CHAPTER XVIII
Night had fallen over the desert, a clear purple night, starry butwithout a moon. Around the Bordj, and before a Cafe Maure built of brownearth and palm-wood, opposite to it, the Arabs who were halting to sleepat Arba on their journeys to and from Beni-Mora were huddled, sippingcoffee, playing dominoes by the faint light of an oil lamp, smokingcigarettes and long pipes of keef. Within the court of the Bordj themules were feeding tranquilly in rows. The camels roamed the plainamong the tamarisk bushes, watched over by shrouded shadowy guardianssleepless as they were. The mountains, the palms of Beni-Mora, were lostin the darkness that lay over the desert.
On the low hill, at some distance beyond the white tent of Domini andAndrovsky, the obscurity was lit up fiercely by the blaze of a hugefire of brushwood, the flames of which towered up towards the stars,flickering this way and that as the breeze took them, and casting a wildillumination upon the wild faces of the rejoicing desert men who weregathered about it, telling stories of the wastes, singing songs thatwere melancholy and remote to Western ears, even though they hymnedpast victories over the infidels, or passionate ecstasies of love in thegolden regions of the sun. The steam from bowls of cous-cous and stewsof mutton and vegetables curled up to join the thin smoke that made alight curtain about this fantasia, and from time to time, with a shrillcry of exultation, a half-naked form, all gleaming eyes and teeth andpolished bronze-hued limbs, rushed out of the blackness beyond the fire,leaped through the tongues of flame and vanished like a spectre into theembrace of the night.
All the members of the caravan, presided over by Batouch in glory, werecelebrating the wedding night of their master and mistress.
Domini and Androvsky had already visited them by their bonfire, hadreceived their compliments, watched the sword dance and the dance ofthe clubs, touched with their lips, or pretended to touch, the stem of akeef, listened to a marriage song warbled by Ali to the accompanimentof a flute and little drums, and applauded Ouardi's agility in leapingthrough 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 atthe stars and saw among them the star of Liberty. Androvsky looked ather and saw all the stars in her face. When they reached the tent doorthey stopped on the warm earth. A lamp was lit within, casting a softlight on the simple furniture and on the whiteness of the two beds,above one of which Domini imagined, though from without she could notsee, 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 twinedhis fingers between hers, pressing his palm against hers.
"Don't let us miss anything to-night," he said. "All my life isto-night. I've had no life yet. To-morrow--who knows whether we shallbe 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 totake our life from us, the life of our love to-night. For we're out inthe desert, we're right away from anyone, everything. We're in the greatfreedom. 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 heldhis hands against his heart with hers in them, then pressed her handsagainst her heart, then drew them back again to his.
"Then let us realise it. Let us forget our prison. Let us forgeteverything, everything that we ever knew before Beni-Mora, Domini. It'sdead, absolutely dead, unless we make it live by thinking. And that'smad, crazy. Thought's the great madness. Domini, have you forgotteneverything 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 hisshoulders and looked closely into her eyes, as if he were trying to sendall himself into her through those doors of the soul opened to seeinghim. And now, in this moment, she felt that her fierce desire wasrealised, that he was rising above her on eagle's wings. And as on thenight before the wedding she had blessed all the sorrows of her life,now she blessed silently all the long silence of Androvsky, allhis strange reticence, his uncouthness, his avoidance of her in thebeginning 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 wasrushing forth to her at last in his love. She seemed to hear in thenight the crash of a great obstacle, and the voice of the flood ofwaters that had broken it down at length and were escaping into liberty.His silence of the past now made his speech intensely beautiful andwonderful to her. She wanted to hear the waters more intensely, moreintensely.
"Speak to me," she said. "You've spoken so little. Do you know howlittle? Tell me all you are. Till now I've only felt all you are. Andthat'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. Fromto-night to receive will be my life. Long ago I've given all I had toyou. 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 someintense feeling rose from the depths of him and shook it.
"Yes, all," she whispered. "Already--and long ago--that day in thegarden. When I--when I put my hands against your forehead--do youremember? I gave you all, for ever."
And as she spoke she bent down her face with a sort of proud submissionand put her forehead against his heart.
The purity in her voice and in her quiet, simple action dazzled him likea flame shining suddenly in his eyes out of blackness. And he, too, inthat moment saw far up above him the beating of an eagle's wings. Toeach one the other seemed to be on high, and as both looked up that wastheir true marriage.
"I felt it," he said, touching her hair with his lips. "I felt it inyour hands. When you touched me that day it was as if you were giving methe world and the stars. It frightened me to receive so much. I felt asif 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 doesit mean?"
"That you are great, as I am, because we love. No one is small wholoves. 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 tookher 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. Idon't feel as if I have, or am, anything but what you give me, make meto-night. Can you understand that? Can you understand what you are tome? That you are everything, that I have nothing else, that I have neverhad anything else in all these years that I have lived and that I haveforgotten? Can you understand it? You said just now 'Speak to me, tellme 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 hiseyes while he was speaking, made her hear those rushing waters as if shewere being swept away by them.
"And you?" he said. "You?"
"I?"
"This afternoon in the desert, when we were in the sand looking atBeni-Mora, you began to tell me something and then you stopped. And yousaid, '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 wereassembled, there rose a sound of music which arrested her attention. Aliwas singing, holding in his hand a brand from the fire like a torch. Shehad heard him
sing before, and had loved the timbre of his voice, butonly now did she realise when she had first heard him and who he was. Itwas he who, hidden from her, had sung the song of the freed negroes ofTouggourt in the gardens of Count Anteoni that day when she had beenangry with Androvsky and had afterwards been reconciled with him. Andshe knew now it was he, because, once more hidden from her--for againstthe curtain of darkness she only saw the flame from the torch he heldand moved rhythmically to the burden of his song--he was singing itagain. Androvsky, when she ceased to speak, suddenly put his arms roundher, as if he were afraid of her escaping from him in her silence, andthey 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 likethe whisper of the desert in the night. Then the contralto voice of Alicame to Domini and Androvsky again, but very faintly, from the distancewhere 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. Thenshe 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 windof the night. Its movement was slow and eerie. It seemed like his voicemade visible, a voice of flame in the blackness of the world. Theywatched 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 moreclosely, with a grasp that was feverish in its intensity.
"Do you remember," she went on, "in the garden what you said about thatsong?"
"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, manythings I said and never said that--I have forgotten--I have forgottenfor ever."
There was a sternness in his voice now, a fiery intention.
"I understand," she said. "I have forgotten them too, but not somethings."
"Which?"
"Not that night when you took me out of the dancing-house, not ourride to Sidi-Zerzour, not--there are things I shall remember. When I amdying, after I am dead, I shall remember them."
The song faded away. The torch was still, then fell downwards and becameone with the fire. Then Androvsky drew Domini down beside him on to thewarm earth before the tent door, and held her hand in his against theearth.
"Feel it," he said. "It's our home, it's our liberty. Does it feel aliveto you?"
"Yes."
"As if it had pulses, like the pulses in our hearts, and knew what weknow?"
"Yes. Mother Earth--I never understood what that meant till to-night."
"We are beginning to understand together. Who can understand anythingalone?"
He kept her hand always in his pressed against the desert as againsta heart. They both thought of it as a heart that was full of love andprotection for them, of understanding of them. Going back to their wordsbefore 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 wereinsisting on something, were bent on conquering some reluctance, or somevoice contradicting.
"I know that you are right," he added.
She did not speak, but--why she did not know--her thought went to thewooden crucifix fastened in the canvas of the tent close by, and for amoment she felt a faint creeping sadness in her. But he pressed her handmore closely, and she was conscious only of these two warmths---of hishand above her hand and of the desert beneath it. Her whole life seemedset in a glory of fire, in a heat that was life-giving, that dominatedher and evoked at the same time all of power that was in her, causingher dormant fires, physical and spiritual, to blaze up as if they weresheltered and fanned. The thought of the crucifix faded. It was as ifthe fire destroyed it and it became ashes--then nothing. She fixed hereyes on the distant fire of the Arabs, which was beginning to die downslowly 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 thegarden?"
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 touchit any more tonight."
He looked into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the distantfire, 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 havenever said, never been able to say to me, all that you never can say tome 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 facetill 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 cansink into ashes."
An expression of sudden exaltation shone in her eyes.
"And God made you," she said. "And put into you the spark that iseternal."
And now again she thought, she dared, she loved to think of the crucifixand 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 thewarm 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 asshe was the sacredness of their relation to each other. Never had theyspoken intimately of religion or of the mysteries that lie beyond andaround human life. Once or twice, when she had been about to open herheart 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 divinedher intention and had subtly turned her from it, without speech, merelyby the force of his inward determination that she should not breakthrough his reserve. But to-night, with his hand on hers and the starrydarkness above them, with the waste stretching around them, and thecool air that was like the breath of liberty upon their faces, she wasunconscious of any secret, combative force in him. It was impossible toher to think there could have been any combat, however inward, howeversubtle, between them. Surely if it were ever permitted to two natures tobe 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 itto-night," she went on, drawing a little closer to him. "Even in thechurch to-day He seemed farther away than tonight. But somehow--onehas these thoughts without knowing why--I have always believed that thefarther I went into the desert the nearer I should come to God."
Androvsky moved again. The clasp of his hand on hers loosened, but hedid 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 notprevent her from noticing it, and she remembered, with a thrill of pain,where and under what circumstances she had first heard the Arab's namefor the desert.
Could it be that this man she loved was secretly afraid of something inthe desert, some influence, some--? Her thought stopped short, like athing confused.
"Don't you think it a very beautiful name?" she asked, with an almostfierce 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 inthis land of solitude.
"Is it beautiful?"
"To me it is. It makes me feel as if in the desert I were speciallywatched 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 thinkonly of you."
He spoke as if he were jealous even of her thought of God, as if he didnot understand that it was the very intensity of her love for him thatmade her, even in the midst of the passion of the body, connecttheir love of each other with God's love of them. In her heart thisoverpowering human love which, in the garden, when first she realisedit fully, had seemed to leave no room in her for love of God, now in themoment when it was close to absolute satisfaction seemed almost to beone with her love of God. Perhaps no man could understand how, in agood woman, the two streams of the human love which implies the intensedesire of the flesh, and the mystical love which is absolutely purgedof 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 wasforgotten as his arms held her fast in the night, everything except thisgreat force of human love which was like iron, and yet soft about her,which was giving and wanting, which was concentrated upon her to theexclusion of all else, plunging the universe in darkness and setting herin light.
"There is nothing for me to-night but you," he said, crushing her in hisarms. "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 meonly 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 thanpassionate, that was hot and even savage in her nature, had risen up inits full force to face a similar force in him, which insistently calledit and which it answered without shame.
"It is dying," Androvsky said. "It is dying. Look how small the circleof the flame is, how the darkness is creeping up about it! Domini--doyou see?"
She pressed his hand again.
"Do you long for the darkness?" he asked. "Do you, Domini? The desertis sending it. The desert is sending it for you, and for me because youlove me."
A log in the fire, charred by the flames, broke in two. Part of it felldown into the heart of the fire, which sent up a long tongue of red goldflame.
"That is like us," he said. "Like us together in the darkness."
She felt his body trembling, as if the vehemence of the spirit confinedwithin it shook it. In the night the breeze slightly increased, makingthe flame of the lamp behind them in the tent flicker. And the breezewas like a message, brought to them from the desert by some envoy inthe darkness, telling them not to be afraid of their wonderful gift offreedom with each other, but to take it open-handed, open-hearted, withthe great courage of joy.
"Domini, did you feel that gust of the wind? It carried away a cloud ofsparks from the fire and brought them a little way towards us. Did yousee? Fire wandering on the wind through the night calling to the firethat 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 thevague longings, the almost terrible aspirations they wake in theirwatchers. But to her also they looked different to-night, nearer to theearth, she thought, brighter, more living than ever before, like strangetenderness made visible, peopling the night with an unconquerablesympathy. The vast firmament was surely intent upon their happiness.Again the breeze came to them across the waste, cool and breathing ofthe dryness of the sands. Not far away a jackal laughed. After a pauseit was answered by another jackal at a distance. The voices of thesedesert beasts brought home to Domini with an intimacy not felt by herbefore the exquisite remoteness of their situation, and the shrill,discordant noise, rising and falling with a sort of melancholy andsneering mirth, mingled with bitterness, was like a delicate music inher 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--andto me. We've found freedom; we've found it. Let us feel it. Let us takehold of it. It is the only thing, the only thing. But you can't knowthat as I do, Domini."
Again she was conscious that his intensity surpassed hers, and theconsciousness, instead of saddening or vexing, made her thrill with joy.
"I am maddened by this freedom," he said; "maddened by it, Domini. Ican't help--I can't--"
He laid his lips upon hers in a desperate caress that almost suffocatedher. 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 wasindeed teaching her to forget. Even the memory of the day in the gardenwhen she heard the church bell chime and the sound of Larbi's flute wentfrom her. She remembered nothing any more. The past was lost or laid insleep by the spell of sensation. Her nature galloped like an Arab horseacross the sands towards the sun, towards the fire that sheds warmthafar but that devours all that draws near to it. At that moment sheconnected Androvsky with the tremendous fires eternally blazing inthe sun. She had a desire that he should hurt her in the passionateintensity of his love for her. Her nature, which till now had been everready to spring into hostility at an accidental touch, which had shrunkinstinctively from physical contact with other human beings, melted, wasutterly transformed. She felt that she was now the opposite of all thatshe had been--more woman than any other woman who had ever lived.What had been an almost cold strength in her went to increase thecompleteness of this yielding to one stronger than herself. What hadseemed boyish and almost hard in her died away utterly under the embraceof this fierce manhood.
"Domini," he spoke, whispering while he kissed her, "Domini, the fire'sgone 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, lookingtowards where the fire had been. She put her hands against his face andsoftly pressed it back from hers, but with a touch that was a caress. Heyielded to her at once.
"Look!" he said. "Do you love the darkness? Tell me--tell me that youlove 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 thedesert. 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 cheeklingeringly. 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 armsslowly from Domini and turned to let down the flap of the tent. While hewas doing this she stood quite still. The flame of the
lamp flickered,throwing its light now here, now there, uneasily. She saw the crucifixlit up for an instant and the white bed beneath it. The wind stirredher dark hair and was cold about her neck. But the warmth there met anddefied 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 couldspend her life in passionate adoration at its foot; but when she did notsee 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 feltreckless, wayward, savage--and something more. A cry rose in her thatwas like the cry of a stranger, who yet was of her and in her, and fromwhom she would not part.
Again the lamp flame flickered upon the crucifix. Quickly, while she sawthe crucifix plainly, she went forward to the bed and fell on her kneesby it, bending down her face upon its whiteness.
When Androvsky had fastened the tent door he turned round and saw herkneeling. He stood quite still as if petrified, staring at her. Then,as the flame, now sheltered from the wind, burned steadily, he saw thecrucifix. He started as if someone had struck him, hesitated, then, witha look of fierce and concentrated resolution on his face, went swiftlyto the crucifix and pulled it from the canvas roughly. He held it in hishand for an instant, then moved to the tent door and stooped to unfastenthe cords that held it to the pegs, evidently with the intention ofthrowing the crucifix out into the night. But he did not unfastenthe cords. Something--some sudden change of feeling, some secret andpowerful reluctance--checked him. He thrust the crucifix into hispocket. Then, returning to where Domini was kneeling, he put his armsround her and drew her to her feet.
She did not resist him. Still holding her in his arms he blew out thelamp.
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