The Book of Khalid, Ameen Fares Rihani [top romance novels .TXT] 📗

“I’m not starving for pleasure,” Khalid once said to Shakib; “nor for the light free love of an exquisite caprice. Those little flowers that bloom and wither in the blush of dawn are for the little butterflies. The love that endures, give me that. And it must be of the deepest divine strain,––as deep and divine as maternal love. Man is of Eternity, not of Time; and love, the highest attribute of man, must be likewise. With me it must endure throughout all worlds and immensities; else I would not raise a finger for it. Pleasure, Shakib, is for the child within us; sexual joy, for the animal; love, for the god. That is why I say when you set your seal to the contract, be sure it is of the kind which all the gods of all the future worlds will raise to their lips in reverence.”

But Khalid’s child-spirit, not to say childishness, is not, as he would have us believe, a thing of the past. Nor are the animal and the god within him always agreed as to what is and what is not a love divine and eternal. In New York, to be sure, he often brushed his wings against those flowerets that “bloom and wither in the blush of dawn.” And he was not a little pleased to find that the dust which gathers on 299 the wings adds a charm to the colouring of life. But how false and trivial it was, after all. The gold dust and the dust of the road, could they withstand a drop of rain? A love dust-deep, as it were, close to the earth; too mean and pitiful to be carried by the storm over terrible abysses to glorious heights. A love, in a word, without pain, that is to say impure. In Baalbek, on the other hand, he drank deep of the pain, but not of the joy, of love. He and his cousin Najma had just lit in the shrine of Venus the candles of the altar of the Virgin, when a villainous hand that of Jesuitry, issuing from the darkness, clapped over them the snuffer and carried his Happiness off. Here was a love divine, the promised bliss of which was snatched away from him.

And now in Damascus, he feels, for the first time, the exquisite pain and joy of a love which he can not yet fathom; a love, which like the storm, is carrying him over terrible abysses to unknown heights. The bitter sting of a Nay he never felt so keenly before. The sleep-stifling torture and joy of suspense he did not fully experience until now. But if he can not sleep, he will work. He has but a few days to prepare his address. He can not be too careful of what he says, and how he says it. To speak at the great Mosque of Omaiyah is a great privilege. A word uttered there will reach the furthermost parts of the Mohammedan world. Moreover, all the ulema and all the heavy-turbaned fanatics will be there.

But he can not even work. On the table before him is a pile of newspapers from all parts of Syria 300 and Egypt––even from India––and all simmering, as it were, with Khalid’s name, and Khalidism, and Khalid scandals. He is hailed by some, assailed by others; glorified and vilified in tawdry rhyme and ponderous prose by Christians and Mohammedans alike. “Our new Muhdi,” wrote an Egyptian wit (one of those pallid prosers we once met in the hasheesh dens, no doubt), “our new Muhdi has added to his hareem an American beauty with an Oriental leg.”

What he meant by this only the hasheesh smokers know. “An instrument in the hands of some American speculators, who would build sky-scrapers on the ruins of our mosques,” wrote another. “A lever with which England is undermining Al-Islam,” cried a voice in India. “A base one in the service of some European coalition, who, under the pretext of preaching the spiritualities, is undoing the work of the Revolution. The gibbet is for ordinary traitors; for him the stake,” etc., etc.

On the other hand, he is hailed as the expected one,––the true leader, the real emancipator,––“who has in him the soul of the East and the mind of the West, the builder of a great Asiatic Empire.” Of course, the foolish Damascene editor who wrote this had to flee the country the following day. But Khalid’s eyes lingered on that line. He read it and reread it over and over again––forward and backward, too. He juggled, so to speak, with its words.

How often people put us, though unwittingly, on the path we are seeking, he thought. How often 301 does a chance word uttered by a stranger reveal to us our deepest aims and purposes.

Before him was ink and paper. He took up the pen. But after scrawling and scribbling for ten minutes, the sheet was filled with circles and arabesques, and the one single word Dowla (Empire).

He could not think: he could only dream. The soul of the East––The mind of the West––the builder of a great Empire. The triumph of the Idea, the realisation of a great dream: the rise of a great race who has fallen on evil days; the renaissance of Arabia; the reclaiming of her land; the resuscitation of her glory;––and why not? especially if backed with American millions and the love of a great woman. He is enraptured. He can neither sleep nor think: he can but dream. He puts on his jubbah, refills his cigarette box, and walks out of his room. He paces up and down the hall, crowning his dream with wreaths of smoke. But the dim lights seemed to be ogling each other and smiling, as he passed. The clocks seemed to be casting pebbles at him. The silence horrified him. He pauses before a door. He knocks––knocks again.

The occupant of that room was not yet asleep. In fact, she, too, could not sleep. The clock in the hall outside had just struck one, and she was yet reading. After inquiring who it was that knocked, she puts on a kimono and opens the door. She is surprised.

“Anything the matter with you?”

“No; but I can not sleep.”

“That is amusing. And do you take me for a 302 soporific? If you think you can sleep here, stretch yourself on the couch and try.” Saying which, she laughed and hurried back to her bed.

“I did not come to sleep.”

“What then? How lovely of you to wake me up so early.––No, no; don’t apologise. For truly, I too, could not sleep. You see, I was still reading. Sit on the couch there and talk to me.––Of course, you may smoke.––No, I prefer to sit in bed.”

Khalid lights another cigarette and sits down. On the table before him are some antique colour prints which Mrs. Gotfry had bought in the Bazaar. These one can only get in Damascus. And––strange coincidence!––they represented some of the heroes of Arabia––Antar, Ali, Saladin, Harûn ar-Rashid––done in gorgeous colouring, and in that deliciously ludicrous angular style which is neither Arabic nor Egyptian, but a combination perhaps of both. Khalid reads the poetry under each of them and translates it into English. Mrs. Gotfry is charmed. Khalid is lost in thought. He lays the picture of Saladin on the table, lights another cigarette, looks intently upon his friend, his face beaming with his dream.

“Jamilah.” It was the first time he called her by her first name––an Arabic name which, as a Bahaist she had adopted. And she was neither surprised nor displeased.

“We need another Saladin to-day,––a Saladin of the Idea, who will wage a crusade, not against Christianity or Mohammedanism, but against those Tataric usurpers who are now toadying to both.” 303

“Whom do you mean?”

“I mean the Turks. They were given a last chance to rise; they tried and failed. They can not rise. They are demoralised; they have no stamina, no character; no inborn love for truth and art; no instinctive or acquired sense of right and justice. Whiskey and debauch and high-sounding inanities about fraternity and equality can not regenerate an Empire. The Turk must go: he will go. But out in those deserts is a race which is always young, a race that never withers; a strong, healthy, keen-eyed, quick-witted race; a fighting, fanatical race; a race that gave Europe a civilisation, that gave the world a religion; a race with a past as glorious as Rome’s; and with a future, too, if we had an Ali or