The man whipped his horses, and they rattled down the broad street, past the brilliantly-lighted cafes, the Cercle Militaire, the palace of the Resident, where Zouaves were standing, turned to the left and were soon out on a road where a tram line stretched between villas, waste ground and flat fields. In front of them rose a hill with a darkness of trees scattered over it. They reached it, and began to mount it slowly. The lights of the city shone below them. Domini saw great sloping lawns dotted with streets and by trees. Scents of hidden flowers came to her in the night, and she heard a whirr of insects. Still they mounted, and presently reached the top of the hill.
"Stop!" said Androvsky to the driver.
He drew up his horses.
"Wait for us here."
Androvsky got out.
"Shall we walk a little way?" he said to Domini.
"Yes--yes."
She got out too, and they walked slowly along the deserted road. Below them she saw the lights of ships gliding upon the lakes, the bright eyes of a lighthouse, the distant lamps of scattered villages along the sh.o.r.es, and, very far off, a yellow gleam that dominated the sea beyond the lakes and seemed to watch patiently all those who came and went, the pilgrims to and from Africa. That gleam shone in Carthage.
From the sea over the flats came to them a breeze that had a savour of freshness, of cool and delicate life.
They walked for some time without speaking, then Domini said:
"From the cemetery of El-Largani you looked out over this, didn"t you, Boris?"
"Yes, Domini," he answered. "It was then that the voice spoke to me."
"It will never speak again. G.o.d will not let it speak again."
"How can you know that?"
"We are tried in the fire, Boris, but we are not burnt to death."
She said it for herself, to rea.s.sure herself, to give a little comfort to her own soul.
"To-night I feel as if it were not so," he answered. "When we came to the hotel it seemed--I thought that I could not go on."
"And now?"
"Now I do not know anything except that this is my last night with you.
And, Domini, that seems to me to be absolutely incredible although I know it. I cannot imagine any future away from you, any life in which I do not see you. I feel as if in parting from you I am parting from myself, as if the thing left would be no more a man, but only a broken husk. Can I pray without you, love G.o.d without you?"
"Best without me."
"But can I live without you, Domini? Can I wake day after day to the sunshine, and know that I shall never see you again, and go on living?
Can I do that? I don"t feel as if it could be. Perhaps, when I have done my penance, G.o.d will have mercy."
"How, Boris?"
"Perhaps He will let me die."
"Let us fix all the thoughts of our hearts on the life in which He may let us be together once more. Look, Boris, there are lights in the darkness, there will always be lights."
"I can"t see them," he said.
She looked at him and saw that tears were running down his cheeks.
Again, on this last night of companionship, G.o.d summoned her to be strong for him. On the edge of the hill, close to them, she saw a Moorish temple built of marble, with narrow arches and columns, and marble seats.
"Let us sit here for a moment, Boris," she said.
He followed her up the marble steps. Two or three times he stumbled, but she did not give him her hand. They sat down between the slender columns and looked out over the city, whose blanched domes and minarets were faintly visible in the night. Androvsky was shaken with sobs.
"How can I part from you?" he said brokenly. "How am I to do it? How can I--how can I? Why was I given this love for you, this terrible thing, this crying out, this reaching out of the flesh and heart and soul to you? Domini--Domini--what does it all mean--this mystery of torture--this scourging of the body--this tearing in pieces of my soul and yours? Domini, shall we know--shall we ever know?"
"I am sure we shall know, we shall all know some day, the meaning of the mystery of pain. And then, perhaps, then surely, we shall each of us be glad that we have suffered. The suffering will make the glory of our happiness. Even now sometimes when I am suffering, Boris, I feel as if there were a kind of splendour, even a kind of n.o.bility in what I am doing, as if I were proving my own soul, proving the force that G.o.d has put into me. Boris, let us--you and I--learn to say in all this terror, "I am unconquered, I am unconquerable.""
"I feel that I could say that, be it in the most frightful circ.u.mstances, if only I could sometimes see you--even far away as now I see those lights."
"You will see me in your prayers every day, and I shall see you in mine."
"But the cry of the body, Domini, of the eyes, of the hands, to see, to touch--it"s so fierce, it"s so--it"s so--"
"I know, I hear it too, always. But there is another voice, which will be strong when the other has faded into eternal silence. In all bodily things, even the most beautiful, there is something finite. We must reach out our poor, feeble, trembling hands to the infinite. I think everyone who is born does that through life, often without being conscious of it. We shall do it consciously, you and I. We shall be able to do it because of our dreadful suffering. We shall want, we shall have to do it, you--where you are going, and I----"
"Where will you be?"
"I don"t know, I don"t know. I won"t think of the afterwards now, in these last few hours--in these last----"
Her voice faltered and broke. Then the tears came to her also, and for a while she could not see the distant lights.
Then she spoke again; she said:
"Boris, let us go now."
He got up without a word. They found the carriage and drove back to Tunis.
When they reached the hotel they came into the midst of the American tourists, who were excitedly discussing the dances they had seen, and calling for cooling drinks to allay the thirst created by the heat of the close rooms of Oriental houses.
Early next morning a carriage was at the door. When they had got into it the coachman looked round.
"Where shall I drive to, Monsieur?"
Androvsky looked at him and made no reply.
"To El-Largani," Domini said.
"To the monastery, Madame?"
He whistled to his horses gaily. As they trotted on bells chimed about their necks, chimed a merry peal to the sunshine that lay over the land.
They pa.s.sed soldiers marching, and heard the call of bugles, the rattle of drums. And each sound seemed distant and each moving figure far away. This world of Africa, fiercely distinct in the clear air under the cloudless sky, was unreal to them both, was vague as a northern land wrapped in a mist of autumn. The unreal was about them. Within themselves was the real. They sat beside each other without speaking.
Words to them now were useless things. What more had they to say?
Everything and nothing. Lifetimes would not have been long enough for them to speak their thoughts for each other, of each other, to speak their emotions, all that was in their minds and hearts during that drive from the city to the monastery that stood upon the hill. Yet did not their mutual action of that morning say all that need be said? The silence of the Trappists surely floated out to them over the plains and the pale waters of the bitter lakes and held them silent.