Читать книгу The House of Islâm - Marmaduke William Pickthall - Страница 4

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Many years had passed since that day-spring. Shems-ud-dìn sat in his shop in the small bazaar, a great sorrow at his heart. His wife had died long ago; his son, lured by promises from the exalted Milhem, had gone forth to try his fortune in the government service; and now it had pleased God to smite the last remaining of his dear ones.

Alia, little Alia, whom he cherished as his own eyes, lay sick of a wasting illness none could name. Every homely charm and nostrum had been applied in vain. A famous leech from distant Damashc-esh-Shâm had bled her copiously, and stayed ten days in the house, expecting some good result. At last, seeing her life still waned, he had taken Shems-ud-dìn aside and spoken gravely.

“O Sheykh, this is from the hand of Allah. All my science is as air against it. The stalk is cut, the ear will fall. It is decreed. Grieve not overmuch, I entreat thee. Rather thank Allah that it is not thy son, but only a girl from whom no honor comes.”

Shems-ud-dìn duly thanked Allah, but cast about in his mind for some remedy yet to try. He was come to his shop at this idle hour of noon on purpose to think undisturbed. But the halls of his understanding were darkened and unfamiliar; even the lamp of faith burned dimly, a great way off. Though he prayed, “In mercy heal her! O Allah, spare the sunshine of my age!” he knew the worthlessness of such prayer. His will was not lost in the Divine Will, but beat against it to its own hurt, a moth at the flame.

The voice of the torrent in the wady, swollen from days of rain, droned in his ears. The noontide murmur of the town—men’s talk, the cooing of doves, a clink from the forge—was subdued by it. It filled all the pauses of thought with a dull refrain which seemed that of his own woe, the ever-recurring numbness of sheer grief that prevented his thinking to any purpose. It deadened a noise of bells approaching, until it was quite near, in the bazaar itself.

The clangor filled the air suddenly, starting many echoes. But Shems-ud-dìn did not turn his head. He continued sitting with his back to the world, spreading out his hands over the brazier, which he had lighted for an illusion of comfort. He heard the ponderous, padded tread of camels; he smelt their hides; and one by one, in passing, the huge beasts took the daylight from him. The jangle of the bells was deafening.

All at once it ceased. The train had halted. But Shems-ud-dìn did not turn his head.

“O Allah, weld my will to Thine! O Lord, spare my daughter!” he kept moaning.

“For how much dost thou sell this, O effendi?” said a husky voice behind him.

Turning then, in some dismay, Shems-ud-dìn beheld a man unkempt and meanly clad, grinning sheepishly as he held up a tiny bottle of attar of roses. It was evidently one of the camel drivers, for he held the end of a rope wound round his wrist; and the small, superb face of a camel looked over his head into the shop, sneering at what it saw there.

“For how much?” came again in the husky voice. “I give thee six piasters.”

“Be it thine at that price. Take it, my son, and go in peace.”

The grin departed from the camel driver’s face. His mouth fell open, and his eyes grew round with alarm. He set down the bottle hastily, and began muttering to himself.

“What ails thee? Why dost thou murmur in thy soul?” asked Shems-ud-dìn.

“Ma sh’ Allah! Thou askest why? Is there not cause enough, O my master? Is this precious attar—the soul of a thousand roses? By Allah, no, I think not. For six piasters! And if I bought it and carried it to her I love, and a jinni came out and deflowered her I love, and slew me and took my love away under the sea or among the roots of the mountains.... Aha, precious attar indeed! and cheap at six piasters!... But Ibrahìm is a wary man, one accustomed to look behind him. When he saw thy back toward him, when thou gavest him no greeting, he said in his soul, ‘O soul, be warned! Either this merchant will play the listless to drive the harder bargain, or else here is something strange, out of the natural——’”

“Be silent, foolish one!” interrupted Shems-ud-dìn. “My daughter, in whom I delight, lies near to death, and my mind is distraught with grief. Though I heard thee and saw, it conveyed nothing to my mind. In truth, the perfume is worth more than six piasters. Take it as a gift from me and go.”

At that the simpleton kissed the ground before Shems-ud-dìn.

“O father of mercy!” he blubbered. “Long have I desired to make such a present to her I love. Allah comfort thee, O my dear lord! Despair not for thy girl. There be workers of miracles in the land nowadays. Hear what befell myself awhile since. As I journeyed to the Holy City in the train of certain Franks, having charge of their baggage, death seized me round my belly and flung me from my mule whereon I sat, and laid me upon the stones of the path, and there knelt on me with such weight that I shrieked aloud for the pain in my midst. It had been the end of me, had not one of the infidels, who was a physician, jumped down off his horse, and producing something from his clothes, forced me to swallow a part of it. Its taste was bitter as gall, so that I screamed the more and cursed the poisoner. But after a little, death fled and my health returned to me, and I went forward singing upon my way. Great is the science of the Franks. Our physicians are as fools to them. They have a fine hospital in El Cûds. Take thy daughter thither....”

“Ya I-bra-hìm!” came a cry out of the distance. “Where art thou? Make haste! We tire of waiting.”

“The companions call me. In thy grace, I go. Forget not my counsel. What is the journey to El Cûds for one like thee? Three days, or four at the most; and the girl can ride comfortably in a palanquin between two mules. There, with Allah’s leave, she will be healed.... I come! I come!”

Tucking the bottle into his waistband, he turned and would have run, had not the camel, refusing to be hurried, pulled him up with a jerk. The rope between them was taut as a lute string as they passed from sight.

The jangle of bells had sunk once more beneath the roar of the torrent ere Shems-ud-dìn perceived that his prayer was answered. Then great awe fell upon him, and he said in his heart, “I have sinned.” It shamed him to know that Allah had heard his wayward moaning. He, an old man whose beard was white, had prayed blindly, senselessly, as a child prays, to be shown a little hope, some remedy yet untried. Now that his request was granted, he felt as that camel driver had felt on finding the attar his at the price first offered.

While he sat thus between great hope and fear, a face looked in upon him out of the sunlight, and a youthful voice exclaimed:

“May thy day be happy, O my master. How fares the beloved?”

It was Shibli, his favorite pupil and the bridegroom designate of Alia.

“Enter, O my son, and welcome,” said Shems-ud-dìn; and he straight described to his disciple all the happenings since sunrise, from the departure of the city physician to the advice so strangely proffered by a simple camel driver. At the end, Shibli cried:

“It is the best advice. Let us go to El Cûds. Apart from the virtue of a pilgrimage to the Dome of the Rock, I thirst to behold so famous a city. My father will grant me leave to travel with thee. O happy day!”

Shems-ud-dìn smiled upon the boy’s excitement. To rebuke it, he said:

“Allah knows it is not for pastime that I go.”

But Shibli’s delight in the prospect made it bright for him also.

Presently, giving his disciple charge of the shop, Shems-ud-dìn issued forth into the sunlight and started to climb a steep and stony path, like the bed of a torrent, which led to his dwelling. Women, gossiping at their doors, blessed him by name as he passed, and inquired tenderly concerning the health of his dear one. The sun, sinking down upon the hilltop, dazzled his eyes. Hope, renewed, opened the gates of his mind, even as his despondency had shut them fast, to things around him. He noticed the lizard basking in the sunshine, the tuft of hyssop growing between the stones.

His house stood highest of all in the little city, close upon the hill of ruins. He had himself planned and superintended its building long ago, so that there was none like it for size and nobility of aspect.

Before the wide open arch which was the entrance hall, upon a terrace of rolled mud—which seemed a parade ground, but was in fact but the roof of the house below—an old negro was standing in a posture of some dejection, gazing wistfully at the heights beyond the wady. He started at his master’s approach, and answered the question about Alia with a despairing grin.

Shems-ud-dìn passed into the house. Very softly he opened a door. The room within was darkened. What light stole in through chinks in the shutters revealed but vague outlines.

“How is she?” he whispered.

“As always. She has not slept.” Some one arose in the gloom and came to him.

“Who is it?” wailed a fretful voice from the floor. “O Fatmeh, who is it? Bid him depart.”

Shems-ud-dìn went and knelt beside the sufferer.

“See, O beloved! I have brought thee a thing thou lovest well—some of thy chosen perfume!”

“I love it not. I hate it! I hate everything! O Allah, kill me quickly!... I would sleep. O Fatmeh, take my father away that I may sleep.”

Fatmeh followed the sheykh to the door, and clutched his robe.

“Hear me, O my lord!” she whispered. “She is not better; she cannot sleep. What can one do? I will tell thee. Be not wroth with thy servant. There is a tree not far from here—a good tree and efficacious, for all thy frowns—one that has healed thousands. Let me tear off a strip from her finest garment and go myself and hang it on the tree. So, in sh’ Allah, she will be healed and no one know the manner of her healing. Cast me not off. Hear only, I entreat thee. Let us make but trial of the tree. How can it be a bad tree? Did not Allah make it with the others?”

“Be silent!” said Shems-ud-dìn sternly. “Allah forbid that one of my house should commit so great an impiety!” With which he passed out from her and shut the door.

By that time the evening shadow covered town and hillside; only the summit of the minaret shone like the henna-dyed tip of a finger pointed heavenward. But the cliffs across the wady still basked in broad sunlight. The figure of the old negro, lounging in the archway, stood out darkly on that distant glow.

Shems-ud-dìn sat down in the entrance and remained in profound meditation, his every thought a prayer; while the flower of sunset bloomed and faded upon the cliffs beyond the wady, and blue night stole upon the landscape. Then, out in the gloaming, a cry arose—a long-sustained yell, breaking anon into a wild unearthly chant. It came from the minaret, which the piety of Shems-ud-dìn himself had added to the little mosque. Its burden of memories brought tears to the old man’s eyes.

He arose and went out on to the roof of his house. A star sparkled on the fading green of sunset. A cool breath from the hills fanned his cheeks. Falling on his face toward the kibleh, he prayed Allah to abate something of his too great love for Alia, which had broken the calm of resignation becoming his age, which hung as a cloud between him and the Creator.

When he regained the porch, old Mâs was hanging up a lantern to a hook on the wall.

“O Mâs, go to the house of the excellent Hassan Agha; if he be within, beg him to honor me with his presence here.”

“No need,” grinned the black. “Even now I hear his honor’s voice without.”

In confirmation, there came a shout, “Peace on this house!” and the Guardian of the Frontier appeared in the entrance arch. Behind him a crowd of heads, but dimly seen, were bowed reverently. Hassan’s men—a fierce-eyed, swaggering crew—followed him about always like tame dogs. With a shrug and his grin, Mâs went off to pound coffee for the invaders.

“What is this I hear of thee, O my eyes? Thou goest to El Cûds under advice of an angel from Allah? Shibli told me the strange story as I rode through the bazaar at sunset,” said Hassan, after salutations. “Hopest thou still for the girl? By my gun, it grieves me to see thee seek the cause of misfortune, going groping like a blind man, when the cause is plain to all besides thee. Thou hast let the girl grow between thee and the Praiseworthy; wherefore the Almighty slays her, as one breaks the small branch of a tree, that He may see thee. What do I with my mare if one praises her too warmly, so that my pride in her leaps up to flout the Most High? I say piously: she is thine. I give her in haste to him who extols her. I put the occasion of sin from me. And so I would do with my daughter did I sin through her.”

“The right is with thee, O Hassan,” said Shems-ud-dìn, in great distress. “But—O my pearl of pearls! O my Alia! O young moon rising on my night of years! Darkness were my portion without thee! My woman is dead, and I have not the heart to enjoy another. My son is far away, and his love grows cold. I have received no answer from him these many months. But my Alia—she is here, my soul itself. Allah forgive me, I must try to keep her.”

“I say naught against that, O my eyes, but only against the extravagance of thy love for her. Obey the angel certainly. The Franks have skill in medicine—more especially that tribe of them which is called the English. One Englishman, who was in Kars during the siege, healed my father’s brother, and a thousand others who were counted dead of the Yellow Wind. The power to cure is their inheritance from Isa the Prophet, the mighty healer. Proceed to El Cûds. Thou art like to behold thy son there, by what I heard to-day from the mouth of a camel driver from that city who had much to tell of one Abd-ur-Rahman Bey, an officer in the garrison, and nephew to the glorious Milhem Pasha. It can mean no other than our friend, thy son. He came thither from Istanbûl three months ago.”

“Three months!” ejaculated Shems-ud-dìn, with downcast eyes.

“Yes, certainly thou must journey to El Cûds, if only that the sight of him may refresh thy soul. But tell me, O my dear, what is the right of this story of an angel? Shibli said only that an angel had appeared to thee, and bidden thee take him (Shibli) to El Cûds, for the sake of Alia, somehow.”

“Not so,” said Shems-ud-dìn. “The truth is quite otherwise. Indeed, it is more likely that he who appeared to me was a devil.” Therewith he told the plain story, the Circassians listening with open mouths.

“Ma sh’ Allah! A jinni, very surely,” said Hassan, at the end. “I myself observed something peculiar in his aspect. Not often is so long a train of camels sent forth without money in the hands of the drivers. Yet—believe it, who can!—on three men, having charge of more than fifty camels, we found but half a bishlik, two poor knives, one brass button, and a bottle—a very small bottle—of attar of roses. No doubt, but the man was an afrìt, who spoke with thee. Devils love to attack a saint, just as I would rather kill a big, strong Bedawi than a little weak one, when it comes to avenging their slaughter of my two sons. Yet fear not, O my soul! A man of thy works can laugh at all the jân. I myself will journey with thee, and, while the Frank physician heals thy daughter, I, with Allah’s help, will procure new rifles for my comrades, a great supply being lately come to the garrison there.”

Hassan paused to think awhile, stroking his heavy white mustache.

“Yes; a devil, very certainly; perhaps even Eblìs in person—Allah knows! The thing is proved. You have heard, all of you here, how a devil cannot profit by the gift of a holy one; how the gift will presently return from him? Well, behold this small bottle of attar of roses!”

He held up the phial so that all could see. A shudder of applause ran round the circle.