The Book of Khalid (18 page)

“Ay, we live in a phantasmagoric, cycloramic economy of flounces and ruffles. The human Spirit shirks nudity as it shirks pain. Even your modern preacher of the Simple Life is at best suggesting the moderate use of ruffles.… Indeed, we can suffer anything, everything, but the naked and ugly reality. Alas, have I not listened for years to what I mistook to be the strong, pure voice of the naked Truth? And have I not discovered, to my astonishment, that the supposed scientific Nudity is but an indurated thick Crust under which the Lie lies hidden. Why strip Man of his fancy appendages, his adventitious sanctities, if you are going to give him instead only a few yards of shoddy? No, I tell you; this can not be done. Your brambles and thorn hedges will continue to grow and luxuriate, will even shut from your view the Temple in the Grove, until the great Pine rises again to stunt, and ultimately extirpate, them.

“Behold, meanwhile, how the world parades in ruffles before us. What a bewildering phantasmagoria this: a very Dress Ball of the human race. See them pass: the Pope of Christendom, in his three hats and heavy trailing gowns, blessing the air of heaven; the priest, in his alb and chasuble, dispensing of the blessings of the Pope; the judge, in his wig and bombazine, endeavouring to reconcile divine justice with the law’s mundane majesty; the college doctor, in cap and gown, anointing the young princes of knowledge; the buffoon, in his cap and bells, dancing to the god of laughter; mylady of the pink-tea circle, in her huffing,
puffing gasoline-car, fleeing the monster of ennui; the bride and bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion; the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind in his gorgeous and multi-colored robes; and the Papuan with horns in his nostrils and rings in his ears: see them all pass.

“And wilt thou still add to the bewildering variety of the pageant? Or wilt have another of the higher things of the mind? Lo, the artist this, wearing his ruffles of hair over his shoulders; and here, too, is the man of the sombrero and red flannel, which are the latest flounces of a certain set of New World poets. Directly behind them is Dame Religion with her heavy ruffled robes, her beribboned and belaced bodices, her ornaments and sacred gewgaws. And billah, she has stuffings and paddings, too. And false teeth and foul breath! Never mind. Pass on, and let her pass. But tarry thou a moment here. Behold this pyrotechnic display, these buntings and flags; hear thou this music and these shouts and cheers; on yonder stump is an orator dispensing to his fellow citizens spread-eagle rhetoric as empty as yonder drum: these are the elaborate and attractive ruffles of politics. And among the crowd are genial and honest citizens who have their own way of ruffling your temper with their coarse flounces of linsey-woolsey freedom. Wilt thou have more?”

Decidedly not, we reply. For how can we even keep company with Khalid, who has become such a maniac on flounces? And was this fantastic, phantasmagoric rhapsody
all inspired by Najma’s simple remark on his hair? Fruitful is thy word, O woman!

But being so far away now from the Hermitage in the Bronx, what has the “cherry in the cocktail” and “the olive in the oyster patty” to do with all this? Howbeit, the following deserves a place as the tail-flounce of his Fantasy.

“Your superman and superwoman,” says he, with philosophic calm, “may go Adam-and-Eve like if they choose. But can they, even in that chaste and splendid nudity, dispense with ruffles and flounces? Pray, tell me, did not our first parents spoon and sentimentalise in the Paradise, before the Serpent appeared? And would they not often whisper unto each other, ‘Ah, Adam, ah, Eve!’ sighing likewise for sweeter things? And what about those fatal Apples, those two sour fruits of their Love?—I tell thee every new-born babe is the magnificent flesh-flounce of a shivering, trembling, nudity. And I Khalid, what am I but the visible ruffle of an invisible skirt? Verily, I am; and thou, too, my Brother. Yea, and this aquaterrestrial globe and these sidereal heavens are the divine flounces of the Vesture of Allah.”

“HUMANITY IS SO FEEBLE IN MIND,” SAYS RENAN, “that the purest thing has need of the co-operation of some impure agent.” And this, we think, is the gist of Khalid’s rhapsody on flounces and ruffles. But how is he to reconcile the fact with the truth in his case? For a single sanctified ruffle—a line of type in the canon law—is likely to upset all his plans. Yes, a priest in alb and chasuble not only can dispense with the blessings of his Pope, but—and here is the rub—he can also withhold such blessings from Khalid. And now, do what he may, say what he might, he must either revise his creed, or behave, at least, like a Christian.

Everything is ready, you say? The sky-blue, many-ruffled wedding gown; the set-out for the wayfare; the camel and donkeys; the little stock of books; the coffee utensils; the lentils and sweet oil;—all ready? Very well; but you can not set forth to-morrow, nor three weeks from to-morrow. Indeed, before the priest can give you his blessings—and what at this juncture can you do without them?—the dispensations of the ban must be performed. In other words, your case must now be laid before the community. Every Sunday, for three such to come, the intended marriage of Khalid to Najma will be published in the Church, and whoso hath any
objection to make can come forth and make it. Moreover, there is that little knot of consanguinity to be considered. And your priest is good enough to come and explain this to you. Understand him well. “An alm of a few gold pieces,” says he, “will remove the obstacle; the unlawfulness of your marriage resulting from consanguinity will cease on payment of five hundred piasters.”

All of which startles Khalid, stupefies him. He had not, heretofore, thought of such a matter. Indeed, he was totally ignorant of these forms, these prohibitions and exemptions of the Church. And the father of Najma, though assenting, remarks nevertheless that the alms demanded are much. “Why,” exclaims Khalid, “I can build a house for five hundred piasters.”

The priest sits down cross-legged on the divan, lights the cigarette which Najma had offered with the coffee, and tries to explain.

“And where have you this, O Reverend, about consanguinity, prohibition, and alms!” Khalid asks.

“Why, my child, in the Canons of our Church, Catholic and Apostolic. Every one knows that a marriage between cousins can not be effected, without the sanction of the Bishop.”

“But can we not obtain this sanction without paying for it?”

“You are not paying for it, my child; you are only contributing some alms to the Church.”

“You come to us, therefore, as a beggar, not as a spiritual father and guide.”

“That is not good speaking. You misunderstand my purpose.”

“And pray, tell me, what is the purpose of prohibiting a
marriage between cousins; what chief good is there in such a ban?”

“Much good for the community.”

“But I have nothing to do with the community. I’m going to live with my wife in the desert.”

“The good of your souls is chiefly concerned.”

“Ah, the good of our souls!”

“And there are other reasons which can not be freely spoken of here.”

“You mean the restriction and prohibition of sexual knowledge between relatives. That is very well. But let us return to what concerns us properly: the good of my soul, and the spiritual well-being of the community,—what becomes of these, when I pay the prescribed alms and obtain the sanction of the Bishop?”

“No harm then can come to them—they’ll be secure.”

“Secure, you say? Are they not hazarded, sold by your Church for five hundred piasters? If my marriage to my cousin be wrong, unlawful, your Bishop in sanctioning same is guilty of perpetuating this wrong, this unlawfulness, is he not?”

“But what the Church binds only the Church can loosen.”

“And what is the use of binding, O Reverend Father, when a little sum of money can loosen anything you bind? It seems to me that these prohibitions of the Church are only made for the purpose of collecting alms. In other words, you bind for the sake of loosening, when a good bait is on the hook, do you not? Pardon, O my Reverend Father, pardon. I can not, to save my soul and yours, reconcile these contradictions. For if Mother Church be certain that my marriage to my cousin is contrary to the Law of God, is destructive of my spiritual well-being, then let her by all means prohibit it.
Let her restrain me, compel me to obey. Ay, and the police ought to interfere in case of disobedience. In her behalf, in my behalf, in the behalf of my cousin’s soul and mine, the police ought to do the will of God, if the Church knows what it is, and is certain and honest about it. Compel me to stop, I conjure you, if you know I am going in the way of damnation. O my Father, what sort of a mother is she who would sell two of her children to the devil for a few hundred piasters? No, billah! no. What is unlawful by virtue of the Divine Law the wealth of all the Trust-Kings of America can not make lawful. And what is so by virtue of your Canon Law concerns not me. You may angle, you and your Church, as long as you please in the murky, muddy waters of Bind-and-Loosen, I have nothing to do with you.” …

But the priests, O Khalid, have yet a little to do with you. Such arguments about the Divine Law and the Canon Law, about alms and spiritual beggars, might cut the Gordian knot with your uncle, but—and whether it be good or bad English, we say it—they cut no ice with the Church. Yes, Mother Church, under whose wings you and your cousin were born and bred, and under whose wings you and your cousin would be married, can not take off for the sweet sake of your black eyes the ruffles and flounces of twenty centuries. Think well on it, you who have so extravagantly and not unwisely delivered yourself on flounces and ruffles. But to think, when in love, were, indeed, disastrous. O Love, Love, what Camels of wisdom thou canst force to pass through the needle’s eye! What miracles divine are thine! Khalid himself says that to be truly, deeply, piously in love, one must needs hate himself. How true, how inexorably true! For would he be always inviting trouble and courting affliction, would he
be always bucking against the dead wall of a Democracy or a Church, if he did not sincerely hate himself—if he were not religiously, fanatically in love—in love with Najma, if not with Truth?

Now, on the following Sunday, instead of publishing the intended marriage of Khalid and Najma, the parish priest places a ban upon it. And in this, ye people of Baalbek, is food enough for tattle, and cause enough for persecution. Potent are the ruffles of the Church! But why, we can almost hear the anxious Reader asking, if the camels are ready, why the deuce don’t they get on and get them gone? But did we not say once that Khalid is slow, even slower than the law itself? Nevertheless, if this were a Novel, an elopement would be in order, but we must repeat, it is not. We are faithful transcribers of the truth as we find it set down in Shakib’s
Histoire Intime
.

True, Khalid did ask Najma to throw with him the handful of dust, to steal out of Baalbek and get married on the way, say in Damascus. But poor Najma goes over to his mother instead, and mingling their tears and prayers, they beseech the Virgin to enlighten the soul and mind of Khalid. “Yes, we must be married here, before we go to the desert,” says she, “for think, O my mother, how far away we shall be from the world and the Church if anything happens to us.”

And they would have succeeded, the mother and cousin of Khalid, in persuading the parish priest to accept from them the prescribed alms and perform the wedding ceremony, had not the Jesuits, in the interest of the Faith and the Church, been dogging Khalid still. For if they have failed in sending him to the Bosphorus, they will succeed in sending him elsewhither. And observe how this is done.

After communicating with the Papal Legate in Mt.
Lebanon about that fatal Latter Day Pamphlet of Thomas Carlyle, the Adjutant-General, or Adjutant-Bird, stalks up there one night in person and lays before the Rt. Rev. Mgr. his devil’s brief in Khalid’s case. It has already been explained that this Pamphlet was fathered on Khalid by the Jesuits. For if they can not punish the Voice which is still pursuing them—and in their heart of hearts they must have recognised its thunder, even in a Translation—they will make the man smart for it who first mentioned Carlyle in this connection.

“And besides this pernicious booklet,” says the Adjutant-Bird, “the young man’s heretical opinions are notorious. He was banished from home on that account. And now, after corrupting and deluding his cousin, he is going to marry her despite the ban of the Church. Something, Monseigneur, ought to be done, and quickly, to protect the community against the poison of this wretch.” And Monseigneur, nodding his accord, orders his Secretary to write a note to the Patriarch, enclosing the aforesaid devil’s brief, and showing the propriety, nay, the necessity of excommunicating Khalid the Baalbekian. The Adjutant-Bird, with the Legate’s letter in his pocket, skips over to the Patriarch on the other hill-top below, and after a brief interview—our dear good Ancient of the Maronites must willy-nilly obey Rome—the fate of Khalid the Baalbekian is sealed.

Indeed, the upshot of these Jesuitic machinations is this: on the very day when Khalid’s mother and cousin are pleading before the parish priest for justice, for mercy,—offering the prescribed alms, beseeching that the ban be revoked, the marriage solemnised,—a messenger from the Bishop of the Diocese enters, kisses his Reverence’s hand, and delivers an imposing envelope. The priest unseals it, unfolds the heavy foolscap sheet therein, reads it with a knitting of the brow, a
shaking of the beard, and, clapping one hand upon the other, tells the poor pleaders to go home.

“It is all finished. There is no more hope for you and your cousin.” And he shows the Patriarchal Bull, and explains.