"h.e.l.lo, mah baby, h.e.l.lo, mah honey, h.e.l.lo, mah rag-time girl!"
drifted in at the open window with a breeze from the sea. But by this unmeaning tumult the soul of Salim Awad, being far removed, was not troubled; he remembered, again, the words of Antar, addressed to his beloved, repeating: "_In thy forehead is my guide to truth; and in the night of thy tresses I wander astray. Thy bosom is created as an enchantment. O may G.o.d protect it ever in that perfection! Will fortune ever, O daughter of Malik, ever bless me with thy embrace? That would cure my heart of the sorrows of love._"
And again the music of the band in Battery Park drifted up the murmuring street,
"_Just_ one girl, Only _just_ one girl!
There are others, I know, but they"re _not_ my pearl.
_Just_ one girl, Only just one girl!
I"d be happy forever with _just_ one girl!"
and came in at the open window with the idle breeze; and Salim heard nothing of the noise, but was grateful for the cool fingers of the wind softly lifting the hair from his damp brow.
It must be told-and herein is a mystery-that this same Salim, who had lost at love, now from the darkness of his tenement room contemplating the familiar stars, wise, remote, set in the uttermost heights of heaven beyond the soap factory, was by the magic of this great pa.s.sion inspired to extol the graces of his beloved Haleema, Khouri"s daughter, star of the world, and to celebrate his own despair, the love-woe of Salim, the n.o.ble-born, the poet, the lover, the brokenhearted. Without meditation, as he has said, without brooding or design, as should occur, but rather, taking from the starlit infinitude beyond the soap factory, seizing from the mist of his vision and from the blood of agony dripping from his lacerated heart, he fashioned a love-song so exquisite and frail, so shy of contact with unfeeling souls, that he trembled in the presence of this beauty, for the moment forgetting his desolation, and conceived himself an instrument made of men, wrought of mortal hands, unworthy, which the fingers of angels had touched in alleviation of the sorrows of love.
Thereupon Salim Awad arose, and he made haste to Khalil Khayyat to tell him of this thing....
This same Khalil Khayyat, lover of children, that poet and mighty editor, the tutor of the young muse of this Salim-this patient gardener of the souls of men, wherein he sowed seeds of the flowers of the spirit-this same Khalil, poet, whose delight was in the tender bloom of sorrow and despair-this old Khayyat, friend of Salim, the youth, the n.o.ble-born, sat alone in the little back room of Nageeb Fiani, the pastry-cook and greatest player in all the world. And his narghile was glowing; the coal was live and red, showing as yet no gray ash, and the water bubbled by fits and starts, and the alien room, tawdry in its imitation of the Eastern splendor, dirty, flaring and sputtering with gas, was clouded with the sweet-smelling smoke. To the coffee, perfume rising with the steam from the delicate vessel, nor to the rattle of dice and boisterous shouts from the outer room, was this Khalil attending; for he had the evening dejection to nurse. He leaned over the green baize table, one long, lean brown hand lying upon _k.a.w.kab Elhorriah_ of that day, as if in affectionate pity, and his lean brown face was lifted in a rapture of anguish to the grimy ceiling; for the dream of the writing had failed, as all visions of beauty must fail in the reality of them, and there had been no divine spark in the labor of the day to set the world aflame against Abdul-Hamid, Sultan, slaughterer.
To him, then, at this moment of inevitable reaction, the love-lorn Salim, entering in haste.
"Once more, Salim," said Khalil Khayyat, sadly, "I have failed."
Salim softly closed the door.
"I am yet young, Salim," the editor added, with an absent smile, in which was no bitterness at all, but the sweetness of long suffering. "I am yet young," he repeated, "for in the beginning of my labor I hope."
Salim turned the key.
"I am but a child," Khalil Khayyat declared, his voice, now lifted, betraying despair. "I dream in letters of fire: I write in shadows. In my heart is a flame: from the point of my pen flows darkness. I proclaim a revolution: I hear loud laughter and the noise of dice. Salim," he cried, "I am but a little child: when night falls upon the labor of my day I remember the morning!"
"Khalil!"
Khalil Khayyat was thrilled by the quality of this invocation.
"Khalil of the exalted mission, friend, poet, teacher of the aspiring,"
Salim Awad whispered, leaning close to the ear of Khalil Khayyat, "a great thing has come to pa.s.s."
Khayyat commanded his ecstatic perturbation.
"Hist!" Salim e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Is there not one listening at the door?"
"There is no one, Salim; it is the feet of Nageeb the coffee-boy, pa.s.sing to the table of Abosamara, the merchant."
Salim hearkened.
"There is no one, Salim."
"There is a breathing at the key-hole, Khalil," Salim protested. "This great thing must not be known."
"There is no one, Salim," said Khalil Khayyat. "I have heard Abosamara call these seven times. Being rich, he is brutal to such as serve. The sound is of the feet of the little Intelligent One. He bears coffee to the impatient merchant. His feet are soft, by my training; they pa.s.s like a whisper.... Salim, what is this great thing?"
"Nay, but, Khalil, I hesitate: the thing must not be heard."
"Even so," said Khalil Khayyat, contemptuously, being still a poet; "the people are of the muck of the world; they are common, they are not of our blood and learning. How shall they understand that which they hear?"
"Khalil," Salim Awad answered, rea.s.sured, "I have known a great moment!"
"A great moment?" said Khalil Khayyat, being both old and wise. "Then it is because of agony. There has issued from this great pain," said he, edging, in his artistic excitement, toward the victim of the muse, "a divine poem of love?"
Salim Awad sighed.
"Is it not so, Salim?"
Salim Awad flung himself upon the green baize table; and so great was his despair that the coffee-cup of Khalil Khayyat jumped in its saucer.
"I have suffered: I have lost at love," he answered. "I have been wounded; I bleed copiously. I lie alone in a desert. My pa.s.sion is hunger and thirst and a gaping wound. From fever and the night I cry out. Whence is my healing and satisfaction? Nay, but, Khalil, devoted friend," he groaned, looking up, "I have known the ultimate sorrow.
Haleema!" cried he, rising, hands clasped and uplifted, eyes looking far beyond the alien, cobwebbed, blackened ceiling of the little back room of Nageeb Fiani, the pastry-cook and greatest player in all the world.
"Haleema!" he cried, as it may meanly be translated. "Haleema-my sleep and waking, night and day of my desiring soul, my thought and heart-throb! Haleema-gone forever from me, the poet, the unworthy, fled to the arms of the strong, the knowing, the manager of horses, the one powerful and controlling! Haleema-beautiful one, fashioned of G.o.d, star of the night of the sons of men, glory of the universe, appealing, of the soft arms, of the bosom of sleep! Haleema-of the finger-tips of healing, of the warm touch of solace, of the bed of rest! Haleema, beautiful one, beloved, lost to me!... Haleema!... Haleema!..."
"G.o.d!" Khalil Khayyat e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "but this is indeed great poetry!"
Salim Awad collapsed.
"And from this," asked Khalil Khayyat, cruel servant of art, being hopeful concerning the issue, "there has come a great poem? There _must_," he muttered, "have come a love-song, a heart"s cry in comfort of such as have lost at love."
Salim Awad looked up from the table.
"A cry of patient anguish," said Khalil Khayyat.
"Khalil," said Salim Awad, solemnly, "the strings of my soul have been touched by the hand of the Spirit."
"By the Spirit?"
"The fingers of Infinite Woe."
To this Khalil Khayyat made no reply, nor moved one muscle-save that his hand trembled a little, and his eyes, which had been steadfastly averted, suddenly searched the soul of Salim Awad. It was very still in the little back room. There was the sputtering of the gas, the tread of soft feet pa.s.sing in haste to the kitchen, the clamor from the outer room, where common folk were gathered for their pleasure, but no sound, not so much as the drawing of breath, in the little room where these poets sat, and continued in this silence, until presently Khalil Khayyat drew very close to Salim Awad.
"Salim," he whispered, "reveal this poem."
"It cannot be uttered," said Salim Awad.
Khalil Khayyat was by this amazed. "Is it then so great?" he asked.
"Then, Salim," said he, "let it be as a jewel held in common by us of all the world."
"I am tempted!"
"I plead, Salim-I, Khalil Khayyat, the poet, the philosopher-I plead!"
"I may not share this great poem, Khalil," said Salim Awad, commanding himself, "save with such as have suffered as I have suffered."