. But the sun is not God. None may behold God. He is beyond our comprehension. He may only be sensed. There is but one God. He hath no offspring.” Whereupon the Pharaoh was possessed by a fury, even as the _gour_, the wild-ass, is overtaken by his madness. “Who is he that dares to live and to believe without my sanction?” he exclaimed. “He hath no precious rings upon his fingers, nor is there a necklace about his neck. He is but my slave. Therefore shall I set up a persecution of him and of all his tribe. I shall flash like the lightning, I shall deafen like thunder.” But the prophet gathered his strength together, even as a man that standeth before the steep ascent of a hill, and went upon his way, fearless and assured.

Musk is brayed, aloes are put in the fire, that they might give forth their perfume. A diver would never pluck a single pearl-bearing shell, were he to fear holding in his breath as he plunges into the sea. And when the time had come to lift up the heaviest stone for the structure, to throw it up on the knee, to clasp it as firmly as possible and to carry it, the prophet did lift it, so strenuously that he felt a pain in his groin. And for forty years did he carry it in the desert, ever at a strain, ever enduring fatigue, and joyous in the consciousness that he was working the will of God, and not of the Pharaoh. And, having carried it to the required spot, to the spot indicated by the Builder, he did cast down the stone, so that it lay even and flush; and he did straighten up, and did wipe the sweat from his face, with a trembling arm that had grown weak and was aching to the very shoulder.

And the time came for him to die.

He had attained to a knowledge of the veritable God. He had become convinced that it was madness to represent Him in the form of idols made of stone, of clay, and of metal. God had put upon him the task of delivering the Hebrew nation out of bondage and from the temptation of idolatry,--and he had rent asunder the silken nets of this world, he had risen up and had conquered in the wrestling. God had put him to the proof,--for forty years to be a chieftain for the refractory and the weak, to command and instruct in a desert that held nothing but hunger and sultriness. And for forty years he had been as mighty as a king; as tireless as a day-labourer burthened with a multitude of children; as needy as a shepherd; brawny and tall as a wrestler, strong and tawny as a lion. His body, girt only about the loins with an animal pelt, had become black from the sun and the wind, while his feet had become rough and callous, like those of a camel. In his old age he had become awesome to men, and none of them deemed him mortal. But his hour did approach at last.

O ye who hearken! In The Book it is written: “All are conceived in the lap of truth,--it is the parents that make Hebrews, Christians, Fire-Worshippers out of the children.” But a sage is like a blind man: he feeleth every stone in his path, choosing the path that is the right one; he raiseth his face upward, yearning for the sole source of light and warmth. He considereth life, and he considereth death, lessening his fear before the latter. And there have been not a few of those who have received the chalice of the inevitable with equanimity; there have also been those who have said: “It is even as sweet as the chalice of life.” However, it is but the fool that yearneth for the chalice of death during life,--such a one is loathsome to behold. But he also is a fool that giveth no thought to the inevitable, that forgetteth that all mortals ought to have but one Beloved, Who possesseth clemency and demandeth submission. O ye who hearken! Hearken attentively, as man ought always to hearken to man; and, as ye hearken, reflect. For, as we speak, we are but mixing the good words of others with the passable ones of our own, dealing with that which is foreign to none of us; and the purpose of our speech is consolation.

In The Book it is written: “I that am God am nearer to man than the artery that sendeth him slumber.” God is compassionate. He knoweth what is good for us and what is bad. He did create us mortal, yet we think of resisting death. Vain striving! Have ye heard at what cost Iscander the Two-Horned attained the Land of Darkness? And yet, he did not succeed in quaffing of the water of eternal life, of which he had been told: It is to be found in the Land of Darkness. The Angel of the Winds is not perturbed by the fact that his wings may extinguish the lamp of some poor widow. The Messenger of Death heeds neither the prayer of a shepherd nor the outcry of a sovereign. Bide a while: earth shall devour the brains within our skulls, that are now filled with projects. Death is no Mogul, and thou art no Atabek-Abou-Bekr: thou canst not ransom thyself with gold from Death. Therefore, seek ye consolation.

The prophet did oppose the will of God in the desert, and heavy as his punishment for his disobedience: God forbade him to enter the Promised Land. The prophet did wax wroth in spirit that he was mortal, and that death was already nigh him, for he was old. Spake he: “I shall do single combat with it.” At noonday, passing through the camp of the Hebrews in the mountains of Moab, he did look, and beheld not his shadow upon the white stones nigh him. And he was seized with a fit of trembling from fear, and his head was confused, like that of a man that is fever-stricken. Thereupon he did go toward his tent, with the steps of a wounded beast advancing upon its adversary. And he girt a sword about him, and did command food to be brought to him. And he did eat much thereof, full greedily, till that he was sated. And he did feel aches and nausea, as though from poison, as though from the fruit plucked from the tree of hell; and he did wax green in the face, and was bathed in sweat, even as a woman in travail; and he did lie down upon the ground, crying out wildly: “Behold, I am dying,--bare your swords and arise in my defense!” Thus did he cry out upon the first day. On the second, his aches did wax greater, and he began to implore, moaning and wrathful: “Summon a physician for me!” But when the physician had revealed his impotence, and the third day had come, the prophet uttered low: “Oh, have mercy upon me! Death is unconquerable!” And he did grow weaker, and fell into a slumber, and did sleep through all the day, and his aches did depart from him. And, having come to, he beheld that it was already night and that he was alone, and again did he feel the delight of living, and the sorrow of parting with life. Whereupon two dark angels did enter in to him, that they might console and prepare him.

One sat down at the head of the couch; the other, at the feet of the prophet. “Speak!” said they. But he kept silent and made no reply to them, for he was in deep thought. He gazed out into the night, beyond the raised side of the tent, sensing their presence with dread, for truth had not yet entered within all his veins. And it was so quiet in the tent and the desert that all the three could hear the rustling of the hot wind as it swept by in the darkness. And the stars were flaming sombrely, as on all sultry nights.

“God is compassionate to all His creatures,” spake the angel who was sitting at the head of the prophet’s couch.

“Yet here is a man in torment; he was dying, and is dying now,” spake the angel sitting at the prophet’s feet.

They wanted to test the prophet, but he understood this. And he made answer, in his thoughts:

“This was not death, but an illness, a chastisement. Is it not better to think thus? For he that hath tasted of death cannot speak about it. We know not what it is.”

“The sun is the source of life,” spake the angel sitting at the head of the couch.

“But then, it is also as deadly as the horned viper,” spake the angel seated opposite him.

They wanted to test the prophet, but he understood this. And he made answer, in his thoughts:

“We do not know God’s purpose. But He is benign, and His purpose also is benign. Is it not better to think thus? Man ought to dedicate his every moment to life, recalling death only that he may weigh all his deeds upon its scales, and that he may meet the inevitable hour without fear. How would he that trades know that he is dealing fairly with him that buys, how would he know that he is giving him that which is his due, if there were no scales? How would a man spend his day, if his heart were never to be forsaken by indignation over the thought that the sun would sink at its wonted hour, and if he were to be possessed with the desire of preventing it? He would be insane and futile.”

“The slumber of the dead is sweet,” spake the angel sitting at the head of the couch.

“But, just now, a man has died in the camp of the Hebrews,--happy, young, beloved,” spake the angel seated opposite him. “Just hearken: there is the rustle of the hot wind; the stars flame sombrely; and the hyænas whine and whimper in their evil joy, hurriedly digging open the grave, sniffing its stench and anticipating the devouring of his entrails. But the sorrow of the dead man’s near ones is more dreadful than the grave itself.”

They wanted to test the prophet, and they did succeed in wounding his heart with the last. But, in his thoughts, he spake to them:

“I am recalling every moment of my life; every moment of my sweet childhood, my joyous youth, my laborious manhood--and I lament them. Ye speak of the grave,--and my hands grow chill from fear. I beseech ye,--console me not, for consolation depriveth one of courage. I beseech ye,--remind me not of the flesh, for it will turn to corruption. Is it not better to think otherwise? Even his halting place, in a vale sheltered from the winds, where he may have passed but a day, a man will abandon with regret; but it is his duty to go on, if to go on be necessary. Speaking with dread of the grave, are we not speaking in the words of the ancients, that knew the flesh, but knew not God and the immortality of souls? Dreadful is the majesty of the deeds of God. Do we not mistake this dread for the dread of death? Say ye to yourselves more often: ‘The hour of death is not as dreadful as we deem it. Else, neither the universe nor man could exist.’”

“He is a sage,” spake the angel sitting at the head of the couch.

“He was refractory and arrogant,” spake the angel seated opposite the first. “He dreamed of wrestling with God,--and now he shall be punished anew: never a mortal shall point to his grave in the mountains of Moab. And thereby shall his glory be diminished.”

They wanted to test the prophet, but he understood, and answered them unwaveringly:

“Goodly is the glory of those that merit glory. But that which has earned diminution, must be diminished. For even the most glorious of men would rejoice only in the true measure of glory.”

Thereupon the angels, struck by the wisdom of the prophet, did exclaim, as they arose from their places:

“Truly, God Himself shall console thee! We can but bow down before thee.”

They were dark, and they were standing in a dark tent. But their eyes shone, and the prophet beheld the starry radiance of their eyes. They retreated into the night, like shades, barely stooping at the doorway of the tent. As for the prophet, he remained alone in the midst of the night and the desert, lying upon the earth. And when the sun had arisen from behind the craggy mountains, and it grew light and hot within the tent, the prophet, feeling a great longing to rest amid coolness, did forsake his couch, and did bend his steps toward a vale in the mountains, seeking shade. But there was none even in the vale by now. However, in the inmost recesses of one mountain he came upon a cavern. And behold, two captives were hacking away with sharp picks at the entrance into this cavern. The stones at the entrance were as white as the snow upon mountain-tops, and were hot from the sun. And the black hair of the copper-faced captives, as well as the cloths about their loins, were wet with perspiration. But two fresh fruits, two apples, were lying upon a stone near the cavern, while in the cavern itself it was dark and cool. And the labourers, lowering their picks, spake, saying:

“We greet thee, lord and chieftain, in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Lo, we have finished our labour.”

And the prophet asked them:

“Who are ye, and what were ye doing?”

To which they did answer:

“We were preparing a treasure-chamber for the king. Enter, look about thee, and rest from thy journey and the heat. Refresh thy lips with the fruits, and tell us which is the sweeter and riper one.”

And, having entered the cavern, the prophet did sit down upon a stone couch nigh one of its walls, and did feel the shade and the coolness. And, having bitten of the first fruit, he spake:

“Verily, this is life itself: I am drinking water from a spring, I scent the pleasant odours of the flowers of the fields, and I feel the taste of aspen honey. I am vigorous, and I am strong.”

And, having bitten of the second, he exclaimed:

“Verily, there is nothing to compare with this: I am drinking the wines of paradise, sealed with a seal of musk, blended with the water of a well-spring that quencheth the thirst of those who draw nigh to The Eternal. I scent the fragrance of a celestial garden, and feel the taste of the honey of its flowers,--nor hath this honey any bitter tang. And lo, a blessed drowsiness befogs my head. Awake me not, O ye captives, till that my time be fulfilled.”

And the captives,--they were angels, the captives of God,--quietly went on, as his speech died away:

“Till that the sun,” uttered the first, reading the _Sura_, the Canticle, of the Great Tidings--“till that the sun be bent, till that the stars rain down from the sky, and the mountains remove from their place, and the she-camels be abandoned, and the seas do boil up....”

“I am S’in,” uttered the second, reading the _Sura_ for the Departing. “Glory be to Him that reigneth over all the universe! Ye all shall return to Him!...”

And, hearing their whispers, but without catching their words, the prophet did lie down upon the couch, and did repose in the sleep of death, knowing not thereof. And the angels did wall up the entrance to the sepulchral cavern, and did depart to the Master Who had sent them. And the prophet was joined to his people, having had his fill of days, and without perceiving the end thereof. Never a man, even to this day, has yet contemplated his tomb in the mountains of Moab. But his wisdom is imprinted in the memory of all peoples, and is recorded in Heaven in _Ghilliun_, the Book Eternal.

The Sheikh Saadi,--may his name be blessed!--the Sheikh Saadi,--many of his pearls have we strung side by side with our own, upon the string of a good style!--hath told us of a man who had tasted the bliss of drawing nigh The Beloved. This man had been lost in contemplation; but when he had come back to the everyday world, he was asked with a kindly mockery: “But where are the flowers from the garden of your reverie?” And the man made answer: “I desired to bring back the whole skirt of my coat full of roses for my friends; but, when I had drawn nigh the rose-bush, I was so intoxicated by its fragrance that I did release it out of my hands.”

Let him that can connect the story of the poet with our own.

Peace and joy be the portion of all that dwell upon this earth!

_1911._

THE GENTLEMAN FROM SAN FRANCISCO

_Alas, alas that great city Babylon,
that mighty city!_

THE APOCALYPSE

The gentleman from San Francisco--neither at Naples nor at Capri had any one remembered his name--was going to the Old World for two whole years, with wife and daughter, solely for the sake of pleasure.

He was firmly convinced that he was fully entitled to rest, to pleasure, to prolonged and comfortable travel, and to not a little else besides. For such a conviction he had his reasons,--that, in the first place, he was rich, and, in the second, that he was only now beginning to live, despite his eight and fifty years. Until now he had not lived, but had merely existed,--not at all badly, it is true, but, never the less, putting all his hopes on the future. He had laboured with never a pause for rest,--the coolies, whom he had imported by whole thousands, well knew what this meant!--and finally he saw that much had already been accomplished, that he had almost come abreast of those whom he had at one time set out to emulate, and he decided to enjoy breathing space. It was a custom among the class of people to which he belonged to commence their enjoyment of life with a journey to Europe, to India, to Egypt. He, too, proposed to do the same. Of course he desired, first of all, to reward himself for his years of toil; however, he rejoiced on account of his wife and daughter as well. His wife had never been distinguished for any special sensitiveness to new impressions,--but then, all elderly American women are fervid travellers. As for his daughter,--a girl no longer in her first youth, and somewhat sickly,--travel was a downright necessity for her: to say nothing of the benefit to her health, were there no fortuitous encounters during travels? It is while travelling that one may at times sit at table with a _milliardaire_, or scrutinize frescoes by his side.

The itinerary worked out by the gentleman from San Francisco was an extensive one. In December and January he hoped to enjoy the sun of Southern Italy, the monuments of antiquity, the _tarantella_, the serenades of strolling singers, and that which men of his age relish with the utmost _finesse_: the love of little, youthful Neapolitaines, even though it be given not entirely without ulterior motives; he contemplated spending the Carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, whither the very pick of society gravitates at that time,--that very society upon which all the benefits of civilization depend: not merely the cut of tuxedos, but, as well, the stability of thrones, and the declaration of wars, and the prosperity of hotels,--Monte Carlo, where some give themselves up with passion to automobile and sail races; others to roulette; a third group to that which it is the custom to call flirting; a fourth, to trap-shooting, in which the pigeons, released from their cotes, soar up most gracefully above emerald-green swards, against the background of a sea that is the colour of forget-me-nots,--only, in the same minute, to strike against the ground as little, crumpled clods of white.... The beginning of March he wanted to devote to Florence; about the time of the Passion of Our Lord to arrive at Rome, in order to hear the _Miserere_ there; his plans also embraced Venice, and Paris, and bull-fighting in Seville, and sea-bathing in the British Islands, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt, and even Japan,--of course, be it understood, already on the return trip.... And everything went very well at first.

It was the end of November; almost as far as Gibraltar it was necessary to navigate now through an icy murk, now amidst a blizzard of wet snow; but the ship sailed in all safety and even without rolling; the passengers the steamer was carrying proved to be many, and all of them people of note; the ship--the famous _Atlantida_--resembled the most expensive of European hotels, with all conveniences: an all-night bar, Turkish baths, a newspaper of its own,--and life upon it flowed in accordance with a most complicated system of regulations: people got up early, to the sounds of bugles, stridently resounding through the corridors at that dark hour when day was so slowly and inimically dawning over the grayish-green desert of waters, ponderously turbulent in the mist. Putting on their flannel pyjamas, the passengers drank coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they got into marble baths, did their exercises, inducing an appetite and a sense of well-being, performed their toilet for the day, and went to breakfast. Until eleven one was supposed to promenade the decks vigorously, inhaling the fresh coolness of the ocean, or to play at shuffle-board and other games for the sake of arousing the appetite anew, and, at eleven, to seek sustenance in bouillon and sandwiches; having refreshed themselves, the passengers perused their newspaper with gusto and calmly awaited lunch, a meal still more nourishing and varied than the breakfast. The next two hours were sacred to repose,--the decks were then encumbered with _chaises longues_, upon which the travellers reclined, covered up with plaids, contemplating the cloud-flecked sky and the foaming hummocks flashing by over the side, or else pleasantly dozing off; at five o’clock, refreshed and put in good spirits, they were drenched with strong fragrant tea, served with cookies; at seven they were apprized by bugle signals of a dinner of nine courses.... And thereupon the gentleman from San Francisco, in an access of animal spirits, would hurry to his resplendent _cabine de luxe_, to dress.

In the evening the tiers of the _Atlantida_ gaped through the dusk as though they were fiery, countless eyes, and a great multitude of servants worked with especial feverishness in the kitchens, sculleries, and wine vaults. The ocean, heaving on the other side of the walls, was awesome; but none gave it a thought, firmly believing it under the sway of the captain,--a red-haired, man of monstrous bulk and ponderousness, always seeming sleepy, resembling, in his uniform frock-coat, with its golden chevrons, an enormous idol; it was only very rarely that he left his mysterious quarters to appear in public. A siren on the forecastle howled every minute in hellish sullenness and whined in frenzied malice, but not many of the diners heard the siren,--it was drowned by the strains of a splendid stringed orchestra, playing exquisitely and ceaselessly in the two-tiered hall, decorated with marble, its floors covered with velvet rugs; festively flooded with the lights of crystal lustres and gilded _girandoles_, filled to overflowing with diamond-bedecked ladies in _décoletté_ and men in tuxedos, graceful waiters and deferent _maitres d’hôtel_,--among whom one, who took orders for wines exclusively, even walked about with a chain around his neck, like a lord mayor. A tuxedo and perfect linen made the gentleman from San Francisco appear very much younger. Spare, not tall, clumsily but strongly built, groomed until he shone and moderately animated, he sat in the aureate-pearly refulgence of this palatial room, at a table with a bottle of amber Johannesberg, with countless goblets, small and large, of the thinnest glass, with a curly bouquet of curly hyacinths. There was something of the Mongol about his yellowish face with clipped silvery moustache; his large teeth gleamed with gold fillings; his stalwart, bald head glistened like old ivory. Rich, yet in keeping with her years, was the dress of his wife,--a big woman, expansive and calm; elaborate, yet light and diaphanous, with an innocent frankness, was that of his daughter,--tall, slender, with magnificent hair, exquisitely dressed, with breath aromatic from violet cachous and with the tenderest of tiny, rosy pimples about her lips and between her shoulder blades, just the least bit powdered.... The dinner lasted for two whole hours, while after dinner there was dancing in the ball room, during which the men,--the gentleman from San Francisco among their number, of course,--with their feet cocked up, determined, upon the basis of the latest political and stock-exchange news, the destinies of nations, smoking Habana cigars and drinking _liqueurs_ until they were crimson in the face, seated in the bar, where the waiters were negroes in red jackets, the whites of their eyes resembling hard boiled eggs with the shell off. The ocean, with a dull roar, was moiling in black mountains on the other side of the wall; the snow-gale whistled mightily through the sodden rigging; the whole steamer quivered as it mastered both the gale and the mountains, sundering to either side, as though with a plough, their shifting masses, that again and again boiled up and reared high, with tails of foam; the siren, stifled by the fog, was moaning with a deathly anguish; the lookouts up in their crow’s-nest froze from the cold and grew dazed from straining their attention beyond their strength. Like to the grim and sultry depths of the infernal regions, like to their ultimate, their ninth circle, was the womb of the steamer, below the water line,--that womb where dully gurgled the gigantic furnaces, devouring with their incandescent maws mountains of hard coal, cast into them by men stripped to the waist, purple from the flames, and with smarting, filthy sweat pouring over them; whereas here, in the bar, men threw their legs over the arms of their chairs with never a care, sipping cognac and _liqueurs_, and were wafted among clouds of spicy smoke as they indulged in well-turned conversation; in the ball room everything was radiant with light and warmth and joy; the dancing couples were now awhirl in waltzes, now twisting in the tango,--and the music insistently, in some delectably-shameless melancholy, was suppliant always of the one, always of the same thing.... There was an ambassador among this brilliant throng,--a lean, modest little old man; there was a great man of riches,--clean-shaven, lanky, of indeterminate years, and with the appearance of a prelate, in his dress-coat of an old-fashioned cut; there was a well-known Spanish writer; there was a world-celebrated beauty, already just the very least trifle faded and of an unenviable morality; there was an exquisite couple in love with each other, whom all watched with curiosity and whose happiness was unconcealed: _he_ danced only with _her_; sang--and with great ability--only to _her_ accompaniment; and everything they did was carried out so charmingly, that the captain was the only one who knew that this pair was hired by Lloyd’s to play at love for a good figure, and that they had been sailing for a long time, now on one ship, now on another.

At Gibraltar everybody was gladdened by the sun,--it seemed to be early spring; a new passenger, whose person aroused the general interest, made his appearance on board the _Atlantida_,--he was the hereditary prince of a certain Asiatic kingdom, travelling incognito; a little man who somehow seemed to be all made of wood, even though he was alert in his movements; broad of face, with narrow eyes, in gold-rimmed spectacles; a trifle unpleasant through the fact that his skin showed through his coarse black moustache like that of a cadaver; on the whole, however, he was charming, unpretentious, and modest. On the Mediterranean Sea there was a whiff of winter again; the billows ran high, and were as multi-coloured as the tail of a peacock; they had snowy-white crests, lashed up--although the sun was sparkling brightly and the sky was perfectly clear--by a _tramontana_, a chill northern wind from beyond the mountains, that was joyously and madly rushing to meet the ship.... Then, on the second day, the sky began to pale, the horizon became covered with mist, land was nearing; Ischia, Capri appeared; through the binoculars Naples--lumps of sugar strewn at the foot of some dove-coloured mass--could be seen; while over it and this dove-coloured thing were visible the ridges of distant mountains, vaguely glimmering with the dead whiteness of snows. There was a great number of people on deck; many of the ladies and gentlemen had already put on short, light fur coats, with the fur outside; Chinese boys, never contradictory and never speaking above a whisper, bow-legged striplings with pitch-black queues reaching to their heels and with eye-lashes as long and thick as those of young girls, were already dragging, little by little, sundry plaids, canes, and portmanteaux and grips of alligator hide toward the companion-ways.... The daughter of the gentleman from San Francisco was standing beside the prince, who had been, through a fortuitous circumstance, presented to her yesterday evening, and she pretended to be looking intently into the distance, in a direction he was pointing out to her, telling, explaining something or other to her, hurriedly and quietly. On account of his height he seemed a boy by contrast with others,--he was queer and not at all prepossessing of person, with his spectacles, his derby, his English great coat, while his scanty moustache looked just as if it were of horse-hair, and the swarthy, thin skin seemed to be drawn tightly over his face, and somehow had the appearance of being lacquered,--but the young girl was listening to him, without understanding, in her agitation, what he was saying; her heart was thumping from an incomprehensible rapture before his presence and from pride that he was speaking with her, and not some other; everything about him that was different from others,--his lean hands, his clear skin, under which flowed the ancient blood of kings, even his altogether unpretentious, yet somehow distinctively neat, European dress,--everything held a secret, inexplicable charm, evoked a feeling of amorousness. As for the gentleman from San Francisco himself,--he, in a high silk hat, in gray spats over patent-leather shoes, kept on glancing at the famous beauty, who was standing beside him,--a tall blonde of striking figure, her eyes were painted in the latest Parisian fashion; she was holding a diminutive, hunched-up, mangy lap dog on a silver chain and was chattering to it without cease. And the daughter, in some vague embarrassment, tried not to notice her father.

Like all Americans of means, he was very generous on his travels, and, like all of them, believed in the full sincerity and good-will of those who brought him food and drink with such solicitude, who served him from morn till night, forestalling his least wish; of those who guarded his cleanliness and rest, lugged his things around, summoned porters for him, delivered his trunks to hotels. Thus had it been everywhere, thus had it been on the ship, and thus was it to be in Naples as well. Naples grew, and drew nearer; the musicians, the brass of their instruments flashing, had already clustered upon the deck, and suddenly deafened everybody with the triumphant strains of a march; the gigantic captain, in his full dress uniform, appeared upon his stage, and, like a condescending heathen god, waved his hand amiably to the passengers,--and to the gentleman from San Francisco it seemed that it was for him alone that the march so beloved by proud America was thundering, that it was he whom the captain was felicitating upon a safe arrival. And every other passenger felt similarly about himself--or herself. And when the _Atlantida_ did finally enter the harbour, had heaved to at the wharf with her many-tiered mass, black with people, and the gang-planks clattered down,--what a multitude of porters and their helpers in caps with gold braid, what a multitude of different _commissionaires_, whistling gamins, and strapping ragamuffins with packets of coloured postal cards in their hands, made a rush toward the gentleman from San Francisco, with offers of their services! And he smiled, with a kindly contemptuousness, at these ragamuffins, as he went toward the automobile of precisely that hotel where there was a possibility of the prince’s stopping as well, and drawled through his teeth, now in English, now in Italian:

“Go away![*] _Via!_”

[*] English in the original. The same applies to the other phrases in this story marked with asterisks. _Trans._