And here, he is neither shy nor slow nor visionary. Nor shall his theory of immanent morality trouble him for the while. Reality is met with reality on solid, though sometimes slippery, ground. His animalism, long leashed and starved, is eager for prey. His Phoenician passion is awake. And fortunately, Khalid finds himself in Bohemia where the poison and the antidote are frequently offered together. Here the spell of one sorceress can straightway be offset by that of her sister. And we have our Scribe’s word for it, that the Dervish went as far and as deep with the houris, as the doctors eventually would permit him. That is why, we believe, in commenting upon his adventures there, he often quotes the couplet,
“In my sublunar paradise
There’s plenty of honey—and plenty of flies.”
The flies in his cup, however, can not be detected with the naked eye. They are microbes rather—microbes which even the physicians can not manage with satisfaction. For it must be acknowledged that Khalid’s immanent morality and intellectualism suffered an interregnum with the houris. Reckless, thoughtless, heartless, he plunges headlong again. It is said in al-Hadith that he who guards himself against the three cardinal evils, namely, of the tongue (laklaka), of the stomach (kabkaba), and of the sex (zabzaba), will have guarded himself against all evil. But Khalid reads not in the Hadith of the Prophet. And that he became audacious, edacious, and loquacious, is evident from such wit and flippancy as he here likes to display. “Some women,” says he, “might be likened to whiskey, others to seltzer water; and many are those who, like myself, care neither for the soda or the whiskey straight. A ‘highball’ I will have.”
Nay, he even takes to punch; for in his cup of amour there is a subtle and multifarious mixture. With him, he himself avows, one woman complemented another. What the svelte brunette, for instance, lacked, the steatopygous blonde amply supplied. Delicacy and intensity, effervescence and depth, these he would have in a woman, or a harem, as in anything else. But these excellences, though found in a harem, will not fuse, as in a poem or a picture. Even thy bones, thou scented high-lacquered Dervish, are likely to melt away before they melt into one.
It is written in the K.L. MS. that women either bore, or inspire, or excite. “The first and the last are to be met with anywhere; but the second? Ah, well you have heard the story of Diogenes. So take up your lamp and come along. But remember, when you do meet the woman that inspires, you will begin to yearn for the woman that excites.”
And here, the hospitality of the Dervish does not belie his Arab blood. In Bohemia, the bonfire of his heart was never extinguished, and the wayfarers stopping before his tent, be they of those who bored, or excited, or inspired, were welcome guests for at least three days and nights. And in this he follows the rule of hospitality among his people.
Book the Second
In the Temple
To Nature
O Mother eternal, divine, satanic, all encompassing, all-nourishing, all-absorbing, O star-diademed, pearl-sandaled Goddess, I am thine forever and ever: whether as a child of thy womb, or an embodiment of a spirit-wave of thy light, or a dumb blind personification of thy smiles and tears, or an ignis-fatuus of the intelligence that is in thee or beyond thee, I am thine forever and ever: I come to thee, I prostrate my face before thee, I surrender myself wholly to thee. O touch me with thy wand divine again; stir me once more in thy mysterious alembics; remake me to suit the majestic silence of thy hills, the supernal purity of thy sky, the mystic austerity of thy groves, the modesty of thy slow-swelling, soft-rolling streams, the imperious pride of thy pines, the wild beauty and constancy of thy mountain rivulets. Take me in thine arms, and whisper to me of thy secrets; fill my senses with thy breath divine; show me the bottom of thy terrible spirit; buffet me in thy storms, infusing in me of thy ruggedness and strength, thy power and grandeur; lull me in thine autumn sundowns to teach me in the arts that enrapture, exalt, supernaturalise. Sing me a lullaby, O Mother eternal! Give me to drink of thy love, divine and diabolic; thy cruelty and thy kindness, I accept both, if thou wilt but whisper to me the secret of both. Anoint me with the chrism of spontaneity that I may be ever worthy of thee.—Withdraw not from me thy hand, lest universal love and sympathy die in my breast.—I implore thee, O Mother eternal, O sea-throned, heaven-canopied Goddess, I prostrate my face before thee, I surrender myself wholly to thee. And whether I be tomorrow the censer in the hand of thy High Priest, or the incense in the censer—whether I become a star-gem in thy cestus or a sun in thy diadem or even a firefly in thy fane, I am content. For I am certain that it shall be for the best.
Khalid
I
The Dowry of Democracy
Old Arabic books, printed in Bulaq, generally have a broad margin wherein a separate work, independent of the text, adds gloom to the page. We have before us one of these tomes in which the text treats of the ethics of life and religion, and the margins are darkened with certain adventures which Shahrazad might have added to her famous Nights. The similarity between Khalid’s life in its present stage and some such book, is evident. Nay, he has been so assiduous in writing the marginal Work, that ever since he set fire to his peddling-box, we have had little in the Text worth transcribing. Nothing, in fact; for many pages back are as blank as
