A loose robe of light material from Kashmir thrown around him, Isaacs
half sat, half lay, on the soft dark cushions in the corner of his outer
room. His feet were slipperless, Eastern fashion, and his head covered
with an embroidered cap of curious make. By the yellow light of the
hanging lamps he was reading an Arabic book, and his face wore a puzzled
look that sat strangely on the bold features. As I entered the book fell
back on the cushion, sinking deep into the down by its weight, and one
of the heavy gold clasps clanged sharply as it turned. He looked up, but
did not rise, and greeted me, smiling, with the Arabic salutation--
"Peace be with you!"
"And with you, peace," I answered in the same tongue. He smiled again at
my unfamiliar pronunciation. I established myself on the divan near him,
and inquired whether he had arrived at any satisfactory solution of his
domestic difficulties.
"My father," he said, "upon whom be peace, had but one wife, my mother.
You know Mussulmans are allowed four lawful wives. Here is the passage
in the beginning of the fourth chapter, 'If ye fear that ye shall not
act with equity towards orphans of the female sex, take in marriage of
such other women as please you, two, or three, or four, and not more.
But, if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably towards so many, marry one
only, or the slaves which ye shall have acquired.'
"The first part of this passage," continued Isaacs, "is disputed; I mean
the words referring to orphans. But the latter portion is plain enough.
When the apostle warns those who fear they 'cannot act equitably towards
so many,' I am sure that in his wisdom he meant something more by
'equitable' treatment than the mere supplying of bodily wants. He meant
us to so order our households that there should be no jealousies, no
heart-burnings, no unnecessary troubling of the peace. Now woman is a
thing of the devil, jealous; and to manage a number of such creatures so
that they shall be even passably harmonious among themselves is a
fearful task, soul-wearying, heart-hardening, never-ending, leading to
no result."
"Just what I told you; a man is better with no wife at all than with
three. But why do you talk about such matters with me, an unbeliever, a
Christian, who, in the words of your prophet, 'shall swallow down
nothing but fire into my belly, and shall broil in raging flames' when I
die? Surely it is contrary to the custom of your co-religionists; and
how can you expect an infidel Frank to give you advice?"
"I don't," laconically replied my host.
"Besides, with your views of women in general, their vocation, their
aims, and their future state, is it at all likely that we should ever
arrive at even a fair discussion of marriage and marriage laws? With us,
women have souls, and, what is a great deal more, seem likely to have
votes. They certainly have the respectful and courteous service of a
large proportion of the male sex. You call a woman a thing of the devil;
we call her an angel from heaven; and though some eccentric persons like
myself refuse to ally themselves for life with any woman, I confess, as
far as I am concerned, that it is because I cannot contemplate the
constant society of an angel with the degree of appreciation such a
privilege justly deserves; and I suspect that most confirmed bachelors,
knowingly or unconsciously, think as I do. The Buddhists are not
singular in their theory that permanent happiness should be the object."
"They say," said Isaacs, quickly interrupting, "that the aim of the
ignorant is pleasure; the pursuit of the wise, happiness. Pray, under
which category would you class marriage? I suppose it comes under one or
the other."
"I cannot say I see the force of that. Look at your own case, since you
have introduced it."
"Never mind my own case. I mean with your ideas of one wife, and
heavenly woman, and voting, and domestic joy, and all the rest of it.
Take the ideal creature you rave about--"
"I never rave about anything."
"Take the fascinating female you describe, and for the sake of argument
imagine yourself very poor or very rich, since you would not enter
wedlock in your present circumstances. Suppose you married your object
of 'courteous service and respectful adoration;' which should you say
you would attain thereby, pleasure or happiness?"
"Pleasure is but the refreshment that cheers us in the pursuit of true
happiness," I answered, hoping to evade the direct question by a
sententious phrase.
"I will not let you off so easily. You shall answer my question," he
said. He looked full at me with a deep searching gaze that seemed hardly
warranted by the lightness of the argument. I hesitated, and he
impatiently leaned forward, uncrossing his legs and clasping his hands
over one knee to bring himself nearer to me.
"Pleasure or happiness?" he repeated, "which is it to be?"
A sudden light flashed over my obscured intellect.
"Both," I answered. "Could you see the ideal woman as I would fain paint
her to you, you would understand me better. The pleasure you enjoy in
the society of a noble and beautiful woman should be but the refreshment
by the wayside as you journey through life together. The day will come
when she will be beautiful no longer, only noble and good, and true to
you as to herself; and then, if pleasure has been to you what it should
be, you will find that in the happiness attained it is no longer
counted, or needed, or thought of. It will have served its end, as the
crib holds the ship in her place while she is building; and when your
white-winged vessel has smoothly glided off into the great ocean of
happiness, the crib and the stocks and the artificial supports will fall
to pieces and be forgotten for ever. Yet have they had a purpose, and
have borne a very important part in the life of your ship."
Having heard me attentively till I had finished, Isaacs relaxed his hold
on his knee and threw himself back on the cushions, as if to entrench
himself for a better fight. I had made an impression on him, but he was
not the man to own it easily. Presumably to gain time, he called for
hookahs and sherbet, and though the servants moved noiselessly in
preparing them, their presence was an interruption.
When we were settled again he had taken a nearly upright position on the
couch, and as he pulled at the long tube his face assumed that stolid
look of Oriental indifference which is the most discouraging shower-bath
to the persuasive powers. I had really no interest in converting him to
my own point of view about women. Honestly, was it my own point of view
at all? Would anything under heaven induce me, Paul Griggs, rich, or
poor, or comfortably off, to marry any one--Miss Westonhaugh, for
instance? Probably not. But then my preference for single blessedness
did not prevent me from believing that women have souls. That morning
the question of the marriage of the whole universe had been a matter of
the utmost indifference, and now I, a confirmed and hopelessly contented
bachelor, was trying to convince a man with three wives that matrimony
was a most excellent thing in its way, and that the pleasure of the
honeymoon was but the faint introduction to the bliss of the silver
wedding. It certainly must be Isaacs' own doing. He had launched on a
voyage of discovery and had taken me in tow. I had a strong suspicion
that he wanted to be convinced, and was playing indifference to soothe
his conscience.
"Well," said I at last, "have you any fault to find with my reasoning or
my simile?"
"With your simile--none. It is faultlessly perfect. You have not mixed
up your metaphors in the least. Crib, stocks, ocean, ship--all correct,
and very nautical. As for your reasoning, I do not believe there is
anything in it. I do not believe that pleasure leads to happiness; I do
not believe that a woman has a soul, and I deny the whole argument from
beginning to end. There," he added with a smile that belied the
brusqueness of his words, "that is my position. Talk me out of it if you
can; the night is long, and my patience as that of the ass."
"I do not think this is a case for rigid application of logic. When the
feelings are concerned--and where can they be more concerned than in our
intercourse with women?--the only way to arrive at any conclusion is by
a sort of trying-on process, imagining ourselves in the position
indicated, and striving to fancy how it would suit us. Let us begin in
that way. Suppose yourself unmarried, your three wives and their
children removed--"
"Allah in his mercy grant it!" ejaculated Isaacs with great fervour.
"--removed from the question altogether. Then imagine yourself thrown
into daily conversation with some beautiful woman who has read what you
have read, thought what you have thought, and dreamed the dreams of a
nobler destiny that have visited you in waking and sleeping hours. A
woman who, as she learned your strange story, should weep for the pains
you suffered and rejoice for the difficulties overcome, who should
understand your half spoken thoughts and proudly sympathise in your
unuttered aspirations; in whom you might see the twin nature to your
own, and detect the strong spirit and the brave soul, half revealed
through the feminine gentleness and modesty that clothe her as with a
garment. Imagine all this, and then suppose it lay in your power, was a
question of choice, for you to take her hand in yours and go through
life and death together, till death seem life for the joy of being
united for ever. Suppose you married her--not to lock her up in an
indolent atmosphere of rosewater, narghyles, and sweetmeats, to die of
inanition or to pester you to death with complaints and jealousies and
inopportune caresses; but to be with you and help your life when you
most need help, by word and thought and deed, to grow more and more a
part of you, an essential element of you in action or repose, to part
from which would be to destroy at a blow the whole fabric of your
existence. Would you not say that with such a woman the transitory
pleasure of early conversation and intercourse had been the
stepping-stone to the lasting happiness of such a friendship as you
could never hope for in your old age among your sex? Would not her
faithful love and abounding sympathy be dearer to you every day, though
the roses in her cheek should fade and the bright hair whiten with the
dust of life's journey? Would you not feel that when you died your
dearest wish must be to join her where there should be no parting--her
from whom there could be no parting here, short of death itself? Would
you not believe she had a soul?"
"There is no end of your 'supposing,' but it is quite pretty. I am half
inclined to 'suppose' too." He took a sip of sherbet from the tall
crystal goblet the servant had placed on a little three-legged stool
beside him, and as he drank the cool liquid slowly, looked over the
glass into my eyes, with a curious, half earnest, half smiling glance; I
could not tell whether my enthusiastic picture of conjugal bliss amused
him or attracted him, so I waited for him to speak again.
"Now that you have had your cruise in your ship of happiness on the
waters of your cerulean imagination, permit me, who am land-born and a
lover of the chase, to put my steed at a few fences in the difficult
country of unadorned facts over which I propose to hunt the wily fox,
matrimony. I have never hunted a fox, but I can quite well imagine what
it is like.
"In the first place, it is all very well to suppose that it had pleased
Allah in his goodness to relieve me of my three incumbrances--meanwhile,
there they are, and they are very real difficulties I assure you.
Nevertheless are there means provided us by the foresight of the
apostle, by which we may ease ourselves of domestic burdens when they
are too heavy for us to bear. It would be quite within the bounds of
possibility for me to divorce them all three, without making any special
scandal. But if I did this thing, do you not think that my experience of
married life has given me the most ineradicable prejudices against women
as daily companions? Am I not persuaded that they all bicker and chatter
and nibble sweetmeats alike--absolutely alike? Or if I looked abroad--"
"Stop," I said, "I am not reasoner enough to persuade you that all women
have souls. Very likely in Persia and India they have not. I only want
you to believe that there may be women so fortunate as to possess a
modicum of immortality. Well, pardon my interruption, 'if you looked
abroad,' as you were saying?--"
"If I looked abroad, I should probably discover little petty traits of
the same class, if not exactly identical. I know little of Englishmen,
and might be the more readily deceived. Supposing, if you will, that,
after freeing myself from all my present ties, in order to start afresh,
I were to find myself attracted by some English girl here"--there must
have been something wrong with the mouthpiece of his pipe, for he
examined it very attentively-- "attracted," he continued, "by some one,
for instance, by Miss Westonhaugh--" he stopped short.
So my inspiration was right. My little picture, framed as we rode
homeward, and indignantly scoffed at by my calmer reason, had visited
his brain too. He had looked on the fair northern woman and fancied
himself at her side, her lover, her husband. All this conversation and
argument had been only a set plan to give himself the pleasure of
contemplating and discussing such a union, without exciting surprise or
comment. I had been suspecting it for some time, and now his sudden
interest in his mouthpiece, to conceal a very real embarrassment, put
the matter beyond all doubt.
He was probably in love, my acquaintance of two days. He saw in me a
plain person, who could not possibly be a rival, having some knowledge
of the world, and he was in need of a confidant, like a school-girl. I
reflected that he was probably a victim for the first time. There is
very little romance in India, and he had, of course, married for
convenience and respectability rather than for any real affection. His
first passion! This man who had been tossed about like a bit of
driftwood, who had by his own determination and intelligence carved his
way to wealth and power in the teeth of every difficulty. Just now, in
his embarrassment, he looked very boyish. His troubles had left no
wrinkles on his smooth forehead, his bright black hair was untinged by a
single thread of gray, and as he looked up, after the pause that
followed when he mentioned the name of the woman he loved, there was a
very really youthful look of mingled passion and distress in his
beautiful eyes.
"I think, Mr. Isaacs, that you have used a stronger argument against the
opinions you profess to hold than I could have found in my whole armoury
of logic."
As he looked at me, the whole field of possibilities seemed opened. I
must have been mistaken in thinking this marriage impossible and
incongruous. What incongruity could there be in Isaacs marrying Miss
Westonhaugh? My conclusions were false. Why must he necessarily return
with her to England, and wear a red coat, and make himself ridiculous at
the borough elections? Why should not this ideal couple choose some
happy spot, as far from the corrosive influence of Anglo-Saxon prejudice
as from the wretched sensualism of prosperous life east of the
Mediterranean? I was carried away by the idea, returning with redoubled
strength as a sequel to what I had argued and to what I had guessed.
"Why not?" was the question I repeated to myself over and over again in
the half minute's pause after Isaacs finished speaking.
"You are right," he said slowly, his half-closed eyes fixed on his feet.
"Yes, you are right. Why not? Indeed, indeed, why not?"
It must have been pure guess-work, this reading of my thoughts. When he
was last speaking his manner was all indifference, scorn of my ideas,
and defiance of every western mode of reasoning. And now, apparently by
pure intuition, he gave a direct answer to the direct question I had
mentally asked, and, what is more, his answer came with a quiet,
far-away tone of conviction that had not a shade of unbelief in it. It
was delivered as monotonously and naturally as a Christian says "Credo
in unum Deum," as if it were not worth disputing; or as the devout
Mussulman says "La Illah illallah," not stooping to consider the
existence of any one bold enough to deny the dogma. No argument, not
hours of patient reasoning, or weeks of well directed persuasion, could
have wrought the change in the man's tone that came over it at the mere
mention of the woman he loved. I had no share in his conversion. My
arguments had been the excuse by which he had converted himself. Was he
converted? was it real?
"Yes--I think I am," he replied in the same mechanical monotonous
accent.
I shook myself, drank some sherbet, and kicked off one shoe impatiently.
Was I dreaming? or had I been speaking aloud, really putting the
questions he answered so quickly and appositively? Pshaw! a coincidence.
I called the servant and ordered my hookah to be refilled. Isaacs sat
still, immovable, lost in thought, looking at his toes; an expression,
almost stupid in its vacancy, was on his face, and the smoke curled
slowly up in lazy wreaths from his neglected narghyle.
"You are converted then at last?" I said aloud. No answer followed my
question; I watched him attentively.
"Mr. Isaacs!" still silence, was it possible that he had fallen asleep?
his eyes were open, but I thought he was very pale. His upright
position, however, belied any symptoms of unconsciousness.
"Isaacs! Abdul Hafiz! what is the matter!" He did not move. I rose to my
feet and knelt beside him where he sat rigid, immovable, like a statue.
Kiramat Ali, who had been watching, clapped his hands wildly and cried,
"Wah! wah! Sahib margyâ!"--"The lord is dead." I motioned him away with
a gesture and he held his peace, cowering in the corner, his eyes fixed
on us. Then I bent low as I knelt and looked under my friend's brows,
into his eyes. It was clear he did not see me, though he was looking
straight at his feet. I felt for his pulse. It was very low, almost
imperceptible, and certainly below forty beats to the minute. I took his
right arm and tried to put it on my shoulder. It was perfectly rigid.
There was no doubt about it--the man was in a cataleptic trance. I felt
for the pulse again; it was lost.
I was no stranger to this curious phenomenon, where the mind is
perfectly awake, but every bodily faculty is lulled to sleep beyond
possible excitation, unless the right means be employed. I went out and
breathed the cool night air, bidding the servants be quiet, as the sahib
was asleep. When sufficiently refreshed I re-entered the room, cast off
my slippers, and stood a moment by my friend, who was as rigid as ever.
Nature, in her bountiful wisdom, has compensated me for a singular
absence of beauty by endowing me with great strength, and with one of
those exceptional constitutions which seem constantly charged with
electricity. Without being what is called a mesmerist, I am possessed of
considerable magnetic power, which I have endeavoured to develop as far
as possible. In many a long conversation with old Manu Lal, my Brahmin
instructor in languages and philosophy while in the plains, we had
discussed the trance state in all its bearings. This old pundit was
himself a distinguished mesmerist, and though generally unwilling to
talk about what is termed occultism, on finding in me a man naturally
endowed with the physical characteristics necessary to those pursuits,
he had given me several valuable hints as to the application of my
powers. Here was a worthy opportunity.
I rubbed my feet on the soft carpet, and summoning all my strength,
began to make the prescribed passes over my friend's head and body. Very
gradually the look of life returned to his face, the generous blood
welled up under the clear olive skin, the lips parted, and he sighed
softly. Animation, as always happens in such cases, began at the precise
point at which it had been suspended, and his first movement was to
continue his examination of the mouthpiece in his hand. Then he looked
up suddenly, and seeing me standing over him, gave a little shake, half
turning his shoulders forward and back, and speaking once more in his
natural voice, said--
"I must have been asleep! Have I? What has happened? Why are you
standing there looking at me in that way?" Then, after a short
interrogatory silence, his face changed and a look of annoyance shaded
his features as he added in a low tone, "Oh! I see. It has happened to
me once before. Sit down. I am all right now." He sipped a little
sherbet and leaned back in his old position. I begged him to go to bed,
and prepared to withdraw, but he would not let me, and he seemed so
anxious that I should stay, that I resumed my place. The whole incident
had passed in ten minutes.
"Stay with me a little longer," he repeated. "I need your company,
perhaps your advice. I have had a vision, and you must hear about it."
"I thought as I sat here that my spirit left my body and passed out
through the night air and hovered over Simla. I could see into every
bungalow, and was conscious of what passed in each, but there was only
one where my gaze rested, for I saw upon a couch in a spacious chamber
the sleeping form of one I knew. The masses of fair hair were heaped as
they fell upon the pillow, as if she had lain down weary of bearing the
burden of such wealth of gold. The long dark lashes threw little shadows
on her cheeks, and the parted lips seemed to smile at the sweetness of
the gently heaving breath that fanned them as it came and went. And
while I looked, the breath of her body became condensed, as it were, and
took shape and form and colour, so that the image of herself floated up
between her body and my watching spirit. Nearer and nearer to me came
the exquisite vision of beauty, till we were face to face, my soul and
hers, high up in the night. And there came from her eyes, as the long
lids lifted, a look of perfect trust, and of love, and of infinite joy.
Then she turned her face southward and pointed to my life star burning
bright among his lesser fellows; and with a long sweet glance that bid
me follow where she led, her maiden soul floated away, half lingering at
first, as I watched her; then, with dizzy speed, vanishing in the
firmament as a falling star, and leaving no trace behind, save an
infinitely sad regret, and a longing to enter with her into that
boundless empire of peace. But I could not, for my spirit was called
back to this body. And I bless Allah that he has given me to see her
once so, and to know that she has a soul, even as I have, for I have
looked upon her spirit and I know it."
Isaacs rose slowly to his feet and moved towards the open door. I
followed him, and for a few moments we stood looking out at the scene
below us. It was near midnight, and the ever-decreasing moon was
dragging herself up, as if ashamed of her waning beauty and tearful
look.
"Griggs," said my friend, dropping the formal prefix for the first time,
"all this is very strange. I believe I am in love!"
"I have not a doubt of it," I replied. "Peace be with you!"
"And with you peace."
So we parted.
* * * * *