IN THE VALLEY OF LILIES
Thanks to the untiring labor of Martha and her slow-moving servant Eli,
the house of her brother Lazarus of Bethany was set in order three days
before the expected arrival of Passover guests. Followed by Eli, who
was girt about with a long towel, Martha made a last survey of the
large and well furnished living-room, looking for a truant speck of
dust. She paused for a moment at a table containing writing materials
and bade the servant wipe it carefully and place it, with a case of
scrolls, at one end of the wide, latticed window-couch, for here on the
comfortable cushions Lazarus spent much time reading. She had just
turned from the window-seat to a watering jar of fresh palm leaves when
from the open way leading into the garden, two maidens entered.
"Martha," the first to enter said, laughing, "my guest Debora from
Capernaum hath already arrived and I have brought her to see Mary's
beds of lilies. Where is Mary? I saw her not in the garden," and she
glanced about the room.
When greetings had been exchanged, Martha bade the man-servant go into
the garden and look at the dial while she polished the already glossy
palms. To Anna she said, "Thou knowest Mary. Was ever there another
such Mary? Look you at these palms. Is it not enough that the garden
be full to overflowing with vines and herbs? Yet would Mary fill the
house with flowers of the wayside did I not struggle against it. Even
now is she wandering off to a valley of lilies she hath found by the
wady beyond Olivet, searching a strange lily for her beds. Ere the
threefold blast of the Temple Priests awoke Jerusalem, were her eyes
open. And look you at the sun mark on the dial, and yet Mary, dreamer
of gardens and lilies and sweet odors, hath not yet returned."
"Nay--call not Mary a dreamer," Anna protested, "for names that are
once given stick. Call they not my father 'Simon the Leper' for no
reason than that in his youth he had an issue of blood? And while the
world knows that his home could not be among the clean were he a leper
yet doth the name hang to him. To fasten on her the title of 'dreamer'
might lose Mary a good husband, for who wants a dreamer when the
sparrow pie is burning to the pot?"
"Such is Mary, yet would I not spoil her chance of a husband though it
be left for me to look after food and the pots and my stupid Eli. And
if such a chance as Zador Ben Amon should be hers--would not my heart
rejoice?"
"Hath he spoken to Lazarus for her hand?"
"Nay, nor hath he supped with us for many months, nor even sent a
message."
"Hath Mary's heart been heavy?"
"Nay, Mary hath not had time to grow heavy-hearted, for since the
winter gave place to spring hath she been in the garden searching a
warm spot for some chicken yet wet from the shell, or scratching the
sod from some struggling seed. This is Mary," and Martha laughed
good-naturedly as she finished rubbing the palms.
"Debora would see the garden," Anna said. "Such a lovely garden!"
"Yea," answered Martha, as they passed into the court, "yet doth Mary
have strange ideas, for on top of the old wall that she would let no
man tear down because of its vines which bind the stones together, she
hath grasses growing, such grasses as grow by the wayside to be eaten
of asses and goats. And when I asked Lazarus to have the wild green
pulled out by the roots, he said since they injure not the wall and
delight the heart of Mary by their playful wagging in the spring
breeze, they shall stay. So there is a fringe of green blades set
thick with blue blossoms on top of the old wall with vines, and of
these, as of the valley of lilies she hath found, doth Mary throw up
her hands and cry--'Beautiful!'"
Anna and Debora laughed as Martha acted the part of Mary and they
passed on toward the lily beds. Between the garden wall and the
winding roadway, grew a luxurious grove of date palms which gave to the
home of Lazarus its name. Inside the garden, pomegranates and grapes
and figs grew, with melons and lentils and aromatic plants, in addition
to Mary's garden of many colored lilies. In the center of the
courtyard near the house was a water pool in a stony basin, and from
the top of a pile of stones in the middle of the pool, water bubbled
and dropped over the aquatic plants that grew along its sides. On the
side of the pool nearest the house was the sun-dial. Close to the
stairs which went to the housetop from the outside, was an olive tree
of unusual size, the wide extended branches of which shaded a corner of
the house and its roof garden, for Mary had shade-loving plants here
also. Under this gnarled and ancient tree was a thick stone slab hewn
into a seat and here Martha and her guests sat down, after walking
through the garden, to talk of the Passover celebration just at hand,
of Martha's lover Joel, the silk merchant, and Zador Ben Amon's wealth.
As Martha had said, her sister had set forth in the sunrise for a yet
damp wady around the foot of Olivet, where, before the time of
blossoms, she had discovered beds of lilies. After an uninterrupted
walk of a mile or two, Mary paused on the brow of Olivet and stopping
to rest, turned her face to the east. Against the flood light of the
rising sun the far distant Mountains of Moab cast dim blue sky-lines.
Emerging from the many-hued green hills that rose in the foreground,
like a twisted thread, stretched the Jericho road which led past the
garden wall of Lazarus' home in Bethany. Even at this early hour
pilgrims on foot and on donkeys were journeying toward the scene of the
great Passover.
From the east Mary turned her face to the west. Often had she seen
Jerusalem before, yet now she gave an exclamation of joy as the
ascending sunlight fell in floods of golden glory over the snowy towers
and gold minarets of the City of David, secure on its summit of rugged
fastness. "Who has not seen Zion knows not what beauty is!" she
exclaimed. "Zion--fairest throughout the earth!" The veil which she
had loosely bound about her head had fallen from her shoulders and the
morning breeze touching her soft dark hair was moving it gently around
her face while unseen fingers stirred the hem of her woolen skirt above
her dew wet sandals. The altar smoke of the morning offering was
ascending from the Temple of snow and gold, casting delicate and ever
changing spirals of gray and black against the rosy sky, and now and
then the silver glint of a dove's wing caught the eye as it circled
over one of the shining domes. Filled with racial pride as well as
with artistic admiration, Mary looked to the west, hidden, except its
sky, by the battlements of Jerusalem. But she knew that at the West
Gates the great highway to Joppa and the sea entered the city and
although no glimpse of it could be seen, she knew that the long and
dusty miles would soon resound to the call of the driver, as caravans
of wares for the Passover sale came through the gates.
After a last long look at the shining Temple, Mary turned to the south.
As she did so the exquisite fragrance of grape blossoms came to her on
the changing breeze and she laughed with joy as her eager eyes took in
the panorama, of vineyards here and there with their gray watch towers
set in nature's most delicate filigree of green; of billowing fields of
grain; of groves of olives turning color from green to gray and white
as moved by the breeze, and back of it all the mountains of Judea,
their rugged outlines softened by the rose and purple mist of the
morning. In this direction the road leaving Jerusalem went into the
south as far as Hebron.
Before pursuing her way she turned to see what signs of life appeared
on the great Damascus road which led to the north through Samaria and
Galilee. Here, as far as the eye could reach, glimpses of companies
which seemed but slowly-moving specks in the distance, drew nearer the
Holy City to worship or to profit. At the foot of a near-by hill a
flock of goats, with herdsmen keeping close watch, were browsing among
the prickly pears, feeding their last before being driven into the
Temple stalls as sacrificial beasts. On another road a company of
Arabs was putting up its mean and ragged tents and just beyond some
Galilean peasants were building booths. Turning from the brow of the
olive-green Mount, Mary made her way down a dim trail toward the valley
of lilies she had discovered. Around her feet the gently sloping
hillside was a mass of flowers, blood red anemones, spotted tulips and
blue star blossoms. In the winter, with the bare gray stones scattered
about in confusion, this place was dreary as poverty itself. But now
the wealth of beauty that lay over it suggested the joy of the Passover
to the whole world.
It was while picking golden narcissus in her lily valley, Mary's heart
was gladdened by the sudden outburst of a nightingale in a thicket
close at hand. Careful watching was rewarded by a sight, not only of
the singer but of a nest with three little ones in it. While she yet
peeped at the nestlings, a man appeared with an ax. He was looking for
boughs with which to thatch his booth and his eye was on the
nightingale's home. Taking the nest from its hiding-place Mary tucked
it under her veil, wrapped her lily stems in wet leaves and started
away. A moment later a stroke of the ax felled the bush that had
housed the birds. Looking back Mary saw the mother bird fluttering
wildly about over the cast-off pile of leaves. "Knowing not her little
ones are safe she suffers pain," she said to herself.
She had not gone far along the roadway when she came upon the tent of a
Bedouin. A woman holding an infant on one arm had just stepped out.
She looked about anxiously until her eye caught sight of a goat grazing
at no great distance. By its broken tether the goat had made its
escape. The milk and cheese of the family depended on the goat. In no
spoken word could Mary converse with the woman, but she understood, and
holding out her arms for the child, pointed toward the goat. The
swarthy woman nodded, placed the little brown baby in the arms of the
unknown friend, and hurried after the goat.
Sitting on a flat stone behind the tent, Mary, who had for the moment
removed from her bosom the veil in which she had wrapped the nestlings
and was quieting their calls for their mother by fitting her warm palm
close over them, was suddenly startled by what seemed to be an infinite
throb, a passion unspeakable and mysterious. She did not know that the
mouth of a sucking child is a vortex in which the interplay of
universal forces starts into vibration a thousand generations of
instinctive motherhood. Nor did the little brown baby know aught of
this. Moved by the first impulse of Nature which makes every mother a
universal mother, the instinct of self-preservation had turned the face
of the child to the breast of Mary. Looking about with a glance of
apprehension lest she should be discovered in some unworthy act, she
hastily moved the infant from her arm and the nestlings from her veil
which she gathered over her shoulders and bosom. The birds she tied in
a loose end of the veil and hid in the front of her garment. Meantime
the baby was crying lustily and making feeble and aimless motions of
protest or desire with its tiny brown fingers. Mary was trying to
quiet it by walking when the Bedouin woman returned with the goat.
The sun was shining high and the roads were peopled with pilgrims as
she made her way back to Bethany with her nestlings and narcissus. But
the way did not seem long, for out of her visit to the valley of lilies
had come a new mystery for her mind to dwell upon--the eternal mystery
of motherhood awakening. "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
shall come wisdom." The words of one of the Rabbis kept coming to her.
But what was the wisdom? Her only impression at the time was the
strange suggestion that because both nestlings and Bedouin babe had
mistaken her for their mother, they must be brothers. When Mary
reached home she found Martha and her guests in a state of pleased
excitement. News had just been brought by Lazarus that Zador Ben Amon
had arrived in Jerusalem after a long journey in far lands, and would
sup with them the day following. Especially had he sent his respects
to Mary.
"Thou canst feed him, and Lazarus entertain him with his merry
speech-making," Mary observed quietly as she took the nestlings from
her veil.
"And what wilt thou do for thy distinguished guest?" Anna asked of Mary.
"I will watch with great care these little nightingales so that they
may live in the thicket by the spring just over the garden wall. And
next year when Zador Ben Amon doth pass with his camel train from
Damascus will their sweet song welcome him home."
"No greater guest doth come to the Passover than Zador Ben Amon--and he
hath an interest in thee, Mary."
"Yea--a greater than he hath come to the Passover," said Anna. "From
Rome hath Pilate come, so sayeth my father, and with a retinue of
servants that doth make Herod green with envy. And speech hath it that
the wife of Pilate doth dazzle the eye with such gorgeous apparel as is
seen only in the Roman circus."
"Glad is my heart," said Martha, "that Herod be undone in the glory of
display for apeth he not the Romans? Herod is great when there is none
greater, but ever doth Rome send the greatest."
"Nay, not Rome sends the greatest to the Passover." It was Debora who
spoke. "From Capernaum cometh he."
"Capernaum of Galilee?" Martha exclaimed. "The home of fishermen?"
"Yea, verily. From Galilee doth a prophet come the like of which hath
not been seen since Elias was taken in a chariot of fire and whirlwind."
"Thou dost speak strange words," Mary observed. "Who is this prophet?"
"He is called Jesus of Nazareth, for there did he live before his home
was at Capernaum."
"Nazareth," Anna repeated with curling lip. "Nazareth is a town of
beggars and thieves, so sayeth my father. Can any good thing come out
of Nazareth? My father hath mentioned the name of Jesus--was he at the
Passover feast last year?"
"Yea, and the Feast of Tabernacles," Debora answered.
"Jesus of Nazareth," Martha repeated, putting her hand to her forehead.
"Methinks Lazarus did mention the name when Joseph of Arimathea was our
guest. Dost thou remember, Mary?"
"The name? Yea, I remember. But what of it? None said he was a
prophet."
"Listen," Debora said, leaning eagerly forward and half whispering:
"Knowest thou not that Israel hath long been dispersed and scattered
like sheep without a shepherd? Knowest thou not that the cohorts of
Rome guard the Sacred Temple and profane the Sanctuary of the Most
High? Knowest thou not the heart of Israel hath long waited for the
king who shall restore again the throne of David? And knowest thou not
that the time is at hand for the coming of the promised one? Aye, even
so hath he already come, and his name is Jesus."
"By what sign is he the Messiah?" Mary asked.
"By the sign of a prophet, and the greatest of all prophets is he.
Once was I at the home of Peter when his wife's mother lay sick of a
fever. Her skin was hot as if her couch were in a bake oven; her eyes
did shine and vain was her babbling. Then came the Prophet of Galilee.
On her head where the heat raged he placed his hand. Close and firm he
held it as if he were holding down a struggling world. And lo! The
struggling world grew quiet. The vain babbling of the parched lips
ceased. Then did he speak. Aye--Mary, Martha, Anna--to hear his
voice--deep like unsounded depths, mellow like the music of the viol
and restful as when small waves play upon smooth shores. Twice did he
speak. There was stillness. His eyes were fastened kindly on the face
of her who lay beneath his touch. Then did she open her eyes. Her
lips did part in a smile. She arose and by the open casement did stand
to breathe deep of the cool air. And those who had gathered in the
street to set up the death-wail, did cry, 'A miracle! A miracle!'"
"But it is not a miracle to heal those who are not dead. Do not the
Rabbis heal the sick?" Mary asked.
"And the prophets are all dead," Martha added.
"Wait and see," was Debora's answer.