scribe by name Es-siddeeh, that is the Very Veracious. This youth, the
height of whose beauty was almost as remarkable as the depth of his
wisdom, had spent the greater number of his days in study; so much so,
in fact, that he had never cast his eyes upon a woman to love her, and
this in spite of the possession of an enchanting smile, Nature's gift
to him, of the power of which he was hardly conscious. Surrounded by
parchments, having hung about his neck many little scrolls, with his
tablet laid across his knees, daily he sat in his window and, while
the traffic flowed by and the crowd shrilled more loudly than a flock
of parokeets, raised not his eyes from his papyrus nor regarded any
sound but the squeaking of his stylus-reed.
Thus, then, was he sitting when the troating of horns and the
bombilation of gongs proclaimed the nearing of the Princess in her
progress. But Es-siddeeh paid this din no attention and, though
the fantastic shadows of many majestically-apparelled persons fell
across his page, lifted not the Gatherers-of-Knowledge from the
Leaves-of-Enlightenment. Meanwhile Sa-adeh, lying in her litter,
enjoyed a certain satisfaction in the pleasurable recognition the
gracious bestowal of the sight of her countenance procured the
citizens. This satisfaction she told herself, as the procession
advanced, was increased rather than diminished by the spectacle of
certain bleared scribes, who, with ears already attached by cobwebs to
the lintels of their doors, never lifted eyes as she passed. "For," she
reflected, "such insensibility affords me a scale by which to gauge the
pleasure I bestow elsewhere."
At this moment she arrived opposite Es-siddeeh's window.
Then the young scribe, feeling the gaze of another fixed upon him,
looked up. And the eyes of Es-siddeeh exchanged thoughts with the eyes
of Sa-adeh. When he bent to the tablet again, behold the words were to
him but foolishness. All the afternoon he sat there wondering why he
had spent his youth upon such things as now appeared to him the very
vanity of vanities, colourless and the occupation of the myopic. At
evenfall, driven abroad by a terrible restlessness, he wandered outside
the walls of the city, but the murmuring of the breeze through the
groves did but increase his distraction. Toward midnight he returned
and, after spending the remainder of the night without sleep, informed
his parents of his intention to turn suitor. Greatly perturbed, they
besought him to relinquish so hopeless a project. In vain! at the
third hour he proceeded to the palace. The gates were shut. When they
did at last open he found himself face to face with the Executioner.
Involuntarily he recoiled.
"No alms will be given to-day," said the Reliever-of-Headaches.
"I have not come for alms. I wish to see the porter."
"I am the porter."
"I thought you were----"
"So I was. But now that job is at an end. The capacity to love as
our forefathers loved is passing away. Even a spirit of commercial
enterprise is lacking. The world goes from bad to worse. Yesterday I
cut off the heads of princes; to-day I open the door to mendicants. On
no one is Fortune harder than I."
"I find that last reflection," returned the scribe, "so general that
I grow convinced it must be true. But be of good cheer. Strange as it
may seem, I am the bearer of good tidings. There is every likelihood
of your shortly resuming your distinguished office--I have come as a
suitor to the Princess."
"Have you, indeed? Ha, ha, ha! The coin is as good as earned....
However ... excuse my entertainment. I should not laugh; for
understand my heart goes out to you in your public-spirited endeavour
not to permit my office to lapse. Ah, if there were only more men of
your kidney, and yet ... I regret to have to add that you will not
profit me much. For make no mistake, I am a Republican; I believe that
handsome is as handsome does. It is therefore my custom to request a
little honorarium, in ratio to the means of my customer, in return for
the service I render him. For this is a service which is unique, in
that he probably has no servant in his suite trained to perform this
duty for him, and it is besides a service for which the requirement of
one small fee cannot be described as extortionate since the duty is
one which being once satisfactorily performed does not require to be
repeated."
"But I have not yet incurred the penalty."
"You will. Be reassured and, having no troublesome misgivings on this
count, hand me that which in a few hours it will be too late for me to
ask."
Es-siddeeh smiled. "Are you not paid by the Court?" he asked.
"I am," replied the other, softening, "and a beggarly wage it is, too,
which compels me to make these requisitions. However, since you seem,
for all your queer dress, a pleasant fellow, I will reduce my charge."
"Good. I feared I should never be able to pay--my means are so scanty."
"I should inform you that it is as well to pay because, if you do
not, my arm, unstrengthened by the sinews of charity, may not perform
its office with quite that address which is at once a delight to the
spectators and a matter of self-gratification to my customer."
"Your magnanimity," replied the scribe, giving the man a coin, "does
indeed bear witness to the superiority of your mind to its present
situation and deserves a reward. I hope you will see that I am not
disappointed of an interview."
Thereupon the Executioner conducted him into the palace and, leaving
him in an inner apartment, acquainted one of the attendant damsels with
the object of the scribe's visit.
For some time the maid regarded his dress dubiously.
"I should be grateful if you would inform the Princess of my arrival,
for I cannot say that I find the sound of the Executioner in the
courtyard below sharpening his scimitar on a wheel affords me as much
pleasure as by his expression it affords him."
She vanished through the curtains, and the following conversation was
borne to Es-siddeeh's ears:
"A young man calling himself the Very Veracious has arrived and sues
for an interview on the same subject as his forerunners."
"I cannot see him." The maid returned.
"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, "that she is as beautiful as one red rose
in a garden of lilies."
"The compliment," he heard the Princess remark, "is a new one and is
graceful. Nevertheless dismiss him."
"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, "that her wisdom has the wings of the
rukh, the eye of the falcon, the talons of the osprey, and the voice of
the dove."
"It is very remarkable," he heard the Princess remark, "that he should
so accurately describe my characteristics. He must be a diviner; since,
as far as I know, he has never seen me nor spoken to me. Nevertheless
dismiss him."
"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh--but he could not think of anything to
tell her and was sadly cast down. For his love, continuing to pain
him, tortured him as a sweet fire in his bosom. At length, bethinking
himself of his wisdom, he said in as brusque a tone as he could summon,
"Tell her that I know the answer to all secrets and that she will
regret it if she dismiss me."
"How now?" cried the Princess, "is he so clever, and has such courage?
He will indeed be the Very Veracious if, possessing these answers,
he depart immediately, for then my womanish regret will indeed be
sharp; since of all humours, he has had the wit to see, this humour of
curiosity is the one most deeply implanted in us. Of what complexion is
he?"
"He is of spare build; his hair is black and glossy as that of a black
panther; in his eyes there is a dark fire. His clothes are by no means
new, his fingers are stained with ink, and about his neck there is a
necklace of little scrolls."
"A necklace of little scrolls, did you say? Send him in."
Then Es-siddeeh stepped into her presence, and it was to him as if he
were a little planet drawn for the first time into the orbit of the sun.
She commanded him to be seated and plied him with various questions
concerning the value as an amulet of this or that precious stone,
of the pedigree of famous horses, music as Emotional Sound or as an
Architecture, and many other matters of a similar nature.
All these questions he answered not only discreetly, but with wit.
For some time she rested her eyes upon his face in a musing fashion.
Then, with a strange inflection, she asked, "What is love?"
"I have but just beheld the cause," he returned; "give me a little
space and I infer its properties as a consequence. At present I am
troubled to know whether the same vessel can contain both cause and
consequence."
Not without haste, she assured him that she would consider her question
answered, and enquired, "Does it become thee to risk so wise a head at
the bidding of so foolish a heart?"
"It lay not, and does not lie, with me to make it becoming."
This answer did not appear to please her, for, moving her head, she
proceeded with an instant change of tone, "One thing I have ever
desired to know. What is the secret of the smile of the Sphinx?"
He was taken aback.
"What? Canst thou not answer, thou who didst assert that thou hadst in
thy bosom the answer to all secrets, O Very Veracious one?"
Seeing her smiling, he replied, "I have not seen the Sphinx unless I
see her now."
"I perceive that thou canst not answer. Yet because of thy youth and
thy beauty I will spare thee."
"Spare me not, since before thou hast not spared me."
"Upon one condition:--that shouldst thou wish again to see me thou
shalt bring with thee the secret of the Sphinx's smile. And now, before
thou leavest me, because thou wert not as insensible as most scribes
are wont to be, but wast willing to assay to gain some knowledge of
perfection from life as well as from thy scrolls, I will give thee a
token to take with thee."
At these words, as if some beneficent and invisible djinn had escaped
from his bottle, a spirit of strange sweetness seemed to fill the room.
Strength forsook the body of Es-siddeeh.
"Come hither," she murmured.
So Es-siddeeh went to her and bowed down with his face to the floor.
Then the Princess took him very gently in her arms and, raising his
head, placed one hand beneath his locks and the other over his eyes,
and so kissed him.
Now when Es-siddeeh felt the touch of her hands, cool as water lilies
upon him; smelled the delicate smell of her bosom, more mysterious than
any perfume of the mages; tasted her mouth's nectar, more precious than
the combed honey of the blessed in Paradise, then indeed he knew there
to be such a seal coldly pressed upon his heart that the stamp of it
would not be erased all the days of his life.
"Ah, merciless," said he, "thou hast indeed not spared me. Now must I
inevitably return."
"It was for that reason I gave it thee," she said.
II.
He hurried home. He sold all his belongings.
His father, seeing him about to depart, cried, "Thou wilt break thy
mother's heart."
He could not reply.
His mother, watching him set out upon his mule with a slender bag of
coin in his hands, cursed him and the Princess.
He did not look back.
III.
After a journey of three moons he arrived before the Sphinx.
His first impression was that her countenance contained no such
difficult riddle as he had been led to suppose. The body of the Sphinx
was huge, her paws stretched in front formidable, her shoulders heavy.
Her bandeletted head sustained a wedge-fronted tiara. All this he took
in at a glance. Then he turned to the face. He had not expected it to
be so close to the ground and so open to inspection. The forehead he
could see was ample. The eyebrows, albeit contracted in a slight frown,
were high, arched, and wide, which lent the upper part of the face a
frank expression; but the reverie of the eyes, fixed on space, seemed
somewhat dimmed--as if an impalpable hand had interposed itself between
the gazing orbs and the sun. The smoothness and delicate moulding
of the cheeks and chin were remarkable. The nose astonished by the
firm subtlety of its outline, which gave to the face a simultaneous
expression of suavity and undeviating determination. If the nose had
provoked wonder the mouth was yet more amazing. The lips, which might
have been gracious and full when parted, were so closely compressed in
their smile as to modify the whole effect of the other features.
"I must go nearer," said Es-siddeeh.
He established himself almost between the paws of the monster, for
monster she had become to him who now beheld her mien more clearly--a
mien disfigured, yet seeming uncaring for its own disfigurement,
and--greatest horror of all--a mien in which the eyes possessed irises
but seemingly no pupils. For a little he considered returning. Then he
said to himself, "No; to see her afar off gives a false impression. One
should see her as she is, and earnestly scanning the visage wrestle
in thought till one discovers the secret of the smile." In this he
instinctively knew himself to be right.
But he was not long in finding that the more and the closer he stared
the more difficult the problem became. To begin with the blemishes
distracted him overmuch. The main cast of the face appeared, though
subtle, simple and grand enough, but the fissures between the blocks
that composed it, the discolorations, and the crevices that ran from
side to side confused his eye. "If it were only perfect, all would be
much easier to discover," he murmured. Then, too, the expression of the
Sphinx and the import of the smile seemed to vary with the changes of
the weather. On fresh-blowing sunny days the image beamed on him with a
shadow-dappled, bleached cheerfulness of resignation. But when the sun
raged the face, too, raged as with an inward fury; its lineaments shook
in the heat-eddies that arose from the sand, and every grain glowed
like a particle of fire. Nor did its rage abate during the succeeding
night. The rising of the tropic moon gave to its complexion, streaked
with violet shadows, an ashen hue: the pallidity of an unappeasable
and frustrated anger. On lowering days it blackly scowled, and the
swollen nostrils and imperious mouth assumed the similitude of being
endowed only with the bitterest irony, a constancy of cruelty and an
unquestionable scorn. Then he hated it....
At last, perceiving that the secret was not to be gained in a few days
or even in a few moons, he resolved to settle in the desert opposite
the Sphinx.
Three years passed.
Day by day and night by night Es-siddeeh watched the Sphinx. Daily
the sun, shining upon the surface of the mask, seemed to make it more
impenetrable, and nightly the moon, deepening the shadows in the
crevices, increased its mystery. Round about the knoll, which the
pilgrim had selected for his station, the sand gave off a glare more
deadly than the bed of a furnace or, rising in whirlwind-spouts whose
tops spattered ashes upon him, circled his island like monstrous and
infuriate djinns. Toward sunset the clouds, gathered in an awful and
silent grandeur, discharged, with stunning clap and reverberations as
of mountains overthrown, their lightnings, a shower of blue arrows, to
all quarters of the fluttering horizon. Once indeed Es-siddeeh awoke
to behold a body of dense vapour launch itself wrathfully downward
against the head of the brooding Sphinx and wreath it with a crown of
crackling fire. The scribe leaped up, and, despite the pressure of the
blast, succeeded in gaining, not without considerable risk to himself,
a position before the base of the monster. His courage was unrewarded.
Upon that obstinate mien, livid in the tawny light, the rain glistened
as if there had indeed started from the stony pores a ghastly dew; but
the thin lips were as tightly compressed as ever. "Hideous Sphinx!"
exclaimed the youth, "thou cruelty incarnate, cannot even the ire of
the gods subdue thee? Shall I never, from some motion of thy visage,
learn what secret thou hidest?"
As the winter approached the wilderness, utterly denuded of weed or
moss, grew vaster and more bleak. The nights turned frosty. Overhead
the constellations increased in splendour and number until every
quarter of the empyrean shone encrusted with stars. Against these
brilliant galaxies and the diffused, pervasive effulgence of countless
further bodies the forehead of the Sphinx outlined itself in desolate
and stubborn majesty.
Then was it that, alone amid the desert, under the gaze of those myriad
and so distant lights, facing the figure of the Sphinx, now blacker and
more impenetrable than ever, Es-siddeeh reached the climacteric which
is despair. Baffled, without any sensation but an exasperation that
gnawed his very reins and made giddy his temples, he spent his days
and nights in complete dejection. At length, wishing, to terminate his
sufferings once and for all he approached the Sphinx and, vehemently
hammering its breast with his fists, cried in a terrible voice, "_What
is the secret of thy smile, O Sphinx?_"
But the Sphinx did not answer.
At dawn, impotent before the titan, he perceived upon the surface of
her bosom bloodmarks hitherto unobserved. Other hands beside his own,
then, had knocked upon that stony breast. He returned to his hovel and
stretched himself down in a sleep that was like a stupor. On waking he
determined to climb the bandelettes of the Sphinx and to cast himself
from its forehead. He had scarcely taken a step when, exhausted by
privation and prolonged anguish of mind, he fell, and lying helpless
found himself fronting a face mirrored in a pool, the product of a
shower which had fallen while he slept. The face was the face of one
whose visage was slowly approximating to that of the Sphinx, but it
lacked the smile, and in its eyes there was the light of imminent
insanity. For a space he gazed without realising the apparition to
be but his own reflection. Then--stiffening his arms that he might
raise his head and shoulders, extended, as he was, upon the desert
like a Syrian puma whose bowels are transfixed by an arrow and who is
about to die--he rallied his strength for a last effort. Before him,
a quivering tigress in the meridian sunshine, crouched the colossal
Sphinx. The frustrated eyes of the scribe, nigh starting from their
sockets, bent upon it such a glare as sought to penetrate its very
soul. Yet at the last, heaving himself forward, with nostrils wrinkled
and teeth bared as if in the very coughing frenzy of a fighting death,
he could but ejaculate "Sphinx, now had I entreated thine aid!--hadst
thou not rendered me too proud, who have discovered thee to be but
stone."
Then the Sphinx answered in a voice of thunder:
"O man, aid thyself!"
IV.
A company of Bedawi, journeying across the desert, discovered him lying
senseless. Him they succoured as a madman, and therefore sacred to the
gods.
For a while he rested in a pleasant city, enjoying the support of a
good man, who did not understand the cause of his afflictions, but at
once realised their intensity and the deep importance to Es-siddeeh of
the search on which he was engaged. His health mended at length and
undeterred by the solicitations of his host, troubled to see him in
such haste, he resumed his investigations. This time he did not attempt
to wrestle the secret from the Sphinx herself, but determined to
prosecute his enquiries among the learned.
With this end in view he interrogated the chief scholars of that
district, but, coming to the conclusion that they were too provincial,
he made his way to Jerusalem. Here no answer at all was given him--save
that by the study of the particular law made for a particular tribe
and containing, as he himself was obliged to admit, the most admirable
rules for the preservation of an individual or a clan, he would attain
to a knowledge of all things.
He determined to go to Greece, the fountain-head of knowledge. But in
Athens he fared not much better. The majority of the inhabitants, the
fascination of whose minds he had nevertheless to admit, seemed given
up to the fervour of local politics, money-making, the quarrels of
the law-courts, the consideration of athletics, the technique of the
chase, and the refinement of trivial or voluptuous delights: pursuits
which he told himself could scarcely further true knowledge. There
were, however, a number of persons, given to the study of natural law
as revealed in nature, who enquired whether he had weighed the Sphinx
or examined her molecules beneath the magnifying crystal. He was
compelled to reply that he had done neither of these things. Whereat
they retorted that it was therefore impossible for them to build a
theory as to the constituents of her smile and verify it in experiment.
"Moreover," they continued, "even the data you have given us appear not
only insufficient but contradictory, since you state that the smile
is at once sweet and sour. Direct opposites cannot be reconciled in
science. We think it therefore best to direct you to the school of
metaphysics opposite, where, if we are to judge from the uproar which
occasionally disturbs our precincts, we believe this feat to be daily
accomplished." ... Es-siddeeh accordingly lost no time in entering the
school opposite. After a lengthy session, the clamour of which somewhat
bewildered him, a young man with a high complexion and a shrill voice
approached him and said, "As far as can be ascertained (for there are
the usual number of qualifications and reservations of opinion amongst
us) we are of a mind that the secret of the Sphinx is that she has no
secret--at least no secrets from us."
Es-siddeeh did not stop to enquire further, for it appeared to him
that he could not gain by it and, moreover, he was much fatigued. So,
taking boat, he sailed through the Pillars of Hercules and, turning
north, descried, after an arduous voyage, the extreme Western Isles
enshrouded in a perpetual prismatic fog. On these coasts he landed and,
penetrating inland, in a short while discovered a university situated
on the chief river of the main island. Having struck up an acquaintance
with the courteous master of the chief college, he poured out his tale.
The Disseminator-of-Truth, after prolonged thought, replied, "Without
wishing in any way to influence your conduct, I should, since you seem
to be enamoured of the lady, inform her that the secret is anything you
happen to have in your head at the moment (as well it may be), provided
the matter be of such obscurity that that instinct which is peculiar
to females, and which on the best authority (namely, their own) I am
given to understand is infallible, will instantly assure her that she
understands it even better than you do."
"But you would not have me deceive her?"
"Indeed, no. For recollect--what she believes to be true will _per
contra_ be true to her."
"It seems to me, then, that you are asking her to deceive herself."
"Not at all," answered the Sage somewhat impatiently; "all is, you must
know, relative, and any conclusion is as relative to enquiry as any
other."
"But not to truth!" returned Es-siddeeh with heat.
The great man smiled. "An irritating preoccupation this, when the
search itself is so intriguing."
Es-siddeeh, the Very Veracious, experienced a curious sensation in
which pleasure certainly played a part. "That is perfectly true," he
remarked; "I am finding more interest in the search than I expected.
Nevertheless I wish to return to Sa-adeh, the Bestower-of-Felicity"
(and at her name he was conscious of an inexplicable spasm of
contrition), "and to present her with my conclusion--the Truth."
"Here I think we part," said the other suddenly. "Farewell."
Then, as he turned away, the elder flung over his shoulder, "For
myself, old-fashioned being that I am, I am inclined to think the truth
is that the secret of the smile of the Sphinx is not one that should be
repeated to a lady."
It was some time before Es-siddeeh recovered from the shock of this
interview. When he had done so, he hastened to leave the country and
to betake himself to the Furthest East. The voyage lasted three years.
But, when he posed his question to the head of a Manchu university,
what was his surprise to be countered with just such a suggestion as
had been put to him in the extreme Isles of the Western Hemisphere!
"But you forget my name," he exclaimed.
"No; for indeed so eager have you been to enquire of me the secret of
the Sphinx and to narrate to me the story of your quest that you have
forgotten to acquaint me with your name."
"I am named Es-siddeeh, which, being translated, is the Very Veracious."