CHAPTER V
Towards morning Domini slept. It was nearly eight o'clock when sheawoke. The room was full of soft light which told of the sun outside,and she got up at once, put on a pair of slippers and opened the Frenchwindow on to the verandah. Already Beni-Mora was bathed in golden beamsand full of gentle activities. A flock of goats pattered by towards theedge of the oasis. The Arab gardeners were lazily sweeping small leavesfrom the narrow paths under the mimosa and pepper trees. Soldiers inloose white suits, dark blue sashes and the fez, were hastening fromthe Fort towards the market. A distant bugle rang out and the snarl ofcamels was audible from the village. Domini stood on the verandah fora moment, drinking in the desert air. It made her feel very pure andclean, as if she had just bathed in clear water. She looked up atthe limpid sky, which seemed full of hope and of the power to grantblessings, and she was glad that she had come to Beni-Mora. Her lonelysensation of the previous night had gone. As she stood in the sun shewas conscious that she needed re-creation and that here she might findit. The radiant sky, the warm sun and the freedom of the coming day andof many coming desert days, filled her heart with an almost childishsensation. She felt younger than she had felt for years, and evenfoolishly innocent, like a puppy dog or a kitten. Her thick black hair,unbound, fell in a veil round her strong, active body, and she had therare consciousness that behind that other more mysterious veil her soulwas to-day a less unfit companion for its mate than it had been sinceher mother's sin.
Cleanliness--what a blessed condition that was, a condition to breedbravery. In this early morning hour Beni-Mora looked magically clean.Domini thought of the desperate dirt of London mornings, of the sootyair brooding above black trees and greasy pavements. Surely it wasdifficult to be clean of soul there. Here it would be easy. One wouldtune one's lyre in accord with Nature and be as a singing palm treebeside a water-spring. She took up a little vellum-bound book which shehad laid at night upon her dressing-table. It was _Of the Imitation ofChrist_, and she opened it at haphazard and glanced down on a sunlitpage. Her eyes fell on these words:
"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is nottired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it isnot disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mountethupwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth thecry of this voice."
The sunlight on the page of the little book was like the vivid flameand the burning torch spoken of in it. Heat, light, a fierce vitality.Domini had been weary so long, weary of soul, that she was almoststartled to find herself responding quickly to the sacred passion on thepage, to the bright beam that kissed it as twin kisses twin. She kneltdown to say her morning prayer, but all she could whisper was:
"O, God, renew me. O, God, renew me. Give me power to feel, keenly,fiercely, even though I suffer. Let me wake. Let me feel. Let me be aliving thing once more. O, God, renew me, renew me!"
While she prayed she pressed her face so hard against her hands thatpatches of red came upon her cheeks. And afterwards it seemed to her asif her first real, passionate prayer in Beni-Mora had been almost like acommand to God. Was not such a fierce prayer perhaps a blasphemy?
She rose from that prayer to the first of her new days.
After breakfast she looked over the edge of the verandah and saw Batouchand Hadj squatting together in the shadow of the trees below. They weresmoking cigarettes and talking eagerly. Their conversation, which was inArabic, sounded violent. The accented words were like blows. Domini hadnot looked over the parapet for more than a minute before the two guidessaw her and rose smiling to their feet.
"I am waiting to show the village to Madame," said Batouch, coming outsoftly into the road, while Hadj remained under the trees, exposing histeeth in a sarcastic grin, which plainly enough conveyed to Domini hispity for her sad mistake in not engaging him as her attendant.
Domini nodded, went back into her room and put on a shady hat. Suzannehanded her a large parasol lined with green, and she descended thestairs rather slowly. She was not sure whether she wanted a companion inher first walk about Beni-Mora. There would be more savour of freedom insolitude. Yet she had hardly the heart to dismiss Batouch, with all hisdignity and determination. She resolved to take him for a little whileand then to get rid of him on some pretext. Perhaps she would make somepurchases in the bazaars and send him to the hotel with them.
"Madame has slept well?" asked the poet as she emerged into the sun.
"Pretty well," she answered, nodding again to Hadj, whose grin becamemore mischievous, and opening her parasol. "Where are we going?"
"Wherever Madame wishes. There is the market, the negro village, themosque, the casino, the statue of the Cardinal, the bazaars, the gardenof the Count Ferdinand Anteoni."
"A garden," said Domini. "Is it a beautiful one?"
Batouch was about to burst into a lyric ecstasy, but he checked himselfand said:
"Madame shall see for herself and tell me afterwards if in all Europethere is one such garden."
"Oh, the English gardens are wonderful," she said, smiling at hispatriotic conceit.
"No doubt. Madame shall tell me, Madame shall tell me," he repeated withimperturbable confidence.
"But first I wish to go for a moment into the church," she said. "Waitfor me here, Batouch."
She crossed the road, passed the modest, one-storied house of thepriest, and came to the church, which looked out on to the quietgardens. Before going up the steps and in at the door she paused fora moment. There was something touching to her, as a Catholic, in thissymbol of her faith set thus far out in the midst of Islamism. The crosswas surely rather lonely, here, raised above the white-robed men to whomit meant nothing. She was conscious that since she had come to thisland of another creed, and of another creed held with fanaticism, hersentiment for her own religion, which in England for many years had beenbut lukewarm, had suddenly gained in strength. She had an odd, almostmanly, sensation that it was her duty in Africa to stand up for herfaith, not blatantly in words to impress others, but perseveringly inheart to satisfy herself. Sometimes she felt very protective. Shefelt protective today as she looked at this humble building, which shelikened to one of the poor saints of the Thebaid, who dwelt afar indesert places, and whose devotions were broken by the night-cries ofjackals and by the roar of ravenous beasts. With this feeling strongupon her she pushed open the door and went in.
The interior was plain, even ugly. The walls were painted a hideousdrab. The stone floor was covered with small, hard, straw-bottomedchairs and narrow wooden forms for the patient knees of worshippers.In the front were two rows of private chairs, with velvet cushions ofvarious brilliant hues and velvet-covered rails. On the left was a highstone pulpit. The altar, beyond its mean black and gold railing,was dingy and forlorn. On it there was a tiny gold cross with a goldstatuette of Christ hanging, surmounted by a canopy with four pillars,which looked as if made of some unwholesome sweetmeat. Long candlesof blue and gold and bouquets of dusty artificial flowers flanked it.Behind it, in a round niche, stood a painted figure of Christ holdinga book. The two adjacent side chapels had domed roofs representing thefirmament. Beneath the pulpit stood a small harmonium. At the oppositeend of the church was a high gallery holding more chairs. The mean,featureless windows were filled with glass half white, half staring reddotted with yellow crosses. Round the walls were reliefs of the fourteenstations of the Cross in white plaster on a gilt ground framed in greymarble. From the roof hung vulgar glass chandeliers with ropes tiedwith faded pink ribands. Several frightful plaster statues daubedwith scarlet and chocolate brown stood under the windows, which wereprotected with brown woollen curtains. Close to the entrance were areceptacle for holy water in the form of a shell, and a confessional ofstone flanked by boxes, one of which bore the words, "Graces obtenues,"the other, "Demandes," and a card on which was printed, "Litanies enhonneur de Saint Antoine de Padoue."
There was nothing to please the eye, nothing to appeal to the senses.There was
not even the mystery which shrouds and softens, for thesunshine streamed in through the white glass of the windows, revealing,even emphasising, as if with deliberate cruelty, the cheap finery, thetarnished velvet, the crude colours, the meretricious gestures and posesof the plaster saints. Yet as Domini touched her forehead and breastwith holy water, and knelt for a moment on the stone floor, she wasconscious that this rather pitiful house of God moved her to an emotionshe had not felt in the great and beautiful churches to which she wasaccustomed in England and on the Continent. Through the windows she sawthe outlines of palm leaves vibrating in the breeze; African fingers,feeling, with a sort of fluttering suspicion, if not enmity, round theheart of this intruding religion, which had wandered hither from somedistant place, and, stayed, confronting the burning glance of thedesert. Bold, little, humble church! Domini knew that she would love it.But she did not know then how much.
She wandered round slowly with a grave face. Yet now and then, as shestood by one of the plaster saints, she smiled. They were indeed strangeofferings at the shrine of Him who held this Africa in the hollow of Hishand, of Him who had ordered the pageant of the sun which she had seenlast night among the mountains. And presently she and this little churchin which she stood alone became pathetic in her thoughts, and even thereligion which the one came to profess in the other pathetic too. Forhere, in Africa, she began to realise the wideness of the world, andthat many things must surely seem to the Creator what these plastersaints seemed just then to her.
"Oh, how little, how little!" she whispered to herself. "Let me bebigger! Oh, let me grow, and here, not only hereafter!"
The church door creaked. She turned her head and saw the priest whom shehad met in the tunnel entering. He came up to her at once, saluted her,and said:
"I saw you from my window, Madame, and thought I would offer to show youour little church here. We are very proud of it."
Domini liked his voice and his naive remark. His face, too, thoughundistinguished, looked honest, kind, and pathetic, but with a pathosthat was unaffected and quite unconscious. The lower part of it washidden by a moustache and beard.
"Thank you," she answered. "I have been looking round already."
"You are a Catholic, Madame?"
"Yes."
The priest looked pleased. There was something childlike in the mobilityof his face.
"I am glad," he said simply. "We are not a rich community in Beni-Mora,but we have been fortunate in bygone years. Our great Cardinal, theFather of Africa, loved this place and cherished his children here."
"Cardinal Lavigerie?"
"Yes, Madame. His house is now a native hospital. His statue faces thebeginning of the great desert road, But we remember him and his spiritis still among us."
The priest's eyes lit up as he spoke. The almost tragic expression ofhis face changed to one of enthusiasm.
"He loved Africa, I believe," Domini said.
"His heart was here. And what he did! I was to have been one of his_freres armes_, but my health prevented, and afterwards the associationwas dissolved."
The sad expression returned to his face.
"There are many temptations in such a land and climate as this," hesaid. "And men are weak. But there are still the White Fathers whom hefounded. Glorious men. They carry the Cross into the wildest places ofthe world. The most fanatical Arabs respect the White Marabouts."
"You wish you were with them?"
"Yes, Madame. But my health only permits me to be a humble parish priesthere. Not all who desire to enter the most severe life can do so. Ifit were otherwise I should long since have been a monk. The Cardinalhimself showed me that my duty lay in other paths."
He pointed out to Domini one or two things in the church which headmired and thought worthy; the carving of the altar rail into grapes,ears of corn, crosses, anchors; the white embroidered muslin that drapedthe tabernacle; the statue of a bishop in a red and gold mitre holding astaff and Bible, and another statue representing a saint with a languidand consumptive expression stretching out a Bible, on the leaves ofwhich a tiny, smiling child was walking.
As they were about to leave the church he made Domini pause in front ofa painting of Saint Bruno dressed in a white monkish robe, beneath whichwas written in gilt letters:
"Saint Bruno ordonne a ses disciples De renoncer aux biens terrestres Pour acquerir les biens celestes."
The disciples stood around the saint in grotesque attitudes of piousattention.
"That, I think, is very beautiful," he said. "Who could look at itwithout feeling that the greatest act of man is renunciation?"
His dark eyes flamed. Just then a faint soprano bark came to them fromoutside the church door, a very discreet and even humble, but atthe same time anxious, bark. The priest's face changed. The almostpassionate asceticism of it was replaced by a soft and gentle look.
"Bous-Bous wants me," he said, and he opened the door for Domini to passout.
A small white and yellow dog, very clean and well brushed, was sittingon the step in an attentive attitude. Directly the priest appeared itbegan to wag its short tail violently and to run round his feet, curvingits body into semi-circles. He bent down and patted it.
"My little companion, Madame," he said. "He was not with me yesterday,as he was being washed."
Then he took off his hat and walked towards his house, accompanied byBous-Bous, who had suddenly assumed an air of conscious majesty, as ofone born to preside over the fate of an important personage.
Domini stood for a moment under the palm trees looking after them. Therewas a steady shining in her eyes.
"Madame is a Catholic too?" asked Batouch, staring steadily at her.
Domini nodded. She did not want to discuss religion with an Arab minorpoet just then.
"Take me to the market," she said, mindful of her secret resolve to getrid of her companion as soon as possible.
They set out across the gardens.
It was a celestial day. All the clear, untempered light of the worldseemed to have made its home in Beni-Mora. Yet the heat was notexcessive, for the glorious strength of the sun was robbed of itsterror, its possible brutality, by the bright and feathery dryness andcoolness of the airs. She stepped out briskly. Her body seemed suddenlyto become years younger, full of elasticity and radiant strength.
"Madame is very strong. Madame walks like a Bedouin."
Batouch's voice sounded seriously astonished, and Domini burst outlaughing.
"In England there are many strong women. But I shall grow stronger here.I shall become a real Arab. This air gives me life."
They were just reaching the road when there was a clatter of hoofs, anda Spahi, mounted on a slim white horse, galloped past at a tremendouspace, holding his reins high above the red peak of his saddle andstaring up at the sun. Domini looked after him with critical admiration.
"You've got some good horses here," she said when the Spahi haddisappeared.
"Madame knows how to ride?"
She laughed again.
"I've ridden ever since I was a child."
"You can buy a fine horse here for sixteen pounds," remarked Batouch,using the pronoun "tu," as is the custom of the Arabs.
"Find me a good horse, a horse with spirit, and I'll buy him," Dominisaid. "I want to go far out in the desert, far away from everything."
"You must not go alone."
"Why not?"
"There are bandits in the desert."
"I'll take my revolver," Domini said carelessly. "But I will go alone."
They were in sight of the market now, and the hum of voices came tothem, with nasal cries, the whine of praying beggars, and the fiercebraying of donkeys. At the end of the small street in which they wereDomini saw a wide open space, in the centre of which stood a quantityof pillars supporting a peaked roof. Round the sides of the square werearcades swarming with Arabs, and under the central roof a mob of figurescame and went, as flies go and come on a piece of meat flung out into asunny place.
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"What a quantity of people! Do they all live in Beni-Mora?" she asked.
"No, they come from all parts of the desert to sell and to buy. But mostof those who sell are Mozabites."
Little children in bright-coloured rags came dancing round Domini,holding out their copper-coloured hands, and crying shrilly, "'Msee,M'dame! 'Msee, M'dame!" A deformed man, who looked like a distortedbeetle, crept round her feet, gazing up at her with eyes that squintedhorribly, and roaring in an imperative voice some Arab formula in whichthe words "Allah-el-Akbar" continually recurred. A tall negro, with along tuft of hair hanging from his shaven head, followed hard upon herheels, rolling his bulging eyes, in which two yellow flames were caught,and trying to engage her attention, though with what object she couldnot imagine. From all directions tall men with naked arms and legs, andfluttering white garments, came slowly towards her, staring intently ather with lustrous eyes, whose expression seemed to denote rather a calmand dignified appraisement than any vulgar curiosity. Boys, with thewhitest teeth she had ever beheld, and flowers above their well-shaped,delicate ears, smiled up at her with engaging impudence. Her nostrilswere filled with a strange crowd of odours, which came from humanitydressed in woollen garments, from fruits exposed for sale in rushpanniers, from round close bouquets of roses ringed with tight bordersof green leaves, from burning incense twigs, from raw meat, from amberornaments and strong perfumes in glass phials figured with gold attar ofrose, orange blossom, geranium and white lilac. In the shining heat ofthe sun sounds, scents and movements mingled, and were almost painfullyvivid and full of meaning and animation. Never had a London mob on somegreat _fete_ day seemed so significant and personal to Domini as thislittle mob of desert people, come together for the bartering of beasts,the buying of burnouses, weapons, skins and jewels, grain for theircamels, charms for their women, ripe glistening dates for the littlechildren at home in the brown earth houses.
As she made her way slowly through the press, pioneered by Batouch, whoforced a path with great play of his huge shoulders and mighty arms, shewas surprised to find how much at home she felt in the midst of thesefierce and uncivilised-looking people. She had no sense of shrinkingfrom their contact, no feeling of personal disgust at their touch. Whenher eyes chanced to meet any of the bold, inquiring eyes around her shewas inclined to smile as if in recognition of these children of the sun,who did not seem to her like strangers, despite the unknown languagethat struggled fiercely in their throats. Nevertheless, she did not wishto stay very long among them now. She was resolved to get a full anddelicately complete first impression of Beni-Mora, and to do that sheknew that she must detach herself from close human contact. Shedesired the mind's bird's-eye view--a height, a watchtower and a littlesolitude. So, when the eager Mozabite merchants called to her she didnot heed them, and even the busy patter of the informing Batouch fellupon rather listless ears.
"I sha'n't stay here," she said to him. "But I'll buy some perfumes.Where can I get them?"
A thin youth, brooding above a wooden tray close by, held up in hisdelicate fingers a long bottle, sealed and furnished with a tiny label,but Batouch shook his head.
"For perfumes you must go to Ahmeda, under the arcade."
They crossed a sunlit space and stood before a dark room, sunk lightlybelow the level of the pathway in a deserted corner. Shadows congregatedhere, and in the gloom Domini saw a bent white figure hunched againstthe blackened wall, and heard an old voice murmuring like a drowsy bee.The perfume-seller was immersed in the Koran, his back to the buyingworld. Batouch was about to call upon him, when Domini checked theexclamation with a quick gesture. For the first time the mystery thatcoils like a great black serpent in the shining heart of the Eaststartled and fascinated her, a mystery in which indifference anddevotion mingle. The white figure swayed slowly to and fro, carryingthe dull, humming voice with it, and now she seemed to hear a far-awayfanaticism, the bourdon of a fatalism which she longed to understand.
"Ahmeda!"
Batouch shouted. His voice came like a stone from a catapult. Themerchant turned calmly and without haste, showing an aquiline facecovered with wrinkles, tufted with white hairs, lit by eyes that shonewith the cruel expressiveness of a falcon's. After a short colloquy inArabic he raised himself from his haunches, and came to the front of theroom, where there was a small wooden counter. He was smiling now with agrace that was almost feminine.
"What perfume does Madame desire?" he said in French.
Domini gazed at him as at a deep mystery, but with the searchingdirectness characteristic of her, a fearlessness so absolute that itembarrassed many people.
"Please give me something that is of the East--not violets, not lilac."
"Amber," said Batouch.
The merchant, still smiling, reached up to a shelf, showing an arm likea brown twig, and took down a glass bottle covered with red and greenlines. He removed the stopper, made Domini take off her glove, touchedher bare hand with the stopper, then with his forefinger gently rubbedthe drop of perfume which had settled on her skin till it was slightlyred.
"Now, smell it," he commanded.
Domini obeyed. The perfume was faintly medicinal, but it filled herbrain with exotic visions. She shut her eyes. Yes, that was a voice ofAfrica too. Oh! how far away she was from her old life and hollow days.The magic carpet had been spread indeed, and she had been wafted into astrange land where she had all to learn.
"Please give me some of that," she said.
The merchant poured the amber into a phial, where it lay like a threadin the glass, weighed it in a scales and demanded a price. Batouch beganat once to argue with vehemence, but Domini stopped him.
"Pay him," she said, giving Batouch her purse.
The perfume-seller took the money with dignity, turned away, squattedupon his haunches against the blackened wall, and picked up thebroad-leaved volume which lay upon the floor. He swayed gently andrhythmically to and fro. Then once more the voice of the drowsy beehummed in the shadows. The worshipper and the Prophet stood before thefeet of Allah.
And the woman--she was set afar off, as woman is by white-robed men inAfrica.
"Now, Batouch, you can carry the perfume to the hotel and I will go tothat garden."
"Alone? Madame will never find it."
"I can ask the way."
"Impossible! I will escort Madame to the gate. There I will waitfor her. Monsieur the Count does not permit the Arabs to enter withstrangers."
"Very well," Domini said.
The seller of perfumes had led her towards a dream. She was notcombative, and she would be alone in the garden. As they walked towardsit in the sun, through narrow ways where idle Arabs lounged with happyaimlessness, Batouch talked of Count Anteoni, the owner of the garden.
Evidently the Count was the great personage of Beni-Mora. Batouch spokeof him with a convinced respect, describing him as fabulously rich,fabulously generous to the Arabs.
"He never gives to the French, Madame, but when he is here each Friday,upon our Sabbath, he comes to the gate with a bag of money in his hand,and he gives five franc pieces to every Arab who is there."
"And what is he? French?"
"He is Italian; but he is always travelling, and he has made gardenseverywhere. He has three in Africa alone, and in one he keeps manylions. When he travels he takes six Arabs with him. He loves only theArabs."
Domini began to feel interested in this wandering maker of gardens, whowas a pilgrim over the world like Monte Cristo.
"Is he young?" she asked.
"No."
"Married?"
"Oh, no! He is always alone. Sometimes he comes here and stays for threemonths, and is never once seen outside the garden. And sometimes for ayear he never comes to Beni-Mora. But he is here now. Twenty Arabsare always working in the garden, and at night ten Arabs with guns arealways awake, some in a tent inside the door and some among the trees.
"Then there is danger at night?"
"The garden touches the desert, and t
hose who are in the desert withoutarms are as birds in the air without wings."
They had come out from among the houses now into a broad, straight road,bordered on the left by land that was under cultivation, by fruit trees,and farther away by giant palms, between whose trunks could be seenthe stony reaches of the desert and spurs of grey-blue and faintrose-coloured mountains. On the right was a shady garden with fountainsand stone benches, and beyond stood a huge white palace built in theMoorish style, and terraced roofs and a high tower ornamented with greenand peacock-blue tiles. In the distance, among more palms, appeared anumber of low, flat huts of brown earth. The road, as far as the eyescould see, stretched straight forward through enormous groves of palms,whose feathery tops swayed gently in the light wind that blew from thedesert. Upon all things rained a flood of blue and gold. A blindingradiance made all things glad.
"How glorious light is!" Domini exclaimed, as she looked down the roadto the point where its whiteness was lost in the moving ocean of thetrees.
Batouch assented without enthusiasm, having always lived in the light.
"As we return from the garden we will visit the tower," he said,pointing to the Moorish palace. "It is a hotel, and is not yet open,but I know the guardian. From the tower Madame will see the whole ofBeni-Mora. Here is the negro village."
They traversed its dusty alleys slowly. On the side where the lowbrown dwellings threw shadows some of the inhabitants were dreaming orchattering, wrapped in garments of gaudy cotton. Little girls in thefiercest orange colour, with tattooed foreheads and leathern amulets,darted to and fro, chasing each other and shrieking with laughter. Nakedbabies, whose shaven heads made a warm resting-place for flies, staredat Domini with a lustrous vacancy of expression. At the corners of thealleys unveiled women squatted, grinding corn in primitive hand-mills,or winding wool on wooden sticks. Their heads were covered with plaitsof imitation hair made of wool, in which barbaric silver ornaments werefastened, and their black necks and arms jingled with chains and banglesset with squares of red coral and large dull blue and green stones. Someof them called boldly to Batouch, and he answered them with carelessimpudence. The palm-wood door of one of the houses stood wide open, andDomini looked in. She saw a dark space with floor and walls of earth,a ceiling of palm and brushwood, a low divan of earth without mat orcovering of any kind.
"They have no furniture?" she asked Batouch.
"No. What do they want with it? They live out here in the sun and go into sleep."
Life simplified to this extent made her smile. Yet she looked at thesquatting figures in the gaudy cotton rags with a stirring of envy. Thememory of her long and complicated London years, filled with a multitudeof so-called pleasures which had never stifled the dull pain set up inher heart by the rude shock of her mother's sin and its result, madethis naked, sunny, barbarous existence seem desirable. She stood for amoment to watch two women sorting grain for cous-cous. Their gutturallaughter, their noisy talk, the quick and energetic movements of theirbusy black hands, reminded her of children's gaiety. And Nature rosebefore her in the sunshine, confronting artifice and the heavy languorsof modern life in cities. How had she been able to endure the yoke solong?
"Will Madame take me to London with her when she returns?" said Batouch,slyly.
"I am not going back to London for a very long time," she replied withenergy.
"You will stay here many weeks?"
"Months, perhaps. And perhaps I shall travel on into the desert. Yes, Imust do that."
"If we followed the white road into the desert, and went on and on formany days, we should come at last to Tombouctou," said Batouch. "Butvery likely we should be killed by the Touaregs. They are fierce andthey hate strangers."
"Would you be afraid to go?" Domini asked him, curiously.
"Why afraid?"
"Of being killed?"
He looked calmly surprised. "Why should I be afraid to die? All mustpass through that door. It does not matter whether it is to-day orto-morrow."
"You have no fear of death, then?"
"Of course not. Have you, Madame?" He gazed at Domini with genuineastonishment.
"I don't know," she answered.
And she wondered and could not tell.
"There is the Villa Anteoni."
Batouch lifted his hand and pointed. They had turned aside from theway to Tombouctou, left the village behind them, and come into a narrowtrack which ran parallel to the desert. The palm trees rustled on theirright, the green corn waved, the narrow cuttings in the earth gleamedwith shallow water. But on their other side was limitless sterility; thewide, stony expanse of the great river bed, the Oued-Beni-Mora, then alow earth cliff, and then the immense airy flats stretching away intothe shining regions of the sun. At some distance, raised on a dazzlingwhite wall above the desert in an unshaded place, Domini saw a narrow,two-sided white house, with a flat roof and a few tiny loopholes insteadof windows. One side looked full upon the waterless river bed, theother, at right angles to it, ran back towards a thicket of palms andended in an arcade of six open Moorish arches, through which the fierceblue of the cloudless sky stared, making an almost theatrical effect.Beyond, masses of trees were visible, looking almost black against theintense, blinding pallor of wall, villa and arcade, the intense blueabove.
"What a strange house!" Domini said. "There are no windows."
"They are all on the other side, looking into the garden."
The villa fascinated Domini at once. The white Moorish arcade framingbare, quivering blue, blue from the inmost heart of heaven, intense asa great vehement cry, was beautiful as the arcade of a Geni's home inFairyland. Mystery hung about this dwelling, a mystery of light, notdarkness, secrets of flame and hidden things of golden meaning. She feltalmost like a child who is about to penetrate into the red land of thewinter fire, and she hastened her steps till she reached a tall whitegate set in an arch of wood, and surmounted with a white coat of armsand two lions. Batouch struck on it with a white knocker and then beganto roll a cigarette.
"I will wait here for Madame."
Domini nodded. A leaf of wood was pulled back softly in the gate, andshe stepped into the garden and confronted a graceful young Arab dressedin pale green, who saluted her respectfully and gently closed the door.
"May I walk about the garden a little?" she asked.
She did not look round her yet, for the Arab's face interested and evencharmed her. It was aristocratic, enchantingly indolent, like theface of a happy lotus-eater. The great, lustrous eyes were tender asa gazelle's and thoughtless as the eyes of a sleepy child. Hisperfectly-shaped feet were bare on the shining sand. In one hand he helda large red rose and in the other a half-smoked cigarette.
Domini could not kelp smiling at him as she put her question, and hesmiled contentedly back at her as he answered, in a low, level voice:
"You can go where you will. Shall I show you the paths?"
He lifted his hand and calmly smelt his red rose, keeping his great eyesfixed upon her. Domini's wish to be alone had left her. This was surelythe geni of the garden, and his company would add to its mystery andfragrance.
"You need not stay by the door?" she asked.
"No one will come. There is no one in Beni-Mora. And Hassan will stay."
He pointed with his rose to a little tent that was pitched close to thegate beneath a pepper tree. In it Domini saw a brown boy curled up likea dog and fast asleep. She began to feel as if she had eaten hashish.The world seemed made for dreaming.
"Thank you, then."
And now for the first time she looked round to see whether Batouch hadimplied the truth. Must the European gardens give way to this Easterngarden, take a lower place with all their roses?
She stood on a great expanse of newly-raked smooth sand, rising in avery gentle slope to a gigantic hedge of carefully trimmed evergreens,which projected at the top, forming a roof and casting a pleasant shadeupon the sand. At intervals white benches were placed under this hedge.To the right was the vill
a. She saw now that it was quite small. Therewere two lines of windows--on the ground floor and the upper story. Thelower windows opened on to the sand, those above on to a verandah witha white railing, which was gained by a white staircase outside the housebuilt beneath the arches of the arcade. The villa was most delicatelysimple, but in this riot of blue and gold its ivory cleanliness, setthere upon the shining sand which was warm to the foot, made it lookmagical to Domini. She thought she had never known before what spotlesspurity was like.
"Those are the bedrooms," murmured the Arab at her side.
"There are only bedrooms?" she asked in surprise.
"The other rooms, the drawing-room of Monsieur the Count, thedining-room, the smoking-room, the Moorish bath, the room of the littledog, the kitchen and the rooms for the servants are in different partsof the garden. There is the dining-room."
He pointed with his rose to a large white building, whose dazzling wallsshowed here and there through the masses of trees to the left, where alittle raised sand-path with flattened, sloping sides wound away into amaze of shadows diapered with gold.
"Let us go down that path," Domini said almost in a whisper.
The spell of the place was descending upon her. This was surely a homeof dreams, a haven where the sun came to lie down beneath the trees andsleep.
"What is your name?" she added.
"Smain," replied the Arab. "I was born in this garden. My father,Mohammed, was with Monsieur the Count."
He led the way over the sand, moving silently on his long, brown feet,straight as a reed in a windless place. Domini followed, holding herbreath. Only sometimes she let her strong imagination play utterly atits will. She let it go now as she and Smain turned into the goldendiapered shadows of the little path and came into the swaying mysteryof the trees. The longing for secrecy, for remoteness, for the beauty offar away had sometimes haunted her, especially in the troubled momentsof her life. Her heart, oppressed, had overleaped the horizon linein answer to a calling from hidden things beyond. Her emotions hadwandered, seeking the great distances in which the dim purple twilightholds surely comfort for those who suffer. But she had never thought tofind any garden of peace that realised her dreams. Nevertheless, she wasalready conscious that Smain with his rose was showing her the way toher ideal, that her feet were set upon its pathway, that its legendarytrees were closing round her.
Behind the evergreen hedge she heard the liquid bubbling of a hiddenwaterfall, and when they had left the untempered sunlight behind themthis murmur grew louder. It seemed as if the green gloom in which theywalked acted as a sounding-board to the delicious voice. The littlepath wound on and on between two running rills of water, which slippedincessantly away under the broad and yellow-tipped leaves of dwarfpalms, making a music so faint that it was more like a remembered soundin the mind than one which slid upon the ear. On either hand towered ajungle of trees brought to this home in the desert from all parts of theworld.
There were many unknown to Domini, but she recognised several varietiesof palms, acacias, gums, fig trees, chestnuts, poplars, false peppertrees, the huge olive trees called Jamelons, white laurels, indiarubberand cocoanut trees, bananas, bamboos, yuccas, many mimosas andquantities of tall eucalyptus trees. Thickets of scarlet geranium flamedin the twilight. The hibiscus lifted languidly its frail and rosy cup,and the red gold oranges gleamed amid leaves that looked as if they hadbeen polished by an attentive fairy.
As she went with Smain farther into the recesses of the garden the voiceof the waterfall died away. No birds were singing. Domini thought thatperhaps they dared not sing lest they might wake the sun from its goldenreveries, but afterwards, when she knew the garden better, she oftenheard them twittering with a subdued, yet happy, languor, as if joiningin a nocturn upon the edge of sleep. Under the trees the sand wasyellow, of a shade so voluptuously beautiful that she longed to touchit with her bare feet like Smain. Here and there it rose in symmetricallittle pyramids, which hinted at absent gardeners, perhaps enjoying asiesta.
Never before had she fully understood the enchantment of green, quiterealised how happy a choice was made on that day of Creation when it wasshowered prodigally over the world. But now, as she walked secretly overthe yellow sand between the rills, following the floating green robe ofSmain, she rested her eyes, and her soul, on countless mingling shadesof the delicious colour; rough, furry green of geranium leaves, silvergreen of olives, black green of distant palms from which the sun heldaloof, faded green of the eucalyptus, rich, emerald green of fan-shaped,sunlit palms, hot, sultry green of bamboos, dull, drowsy green ofmulberry trees and brooding chestnuts. It was a choir of colours in onecolour, like a choir of boys all with treble voices singing to the sun.
Gold flickered everywhere, weaving patterns of enchantment, quivering,vital patterns of burning beauty. Down the narrow, branching paths thatled to inner mysteries the light ran in and out, peeping between thedivided leaves of plants, gliding over the slippery edges of the palmbranches, trembling airily where the papyrus bent its antique head,dancing among the big blades of sturdy grass that sprouted in tufts hereand there, resting languidly upon the glistening magnolias that werebesieged by somnolent bees. All the greens and all the golds of Creationwere surely met together in this profound retreat to prove the perfectharmony of earth with sun.
And now, growing accustomed to the pervading silence, Domini began tohear the tiny sounds that broke it. They came from the trees andplants. The airs were always astir, helping the soft designs of Nature,loosening a leaf from its stem and bearing it to the sand, striking aberry from its place and causing it to drop at Domini's feet, giving afaded geranium petal the courage to leave its more vivid companionsand resign itself to the loss of the place it could no longer fill withbeauty. Very delicate was the touch of the dying upon the yellow sand.It increased the sense of pervading mystery and made Domini more deeplyconscious of the pulsing life of the garden.
"There is the room of the little dog," said Smain.
They had come out into a small open space, over which an immensecocoanut tree presided. Low box hedges ran round two squares of grasswhich were shadowed by date palms heavy with yellow fruit, and beneathsome leaning mulberry trees Domini saw a tiny white room with two glasswindows down to the ground. She went up to it and peeped in, smiling.
There, in a formal salon, with gilt chairs, oval, polished tables, fadedrugs and shining mirrors, sat a purple china dog with his tail curledover his back sternly staring into vacancy. His expression and hisattitude were autocratic and determined, betokening a tyrannical nature,and Domini peeped at him with precaution, holding herself very stilllest he should become aware of her presence and resent it.
"Monsieur the Count paid much money for the dog," murmured Smain. "He isvery valuable."
"How long has he been there?"
"For many years. He was there when I was born, and I have been marriedtwice and divorced twice."
Domini turned from the window and looked at Smain with astonishment. Hewas smelling his rose like a dreamy child.
"You have been divorced twice?"
"Yes. Now I will show Madame the smoking-room."
They followed another of the innumerable alleys of the garden. This onewas very narrow and less densely roofed with trees than those they hadalready traversed. Tall shrubs bent forward on either side of it, andtheir small leaves almost meeting, were transformed by the radiantsunbeams into tongues of pale fire, quivering, well nigh transparent.As she approached them Domini could not resist the fancy that they wouldburn her. A brown butterfly flitted forward between them and vanishedinto the golden dream beyond.
"Oh, Smain, how you must love this garden!" she said.
A sort of ecstasy was waking within her. The pure air, the caressingwarmth, the enchanted stillness and privacy of this domain touched hersoul and body like the hands of a saint with power to bless her.
"I could live here for ever," she added, "without once wishing to go outinto the world."
Smain looked drowsily pleased.
"We are coming to the centre of the garden," he said, as they passedover a palm-wood bridge beneath which a stream glided under the redpetals of geraniums.
The tongues of flame were left behind. Green darkness closed in uponthem and the sand beneath their feet looked blanched. The sense ofmystery increased, for the trees were enormous and grew densely here.Pine needles lay upon the ground, and there was a stirring of suddenwind far up above their heads in the tree-tops.
"This is the part of the garden that Monsieur the Count loves," saidSmain. "He comes here every day."
"What is that?" said Domini, suddenly stopping on the pale sand.
A thin and remote sound stole to them down the alley, clear and frail asthe note of a night bird.
"It is Larbi playing upon the flute. He is in love. That is why he playswhen he ought to be watering the flowers and raking out the sand."
The distant love-song of the flute seemed to Domini the last touch ofenchantment making this indeed a wonderland. She could not move, andheld up her hands to stay the feet of Smain, who was quite contentto wait. Never before had she heard any music that seemed to mean andsuggest so much to her as this African tune played by an enamouredgardener. Queer and uncouth as it was, distorted with ornaments andtricked out with abrupt runs, exquisitely unnecessary grace notes,and sudden twitterings prolonged till a strange and frivolous Eternitytripped in to banish Time, it grasped Domini's fancy and laid a spellupon her imagination. For it sounded as naively sincere as the song of abird, and as if the heart from which it flowed were like the heart ofa child, a place of revelation, not of concealment. The sun made mencareless here. They opened their windows to it, and one could see intothe warm and glowing rooms. Domini looked at the gentle Arab youthbeside her, already twice married and twice divorced. She listened toLarbi's unending song of love. And she said to herself, "These people,uncivilised or not, at least live, and I have been dead all my life,dead in life." That was horribly possible. She knew it as she felt theenormously powerful spell of Africa descending upon her, envelopingher quietly but irresistibly. The dream of this garden was quick witha vague and yet fierce stirring of realities. There was a murmuringof many small and distant voices, like the voices of innumerable tinythings following restless activities in a deep forest. As she stoodthere the last grain of European dust was lifted from Domini's soul. Howdeeply it had been buried, and for how many years.
"The greatest act of man is the act of renunciation." She had just heardthose words. The eyes of the priest had flamed as he spoke them, and shehad caught the spark of his enthusiasm. But now another fire seemed litwithin her, and she found herself marvelling at such austerity. Was itnot a fanatical defiance flung into the face of the sun? She shrank fromher own thought, like one startled, and walked on softly in the greendarkness.
Larbi's flute became more distant. Again and again it repeated the samequeer little melody, changing the ornamentation at the fantasy of theplayer. She looked for him among the trees but saw no one. He must be insome very secret place. Smain touched her.
"Look!" he said, and his voice was very low.
He parted the branches of some palms with his delicate hands, andDomini, peering between them, saw in a place of deep shadows an isolatedsquare room, whose white walls were almost entirely concealed by massesof purple bougainvillea. It had a flat roof. In three of its sides werelarge arched window-spaces without windows. In the fourth was a narrowdoorway without a door. Immense fig trees and palms and thickets ofbamboo towered around it and leaned above it. And it was circled by anarrow riband of finely-raked sand.
"That is the smoking-room of Monsieur the Count," said Smain. "He spendsmany hours there. Come and I will show the inside to Madame."
They turned to the left and went towards the room. The flute was closeto them now. "Larbi must be in there," Domini whispered to Smain, as aperson whispers in a church.
"No, he is among the trees beyond."
"But someone is there."
She pointed to the arched window-space nearest to them. A thin spiral ofblue-grey smoke curled through it and evaporated into the shadows ofthe trees. After a moment it was followed gently and deliberately byanother.
"It is not Larbi. He would not go in there. It must be----"
He paused. A tall, middle-aged man had come to the doorway of the littleroom and looked out into the garden with bright eyes.