The Garden of Allah Part 92

She pointed to the grave close to them.

"If you were there," she said, "and I was living, and you had died before--before you had told me--I believe--G.o.d forgive me, but I do believe that if, when you died, I were taken to heaven I should find my h.e.l.l there."

She looked through her tears at the words: "Priez pour lui."

"To pray for the dead," she whispered, as if to herself. "To pray for my dead--I could not do it--I could not. Boris, if you love me you must trust me, you must give me your sorrow."

The night drew on. Androvsky had gone to the priest. Domini was alone, sitting before the tent waiting for his return. She had told Batouch and Ouardi that she wanted nothing more, that no one was to come to the tent again that night. The young moon was rising over the city, but its light as yet was faint. It fell upon the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe, the towers of the mosque and the white sands, whose whiteness it seemed to emphasise, making them pale as the face of one terror-stricken. The city wall cast a deep shadow over the moat of sand in which, wrapped in filthy rags, lay nomads sleeping. Upon the sand-hills the camps were alive with movement. Fires blazed and smoke ascended before the tents that made patches of blackness upon the waste. Round the fires were seated groups of men devouring cous-cous and the red soup beloved of the nomad. Behind them circled the dogs with quivering nostrils. Squadrons of camels lay crouched in the sand, resting after their journeys. And everywhere, from the city and from the waste, rose distant sounds of music, thin, aerial flutings like voices of the night winds, acrid cries from the pipes, and the far-off rolling of the African drums that are the foundation of every desert symphony.

Although she was now accustomed to the music of Africa, Domini could never hear it without feeling the barbarity of the land from which it rose, the wildness of the people who made and who loved it. Always it suggested to her an infinite remoteness, as if it were music sounding at the end of the world, full of half-defined meanings, melancholy yet fierce pa.s.sion, longings that, momentarily satisfied, continually renewed themselves, griefs that were hidden behind thin veils like the women of the East, but that peered out with expressive eyes, hinting their story and desiring a.s.suagement. And tonight the meaning of the music seemed deeper than it had been before. She thought of it as an outside echo of the voices murmuring in her mind and heart, and the voices murmuring in the mind and heart of Androvsky, broken voices some of them, but some strong, fierce, tense and alive with meaning. And as she sat there alone she thought this unity of music drew her closer to the desert than she had ever been before, and drew Androvsky with her, despite his great reserve. In the heart of the desert he would surely let her see at last fully into his heart. When he came back in the night from the priest he would speak. She was waiting for that.

The moon was mounting. Its light grew stronger. She looked across the sands and saw fires in the city, and suddenly she said to herself, "This is the vision of the sand-diviner realised in my life. He saw me as I am now, in this place." And she remembered the scene in the garden, the crouching figure, the extended arms, the thin fingers tracing swift patterns in the sand, the murmuring voice.

To-night she felt deeply expectant, but almost sad, encompa.s.sed by the mystery that hangs in clouds about human life and human relations. What could be that great joy of which the Diviner had spoken? A woman's great joy that starred the desert with flowers and made the dry places run with sweet waters. What could it be?

Suddenly she felt again the oppression of spirit she had been momentarily conscious of in the afternoon. It was like a load descending upon her, and, almost instantly, communicated itself to her body. She was conscious of a sensation of unusual weariness, uneasiness, even dread, then again of an intensity of life that startled her. This intensity remained, grew in her. It was as if the principle of life, like a fluid, were being poured into her out of the vials of G.o.d, as if the little cup that was all she had were too small to contain the precious liquid. That seemed to her to be the cause of the pain of which she was conscious. She was being given more than she felt herself capable of possessing. She got up from her chair, unable to remain still. The movement, slight though it was, seemed to remove a veil of darkness that had hung over her and to let in upon her a flood of light.

She caught hold of the canvas of the tent. For a moment she felt weak as a child, then strong as an Amazon. And the sense of strength remained, grew. She walked out upon the sand in the direction by which Androvsky would return. The fires in the city and the camps were to her as illuminations for a festival. The music was the music of a great rejoicing. The vast expanse of the desert, wintry white under the moon, dotted with the fires of the nomads, blossomed as the rose. After a few moments she stopped. She was on the crest of a sand-bank, and could see below her the faint track in the sand which wound to the city gate. By this track Androvsky would surely return. From a long distance she would be able to see him, a moving darkness upon the white. She was near to the city now, and could hear voices coming to her from behind its rugged walls, voices of men singing, and calling one to another, the tw.a.n.g of plucked instruments, the click of negroes' castanets. The city was full of joy as the desert was full of joy. The glory of life rushed upon her like a flood of gold, that gold of the sun in which thousands of tiny things are dancing. And she was given the power of giving life, of adding to the sum of glory. She looked out over the sands and saw a moving blot upon them coming slowly towards her, very slowly. It was impossible at this distance to see who it was, but she felt that it was her husband. For a moment she thought of going down to meet him, but she did not move. The new knowledge that had come to her made her, just then, feel shy even of him, as if he must come to her, as if she could make no advance towards him.

As the blackness upon the sand drew nearer she saw that it was a man walking heavily. The man had her husband's gait. When she saw that she turned. She had resolved to meet him at the tent door, to tell him what she had to tell him at the threshold of their wandering home. Her sense of shyness died when she was at the tent door. She only felt now her oneness with her husband, and that to-night their unity was to be made more perfect. If it could be made quite perfect! If he would speak too! Then nothing more would be wanting. At last every veil would have dropped from between them, and as they had long been one flesh they would be one in spirit.

She waited in the tent door.

After what seemed a long time she saw Androvsky coming across the moonlit sand. He was walking very slowly, as if wearied out, with his head drooping. He did not appear to see her till he was quite close to the tent. Then he stopped and gazed at her. The moon--she thought it must be the moon--made his face look strange, like a dying man's face.

In this white face the eyes glittered feverishly.

"Boris!" she said.

"Domini!"

"Come here, close to me. I have something to tell you--something wonderful."

He came quite up to her.

"Domini," he said, as if he had not heard her. "Domini, I--I've been to the priest to-night. I meant to confess to him."

"To confess!" she said.

"This afternoon I asked him to hear my confession, but tonight I could not make it. I can only make it to you, Domini--only to you. Do you hear, Domini? Do you hear?"

Something in his face and in his voice terrified her heart. Now she felt as if she would stop him from speaking if she dared, but that she did not dare. His spirit was beyond domination. He would do what he meant to do regardless of her--of anyone.

"What is it, Boris?" she whispered. "Tell me. Perhaps I can understand best because I love best."

He put his arms round her and kissed her, as a man kisses the woman he loves when he knows it may be for the last time, long and hard, with a desperation of love that feels frustrated by the very lips it is touching. At last he took his lips from hers.

"Domini," he said, and his voice was steady and clear, almost hard, "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, and I have insulted Him. 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 have--I have--"

The hardness went out of his voice. He broke down for a moment and was silent.

"You gave yourself to G.o.d," she said. "How?"

He tried to meet her questioning eyes, but could not.

"I--I gave myself to G.o.d as a monk," he answered after a pause.

As he spoke Domini saw before her in the moonlight De Trevignac. He cast a glance of horror at the tent, bent over her, made the sign of the Cross, and vanished. In his place stood Father Roubier, his eyes s.h.i.+ning, his hand upraised, warning her against Androvsky. Then he, too, vanished, and she seemed to see Count Anteoni dressed as an Arab and muttering words of the Koran.

"Domini!"

"Domini, did you hear me? Domini! Domini!"

She felt his hands on her wrists.

"You are the Trappist!" she said quietly, "of whom the priest told me.

You are the monk from the Monastery of El-Largani who disappeared after twenty years."

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

"What made you tell me? What made you tell me?"

There was agony now in her voice.

"You asked me to speak, but it was not that. Do you remember last night when I said that G.o.d must bless you? You answered, 'He has blessed me.

He has given me you, your love, your truth.' It is that which makes me speak. You have had my love, not my truth. Now take my truth. I've kept it from you. Now I'll give it you. It's black, but I'll give it you.

Domini! Domini! Hate me to-night, but in your hatred believe that I never loved you as I love you now."

"Give me your truth," she said.

BOOK V. THE REVELATION

CHAPTER XXVI

They remained standing at the tent door, with the growing moonlight about them. The camp was hushed in sleep, but sounds of music still came to them from the city below them, and fainter music from the tents of the Ouled Nails on the sandhill to the south. After Domini had spoken Androvsky moved a step towards her, looked at her, then moved back and dropped his eyes. If he had gone on looking at her he knew he could not have begun to speak.

"Domini," he said, "I'm not going to try and excuse myself for what I have done. I'm not going to say to you what I daren't say to G.o.d--'Forgive me.' How can such a thing be forgiven? That's part of the torture I've been enduring, the knowledge of the unforgivable nature of my act. It can never be wiped out. It's black on my judgment book for ever. But I wonder if you can understand--oh, I want you to understand, Domini, what has made the thing I am, a renegade, a breaker of oaths, a liar to G.o.d and you. It was the pa.s.sion of life that burst up in me after years of tranquillity. It was the waking of my nature after years of sleep. And you--you do understand the pa.s.sion of life that's in some of us like a monster that must rule, must have its way. Even you in your purity and goodness--you have it, that desperate wish to live really and fully, as we have lived, Domini, together. For we have lived out in the desert. We lived that night at Arba when we sat and watched the fire and I held your hand against the earth. We lived then. Even now, when I think of that night, I can hardly be sorry for what I've done, for what I am."

He looked up at her now and saw that her eyes were fixed on him. She stood motionless, with her hands joined in front of her. Her att.i.tude was calm and her face was untortured. He could not read any thought of hers, any feeling that was in her heart.

"You must understand," he said almost violently. "You must understand or I--. My father, I told you, was a Russian. He was brought up in the Greek Church, but became a Freethinker when he was still a young man.

My mother was an Englishwoman and an ardent Catholic. She and my father were devoted to each other in spite of the difference in their views.

Perhaps the chief effect my father's lack of belief had upon my mother was to make her own belief more steadfast, more ardent. I think disbelief acts often as a fan to the faith of women, makes the flame burn more brightly than it did before. My mother tried to believe for herself and for my father too, and I could almost think that she succeeded. He died long before she did, and he died without changing his views. On his death-bed he told my mother that he was sure there was no other life, that he was going to the dust. That made the agony of his farewell. The certainty on his part that he and my mother were parting for ever. I was a little boy at the time, but I remember that, when he was dead, my mother said to me, 'Boris, pray for your father every day.

He is still alive.' She said nothing more, but I ran upstairs crying, fell upon my knees and prayed--trying to think where my father was and what he could be looking like. And in that prayer for my father, which was also an act of obedience to my mother, I think I took the first step towards the monastic life. For I remember that then, for the first time, I was conscious of a great sense of responsibility. My mother's command made me say to myself, 'Then perhaps my prayer can do something in heaven. Perhaps a prayer from me can make G.o.d wish to do something He had not wished to do before.' That was a tremendous thought! It excited me terribly. I remember my cheeks burned as I prayed, and that I was hot all over as if I had been running in the sun. From that day my mother and I seemed to be much nearer together than we had ever been before. I had a twin brother to whom I was devoted, and who was devoted to me.

But he took after my father. Religious things, ceremonies, church music, processions--even the outside attractions of the Catholic Church, which please and stimulate emotional people who have little faith--never meant much to him. All his attention was firmly fixed upon the life of the present. He was good to my mother and loved her devotedly, as he loved me, but he never pretended to be what he was not. And he was never a Catholic. He was never anything.