 | CHAPTER XXV. El Fureidîs |  |
25. CHAPTER XXV.
“Ah, my lazy friend! you should have been with us last
evening at the cool café on the shady banks of the Barada!”
was M. Trefoil's morning salutation to Meredith.
“I should have roused you from your cushioned slumbers
yonder, and claimed your company on our excursion, but
my friend here, to whom sleep is one of the paradises
of the Prophet, would not suffer you to be disturbed.”
“It is an ungrateful office, O Effendi!” said Mustapha,
addressing himself to Meredith, “to rouse one from happy
dreams. All pleasures have their season, and life is long
enough for all. The clear river, the cool breezes, the fragrant
gardens, are equally tempting every night,—and the
moon is young.”
“Damascus is always here, my friend,” exclaimed M.
Trefoil, without giving Meredith an opportunity to reply;
“but we cannot always be in Damascus. A few days'
enjoyment of your hospitality, a glimpse of your famous
mosques, temples, coffee-shops, and bazaars, is all we can
hope for. There is no time, then, to be lost, and the first
question, therefore, is, How shall we employ to-day?”
“What says his Excellency?” inquired Mustapha, again
appealing to his English guest.
“Simply that I am at your disposal,” replied Meredith.
“Nothing could have been more welcome than last evening's
repose, for which I thank you; but this morning I
am ready and impatient for a nearer view of this enchanted
conceived of the Orient.”
“If it suit your pleasure, then,” said Mustapha, “we will
devote the morning to the bazaars, and later in the day
will adjourn to the shade of the more distant gardens and
fruit-orchards.”
All, including M. Lapierre, professed themselves satisfied
with this arrangement, and, M. Trefoil having stipulated
that his daughter and Maysunah should accompany
them, the party soon sallied forth, the gentlemen threading
the narrow, crooked streets on foot, the ladies mounted on
white Egyptian donkeys, and attended by well-dressed
Abyssinian slaves. Meredith had no difficulty in recognizing
the fragile figure of Maysunah, in spite of the jealous
veil, which partially covered her form, and, conformably
with Turkish custom, wholly hid her face. Havilah, with
intuitive deference to city etiquette and the habits of the
household in which she was a guest, carefully obscured her
features behind the folds of her white izan, and Geita, who
rode just behind her mistress, made a compromise between
the dignity of her race and the coquetry of her nature, by
arranging her drapery of Syrian muslin in strict imitation of
Maysunah's veil, but suffering it to drop, or become as it
were displaced by accident, whenever a street corner or
crowded market-place afforded an opportunity of displaying
her twinkling eyes or rosy lips to advantage.
Who has not heard of the Eastern bazaars? To whom
is not the very word bazaar suggestive of all that imagination,
luxury, art, and wealth can devise to tempt one to
break the tenth commandment? And if the word itself be
significant, how much more so when associated with that city
of palaces and genii, which, sitting alone between the desert
and the mountains, has time out of mind been receiving into
the Damascus bazaars is to wander hour after hour through
interminable avenues of shopman's stalls, from the rows of
matted lobbies where inferior articles are sold and the
poorer class of customers welcomed, to the lofty, pointed-roofed,
and vaulted emporiums of jewelry, silks, and precious
fabrics of Persian manufacture,—where the luxurious
and richly-dressed merchant squats on his cushions,
quaffs his sherbet, puffs at his narghileh and now and then
condescends to recommend his wares to some citizen pacha
or wealthy Frank. The latter especially claims his notice.
No Mosaic decree binds the Moslem's conscience, or forbids
him to covet the gold with which his imagination lines the
pockets of every Englishman. Thus Meredith's European
dress and cool indifference of manner instantly challenged
the cupidity of the Damascene tradesmen. Scarcely had
the group of sight-seers emerged from the obscurer streets
of the city into the brilliant squares of the market-place,
before their ears were assailed by invitations and entreaties,
couched, not in the harsh street-cries of Western hucksters,
but in the alluring poetic phrase of the Oriental.
“Odors that waft one to the realm of the blessed!
Spices that steep the soul in visions of Araby, O Inglisy
Effendei!” cries the vender of sweet distillations and perfumes.
“O food of the immortals! will his Excellency
pass you untasted by?” is the pathetic query with which
the dealer in sweetmeats addresses the luscious delicacies
spread out before him. “Disdain not, O man of a sad
countenance, the soul-soothing narghileh, whose tube will
exhale thy melancholy, and whose amber mouth-piece will
whisper to thee a song of the sea!” is the exhortation
of the pipe salesman. “Slippers for the feet of Western
houris! bridles that will curb the fiery steed of El Hejaz!
insinuating appeals issue in modulated accent from the
mouths of the turbaned merchants, who, seated on cushions
in the midst of their wares, rouse themselves to momentary
effort, then, failing of a purchaser, sink into listlessness and
apathy.
And all, or nearly all, were this day destined to disappointment,
and forced to console themselves with the reflection,
“It is the will of Allah.” A few weeks ago and the
Englishman would have scattered his wealth with spendthrift
liberality, and distributed his purchases with equal
indifference; but he had lately learned a better use for his
gold, and the wants of a suffering community had admonished
him to take an account of his stewardship.
So the solicitations of the accomplished shopmen were
unheeded, or acknowledged only by a smile. A few household
articles purchased by Mustapha, some sugared fruits
and tasteful ornaments, which Maysunah hoped might prove
acceptable to Havilah, and some additions which Meredith
made to his travelling accountrement, constituted the disbursement
of the party.
The entire morning, however, was consumed in perambulating
this gay and picturesque portion of the city, which
furnishes the realization of all one's visions and dreams
of Oriental traffic. But only the pedestrians continued
abroad until noon. Maysunah soon became weary, and
the mounted portion of the company, with their attendants,
turned their donkeys in the direction of home, to
which attractive spot the more vigorous excursionists were
finally glad to resort for rest and shelter during the heat of
midday.
It was nearly nightfall when the household of Mustapha
set forth once more in quest of pleasure; and if the morning's
that of the evening was no less remarkable for romantic
and picturesque interest. A clear, silver crescent overhung
the city, and was reflected in those representative emblems
of itself which surmounted every minaret and tower. But
its light was not sufficient to illuminate the labyrinth of
streets, and the little procession was preceded and followed
by servants carrying lamps of richly colored glass. Other
attendants were laden with baskets of cakes, fruit, and various
delicacies, while still a third company officiated as pipe-bearers.
The party were organized as in the morning, the
female portion, in consideration of Maysunah's feebleness,
being mounted on the well-trained donkeys. Their destination
was the bank of the Barada, towards which at sunset
the whole city invariably throngs; but, in order to avoid the
crowd, Mustapha had chosen as a banqueting-place a kiosk
at some little distance from the walls, and had secured the
exclusive enjoyment of its privileges.
Most cities have their pleasure-grounds, their parks, their
Elysian fields, but the gardens of Damascus excel them all.
Elsewhere art has done much, but here nature is triumphant;
and the perfection of rural scenery is the characteristic
endowment of the “Diamond of the Desert.” The spot
of which Mustapha had made choice was but one among a
thousand such. It was fitted up in the simplest style. A
wooden platform extended beyond the river-bank, and partially
overhung the stream. Its roof was of matting, its
pillars were the untrimmed stems of trees, its seats a species
of simple camp-stool. But far away to right and left
stretched a vista of foliage, fruit, and flowers, groves of every
shade of verdure, canopying a smooth green sod, or an undergrowth
of rarest shrubbery. Beneath ran the rapid river,
transparent and cool, refreshing the ear with its music, and
lined its banks, and the gay costumes of the pleasure-seeking
multitude. The knotty pillars of the kiosk were wreathed
with profusely blossoming vines, and festoons of jessamine,
honeysuckle, and myrtle draped the intervening spaces
otherwise open to the moonlight and the stars.
Here, regaled with delicate confections, sipping cool
sherbet, or puffing at the perfumed narghileh, the traveller
feels that the Oriental may almost be forgiven for his faith
in a sensual Paradise.
But in the present case there was more than mere physical
enjoyment to give interest and value to the scene.
Representatives of various nations and lands were met
together in fraternal relations; and in the quiet converse
beside the rippling stream, the French missionary, the
cosmopolite American, the self-exiled Englishman, and the
Syrian Turk all bore their part, and bore it well, for all
were men of refinement, culture, and experience. So they
talked of life, of politics, of travel, of things new and old, of
things that had been and of things that were to be. Neither
strove to exalt his religion, his country, or the government
to which he owed allegiance, for all had learned liberality
in the wide school of the world, and felt that it was not acting
a becoming part to shut their eyes to the good which
they could not deny, or to criticise the evils which they could
not mend. Thus they talked together as brethren, united
at least in good-will towards each other and humanity at
large.
Maysunah, released from her muffling veil, reclined meanwhile
in an obscure corner of the kiosk on cushions which
had been brought thither for her convenience. She betrayed
no interest in the conversation of her father and his
friends, which was, for the most part, beyond her limited
neighboring groups of excursionists, and pointed out to
Havilah the bright reflections on the stream, and seemed
exhilarated with the rare enjoyment of the occasion. Havilah
sat beside her, responded to her simple questions, and
returned her mute caresses; but the head a little inclined,
the listening attitude, the occasional demonstration of earnest
feeling, proved that Havilah's attention was divided
between the innocent prattle of her child-friend and the
graver eloquence of the Turkish or priestly sage. Once or
twice she even left her place beside Maysunah, seated herself
a moment near M. Lapierre or her father, and drank in
the instructive discourse; then, as if self-reproached at having
forsaken Maysunah, she stole quietly back to her side.
Meredith was reminded of the evenings on the house-top
in Lebanon, when Havilah fondled the head of her gazelle
—fit prototype of Maysunah—with one hand, and leaned
her own head on the other while she lent a listening ear to
the conversation of the assembled circle; but then it was
the grace of her form, the rare outline of her features, the
sparkle of her eye, which inspired the Englishman's tongue;
now, Meredith said but little,—the young girl's eye was
no longer a key to the scholarly rhetoric of his brain. He
was at once a humbled, a more silent, and a wiser man. He
scarcely glanced at Havilah, but the consciousness of her
presence was like a pure element mingling in the discourse;
and when Father Lapierre paid a tribute to virtue, and
Mustapha's grave features softened while he rehearsed some
tale of self-denial or charity, Meredith felt a sympathetic joy
in the thought, Havilah also hears this, and her soul is made
glad.
So sped the evening, and when the young moon went
down, the noiseless attendants resumed their burdens, and
sense of motion than that of the pale crescent at her retiring,
the little party retraced their way to the house of
Mustapha.
And as sped one day and night, so sped every day and
night of our travellers' stay in Damascus. The mornings
were devoted to tours through the city, the evenings to rustic
pleasure and social intercourse. The former, however,
were seldom participated in by the entire household. One
excursion a day taxed Maysunah's strength sufficiently;
Havilah would not forsake her friend; and, with the exception
of Meredith, the gentlemen of the party had personal
and private claims upon each other's time.
Our Englishman, therefore, indulged frequently in solitary
rambles, or availed himself of whatever companionship
might offer. M. Trefoil's nervous energy in sight-seeing
was soon expended; but M. Lapierre or Mustapha, or
both, were frequently associated with him in his visits to
citadel, palace, and mosque. The Turkish Effendi was
especially anxious to familiarize his English guest with the
antiquities and attractions of Damascus, and attended him
with unwearied assiduity. There was a marked congeniality
between the young man and his host, and the circumstances
of their intercourse served to impress Meredith
with a continually increasing respect and admiration for the
conscientious and upright Moslem.
They visited the slave-market together. As they walked
through its various apartments, and beheld its chained victims,
the free-born Briton could scarcely conceal his pity,
abhorrence, and disgust. The faces of the fair Georgians,
at once anxious and deflant, roused his chivalrous compassion.
He burned to break the rivets that bound the swarthy
limbs of iron-built men; his soul sickened as he beheld a
of their perishing from neglect, since no ruthless
slaveholder would burden himself with such mere encumbrances.
In vain did he look to his companion for some
expression of sympathy with these poor wretches; and as
Mustapha strode from stall to stall, with an apparently
unruffled countenance, Meredith said to himself, “Such is
the hardening effect of habit.”
The next day, as he was passing through the outer court
of Mustapha's house, he saw a litter, which four sturdy carriers
were about to lift upon their shoulders. It contained
three individuals. One was blind, the others crippled, and
all were wasted with disease. Their rags had been exchanged
for neat apparel, but Meredith at once recognized
the miserable group who had yesterday been exposed for
sale in the slave-market.
“Who are these?” asked he of the stately major-domo
who was superintending their removal.
“Unfortunates whom my master has purchased at the
slave-market, O your Excellency!”
“But they are incurables,” said Meredith, as they passed
out of sight. “They will never be fit for labor.”
“True, your Excellency. But it is those who can serve
no longer who are henceforth the charge of the Lord's servants;
and `the Lord is surely in a watch-tower, whence he
observeth the actions of men.' ”
“Is there then an asylum for these poor sufferers?”
“The house which my master formerly occupied in the
next street is the hospital to which these children of sorrow
are about to be carried,” said the major-domo. “More than
a score of the old and destitute are there cherished and
maintained at the expense of Mustapha.”
“How noble a charity!” exclaimed Meredith; “Heaven
reward your master!”
The major-domo gravely pointed to a slab of porphyry
inserted in the wall, and read from it these words of the
Koran: “On the last day, every soul shall find the good
which it hath wrought present, and the evil which it hath
wrought it shall wish that between itself and that were a
wide distance!”
“How true is it,” thought Meredith, as he walked away,
“that the pure in heart may distil virtue from an erring
creed, and that practices which are the sinner's temptation
may become the good man's opportunity.”
It was not many days after this that Meredith chanced
to be present at a conversation between M. Lapierre and
Mustapha, which was in itself suggestive, and which possessed
an ulterior interest to the young man, furnishing
as it did a sequel to the dialogue to which he had been an
involuntary listener on the first night of his arrival in
Damscus.
M. Lapierre, the Effendi, and Meredith had been devoting
some hours to an examination of the Mosque of the
Omeigades, which is the most interesting antiquity in Damascus,
having passed successively under the control of
Roman, Christian, and Saracenic dynasties, and representing
in its architecture superb relies of each nation and age.
The visitors had wandered through the transept, aisles, and
nave of the present temple, had traced with curious eye the
long colonnades and half-buried pillars, which furnish a clew
to the gigantic dimensions of earlier structures, and paused
at length before a magnificent portal emblazoned with sculptured
scroll-work, and surmounted by an ancient inscription.
“My ear is familiar with the Greek tongue,” said Mustapha,
pointing significantly to the tablet, “but I have no
knowledge of its written characters. Perhaps, O venerable
Father!” he continued, addressing M. Lapierre, “thou
the English Effendi.”
M. Lapierre was gazing with emotion at the tablet. So
too was Meredith; for both had at once deciphered the Septuagint
inscription, which, engraved there at some unknown
period, by some unknown hand, has survived the ravages of
superstition and war, has defied the heathen and his gods,
and still utters its solemn protest in the very strong-hold of
Mohammedanism.
“Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and
thy dominion endureth throughout all generations,”[1]
was
the solemn, emphatic utterance of M. Lapierre, as he faithfully
construed to the ear of Mustapha the hitherto enigmatical
passage.
The Turk slowly withdrew his eyes from the inscription,
and fixed them upon the missionary in grave wonder.
“Thou dost not deceive me, O man of truth!” he said in
an undoubting tone. “As I would keep my own soul spotless
from a lie, so do I trust thine honor. But, believe me,
only blindness or ignorance could suffer that inscription upon
the wall of a mosque of Islam, which the crescent has surmounted
for twelve hundred years.
“It is a truth which is written everywhere, my brother,”
answered Father Lapierre, mildly; “but the eyes of many
are shut to it, and many need an interpreter.”
“Thou art unjust or mistaken, O aged Father!” replied
Mustapha, with confidence. “The cities of the West may
build temples and inscribe tablets to the prophet of Israel,
but the lands of the sun-rising pay sole allegiance to Mohammed,
beloved of Allah.”
“And yet, O Mustapha, in the courts which thou frequentest
daily, ay, within thine own dwelling, is a tablet
dedicated to Him of Nazareth, and written all over with
the truth of his Gospel,” said Father Lapierre.
“How sayest thou?” exclaimed Mustapha, a slight flush
of indignation mounting to his cheek, although his tone continued
courteous and calm. “Have I not ever been a faithful
Moslem? Do I not keep ever before me the sacred
precepts of the Koran? Are they not written in letters of
gold upon my walls and my door-posts? Who then shall
dare affirm that there is a corner, even, within the house
of Mustapha, dedicated to any other than the Meccan
Prophet?”
“I bear solemn witness to the fact myself,” said Father
Lapierre, in a rapt and elevated tone.
“And on what secret tablet is it inscribed?” anxiously
questioned Mustapha.
“On the heart of thy child?”
The flush suddenly faded from the cheek of the Turk, his
dignified form trembled visibly. With an eye penetrating
rather than severe, he gazed into the face of M. Lapierre,
who met the astonished scrutiny with a composure as serene
as that of the Apostle when Agrippa said unto him, “Paul,
thou art beside thyself.”
It was a moment before Mustapha could command his
voice, and his words, when at length they came, were
spoken, not in anger, but in the low, measured tones of one
whose nature is stirred to its depths. “Thou art skilled, I
know, in the diseases of the flesh, O worthy physician,” he
said, “but canst thou pierce to the innermost soul?”
“There are some diseases of the body,” answered M.
Lapierre, “which the soul alone can reach. In such cases
human means avail nothing, and the skill of the hakeem is
to soothe?”
“Alas!” said the unhappy father, with melancholy candor,
“thou knowest they have all been tried in vain.”
“I know it, and I will tell thee why. The spirit and the
flesh are at war in thy child. Her wasting fever is an immortal
thirst. Her disease has its root in the soul.”
“And its remedy?” faltered Mustapha.
“Is here;”—and M. Lapierre drew a little volume from
a pouch in his black robe, and placed in Mustapha's hands
a Turkish translation of the Scripture.
There was a mingling of eagerness and superstitious
dread in Mustapha's reception of the gift. He grasped it
firmly; handled it awhile without opening its covers, as if
fearful of their contents, then resolutely turned over its
pages, and read a passage here and there.
M. Lapierre, meanwhile, watched the emotions of the
Moslem, unconsciously influencing him by the power of his
clear, magnetic eye. Meredith turned away. There was
a struggle going forward in the fond, proud heart of Mustapha
which it was painful to witness.
He was long in coming to a determination, but when he
did so, it was final. Mustapha was not given to half-way
measures, and the generous kindliness with which he at
length extended his hand to the missionary was in itself
decisive.
“Because thou hast been frank with me, O holy man,”
said he, “therefore will I trust thee. Hadst thou made
this book a barrier betwixt me and my child, then hadst
thou acted a traitor's part; but thou hast confided in me,
and I will teach thee that Mustapha is a man in whom thou
mayst safely confide; and because truth has set its seal
upon thy heart and thy lips, O friend of the most high God,
I ask thee not when or how Maysunah has tasted of this
fountain, nor who has awakened in her this unquenchable
thirst. But that which is wholesome for the child cannot
be poison to the parent. Together we will `search the
Scriptures,”' he added, aptly quoting from a passage on
which his eye had fallen, “and see if they have in them
eternal life.”
So saying, he hid the book in his bosom, and without
another word led the way out of the temple.
| CHAPTER XXV. El Fureidîs | |