Tancred Part 48

The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist, but the eternal law enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vintage. A race that persist in celebrating their vintage, although they have no fruits to gather, will regain their vineyards. What sublime inexorability in the law! But what indomitable spirit in the people!

It is easy for the happier Sephardim, the Hebrews who have never quitted the sunny regions that are laved by the Midland Ocean; it is easy for them, though they have lost their heritage, to sympathise, in their beautiful Asian cities or in their Moorish and Arabian gardens, with the graceful rights that are, at least, an homage to a benignant nature.

But picture to yourself the child of Israel in the dingy suburb or the squalid quarter of some bleak northern town, where there is never a sun that can at any rate ripen grapes. Yet he must celebrate the vintage of purple Palestine! The law has told him, though a denizen in an icy clime, that he must dwell for seven days in a bower, and that he must build it of the boughs of thick trees; and the Rabbins have told him that these thick trees are the palm, the myrtle, and the weeping willow.

Even Sarmatia may furnish a weeping willow. The law has told him that he must pluck the fruit of goodly trees, and the Rabbins have explained that goodly fruit on this occasion is confined to the citron. Perhaps, in his despair, he is obliged to fly to the candied delicacies of the grocer. His mercantile connections will enable him, often at considerable cost, to procure some palm leaves from Canaan, which he may wave in his synagogue while he exclaims, as the crowd did when the Divine descendant of David entered Jerusalem, 'Hosanna in the highest!'

There is something profoundly interesting in this devoted observance of Oriental customs in the heart of our Saxon and Sclavonian cities; in these descendants of the Bedouins, who conquered Canaan more than three thousand years ago, still celebrating that success which secured their forefathers, for the first time, grapes and wine.

Conceive a being born and bred in the Judenstra.s.se of Hamburg or Frankfort, or rather in the purlieus of our Houndsditch or Minories, born to hereditary insult, without any education, apparently without a circ.u.mstance that can develop the slightest taste, or cherish the least sentiment for the beautiful, living amid fogs and filth, never treated with kindness, seldom with justice, occupied with the meanest, if not the vilest, toil, bargaining for frippery, speculating in usury, existing for ever under the concurrent influence of degrading causes which would have worn out, long ago, any race that was not of the unmixed blood of Caucasus, and did not adhere to the laws of Moses; conceive such a being, an object to you of prejudice, dislike, disgust, perhaps hatred. The season arrives, and the mind and heart of that being are filled with images and pa.s.sions that have been ranked in all ages among the most beautiful and the most genial of human experience; filled with a subject the most vivid, the most graceful, the most joyous, and the most exuberant; a subject which has inspired poets, and which has made G.o.ds; the harvest of the grape in the native regions of the Vine.

He rises in the morning, goes early to some White-chapel market, purchases some willow boughs for which he has previously given a commission, and which are brought, probably, from one of the neighbouring rivers of Ess.e.x, hastens home, cleans out the yard of his miserable tenement, builds his bower, decks it, even profusely, with the finest flowers and fruits that he can procure, the myrtle and the citron never forgotten, and hangs its roof with variegated lamps. After the service of his synagogue, he sups late with his wife and his children in the open air, as if he were in the pleasant villages of Galilee, beneath its sweet and starry sky.

Perhaps, as he is giving the Keedush, the Hebrew blessing to the Hebrew meal, breaking and distributing the bread, and sanctifying, with a preliminary prayer, the goblet of wine he holds, the very ceremony which the Divine Prince of Israel, nearly two thousand years ago, adopted at the most memorable of all repasts, and eternally invested with eucharistic grace; or, perhaps, as he is offering up the peculiar thanksgiving of the Feast of Tabernacles, praising Jehovah for the vintage which his children may no longer cull, but also for His promise that they may some day again enjoy it, and his wife and his children are joining in a pious Hosanna, that is, Save us! a party of Anglo-Saxons, very respectable men, ten-pounders, a little elevated it may be, though certainly not in honour of the vintage, pa.s.s the house, and words like these are heard:

'I say, Buggins, what's that row?'

'Oh! it's those cursed Jews! we've a lot of 'em here. It is one of their horrible feasts. The Lord Mayor ought to interfere. However, things are not as bad as they used to be: they used always to crucify little boys at these hullabaloos, but now they only eat sausages made of stinking pork.'

'To be sure,' replies his companion, 'we all make progress.'

In the meantime, a burst of music sounds from the gardens of Besso of Damascus. He advances, and invites Tancred and the Emir to follow him, and, without any order or courtesy to the softer s.e.x, who, on the contrary, follow in the rear, the whole company step out of the Saracenic windows into the gardens. The mansion of Besso, which was of great extent, appeared to be built in their midst. No other roof or building was in any direction visible, yet the house was truly in the middle of the city, and the umbrageous plane trees alone produced that illimitable air which is always so pleasing and effective. The house, though lofty for an eastern mansion, was only one story in height, yet its front was covered with an external and double staircase. This, after a promenade in the garden, the guests approached and mounted. It led to the roof or terrace of the house, which was of great size, an oblong square, and which again was a garden. Myrtle trees of a considerable height, and fragrant with many flowers, were arranged in close order along the four sides of this roof, forming a barrier which no eye from the city beneath or any neighbouring terrace could penetrate. This verdant bulwark, however, opened at each corner of the roof, which was occupied by a projecting pavilion of white marble, a light cupola of chequered carving supported by wreathed columns. From these pavilions the most charming views might be obtained of the city and the surrounding country: Damascus, itself a varied ma.s.s of dark green groves, white minarets, bright gardens, and hooded domes; to the south and east, at the extremity of its rich plain, the glare of the desert; to the west the ranges of the Lebanon; while the city was backed on the north by other mountain regions which Tancred had not yet penetrated.

In the centre of the terrace was a temporary structure of a peculiar character. It was nearly forty feet long, half as many broad, and proportionately lofty. Twelve palm trees cl.u.s.tering with ripe fruit, and each of which seemed to spring from a flowering hedge of myrtles, supported a roof formed with much artifice of the braided boughs of trees. These, however, only furnished an invisible framework, from which were suspended the most beautiful and delicious fruits, citron and pomegranate, orange, and fig, and banana, and melon, in such thickness and profusion that they formed, as it were, a carved ceiling of rich shades and glowing colours, like the Saracenic ceiling of the mansion, while enormous bunches of grapes every now and then descended like pendants from the main body of the roof. The s.p.a.ces between the palm trees were filled with a natural trellis-work of orange trees in fruit and blossom, leaving at intervals arches of entrance, whose form was indicated by bunches of the sweetest and rarest flowers.

Within was a banqueting-table covered with thick white damask silk, with a border of gold about a foot in breadth, and before each guest was placed a napkin of the same fashion. The table, however, lacked none of the conveniences and luxuries and even ornaments of Europe. What can withstand the united influence of taste, wealth, and commerce? The choicest porcelain of France, golden goblets chiselled in Bond Street, and the prototypes of which had perhaps been won at Goodwood or Ascot, mingled with the rarest specimens of the gla.s.s of Bohemia, while the triumphant blades of Sheffield flashed in that very Syrian city whose skill in cutlery had once been a proverb. Around the table was a divan of amber-coloured satin with many cushions, so arranged that the guests might follow either the Oriental or the European mode of seating themselves. Such was the bower or tabernacle of Besso of Damascus, prepared to celebrate the seventh day of his vintage feast.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

_Eva's Affianced Bridegroom_

WE OUGHT to have met at Jerusalem,' said Tancred to Besso, on whose right hand he was seated, 'but I am happy to thank you for all your kindness, even at Damascus.' 'My daughter tells me you are not uninterested in our people, which is the reason I ventured to ask you here.'

'I cannot comprehend how a Christian can be uninterested in a people who have handed down to him immortal truths.'

'All the world is not as sensible of the obligation as yourself, n.o.ble traveller.'

'But who are the world? Do you mean the inhabitants of Europe, which is a forest not yet cleared; or the inhabitants of Asia, which is a ruin about to tumble?'

'The railroads will clear the forest,' said Besso. 'And what is to become of the ruin?' asked Tancred.

'G.o.d will not forget His land.' 'That is the truth; the government of this globe must be divine, and the impulse can only come from Asia.'

'If your government only understood the Eastern question!' said Mr.

Consul-General Laurella, p.r.i.c.king up his ears at some half phrase that he had caught, and addressing Tancred across the table. 'It is more simple than you imagine, and before you return to England to take your seat in your Parliament, I should be very happy to have some conversation with you.

I think I could tell you some things----' and he gave a glance of diplomatic mystery. Tancred bowed.

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking in an airy tone, 'it seems to me that your Eastern question is a great imbroglio that only exists in the cabinets of diplomatists. Why should there be any Eastern question? All is very well as it is. At least we might be worse: I think we might be worse.'

'I am so happy to find myself once more among you,' whispered Fakredeen to his neighbour, Madame Mourad Farhi. 'This is my real home.'

'All here must be happy and honoured to see you, too, n.o.ble Emir.'

'And the good Signor Mourad: I am afraid I am not a favourite of his?'

pursued Fakredeen, meditating a loan.

'I never heard my husband speak of you, n.o.ble Emir, but with the greatest consideration.'

'There is no man I respect so much,' said Fakredeen; 'no one in whom I have such a thorough confidence. Excepting our dear host, who is really my father, there is no one on whose judgment I would so implicitly rely.

Tell him all that, my dear Madame Mourad, for I wish him to respect me.'

'I admire his hair so much,' whispered Therese Laurella, in an audible voice to her sister, across the broad form of the ever-smiling Madame Picholoroni. 'Tis such a relief after our dreadful turbans.'

'And his costume, so becoming! I wonder how any civilised being can wear the sort of things we see about us. 'Tis really altogether like a wardrobe of the Comedie.'

'Well, Sophonisbe,' said the sensible Moses Laurella, 'I admire the Franks very much; they have many qualities which I could wish our Levantines shared; but I confess that I do not think that their strong point is their costume.'

'Oh, my dear uncle!' said Therese; 'look at that beautiful white cravat.

What have we like it? So simple, so distinguished! Such good taste! And then the boots. Think of our dreadful slippers! powdered with pearls and all sorts of trash of that kind, by the side of that lovely French polish.'

'He must be terribly _ennuye_ here,' said Therese to Sophonisbe, with a look of the initiated.

'Indeed, I should think so: no b.a.l.l.s, not an opera; I quite pity him.

What could have induced him to come here?'

'I should think he must be attached to some one,' said Therese: 'he looks unhappy.'

'There is not a person near him with whom he can have an idea in common.'

'Except Mr. Hillel Besso,' said Therese. 'He appears to be quite enlightened. I spoke to him a little before dinner. He has been a winter at Pera, and went to all the b.a.l.l.s.'

'Lord Palmerston understood the Eastern question to a certain degree,'

said Mr. Consul-General Laurella; 'but, had I been in the service of the Queen of England, I could have told him some things;' and he mysteriously paused.

'I cannot endure this eternal chatter about Palmerston,' said the Emir, rather pettishly. 'Are there no other statesmen in the world besides Palmerston? And what should he know about the Eastern question, who never was in the East?'

'Ah, n.o.ble Emir, these are questions of the high diplomacy. They cannot be treated unless by the cabinets which have traditions.'

'I could settle the Eastern question in a month, if I were disposed,'

said Fakredeen.

Mr. Consul-General Laurella smiled superciliously, and then said, 'But the question is, what is the Eastern question?'

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, in a most epigrammatic manner, 'I do not see the use of settling anything.'

'The Eastern question is, who shall govern the Mediterranean?' said the Emir. 'There are only two powers who can do it: Egypt and Syria. As for the English, the Russians, the Franks, your friends the Austrians, they are strangers. They come, and they will go; but Syria and Egypt will always remain.'