Achmed Abdullah

“ To remain as thou dost, unchanging, unchangeable, and to ask the ever-changing world to conform with thee and thy stony prejudices, is that not trying to take—everything? Thy old servant is right—”
“Art thou, too, a match-maker?” asked Mustaffa Madani gruffly.
“No, no!” laughed the other; and he went on seriously: “The world changes and moves. Everything changes and moves. And so must thou. Come with me.”
He took his friend by the hand and, followed by Hassan, led him into the tekké, the lodge. The Molawee dervishes were attending to their nightly, esoteric ritual. ”

“ There was now not a thought in his brain that she was of the Shareef and he but a dervish; a nobody in race and clan, ugly and small and puny. At this moment he was the man, and she the woman. And then, is if a gigantic, nameless driving-power were pushing him on, he found himself advancing toward her with short, halting steps, his heart beating brokenly against his ribs, a flame cutting through him that left him without cerebral actions or reactions of any sort. ”

“ Accompanied by el-Fosiha he had gone to the only place left him, the miserable, stony little patch with its thriftless olive trees on the outskirts of town where the two lived in a small building that was no more than a mud-chinked hut.
BUT one day in the bazaar of the Mutton-Butchers, where she had gone to buy meat for her dinner, Gouthia overheard two shop-keepers in conversation: “Hast thou heard the news? Mustaffa Madani—the Shareef—dost thou remember—?” Gouthia stopped, listening, her heart beat faster. “He is haughty no longer. He has become a man of God. ”

“ Incapable of adjusting himself to new conditions, Mustaffa Madani could not nor would, understand the present era in which francs and centimes had superseded his own more picturesque, if less practical, considerations of life's values. To his mind the claim that anybody not a Shareef, be he Jew or Christian or fellow-Moslem, could ever be his equal or even pass for a gentleman, was not only fantastic but basically wrong and immoral. ”

“ An orphan without father or mother!” interrupted Hassan. “Thou—” he bent and kissed the sheykh's hand which was snatched away—“hast been father and mother to me!”
“Hm—” Mustaffa Madani yawned rudely. A shade of annoyance flitted across his face. Talk of this sort was painfully out of focus with his ideas. Let a donkey-boy remain a donkey-boy and a gentleman a gentleman, was his creed. “Interesting, doubtless, by the Prophet! But about the advice that I came to ask thee, Sabri effendi. There must be a path out of the mire to the seeing of thy eyes.” ”

“ A desert wind sprang up, and on its wings a young voice drifted, singing a throaty, falsetto Tunisian love song.
The voice faded into the night. Came a void of silence She sighed. She knew about love, the physical, human side of it, for she was an Oriental and saw in it neither shame nor mystery. She only saw mystery in the fact that the singer, whoever he was, was singing to somebody, Arab girl or negress or Jewess, but not to her—not to her, and she felt in her soul a pain that was somehow sweet. ”

“ She is in the flower of her youth, her beauty, her desires—”
“Be silent, mother of two left feet,and bring me my pipe.”
“I will not be silent, and I will not bring thee thy pipe—no—by the crimson pig's bristles!” Her voice leaped up shrilly. “Thou hast no heart, no pity, no understanding of youth, I tell thee, Gouthia must marry—”
MUST? But whom? Who shall be the father of her sons? There is not her equal in blood in Kairouan nor in all the countryside. She is a Shareef. She is of the lineage. Fool!”
The old negress stood her ground, firmly, bravely. ”

“ There came the day when, in some amazing fashion, she sensed within herself the thoughts and passions and dreams of all the women of all the world; the mute, inexpressible yearnings of motherhood; the desires and sufferings of millions; the reaching up, with a soft, nestling rush, into the arms of God, of nature. ”

“ Mustaffa Madani thrust out his chin warningly. Nothing infuriated him so much as to find obstinacy like his own in others. Then, as he towered over Hassan, the sight of the young dervish, so puny in his pathetic stubbornness, caused his mirth to rise in uncontrollable waves. ”

“ Tradition had it that many centuries earlier when her family had ruled Spain as a Moslem province, one of her ancestors had tilted a lance in bloody tournament with the Christian Duke of Languedoc for the flower and glove and heart of the daughter of Roderic, the Gothic king of Granada. It was to this tradition that he owed her name, Gouthia, the Gothic Princess.
“The son of the wolf they called me once,” her father went on. “And what am I today but a mock and a stench throughout Tunis, in the nostrils alike of Moslem and Christian and Jew? ”

“ Whom—?
“There is a place for Gouthia. But what does she know? She must acquire a foundation of learning before she can teach others, I cannot spare our only woman instructor to teach her, she is busy all day. Therefore a man man must teach her.”
Mustaffa Madani did not reply at once. A sob shook his massive frame. “I am helpless,” he said at last. “I submit, Sabri effendi——” And, with all the courtesy of his breed: “I am grateful to thee. My gratitude is at thy feet. Thou wilt look for a teacher?”
“I have already found one, Sidi. Hassan, the apple of my eye.” ”

“ I know it. I am a nobody by race, a penniless dervish, once a donkey-boy; but I love thy daughter. I shall make her happy. I love her, and she loves me—”
Hassan's last words released the catch in Mustaffa Madani's brain. “Allah!” the single cry came from his lips. His fist struck Hassan squarely between the eyes. Hassan went down, and Mustaffa Madani bent, picked him up, stood him upon his feet, knocked him down ”

“ THEY married according to the rites and pomp of Islam, the bride awaiting the bridegroom's coming in the little house that he had rented. He rode sheykh Abubekr Sabri's blue-mottled stallion, with two friends, one at each side of the bridle. He was dressed in a bright, scarlet burnoose and wore on his head a black fez with a long silver tassel. He had discarded his dervish costume. A married man, he belonged no longer to the tekké of the Molawees. ”

“ He was about to leap into the centre of the tekké and join in the dance when Abubekr Sabri, who had been watching him closely, put a hand on his arm and broke the spell. “Come! he said. Followed by Hassan he led Mustaffa Madani back into the small room. “Thou hast understood?” he asked.
“I have understood—a little,” replied Mustaffa Madani, musingly.
“I shall never be able to make a dervish of thee, thou stubborn old mule!” exclaimed the sheykh, “But Gouthia must earn her own living. She must become a teacher.”
“Eh—?” Mustaffa Madani's thoughts whirled. He was utterly beyond his depth. “Teach? ”