Читать книгу The Coming of the King - Bernie Babcock - Страница 12

Thanks to the untiring labor of Martha and her slow-moving servant Eli, the house of her brother Lazarus of Bethany was set in order three days before the expected arrival of Passover guests. Followed by Eli, who was girt about with a long towel, Martha made a last survey of the large and well furnished living-room, looking for a truant speck of dust. She paused for a moment at a table containing writing materials and bade the servant wipe it carefully and place it, with a case of scrolls, at one end of the wide, latticed window-couch, for here on the comfortable cushions Lazarus spent much time reading. She had just turned from the window-seat to a watering jar of fresh palm leaves when from the open way leading into the garden, two maidens entered.

"Martha," the first to enter said, laughing, "my guest Debora from Capernaum hath already arrived and I have brought her to see Mary's beds of lilies. Where is Mary? I saw her not in the garden," and she glanced about the room.

When greetings had been exchanged, Martha bade the man-servant go into the garden and look at the dial while she polished the already glossy palms. To Anna she said, "Thou knowest Mary. Was ever there another such Mary? Look you at these palms. Is it not enough that the garden be full to overflowing with vines and herbs? Yet would Mary fill the house with flowers of the wayside did I not struggle against it. Even now is she wandering off to a valley of lilies she hath found by the wady beyond Olivet, searching a strange lily for her beds. Ere the threefold blast of the Temple Priests awoke Jerusalem, were her eyes open. And look you at the sun mark on the dial, and yet Mary, dreamer of gardens and lilies and sweet odors, hath not yet returned."

"Nay—call not Mary a dreamer," Anna protested, "for names that are once given stick. Call they not my father 'Simon the Leper' for no reason than that in his youth he had an issue of blood? And while the world knows that his home could not be among the clean were he a leper yet doth the name hang to him. To fasten on her the title of 'dreamer' might lose Mary a good husband, for who wants a dreamer when the sparrow pie is burning to the pot?"

"Such is Mary, yet would I not spoil her chance of a husband though it be left for me to look after food and the pots and my stupid Eli. And if such a chance as Zador Ben Amon should be hers—would not my heart rejoice?"

"Hath he spoken to Lazarus for her hand?"

"Nay, nor hath he supped with us for many months, nor even sent a message."

"Hath Mary's heart been heavy?"

"Nay, Mary hath not had time to grow heavy-hearted, for since the winter gave place to spring hath she been in the garden searching a warm spot for some chicken yet wet from the shell, or scratching the sod from some struggling seed. This is Mary," and Martha laughed good-naturedly as she finished rubbing the palms.

"Debora would see the garden," Anna said. "Such a lovely garden!"

"Yea," answered Martha, as they passed into the court, "yet doth Mary have strange ideas, for on top of the old wall that she would let no man tear down because of its vines which bind the stones together, she hath grasses growing, such grasses as grow by the wayside to be eaten of asses and goats. And when I asked Lazarus to have the wild green pulled out by the roots, he said since they injure not the wall and delight the heart of Mary by their playful wagging in the spring breeze, they shall stay. So there is a fringe of green blades set thick with blue blossoms on top of the old wall with vines, and of these, as of the valley of lilies she hath found, doth Mary throw up her hands and cry—'Beautiful!'"

Anna and Debora laughed as Martha acted the part of Mary and they passed on toward the lily beds. Between the garden wall and the winding roadway, grew a luxurious grove of date palms which gave to the home of Lazarus its name. Inside the garden, pomegranates and grapes and figs grew, with melons and lentils and aromatic plants, in addition to Mary's garden of many colored lilies. In the center of the courtyard near the house was a water pool in a stony basin, and from the top of a pile of stones in the middle of the pool, water bubbled and dropped over the aquatic plants that grew along its sides. On the side of the pool nearest the house was the sun-dial. Close to the stairs which went to the housetop from the outside, was an olive tree of unusual size, the wide extended branches of which shaded a corner of the house and its roof garden, for Mary had shade-loving plants here also. Under this gnarled and ancient tree was a thick stone slab hewn into a seat and here Martha and her guests sat down, after walking through the garden, to talk of the Passover celebration just at hand, of Martha's lover Joel, the silk merchant, and Zador Ben Amon's wealth.

As Martha had said, her sister had set forth in the sunrise for a yet damp wady around the foot of Olivet, where, before the time of blossoms, she had discovered beds of lilies. After an uninterrupted walk of a mile or two, Mary paused on the brow of Olivet and stopping to rest, turned her face to the east. Against the flood light of the rising sun the far distant Mountains of Moab cast dim blue sky-lines. Emerging from the many-hued green hills that rose in the foreground, like a twisted thread, stretched the Jericho road which led past the garden wall of Lazarus' home in Bethany. Even at this early hour pilgrims on foot and on donkeys were journeying toward the scene of the great Passover.

From the east Mary turned her face to the west. Often had she seen Jerusalem before, yet now she gave an exclamation of joy as the ascending sunlight fell in floods of golden glory over the snowy towers and gold minarets of the City of David, secure on its summit of rugged fastness. "Who has not seen Zion knows not what beauty is!" she exclaimed. "Zion—fairest throughout the earth!" The veil which she had loosely bound about her head had fallen from her shoulders and the morning breeze touching her soft dark hair was moving it gently around her face while unseen fingers stirred the hem of her woolen skirt above her dew wet sandals. The altar smoke of the morning offering was ascending from the Temple of snow and gold, casting delicate and ever changing spirals of gray and black against the rosy sky, and now and then the silver glint of a dove's wing caught the eye as it circled over one of the shining domes. Filled with racial pride as well as with artistic admiration, Mary looked to the west, hidden, except its sky, by the battlements of Jerusalem. But she knew that at the West Gates the great highway to Joppa and the sea entered the city and although no glimpse of it could be seen, she knew that the long and dusty miles would soon resound to the call of the driver, as caravans of wares for the Passover sale came through the gates.

After a last long look at the shining Temple, Mary turned to the south. As she did so the exquisite fragrance of grape blossoms came to her on the changing breeze and she laughed with joy as her eager eyes took in the panorama, of vineyards here and there with their gray watch towers set in nature's most delicate filigree of green; of billowing fields of grain; of groves of olives turning color from green to gray and white as moved by the breeze, and back of it all the mountains of Judea, their rugged outlines softened by the rose and purple mist of the morning. In this direction the road leaving Jerusalem went into the south as far as Hebron.

Before pursuing her way she turned to see what signs of life appeared on the great Damascus road which led to the north through Samaria and Galilee. Here, as far as the eye could reach, glimpses of companies which seemed but slowly-moving specks in the distance, drew nearer the Holy City to worship or to profit. At the foot of a near-by hill a flock of goats, with herdsmen keeping close watch, were browsing among the prickly pears, feeding their last before being driven into the Temple stalls as sacrificial beasts. On another road a company of Arabs was putting up its mean and ragged tents and just beyond some Galilean peasants were building booths. Turning from the brow of the olive-green Mount, Mary made her way down a dim trail toward the valley of lilies she had discovered. Around her feet the gently sloping hillside was a mass of flowers, blood red anemones, spotted tulips and blue star blossoms. In the winter, with the bare gray stones scattered about in confusion, this place was dreary as poverty itself. But now the wealth of beauty that lay over it suggested the joy of the Passover to the whole world.

It was while picking golden narcissus in her lily valley, Mary's heart was gladdened by the sudden outburst of a nightingale in a thicket close at hand. Careful watching was rewarded by a sight, not only of the singer but of a nest with three little ones in it. While she yet peeped at the nestlings, a man appeared with an ax. He was looking for boughs with which to thatch his booth and his eye was on the nightingale's home. Taking the nest from its hiding-place Mary tucked it under her veil, wrapped her lily stems in wet leaves and started away. A moment later a stroke of the ax felled the bush that had housed the birds. Looking back Mary saw the mother bird fluttering wildly about over the cast-off pile of leaves. "Knowing not her little ones are safe she suffers pain," she said to herself.

She had not gone far along the roadway when she came upon the tent of a Bedouin. A woman holding an infant on one arm had just stepped out. She looked about anxiously until her eye caught sight of a goat grazing at no great distance. By its broken tether the goat had made its escape. The milk and cheese of the family depended on the goat. In no spoken word could Mary converse with the woman, but she understood, and holding out her arms for the child, pointed toward the goat. The swarthy woman nodded, placed the little brown baby in the arms of the unknown friend, and hurried after the goat.

Sitting on a flat stone behind the tent, Mary, who had for the moment removed from her bosom the veil in which she had wrapped the nestlings and was quieting their calls for their mother by fitting her warm palm close over them, was suddenly startled by what seemed to be an infinite throb, a passion unspeakable and mysterious. She did not know that the mouth of a sucking child is a vortex in which the interplay of universal forces starts into vibration a thousand generations of instinctive motherhood. Nor did the little brown baby know aught of this. Moved by the first impulse of Nature which makes every mother a universal mother, the instinct of self-preservation had turned the face of the child to the breast of Mary. Looking about with a glance of apprehension lest she should be discovered in some unworthy act, she hastily moved the infant from her arm and the nestlings from her veil which she gathered over her shoulders and bosom. The birds she tied in a loose end of the veil and hid in the front of her garment. Meantime the baby was crying lustily and making feeble and aimless motions of protest or desire with its tiny brown fingers. Mary was trying to quiet it by walking when the Bedouin woman returned with the goat.

The sun was shining high and the roads were peopled with pilgrims as she made her way back to Bethany with her nestlings and narcissus. But the way did not seem long, for out of her visit to the valley of lilies had come a new mystery for her mind to dwell upon—the eternal mystery of motherhood awakening. "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings shall come wisdom." The words of one of the Rabbis kept coming to her. But what was the wisdom? Her only impression at the time was the strange suggestion that because both nestlings and Bedouin babe had mistaken her for their mother, they must be brothers. When Mary reached home she found Martha and her guests in a state of pleased excitement. News had just been brought by Lazarus that Zador Ben Amon had arrived in Jerusalem after a long journey in far lands, and would sup with them the day following. Especially had he sent his respects to Mary.