The Garden of Allah

by Robert Hichens

  CHAPTER XXV

  Domini had said to herself that she would speak to her husband thatnight. She was resolved not to hesitate, not to be influenced from herpurpose by anything. Yet she knew that a great difficulty would standin her way--the difficulty of Androvsky's intense, almost passionate,reserve. This reserve was the dominant characteristic in his nature. Shethought of it sometimes as a wall of fire that he had set round aboutthe secret places of his soul to protect them even from her eyes.Perhaps it was strange that she, a woman of a singularly franktemperament, should be attracted by reserve in another, yet she knewthat she was so attracted by the reserve of her husband. Its existencehinted to her depths in him which, perhaps, some day she might sound,she alone, strength which was hidden for her some day to prove.

  Now, alone with her purpose, she thought of this reserve. Would she beable to break it down with her love? For an instant she felt as if shewere about to enter upon a contest with her husband, but she did notcoldly tell over her armoury and select weapons. There was a heat ofpurpose within her that beckoned her to the unthinking, to the recklessway, that told her to be self-reliant and to trust to the moment for themethod.

  When Androvsky returned to the camp it was towards evening. A lemonlight was falling over the great white spaces of the sand. Upon theirlittle round hills the Arab villages glowed mysteriously. Many horsemenwere riding forth from the city to take the cool of the approachingnight. From the desert the caravans were coming in. The nomad childrenplayed, half-naked, at Cora before the tents, calling shrilly to eachother through the light silence that floated airily away into the vastdistances that breathed out the spirit of a pale eternity. Despite theheat there was an almost wintry romance in this strange land of whitesands and yellow radiance, an ethereal melancholy that stole with thetwilight noiselessly towards the tents.

  As Androvsky approached Domini saw that he had lost the energy which haddelighted her at _dejeuner_. He walked towards her slowly with his headbent down. His face was grave, even sad, though when he saw her waitingfor him he smiled.

  "You have been all this time with the priest?" she said.

  "Nearly all. I walked for a little while in the city. And you?"

  "I rode out and met a friend."

  "A friend?" he said, as if startled.

  "Yes, from Beni-Mora--Count Anteoni. He has been here to pay me avisit."

  She pulled forward a basket-chair for him. He sank into it heavily.

  "Count Anteoni here!" he said slowly. "What is he doing here?"

  "He is with the marabout at Beni-Hassan. And, Boris, he has become aMohammedan."

  He lifted his head with a jerk and stared at her in silence.

  "You are surprised?"

  "A Mohammedan--Count Anteoni?"

  "Yes. Do you know, when he told me I felt almost as if I had beenexpecting it."

  "But--is he changed then? Is he--"

  He stopped. His voice had sounded to her bitter, almost fierce.

  "Yes, Boris, he is changed. Have you ever seen anyone who was lost,and the same person walking along the road home? Well, that is CountAnteoni."

  They said no more for some minutes. Androvsky was the first to speakagain.

  "You told him?" he asked.

  "About ourselves?"

  "Yes."

  "I told him."

  "What did he say?"

  "He had expected it. When we ask him he is coming here again to see usboth together."

  Androvsky got up from his chair. His face was troubled. Standing beforeDomini, he said:

  "Count Anteoni is happy then, now that he--now that he has joined thisreligion?"

  "Very happy."

  "And you--a Catholic--what do you think?"

  "I think that, since that is his honest belief, it is a blessed thingfor him."

  He said no more, but went towards the sleeping-tent.

  In the evening, when they were dining, he said to her:

  "Domini, to-night I am going to leave you again for a short time."

  He saw a look of keen regret come into her face, and added quickly:

  "At nine I have promised to go to see the priest. He--he is ratherlonely here. He wants me to come. Do you mind?"

  "No, no. I am glad--very glad. Have you finished?"

  "Quite."

  "Let us take a rug and go out a little way in the sand--that way towardsthe cemetery. It is quiet there at night."

  "Yes. I will get a rug." He went to fetch it, threw it over his arm, andthey set out together. She had meant the Arab cemetery, but when theyreached it they found two or three nomads wandering there.

  "Let us go on," she said.

  They went on, and came to the French cemetery, which was surrounded bya rough hedge of brushwood, in which there were gaps here and there.Through one of these gaps they entered it, spread out the rug, and laydown on the sand. The night was still and silence brooded here. Faintlythey saw the graves of the exiles who had died here and been given tothe sand, where in summer vipers glided to and fro, and the pariah dogswandered stealthily, seeking food to still the desires in their starvingbodies. They were mostly very simple, but close to Domini and Androvskywas one of white marble, in the form of a broken column, hung withwreaths of everlasting flowers, and engraved with these words:

  ICI REPOSE

  JEAN BAPTISTE FABRIANI

  _Priez pour lui_.

  When they lay down they both looked at this grave, as if moved by asimultaneous impulse, and read the words.

  "Priez pour lui!" Domini said in a low voice.

  She put out her hand and took hold of her husband's, and pressed it downon the sand.

  "Do you remember that first night, Boris," she said, "at Arba, whenyou took my hand in yours and laid it against the desert as against aheart?"

  "Yes, Domini, I remember."

  "That night we were one, weren't we?"

  "Yes, Domini."

  "Were we"--she was almost whispering in the night--"were we truly one?"

  "Why do you--truly one, you say?"

  "Yes--one in soul? That is the great union, greater than the union ofour bodies. Were we one in soul? Are we now?"

  "Domini, why do you ask me such questions? Do you doubt my love?"

  "No. But I do ask you. Won't you answer me?"

  He was silent. His hand lay in hers, but did not press it.

  "Boris"--she spoke the cruel words very quietly,--"we are not truly onein soul. We have never been. I know that."

  He said nothing.

  "Shall we ever be? Think--if one of us were to die, and the other--theone who was left--were left with the knowledge that in our love, evenours, there had always been separation--could you bear that? Could Ibear it?"

  "Domini--"

  "Yes."

  "Why do you speak like this? We are one. You have all my love. You areeverything to me."

  "And yet you are sad, and you try to hide your sadness, your misery,from me. Can you not give it me? I want it--more than I want anythingon earth. I want it, I must have it, and I dare to ask for it because Iknow how deeply you love me and that you could never love another."

  "I never have loved another," he said.

  "I was the very first."

  "The very first. When we married, although I was a man I was as youwere."

  She bent down her head and laid her lips on his hand that was in hers.

  "Then make our union perfect, as no other union on earth has ever been.Give me your sorrow, Boris. I know what it is."

  "How can--you cannot know," he said in a broken voice.

  "Yes. Love is a diviner, the only true diviner. I told you once what itwas, but I want you to tell me. Nothing that we take is beautiful to us,only what we are given."

  "I cannot," he said.

  He tried to take his hand from hers, but she held it fast. And she feltas if she were holding the wall of fire with which he surrounded thesecret places of his soul.

  "To-day, Boris, when I talked to Count Anteoni, I fel
t that I had been acoward with you. I had seen you suffer and I had not dared to draw nearto your suffering. I have been afraid of you. Think of that."

  "No."

  "Yes, I have been afraid of you, of your reserve. When you withdrew fromme I never followed you. If I had, perhaps I could have done somethingfor you."

  "Domini, do not speak like this. Our love is happy. Leave it as it is."

  "I can't. I will not. Boris, Count Anteoni has found a home. But youare wandering. I can't bear that, I can't bear it. It is as if I weresitting in the house, warm, safe, and you were out in the storm. Ittortures me. It almost makes me hate my own safety."

  Androvsky shivered. He took his hand forcibly from Domini's.

  "I have almost hated it, too," he said passionately. "I have hated it.I'm a--I'm--"

  His voice failed. He bent forward and took Domini's face between hishands.

  "And yet there are times when I can bless what I have hated. I do blessit now. I--I love your safety. You--at least you are safe."

  "You must share it. I will make you share it."

  "You cannot."

  "I can. I shall. I feel that we shall be together in soul, and perhapsto-night, perhaps even to-night."

  Androvsky looked profoundly agitated. His hands dropped down.

  "I must go," he said. "I must go to the priest."

  He got up from the sand.

  "Come to the tent, Domini."

  She rose to her feet.

  "When you come back," she said, "I shall be waiting for you, Boris."

  He looked at her. There was in his eyes a piercing wistfulness. Heopened his lips. At that moment Domini felt that he was on the point oftelling her all that she longed to know. But the look faded. The lipsclosed. He took her in his arms and kissed her almost desperately.

  "No, no," he said. "I'll keep your love--I'll keep it."

  "You could never lose it."

  "I might."

  "Never."

  "If I believed that."

  "Boris!"

  Suddenly burning tears rushed from her eyes.

  "Don't ever say a thing like that to me again!" she said with passion.

  She pointed to the grave close to them.

  "If you were there," she said, "and I was living, and you had diedbefore--before you had told me--I believe--God forgive me, but I dobelieve that if, when you died, I were taken to heaven I should find myhell there."

  She looked through her tears at the words: "Priez pour lui."

  "To pray for the dead," she whispered, as if to herself. "To pray formy dead--I could not do it--I could not. Boris, if you love me you musttrust me, you must give me your sorrow."

  The night drew on. Androvsky had gone to the priest. Domini was alone,sitting before the tent waiting for his return. She had told Batouch andOuardi that she wanted nothing more, that no one was to come to the tentagain that night. The young moon was rising over the city, but its lightas yet was faint. It fell upon the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe, thetowers of the mosque and the white sands, whose whiteness it seemed toemphasise, making them pale as the face of one terror-stricken. Thecity wall cast a deep shadow over the moat of sand in which, wrappedin filthy rags, lay nomads sleeping. Upon the sand-hills the camps werealive with movement. Fires blazed and smoke ascended before the tentsthat made patches of blackness upon the waste. Round the fires wereseated groups of men devouring cous-cous and the red soup beloved of thenomad. Behind them circled the dogs with quivering nostrils. Squadronsof camels lay crouched in the sand, resting after their journeys. Andeverywhere, from the city and from the waste, rose distant sounds ofmusic, thin, aerial flutings like voices of the night winds, acrid criesfrom the pipes, and the far-off rolling of the African drums that arethe foundation of every desert symphony.

  Although she was now accustomed to the music of Africa, Domini couldnever hear it without feeling the barbarity of the land from which itrose, the wildness of the people who made and who loved it. Always itsuggested to her an infinite remoteness, as if it were music soundingat the end of the world, full of half-defined meanings, melancholyyet fierce passion, longings that, momentarily satisfied, continuallyrenewed themselves, griefs that were hidden behind thin veils like thewomen of the East, but that peered out with expressive eyes, hintingtheir story and desiring assuagement. And tonight the meaning of themusic seemed deeper than it had been before. She thought of it as anoutside echo of the voices murmuring in her mind and heart, and thevoices murmuring in the mind and heart of Androvsky, broken voices someof them, but some strong, fierce, tense and alive with meaning. And asshe sat there alone she thought this unity of music drew her closer tothe desert than she had ever been before, and drew Androvsky with her,despite his great reserve. In the heart of the desert he would surelylet her see at last fully into his heart. When he came back in the nightfrom the priest he would speak. She was waiting for that.

  The moon was mounting. Its light grew stronger. She looked across thesands and saw fires in the city, and suddenly she said to herself, "Thisis the vision of the sand-diviner realised in my life. He saw me as Iam now, in this place." And she remembered the scene in the garden,the crouching figure, the extended arms, the thin fingers tracing swiftpatterns in the sand, the murmuring voice.

  To-night she felt deeply expectant, but almost sad, encompassed by themystery that hangs in clouds about human life and human relations. Whatcould be that great joy of which the Diviner had spoken? A woman's greatjoy that starred the desert with flowers and made the dry places runwith sweet waters. What could it be?

  Suddenly she felt again the oppression of spirit she had beenmomentarily conscious of in the afternoon. It was like a load descendingupon her, and, almost instantly, communicated itself to her body. Shewas conscious of a sensation of unusual weariness, uneasiness, evendread, then again of an intensity of life that startled her. Thisintensity remained, grew in her. It was as if the principle of life,like a fluid, were being poured into her out of the vials of God, asif the little cup that was all she had were too small to contain theprecious liquid. That seemed to her to be the cause of the pain ofwhich she was conscious. She was being given more than she felt herselfcapable of possessing. She got up from her chair, unable to remainstill. The movement, slight though it was, seemed to remove a veil ofdarkness that had hung over her and to let in upon her a flood of light.She caught hold of the canvas of the tent. For a moment she felt weak asa child, then strong as an Amazon. And the sense of strength remained,grew. She walked out upon the sand in the direction by which Androvskywould return. The fires in the city and the camps were to her asilluminations for a festival. The music was the music of a greatrejoicing. The vast expanse of the desert, wintry white under the moon,dotted with the fires of the nomads, blossomed as the rose. After a fewmoments she stopped. She was on the crest of a sand-bank, and could seebelow her the faint track in the sand which wound to the city gate. Bythis track Androvsky would surely return. From a long distance she wouldbe able to see him, a moving darkness upon the white. She was near tothe city now, and could hear voices coming to her from behind its ruggedwalls, voices of men singing, and calling one to another, the twang ofplucked instruments, the click of negroes' castanets. The city was fullof joy as the desert was full of joy. The glory of life rushed upon herlike a flood of gold, that gold of the sun in which thousands of tinythings are dancing. And she was given the power of giving life, ofadding to the sum of glory. She looked out over the sands and saw amoving blot upon them coming slowly towards her, very slowly. It wasimpossible at this distance to see who it was, but she felt that it washer husband. For a moment she thought of going down to meet him, butshe did not move. The new knowledge that had come to her made her, justthen, feel shy even of him, as if he must come to her, as if she couldmake no advance towards him.

  As the blackness upon the sand drew nearer she saw that it was a manwalking heavily. The man had her husband's gait. When she saw that sheturned. She had resolved to meet him at the tent door, to tell him what
she had to tell him at the threshold of their wandering home. Her senseof shyness died when she was at the tent door. She only felt now heroneness with her husband, and that to-night their unity was to be mademore perfect. If it could be made quite perfect! If he would speaktoo! Then nothing more would be wanting. At last every veil would havedropped from between them, and as they had long been one flesh theywould be one in spirit.

  She waited in the tent door.

  After what seemed a long time she saw Androvsky coming across themoonlit sand. He was walking very slowly, as if wearied out, with hishead drooping. He did not appear to see her till he was quite close tothe tent. Then he stopped and gazed at her. The moon--she thought itmust be the moon--made his face look strange, like a dying man's face.In this white face the eyes glittered feverishly.

  "Boris!" she said.

  "Domini!"

  "Come here, close to me. I have something to tell you--somethingwonderful."

  He came quite up to her.

  "Domini," he said, as if he had not heard her. "Domini, I--I've been tothe priest to-night. I meant to confess to him."

  "To confess!" she said.

  "This afternoon I asked him to hear my confession, but tonight I couldnot make it. I can only make it to you, Domini--only to you. Do youhear, Domini? Do you hear?"

  Something in his face and in his voice terrified her heart. Now she feltas if she would stop him from speaking if she dared, but that she didnot dare. His spirit was beyond domination. He would do what he meant todo regardless of her--of anyone.

  "What is it, Boris?" she whispered. "Tell me. Perhaps I can understandbest because I love best."

  He put his arms round her and kissed her, as a man kisses the woman heloves when he knows it may be for the last time, long and hard, witha desperation of love that feels frustrated by the very lips it istouching. At last he took his lips from hers.

  "Domini," he said, and his voice was steady and clear, almost hard,"you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in ourlove--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God,and I have insulted Him. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him, toput human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted bythe thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I wasyoung, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made. Ihave--I have--"

  The hardness went out of his voice. He broke down for a moment and wassilent.

  "You gave yourself to God," she said. "How?"

  He tried to meet her questioning eyes, but could not.

  "I--I gave myself to God as a monk," he answered after a pause.

  As he spoke Domini saw before her in the moonlight De Trevignac. Hecast a glance of horror at the tent, bent over her, made the sign ofthe Cross, and vanished. In his place stood Father Roubier, his eyesshining, his hand upraised, warning her against Androvsky. Then he, too,vanished, and she seemed to see Count Anteoni dressed as an Arab andmuttering words of the Koran.

  "Domini!"

  "Domini, did you hear me? Domini! Domini!"

  She felt his hands on her wrists.

  "You are the Trappist!" she said quietly, "of whom the priest told me.You are the monk from the Monastery of El-Largani who disappeared aftertwenty years."

  "Yes," he said, "I am he."

  "What made you tell me? What made you tell me?"

  There was agony now in her voice.

  "You asked me to speak, but it was not that. Do you remember last nightwhen I said that God must bless you? You answered, 'He has blessed me.He has given me you, your love, your truth.' It is that which makes mespeak. You have had my love, not my truth. Now take my truth. I've keptit from you. Now I'll give it you. It's black, but I'll give it you.Domini! Domini! Hate me to-night, but in your hatred believe that Inever loved you as I love you now."

  "Give me your truth," she said.

  BOOK V. THE REVELATION