The World's Greatest Books - Volume 5 Part 13

"Yes?"

"It was made by a monk and priest to whom the secret of its manufacture belonged. At his death he was to confide the secret to another whom he had chosen. But the monks of El Largani will never earn another franc by Louarine when what they have in stock is exhausted."

"The monk died suddenly?"

"Madame, he ran away from the monastery after being there in the eternal silence for twenty years, after taking the final vows."

"How horrible!" said Domini. "That man must be in h.e.l.l now, in the h.e.l.l a man can make for himself by his own act."

As she spoke, Androvsky appeared by the tent door. He was looking frightfully ill, and like a desperate man. When the priest had gone, Domini told Androvsky about the liqueur and the disappearance of the Trappist monk. As she spoke, his face grew more ghastly. He stood rigid, as if with horror.

"Poor, poor man!" she said, as she finished her story.

"You--you pity that man then?" murmured Androvsky.

"Yes," she replied. "I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still alive."

Androvsky seemed painfully moved, and almost as if he were on the verge of some pa.s.sionate outburst of emotion; and something like a deep voice far down in the loving heart of Domini said to her, "If you really love, be fearless. Attack the sorrow which stands like a figure of death between you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon--faith-- use it!"

At last she summoned all her courage, all her faith, and she forced from Androvsky the confession of what it was which held him in perpetual misery, even in freedom, even with her, whom he loved beyond and above all human beings.

"Domini," he said, "you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in our love--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in G.o.d, I love G.o.d, I have insulted G.o.d. I have tried to forget G.o.d, to deny Him, to put human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by the thought of G.o.d, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was young, I gave myself to G.o.d solemnly. I have broken the vows I made! I gave myself to G.o.d as a monk."

"You are the Trappist!" she whispered. "You are the monk from the monastery of El Largani who disappeared after twenty years?"

"Yes," he said, "I am he."

Standing there in the sands, while the world was wrapped in sleep, Androvsky told Domini the whole story of his life in the monastery, of his innocent happiness there, and of the events which woke up within him the mad longing to see life and the world, and to know the love of woman. He told her of his secret departure by night from the monastery, of his journey to the desert in search of complete and savage liberty.

He told her how he had fought against his growing love for her, how he had tried to leave her; how, at the last moment in the garden by night, his pa.s.sion for her had conquered him and driven him to her feet. He told her how the officer, Trevignac, had known him long ago in the monastery, and had recognised him when the Arab brought in the liqueur which he had made. He kept nothing from her.

"That last day in the garden," he said finally, "I thought I had conquered myself, and it was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I knew you loved me, I could fight no more. You have seen me, you have lived with me, you have divined my misery. But don't think, Domini, that it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of my lie to you, my lie to G.o.d, that--that--I can't tell you--I can't tell you--you know."

He looked into her face, then turned to go away into the desert.

"I'll go! I'll go!" he muttered.

Then Domini spoke.

"Boris!" she said.

He stopped.

"Boris, now at last you can pray."

She went into the tent, and left him alone. He knew that in the tent she was praying for him. He stood, trying to listen to her prayer, then, with an uncertain hand, he felt in his breast. He drew out a wooden cross, given to him by his mother when he entered the monastery. He bent down his head, touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the desert.

From that night, Domini realised that her duty was plain before her.

Androvsky was still at heart a monk, and she was a fervently religious woman. She put G.o.d above herself, above her poor, desperate, human love, above Androvsky and his pa.s.sionate love for her. She put the things of eternity before the things of time. She never told Androvsky of the child that was coming.

After he had made his confession to the priest of Beni-Mora who had married them, she led him to the monastery door, and there they parted for ever on earth, to be reunited, as both believed, in heaven.

And now, in the garden of Count Anteoni, which has pa.s.sed into other hands, a little boy may often be seen playing.

Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls him to her, to the white wall from which she looks out over the desert.

"Listen, Boris," she whispers.

The little boy leans his face against her breast, and obeys.

An Arab is pa.s.sing below on the desert track, singing to himself, as he goes towards his home in the oasis, "No one but G.o.d and I knows what is in my heart."

The mother whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night blows over the vast s.p.a.ces of the Sahara and touches her cheek, reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the pa.s.sion that came to her soul like fire in the desert.

But she does not rebel, for always, when night falls, she sees the form of a man praying, one who once fled from prayer in the desert; she sees a wanderer who at last has reached his home.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Elsie Venner

Oliver Wendell Holmes, essayist, poet, scientist, and one of the most lovable men who have adorned the literature of the English tongue, was born at Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, Aug. 29, 1809, of a New England family with a record in which he took great pride. After studying medicine at Harvard, he went to Europe on a prolonged tour, and, returning, took his M.D., and became a popular professor of anatomy. He had some repute as a graceful poet in his student days. "Elsie Venner," at first called "The Professor's Story," was published in 1861, and was the first sustained work of fiction that came from the pen of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Illumined by admirable pictures of life and character in a typical New England town, the book itself is a remarkable study of heredity--a study only relieved by the author's kindly humour. The unfortunate child, doomed before her birth to suffer from the fatal bite of a rattlesnake--an incident unduly extravagant in some critics'

opinions--and only throwing off the evil influence on her death-bed, is one of the most pathetic figures in all American literature. It was not until seven years later that "Elsie Venner" was followed by another novel, "The Guardian Angel," a story which is worked out on the same lines of thought as the former. Holmes died on October 7, 1894.

_I.--The Eyes of Elsie Venner_

Mr. Bernard Langdon, duly certificated, had accepted the invitation from the Board of Trustees of the Apollinean Female Inst.i.tute, a school for the education of young ladies, situated in the nourishing town of Rockland.

Rockland is at the foot of a mountain, and a horrible feature of this mountain was the region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, which was still tenanted by those horrible reptiles in spite of many a foray by the townspeople.

That the brood was not extirpated there was a melancholy proof in the year 184--, when a young married woman, detained at home by the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of her own house by a rattlesnake which had found its way down from the mountain. Owing to the almost instant employment of powerful remedies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal, but she died within a few months of the time when she was bitten.

It was on a fine morning that Mr. Langdon made his appearance, as master for the English branches, in the great school-room of the Apollinean Inst.i.tute. The princ.i.p.al, Mr. Silas Peckham, carried him to the desk of the young lady a.s.sistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced him to her. The young lady a.s.sistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine of the cla.s.ses, and Mr. Langdon had a great many questions to ask relating to his new duties. The truth is, the general effect of the school-room, with its scores of young girls, was enough to confuse a young man like Mr. Langdon, and he may be pardoned for asking Miss Darley questions about his scholars as well as about their lessons.

He asked who one or two girls were, and being answered, went on, "And who and what is that sitting a little apart there--that strange, wild-looking girl?"

The lady teacher's face changed; one would have said she was frightened or troubled. The girl did not look up; she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it as if in a kind of reverie. Miss Darley drew close to the master, and placed her hand so as to hide her lips.

"Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," she whispered softly, "that is Elsie Venner."

A girl of about seventeen, tall, slender, was Elsie Venner. Black, piercing eyes, black hair, twisted in heavy braids, a face that one could not help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from, and could not, for those diamond eyes.