CHAPTER XXIII
When the priest drew close to the tent Domini saw that it was not hewho 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 ofMarseilles. "I am the Aumonier of Amara, and have just heard of yourarrival 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 anyservice 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 anylonger."
His eyes, which had a slightly impudent look, rare in a priest but notunpleasing, twinkled cheerfully in the lamplight as he spoke, and hiswhole expression betokened a highly social disposition and the mostgenuine pleasure at meeting with a stranger. While she looked at him,and heard him speak, Domini laughed at herself for the imaginations shehad just been cherishing. He had a broad figure, long arms, large feetencased in stout, comfortable boots. His face was burnt brown by the sunand partially concealed by a heavy black beard, whiskers and moustache.His features were blunt and looked boyish, though his age must have beenabout forty. The nose was snub, and accorded with the expression in hiseyes, which were black like his hair and full of twinkling lights. Ashe smiled genially on Domini he showed two rows of small, square whiteteeth. His Marseilles accent exactly suited his appearance, which wasrough but honest. Domini welcomed him gladly. Indeed, her receptionof him was more than cordial, almost eager. For she had been vaguelyexpecting some tragic figure, some personality suggestive of mystery orsorrow, and she thought of the incidents at Mogar, and associated themoving light with the approach of further strange events. Thishomely figure of her religion, beaming satisfaction and comfortableanticipation 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 thelittle bell which was on the table, went out into the sand and rang itfor Ouardi.
He came at once, like a shadow gliding over the waste.
"Bring us coffee for two, Ouardi, biscuits"--she glanced at hervisitor--"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 whateverhe likes."
Ouardi went away with the soldier, talking frantically, and Dominireturned to the tent, where she found the priest gleaming with joyousanticipation. They sat down in the comfortable basket chairs before thetent door, through which they could see the shining of the city's lightsand hear the distant sound of its throbbing and wailing music.
"My husband has gone to see the city," Domini said after she had toldthe 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, sunburnthand. "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 nevermind! You must forgive us. We are barbarians! We are sand-rascals! Weare ruffians of the sun!"
His laugh was infectious. He leaned back in his chair and shook with themirth his own remarks had roused.
"We are ruffians of the sun!" he repeated with gusto. "And we must beforgiven everything."
Although clad in a soutane he looked, at that moment, like a type of themost joyous tolerance, and Domini could not help mentally comparing himwith the priest of Beni-Mora. What would Father Roubier think of FatherBeret?
"It is easy to forgive in the sun," Domini said.
The priest laid his hands on his knees, setting his feet well apart. Shenoticed that his hands were not scrupulously clean.
"Madame," he said, "it is impossible to be anything but lenient in thesun. 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 thebuilding with the cupolas. The congregation consists of five on a fullSunday." His laugh broke out again. "I hope the day after to-morrowyou and your husband will make it seven. But, as I was saying, the sunteaches one a lesson of charity. When I first came to live in Africain the midst of the sand-rascals--eh; Madame!--I suppose as a priest Iought to have been shocked by their goings-on. And indeed I tried tobe, I conscientiously did my best. But it was no good. I couldn't beshocked. The sunshine drove it all out of me. I could only say, 'Itis not for me to question _le bon Dieu_, and _le bon Dieu_ has createdthese people and set them here in the sand to behave as they do.' Whatis my business? I can't convert them. I can't change their morals. Imust just be a friend to them, cheer them up in their sorrows, give thema bit if they're starving, doctor them a little. I'm a first-rate handat making an Arab take a pill or a powder!--when they are ill, and makethem 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 ofmine."
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 helpliking 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 muchat home in their tents, and more, than I should ever be at theVatican--with all respect to the Holy Father."
He got up, went out into the sand, expectorated noisily, thenreturned to the tent, wiping his bearded mouth with a large red cottonpocket-handkerchief.
"Are you staying here long, Madame?"
He sat down again in his chair, making it creak with his substantialweight.
"I don't know. If my husband is happy here. But he prefers thesolitudes, I think."
"Does he? And yet he's gone into the city. Plenty of bustle there atnight, I can tell you. Well, now, I don't agree with your husband. Iknow it's been said that solitude is good for the sad, but I think justthe contrary. Ah!"
The last sonorously joyous exclamation jumped out of Father Beret at thesight of Ouardi, who at this moment entered with a large tray, coveredwith a coffee-pot, cups, biscuits, bon-bons, cigars, and a bulging flaskof some liqueur flanked by little glasses.
"You fare generously in the desert I see, Madame," he exclaimed. "And somuch the better. What's your servant's name?"
Domini told him.
"Ouardi! that means born in the time of the roses." He addressed Ouardiin Arabic and sent him off into the darkness chuckling gaily. "TheseArab names all have their meanings--Onlagareb, mother of scorpions,Omteoni, mother of eagles, and so on. So much the better! Comforts arerare 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 forman. They help his Christianity. They keep him from bitterness, harshjudgments. But harshness is for northern climes--rainy England, eh?Forgive me, Madame. I speak in joke. You come from England perhaps. Itdidn't occur to me that--"
They both laughed. His garrulity was irresistible and made Domini feelas if she were sitting with a child. Perhaps he caught her feeling, forhe added:
"The desert has made me an _enfant terrible_, I fear. What have youthere?"
His eyes had been attracted by the flask of liqueur, to which Domini wasstretching out her hand with the intention of giving him some.
"I don't know."
She leaned forward to read the nam
e 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 tastedit, or seen it before. Will you have some?"
She felt so absolutely certain that he would say "Yes" that she liftedthe 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 remarksurprised her.
"Yes, Madame, thanks."
She poured out the liqueur and handed it to him. He set it down by hiscoffee-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 bya 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 speciallyfamous, and their wines bring in a splendid revenue. This is their onlyliqueur, this Louarine. It, too, has brought in a lot of money to thecommunity, but when what they have in stock at the monastery now isexhausted they will never make another franc by Louarine."
"But why not?"
"The secret of its manufacture belonged to one monk only. At his deathhe 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 hislips.
"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. "Howhorrible!" she repeated.
"Yes. The monks would have kept the matter a secret, but a servantof 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 acutelyeach time she spoke it.
"After twenty years to go!" she added after a moment. "And was thereno reason, no--no excuse--no, I don't mean excuse! But had nothingexceptional happened?"
"What exceptional thing can happen in a Trappist monastery?" said thepriest. "One day is exactly like another there, and one year exactlylike another."
"Was it long ago?"
"No, not very long. Only some months. Oh, perhaps it may be a year bynow, but not more. Poor fellow! I suppose he was a man who didn't knowhimself, 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 makefor 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. NeitherDomini nor the priest had heard a footstep. The priest got up from hischair and bowed genially.
"Good-evening, Monsieur," he said, not waiting for any introduction. "Iam the Aumonier of Amara, and----"
He paused in the full flow of his talk. Androvsky's eyes had wanderedfrom his face to the table, upon which stood the coffee, the liqueur,and the other things brought by Ouardi. It was evident even to theself-centred priest that his host was not listening to him. There was amoment's awkward pause. Then Domini said:
"Boris, Monsieur l'Aumonier!"
She did not speak loudly, but with an intention that recalled the mindof her husband. He stepped slowly into the tent and held out his hand insilence 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. Hischeerful and confident manner had died away, and his eyes, fixed uponhis host, shone with an astonishment which was mingled with a sortof boyish glumness. It was evident that he felt that his presence wasunwelcome.
"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 thesun."
He put his hand to his head.
"Excuse me, Monsieur," he said, speaking to the priest but not lookingat 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 ofembarrassment, 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 itout of his mouth and, glancing with a naive regret at the good thingsupon the table, his half-finished coffee, the biscuits, the white box ofbon-bons--said:
"Madame, I must be off. I've a good way to go, and it's getting late. Ifyou 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 comeagain. 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. Wesand-rascals--eh, Madame!" he laughed, but the laugh had lost itssonorous ring--"we can stand it. It's our friend. But for travellerssometimes it's a little bit too much. But now, mind, I'm a bit of adoctor, and if to-morrow your husband is no better I might--anyhow"--helooked again longingly at the bon-bons and the cigars--"if you'll allowme 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, ifit'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 priesthesitated. He was holding the burnt-out cigar in his hand, and nowhe glanced at it and then at the cigar-box. A plaintive expressionoverspread his bronzed and bearded face. It became almost piteous.Quickly Domini wait to the table, took two cigars from the box and cameback.
"You must have a cigar to smoke on the way."
"Really, Madame, you are too good, but--well, I rarely refuse a finecigar, and these--upon my word--are--"
He struck a match on his broad-toed boot. His demeanour was becomingcheerful again. Domini gave the other cigar to the soldier.
"Good-night, Madame. A demain then, a demain! I trust your husband maybe 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 wentshe was acutely aware of the many distant noises that rose up in thenight to the pale crescent of the young moon, the pulsing of the tomtomsin the city, the faint screaming of the
pipes that sounded almost likehuman beings in distress, the passionate barking of the guard dogstied up to the tents on the sand-slopes where the multitudes of firesgleamed. The sensation of being far away, and close to the heart of thedesert, deepened in her, but she felt now that it was a savage heart,that there was something terrible in the remoteness. In the faintmoonlight the tent cast black shadows upon the wintry whiteness of thesands, 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 thedarkness that it cast upon the sand. Her husband's face that night ashe came in from the dunes had been dark with a shadow cast surely by hissoul. And she did not know what it was in his soul that sent forth theshadow.
"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 ofswift, 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 itdid not fall upon his face. She took his hands in hers gently. There wasno response in his hands. They remained in hers, nervelessly. Theyfelt almost like dead things in her hands. But they were not cold, butburning 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! Likehammers! I must--"
"Don't give me anything, Domini! It would be useless."
She was silent. There was a sound of hopelessness in his voice thatfrightened her. It was like the voice of a man rejecting remediesbecause 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 hisreturn from the dunes, he had said to her, "There is a light in thetower." A painful sensation of being surrounded with mystery came uponher. It was hateful to her strong and frank nature. It was like a miasmathat 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 hadheard of our arrival. He knew it was informal, but, as he said, in thedesert 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 handson 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 herinstinct always to tell the complete truth to him, even about trifleswhich had nothing to do with their lives or their relation to eachother.
"Horrible!" Androvsky said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward inhis chair.
She sat down by him. They both had their backs to the light and were inshadow.
"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 undera 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 headmore severely.
"I only want to be in the air. It's rather hot there. Stay where, youare, Domini, and--well, what else?"
He stepped out into the sand, and stood just outside the tent in itsshadow.
"It was invented by a Trappist monk of the monastery of El-Largani, whodisappeared from the monastery. He had taken the final vows. He had beenthere 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 theeternal vows--vows made to God."
After a moment, during which neither of them spoke and Androvsky stoodquite 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 oncertain subjects--yet--"
"Yet!" he said.
"Boris"--she got up and came to the tent door, but not out upon thesand--"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. "Youthink--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 willsee, if one hears something frightful about them. Perhaps--don't smile,Boris--perhaps it was seeing that liqueur, which he had actually made inthe monastery when he was at peace with God, perhaps it was seeing that,that has made me realise--such trifles stir the imagination, set itworking--at any rate--"
She broke off. After a minute, during which he said nothing, shecontinued:
"I believe the priest felt something of the same sort. He could notdrink the liqueur that man had made, although he intended to."
"But--that might have been for a different reason," Androvsky said ina harsh voice; "priests have strange ideas. They often judge thingscruelly, very cruelly."
"Perhaps they do. Yes; I can imagine that Father Roubier of Beni-Moramight, 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, hisboisterous 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 ofsomething their mutual love had created.
"The greatest of all tolerance is God's," she said. "I'm sure--quitesure--of that."
Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his armswith passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force andfire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense.
"God will bless you," he said. "God will bless you. Whatever life bringsyou at the end you must--you must be blessed by Him."
"But He has blessed me," she whispered, through tears that rushed fromher eyes, stirred from their well-springs by his sudden outburst oflove for her. "He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, yourtruth."
Androvsky released her as abruptly as he had taken her in his arms,turned, and went out into the desert.
The Garden of Allah Page 23
