The Book of Khalid Part 14

"'You do not have to do so; the booth under the almond tree is at your disposal. Come for a spiritual exercise of one week only.'

"'I have been going through such an exercise for a year, and soon I shall leave my cloister in the pines.'

"'What say you? You are leaving our neighbourhood? No, no; remain here, O Khalid. Come, live with me in the Hermitage. Come back to Mother Church; return not to the wicked world. O Khalid, we must inherit the Kingdom of Allah, and we can not do so by being anarchist like the prowlers of the forest. Meditate on the insignificance and evanescence of human life.'

"'But it lies within us, O my Brother, to make it significant and eternal.'

"'Yes, truly, in the bosom of Mother Church. Come back to your Mother--come to the Hermitage--let us pa.s.s this life together.'

"'And what will you do, if in the end you discover that I am in the right?'

"Here he paused a moment, and, casting on me a benignant glance, makes this reply: 'Then, I will rejoice, rejoice,' he gasped; 'for we shall both be in the right. You will become an anarchist like me and not against the wretched authorities of the world, but against your real enemies, Instinct and Reason.'

"And thus, now and then, he would salt his argument with a pinch of casuistic wit. Once he was hard set, and, to escape the alternatives of the situation, he condescended to tell me the story of his first and only love.

"'In my youth,' said the Hermit, 'I was a shoemaker, and not a little fastidious as a craftsman. In fact, I am, and always have been, an extremist, a purist. I can not tolerate the cobblings of life. Either do your work skilfully, devotedly, earnestly, or do it not. So, as a shoemaker, I succeeded very well. Truth to tell, my work was as good, as neat, as elegant as that of the best craftsman in Beirut. And you know, Beirut is noted for its shoemakers. Yes, I was successful as any of them, and I counted among my customers the bishop of the diocese himself. One day, forgive me, Allah! a young girl, the daughter of a peasant neighbour, comes into the shop to order a pair of shoes. In taking the measure of her foot--but I must not linger on these details. A shoemaker can not fail to notice the shape of his customer's foot. Well, I measured, too, her ankle--ah, forgive me, Allah!

"'In brief, when the shoes were finished--I spent a whole day in the finishing touches--I made her a present of them. And she, in recognition of my favor, made a plush tobacco bag, on which my name was worked in gold threads, and sent it to me, wrapped in a silk handkerchief, with her brother. Now, that is the opening chapter. I will abruptly come to the last, skipping the intermediate parts, for they are too silly, all of them. I will only say that I was as earnest, as sincere, as devoted in this affair of love as I was in my craft. Of a truth, I was mad about both.

"'Now the closing chapter. One day I went to see her--we were engaged--and found she had gone to the spring for water. I follow her there and find her talking to a young man, a shoemaker like myself.

No, he was but a cobbler. On the following day, going again to see her, I find this cobbler there. I remonstrate with her, but in vain.

And what is worse, she had sent to him the shoes I made, to be repaired. He was patching my own work! I swallowed my ire and went back to my shop. A week later, to be brief, I went there again, and what I beheld made my body shiver. She, the wench. Forgive me, Allah!

had her hands around his neck and her lips--yes, her lying lips, on his cheek! No, no; even then I did not utter a word. I could but cry in the depth of my heart. How can woman be so faithless, so treacherous--in my heart I cried.

"'It was a terrible shock; and from it I lay in bed for days with chills and fever. Now, when I recovered, I was determined on pursuing a new course of life. No longer would I measure women's feet. I sold my stock, closed my shop, and entered the monastery. I heard afterwards that she married that young cobbler; emigrated with him to America; deserted him there; returned to her native village; married again, and fled with her second husband to South Africa. Allah be praised! even He appreciates the difference between a shoemaker and a cobbler; and the bad woman He gives to the bad craftsman. That is why I say, Never be a cobbler, whatever you do.

"'But in the monastery--draw near, I will speak freely--in the monastery, too, there are cobblers and shoemakers. There, too, is much unG.o.dliness, much treachery, much cobbling. Ah me, I must not speak thus. Forgive me, Allah! But I promised to tell you the whole story.

Therefore, I will speak freely. After pa.s.sing some years in the monastery, years of probation and grief they were, I fell sick with a virulent fever. The abbot, seeing that there was little chance of my recovery, would not send for the physician. And so, I languished for weeks, suffering from thirst and burning pains and hunger. I raved and chattered in my delirium. I betrayed myself, too, they told me. The monks my brothers, even during my suffering, made a scandal of the love affair I related. They said that I exposed my wounds and my broken heart before the Virgin, that I sinned in thought and word on my death-bed. Allah forgive them. It may be, however; for I know not what I said and what I did. But when I recovered, I was determined not to remain in the monastery, and not to return to the world. The wicked world, I disentangled myself absolutely from its poisoned meshes. I came to the Hermitage, to this place. And never, since I made my second remove until now, have I known disease, or sorrow, nor treachery, which is worse than both. Allah be praised! One's people, one's brothers, one's lovers and friends, are a hindrance and botheration. We are nothing, nothing: G.o.d is everything. G.o.d is the only reality. And in G.o.d alone is my refuge. That is my story in brief. If I did not like you, I would not have told it, and so freely.

Meditate upon it, and on the insignificance and evanescence of human life. The world is a snare, and a bad snare, at that. For it can not hold us long enough in it to learn to like it. It is a cobbler's snare. The world is full of cobblers, O Khalid. Come away from it; be an ideal craftsman--be an extremist--be a purist--come live with me.

Let us join our souls in devotion, and our hearts in love. Come, let us till and cultivate this vineyard together.'

"And taking me by the hand, he shows me a cell furnished with a hair-mat, a _masnad_ (leaning pillow), and a chair. 'This cell,' says he, 'was occupied by the Bishop when he came here for a spiritual exercise of three weeks. It shall be yours if you come; it's the best cell in the Hermitage. Now, let us visit the chapel.' I go in with him, and as we are coming out, I ask him child-like for a wafer. He brings the box straightway, begs me to take as much as I desire, and placing his hand on my shoulder, encircles me with one of his benignant glances, saying, 'Allah illumine thy heart, O Khalid.'

'Allah hear thy prayer,' I reply. And we part in tears."

Here Khalid bursts in ecstasy about the higher spiritual kingdom, and chops a little logic about the I and the not-I, the Reality and the non-Reality.--"G.o.d," says the Hermit. "Thought," says the Idealist, "that is the only Reality." And what is Thought, and what is G.o.d, and what is Matter, and what is Spirit? They are the mysterious vessels of Life, which are always being filled by Love and emptied by Logic. "The external world," says the Materialist--"Does not exist," says the Idealist. "'Tis immaterial if it does or not," says the Hermit. And what if the three are wrong? The Universe, knowable and unknowable, will it be affected a whit by it? If the German Professor's Chair of Logic and Philosophy were set up in the Hermitage, would anything be gained or lost? Let the _I_ deny the stars, and they will nevertheless roll in silence above it. Let the not-I crush this I, this "thinking reed," and the higher universal I, rising above the stars and flooding the sidereal heavens with light, will warm, remold, and regenerate the world.

"I can conceive of a power," writes Khalid in that vexing Ma.n.u.script, "which can create a beautiful parti-colored sun-flower of the shattered fragments of Idealism, Materialism, and my Hermit's theology. Why not, if in the New World--" And here, of a sudden, to surprise and bewilder us, he drags in Mrs. Eddy and the Prophet Dowie yoked under the yoke of Whitman. He marks the _Key to Scripture_ with blades from _Leaves of Gra.s.s_, and such fuel as he gathers from both, he lights with an ember borrowed from the chariot to Elijah. And thus, for ten whole pages, beating continually, now in the dark of Metaphysics, now in the dusk of Science; losing himself in the tangled bushes of English Materialism, and German Mysticism, and Arabic Sufism; calling now to Berkeley, now to Hackel; meeting with Spencer here, with Al-Gazzaly there; and endeavoring to extricate himself in the end with some such efforts as "the Natural being Negativity, the Spiritual must be the opposite of that, and both united in G.o.d form the Absolute," etc., etc. But we shall not give ourselves further pain in laying before the English reader the like heavy and unwieldy lumber. Whoever relishes such stuff, and can digest it, need not apply to Khalid; for, in this case, he is but a poor third-hand caterer.

Better go to the Manufacturers direct; they are within reach of every one in this Age of Machinery and Popular Editions. But there are pa.s.sages here, of which Khalid can say, 'The Mortar at least is mine.'

And in this Mortar he mixes and t.i.trates with his Neighbour's Pestle some of his fantasy and insight. Of these we offer a sample:

"I say with psychologists, as the organism, so is the personality.

The revelation of the Me is perfect in proportion to the sound state of the Medium. But according to the Arabic proverb, the jar oozes of its contents. If these be of a putridinous mixture, therefore, no matter how sound the jar, the ooze is not going to smell of ambergris and musk. So, it all depends on the contents with which the Potter fills his jugs and pipkins, I a.s.sure you. And if the contents are good and the jar is sound, we get such excellence of soul as is rare among mortals. If the contents are excellent and the jar is cracked, the objective influence will then predominate, and putrescence, soon or late, will set in. Now, the Me in the majority of mankind comes to this world in a cracked pipkin, and it oozes out entirely as soon as it liquifies in youth. The pipkin, therefore, goes through life empty and cracked, ever sounding flat and false. While in others the Me is enclosed in a sealed straw-covered flask and can only be awakened by either evaporation or decapitation, in other words, by a spiritual revolution. And in the very few among mortals, it emerges out of the iron calyx of a flower of red-hot steel, or flows from the transparent, odoriferous bosom of a rose of light. In the first we have a Caesar, an Alexander, a Napoleon; in the second, a Buddha, a Socrates, a Christ.

"But consider that Science, in the course of psychological a.n.a.lysis, speaks of Christ, Napoleon, and Shakespeare, as patients. Such exalted states of the soul, such activity of the mind, such exuberance of spiritual strength, are but the results of the transformation of the Me in the subject, we are told, and this transformation has its roots in the organism. But why, I ask, should there be such a gulf between individuals, such a difference in their Mes, when a difference in the organism is a trifle in comparison? How account for the ebb and flow in the souls, or let us say, in the expression of the individualities, of Mohammad the Prophet, for instance, and Mohammad the camel-herd?

And why is it in psychological states that are similar, the consciousness of the one is like a mountain peak, so to speak, and that of the other like a cave?

"A soldier is severely wounded in battle and a change takes place in his nervous organism, by reason of which he loses his organic consciousness; or, to speak in the phraseology of the psychologist, he loses the sense of his own body, of his physical personality. The cause of this change is probably the wound received; but the nature of the change can be explained only by hypotheses, which are become matters of choice and taste--and sometimes of personal interest among scientists. Now, when the question is resolved by hypothesis, is not even a layman free to offer one? If I say the Gla.s.s is shattered and the Me within is sadly reflected, or in a more tragic instance the light of the Me runs out, would I not be offering thee a solution as dear and tenable as that of the professor of psychology?"

CHAPTER II

THE VOICE OF THE DAWN

Breathless but scathless, we emerge from the mazes of metaphysics and psychology where man and the soul are ever playing hide-and-seek; and where Khalid was pleased to display a little of his killing skill in fencing. To those mazes, we promise the Reader, we shall not return again. In our present sojourn, however, it is necessary to go through the swamps and Jordans as well as the mountains and plains. Otherwise, we would not have lingered a breathing while in the lowlands of mystery. But now we know how far Khalid went in seeking health, and how deep in seeking the Me, which he would disentangle from the meshes of philosophy and anch.o.r.etism, and bring back to life, triumphant, loving, joyous, free. And how far he succeeded in this, we shall soon know.

On the morning of his last day in the pines, meanwhile, we behold him in the chariot of Apollo serenading the stars. He no longer would thrust a poker down his windpipe; for he breathes as freely as the mountain bears and chirps as joyously as the swallows. And his lungs?

The lungs of the pines are not as sound. And his eyes? Well, he can gaze at the rising sun without adverting the head or squinting or shedding a tear. Now, as a sign of this healthy state of body and mind, and his healthier resolve to return to the world, to live opposite his friend the Hermit on the other antipode of life, and furthermore, as a relief from the exhausting tortuosities of thought in the last Chapter, we give here a piece of description notably symbolical.

"I slept very early last night; the lights in the chapel of the abbey were still flickering, and the monks were chanting the complines. The mellow music of a drizzle seemed to respond sombrely to the melancholy echo of the choir. About midnight the rain beat heavily on the pine roof of the forest, and the thunder must have struck very near, between me and the monks. But rising very early this morning to commune for the last time with the pensive silence of dawn in the pines, I am greeted, as I peep out of my booth, by a knot of ogling stars. But where is the opaque breath of the storm, where are the clouds? None seem to hang on the horizon, and the sky is as limpid and clear as the dawn of a new life. Glorious, this interval between night and dawn. Delicious, the flavour of the forest after a storm.

Intoxicating, the odours of the earth, refreshed and satisfied.

Divine, the whispers of the morning air, divine!

"But where is the rain, and where are the thunderbolts of last night?

The forest and the atmosphere retain but the sweet and scented memories of their storming pa.s.sion. Such a December morning in these mountain heights is a marvel of enduring freshness and ardour. All round one gets a vivid illusion of Spring. The soft breezes caressing the pines shake from their boughs the only evidence of last night's storm. And these are more like the dew of Summer than the lees of the copious tears of parting Autumn. A glorious morning, too glorious to be enjoyed by a solitary soul. But near the rivulet yonder stands a fox sniffing the morning air. Welcome, my friend. Welcome to my coffee, too.

"I gather my mulberry sticks, kindle them with a handful of dried pine needles, roast my coffee beans, and grind them while the water boils in the pot. In half an hour I am qualified to go about my business.

The cups and coffee utensils I wash and restore to the chest--and what else have I to do to-day? Pack up? Allah be praised, I have little packing to do. I would pack up, if I could, a ton of the pine air and the forest perfume, a strip of this limpid sky, and a cl.u.s.ter of those stars. Never at such an hour and in this season of the year did I enjoy such transporting limpidity in the atmosphere and such rea.s.suring expansiveness on the horizon. Why, even the stars, the constellations, and the planets, are all here to enjoy this with me.

Not one of them, I think, is absent.

"The mountains are lost in the heavens. They are seeking, as it were, the sisters of the little flowers sleeping at their feet. The moon, resembling a crushed orange, is sinking in the Mediterranean. The outlines of earth and sky all round are vague, indistinct. Were not the sky so clear and the atmosphere so rare, thus affording the planets and the constellations to shed their modic.u.m of light, the dusk of this hour would have deprived the scene of much of its pensive beauty of colour and shade. But there is Pegasus, Andromeda, Aldebaran, not to mention Venus and Jupiter and Saturn,--these alone can conquer the right wing of darkness. And there is Mercury, like a lighted cresset shaken by the winds, flapping his violet wings above the Northeastern horizon; and Mars, like a piece of gold held out by the trembling hand of a miser, is sinking in the blue of the sea with Neptune; the Pleiades are stepping on the trail of the blushing moon; the Balance lingers behind to weigh the destinies of the heroes who are to contend with the dawn; while Venus, peeping from her tower over Mt. Sanneen, is sending love vibrations to all. I would tell thee more if I knew. But I swear to thee I never read through the hornbook of the heavens. But if I can not name and locate more of the stars, I can tell thee this about them all: they are the embers of certainty eternally glowing in the ashes of doubt.

"The Eastern horizon is yet lost in the dusk; the false dawn is spreading the figments of its illusion; the trees in the distance seem like rain-clouds; and the amorphous shadows of the monasteries on the mountain heights and hilltops all around, have not yet developed into silhouettes. Everything, except the river in the wadi below, is yet asleep. Not even the swallows are astir. Ah, but my neighbour yonder is; the light in the loophole of his hut sends a struggling ray through the mulberries, and the tintinnabulations of his daughter's loom are like so many stones thrown into this sleeping pond of silence. The loom-girl in these parts is never too early at her harness and shuttle. I know a family here whose loom and spinning wheel are never idle: the wife works at the loom in the day and her boy at the wheel; while in the night, her husband and his old mother keep up the game. And this hardly secures for them their flour and lentils the year round. But I concern not myself now with questions of economy.

"There, another of my neighbours is awake; and the hinges of his door, shrieking terribly, fiendishly, startle the swallows from their sleep.

And here are the muleteers, yodling, as they pa.s.s by, their

'Dhome, Dhome, Dhome, O mother, he is come; Hide me, hide me quickly, And say I am not home.'

"Lo, the horizon is disentangling itself from the meshes of darkness.

The dust of haze and dusk on the scalloped edges of the mountains, is blown away by the first breath of dawn. The lighter grey of the horizon is mirrored in the clearer blue of the sea. But the darkness seems to gather on the breast of the sloping hills. Conquered on the heights, it retreats into the wadi. Ay, the darkest hour is nearest the dawn.

"Now the light grey is become a lavender; the outlines of earth and sky are become more distinct; the mountain peaks, the dusky veil being rent, are separating themselves from the heaven's embrace; the trees in the distance no longer seem like rain-clouds; and the silhouettes of the monasteries are casting off the cloak of night. The lavender is melting now into heliotrope, and the heliotrope is bursting here and there in pink; the stars are waning, the constellations are dying out, and the planets are following in their wake. The darkness, too, which has not yet retreated from the wadi, must soon follow; for the front guard of the dawn is near. Behold the shimmer of their steel! And see, in the dust of the retreating darkness, the ochre veins of the lime cliffs are now perceptible. And that huge pillar, which looked like the standard-bearer of Night, is transformed into a belfry; and a monk can be seen peeping through the ogive beneath it. Mt. Sanneen, its black and ochre scales thrown in relief on a coat of grey, is like a huge panther sleeping over the many-throated ravine of Kisrawan. Ah, the pink flower of dawn is bursting in golden glory, thrilling in orange and saffron, flaming with the ardency of love and hope. The dawn! The glow and glamour of the Eastern dawn!...

"The dawn of a new life, of a better, purer, healthier, higher spiritual kingdom. I would have its temples and those of the vast empire of wealth and material well-being, stand side by side. Ay, I would even rear an altar to the Soul in the temple of Materialism, and an altar to Materialism in the temple of the Soul. Each shall have its due, each shall glory in the sacred purity and strength of life; each shall develop and expand, but never at the expense of the other.

I will have neither the renunciation which ends in a kind of idiocy dignified with a philosophic or a theologic name, nor the worldliness which ends in b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. I am a citizen of two worlds--a citizen of the Universe; I owe allegiance to two kingdoms. In my heart are those stars and that sun, and the LIGHT of those stars and that sun.

"Yes, I am equally devoted both to the material and the spiritual. And when the two in me are opposed to each other, conflicting, inimical, obdurate, my att.i.tude towards them is neither that of my friend the Hermit nor that of my European superman. I sit down, shut my eyes, compose myself, and concentrate my mind on the mobility of things. If the clouds are moving, why, I have but to sit down and let them move away. I let my No-will, in this case, dominate my will, and that serves my purpose well. To be sure, every question tormenting us would resolve itself favourably, or at least indifferently, if we did not always rush in, wildly, madly, and arrogate to ourselves such claims of authority and knowledge as would make Olympus shake with laughter.

The resignation and pa.s.siveness of the spirit should always alternate equitably with the terrible strivings of the will. For the dervish who whirls himself into a foaming ecstasy of devotion and the strenuous American who works himself up to a sweating ecstasy of gain, are the two poles of the same absurdity, the two ends of one evil. Indeed, to my way of thinking, the man on the Stock Exchange and the demagogue on the stump, for instance, are brothers to the blatant corybant."