Khaled, F. Marion Crawford [pdf ebook reader txt] 📗

could you have done this thing unseen, since he was guarded by many attendants?”

“I took him out of the palace in the night, when all were asleep, and then I killed him,” said Khaled, and Zehowah could get no other answer, for he would not confess that he had been one of the genii, lest she should not believe the truth, or else, believing, should be afraid of him in the future.

“I will give you his bones,” he said, “if you desire them, for I know where they are, and you certainly loved him, and are still mourning for him. If he could be alive, I would kill him again.”

“I never loved him,” Zehowah answered, at last. “How was it possible? But I would perhaps have married him, hoping to convert all his people to the true faith.”

“As you have married me in the hope, or the assurance, of giving your people a just king.”

“You are angry, Khaled. And, indeed, I could be angry, too, but with myself and not with you, as you are with me, though it be for the same reason. For I begin to see and understand why you are discontented, and indeed I will do what I can to satisfy you.”

“You must love me, as I love you, if you would save me from destruction,” said Khaled.

Though Zehowah could not comprehend the meaning of the words, she saw by his face that he was terribly moved, and she herself began to be more sorry for him.

“Indeed, Khaled,” she said, “I will try to love you from this hour. But it is a hard thing, because you cannot explain it, and it is not easy to learn what cannot be explained. Do you think that all women love their husbands in this way you mean? Am I unlike all the rest?”

Khaled took her hand and held it, and looked into her eyes.

“Love is the first mystery of the world,” he said. “Death is the second. Between the two there is nothing but a weariness darkened with shadows and thick with mists. What is gold? A cinder that glows in the darkness for a moment and falls away to a cold ash in our hand when we have taken it. But love is a treasure which remains. What is renown? A cry uttered in the bazaar by men whose minds are subject to change as their bodies are to death. But the voice of love is heard in paradise, singing beside the fountains Tasnim and Salsahil. What is power? A net with which to draw wealth and fame from the waters of life? To what end? We must die. Or is power a sword to kill our enemies? If their time is come they will die without the sword. Or is it a stick to purify the hides of fools? The fool will die also, like his master, and both will be forgotten. But they who love shall enter the seventh heaven together, according to the promise of Allah. Death is stronger than man or woman, but love is stronger than death, and all else is but a vision seen in the desert, having no reality.”

“I will try to understand it, for I see that you are very unhappy,” said Zehowah.

She was silent after this, for Khaled’s words were earnest and sank into her soul. Yet the more she tried to imagine what the passion in him could be like, the less she was able to understand it, for some of Khaled’s actions had been foolish, but she supposed that there must have been some wisdom in them, having its foundation in the nature of love.

“What he says is true,” she thought. “I married him in order to give my people a just and brave king, and he is both brave and just. And I am certainly a good wife, for I should be dissolved in shame if another man were to see my face, and moreover I am careful of his wants, and I take his kefiyeh from his head with my own hands, and smooth the cushions for him and bring him food and drink when he desires it. Or have I withheld from him any of the treasures of the palace, or stood in the way of his taking another wife? Until today, I thought indeed that this talk of love meant but little, and that he spoke of it because he desired an excuse for marrying Almasta who loves him. But when I said at a venture that he wished to make me jealous, he confessed the truth. Now all the tales of love told by the old women are of young persons who have seen each other from a distance, but are hindered from marrying. And we are already married. Surely, it is very hard to understand.”

After this Khaled never called Almasta to sit at his feet and sing to him, as he had done before, and Zehowah was constantly with him in her stead. At first Almasta supposed that Khaled only made a pretence of disregarding her, out of respect for his wife, but she soon perceived that he was indifferent and no longer noticed her. She then grew fierce and jealous, and her voice was not heard singing in the harem; but she went and took her needle again from the crevice in the pavement and hid it in her hair, and though Zehowah often called her, when Khaled was not in the house, she made as though she understood even less of the Arabic language than before and sat stupidly on the carpet, gazing at her hands. Zehowah wearied of her silence, for she understood the reason of it well enough.

“I am tired of this woman,” she said to Khaled. “Do you think I am jealous of her now?”

Khaled smiled a little, but said nothing, only shaking his head.

“I am tired of her,” Zehowah repeated. “She sits before me like a sack of barley in a grain-seller’s shop, neither