Annam

“ "And here is my sweet little Annamaria," she added, tenderly caressing a little girl of three years old, who had not [107] made a noise for the last two minutes; "And she is always so gentle and quiet—Never was there such a quiet little thing!"
But unfortunately in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her ladyship's head dress slightly scratching the child's neck, produced from this pattern of gentleness such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone by any creature professedly noisy. The mother's consternation was excessive; ”

“ At this there was a great murmuring, said Rabbi Amos, for many of the priests, with Annas also, had got boldness and drawn near to hear.
"He cannot be a just man," said Annas, "nor doth he honor God, if he would have us destroy the Temple."
"Yet if he be not sent of God, whence hath he this power over men?" answered another.
"He doeth this by Beelzebub, whose prophet he doubtless is," said Annas, in a loud tone, "for a true prophet would not seek the destruction of God's holy house."
Thereupon there was a multitude of voices, some crying one thing, and some another. ”

“ Anna said. “I will believe you. Remember that he’s not at all a bad sort, and to speak frankly, he’s your salvation. Try and let him never regret it. There’s plenty to be got out of life in a decent sort of way. Be a good wife to him. You can if you will.”
“I promise,” Annabel declared. “He is very kind, Anna, really, and not half such a prig as he seems.”
Anna moved towards the door, but her sister detained her.
“Won’t you tell me why you have come to England?” she said. “It was such a surprise to see you. I thought that you loved Paris and your work so much.” ”

“ She shook her head.
[Pg 124] “Loneliness,” she said, “is a luxury which I never permit myself. Besides—there is Sir John.”
“Sir John is an ass!” he declared.
“He is Annabel’s husband,” she reminded him.
“Annabel!” He looked at her thoughtfully. “It is rather odd,” he said, “but I always thought that your name was Annabel and hers Anna.”
“Many other people,” she remarked, “have made the same mistake.”
“Again,” he said, “I am going to be impertinent. I never met your sister in Paris, but I heard about her more than once. She is not in the least like the descriptions of her.” ”

“ I am the richest man in England. I am the richest man in the world. You love money. You know you do, Annabel. Never mind, I’ve got plenty. We’ll go to the shops. Diamonds! You shall have all that you can carry away, sacks full if you like. Pearls too! I mean it. I tell you I’m Meysey Hill, the railway man. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me in this beastly thing. Annabel! Annabel!”
His voice became a shriek. In response to an almost imperative gesture from the nurse, Anna laid her hand upon his. He fell back upon the pillows with a little moan, clutching the slim white fingers fiercely. ”

“ This small valley, with the larger one through which flows Grand River, is the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman. Three years previous to the death of Adam, he gathered the patriarchs Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch and Methuselah, together with all their righteous posterity, into this valley we have described; and there gave them his last blessing. And even as he blessed them, the heavens were opened, and the Lord appeared, and in the presence of their God, the children of Adam arose and blessed him, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel. ”

“ At length Annas, who is High Priest with Caiaphas, sent two of the most learned men of the Temple, Levites of weight of character, to invite the prophet to Jerusalem; for Annas is a wise man, and not easily carried away by popular feeling; and, as Rabbi Amos hath told me, he is disposed to look upon the preaching of this John with a serious and reverential eye. The messengers returned after the fifth day, and made their report openly in the Court of the Temple, where the High Priests sat to receive them. ”

“ Anna followed her finger, and looked back into her sister’s face.
“They were sent to me by Mr. Nigel Ennison, Annabel. How on earth does it concern you?”
Annabel laughed hardly.
“Concern me!” she repeated fiercely. “You are not content then with stealing from me my name. You would steal from me then the only man I ever cared a snap of the fingers about. They are not your flowers. They are mine! They were sent to ‘Alcide’ not to you.”
Anna rose to her feet. At last she was roused. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes bright. ”

“ To such as Adam Floyd the commandment of promise was rife with meaning. God would prolong his days and punish those who wronged him. He who had been so faithful to his mother, would be true to his wife—aye, truer far than young Dunallen, with all his polish and wealth.
“Adam,” Anna began at last, so low that he scarcely could hear her. “Adam forgive me all that is past. I have been cold and indifferent, have 289treated you as I ought not, but I am young and foolish, I—I—oh! Adam, I mean to do better. ”

“ Anna laughed softly.
“You propose, then,” she remarked, “that I shall still be saddled with a pseudo husband. I think not, Annabel. You are welcome to proclaim yourself ‘Alcide’ if you will. I would even make over my engagement to you, if Mr. Earles would permit. But I should certainly want to be rid of Mr. Montague Hill, and I do not think that under those circumstances I should be long about it.”
Annabel sank suddenly into a chair. Her knees were trembling, her whole frame was shaken with sobs.
“Anna,” she moaned, “I am a jealous, ungrateful woman. But oh, how weary I am! I know. ”

“ As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs. "Here or somewhere else—anywhere she likes—she shall live and be happy. ”

“ But if thou be stout of heart and firm of courage, I will bring you together and venture myself for you and make shift to bring thee to her in the Khalif’s palace; for she cannot come forth.” And Nimeh answered, “God requite thee with good!” Then she went back to Num and said to her, “Thy lord is indeed dying of love for thee and would fain see thee and foregather with thee. What sayst thou?” “And I also,” answered Num, “am dying for his sight.” So the old woman took a parcel of women’s clothes and ornaments and repairing to Nimeh, said to him, “Come apart with me into a privy place.” ”

“ But do thou hearken to my speech and obey me in that I shall say to thee and gainsay me not." He replied, "I hear and I obey: in me there is none opposition." Then said she, "Go to the Khan and, when my husband cometh to thee and inviteth thee, say to him, 'O my brother, a son of Adam is apt to be burdensome, and when his visits grow over frequent, both generous and niggard loathe him. [FN#421] How then shall I go with thee every night and lie I and thee, on the saloon? An thou wax not chagrined with me, thy Harim will bear me grudge, for that I hinder thee from thine. ”

“ Anna felt that her words had become charged with a fuller and more subtle meaning than any which she had intended to impart. “The truth!” It was a moment of awkwardness between the two sisters—a moment, too, charged with its own psychological interest, for there were secrets between them which for many months had made their intercourse a constrained and difficult thing. It was Annabel who spoke.
“How crude you are, Anna!” she exclaimed with a little sigh. “Sir John is not at all that sort. He is the kind of man who would much prefer a little dust in his eyes. ”

“ Anna said calmly, “that it is necessary for me also—to live. I arrived here with something less than five pounds in my pocket. My reception at West Kensington you know of. I was the black sheep, I was hurried out of the way. You did not complain then that I personated you—no, nor when Sir John came to me in Paris, and for your sake I lied.”
“You did not——”
“Wait, Annabel! When I arrived in London I went to live in the cheapest place I could find. I set myself to find employment. I offered myself as a clerk, as a milliner, as a shop girl. ”

“ His cicerone remarked his astonishment, and replying to his thought before he had given utterance to it, said, with an American accent, which Emanuel had already observed, and which proved that he who spoke to him was born on the other side of the Atlantic: “Yes, yes, we have a tolerably pretty sample of every nation in the world, and if all at once a good deluge should carry off the children of Noah, as it formerly did those of Adam, our ark could furnish people who speak every language. ”

“ Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss—always to be led round by the nose by some husband."
"Not some husband, my dear—one's own husband. You may call it leading by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by mine, and have missed it grievously ever since."
"But you had found the right man."
"It is not very difficult to find the right man."
"Yes it is—very difficult indeed."
"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even, he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with elaborate unconsciousness. ”

“ What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?"
"Oh—good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?"
"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking stony.
Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment against his sleeve. ”

“ After eating the forbidden fruit, and being expelled from Paradise, which was in heaven, Adam was cast down to India and Eve to Jiddeh in Arabia, where they wandered alone 200 years without being able to find each other. On Adam's lamenting, God forgave his sin and led him to the districts of Mecca, where he found his wife, no more to separate. Eve gave twenty births, two children each time, one male and the other female. And God commanded each male to marry his next younger sister. ”

“ Am not I better to thee than ten children?
9 So Anna arose after she had eaten and drunk in Silo: And Heli the priest sitting upon a stool, before the door of the temple of the Lord:
10 As Anna had her heart full of grief, she prayed to the Lord, shedding many tears,
11 And she made a vow, saying: O Lord, of hosts, if thou wilt look down on the affliction of thy servant, and wilt be mindful of me, and not forget thy handmaid, and wilt give to thy servant a man child: I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head. ”

“ In the meantime, Anna had been with us for a few weeks, but greatly changed from the Anna of former times. Listlessly she moved from room to room—never smiling, never weeping, and seldom speaking unless she were first addressed. To her, everything was dark, deep night, and such a gloom did her presence cast over us all, that though we would gladly have kept her with us, we still felt relieved when she left us for a home in Boston, where little Jamie soon became the idol of his grandmother, whose subdued cheerfulness had ere long a visible effect upon Anna. ”

“ Ham, his middlest son, laughed and scorned his father, and called his brethren to see, which rebuked Ham of his folly and sin. And Noah awoke, and when he understood how Ham his son had scorned him, he cursed him and also his son Canaan, and blessed Shem and Japhet. All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years and then he died. And after his death his sons dealed all the world between them, Shem had all Asia, Ham Africa, and Japhet all Europe. Thus was it departed. Asia is the best part and is as much as the other two, and that is in the east. ”

“ Earles that I was ‘Alcide,’” Anna remarked quietly.
“We will convince him now to the contrary,” Annabel answered.
Anna looked at her, startled.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Annabel set her teeth hard, and turned fiercely towards Anna.
“It means that I have had enough of this slavery,” she declared. “My husband and all his friends are fools, and the life they lead is impossible for me. It takes too many years to climb even a step in the social ladder. I’ve had enough of it. I want my freedom.”
“You mean to say,” Anna said slowly, “that you are going to leave your husband?” ”

“ It means that the Prophet taught that the American continents are not the New World, but the Old; Teacher that Eden was here in America. Adam-ondi-Ahman, the place where Adam dwelt after being driven from Eden, the Prophet declared to be in Missouri, in the valley of the Grand River. He represents a gathering together there of the patriarchs of the antediluvian age: and tells how they blessed Adam, or "Michael," the "Ancient of Days;" and Adam rose among them and blessed the patriarchs, his posterity, and told what should befall them to their latest generations. ”

“ For a time Ahmed resumed his fretful pacing of the gallery, and no sound but his footsteps fell upon the ears of the three. The aged priest still sat, immobile, at his post, and the tall monk reclined as motionless upon his divan.
At times Ahmed would pause and wring his thin hands, murmuring: “I cannot! I cannot leave this holy place. In a month I shall be Imaum—a chosen comrade of the Prophet!”
A bell, low-toned and sweet, chimed from a neighboring spire. At the summons the priest stirred and turned himself to the east, the involuntary action being imitated by the younger men. ”

“ Imam Din could not explain how this might be, and it was from that grey, fat Mohammedan that Adam learned through every inflection the Khuda jhanta [God knows!] that settles everything in the mind of Asia.
Beyond the fact that “Khuda” [God] was a very good man and kept lions, Adam’s theology did not run far. Mrs. Strickland tried to teach him a few facts, but he revolted at the story of Genesis as untrue. A turtle, he said, upheld the world, and one-half the adventures of Huzrut Nu [Father Noah] had never been told. If Mamma wanted to hear them she must ask Imam Din. ”