Androvsky

“ It was time that Androvsky was subjected to another influence than that of the unpeopled wastes. It was time that he came into contact with men whose minds were more akin to his than the minds of the Arabs who had been their only companions. She began to imagine him with her in civilised places, to be able to imagine him. And she was glad they had come to Amara and confirmed in her resolve to stay on there. She even began to wish that the French officers quartered there—few in number, some five or six—would find them in the sand, and that Androvsky would offer them hospitality. ”

“ Domini was conscious of a sense of relief and of a strong feeling of gratitude to their host. Following upon the gratitude came a less pleasant consciousness of Androvsky’s lack of good breeding. He was certainly not a man of the world, whatever he might be. To-day, perhaps absurdly, she felt responsible for him, and as if he owed it to her to bear himself bravely and govern his dislikes if they clashed with the feelings of his companions. She longed hotly for him to make a good impression, and, when her eyes met Father Roubier’s, was almost moved to ask his pardon for Androvsky’s rudeness. ”

“ Domini looked up at the stars and saw among them the star of Liberty. Androvsky looked at her and saw all the stars in her face. When they reached the tent door they stopped on the warm earth. A lamp was lit within, casting a soft light on the simple furniture and on the whiteness of the two beds, above one of which Domini imagined, though from without she could not see, the wooden crucifix Androvsky had once worn in his breast. ”

“ Domini had given the order of departure, but she had first spoken with Androvsky.
After his narrative, and her words that followed it, he did not come into the tent. She did not ask him to. She did not see him in the moonlight beyond the tent, or when the moonlight waned before the coming of the dawn. She was upon her knees, her face hidden in her hands, striving as surely few human beings have ever had to strive in the difficult paths of life. At first she had felt almost calm. When she had spoken to Androvsky there had even been a strange sensation that was not unlike triumph in her heart. ”

“ Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his arms with passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force and fire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense.
“God will bless you,” he said. “God will bless you. Whatever life brings you at the end you must—you must be blessed by Him.”
“But He has blessed me,” she whispered, through tears that rushed from her eyes, stirred from their well-springs by his sudden outburst of love for her. “He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, your truth.” ”

“ The sluggish muddy stream, the almost motionless trees, the imprisoned heat between the surrounding walls, the faint buzz of the flies caused drowsiness to creep upon the spirit. The long ride, too, and the ardent desert air, made this repose a luxury. Androvsky’s face lost its emotional expression as he gazed almost vacantly at the brown water shifting slowly by between the brown banks and the brown walls above which the palm trees peered. His aching limbs relaxed. His hands hung loose between his knees. And Domini half closed her eyes. A curious peace descended upon her. ”

“ Androvsky felt that he did not dare to break it. Something in Domini’s face and voice cast out from him the instinct of revolt, of protest. He began to feel exhausted, without power, like a sick man who is being carried by bearers in a litter, and who looks at the landscape through which he is passing with listless eyes, and who scarcely has the force to care whither he is being borne.
“Domini,” he said at last, and his voice sounded very tired, “if you say I must go to Beni-Mora I will go. ”

“ Men of his emotional and virile type have travelled far in that world, to her mysterious, ere they reach his length of years. What was extraordinary to her, in the thought of it alone, was doubtless quite ordinary to him, translated into act. Not ignorant, she was nevertheless a perfectly innocent woman, but her knowledge told her that no man of Androvsky’s strength, power and passion is innocent at Androvsky’s age. ”

“ You have come to a land of fire, and I think you are made of fire."
The warnings of Anteoni and the priest made an impression on Domini. She was conscious of how the outside world would be likely to regard her acquaintance with Androvsky. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange and ghastly figure of legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads, and distinguished for an instant by an oblique flash of lightning; as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern tale, who announces coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum amid the sands. ”

“ One had come to her, the man whom she had been setting with those legendary figures who have saddened and appalled the imagination of men. She looked at the dark figure of Androvsky leaning forward on the horse whose feet were set on the path of the moon, and she did not know whether she felt confidence in him or fear of him. All that the priest had said rose up in her mind, all that Count Anteoni had hinted and that had been visible in the face of the sand-diviner. ”

“ Long ago at Beni-Mora she had asked Androvsky to call upon a priest. She remembered the sequel to that visit. This time Androvsky had gone of his own will. If he liked this priest, if they became friends, perhaps—she remembered her vision in the dancing-house, her feeling that when she drew near Amara she was drawing near to the heart of the desert. If she should see Androvsky praying here! Yet Father Beret hardly seemed a man likely to influence her husband, or anyone with a strong and serious personality. ”

“ The torch was still, then fell downwards and became one with the fire. Then Androvsky drew Domini down beside him on to the warm earth before the tent door, and held her hand in his against the earth.
“Feel it,” he said. “It’s our home, it’s our liberty. Does it feel alive to you?” ”

“ The tumult of Amara waked up in Domini the town-sense that had been slumbering. All that seemed to confuse, to daze, to repel Androvsky, even to inspire him with fear, the noise of the teeming crowds, their perpetual movement, their contact, startled her into a vividness of life and apprehension of its various meanings, that sent a thrill through her. And the thrill was musical with happiness. To the sad a great vision of human life brings sadness because they read into the hearts of others their own misery. ”

“ And Androvsky seemed a little more at home on it, although he sat awkwardly on the chair-like saddle, and grasped the rein too much as the drowning man seizes the straw. Domini rode without looking at him, lest he might think she was criticising his performance. When he had rolled in the dust she had been conscious of a sharp sensation of contempt. The men she had been accustomed to meet all her life rode, shot, played games as a matter of course. ”

“ Just then it seemed to her that if she had seen Androvsky lying dead before her on the sand she could not have felt unhappy. Nothing could do harm to a great love. It was the one permanent, eternally vital thing, clad in an armour of fire that no weapon could pierce, free of all terror from outside things because it held its safety within its own heart, everlastingly enough, perfectly, flawlessly complete for and in itself. For that moment fear left her, restlessness left her. Anyone looking in upon her from the garden would have looked in upon a great, calm happiness. ”

“ A woman’s love is, perhaps, the only true divining rod. Domini knew instinctively where lay the troubled waters, what troubled them in their subterranean dwelling. She was certain that Androvsky was at peace with her but not with himself. She had said to him in the tent that she thought he sometimes felt far away from God. The conviction grew in her that even the satisfaction of his great human love was not enough for his nature. He demanded, sometimes imperiously, not only the peace that can be understood gloriously, but also that other peace which passeth understanding. ”

“ But in the intense feeling of a man or woman is there not infinitude? Is there not a movement that is ceaseless till death comes to destroy—or to translate?
That was what she was thinking in the silence of the garden. And Androvsky? He sat beside her with his head bent, his hands hanging between his knees, his eyes gazing before him at the ordered tangle of the great trees. His lips were slightly parted, and on his strongly-marked face there was an expression as of emotional peace, as if the soul of the man were feeling deeply in calm. ”

“ The breeze would go on travelling through the lacework of the branches, the streams slipping between the sandy walls of the rills. The inexorable sun would shine, and the desert would whisper in its blue distances of the unseen things that always dwell beyond. And Androvsky would be gone. Their short intercourse, so full of pain, uneasiness, reserve, so fragmentary, so troubled by abrupt violences, by ignorance, by a sense of horror even on the one side, and by an almost constant suspicion on the other, would have come to an end. ”

“ The thing seemed to her almost incredible.
“That man must be in hell now,” she added. “In the hell a man can make for himself by his own act. Oh, here is my husband.”
Androvsky stood in the tent door, looking in upon them with startled, scrutinising eyes. He had come over the deep sand without noise. Neither Domini nor the priest had heard a footstep. The priest got up from his chair and bowed genially. ”

“ Even the memory of the day in the garden when she heard the church bell chime and the sound of Larbi’s flute went from her. She remembered nothing any more. The past was lost or laid in sleep by the spell of sensation. Her nature galloped like an Arab horse across the sands towards the sun, towards the fire that sheds warmth afar but that devours all that draws near to it. At that moment she connected Androvsky with the tremendous fires eternally blazing in the sun. She had a desire that he should hurt her in the passionate intensity of his love for her. ”

“ They had never once talked of the dinner in camp with De Trevignac and his men, or renewed their conversation in the tent on the subject of religion. But since that day, since her words about Androvsky’s lack of perfect happiness even with her far out in the freedom of the desert, Domini had been conscious that, despite their great love for each other, their mutual passion for the solitude in which it grew each day more deep and more engrossing, wrapping their lives in fire and leading them on to the inner abodes of sacred understanding, there was at moments a barrier between them. ”

“ Everything’s in you—everything that brought us together, that we’ve watched and wanted together.”
“But then,” she said, and now her voice was very quiet, “am I peace for you?”
“Peace!” said Androvsky.
“Yes. Don’t you remember once I said that there must be peace in the desert. Then is it in me—for you?”
“Peace!” he repeated. “To-day I can’t think of peace, or want it. Don’t you ask too much of me! Let me live to-day, live as only a man can who—let me live with all that is in me to-day—Domini. Men ask to die in peace. Oh, Domini—Domini!” ”

“ Without Androvsky and the sun—she still connected them together, and knew she would for ever.
The melancholy of this desert scene was increased for her till it became oppressive and lay upon her like a heavy weight. She was not a woman inclined to any morbid imaginings. Indeed, all that was morbid roused in her an instinctive disgust. But the sudden greyness of the weather, coming after weeks of ardent sunshine, and combined with the fantastic desolation of the landscape, which was half real and half unreal, turned her for the moment towards a dreariness of spirit that was rare in her. ”

“ Domini said.
Androvsky sighed.
“I feel already as if we were in the midst of a crowd,” he answered.
“Our love for peace oughtn’t to make us hate our fellowmen!” she said. “Come, Boris, let us chase away our selfish mood!”
She spoke in a more cheerful voice and drew her rein a little tighter. Her horse quickened its pace.
“And think how our stay at Amara will make us love the solitudes when we return to them again. Contrast is the salt of life.” ”

“ Close by, divided from her only by a little masonry, a few feet of sand, a few palm trees, Androvsky was with the priest.
Still kneeling, with her face between her hands, Domini began to think and pray. The memory of her petition to Notre Dame de la Garde came back to her. Before she knew Africa she had prayed for men wandering, and perhaps unhappy, there, for men whom she would probably never see again, would never know. ”

“ At last the something wild and lawless, the something that was more than passionate, that was hot and even savage in her nature, had risen up in its full force to face a similar force in him, which insistently called it and which it answered without shame.
“It is dying,” Androvsky said. “It is dying. Look how small the circle of the flame is, how the darkness is creeping up about it! Domini—do you see?”
She pressed his hand again.
“Do you long for the darkness?” he asked. “Do you, Domini? The desert is sending it. The desert is sending it for you, and for me because you love me.” ”