登陆注册
5242100000129

第129章 CHAPTER XIX(2)

"Can we choose such a thing? Is anybody allowed to choose to live always quite happily without duties? Sometimes I wonder. I love this wandering life so much, I am so happy in it, that I sometimes think it cannot last much longer."

He began to sift the sand through his fingers swiftly.

"Duties?" he said in a low voice.

"Yes. Oughtn't we to do something presently, something besides being happy?"

"What do you mean, Domini?"

"I hardly know, I don't know. You tell me."

There was an urging in her voice, as if she wanted, almost demanded, something of him.

"You mean that a man must do some work in his life if he is to keep himself a man," he said, not as if he were asking a question.

He spoke reluctantly but firmly.

"You know," he added, "that I have worked hard all my life, hard like a labourer."

"Yes, I know," she said.

She stroked his hand, that was worn and rough, and spoke eloquently of manual toil it had accomplished in the past.

"I know. Before we were married, that day when we sat in the garden, you told me your life and I told you mine. How different they have been!"

"Yes," he said.

He lit a cigar and watched the smoke curling up into the gold of the sunlit atmosphere.

"Mine in the midst of the world and yours so far away from it. I often imagine that little place, El Krori, the garden, your brother, your twin-brother Stephen, that one-eyed Arab servant--what was his name?"

"El Magin."

"Yes, El Magin, who taught you to play Cora and to sing Arab songs, and to eat cous-cous with your fingers. I can almost see Father Andre, from whom you learnt to love the Classics, and who talked to you of philosophy. He's dead too, isn't he, like your mother?"

"I don't know whether Pere Andre is dead. I have lost sight of him,"

Androvsky said.

He still looked steadily at the rings of smoke curling up into the golden air. There was in his voice a sound of embarrassment. She guessed that it came from the consciousness of the pain he must have caused the good priest who had loved him when he ceased from practising the religion in which he had been brought up. Even to her he never spoke frankly on religious subjects, but she knew that he had been baptised a Catholic and been educated for a time by priests. She knew, too, that he was no longer a practising Catholic, and that, for some reason, he dreaded any intimacy with priests. He never spoke against them. He had scarcely ever spoken of them to her. But she remembered his words in the garden, "I do not care for priests." She remembered, too, his action in the tunnel on the day of his arrival in Beni-Mora. And the reticence that they both preserved on the subject of religion, and its reason, were the only causes of regret in this desert dream of hers. Even this regret, too, often faded in hope. For in the desert, the Garden of Allah, she had it borne in upon her that Androvsky would discover what he must surely secretly be seeking--the truth that each man must find for himself, truth for him of the eventual existence in which the mysteries of this present existence will be made plain, and of the Power that has fashioned all things.

And she was able to hope in silence, as women do for the men they love.

"Don't think I do not realise that you have worked," she went on after a pause. "You told me how you always cultivated the land yourself, even when you were still a boy, that you directed the Spanish labourers in the vineyards, that--you have earned a long holiday. But should it last for ever?"

"You are right. Well, let us take an oasis; let us become palm gardeners like that Frenchman at Meskoutine."

"And build ourselves an African house, white, with a terrace roof."

"And sell our dates. We can give employment to the Arabs. We can choose the poorest. We can improve their lives. After all, if we owe a debt to anyone it is to them, to the desert. Let us pay our debt to the desert men and live in the desert."

"It would be an ideal life," she said with her eyes shining on his.

"And a possible life. Let us live it. I could not bear to leave the desert. Where should we go?"

"Where should we go!" she repeated.

She was still looking at him, but now the expression of her eyes had quite changed. They had become grave, and examined him seriously with a sort of deep inquiry. He sat upon the Arab rug, leaning his back against the wall of the traveller's house.

"Why do you look at me like that, Domini?" he asked with a sudden stirring of something that was like uneasiness.

"I! I was wondering what you would like, what other life would suit you."

"Yes?" he said quickly. "Yes?"

"It's very strange, Boris, but I cannot connect you with anything but the desert, or see you anywhere but in the desert. I cannot even imagine you among your vines in Tunisia."

"They were not altogether mine," he corrected, still with a certain excitement which he evidently endeavoured to repress. "I--I had the right, the duty of cultivating the land."

"Well, however it was, you were always at work; you were responsible, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"I can't see you even in the vineyards or the wheat-fields. Isn't it strange?"

She was always looking at him with the same deep and wholly unselfconscious inquiry.

"And as to London, Paris--"

Suddenly she burst into a little laugh and her gravity vanished.

"I think you would hate them," she said. "And they--they wouldn't like you because they wouldn't understand you."

"Let us buy our oasis," he said abruptly. "Build our African house, sell our dates and remain in the desert. I hear Batouch. It must be time to ride on to Mogar. Batouch! Batouch!"

Batouch came from the courtyard of the house wiping the remains of a cous-cous from his languid lips.

"Untie the horses," said Androvsky.

"But, Monsieur, it is still too hot to travel. Look! No one is stirring. All the village is asleep."

He waved his enormous hand, with henna-tinted nails, towards the distant town, carved surely out of one huge piece of bronze.

"Untie the horses. There are gazelle in the plain near Mogar. Didn't you tell me?"

"Yes, Monsieur, but--"

"We'll get there early and go out after them at sunset. Now, Domini."

同类推荐
  • 公子行二首

    公子行二首

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 续西游记

    续西游记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 寄刘录事

    寄刘录事

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Cymbeline

    Cymbeline

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 清世宗实录台湾资料选辑

    清世宗实录台湾资料选辑

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 职场启示录:掌握职场生存的80个成功智慧

    职场启示录:掌握职场生存的80个成功智慧

    战场上,不打无准备之仗,同理,职场中,亦不能盲目做事。上战场前不做足准备,就可能兵败被俘;入职场前不做足功课,就可能人生失意。如果你不希望自已拥有一个失意的人生,那就首先要努力地创造职场上的辉煌。即使是只想职场生存,也需要一定的智慧。本书就从每个职场人都会遇到的种种情况入手,帮助大家寻求到解决同类问题的有效方法,告诫大家绕开职场生存的种种禁忌,从而使大家能够在职场中站稳脚,进而在职场中胜出。
  • 大唐小侯爷

    大唐小侯爷

    想不明白了,旅个游而已,竟然莫名其妙穿越了!家是回不去了,手机竟然跟着也变异了,悲愤的倒霉蛋只能一步一步从秦岭深处走出。谁知倒霉的在渭水河边遇上刚刚被突厥打劫一空的倒霉李二。“陛下,咱们格物吧?”“不行啊!朕的江山不稳,国力不济,民生困苦,朕还要灭突厥、平西域、征高句丽、国内的事情也是一大堆,实在没空啊!”“不就是灭个突厥、平个西域、征个高句丽嘛!只要咱们君臣携手,这都小事尔!”很多年后,君臣两个无聊的趴在地图上,看着大唐庞大的版图,大眼瞪小眼,过了会儿,赵谌小心翼翼的建议。“陛下,要不咱们西征吧?”“正合朕意,准了!”大唐小侯爷群号:474252937欢迎喜欢的兄弟姐妹们加进来!
  • 我的长安探花郎

    我的长安探花郎

    犹记得放榜那天,探花郎在酒楼与人把酒言欢回首往事,不无遗憾地说道:“我年少时爱慕过的邻家公子,后来中了状元,做了驸马,春风得意风光无限,怕是早已不记得我这个昔日里就无关紧要的小青梅了。”那天大雪纷飞,雪花铺满了整个长安街,段相爷一身白衣极尽风雅地替她煨着桌上的小酒,听此,附在她耳边不无委屈道:“本相这一生从未羡慕过任何人,唯独你那邻家公子,每每想起便嫉妒的挠心挠肺。但是李家姑娘,你又何必难过,我欢喜你,从始至终一直都欢喜你。”
  • 斩妖屠魔剑

    斩妖屠魔剑

    以为自己能搅起通天巨浪,最后发现不过是随波逐流。以为自己站在浪涛之巅,原来是一浪还比一浪高。一切都是你以为。
  • 妃常妖娆:冥妃倾天下

    妃常妖娆:冥妃倾天下

    当世人都以为那是一段金玉良缘,只有她知道,相伴相守不过利益的交易,她不爱他,他也不爱她,他爱上另一个女人,她微笑促成。当大功将成,世人却要把她步步送往死地,他冷眼观之,那一瞬她明白,即使是一缕魂魄,也有选择人生的权力,而他,是否真的绝情如此,又或许,这两人既骗了他人,又骗了自己当生命只剩下只言片语,你还记得谁的片刻温情?
  • 亲爱的傲娇先森

    亲爱的傲娇先森

    17岁-22岁的故事,从青春懵懂到成熟勇敢,从轰轰烈烈到平平淡淡,飞蛾扑火的勇气是否依旧如初?
  • 不喝孟婆汤

    不喝孟婆汤

    据说,这世上有一条路叫黄泉路,有一条河叫忘川,河上有一座奈何桥,奈何桥的另一端有一个土台,叫望乡台,孟婆在那里卖孟婆汤。想要投胎转世的人,都必须走过奈何桥,喝下孟婆汤,这样就可以忘掉今生的一切,转入下一个轮回......
  • 不退转法轮经

    不退转法轮经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 礼仪全书4

    礼仪全书4

    在现代社会,礼仪可以有效地展现施礼者和受礼者的教养、风度与魅力,它体现着一个人对他人和社会的认知水平、尊重程度,是一个人的学识、修养和价值的外在表现。
  • 神女凰命,至尊狂宠

    神女凰命,至尊狂宠

    重生的她是个全系天才。灵兽神马的,一抓一大把。丹药神马的,随随便便的。阵法?炼器?她会的多了去了。 为什么在外冷冰冰的七皇子在她这里就吊儿郎当的? 一坨粉粉的萌物认她为主?! 她到底是谁的孩子? 她的小黑龙怎么又成了一族之主了!还要不要和她并肩作战了啊!? 什么?自己的手下和灵兽都有了伴,她却还被母亲催婚? 某妖孽“没事儿,我不会让你孤独终老的,你终究会成为我的女人。” 白驹过隙,岁月如梭。 儿女满堂,本该享受幸福人生,可却是天灾人祸? 到底是怎样的传奇? 到底是怎样的结局? 敬请期待,未完待续。