The son of a clergyman, Mr. Robert Smythe Hichens, born at
Speldhurst, Kent, England, on November 14, 1864, was
originally intended to follow a musical career, but after some
years abandoned music for journalism. His first long novel was
written and published at the age of seventeen. It attracted
little or no attention, and has long been out of print. A trip
to Egypt in 1893 resulted in a burning desire to become a
novelist, and his brilliant satire, "The Green Carnation,"
followed. The book was written in a month, and at once
established its author's name and fame. "The Garden of Allah,"
of all Mr. Hichens' works the most typical of his genius,
appeared in 1905. "The intellectual grip of the story," says
one critic, "cannot be denied, for it completely conquers the
critical sense, and the ideas of the author insinuate
themselves, as it were, among one's inmost thoughts." Yet Mr.
Hichens' stories are popular, not only with literary
connoisseurs, but also with the general public, inasmuch as
they owe their fascination not so much to an extreme
refinement of art as to their freshness of imagination and
dramatic intensity. This epitome of the "Garden of Allah" has
been prepared by Mr. Hichens himself.
_I.--The Home of Peace_
On an autumn evening, Domini Enfilden leaned on the parapet of a
verandah of the Hotel du Désert at Beni-Mora, in Southern Algeria,
gazing towards the great Sahara, which was lit up by the glory of
sunset. The bell of the Catholic Church chimed. She heard the throbbing
of native drums in the village near by. Tired with her long journey from
England, she watched and listened while the twilight crept among the
palms, and the sandy alleys grew dark.
Thirty-two, an orphan, unmarried, strong, fearless, ardent, but a deeply
religious woman and a Catholic, Domini had passed through much mental
agony. Her mother, Lady Rens, a member of one of England's oldest
Catholic families, but half Hungarian on the mother's side, had run away
when Domini was nineteen with a Hungarian musician, leaving her only
child with her despairing and abandoned husband. Lord Rens had become a
Catholic out of love for his wife. When he was deserted by her, he
furiously renounced his faith, and eventually died blaspheming. In vain
through many years he had tried to detach his daughter from the religion
of her guilty mother, now long since dead. Domini had known how to
resist; but the cruel contest had shaken her body and soul.
Now free, alone, she had left England to begin a new life far away from
the scene of her misery. Vaguely she had thought of the great desert,
called by the Arabs "The Garden of Allah," as the home of peace. She had
travelled there to find peace. That day, at the gate of the desert, she
had met a traveller, Doris Androvsky, a man of about thirty-six,
powerfully built, tanned by the sun. When she was about to get into the
train at the station of El Akbara this man had rudely sprung in before
her. The train had begun to move, and Domini had sprung into it almost
at the risk of her life. Androvsky had not offered to help her, had not
said a word of apology. His _gaucherie_ had almost revolted Domini.
Nevertheless, something powerful, mournful, passionate, and sincere in
his personality had affected her, roused her interest.
Silently they had come into the desert together, strangers, almost at
enmity the one with the other. They were now staying in the same hotel
in this oasis in the desert of Sahara.
In coming to the hotel, Domini had seen a curious incident. Androvsky,
with a guide who carried his bag, was walking before her down the long
public garden, when in the distance there appeared the black figure of
the priest of Beni-Mora advancing slowly towards them. When Androvsky
saw the priest he had stopped short, hesitated, then, despite the
protests of his guide, had abruptly turned down a side path and hurried
away. He had fled from the man of prayer.
Now, as the twilight fell, Domini thought of this incident, and when she
heard Androvsky's heavy tread upon the stairs of the verandah, the sharp
closing of the French window of his room, she was filled with a vague
uneasiness.
Next day she visited a wonderful garden on the edge of the desert
belonging to a Count Anteoni, a recluse who loved the Arabs and spent
much of his time among them. There, standing with the count by the
garden wall at the hour of the Mohammedan's prayer, she had seen
Androvsky again. He was in the desert with a Nomad. The cry of the
_muezzin_ went up to the brazen sky. The Nomad fell on his knees and
prayed. Androvsky started, gazed, shrank back, then turned and strode
away like one horrified by some grievous vision. Domini said to the
count, "I have just seen a man flee from prayer; it was horrible."
He answered her, very gravely, "The man who is afraid of prayer is
unwise to set foot beyond the palm-trees, for the desert is the garden
of Allah."
That evening Domini and Androvsky spoke to each other for the first
time, on the top of a tower where they had come to see the sunset.
Domini spoke first, moved by a strange look of loneliness, of
desolation, in Androvsky's eyes. He replied in a low voice, and asked
her pardon for his rude conduct at the station. Then, abruptly, he
descended the tower and disappeared.
At night she visited a dancing house to see the strange dances of the
desert. She found Androvsky there, watching the painted women as if half
fascinated, half horrified by them. Irena, a girl who had been banished
from Beni-Mora for threatening to murder an Arab of whom she was
jealous, but had been permitted to return, discovering him among the
audience, stabbed him. There was a violent scene, during which
Androvsky, forcing his way through the desert men, protected Domini from
the crush. The crowd rushed out, leaving them alone together. Androvsky
insisted on escorting Domini back to the hotel.
_II.--Defying Allah in Allah's Garden_
The acquaintance thus unconventionally began between them continued, and
ripened into a strange friendship. Domini was a magnificent horsewoman.
Finding that Androvsky did not know how to ride, she gave him lessons.
Together they galloped over the desert sands; together they visited the
Saharan villages, hidden in the groves of date palms behind the brown
earthen walls of the oasis; together watched the burning sunsets of
Africa; at meal-times they met in the hotel; in the evenings they sat
upon the verandah, and heard the Zouaves singing in chorus, the distant
murmur of the tom-toms.
Domini became profoundly interested in Androvsky, but her interest was
complicated by wonder at his peculiarities, at his uncouth manners, his
strange silences, his ignorance of life and of social matters, his
distrust of others, his desire to keep aloof from all human beings,
except herself. The good priest, now her intimate friend, Count Anteoni,
also her friend and respectful admirer, were ill at ease with him. He
had tried to avoid them, but Domini, anxious to bring some pleasure into
his life, had introduced him to them at a luncheon given by the count in
his garden, despite Androvsky's dogged assertion that he disliked
priests, and did not care for social intercourse.
At this lunch Androvsky had been brusque, on the defensive, almost
actively disagreeable. And when, after the priest's departure, he left
Domini alone with Count Anteoni, she felt almost relieved. Count Anteoni
summoned a sand-diviner to read Domini's fate in the sand. This man--a
thin, fanatical Eastern, with piercing and cruel eyes--spread out his
sand brought from the tomb of a Mohammedan saint, and prophesied. He
declared that he saw a great sand-storm, and in it a train of camels
waiting by a church. From the church came the sound of music, nearly
drowned by the roar of the wind. In the church the real life of Domini
was beginning. The music ceased; darkness fell. Then the diviner saw
Domini, with a companion, mounted on one of the camels, and disappearing
into the storm towards the south. The face of her companion was hidden.
Finally he saw Domini far out in the desert among great dunes of white
sand. In her heart there was joy. It was as if all the date palms bore
their fruit together, and in all the desert places water-springs burst
forth. But presently a figure came towards her, walking heavily; and all
the dates shrivelled upon the palms, and all the springs dried up.
Sorrow and terror were there beside her.
At this point in the diviner's prophecy Domini stopped him. Afterwards
she explained to Anteoni that she felt as if another's fate was being
read in it as well as her own, as if to listen any more might be to
intrude upon another's secret.
Upon the following day Anteoni left Beni-Mora to make a long desert
journey to a sacred city called Amara. Domini went to his garden at dawn
to see him off. Before departing he warned Domini to beware of
Androvsky. She asked him why. He answered that Androvsky seemed to him a
man who was at odds with life, with himself, with his Creator, a man who
was defying Allah in Allah's garden. When Anteoni had gone, Domini, in
some perplexity of spirit, and moved by a longing for sympathy and help,
visited the priest in his house near the church. The priest, indirectly,
also warned her against Androvsky, and a little later frankly, told her
that he felt an invincible dislike to him.
"I have no reason to give," said the priest. "My instinct is my reason.
I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most earnestly to break off
your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky."
Domini said, "It is strange; ever since I have been here I have felt as
if everything that has happened had been arranged beforehand, as if it
had to happen, and I feel that, too, about the future."
"Count Anteoni's fatalism!" exclaimed the priest. "It is the guiding
spirit of this land. And you, too, are going to be led by it. Take care!
You have come to a land of fire, and I think you are made of fire."
The warnings of Anteoni and the priest made an impression on Domini. She
was conscious of how the outside world would be likely to regard her
acquaintance with Androvsky. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange
and ghastly figure of legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at
cross roads, and distinguished for an instant by an oblique flash of
lightning; as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern tale, who announces
coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll
on a drum amid the sands.
And she felt upon her the heavy hand of some strange, perhaps terrible,
fate.
_III.--The Eternal Song of Love_
That same night, accompanied by Batouch, Domini rode out into the desert
to see the rising of the moon, and there met Androvsky. He had followed
them on horseback. Domini dismissed Batouch at Androvsky's reiterated
request. When they were alone in the sands, Androvsky told Domini that
he had needed to be with her as he had something to tell her. On the
morrow he was going away from Beni-Mora.
His face, while he said this, was turned from Domini, and his voice
sounded as if it spoke to some one at a distance, some one who can hear
as man cannot hear.
Domini said little. But at the sound of his words it seemed to her as if
all outside things she had ever known had foundered; as if with them had
foundered, too, all the bodily powers that were of the essence of her
life. And the desert, which she had so loved, was no longer to her the
desert, sand with a soul in it, blue distances full of a music of
summons, but only a barren waste of dried-up matter, featureless,
desolate, ghastly with the bones of things that had died.
She rode back with Androvsky to Beni-Mora in a silence like that of
death.
But this parting, decreed by the man, was not to be. In the desert these
two human beings had grown to love each other, with a love that had
become a burning passion. And next day when, in the garden of Count
Anteoni, Androvsky came to say farewell to Domini, his love broke all
barriers. He sank on the sand, letting his hands slip down till they
clasped Domini's knees.
"I love you!" he said. "I love you. But don't listen to me. You mustn't
hear it. You mustn't. But I must say it. I can't go till I say it. I
love you! I love you!"
"I am listening," she said. "I must hear it."
Androvsky rose up, put his hands behind Domini, held her, set his lips
on hers, pressing his whole body against hers.
"Hear it!" he said, muttering against her lips. "Hear it! I love you! I
love you!"
In the recesses of the garden Larbi, that idle gardener, played upon his
little flute his eternal song of love, and from the desert, beyond the
white wall, there rose an Arab's voice singing a song of the Sahara, "No
one but God and I knows what is in my heart!"
_IV.--A Nomad's Honeymoon_
As the sand-diviner had foretold, Domini and Androvsky were married in
the church of Beni-Mora, and by the priest who had warned Domini to have
nothing more to do with Androvsky. A terrible sand-storm was raging, and
the desert was blotted out. Nevertheless, when the ceremony was over,
the bride and bridegroom mounted upon a camel, and with their
attendants, set out for their desert honeymoon. Standing before the door
of the church, the good priest watched them go, with fear in his heart,
and that night in his humble home, kneeling before his crucifix, he
prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in the desert.
Isolated from all who knew them, free from all social ties, nomads, as
are the Bedouins who make their dwelling for ever amid the vast and
burning sands, Domini and Androvsky entered upon their married life. And
at first one of them was happy as few are ever happy. Domini loved
completely, trusted completely, lived with a fulness, a completeness she
had never known till now. That Androvsky almost worshipped her, she
knew. His conduct to her was perfect. And yet there were times when
Domini felt as if a shadow rose between them, as if, even with her, in
some secret place of his soul Androvsky was ill at ease, as if sometimes
he suffered, and dared not tell his suffering.
One day, in their wanderings, they came to a desolate place called
Mogar, and camped on a sandhill looking over a vast stretch of dunes.
Towards evening Androvsky descended into the plain to shoot gazelle,
leaving Domini alone. While he was away a French officer, with two men
of the Zouaves, rode slowly up. They were nearly starving and terribly
exhausted, having been lost in a sand-storm for three days and nights.
Pitying their sufferings, Domini insisted on entertaining them. The men
must sup with the Arabs, the officer must dine with herself and
Androvsky. The officer accepted with gratitude, and went off to make his
toilet. When Androvsky returned, Domini told him of the officer's
arrival, and when he saw the three places laid for dinner in the tent,
he seemed profoundly disturbed. He asked the officer's name. Domini told
him Trevignac.
"Trevignac!" he exclaimed.
Then, hearing the soldiers coming, he turned away; abruptly and
disappeared into the bedroom tent.
Trevignac came up, and in a few minutes Androvsky reappeared. The two
men gazed at each other for an instant. Then Domini introduced them, and
they all sat down to dinner. Conversation was uneasy. Androvsky was
evidently ill at ease; Trevignac was distrait at moments, strangely
watchful of his host at other moments. Dinner over, Domini left the two
men together to smoke, and went out on to the sand. She met an Arab
carrying coffee and a liqueur to the tent.
"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching the bottle.
He told her it was an African liqueur.
"Take it in," she said.
And she strolled away to the bonfire to listen to the fantasia the Arabs
were making in honour of the soldiers.
When she returned to the tent, she found her husband alone in it,
standing up, with a quantity of fragments of glass lying at his feet.
Near him was the coffee, untasted. Trevignac was gone. She asked for an
explanation. He gave her none. The fragments of glass were all that
remained of the bottle which had contained the liqueur.
At dawn Domini met Trevignac riding away with his soldiers. He saluted
her, bidding his men ride on. As he gazed at her, she seemed to see
horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not
bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was
sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse,
he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and
rode away into the desert.
_V.--I Have Insulted God_
From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of
the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She
tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often
felt far away from God, and that she prayed each day for him.
"Boris," she said, "if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come
right in the desert. For the desert is the garden of Allah."
He made her no answer.
At last in their journeying they came to the sacred city of Amara, and
camped in the white sands beyond it.
This was the place described by the sand-diviner, and here Domini knew
that her love was to be crowned, that she would become a mother. She
hesitated to tell her husband, for in this place his misery and fear of
men seemed mounting to a climax. Nevertheless, as if in a frantic
attempt to get the better of his mental torture, he had gone off, saying
he wanted to see the city.
While he was away, Domini was visited first by Count Anteoni, who told
her that he had joined the Mohammedan religion, and was at last happy
and at peace; secondly, when night had fallen, by the priest of Amara.
This man was talkative and genial, fond of the good things of life.
Domini offered him a cigar. He accepted it. An Arab brought coffee, and
the same African liqueur which had been taken to the tent on the night
when Trevignac had dined with Domini and Androvsky.
When the priest was about to drink some of it, he suddenly paused, and
put the glass down. Domini leant forward.
"Louarine," she said, reading the name on the bottle. "Won't you have
some?"
"The fact is, madame," began the priest, with hesitation, "this liqueur
comes from the Trappist monastery of El Largani."
"Yes?"
"It was made by a monk and priest to whom the secret of its manufacture
belonged. At his death he was to confide the secret to another whom he
had chosen. But the monks of El Largani will never earn another franc by
Louarine when what they have in stock is exhausted."
"The monk died suddenly?"
"Madame, he ran away from the monastery after being there in the eternal
silence for twenty years, after taking the final vows."
"How horrible!" said Domini. "That man must be in hell now, in the hell
a man can make for himself by his own act."
As she spoke, Androvsky appeared by the tent door. He was looking
frightfully ill, and like a desperate man. When the priest had gone,
Domini told Androvsky about the liqueur and the disappearance of the
Trappist monk. As she spoke, his face grew more ghastly. He stood rigid,
as if with horror.
"Poor, poor man!" she said, as she finished her story.
"You--you pity that man then?" murmured Androvsky.
"Yes," she replied. "I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if
he is still alive."
Androvsky seemed painfully moved, and almost as if he were on the verge
of some passionate outburst of emotion; and something like a deep voice
far down in the loving heart of Domini said to her, "If you really love,
be fearless. Attack the sorrow which stands like a figure of death
between you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon--faith--
use it!"
At last she summoned all her courage, all her faith, and she forced from
Androvsky the confession of what it was which held him in perpetual
misery, even in freedom, even with her, whom he loved beyond and above
all human beings.
"Domini," he said, "you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy
even in our love--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I
love God, I have insulted God. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him,
to put human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by
the thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was
young, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made! I
gave myself to God as a monk."
"You are the Trappist!" she whispered. "You are the monk from the
monastery of El Largani who disappeared after twenty years?"
"Yes," he said, "I am he."
Standing there in the sands, while the world was wrapped in sleep,
Androvsky told Domini the whole story of his life in the monastery, of
his innocent happiness there, and of the events which woke up within him
the mad longing to see life and the world, and to know the love of
woman. He told her of his secret departure by night from the monastery,
of his journey to the desert in search of complete and savage liberty.
He told her how he had fought against his growing love for her, how he
had tried to leave her; how, at the last moment in the garden by night,
his passion for her had conquered him and driven him to her feet. He
told her how the officer, Trevignac, had known him long ago in the
monastery, and had recognised him when the Arab brought in the liqueur
which he had made. He kept nothing from her.
"That last day in the garden," he said finally, "I thought I had
conquered myself, and it was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I
knew you loved me, I could fight no more. You have seen me, you have
lived with me, you have divined my misery. But don't think, Domini, that
it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of my lie to you, my lie
to God, that--that--I can't tell you--I can't tell you--you know."
He looked into her face, then turned to go away into the desert.
"I'll go! I'll go!" he muttered.
Then Domini spoke.
"Boris!" she said.
He stopped.
"Boris, now at last you can pray."
She went into the tent, and left him alone. He knew that in the tent she
was praying for him. He stood, trying to listen to her prayer, then,
with an uncertain hand, he felt in his breast. He drew out a wooden
cross, given to him by his mother when he entered the monastery. He bent
down his head, touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the
desert.
From that night, Domini realised that her duty was plain before her.
Androvsky was still at heart a monk, and she was a fervently religious
woman. She put God above herself, above her poor, desperate, human love,
above Androvsky and his passionate love for her. She put the things of
eternity before the things of time. She never told Androvsky of the
child that was coming.
After he had made his confession to the priest of Beni-Mora who had
married them, she led him to the monastery door, and there they parted
for ever on earth, to be reunited, as both believed, in heaven.
And now, in the garden of Count Anteoni, which has passed into other
hands, a little boy may often be seen playing.
Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls
him to her, to the white wall from which she looks out over the desert.
"Listen, Boris," she whispers.
The little boy leans his face against her breast, and obeys.
An Arab is passing below on the desert track, singing to himself, as he
goes towards his home in the oasis, "No one but God and I knows what is
in my heart."
The mother whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night
blows over the vast spaces of the Sahara and touches her cheek,
reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the passion that came
to her soul like fire in the desert.
But she does not rebel, for always, when night falls, she sees the form
of a man praying, one who once fled from prayer in the desert; she sees
a wanderer who at last has reached his home.
* * * * *