As the caravan approached the beach he caught sight of an Arab, or
one whom he thought was an Arab, and riding straight up to him, Owen
asked:
"Do you know Tahar?"
"The hunter?"
"Yes," and breathing a sigh, he said he had travelled hundreds of
miles in search of him--"and his eagles."
"He left here two or three days ago for Ain Mahdy."
"Left here! Good God!" and Owen threw up his arms. "Left two days
ago, and I have come from Ain Mahdy, nearly from Tunis, in search of
him! We have passed each other in the desert," he said, looking
round the great plain, made of space, solitude, and sun. It had
become odious to him suddenly, and he seemed to forget everything.
As if taking pity on him, Monsieur Béclère asked him to stay with him
until Tahar returned.
"We will hunt the gazelles together."
"That is very kind of you."
And Owen looked into the face of the man to whom he had introduced
himself so hurriedly. He had been so interested in Tahar, and so
overcame by the news of his absence, that he had not had time to
give a thought to the fact that the conversation was being carried
on in French. Now the thought suddenly came into his mind that the
man he was speaking to was not an Arab but a Frenchman. "He must
certainly be a Frenchman, no one but a Frenchman could express
himself so well in French."
"You are very kind," he said, and they strolled up the oasis
together, Owen telling Monsieur Béclère that at first he had
mistaken him for an Arab. "Only your shoulders are broader, and you
are not so tall; you walk like an Arab, not quite so loosely, not
quite the Arab shuffle, but still--"
"A cross between the European spring and the loose Arab stride?"
"Do you always dress as an Arab?"
"Yes, I have been here for thirty-one years, ever since I was
fourteen." Owen looked at him.
"Here, in an oasis?"
"Yes, in an oasis, a great deal of which I have created for myself.
The discovery of a Roman well enabled me to add many hundred
_hectares_ to my property.
"The rediscovery of a Roman well!"
"Yes. If the Sahara is barren, it is because there is no water." Owen
seemed to be on the verge of hearing the most interesting things
about underground lakes only twenty or thirty feet from the surface.
"But I will tell you more about them another time."
Owen looked at Béclère again, thinking that he liked the broad, flat
strip of forehead between the dark eyebrows, and the dark hair,
streaked with grey, the eyes deep in the head, and of an acrid
blackness like an Arab's; the long, thin nose like an Arab's--a face
which could have had little difficulty in acquiring the Arab cast of
feature; and there had been time enough to acquire it, though
Béclère was not more than forty-five.
"No doubt you speak Arabic like French."
"Yes, I speak modern Arabic as easily as French. The language of the
Koran is different." And Béclère explained that there was no writing
done in the dialects. When an Arab wrote to another, he wrote in the
ancient language, which was understood everywhere.
"You have learned a little Arabic, I see," Béclère said, and Owen
foresaw endless dialogues between himself and Monsieur Béclère, who
would instruct him on all the points which he was interested in. The
orchards they were passing through (apricot, apple, and pear-trees)
were coming into blossom.
"I had expected oranges and lemons."
"They don't grow well here, but we have nearly all our own
vegetables--haricot-beans, potatoes, artichokes, peas."
"Of course there are no strawberries?"
"No, we don't get any strawberries. There is my house." And within a
grove of beautiful trees, under which one could sit, Owen caught
sight of a house, half Oriental, half European. He admired the flat
roofs and the domes, which he felt sure rose above darkened rooms,
where Béclère and those who lived with him slept in the afternoons.
"You must be tired after your long ride, and would like to have a
bath."
Owen followed Béclère through a courtyard, where a fountain sang in
dreamy heat and shade, bringing a little sensation of coolness into
the closed room, which did not strike him as being particularly
Moorish, notwithstanding the engraved brass lamps hanging from the
ceiling, and the Oriental carpet on the floor, and the screen inlaid
with mother-of-pearl. Owen did not know whether linen sheets were a
European convention, and could be admitted into an Eastern
dwelling-house, but he was not one of those who thought everything
should be in keeping. He liked incongruities, being an inveterate
romancist and only a bedouin by caprice. One appreciates sheets after
months of pilgrimage, and one appreciates a good meal after having
eaten nothing for a long while better than sand-goose roasted at the
camp fire. More than the pleasure of the table was the pleasure of
conversation with one speaking in his native language. Béclère's mind
interested him; it was so steady, it looked towards one point always.
That was his impression when he left his host after a talk lasting
till midnight; and, thinking of Béclère and his long journey to him,
he sat by his window watching stars of extraordinary brilliancy, and
breathing a fragrance rising from the tropical garden beneath him--a
fragrance which he recognised as that of roses; and this set him
thinking that it was the East that first cultivated roses; and amid
many memories of Persia and her poets, he threw himself into bed,
longing for sleep, for a darkness which, in a few hours, would pass
into a delicious consciousness of a garden under exquisite skies.
His awakening was even more delightful than he anticipated. The
fragrance that filled his room had a magic in it which he had never
known before, and there was a murmur of doves in the palms and in
the dovecot hanging above the dog-kennel. As he lay between sleeping
and waking, a pair of pigeons flew past his window, their shadows
falling across his bed. An Arab came to conduct him to his bath; and
after bathing he returned to his room, glad to get into its sunlight
again, and to loiter in his dressing, standing by the window,
admiring the garden below, full of faint perfume. The roses were
already in blossom, and through an opening in the ilex-trees he
caught sight of a meadow overflowing with shadow, the shadow of
trees and clouds, and of goats too, for there was a herd feeding and
trying to escape from the shepherd (a young man wearing a white
bournous and a red felt cap) towards the garden, where there were
bushes. On the left, amid a group of palms, were the stables, and
Owen thought of his horse feeding and resting after his long
journey. And there were Béclère's horses too. Owen had not seen them
yet; nor had he seen the dog, nor the pigeons. This oasis was full
of pleasant things to see and investigate, and he hurried through his
meal, longing to get into the open air and to gather some roses. All
about him sounds were hushing, and lights breaking, and shadows
floating, and every breeze was scented. As he followed the
finely-sanded walks, he was startled by a new scent, and with dilating
nostrils tried to catch it, tried to remember if it were mastick or
some resinous fir; and, walking on like one in a trance, he admired
Béclère's taste in the planting of this garden.
"A strange man, so refined and intelligent--why does he live here?...
Why not?"
Returning suddenly to the ilex-trees, which he liked better than the
masticks, or the tamarisks, or any fir, he sat down to watch the
meadow, thinking there was nothing in the world more beautiful than
the moving of shadows of trees and clouds over young grass, and
nothing more beautiful than a young shepherd playing a flute: only
one thing more beautiful--a young girl carrying an amphora I She
passed out of the shadows, wearing a scarlet haik and on her arms and
neck a great deal of rough jewellery.
"She is going to the well," he said. The shepherd stopped playing and
advanced to meet her. Boy and girl stood talking for a little while.
He heard laughter and speech... saw her coming towards him. "She
will follow this path to the house, and I shall see her better." A
little in front of the ilex-trees she stopped to look back upon the
shepherd, leaning the amphora upon her naked hip. The movement
lasted only a moment, but how beautiful it was! On catching sight of
Owen, she passed rapidly up the path, meeting Béclère on his way.
"Speaking to him in Arabic," Owen said, as he continued to admire the
beautiful face he had just seen--a pointed oval, dark eyes, a small,
fine nose, red lips, and a skin the colour of yellow ivory. "Still a
child and already a woman, not more than twelve or thirteen at the
very most; the sun ripens them quickly." This child recalled a dream
which he had let drop in Tunis--a dream that he might go into the
desert and find an Arab maiden the colour of yellow ivory, and live
with her in an oasis, forgetful.... Only by a woman's help could he
ever forget Evelyn. The old bitterness welled up bitter as ever.
"And I thought she was beginning to be forgotten."
In his youth he had wearied of women as a child wearies of toys. Few
women had outlasted the pleasure of a night, all becoming equally
insipid and tedious; but since he had met Evelyn he had loved no
other. Why did he love her? How was it he could not put her out of
his mind? Why couldn't he accept an Arab girl--Béclère's girl? She
was younger and more beautiful. If she did not belong to Béclère--
Owen looked up and watched them, and seeing Béclère glance in the
direction of the shepherd, he added, "Or to the shepherd."
The girl went into the house, and Béclère came down to meet his
guest, apologising for having left him so long alone.... He talked
to him about the beauty of the morning. The rains were over, or
nearly, but very often they began again.
"_Cella se pent qu'elle ne soit qu'une courte embellie, mais
profitons en_," and they turned to admire the roses.
"A beautiful girl, the one you were just speaking to."
"Yes... yes; she is the handsomest in the oasis, and there are many
handsome girls here. The Arab race is beautiful, male and female.
Her brother, for instance, the shepherd--"
"Her brother," Owen thought. "Ah!" They stopped to watch the
shepherd, a boy of sixteen. "About two years older than his sister,"
Owen remarked, and Béclère acquiesced. The boy had begun to play his
flute again. He played at first listlessly, then with all his soul,
and then with extraordinary passion. Owen watched the balance of his
body and arms, and the movement, extraordinarily voluptuous, of his
neck and head. He played on, his breath coming at times so feebly
that there was hardly any sound at all, at other times awaking music
loud and imperative; and the two men stood listening, for how many
minutes they did not know, but for what seemed to them a long while.
Their reverie stopped when the music ceased. It was then that a
dun-coloured dove with a lilac neck flew through the garden and took
refuge in a palm, seen for a moment as she alighted on the flexible
djerrid on a background of blue air. She disappeared into the heart
of the tree; the leaves were again stirred. She cooed once or twice,
and then there was a hush and a stillness in every leaf.
"You would like to see my property?"
Owen said he would like to see all the oasis, or as much as they
could see of it in one day without fatiguing themselves.
"You can see it all in a day, for it is but a small island, about a
thousand Arabs in the villages."
"So many as that?"
"Well, there has to be, in order to save ourselves from the predatory
bands which still exist, for, as I daresay you have already learned,
the Arabs are divided into two classes--the agricultural and the
nomadic. We have to be in sufficient numbers to save ourselves from
the nomads, otherwise we should be pillaged and harried from year's
end to year's end--all our crops and camels taken."
"Border warfare--the same as existed in England in the Middle Ages."
Béclère agreed that the unsettled vagrant civilisation which existed
in the North of Africa up to 1830--which in 1860 was beginning to
pass away, and the traces of which still survived in the nineties--
resembled very much the border forays for which Northumberland is
still famous; and, walking through the palm-groves towards the Arab
village, they talked of the Arab race, listening all the while to
the singing of doves and of streams, Owen listless and happy.
"But I shall remember her again presently, and the stab will be as
bitter as ever!"
Béclère did not believe that the Arab race was ever as great a race
as we were inclined to give it credit for being.
"All the same, if it hadn't been for your ancestors, we might have
all been Moslems now," Owen said, stopping to admire what remained
of the race which had conquered Spain and nearly conquered France.
"Now they are outcasts of our civilisation--but what noble outcasts!
That fellow, he is old, and without a corner, perhaps, where to lay
his head, but he walks magnificently in his ragged bournous. He is
poor, but he isn't a beggar; his life is sordid, but it isn't
trivial; he retains his grand walk and his solemn salute; and if he
has never created an art, himself is proof that he isn't without the
artistic sentiment."
Béclère looked at Owen in surprise, and Owen, thinking to astonish
him, added:
"His poverty and his filth are sublime; he is a Jew from Amsterdam
painted by Rembrandt, or a Jew from Palestine described by the
authors of the Pentateuch."
"The Jew is a tougher fellow to deal with; he cannot be eradicated,
but the Arab was very nearly passing away. If he had insisted on
remaining the noble outcast which you admire, he would not have
survived the Red Indian many hundreds of years. I don't contest
whether to lose him would be a profit or a loss, but when
civilisation comes the native race must accept it or extinction."
"I suppose you're right," Owen answered, "I suppose you're right."
And they stopped to look at an Arab town; some of it was in the plain
below, some of it ran up the steep hillside, on the summit of which
was a ruined mosque.
"Why did they choose to build up such a steep hillside?"
"The oasis is limited, and the plain is devoted to orchards. Look at
the village! If you were to visit their town, you would not find a
street in which a camel could turn round, hardly any windows, and
the doors always half closed. They are still suspicious of us and
anxious to avoid our inquisition. Yes, that is the characteristic of
the Arab, to conceal himself; and his wife, and his business from
us."
"One can sympathise with the desire to avoid inquisition, and
notwithstanding the genius of your race--no one is more sympathetic
to you than I am--yet it is impossible not to see that your fault is
red tapeism, and that is what the Arab hates. You see I understand."
"I don't think I am unsympathetic, and the Arabs don't think it.
Perhaps there is no man in Africa who can travel as securely as I
can--even in the Soudan I should be well received--and what other
European could say as much? There must be something of the Arab in
me, otherwise I shouldn't have lived amongst them so long, nor
should I speak Arabic as easily as I do, nor should I look--remember,
you thought I was an Arab."
"Yes, at first sight."
The admission was given somewhat unwillingly, not because Owen saw
Béclère differently, he still saw an Arab exterior, but he had begun
to recognise him as a Frenchman. Race characteristics are generally
imaginary; there are, shall we say, twenty millions of Frenchmen in
France, and every one is different; how therefore is it possible to
speak of race characteristics? Still, if one may differentiate at
all between the French and English races (but is there a French and
English race?) we know there is a negro race because it is black--
however, if there be any difference between England and France, the
difference is that France is more inclined to pedantry than England.
If one admits any race difference, one may admit this one; and, with
such thoughts in his mind, Owen began to perceive Béclère as the
typical French pedagogue, a clever man, one who if he had remained
in Paris would have become _un membre de l'Institut_.
Béclère, _un membre de l'Institut_, talking to the beautiful girl
whom Owen had seen that morning! Owen smiled a little under his
moustache, and, as there was plenty of time for meditation while
waiting for Tahar to return from Ain Mahdy, he spent a great deal of
time wondering if any sensual relations existed between Béclère and
this girl. Béclère as a lover appeared to him anomalous and
disparate--that is how Béclère would word it himself, but these
pedants were very often serious sensualists. We easily associate
conventional morality with red-tapeism, for it seems impossible to
believe that the stodgy girl who spends her morning in the British
Museum working at the higher mathematics or Sanscrit is likely to
spend her afternoon in bed, yet this is what happens frequently; the
real sensualist is the pedant; "and, if one wants love, the real
genuine article," whispered a thought, "one must seek it among
clergymen's daughters."
That girl Béclère's mistress! Why not? The thought pleased and amused
him, reconciled him to Béclère, whom he never should have thought
capable of such fine discrimination. But it did not follow that
because Béclère had chosen a beautiful girl to love he was
susceptible to artistic influences, sculpture excepted. Of the other
arts Owen felt instinctively that Béclère knew nothing; indeed,
yester evening, when he, Owen, had spoken of "The Ring," Béclère had
answered that his business in life had not allowed him to cultivate
musical tastes. He had once liked music, but now it interested him
no longer.
"Tastes atrophy."
"Of course they do," Owen had answered, and Béclère's knowledge of
himself propitiated Owen, who recognised a clever man in the remark,
a man of many sympathies, though the exterior was prosaic. All the
same Owen would have wished for some music in the evening, and for
some musical assistance, for while waiting for the eagles to arrive
he spent his time thinking how he might write the songs he heard
every morning among the palm-trees; written down they did not seem
nearly as original as they did on the lips, and Owen suspected his
notation to be deficient. A more skilful musician would be able to
get more of these rhythms on paper than he had been able to do, and
he regretted his failures, for it would be interesting to bring home
some copies of these songs just to show...
But he would never see her again, so what was the good of writing
down these songs? What was the good of anything? A strange thing
life is, and he paused to consider how the slightest event, the fact
that he was unable to give complete expression on paper to an Arab
rhythm, brought the old pain back again, and every pang of it. Even
the society of Béclère was answerable for his suffering, and he
thought how he must go away and travel again; only open solitude and
wandering with rough men could still his pain; primitive Nature was
the one balm.... That fellow Tahar--why did he delay? Owen thought
of the eagles, the awful bird pursuing the fleeting deer, and
himself riding in pursuit. This was the life that would cure him--
how soon? In three months? in six? in ten years? It would be strange
if he were to become a bedouin for love of her, and he walked on
thinking how they had lain together one night listening to the
silence, hearing nothing but an acacia moving outside their window.
Béclère was coming towards him and the vision vanished.
"No news of Tahar yet?"
"No; you are forgetting that we are living in an oasis, where letters
are not delivered, and where we bring news of ourselves, and where
no news is understood to mean that the spring we were hastening
towards was dry, or that a sand-storm--"
"Sand-storms are rare at this season of the year."
"An old bedouin like Tahar is safe enough. To-morrow or the day
after... but I see you are impatient, you are growing tired of my
company."
Owen assured Béclère he was mistaken, only a sedentary life was
impossible to him, and he was anxious to be off again.
"So there is something of the wanderer in you, for no business calls
you."
"No, my agent manages everything for me; it is, I suppose, mere
restlessness." And Owen spoke of going in quest of Tahar.
"To pass him again in the desert," and they went towards the point
where they might watch for Tahar, Béclère knowing by the sun the
direction in which to look. There was no route, nothing in the empty
space extending from their feet to the horizon--a line inscribed
across the empty sky--nothing to be seen although the sun hung in
the middle of the sky, the rays falling everywhere; it would have
seemed that the smallest object should be visible, but this was not
so--there was nothing. Even when he strained his eyes Owen could not
distinguish which was sand, which was earth, which was stone, even
the colour of the emptiness was undecided. Was it dun? Was it tawny?
Striving to express himself, Owen could find nothing more explicit
to say than that the colour of the desert was the colour of
emptiness, and they sat down trying to talk of falconry. But it was
impossible to talk in front of this trackless plain, _cela coupe la
parole_, flowing away to the south, to the west, to the east, ending--
it was impossible to imagine it ending anywhere, no more than we
can imagine the ends of the sky; and the desert conveyed the same
impression of loneliness--in a small way, of course--as the great
darkness of the sky; "for the sky," Owen said, half to himself, half
to his companion, "is dark and cold the moment one gets beyond the
atmosphere of the earth."
"The desert is, at all events, warm," Béclère interjected.
Hot, trackless spaces, burning solitudes through which nobody ever
went or came. It was the silence that frightened Owen; not even in
the forest, in the dark solitudes avoided by the birds, is there
silence. There is a wind among the tree-tops, and when the wind is
still the branches sway a little; there is nearly always a swaying
among the branches, and even when there is none, the falling of some
giant too old to subsist longer breaks the silence, frightens the
wild beast, who retires growling. The sea conveys the same sense of
primal solitude as the forest, but it is less silent; the sea tears
among the rocks as if it would destroy the land, but when its rage
is over the sea laughs, and leaps, and caresses, and the day after
fawns upon the land, drawing itself up like a woman to her lover, as
voluptuously. Nowhere on earth only in the desert, is there silence;
even in the tomb there are worms, but in some parts of the desert
there are not even worms, the body dries into dust without decaying.
Owen imagined the resignation of the wanderer who finds no water at
the spring, and lies down to die amid the mighty indifference of
sterile Nature; and breaking the silence, somewhat against his will,
he communicated his thoughts to Béclère, that an unhappy man who
dare not take his life could not do better than to lose himself in
the desert. Death would come easily, for seeing nothing in front of
him but an empty horizon, nothing above him but a blank sky, and for
a little shelter a sand dune, which the wind created yesterday and
will uncreate to-morrow he would come to understand all that he need
know regarding his transitory and unimportant life. Does Nature care
whether we live or die? We have heard often that she cares not a jot
for the individual.... But does she care for the race--for mankind
more than for beastkind? His intelligence she smiles at, concerned
with the lizard as much as with the author of "The Ring." Does she
care for either? After all, what is Nature? We use words, but words
mean so little. What do we mean when we speak of Nature? Where does
Nature begin? Where does she end? And God? We talk of God, and we do
not know whether he sleeps, or drinks, or eats, whether he wears
clothes or goes naked; Moses saw his hinder parts, and he used to be
jealous and revengeful; but as man grows merciful God grows merciful
with him, we make him to our own likeness, and spend a great deal of
money on the making.
"Yes, God is a great expense, but government would be impossible
without him."
Béclère's answer jarred Owen's mood a little, without breaking it,
however, and he continued to talk of how words like "Nature," and
"God," and "Liberty" are on every lip, yet none is able to define
their meaning. Liberty he instanced as a word around which poems
have been written, "yet no poet could tell what he was writing
about; at best we can only say of liberty that we must surrender
something to gain something; in other words, liberty is a compromise,
for no one can be free to obey every impulse the moment one enters
into his being.
"Good God, Béclère! it is terrible to think one knows nothing, and
life, like the desert, is full of solitude."
Béclère did not answer, and, forgetful that it was impossible to
answer a cry of anguish, Owen began to suspect Béclère of thoughts
regarding the perfectibility of mankind, of thinking that with
patience and more perfect administration, &c. But Béclère was
thinking nothing of the kind; he was wondering what sort of reason
could have sent Owen out of England. Some desperate love affair
perhaps, his wife may have run away from him. But he did not try to
draw Owen into confidence, speaking instead of falconry and Tahar's
arrival, which could not be much longer delayed.
"After all, if you had not missed him in the desert we never should
have known each other."
"So much was gained, and if you ever come to England--" Béclère
smiled. "So you think we shall never meet again, and that we are
talking out our last talk on the edge of this gulf of sand?"
"We shall meet again if you come to the desert to hunt with eagles."
"But you will not come to England?" Béclère did not think it
necessary to answer. "But in France? You will return to France some
day?"
"Why should I? Whom do I know in France? _Je ne suis plus un des
vôtres. Qu'irais-je y faire?_ But we are not talking for the last
time, Tahar has yet to arrive, he will be here to-morrow and we'll
go hunting; and after our hunting I hope to induce you to stop some
while longer. You see, you haven't seen the desert; the desert isn't
the desert in spring. To see the desert you will have to stop till
July. This sea of sand will then be a ring of fire, and that sky,
now so mild, will be dark blue and the sun will hang like a furnace
in the midst of it. Stay here even till May and you will see the
summer, _chez lui_."
X
At the beginning of July Owen appeared on the frontiers of Egypt
shrieking for a drink of clean water, and saying that the desire to
drink clean water out of a glass represented everything he had to
say for the moment about the desert; all the same, he continued to
tell of fetid, stale, putrid wells, and of the haunting terror with
which the Saharian starts in the morning lest he should find no
water at the nearest watering-place, only a green scum fouled by the
staling of horses and mules I Owen was as plain-spoken as
Shakespeare, so Harding said once, defending his friend's use of the
word "sweat" instead of "perspiration." There was no doubt the
language was deteriorating, becoming euphonistic; everybody was a
euphonist except Owen, who talked of his belly openly, blurting out
that he had vomited when he should have said he had been sick. There
were occasions when Harding did not spare Owen and laughed at his
peculiarities; but there was always a certain friendliness in his
malice, and Owen admired Harding's intelligence and looked forward
to a long evening with him almost as much as he had looked forward
to a drink of clean water. "It will be delightful to talk again to
somebody who has seen a picture and read a book," he said, leaning
over the taff-rail of the steamer. But this dinner did not happen
the day he arrived in London--Harding was out of town! And Owen
cursed his luck as he walked out of the doorway in Victoria Street.
"Staying with friends in the country!" he muttered. "Good God! will
he never weary of those country houses, tedious beyond measure--with
or without adultery," he chuckled as he walked back to his club
thinking out a full-length portrait of his friend--a small man with
high shoulders, a large overhanging forehead, walking on thin legs
like one on stilts. But Harding's looks mattered little; what people
sought Harding for was not for his personal appearance, nor even for
his writings, though they were excellent, but for his culture. A
curious, clandestine little man with a warm heart despite the
exterior. Owen had seen Harding's eyes nil with tears and his voice
tremble when he recited a beautiful passage of English poetry; a
passionate nature, too, for Harding would fight fiercely for his
ideas, and his life had been lived in accordance with his beliefs. As
the years advanced his imaginative writing had become perhaps a
little didactic; his culture had become more noticeable--Owen
laughed: it pleased him to caricature his friends--and he thought of
the stream of culture which every hostess could turn on when Harding
was her guest. The phrase pleased him: a stream of culture flowing
down the white napery of every country house in England, for Harding
travelled from one to another. Owen had seen him laying his plans at
Nice, beginning his year as an old woman begins a stocking (setting
up the stitches) by writing to Lady So-and-so, saying he was coming
back to England at a certain time. Of course Lady So-and-so would
ask him to stay with her. Then Harding would write to the nearest
neighbour, saying, "I am staying with So-and-so for a week and shall
be going on to the north the week after next--now would it be
putting you to too much trouble if I were to spend the interval with
you?" News of these visits would soon get about, and would suggest
to another neighbour that she might ask him for a week. Harding
would perhaps answer her that he could not come for a week, but if
she would allow him to come for a fortnight he would be very glad
because then he would be able to get on to Mrs.----. In a very short
time January, February, March, and April would be allotted; and Owen
imagined Harding walking under immemorial elms gladdened by great
expanses of park and pleased in the contemplation of swards which
had been rolled for at least a thousand years. "A castellated wall,
a rampart, the remains of a moat, a turreted chamber must stir him
as the heart of the war horse is said to be stirred by a trumpet. He
demands a spire at least of his hostess; and names with a Saxon ring
in them, names recalling deeds of Norman chivalry awaken remote
sympathies, inherited perhaps; sonorous titles, though they be new
ones, are better than plain Mr. and Mrs.; 'ladyship' and 'lordship'
are always pleasing in his ears, and an elaborate escutcheon more
beautiful than a rose. After all, why not admire the things of a
thousand years ago as well as those of yesterday?" Owen continued to
think of Harding's admiration of the past. "It has nothing in common
with the vulgar tuft-hunter, deeply interested in the peerage,
anxious to get on. Harding's admiration of the aristocracy is part
of himself; it proceeds from hierarchical instinct and love of
order. He sees life flowing down the ages, each class separate, each
class dependent upon the other, a homogeneous whole, beautiful on
account of the harmony of the different parts, each melody going
different ways but contributing to the general harmony. He sees life
as classes; tradition is the breath of his nostrils, symbol the
delight of his eyes." Owen's thoughts divagated suddenly, and he
thought of the pain Harding would experience were he suddenly flung
into Bohemian society. He might find great talents there--but even
genius would not compensate him for disorder and licence. The dinner
might be excellent, but he would find no pleasure in it if the host
wore a painting jacket; a spot of ink on the shirt cuff would
extinguish his appetite, and a parlourmaid distress him, three
footmen induce pleasant ease of thought.
"A man born out of his time, in whom the disintegration of custom,
the fusing of the classes, produces an inner torment." And wondering
how he bore it, Owen began to think of an end for Harding, deciding
that sullen despair would take possession of him if the House of
Lords were seriously threatened. He would leave some seat of ancient
story, and proceed towards the midlands, seeking some blast furnace
wherein to throw himself. "A sort of modern Empedocles." And Owen
laughed aloud, for he was very much amused at his interpretation of
his friend's character. It was one which he did not think even his
friend would resent. "On the contrary, it would amuse him." And he
picked up a newspaper from the club table.
The first words he saw were "Evelyn Innes in America." "So she has
gone back to the stage, and without writing to me...." He sank back
in his armchair lost in a great bitterness but without resentment.
Next day, acting on a sudden resolve, he started for New York. But
he did not remain there very long, only a few days, returning to
England, exasperated, maddened against himself, unable to explain
the cause of his misfortune to Harding.
"I suppose you'll use it in a novel some day. I don't care if you do,
but you will never be able to explain how it happened." Harding
followed his friend into the study, thinking of the excellent cigar
which would be given to him more perhaps than of the story--a man
who suddenly finds his will paralysed. "It was just that, paralysis
of will, for after dinner when the time came to go to her I sat
thinking of her, unable to get out of my chair, saying to myself, 'In
five minutes, in five minutes,' and as the minutes went by I looked
at the clock, saying to myself, 'If I don't go now I shall be late.'
I can't explain, but it was almost a relief when I found it was too
late."
"What I don't understand is why you didn't go next day?"
"Nor do I; for naturally I wanted to see her, only I couldn't go,
something held me back, and in despair I returned to England, unable
to endure the strain. There you have it, Harding; don't ask me any
more for I can't tell you any more. During the voyage I was near out
of my mind, and could have thrown myself overboard, yet I couldn't
go to see her, though she is the only person I really care to see.
Of course friends are different," he added apologetically.
"And you could not forget her in the desert?" "No, it only made me
worse. Amid the sands her image would appear more distinct than
ever. Now why is it that one loves one woman more than another, and
what is there in this woman that enchants me, and from whom I cannot
escape in thought?... Yet I didn't go to see her in New York."
"But would you go if she wrote to you?" "Oh, if she wrote--that would
be different, but she never will. There is no doubt, Harding, love
is a sort of madness, and it takes every man; none can look into his
life without finding that at some time or another he was mad; the
only thing is that it has taken me rather badly, and cure seems
farther off than ever. Why is it, Harding, that a man should love
one woman so much more than another? It certainly isn't because she
has got a prettier face, or a more perfect figure, or a more sensual
temperament; for there is no end to pretty faces, perfect figures,
and sensual temperaments. Evelyn was pretty well furnished with
these things. I am prepared to admit that she was, but of course
there are more beautiful women and more sensual women, more charming
women, cleverer women--I suppose there are--yet no one ever charmed
me, enchanted me--that is the word--like this woman, and I can find
no reason for the enchantment in her or in myself, only this, that
she represents more of the divine essence out of which all things
have come than any other woman."
"The divine essence?"
"Well, one has to use these words in order to be understood; but you
know what I mean, Harding, the mystery lying behind all phenomena, the
Breath, esoteric philosophers would say, out of which all things
came, which drew the stars in the beginning out of chaos, creating
myriads of things or the appearance of different things, for there
is only one thing. That is how the mystics talk--isn't it? You know
more about them than I do. If to every man some woman represented
more of this impulse than any other woman, he would be unable to
separate himself from her; she would always be a light in his life
which he would follow, a light in the mind--that is what Evelyn is
to me; I never understood it before, it is only lately--"
"The desert has turned you into a poet, I see, into a mystic."
"Hardly that; but in the desert there are long hours and nothing--
only thought; one has to think, if one isn't a bedouin, just to save
oneself from going mad: the empty spaces, the solitude, the sun! One
of these days when you have finished your books, I should like to
write one with you; my impressions of the desert as I rode from
oasis to oasis, seeking Tahar--"
"Who was he?"
"He was the man who had the eagles. Haven't I told you already how--?"
"Yes, yes, Asher, but tell me did you meet Tahar, and did you see
gazelles hunted?"
"Yes, and larger deer. My first idea was hawking and we went to a
lake. One of these days I must tell you about that lake, about its
wild fowl, about the buried city and the heron which was killed. We
found it among Roman inscriptions. But to tell of these things--my
goodness, Harding, it would take hours!"
"Don't try, Asher. Tell me about the gazelles."
"How we went from oasis to oasis in quest of this man who always
eluded us, meeting him at last in Béclère's oasis. But you haven't
heard about Béclère's, the proprietor, you might say, of one oasis;
he discovered a Roman well, and added thousands of acres; but if I
began to tell about Béclère's we should be here till midnight."
"I should like to hear about the gazelles first."
"I never knew you cared so much for sport, Harding; I thought you
would be more interested in the desert itself, and in Béclère's. It
spoils a story to cut it down to a mere sporting episode. There
doesn't seem to be anything to tell now except I tell it at length:
those great birds, nearly three feet high, with long heads like
javelins, and round, clear eyes, and lank bodies, feathered thighs,
and talons that find out instinctively the vital parts, the heart and
the liver; the bird moves up seeking these. And that is what is so
terrible, the cruel instinct which makes every life conditional on
another's death. We live upon dead things, cooked or uncooked."
"But how are these birds carried?"
"That is what I asked myself all the way across the desert. The hawks
are carried on the wrist, but a bird three feet high cannot be
carried on the wrist. The eagle is carried on the pummel of the
saddle."
"And how are the gazelles taken and the eagles recaptured?"
"They answer to the lure just like a hawk. The gazelles come down
into the desert after the rains to feed among the low bushes,
rosemary and lavender. In the plain, of course, they have no chance,
the bird overtakes them at once; fleet as they are, wings are
fleeter, and they are over-taken with incredible ease, the bird just
flutters after them. But the hunt is more interesting when there are
large rocks between which the gazelles can take cover; then the bird
will alight on the rock and wait for the deer to be driven out, and
the deer dreads the eagle so much that sometimes they won't leave
the rocks, and we pick them up in our hands. The instinct of the
eagle is extraordinary, as you will see; the first gazelle was a
doe, and the eagle swept on in front, and, turning rapidly, flew
straight into the hind's face, the talons gathered up ready to
strangle her. But the buck will sometimes show fight, and, not caring
to face the horns, the eagle will avoid a frontal attack and sweep
round in the rear, attacking the buck in the quarters and riding him
to death, just as a goshawk rides a rabbit, seeking out all the
while the vital parts."
"But gazelles are such small deer; now it would be more interesting
with larger deer."
"We killed some larger deer and some sheep, wild sheep I mean, or
goats, it is hard to say which they are; the courage of the birds is
extraordinary, they will attack almost anything, driving the sheep
headlong over the precipices. We caught many a fox. The eagle
strikes the fox with one talon, reserving the other to clutch the
fox's throat when he turns round to bite. Eagles will attack wolves;
wolves are hunted in Mongolia with eagles, the fight must be
extraordinary. One of these days I must go there."
"If Evelyn Innes doesn't return to you."
"One must do something," Owen answered.
"Life would be too tedious if one were not doing something. Have
another cigarette, Harding." And he went to the table and took one
out of a silver box. "Do have one; it comes out of her box, she gave
me this box. You haven't seen the inscription, have you?" And
Harding had to get up and read it; he did this with a lack of
enthusiasm and interest which annoyed Owen, but which did not
prevent him from going to the escritoire and saying, "And in this
pigeon-hole I keep her letters, eight hundred and fifty-three,
extending over a period of ten years. How many letters would that be
a year, Harding?"
"My dear Asher, I never could calculate anything." "Well, let us
see." Owen took a pencil and did the sum, irritating Harding, who
under his moustache wondered how anybody could be so self-centred,
so blind to the picture he presented. "Eighty-five letters a year,
Harding, more than one a week; that is a pretty good average, for
when I saw her every day I didn't write to her."
"I should have thought you would write sometimes."
"Yes, sometimes we used to send each other notes."
"Will he never cease talking of her?" Harding said to himself; and,
tempted by curiosity, he got up, lighted another cigarette, and sat
down, determined to wait and see. Owen continued talking for the
next half-hour. "True, he hasn't had an opportunity of speaking to
anybody about her for the last year, and is letting it all off upon
me."
"There is her portrait, Harding; you like it, don't you?"
Harding breathed again under his moustache. The portrait brought a
new interest into the conversation, for it was a beautiful picture.
A bright face which seemed to have been breathed into a grey
background--a grey so beautiful, Harding had once written, that
every ray of sunlight that came into the room awoke a melody and a
harmony in it, and held the eye subjugated and enchanted. Out of a
grey and a rose tint a permanent music had been made... and, being
much less complete than an old master, it never satisfied. In this
picture there were not one but a hundred pictures. To hang it in a
different place in the room was to recreate it; it never was the
same, whereas the complete portraits of the old masters have this
fault--that they never rise above themselves. But a ray of light set
Evelyn's portrait singing like a skylark--background, face, hair,
dress--cadenza upon cadenza. When the blinds were let down, the music
became graver, and the strain almost a religious one. And these
changes in the portrait were like Evelyn herself, for she varied a
good deal, as Owen had often remarked to Harding; for one reason or
for some other--no matter the reason: suffice it to say that the
picture would be like her when the gold had faded from her hair and
no pair of stays would discover her hips. And now, sitting looking at
it, Owen remembered the seeming accident which had inspired him to
bring Evelyn to see the great painter whose genius it had been to
Owen's credit to recognise always. One morning in the studio Evelyn
had happened to sit on the edge of a chair; the painter had once
seen her in the same attitude by the side of her accompanist, and he
had told her not to move, and had gone for her grey shawl and placed
it upon her shoulders. A friend of Owen's declared the portrait to be
that of a housekeeper on account of the shawl--a strange article of
dress, difficult to associate with a romantic singer. All the same,
Evelyn was very probable in this picture; her past and her future
were in this disconcerting compound of the commonplace and the rare;
and the confusion which this picture created in the minds of Owen's
friends was aggravated by the strange elliptical execution. Owen
admitted the drawing to be not altogether grammatical; one eye was a
little lower than the other, but the eyes were beautifully drawn--the
right eye, for instance, and without the help of any shadow.
"Look at the face," he said to Harding, "achieved with shadow and
light, the light faintly graduated with a delicate shade of rose."
He compared the face to a jewel the most beautiful in the world, and
the background to eighteenth-century watered silk.
"The painter conjures," Harding said, "and she rises out of that grey
background."
"Quite so, Harding."
Owen sat, his eyes fixed on the picture, his thoughts far away,
thinking that it would be better, perhaps, if he never saw her
again. Not to see her again! The words sounded very gloomy; for he
was thinking of his ancestors at Riversdale, in their tomb, and
himself going down to join them.
"I think, Asher, it is getting late; I must go now."
The friends bade each other good-night among the footmen who closed
the front door.
In his great, lonely bedroom, full of tall mahogany furniture, Owen
lay down; and he asked himself how it was that he had left America
without seeing her. His journey to America was one of the uncanniest
things that had ever happened in his life. Something seemed to have
kept him from her, and it was impossible for him to determine what
that thing was, whether some sudden weakening of the will in himself
or some spiritual agency. But to believe in the transference of human
thought, and that the nuns could influence his action at three
thousand miles distance, seemed as if he were dropping into some
base superstition. Between sleeping and waking a thought emerged
which kept him awake till morning: "Why had Evelyn returned to the
stage?" When he saw her last at Thornton Grange her retirement
seemed to be definitely fixed. Nothing he could say had been able to
move her. She was going to retire from the stage.... But she had not
done so. Now, who had persuaded her? Was it Ulick Dean? Were these
two in America together? The thought of Evelyn in New York with
Ulick Dean, going to the theatre with her, Ulick sitting in the
stalls, listening, just as he, Owen, had listened to her, became
unendurable; he must have news of her; only from her father could he
get reliable news. So he went to Dulwich, uncertain if he should
send in his card begging for an interview, or if he should just push
past the servant into the music-room, always supposing Innes were at
home.
"Mr. Innes is at home," the servant-girl answered.
"Is he in the music-room?"
"Yes, sir. What name?"
"No name is necessary. I will announce myself," and he pushed past
the girl.... "Excuse me, Mr. Innes, for coming into your house so
abruptly, but I was afraid you mightn't see me if I sent in my name,
and it would be impossible for me to go back to London without
seeing you. You don't know me."
"I do. You are Sir Owen Asher."
"Yes, and have come because I can't live any longer without having
some news of Evelyn. You know my story--how she sent me away. There
is nothing to tell you; she has been here, I know, and has told you
everything. But perhaps you don't know I have just come from the
desert, having gone there hoping to forget her, and have come out of
the desert uncured. You will tell me where she is, won't you?"
Innes did not answer for some while.
"My daughter went to America."
"Yes, I know that. I have just come from there, but I could not see
her. The last time we met was at Thornton Grange, and she told me
she had decided definitely to leave the stage. Now, why should she
have gone back to the stage? That is what I have come to ask you."
This tall, thin, elderly man, impulsive as a child, wearing his heart
on his sleeve, crying before him like a little child, moved Innes's
contempt as much as it did his pity. "All the same he is suffering,
and it is clear that he loves her very deeply." So perforce he had
to answer that Evelyn had gone to America against the advice of her
confessor because the Wimbledon nuns wanted money.
"Gone to sing for those nuns!" Owen shrieked. And for three minutes
he blasphemed in the silence of the old music-room, Innes watching
him, amazed that any man should so completely forget himself. How
could she have loved him?
"She is returning next week; that is all I know of her movements...
Sir Owen Asher."
"Returning next week! But what does it matter to me whether she
returns or not? She won't see me. Do you think she will, Mr. Innes?"
"I cannot discuss these matters with you, Sir Owen," and Innes took
up his pen as if anxious for Sir Owen to leave the room so that he
might go on copying. Owen noticed this, but it was impossible for
him to leave the room. For the last twelve years he had been
thinking about Innes, and wanted to tell him how Evelyn had been
loved, and he wanted to air his hatred of religious orders and
religion in general.
"I am afraid I am disturbing you, but I can't help; it," and he
dropped into a chair. "You have no idea, Mr. Innes, how I loved your
daughter."
"She always speaks of you very well, never laying any blame upon
you--I will say that."
"She is a truthful woman. That is the one thing that can be said."
Innes nodded a sort of acquiescence to this appreciation of his
daughter's character; and Owen could not resist the temptation to
try to take Evelyn's father into his confidence, he had been so long
anxious for this talk.
"We have all been in love, you see; your love story is a little
farther back than mine. We all know the bitterness of it--don't we?"
Innes admitted that to know the bitterness of love and its sweetness
is the common lot of all men. The conversation dropped again, and
Owen felt there was to be no unbosoming of himself that afternoon.
"The room has not changed. Twelve years ago I saw those old
instruments for the first time. Not one, I think, has disappeared.
It was here that I first heard Ferrabosco's pavane."
Innes remembered the pavane quite well, but refused to allow the
conversation to digress into a description of Evelyn's playing of
the _viola da gamba_. But if they were not to talk about Evelyn
there was no use tarrying any longer in Dulwich; he had learned all
the old man knew about his daughter. He got up.... At that moment
the door opened and the servant announced Mr. Ulick Dean.
"How do you do, Mr. Innes?" Ulick said, glancing at Owen; and a
suspicion crossed his mind that the tall man with small, inquisitive
eyes who stood watching him must be Owen Asher, hoping that it was
not so, and, at the same time, curious to make his predecessor's
acquaintance; he admitted his curiosity as soon as Innes introduced
him.
"The moment I saw you, Sir Owen, I guessed that it must be you. I had
heard so much about you, you see, and your appearance is so
distinctive."
These last words dissipated the gloom upon Owen's face--it is always
pleasing to think that one is distinctive. And turning from Sir Owen
to Innes, Ulick told him how, finding himself in London, he had
availed himself of the opportunity to run down to see him. Owen sat
criticising, watching him rather cynically, interested in his youth
and in his thick, rebellious hair, flowing upwards from a white
forehead. The full-fleshed face, lit with nervous, grey eyes,
reminded Owen of a Roman bust. "A young Roman emperor," he said to
himself, and he seemed to understand Evelyn's love of Ulick. Would
that she had continued to love this young pagan! Far better than to
have been duped by that grey, skinny Christian. And he listened to
Ulick, admiring his independent thought, his flashes of wit.
Ulick was telling stories of an opera company to which it was likely
he would be appointed secretary. A very unlikely thing indeed to
happen, Owen thought, if the company were assembled outside the
windows, within hearing of the stories which Ulick was telling about
them. Very amusing were the young man's anecdotes and comments, but
it seemed to Owen as if he would never cease talking; and Innes,
though seeming to enjoy the young man's wit, seemed to feel with Owen
that something must be done to bring it to an end.
"We shall be here all the afternoon listening to you, Ulick. I don't
know if Sir Owen has anything else to do, but I have some parts to
copy; there is a rehearsal to-night."
Ulick's manner at once grew so serious and formal that Innes feared
he had offended him, and then Owen suddenly realised that they were
both being sent away. In the street they must part, that was Owen's
intention, but before he could utter it Ulick begged of him to wait
a second, for he had forgotten his gloves. Without waiting for an
answer he ran back to the house, leaving Uwen standing on the
pavement, asking himself if he should wait for this impertinent
young man, who took it for granted that he would.
"You have got your gloves," he said, looking disapprovingly at the
tight kid gloves which Ulick was forcing over his fingers. "Do you
remember the way? As well as I remember, one turns to the right."
"Yes, to the right." And talking of the old music, of harpsichords
and viols, they walked on together till they heard the whistle of
the train.
"We have just missed our train."
There was no use running, and there was no other train for half an
hour.
"The waiting here will be intolerable," Owen said. "If you would care
for a walk, we might go as far as Peckham. To walk to London would
be too far, though, indeed, it would do both of us good."
"Yes, the evening is fine--why not walk to London? We can inquire out
the way as we go."