CHAPTER X
THE VINEYARD IN THE KAABA
This, then, is the cave of our troglodyte! Allah be praised, even the hermits of the Lebanon mountains, like the prophets of America and other electric-age species, are subject to the laws of evolution. A cottage and chapel set in a vineyard, the most beautiful we have yet seen, looms up in this rocky wilderness like an oasis in a desert. For many miles around, the vicinage presents a volcanic aspect, wild, barren, howlingly dreary. At the foot of Mt. Sanneen in the east, beyond many ravines, are villages and verdure; and from the last terrace in the vineyard one overlooks the deep chasm which can boast of a rivulet in winter. But in the summer its nakedness is appalling. The sun turns its pocket inside out, so to speak, exposing its boulders, its little windrows of sands, and its dry ditches full of dead fish spawn. And the cold, rocky horizon, rising so high and near, shuts out the sea and hides from the Hermit the glory of the sundown. But we can behold its effects on Mt. Sanneen, on the clouds above us, on the glass casements in the villages far away. The mountains in the east are mantled with etherial lilac alternating with mauve; the clouds are touched with purple and gold; the casements in the distance are 203 scintillating with mystical carbuncles: the sun is setting in the Mediterranean,––he is waving his farewell to the hills.
We reach the first gate of the Hermitage; and the odour peculiar to monks and monkeries, a mixed smell of mould and incense and burning oil, greets us as we enter into a small open space in the centre of which is a Persian lilac tree. To the right is a barbed-wire fence shutting in the vineyard; directly opposite is the door of the chapel; and near it is a wicket before which stands a withered old woman. Against the wall is a stone bench where another woman is seated. As we enter, we hear her, standing at the wicket, talking to some one behind the scene. “Yes, that is the name of my husband,” says she. “Allah have mercy on his soul,” sighs an exiguous voice within; “pray for him, pray for him.” And the woman, taking to weeping, blubbers out, “Will thirty masses do, think your Reverence?” “Yes, that will cheer his soul,” replies the oracle.
The old woman thereupon enters the chapel, pays the priest or serving-monk therein, one hundred piasters for thirty masses, and goes away in tears. The next woman rises to the gate. “I am the mother of––,” she says. “Ah, the mother of––,” repeats the exiguous voice. “How are you? (She must be an old customer.) How is your husband? How are your children? And those in America, are they well, are they prosperous? Yes, yes, your deceased son. Well, h’m––h’m––you must come again. I can not tell you anything yet. Come again next week.” 204 And she, too, visits the chapel, counts out some money to the serving-monk, and leaves the Hermitage, drying her tears.
The Reader, who must have recognised the squeaking, snuffling, exiguous voice, knows not perhaps that the Hermit, in certain moments of inkhitaf (abstraction, levitation) has glimpses into the spirit-world and can tell while in this otherworldliness how the Christian souls are faring, and how many masses those in Purgatory need before they can rejoin the bosom of Father Abraham. And those who seek consolation and guidance through his occult ministrations are mostly women. But the money collected for masses, let it here be said, as well as the income of the vineyard, the Hermit touches not. The monks are the owners of the occult establishment, and they know better than he what to do with the revenue. But how far this ancient religious Medium can go in the spirit-world, and how honest he might be in his otherworldliness, let those say who have experience in spookery and table-rapping.
Now, the women having done and gone, the wicket is open, and the serving-monk ushers us through the dark and stivy corridor to the rear, where a few boxes marked “Made in America”––petroleum boxes, these––are offered us as seats. Before the door of the last cell are a few potsherds in which sweet basil plants are withering from thirst. Presently, the door squeaks, and one, not drooping like the plants, comes out to greet us. This is Father Abd’ul-Messiah (Servitor of the Christ), as the Hermit 205 is called. Here, indeed, is an up-to-date hermit, not an antique troglodyte. Lean and lathy, he is, but not hungry-looking; quick of eye and gesture; quick of step, too. He seems always on the alert, as if surrounded continually with spirits. He is young, withal, or keeps so, at least, through the grace and ministration of Allah and the Virgin. His long unkempt hair and beard are innocent of a single white line. And his health? “Through my five and twenty years of seclusion,” said he, “I have not known any disease, except, now and then, in the spring season, when the sap begins to flow, I am visited by Allah with chills and fever.––No; I eat but one meal a day.––Yes; I am happy, Allah be praised, quite happy, very happy.”
And he lifts his eyes heavenward, and sighs and rubs his hands in joyful satisfaction. To us, this Servitor of the Christ seemed not to have passed the climacteric. But truly, as he avowed, he was entering the fifth lustrum beyond it. Such are the advantages of the ascetic life, and of such ascetics the Kingdom of Heaven. A man of sixty can carry twenty years in his pocket, and seem all honesty, and youth, and health, and happiness.
We then venture a question about the sack-cloth, a trace of which was seen under his tunic sleeve. And fetching a deep sigh, he gazes on the drooping sweet basils in silence. No, he likes not to speak of these mortifications of the flesh. After some meditation he tells us, however, that the sack-cloth on the first month is annoying, torturing. “But the flesh,” 206 he continues naïvely, “is inured to it, as the pile, in the course of time, is broken and softened down.” And with an honest look in his eyes, he smiled and sighs his assurance. For his Reverence always punctuates his speech with these sweet sighs of joy. The serving-monk now comes to whisper a word in his ear, and we are asked to “scent the air” a while in the vineyard.