The World's Greatest Books - Volume 5 Part 12

At this lunch Androvsky had been brusque, on the defensive, almost actively disagreeable. And when, after the priest's departure, he left Domini alone with Count Anteoni, she felt almost relieved. Count Anteoni summoned a sand-diviner to read Domini's fate in the sand. This man--a thin, fanatical Eastern, with piercing and cruel eyes--spread out his sand brought from the tomb of a Mohammedan saint, and prophesied. He declared that he saw a great sand-storm, and in it a train of camels waiting by a church. From the church came the sound of music, nearly drowned by the roar of the wind. In the church the real life of Domini was beginning. The music ceased; darkness fell. Then the diviner saw Domini, with a companion, mounted on one of the camels, and disappearing into the storm towards the south. The face of her companion was hidden.

Finally he saw Domini far out in the desert among great dunes of white sand. In her heart there was joy. It was as if all the date palms bore their fruit together, and in all the desert places water-springs burst forth. But presently a figure came towards her, walking heavily; and all the dates shrivelled upon the palms, and all the springs dried up.

Sorrow and terror were there beside her.

At this point in the diviner's prophecy Domini stopped him. Afterwards she explained to Anteoni that she felt as if another's fate was being read in it as well as her own, as if to listen any more might be to intrude upon another's secret.

Upon the following day Anteoni left Beni-Mora to make a long desert journey to a sacred city called Amara. Domini went to his garden at dawn to see him off. Before departing he warned Domini to beware of Androvsky. She asked him why. He answered that Androvsky seemed to him a man who was at odds with life, with himself, with his Creator, a man who was defying Allah in Allah's garden. When Anteoni had gone, Domini, in some perplexity of spirit, and moved by a longing for sympathy and help, visited the priest in his house near the church. The priest, indirectly, also warned her against Androvsky, and a little later frankly, told her that he felt an invincible dislike to him.

"I have no reason to give," said the priest. "My instinct is my reason.

I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most earnestly to break off your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky."

Domini said, "It is strange; ever since I have been here I have felt as if everything that has happened had been arranged beforehand, as if it had to happen, and I feel that, too, about the future."

"Count Anteoni's fatalism!" exclaimed the priest. "It is the guiding spirit of this land. And you, too, are going to be led by it. Take care!

You have come to a land of fire, and I think you are made of fire."

The warnings of Anteoni and the priest made an impression on Domini. She was conscious of how the outside world would be likely to regard her acquaintance with Androvsky. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange and ghastly figure of legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads, and distinguished for an instant by an oblique flash of lightning; as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern tale, who announces coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum amid the sands.

And she felt upon her the heavy hand of some strange, perhaps terrible, fate.

_III.--The Eternal Song of Love_

That same night, accompanied by Batouch, Domini rode out into the desert to see the rising of the moon, and there met Androvsky. He had followed them on horseback. Domini dismissed Batouch at Androvsky's reiterated request. When they were alone in the sands, Androvsky told Domini that he had needed to be with her as he had something to tell her. On the morrow he was going away from Beni-Mora.

His face, while he said this, was turned from Domini, and his voice sounded as if it spoke to some one at a distance, some one who can hear as man cannot hear.

Domini said little. But at the sound of his words it seemed to her as if all outside things she had ever known had foundered; as if with them had foundered, too, all the bodily powers that were of the essence of her life. And the desert, which she had so loved, was no longer to her the desert, sand with a soul in it, blue distances full of a music of summons, but only a barren waste of dried-up matter, featureless, desolate, ghastly with the bones of things that had died.

She rode back with Androvsky to Beni-Mora in a silence like that of death.

But this parting, decreed by the man, was not to be. In the desert these two human beings had grown to love each other, with a love that had become a burning pa.s.sion. And next day when, in the garden of Count Anteoni, Androvsky came to say farewell to Domini, his love broke all barriers. He sank on the sand, letting his hands slip down till they clasped Domini's knees.

"I love you!" he said. "I love you. But don't listen to me. You mustn't hear it. You mustn't. But I must say it. I can't go till I say it. I love you! I love you!"

"I am listening," she said. "I must hear it."

Androvsky rose up, put his hands behind Domini, held her, set his lips on hers, pressing his whole body against hers.

"Hear it!" he said, muttering against her lips. "Hear it! I love you! I love you!"

In the recesses of the garden Larbi, that idle gardener, played upon his little flute his eternal song of love, and from the desert, beyond the white wall, there rose an Arab's voice singing a song of the Sahara, "No one but G.o.d and I knows what is in my heart!"

_IV.--A Nomad's Honeymoon_

As the sand-diviner had foretold, Domini and Androvsky were married in the church of Beni-Mora, and by the priest who had warned Domini to have nothing more to do with Androvsky. A terrible sand-storm was raging, and the desert was blotted out. Nevertheless, when the ceremony was over, the bride and bridegroom mounted upon a camel, and with their attendants, set out for their desert honeymoon. Standing before the door of the church, the good priest watched them go, with fear in his heart, and that night in his humble home, kneeling before his crucifix, he prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in the desert.

Isolated from all who knew them, free from all social ties, nomads, as are the Bedouins who make their dwelling for ever amid the vast and burning sands, Domini and Androvsky entered upon their married life. And at first one of them was happy as few are ever happy. Domini loved completely, trusted completely, lived with a fulness, a completeness she had never known till now. That Androvsky almost worshipped her, she knew. His conduct to her was perfect. And yet there were times when Domini felt as if a shadow rose between them, as if, even with her, in some secret place of his soul Androvsky was ill at ease, as if sometimes he suffered, and dared not tell his suffering.

One day, in their wanderings, they came to a desolate place called Mogar, and camped on a sandhill looking over a vast stretch of dunes.

Towards evening Androvsky descended into the plain to shoot gazelle, leaving Domini alone. While he was away a French officer, with two men of the Zouaves, rode slowly up. They were nearly starving and terribly exhausted, having been lost in a sand-storm for three days and nights.

Pitying their sufferings, Domini insisted on entertaining them. The men must sup with the Arabs, the officer must dine with herself and Androvsky. The officer accepted with grat.i.tude, and went off to make his toilet. When Androvsky returned, Domini told him of the officer's arrival, and when he saw the three places laid for dinner in the tent, he seemed profoundly disturbed. He asked the officer's name. Domini told him Trevignac.

"Trevignac!" he exclaimed.

Then, hearing the soldiers coming, he turned away; abruptly and disappeared into the bedroom tent.

Trevignac came up, and in a few minutes Androvsky reappeared. The two men gazed at each other for an instant. Then Domini introduced them, and they all sat down to dinner. Conversation was uneasy. Androvsky was evidently ill at ease; Trevignac was distrait at moments, strangely watchful of his host at other moments. Dinner over, Domini left the two men together to smoke, and went out on to the sand. She met an Arab carrying coffee and a liqueur to the tent.

"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching the bottle.

He told her it was an African liqueur.

"Take it in," she said.

And she strolled away to the bonfire to listen to the fantasia the Arabs were making in honour of the soldiers.

When she returned to the tent, she found her husband alone in it, standing up, with a quant.i.ty of fragments of gla.s.s lying at his feet.

Near him was the coffee, untasted. Trevignac was gone. She asked for an explanation. He gave her none. The fragments of gla.s.s were all that remained of the bottle which had contained the liqueur.

At dawn Domini met Trevignac riding away with his soldiers. He saluted her, bidding his men ride on. As he gazed at her, she seemed to see horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse, he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and rode away into the desert.

_V.--I Have Insulted G.o.d_

From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often felt far away from G.o.d, and that she prayed each day for him.

"Boris," she said, "if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come right in the desert. For the desert is the garden of Allah."

He made her no answer.

At last in their journeying they came to the sacred city of Amara, and camped in the white sands beyond it.

This was the place described by the sand-diviner, and here Domini knew that her love was to be crowned, that she would become a mother. She hesitated to tell her husband, for in this place his misery and fear of men seemed mounting to a climax. Nevertheless, as if in a frantic attempt to get the better of his mental torture, he had gone off, saying he wanted to see the city.

While he was away, Domini was visited first by Count Anteoni, who told her that he had joined the Mohammedan religion, and was at last happy and at peace; secondly, when night had fallen, by the priest of Amara.

This man was talkative and genial, fond of the good things of life.

Domini offered him a cigar. He accepted it. An Arab brought coffee, and the same African liqueur which had been taken to the tent on the night when Trevignac had dined with Domini and Androvsky.

When the priest was about to drink some of it, he suddenly paused, and put the gla.s.s down. Domini leant forward.

"Louarine," she said, reading the name on the bottle. "Won't you have some?"

"The fact is, madame," began the priest, with hesitation, "this liqueur comes from the Trappist monastery of El Largani."