The Garden of Allah

by Robert Hichens

  CHAPTER XXIX

  The caravan of Domini and Androvsky was leaving Arba.

  Already the tents and the attendants, with the camels and the mules,were winding slowly along the plain through the scrub in the directionof the mountains, and the dark shadow which indicated the oasis ofBeni-Mora. Batouch was with them. Domini and Androvsky were going to bealone on this last stage of their desert journey. They had mounted theirhorses before the great door of the bordj, said goodbye to the Sheikh ofArba, scattered some money among the ragged Arabs gathered to watch themgo, and cast one last look behind them.

  In that mutual, instinctive look back they were both bidding a silentfarewell to the desert, that had sheltered their passion, surely takenpart in the joy of their love, watched the sorrow and the terror growin it to the climax at Amara, and was now whispering to them a faint andmysterious farewell.

  To Domini the desert had always been as a great and significantpersonality, a personality that had called her persistently to come toit. Now, as she turned on her horse, she felt as if it were calling herno longer, as if its mission to her were accomplished, as if its voicehad sunk into a deep and breathless silence. She wondered if Androvskyfelt this too, but she did not ask him. His face was pale and severe.His eyes stared into the distance. His hands lay on his horse's necklike tired things with no more power to grip and hold. His lips wereslightly parted, and she heard the sound of his breath coming and goinglike the breath of a man who is struggling. This sound warned her not totry his strength or hers.

  "Come, Boris," she said, and her voice held none of the passionateregret that was in her heart, "we mustn't linger, or it will be nightbefore we reach Beni-Mora."

  "Let it be night," he said. "Dark night!"

  The horses moved slowly on, descending the hill on which stood thebordj.

  "Dark--dark night!" he said again.

  She said nothing. They rode into the plain. When they were there hesaid:

  "Domini, do you understand--do you realise?"

  "What, Boris?" she asked quietly.

  "All that we are leaving to-day?"

  "Yes, I understand."

  "Are we--are we leaving it for ever?"

  "We must not think of that."

  "How can we help it? What else can we think of? Can one govern themind?"

  "Surely, if we can govern the heart."

  "Sometimes," he said, "sometimes I wonder----"

  He looked at her. Something in her face made it impossible for him togo on, to say what he had been going to say. But she understood theunfinished sentence.

  "If you can wonder, Boris," she said, "you don't know me, you don't knowme at all!"

  "Domini," he said, "I don't wonder. But sometimes I understand yourstrength, and sometimes it seems to me scarcely human, scarcely thestrength of a woman."

  She lifted her whip and pointed to the dark shadow far away.

  "I can just see the tower," she said. "Can't you?"

  "I will not look," he said. "I cannot. If you can, you are stronger thanI. When I remember that it was on that tower you first spoke to me--oh,Domini, if we could only go back! It is in our power. We have only todraw a rein and--and--"

  "I look at the tower," she said, "as once I looked at the desert. Itcalls us, the shadow of the palm trees calls us, as once the desertdid."

  "But the voice--what a different voice! Can you listen to it?"

  "I have been listening to it ever since we left Amara. Yes, it is adifferent voice, but we must obey it as we obeyed the voice of thedesert. Don't you feel that?"

  "If I do it is because you tell me to feel it; you tell me that I mustfeel it."

  His words seemed to hurt her. An expression of pain came into her face.

  "Boris," she said, "don't make me regret too terribly that I ever cameinto your life. When you speak like that I feel almost as if you wereputting me in the place of--of--I feel as if you were depending upon mefor everything that you are doing, as if you were letting your own willfall asleep. The desert brings dreams. I know that. But we, you and I,we must not dream any more."

  "A dream, you call it--the life we have lived together, our desertlife?"

  "Boris, I only mean that we must live strongly now, act strongly now,that we must be brave. I have always felt that there was strength inyou."

  "Strength!" he said bitterly.

  "Yes. Otherwise I could never have loved you. Don't ever prove to methat I was utterly wrong. I can bear a great deal. But that--I don'tfeel as if I could bear that."

  After a moment he answered:

  "I will try to give you nothing more to bear for me."

  And he lifted his eyes and fixed them upon the tower with a sort ofstern intentness, as a man looks at something cruel, terrible.

  She saw him do this.

  "Let us ride quicker," she said. "To-night we must be in Beni-Mora."

  He said nothing, but he touched his horse with his heel. His eyes werealways fixed upon the tower, as if they feared to look at the desertany more. She understood that when he had said "I will try to give younothing more to bear for me," he had not spoken idly. He had waked upfrom the egoism of his despair. He had been able to see more clearlyinto her heart, to feel more rightly what she was feeling than he hadbefore. As she watched him watching the tower, she had a sensation thata bond, a new bond between them, was chaining them together in a newway. Was it not a bond that would be strong and lasting, that thefuture, whatever it held, would not be able to break? Ties, sacred ties,that had bound them together might, must, be snapped asunder. And theend was not yet. She saw, as she gazed at the darkness of the palms ofBeni-Mora, a greater darkness approaching, deeper than any darkness ofpalms, than any darkness of night. But now she saw also a ray oflight in the gloom, the light of the dawning strength, the dawningunselfishness in Androvsky. And she resolved to fix her eyes upon it ashe fixed his eyes upon the tower.

  Just after sunset they rode into Beni-Mora in advance of the camp, whichthey had passed upon their way. To the right were the trees of CountAnteoni's garden. Domini felt them, but she did not look towards them.Nor did Androvsky. They kept their eyes fixed upon the distance ofthe white road. Only when they reached the great hotel, now closed anddeserted, did she glance away. She could not pass the tower withoutseeing it. But she saw it through a mist of tears, and her handstrembled upon the reins they held. For a moment she felt that she mustbreak down, that she had no more strength left in her. But they came tothe statue of the Cardinal holding the double cross towards the desertlike a weapon. And she looked at it and saw the Christ.

  "Boris," she whispered, "there is the Christ. Let us think only of thattonight."

  She saw him look at it steadily.

  "You remember," she said, at the bottom of the avenue of cypresses--"atEl-Largani--_Factus obediens usque ad mortem Crucis_?"

  "Yes, Domini."

  "We can be obedient too. Let us be obedient too."

  When she said that, and looked at him, Androvsky felt as if he were onhis knees before her, as he was upon his knees in the garden when hecould not go away. But he felt, too, that then, though he had loved her,he had not known how to love her, how to love anyone. She had taught himnow. The lesson sank into his heart like a sword and like balm. It wasas if he were slain and healed by the same stroke.

  That night, as Domini lay in the lonely room in the hotel, with theFrench windows open to the verandah, she heard the church clock chimethe hour and the distant sound of the African hautboy in the street ofthe dancers, she heard again the two voices. The hautboy was barbarousand provocative, but she thought that it was no more shrill with apersistent triumph. Presently the church bell chimed again.

  Was it the bell of the church of Beni-Mora, or the bell of the chapelof El-Largani? Or was it not rather the voice of the great religion towhich she belonged, to which Androvsky was returning?

  When it ceased she whispered to herself, "_Factus obediens usque admortem Crucis_." And with these words upon her lips towards d
awnshe fell asleep. They had dined upstairs in the little room that hadformerly been Domini's salon, and had not seen Father Roubier, whoalways came to the hotel to take his evening meal. In the morning, afterthey had breakfasted, Androvsky said:

  "Domini, I will go. I will go now."

  He got up and stood by her, looking down at her. In his face there was asort of sternness, a set expression.

  "To Father Roubier, Boris?" she said.

  "Yes. Before I go won't you--won't you give me your hand?"

  She understood all the agony of spirit he was enduring, all the shameagainst which he was fighting. She longed to spring up, to take him inher arms, to comfort him as only the woman he loves and who loves himcan comfort a man, without words, by the pressure of her arms, thepressure of her lips, the beating of her heart against his heart. Shelonged to do this so ardently that she moved restlessly, looking up athim with a light in her eyes that he had never seen in them before, noteven when they watched the fire dying down at Arba. But she did not lifther hand to his.

  "Boris," she said, "go. God will be with you."

  After a moment she added:

  "And all my heart."

  He stood, as if waiting, a long time. She had ceased from moving andhad withdrawn her eyes from his. In his soul a voice was saying, "If shedoes not touch you now she will never touch you again." And he waited.He could not help waiting.

  "Boris," she whispered, "good-bye."

  "Good-bye?" he said.

  "Come to me--afterwards. Come to me in the garden. I shall be therewhere we--I shall be there waiting for you."

  He went out without another word.

  When he was gone she went on to the verandah quickly and looked over theparapet. She saw him come out from beneath the arcade and walk slowlyacross the road to the little gate of the enclosure before the house ofthe priest. As he lifted his hands to open the gate there was the soundof a bark, and she saw Bous-Bous run out with a manner of sterninquiry, which quickly changed to joyful welcome as he recognised an oldacquaintance. Androvsky bent down, took up the little dog in his arms,and, holding him, walked to the house door. In a moment it was openedand he went in. Then Domini set out towards the garden, avoiding thevillage street, and taking a byway which skirted the desert. She walkedquickly. She longed to be within the shadows of the garden behind thewhite wall. She did not feel much, think much, as she walked. Withoutself-consciously knowing it she was holding all her nature, the whole ofherself, fiercely in check. She did not look about her, did not see thesunlit reaches of the desert, or the walls of the houses of Beni-Mora,or the palm trees. Only when she had passed the hotel and the negrovillage and turned to the left, to the track at the edge of which thevilla of Count Anteoni stood, did she lift her eyes from the ground.They rested on the white arcade framing the fierce blue of the cloudlesssky. She stopped short. Her nature seemed to escape from the leash bywhich she had held it in with a rush, to leap forward, to be in thegarden and in the past, in the past with its passion and its fieryhopes, its magnificent looking forward, its holy desires of joy thatwould crown her woman's life, of love that would teach her allthe depth, and the height, and the force and the submission of herwomanhood. And then, from that past, it strove on into the present. Theshock was as the shock of battle. There were noises in her ears, voicesclamouring in her heart. All her pulses throbbed like hammers, and thensuddenly she felt as weak as a little sick child, and as if she must liedown there on the dust of the white road in the sunshine, lie down anddie at the edge of the desert that had treated her cruelly, that hadslain the hopes it had given to her and brought into her heart thisterrible despair.

  For now she knew a moment of utter despair, in which all things seemedto dissolve into atoms and sink down out of her sight. She stoodquivering in blackness. She stood absolutely alone, more absolutelyalone than any woman had ever been, than any human being had ever been.She seemed presently, as the blackness faded into something pale, like aghastly twilight, to see herself--her wraith, as it were--standing in avast landscape, vast as the desert, companionless, lost, forgotten, outof mind, watching for something that would never come, listening forsome voice that was hushed in eternal silence.

  That was to be her life, she thought--could she face it? Could sheendure it? And everything within her said to her that she could not.

  And then, just then, when she felt that she must sink down and giveup the battle of life, she seemed to see by her side a shape, a littleshape like a child. And it lifted up a hand to her hand.

  And she knew that the vast landscape was God's garden, the Garden ofAllah, and that no day, no night could ever pass without God walking init.

  Hearing a knock upon the great gate of the garden Smain uncurled himselfon his mat within the tent, rose lazily to his feet, and, without arose, strolled languidly to open to the visitor. Domini stood without.When he saw her he smiled quietly, with no surprise.

  "Madame has returned?"

  Domini smiled at him, but her lips were trembling, and she said nothing.

  Smain observed her with a dawning of curiosity.

  "Madame is changed," he said at length. "Madame looks tired. The sun ishot in the desert now. It is better here in the garden."

  With an effort she controlled herself.

  "Yes, Smain," she answered, "it is better here. But I can not stay herelong."

  "You are going away?"

  "Yes, I am going away."

  She saw more quiet questions fluttering on his lips, and added:

  "And now I want to walk in the garden alone."

  He waved his hand towards the trees.

  "It is all for Madame. Monsieur the Count has always said so. ButMonsieur?"

  "He is in Beni-Mora. He is coming presently to fetch me."

  Then she turned away and walked slowly across the great sweep of sandtowards the trees and was taken by their darkness. She heard again theliquid bubbling of the hidden waterfall, and was again companioned bythe mystery of this desert Paradise, but it no longer whispered toher of peace for her. It murmured only its own personal peace andaccentuated her own personal agony and struggle. All that it had been itstill was, but all that she had been in it was changed. And she felt thefull terror of Nature's equanimity environing the fierce and torturedlives of men.

  As she walked towards the deepest recesses of the garden along thewinding tracks between the rills she had no sensation of approaching thehidden home of the Geni of the garden. Yet she remembered acutely allher first feelings there. Not one was forgotten. They returned to herlike spectres stealing across the sand. They lurked like spectres amongthe dense masses of the trees. She strove not to see their pale shapes,not to hear their terrible voices. She strove to draw calm once morefrom this infinite calm of silently-growing things aspiring towards thesun. But with each step she took the torment in her heart increased. Atlast she came to the deeper darkness and the blanched sand, and sawpine needles strewed about her feet. Then she stood still, instinctivelylistening for a sound that would complete the magic of the garden andher own despair. She waited for it. She even felt, strangely, that shewanted, that she needed it--the sound of the flute of Larbi playing hisamorous tune. But his flute to-day was silent. Had he fallen out of anold love and not yet found a new? or had he, perhaps, gone away? or washe dead? For a long time she stood there, thinking about Larbi. He andhis flute and his love were mingled with her life in the desert. And shefelt that she could not leave the desert without bidding them farewell.

  But the silence lasted and she went on and came to the _fumoir_. Shewent into it at once and sat down. She was going to wait for Androvskyhere.

  Her mind was straying curiously to-day. Suddenly she found herselfthinking of the fanatical religious performance she had seen with Hadjon the night when she had ridden out to watch the moon rise. She saw inimagination the bowing bodies, the foaming mouths, the glassy eyesof the young priests of the Sahara. She saw the spikes behind theireyeballs, the struggling scorpions descending into their th
roats, theflaming coals under their arm-pits, the nails driven into their heads.She heard them growling as they saw the glass, like hungry beasts at thesight of meat. And all this was to them religion. This madness wastheir conception of worship. A voice seemed to whisper to her: "And yourmadness?"

  It was like the voice that whispered to Androvsky in the cemetery ofEl-Largani, "Come out with me into that world, that beautiful worldwhich God made for men. Why do you reject it?"

  For a moment she saw all religions, all the practices, the renunciationsof the religions of the world, as varying forms of madness. She comparedthe self-denial of the monk with the fetish worship of the savage. Anda wild thrill of something that was almost like joy rushed through her,the joy that sometimes comes to the unbelievers when they are about tocommit some act which they feel would be contrary to God's will if therewere a God. It was a thrill of almost insolent human emancipation. Thesoul cried out: "I have no master. When I thought I had a master I wasmad. Now I am sane."

  But it passed almost as it came, like a false thing slinking from thesunlight, and Domini bowed her head in the obscurity of Count Anteoni'sthinking-place and returned to her true self. That moment had been likethe moment upon the tower when she saw below her the Jewess dancing uponthe roof for the soldiers, a black speck settling for an instant uponwhiteness, then carried away by a purifying wind. She knew that shewould always be subject to such moments so long as she was a humanbeing, that there would always be in her blood something that wasself-willed. Otherwise, would she not be already in Paradise? She satand prayed for strength in the battle of life, that could never beanything else but a battle.

  At last something within her told her to look up, to look out throughthe window-space into the garden. She had not heard a step, but sheknew that Androvsky was approaching, and, as she looked up, she preparedherself for a sight that would be terrible. She remembered his face whenhe came to bid her good-bye in the garden, and she feared to see hisface now. But she schooled herself to be strong, for herself and forhim.

  He was near her on the path coming towards her. As she saw him sheuttered a little cry and stood up. An immense surprise came to her,followed in a moment by an immense joy--the greatest joy, she thought,that she had ever experienced. For she looked on a face in which shesaw for the first time a pale dawning of peace. There was sadness in it,there was awe, but there was a light of calm, such as sometimes settlesupon the faces of men who have died quietly without agony or fear. Andshe felt fully, as she saw it, the rapture of having refused cowardiceand grasped the hand of bravery. Directly afterwards there came to her asensation of wonder that at this moment of their lives she and Androvskyshould be capable of a feeling of joy, of peace. When the wonder passedit was as if she had seen God and knew for ever the meaning of Hisdivine compensations.

  Androvsky came to the doorway of the _fumoir_ without looking up,stood still there--just where Count Anteoni had stood during his firstinterview with Domini--and said:

  "Domini, I have been to the priest. I have made my confession."

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, Boris!"

  He came into the _fumoir_ and sat down near her, but not close to her,on one of the divans. Now the sad look in his face had deepened and thepeace seemed to be fading. She had thought of the dawn--that pale lightwhich is growing into day. Now she thought of the twilight which isfading into night. And the terrible knowledge struck her, "I am thetroubler of his peace. Without me only could he ever regain fully thepeace which he has lost."

  "Domini," he said, looking up at her, "you know the rest. You meant itto be as it will be when we left Amara."

  "Was there any other way? Was there any other possible life for us--foryou--for me?"

  "For you!" he said, and there was a sound almost of despair in hisvoice. "But what is to be your life? I have never protected you--youhave protected me. I have never been strong for you--you have beenstrong for me. But to leave you--all alone, Domini, must I do that? MustI think of you out in the world alone?"

  For a moment she was tempted to break her silence, to tell him thetruth, that she would perhaps not be alone, that another life, sprungfrom his and hers, was coming to be with her, was coming to share thegreat loneliness that lay before her. But she resisted the temptationand only said:

  "Do not think of me, Boris."

  "You tell me not to think of you!" he said with an almost fierce wonder."Do you--do you wish me not to think of you?"

  "What I wish--that is so little, but--no, Boris, I can't say--I don'tthink I could ever truly say that I wish you to think no more of me.After all, one has a heart, and I think if it's worth anything it mustbe often a rebellious heart. I know mine is rebellious. But if you don'tthink too much of me--when you are there--"

  She paused, and they looked at each other for a moment in silence. Thenshe continued:

  "Surely it will be easier for you, happier for you."

  Androvsky clenched his right hand on the divan and turned round till hewas facing her full. His eyes blazed.

  "Domini," he said, "you are truthful. I'll be truthful to you. Tillthe end of my life I'll think of you--every day, every hour. If it weremortal sin to think of you I would commit it--yes, Domini, deliberately,I would commit it. But--God doesn't ask so much of us; no, God doesn't.I've made my confession. I know what I must do. I'll do it. You areright--you are always right--you are guided, I know that. But I willthink of you. And I'll tell you something--don't shirk from it, becauseit's truth, the truth of my soul, and you love truth. Domini--"

  Suddenly he got up from the divan and stood before her, looking down ather steadily.

  "Domini, I can't regret that I have seen you, that we have beentogether, that we have loved each other, that we do love each other forever. I can't regret it; I can't even try or wish to. I can't regretthat I have learned from you the meaning of life. I know that God haspunished me for what I have done. In my love for you--till I toldyou the truth, that other truth--I never had a moment of peace--ofexultation, yes, of passionate exultation; but never, never a moment ofpeace. For always, even in the most beautiful moments, there has beenagony for me. For always I have known that I was sinning against God andyou, against myself, my eternal vows. And yet now I tell you, Domini,as I have told God since I have been able to pray again, that I am glad,thankful, that I have loved you, been loved by you. Is it wicked? Idon't know. I can scarcely even care, because it's true. And how can Ideny the truth, strive against truth? I am as I am, and I am that. Godhas made me that. God will forgive me for being as I am. I'm not afraid.I believe--I dare to believe--that He wishes me to think of you alwaystill the end of my life. I dare to believe that He would almost hate meif I could ever cease from loving you. That's my other confession--myconfession to you. I was born, perhaps, to be a monk. But I was born,too, that I might love you and know your love, your beauty, yourtenderness, your divinity. If I had not known you, if I had died a monk,a good monk who had never denied his vows, I should have died--I feelit, Domini--in a great, a terrible ignorance. I should have known thegoodness of God, but I should never have known part, a beautiful part,of His goodness. For I should never have known the goodness that He hasput into you. He has taught me through you. He has tortured me throughyou; yes, but through you, too, He has made me understand Him. When Iwas in the monastery, when I was at peace, when I lost myself in prayer,when I was absolutely pure, absolutely--so I thought--the child ofGod, I never really knew God. Now, Domini, now I know Him. In the worstmoments of the new agony that I must meet at least I shall always havethat help. I shall always feel that I know what God is. I shall always,when I think of you, when I remember you, be able to say, 'God islove.'"

  He was silent, but his face still spoke to her, his eyes read her eyes.And in that moment at last they understood each other fully and forever. "It was written"--that was Domini's thought--"it was written byGod." Far away the church bell chimed.

  "Boris," Domini said quietly, "we must go to-day. We must leaveBeni-Mora. You know that?"
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  "Yes," he said, "I know."

  He looked out into the garden. The almost fierce resolution, that hadsomething in it of triumph, faded from him.

  "Yes," he said, "this is the end, the real end, for--there, it will allbe different--it will be terrible."

  "Let us sit here for a little while together," Domini said, "and bequiet. Is it like the garden of El-Largani, Boris?"

  "No. But when I first came here, when I saw the white walls, the greatdoor, when I saw the poor Arabs gathered there to receive alms, it mademe feel almost as if I were at El-Largani. That was why----" he paused.

  "I understand, Boris, I understand everything now."

  And then they were silent. Such a silence as theirs was then couldnever be interpreted to others. In it the sorrows, the aspirations, thestruggles, the triumphs, the torturing regrets, the brave determinationsof poor, great, feeble, noble humanity were enclosed as in a casket--acasket which contains many kinds of jewels, but surely none that are notprecious.

  And the garden listened, and beyond the garden the desert listened--thatother garden of Allah. And in this garden was not Allah, too, listeningto this silence of his children, this last mutual silence of theirs inthe garden where they had wandered, where they had loved, where they hadlearned a great lesson and drawn near to a great victory?

  They might have sat thus for hours; they had lost all count of time. Butpresently, in the distance among the trees, there rose a light, frailsound that struck into both their hearts like a thin weapon. It was theflute of Larbi, and it reminded them--of what did it not remind them?All their passionate love of the body, all their lawlessness, all thejoy of liberty and of life, of the barbaric life that is liberty, alltheir wandering in the great spaces of the sun, were set before them inLarbi's fluttering tune, that was like the call of a siren, the callof danger, the call of earth and of earthly things, summoning them toabandon the summons of the spirit. Domini got up swiftly.

  "Come, Boris," she said, without looking at him.

  He obeyed her and rose to his feet.

  "Let us go to the wall," she said, "and look out once more on thedesert. It must be nearly noon. Perhaps--perhaps we shall hear the callto prayer."

  They walked down the winding alleys towards the edge of the garden. Thesound of the flute of Larbi died away gradually into silence. Soon theysaw before them the great spaces of the Sahara flooded with the blindingglory of the summer sunlight. They stood and looked out over it from theshelter of some pepper trees. No caravans were passing. No Arabs werevisible. The desert seemed utterly empty, given over, naked, to thedominion of the sun. While they stood there the nasal voice of theMueddin rose from the minaret of the mosque of Beni-Mora, uttered itsfourfold cry, and died away.

  "Boris," Domini said, "that is for the Arabs, but for us, too, for webelong to the garden of Allah as they do, perhaps even more than they."

  "Yes, Domini."

  She remembered how, long ago, Count Anteoni had stood there with her andrepeated the words of the angel to the Prophet, and she murmured themnow:

  "O thou that art covered, arise, and magnify thy Lord, and purify thyclothes, and depart from uncleanness."

  Then, standing side by side, they prayed, looking at the desert.