The Book of Khalid by Ameen Fares Rihani (non fiction books to read .TXT) π
In the grill-room of the Mena House we meet the poet Shakib, who was then drawing his inspiration from a glass of whiskey and soda. Nay, he was drowning his sorrows therein, for his Master, alas! has mysteriously disappeared.
"I have not seen him for ten days," said the Poet; "and I know not where he is.--If I did? Ah, my friend, you would not then see me here. Indeed, I should be with him, and though he be in the trap of the Young Turks." And some real tears flowed down the cheeks of the Poet, as he spoke.
The Mena House, a charming little Branch of Civilisation at the gate of the desert, stands, like man himself, in the shadow of two terrible immensities, the Sphinx and the Pyramid, the Origin and the End. And in the grill-room, over a glass of whiskey and soda, we presume to solve in few words the eternal mystery. But that is not what we came for. And to avoid the bewildering depths into which we were led, we suggested a stroll on the sands. Here the Poet waxed more eloquent, an
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βI say with psychologists, as the organism, so is the personality. The revelation of the Me is perfect in proportion to the sound state of the Medium. But according to the Arabic proverb, the jar oozes of its 229 contents. If these be of a putridinous mixture, therefore, no matter how sound the jar, the ooze is not going to smell of ambergris and musk. So, it all depends on the contents with which the Potter fills his jugs and pipkins, I assure you. And if the contents are good and the jar is sound, we get such excellence of soul as is rare among mortals. If the contents are excellent and the jar is cracked, the objective influence will then predominate, and putrescence, soon or late, will set in. Now, the Me in the majority of mankind comes to this world in a cracked pipkin, and it oozes out entirely as soon as it liquifies in youth. The pipkin, therefore, goes through life empty and cracked, ever sounding flat and false. While in others the Me is enclosed in a sealed straw-covered flask and can only be awakened by either evaporation or decapitation, in other words, by a spiritual revolution. And in the very few among mortals, it emerges out of the iron calyx of a flower of red-hot steel, or flows from the transparent, odoriferous bosom of a rose of light. In the first we have a CΓ¦sar, an Alexander, a Napoleon; in the second, a Buddha, a Socrates, a Christ.
βBut consider that Science, in the course of psychological analysis, speaks of Christ, Napoleon, and Shakespeare, as patients. Such exalted states of the soul, such activity of the mind, such exuberance of spiritual strength, are but the results of the transformation of the Me in the subject, we are told, and this transformation has its roots in the organism. But why, I ask, should there be such a gulf between 230 individuals, such a difference in their Mes, when a difference in the organism is a trifle in comparison? How account for the ebb and flow in the souls, or let us say, in the expression of the individualities, of Mohammad the Prophet, for instance, and Mohammad the camel-herd? And why is it in psychological states that are similar, the consciousness of the one is like a mountain peak, so to speak, and that of the other like a cave?
βA soldier is severely wounded in battle and a change takes place in his nervous organism, by reason of which he loses his organic consciousness; or, to speak in the phraseology of the psychologist, he loses the sense of his own body, of his physical personality. The cause of this change is probably the wound received; but the nature of the change can be explained only by hypotheses, which are become matters of choice and tasteββand sometimes of personal interest among scientists. Now, when the question is resolved by hypothesis, is not even a layman free to offer one? If I say the Glass is shattered and the Me within is sadly reflected, or in a more tragic instance the light of the Me runs out, would I not be offering thee a solution as dear and tenable as that of the professor of psychology?β
Breathless but scathless, we emerge from the mazes of metaphysics and psychology where man and the soul are ever playing hide-and-seek; and where Khalid was pleased to display a little of his killing skill in fencing. To those mazes, we promise the Reader, we shall not return again. In our present sojourn, however, it is necessary to go through the swamps and Jordans as well as the mountains and plains. Otherwise, we would not have lingered a breathing while in the lowlands of mystery. But now we know how far Khalid went in seeking health, and how deep in seeking the Me, which he would disentangle from the meshes of philosophy and anchoretism, and bring back to life, triumphant, loving, joyous, free. And how far he succeeded in this, we shall soon know.
On the morning of his last day in the pines, meanwhile, we behold him in the chariot of Apollo serenading the stars. He no longer would thrust a poker down his windpipe; for he breathes as freely as the mountain bears and chirps as joyously as the swallows. And his lungs? The lungs of the pines are not as sound. And his eyes? Well, he can gaze at the rising sun without adverting the head or squinting or 232 shedding a tear. Now, as a sign of this healthy state of body and mind, and his healthier resolve to return to the world, to live opposite his friend the Hermit on the other antipode of life, and furthermore, as a relief from the exhausting tortuosities of thought in the last Chapter, we give here a piece of description notably symbolical.
βI slept very early last night; the lights in the chapel of the abbey were still flickering, and the monks were chanting the complines. The mellow music of a drizzle seemed to respond sombrely to the melancholy echo of the choir. About midnight the rain beat heavily on the pine roof of the forest, and the thunder must have struck very near, between me and the monks. But rising very early this morning to commune for the last time with the pensive silence of dawn in the pines, I am greeted, as I peep out of my booth, by a knot of ogling stars. But where is the opaque breath of the storm, where are the clouds? None seem to hang on the horizon, and the sky is as limpid and clear as the dawn of a new life. Glorious, this interval between night and dawn. Delicious, the flavour of the forest after a storm. Intoxicating, the odours of the earth, refreshed and satisfied. Divine, the whispers of the morning air, divine!
βBut where is the rain, and where are the thunderbolts of last night? The forest and the atmosphere retain but the sweet and scented memories of their storming passion. Such a December morning in these mountain heights is a marvel of enduring freshness and 233 ardour. All round one gets a vivid illusion of Spring. The soft breezes caressing the pines shake from their boughs the only evidence of last nightβs storm. And these are more like the dew of Summer than the lees of the copious tears of parting Autumn. A glorious morning, too glorious to be enjoyed by a solitary soul. But near the rivulet yonder stands a fox sniffing the morning air. Welcome, my friend. Welcome to my coffee, too.
βI gather my mulberry sticks, kindle them with a handful of dried pine needles, roast my coffee beans, and grind them while the water boils in the pot. In half an hour I am qualified to go about my business. The cups and coffee utensils I wash and restore to the chestββand what else have I to do to-day? Pack up? Allah be praised, I have little packing to do. I would pack up, if I could, a ton of the pine air and the forest perfume, a strip of this limpid sky, and a cluster of those stars. Never at such an hour and in this season of the year did I enjoy such transporting limpidity in the atmosphere and such reassuring expansiveness on the horizon. Why, even the stars, the constellations, and the planets, are all here to enjoy this with me. Not one of them, I think, is absent.
βThe mountains are lost in the heavens. They are seeking, as it were, the sisters of the little flowers sleeping at their feet. The moon, resembling a crushed orange, is sinking in the Mediterranean. The outlines of earth and sky all round are vague, indistinct. Were not the sky so clear and the atmosphere 234 so rare, thus affording the planets and the constellations to shed their modicum of light, the dusk of this hour would have deprived the scene of much of its pensive beauty of colour and shade. But there is Pegasus, Andromeda, Aldebaran, not to mention Venus and Jupiter and Saturn,ββthese alone can conquer the right wing of darkness. And there is Mercury, like a lighted cresset shaken by the winds, flapping his violet wings above the Northeastern horizon; and Mars, like a piece of gold held out by the trembling hand of a miser, is sinking in the blue of the sea with Neptune; the Pleiades are stepping on the trail of the blushing moon; the Balance lingers behind to weigh the destinies of the heroes who are to contend with the dawn; while Venus, peeping from her tower over Mt. Sanneen, is sending love vibrations to all. I would tell thee more if I knew. But I swear to thee I never read through the hornbook of the heavens. But if I can not name and locate more of the stars, I can tell thee this about them all: they are the embers of certainty eternally glowing in the ashes of doubt.
βThe Eastern horizon is yet lost in the dusk; the false dawn is spreading the figments of its illusion; the trees in the distance seem like rain-clouds; and the amorphous shadows of the monasteries on the mountain heights and hilltops all around, have not yet developed into silhouettes. Everything, except the river in the wadi below, is yet asleep. Not even the swallows are astir. Ah, but my neighbour yonder is; the light in the loophole of his hut sends a struggling 235 ray through the mulberries, and the tintinnabulations of his daughterβs loom are like so many stones thrown into this sleeping pond of silence. The loom-girl in these parts is never too early at her harness and shuttle. I know a family here whose loom and spinning wheel are never idle: the wife works at the loom in the day and her boy at the wheel; while in the night, her husband and his old mother keep up the game. And this hardly secures for them their flour and lentils the year round. But I concern not myself now with questions of economy.
βThere, another of my neighbours is awake; and the hinges of his door, shrieking terribly, fiendishly, startle the swallows from their sleep. And here are the muleteers, yodling, as they pass by, their
βDhome, Dhome, Dhome,
O mother, he is come;
Hide me, hide me quickly,
And say I am not home.β
βLo, the horizon is disentangling itself from the meshes of darkness. The dust of haze and dusk on the scalloped edges of the mountains, is blown away by the first breath of dawn. The lighter grey of the horizon is mirrored in the clearer blue of the sea. But the darkness seems to gather on the breast of the sloping hills. Conquered on the heights, it retreats into the wadi. Ay, the darkest hour is nearest the dawn.
βNow the light grey is become a lavender; the outlines of earth
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