The Book of Khalid Part 7

All of which from our Interpreter is as clear as G.o.d Save the King.

And from which we hope our Reader will infer that those outbursts and tears and rhapsodies of Khalid did mean somewhat. They did mean, even when we first approached his cell, that something was going on in him--a revolution, a _coup d'etat_, so to speak, of the spirit. For a Prince in Rags, but not in Debts and Dishonour, will throttle the Harpy which has. .h.i.therto ruled and degraded his soul.

But the dwelling, too, of that soul is sorely undermined. And so, his leal and loving friend Shakib takes him later to the best physician in the City, who after the tapping and auscultation, shakes his head, writes his prescriptions, and advises Khalid to keep in the open air as much as possible, or better still, to return to his native country. The last portion of the advice, however, Khalid can not follow at present. For he will either return home on his own account or die in New York. "If I can not in time save enough money for the Steams.h.i.+p Company," he said to Shakib, "I can at least leave enough to settle the undertaker's bill. And in either case, I shall have paid my own pa.s.sage out of this New World. And I shall stand before my Maker in a shroud, at least, which I can call my own."

To which Shakib replies by going to the druggist with the prescriptions.

And when he returns to the cellar with a package of four or five medicine bottles for rubbing and smelling and drinking, he finds Khalid sitting near the stove--we are now in the last month of Winter--warming his hands on the flames of the two last books he read. _Emile_ and _Hero-Wors.h.i.+p_ go the way of all the rest. And there he sits, meditating over Carlyle's crepitating fire and Rousseau's writhing, sibilating flame. And it may be he thought of neither. Perhaps he was brooding over the resolution he had made, and the ominous shaking of the doctor's head. Ah, but his tutelar deities are better physicians, he thought.

And having made his choice, he will pitch the medicine bottles into the street, and only follow the doctor's advice by keeping in the open air.

Behold him, therefore, with a note in hand, applying to Shakib, in a formal and business-like manner, for a loan; and see that n.o.ble benefactor and friend, after gladly giving the money, throw the note into the fire. And now, Khalid is neither dervish nor philosopher, but a man of business with a capital of twenty-five dollars in his pocket. And with one-fifth of this capital he buys a second-hand push-cart from his Greek neighbour, wends his way with it to the market-place, makes a purchase there of a few boxes of oranges, sorts them in his cart into three cla.s.ses,--"there is no equality in nature," he says, while doing this,--sticks a price card at the head of each cla.s.s, and starts, in the name of Allah, his business. That is how he will keep in the open air twelve hours a day.

But in the district where he is known he does not long remain. The sympathy of his compatriots is to him worse than the doctor's medicines, and those who had often heard him speechifying exchanged significant looks when he pa.s.sed. Moreover, the police would not let him set up his stand anywhere. "There comes the push-cart orator,"

they would say to each other; and before our poor Syrian stops to breathe, one of them grumpishly cries out, "Move on there! Move on!"

Once Khalid ventures to ask, "But why are others allowed to set up their stands here?" And the "copper" (we beg the Critic's pardon again) coming forward twirling his club, lays his hand on Khalid's shoulder and calmly this: "Don't you think I know you? Move on, I say." O Khalid, have you forgotten that these "coppers" are the minions of Tammany? Why tarry, therefore, and ask questions? Yes, make a big move at once--out of the district entirely.

Now, to the East Side, into the Jewish Quarter, Khalid directs his cart. And there, he falls in with Jewish fellow push-cart peddlers and puts up with them in a cellar similar to his in the Syrian Quarter. But only for a month could he suffer what the Jew has suffered for centuries. Why? There is this difference between the cellar of the Semite Syrian and that of the Semite Jew: in the first we eat _mojadderah_, in the second, _kosher_ but stinking flesh; in the first we read poetry and play the lute, in the second we fight about the rent and the division of the profits of the day; in the first we sleep in linen "as white as the wings of the dove," in the second on pieces of smelly blankets; the first is redolent of ottar of roses, Shakib's favourite perfume, the second is especially made insufferable by that stench which is peculiar to every Hebrew hive.

For these and other reasons, Khalid separates himself from his Semite fellow peddlers, and makes this time a bigger move than the first.

Ay, even to the Bronx, where often in former days, shouldering the peddling-box, he tramped, will he now push his orange-cart and his hopes. There, between City and Country, nearer to Nature, and not far from the traffic of life, he fares better both in health and purse. It is much to his liking, this upper end of the City. Here the atmosphere is more peaceful and soothing, and the police are more agreeable. No, they do not nickname and bully him in the Bronx. And never was he ordered to move on, even though he set up his stand for months at the same corner. "Ah, how much kinder and more humane people become," he says, "even when they are not altogether out of the City, but only on the outskirts of the country expanse."

Khalid pa.s.ses the Spring and Summer in the Bronx and keeps in the open air, not only in the day, but also in the night. How he does this, is told in a letter which he writes to Shakib. But does he sleep at all, you ask, and how, and where? Reader, we thank you for your anxiety about Khalid's health. And we would fain show you the Magic Carpet which he carries in the lock-box of his push-cart. But see for yourself, here be neither Magic Carpet, nor Magic Ring. Only his papers, a few towels, a blanket, some underwear, and his coffee utensils, are here. For Khalid could forego his _mojadderah_, but never his coffee, the Arab that he is. But an Arab on the wayfare, if he finds himself at night far from the camp, will dig him a ditch in the sands and lie there to sleep under the living stars. Khalid could not do thus, neither in the City nor out of it. And yet, he did not lodge within doors. He hired a place only for his push-cart; and this, a small padlock-booth where he deposits his stock in trade. But how he lived in the Bronx is described in the following letter:

"My loving Brother Shakib,

"I have been two months here, in a neighbourhood familiar to you. Not far from the place where I sleep is the sycamore tree under which I burned my peddling-box. And perhaps I shall yet burn there my push-cart too. But for the present, all's well. My business is good and my health is improving. The money-order I am enclosing with this, will cancel the note, but not the many debts, I owe you. And I hope to be able to join you again soon, to make the voyage to our native land together. Meanwhile I am working, and laying up a little something. I make from two to three dollars a day, of which I never spend more than one. And this on one meal only; for my lodging and my lunch and breakfast cost next to nothing. Yes, I can be a push-cart peddler in the day; I can sleep out of doors at night; I can do with coffee and oranges for lunch and breakfast; but in the evening I will a.s.sert my dignity and do justice to my taste: I will dine at the Hermitage and permit you to call me a fool. And why not, since my purse, like my stomach, is now my own? Why not go to the Hermitage since my push-cart income permits of it? But the first night I went there my shabbiness attracted the discomforting attention of the fas.h.i.+onable diners, and made even the waiters offensive. Indeed, one of them came to ask if I were looking for somebody. 'No,' I replied with suppressed indignation; 'I'm looking for a place where I can sit down and eat, without being eaten by the eyes of the vulgar curious.' And I pa.s.s into an arbor, which from that night becomes virtually my own, followed by a waiter who from that night, too, became my friend. For every evening I go there, I find my table unoccupied and my waiter ready to receive and serve me. But don't think he does this for the sake of my black eyes or my philosophy. That disdainful glance of his on the first evening I could never forget, billah. And I found that it could be baited and mellowed only by a liberal tip. And this I make in advance every week for both my comfort and his. Yes, I am a fool, I grant you, but I'm not out of my element there.

"After dinner I take a stroll in the Flower Gardens, and crossing the rickety wooden bridge over the river, I enter the hemlock grove. Here, in a sequestered spot near the river bank, I lay me on the gra.s.s and sleep for the night. I always bring my towels with me; for in the morning I take a dip, and at night I use them for a pillow. When the weather requires it, I bring my blankets too. And hanging one of them over me, tied to the trees by the cords sown to its corners, I wrap myself in the other, and praise Allah.

"These and the towels, after taking my bath, I leave at the Hermitage; my waiter minds them for me. And so, I suspect I am happy--if, curse it! I could but breathe better. O, come up to see me. I'll give you a royal dinner at the Hermitage, and a royal bed in the hemlock grove on the river-bank. Do come up, the peace of Allah upon thee. Read my salaam to Im-Hanna."

And during his five months in the Bronx he did not sleep five nights within doors, we are told, nor did he once dine out of the Hermitage.

Even his hair, a fantastic fatuity behind a push-cart, he did not take the trouble to cut or trim. It must have helped his business. But this constancy, never before sustained to such a degree, must soon cease, having laid up, thanks to his push-cart and the people of the Bronx, enough to carry him, not only to Baalbek, but to _Aymakanenkan_.

CHAPTER III

THE FALSE DAWN

What the Arabs always said of Andalusia, Khalid and Shakib said once of America: a most beautiful country with one single vice--it makes foreigners forget their native land. But now they are both suffering from nostalgia, and America, therefore, is without a single vice. It is perfect, heavenly, ideal. In it one sees only the vices of other races, and the ugliness of other nations. America herself is as lovely as a dimpled babe, and as innocent. A dimpled babe she. But wait until she grows, and she will have more than one vice to demand forgetfulness.

Shakib, however, is not going to wait. He begins to hear the call of his own country, now that his bank account is big enough to procure for him the Pashalic of Syria. And Khalid, though his push-cart had developed to a stationary fruit stand,--and perhaps for this very reason,--is now desirous of leaving America anon. He is afraid of success overtaking him. Moreover, the Bronx Park has awakened in him his long dormant love of Nature. For while warming himself on the flames of knowledge in the cellar, or rioting with the Ba.s.sarides of Bohemia, or canva.s.sing and speechifying for Tammany, he little thought of what he had deserted in his native country. The ancient historical rivers flowing through a land made sacred by the divine madness of the human spirit; the snow-capped mountains at the feet of which the lily and the oleander bloom; the pine forests diffusing their fragrance even among the downy clouds; the peaceful, sun-swept multi-coloured meadows; the trellised vines, the fig groves, the quince orchards, the orangeries: the absence of these did not disturb his serenity in the cellar, his voluptuousness in Bohemia, his enthusiasm in Tammany Land.

And we must not forget to mention that, besides the divine voice of Nature and native soil, he long since has heard and still hears the still sweet voice of one who might be dearer to him than all. For Khalid, after his return from Bohemia, continued to curse the huris in his dreams. And he little did taste of the blessings of "sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds." Ay, when he was not racked and harrowed by nightmares, he was either disturbed by the angels of his visions or the succubi of his dreams. And so, he determines to go to Syria for a night's sleep, at least, of the innocent and just. His cousin Najma is there, and that is enough. Once he sees her, the huris are no more.

Now Shakib, who is more faithful in his narration than we first thought--who speaks of Khalid as he is, extenuating nothing--gives us access to a letter which he received from the Bronx a month before their departure from New York. In these Letters of Khalid, which our Scribe happily preserved, we feel somewhat relieved of the dogmatism, fantastic, mystical, severe, which we often meet with in the K. L.

MS. In his Letters, our Syrian peddler and seer is a plain blunt man unbosoming himself to his friend. Read this, for instance.

"My loving Brother:

"It is raining so hard to-night that I must sleep, or in fact keep, within doors. Would you believe it, I am no more accustomed to the luxuries of a soft spring-bed, and I can not even sleep on the floor, where I have moved my mattress. I am sore, broken in mind and spirit. Even the hemlock grove and the melancholy stillness of the river, are beginning to annoy me.

Oh, I am tired of everything here, tired even of the c.o.c.ktails, tired of the push-cart, tired of earning as much as five dollars a day. Next Sunday is inauguration day for my stationary fruit stand; but I don't think it's going to stand there long enough to deserve to be baptized with champagne. If you come up, therefore, we'll have a couple of steins at the Hermitage and call it square.--O, I would square myself with the doctors by thrusting a poker down my windpipe: I might be able to breathe better then. I pause to curse my fate.--Curse it, Juhannam-born, curse it!--

"I can not sleep, nor on the spring-bed, nor on the floor. It is two hours past midnight now, and I shall try to while away the time by scrawling this to you. My brother, I can not long support this sort of life, being no more fit for rough, ignominious labor. 'But why,' you will ask, 'did you undertake it?' Yes, why? Strictly speaking, I made a mistake. But it's a n.o.ble mistake, believe me--a mistake which everybody in my condition ought to make, if but once in their life-time. Is it not something to be able to make an honest resolution and carry it out? I have heard strange voices in prison; I have hearkened to them; but I find that one must have sound lungs, at least, to be able to do the will of the immortal G.o.ds. And even if he had, I doubt if he could do much to suit them in America. O, my greatest enemy and benefactor in the whole world is this dumb-hearted mother, this America, in whose iron loins I have been spiritually conceived. Paradoxical, this? But is it not true? Was not the Khalid, now writing to you, born in the cellar? Down there, in the very loins of New York? But alas, our spiritual Mother devours, like a cat, her own children. How then can we live with her in the same house?

"I need not tell you now that the ignominious task I set my hands to, was never to my liking. But the ox under the yoke is not asked whether he likes it or not. I have been yoked to my push-cart by the immortal G.o.ds; and soon my turn and trial will end. It must end. For our country is just beginning to speak, and I am her chosen voice. I feel that if I do not respond, if I do not come to her, she will be dumb forever. No; I can not remain here any more. For I can not be strenuous enough to be miserably happy; nor stupid enough to be contentedly miserable.

I confess I have been spoiled by those who call themselves spiritual sisters of mine. The huris be dam'd. And if I don't leave this country soon, I'll find myself sharing the d.a.m.nation again--in Bohemia.--

"The power of the soul is doubled by the object of its love, or by such labor of love as it undertakes. But, here I am, with no work and n.o.body I can love; nay, chained to a task which I now abominate. If a labor of love doubles the power of the soul, a labor of hate, to use an antonym term, warps it, poisons it, destroys it. Is it not a shame that in this great Country,--this Circe with her golden horns of plenty,--one can not as much as keep his blood in circulation without d.a.m.ning the currents of one's soul? O America, equally hated and beloved of Khalid, O Mother of prosperity and spiritual misery, the time will come when you shall see that your gold is but pinchbeck, your gilt-edge bonds but death decrees, and your G.o.d of wealth a carcase enthroned upon a dung-hill. But you can not see this now; for you are yet in the false dawn, floundering tumultuously, wors.h.i.+pping your mammoth carcase on a dung-hill--and devouring your spiritual children. Yes, America is now in the false dawn, and as sure as America lives, the true dawn must follow.

"Pardon, Shakib. I did not mean to end my letter in a rhapsody.

But I am so wrought, so broken in body, so inflamed in spirit. I hope to see you soon. No, I hope to see myself with you on board of a Transatlantic steamer."

And is not Khalid, like his spiritual Mother, floundering, too, in the false dawn of life? His love of Nature, which was spontaneous and free, is it not likely to become formal and scientific? His love of Country, which begins tremulously, fervently in the woods and streams, is it not likely to end in Nephelococcygia? His determination to work, which was rudely shaken at a push-cart, is it not become again a determination to loaf? And now, that he has a little money laid up, has he not the right to seek in this world the cheapest and most suitable place for loafing? And where, if not in the Lebanon hills, "in which it seemed always afternoon," can he rejoin the Lotus-Eaters of the East? This man of visions, this fantastic, rhapsodical--but we must not be hard upon him. Remember, good Reader, the poker which he would thrust down his windpipe to broaden it a little. With asthmatic fits and tuberous infiltrations, one is permitted to commune with any of Allah's ministers of grace or spirits of Juhannam. And that divine spark of primal, paradisical love, which is rapidly devouring all others--let us not forget that. Ay, we mean his cousin Najma. Of course, he speaks, too, of his nation, his people, awaking, lisping, beginning to speak, waiting for him, the chosen Voice! Which reminds us of how he was described to us by the hasheesh-smokers of Cairo.

In any event, the Reader will rejoice with us, we hope, that Khalid will not turn again toward Bohemia. He will agree with us that, whether on account of his health, or his love, or his mission, it is well, in his present fare of mind and body, that he is returning to the land "in which it seemed always afternoon."

CHAPTER IV

THE LAST STAR

Is it not an ethnic phenomenon that a descendant of the ancient Phoenicians can not understand the meaning and purport of the Cash Register in America? Is it not strange that this son of Superst.i.tion and Trade can not find solace in the fact that in this Pix of Business is the Host of the Demiurgic Dollar? Indeed, the omnipresence and omnipotence of it are not without divine significance. For can you not see that this Cash Register, this Pix of Trade, is prominently set up on the altar of every inst.i.tution, political, moral, social, and religious? Do you not meet with it everywhere, and foremost in the sanctuaries of the mind and the soul? In the Societies for the Diffusion of Knowledge; in the Social Reform Propagandas; in the Don't Worry Circles of Metaphysical Gymnasiums; in Alliances, Philanthropic, Educational; in the Board of Foreign Missions; in the Sacrarium of Vaticinatress Eddy; in the Church of G.o.d itself;--is not the Cash Register a divine symbol of the _credo_, the faith, or the idea?

"To trade, or not to trade," Hamlet-Khalid exclaims, "that is the question: whether 'tis n.o.bler in the mind to suffer, etc., or to take arms against the Cash Registers of America, and by opposing end--"

What? Sacrilegious wretch, would you set your face against the divinity in the Holy Pix of Trade? And what will you end, and how will You end by it? An eternal problem, this, of opposing and ending. But before you set your face in earnest, we would ask you to consider if the vacancy or chaos which is sure to follow, be not more pernicious than what you would end. If you are sure it is not, go ahead, and we give you G.o.dspeed. If you have the least doubt about it--but Khalid is incapable now of doubting anything. And whether he opposes his theory of immanent morality to the Cash Register, or to Democracy, or to the ruling powers of Flunkeydom, we hope He will end well. Such is the penalty of revolt against the dominating spirit of one's people and ancestors, that only once in a generation is it attempted, and scarcely with much success. In fact, the first who revolts must perish, the second, too, and the third, and the fourth, until, in the course of time and by dint of repet.i.tion and resistance, the new species of the race can overcome the forces of environment and the crus.h.i.+ng influence of conformity. This, we know, is the biological law, and Khalid must suffer under it. For, as far as our knowledge extends, he is the first Syrian, the ancient Lebanon monks excepted, who revolted against the ruling spirit of his people and the dominant tendencies of the times, both in his native and his adopted Countries.

Yes, the _ethos_ of the Syrians (for once we use Khalid's philosophic term), like that of the Americans, is essentially money-seeking. And whether in Beirut or in New York, even the moralists and reformers, like the hammals and grocers, will ask themselves, before they undertake to do anything for you or for their country, "What will this profit us? How much will it bring us?" And that is what Khalid once thought to oppose and end. Alas, oppose he might--and End He Must. How can an individual, without the aid of Time and the Unseen Powers, hope to oppose and end, or even change, this monstrous ma.s.s of things? Yet we must not fail to observe that when we revolt against a tendency inimical to our law of being, it is for our own sake, and not the race's, that we do so. And we are glad we are able to infer, if not from the K. L, MS., at least from his Letters, that Khalid is beginning to realise this truth. Let us not, therefore, expatiate further upon it.

If the reader will accompany us now to the cellar to bid our Syrian friends farewell, we promise a few things of interest. When we first came here some few years ago in Winter, or to another such underground dwelling, the water rose ankle-deep over the floor, and the mould and stench were enough to knock an ox dead. Now, a scent of ottar of roses welcomes us at the door and leads us to a platform in the centre, furnished with a Turkish rug, which Shakib will present to the landlord as a farewell memento.

And here are our three Syrians making ready for the voyage. Shakib is intoning some verses of his while packing; Im-Hanna is cooking the last dish of _mojadderah_; and Khalid, with some vague dream in his eyes, and a vaguer, far-looming hope in his heart, is sitting on his trunk wondering at the variety of things Shakib is cramming into his. For our Scribe, we must not fail to remind the Reader, is contemplating great things of State, is nouris.h.i.+ng a great political ambition. He will, therefore, bethink him of those in power at home. Hence these costly presents. Ay, besides the plated jewellery--the rings, bracelets, brooches, necklaces, ear-rings, watches, and chains--of which he is bringing enough to supply the peasants of three villages, see that beautiful gold-k.n.o.bbed ebony stick, which he will present to the vali, and this precious gold cross with a ruby at the heart for the Patriarch, and these gold fountain pens for his literary friends, and that fine Winchester rifle for the chief of the tribe Anezah. These he packs in the bottom of his trunk, and with them his precious dilapidated copy of Al-Mutanabbi, and--what MS. be this? What, a Book of Verse sp.a.w.ned in the cellar? Indeed, the very embryo of that printed copy we read in Cairo, and which Shakib and his friends would have us translate for the benefit of the English reading public.

For our Scribe is the choragus of the Modern School of Arabic poetry.

And this particular Diwan of his is a sort of rhymed inventory of all the inventions and discoveries of modern Science and all the wonders of America. He has published other Diwans, in which French morbidity is crowned with laurels from the Arabian Nights. For this Modern School has two opposing wings, moved by two opposing forces, Science being the motive power of the one, and Byron and De Musset the inspiring geniuses of the other. We would not be faithful to our Editorial task and to our Friend, if we did not give here a few luminant examples of the Diwan in question. We are, indeed, very sorry, for the sake of our readers, that s.p.a.ce will not allow us to give them a few whole qasdahs from it. To those who are so fortunate as to be able to read and understand the Original, we point out the Ode to the Phonograph, beginning thus:

"O Phonograph, thou wonder of our time, Thy tongue of wax can sing like me in rhyme."

And another to the Brooklyn Bridge, of which these are the opening lines:

"O Brooklyn Bridge, how oft upon thy back I tramped, and once I crossed thee in a hack."

And finally, the great Poem ent.i.tled, On the Virtue and Benefit of Modern Science, of which we remember these couplets: