The Book of Khalid

by Ameen Fares Rihani

“I have always somewhat to do, always. For to be idle is to open the door for Iblis. I might walk up and down this corridor, counting the slabs therein, and consider my time well spent.” Saying which he rises and points to the sky. The purple fringes of the clouds are gone to sable; the lilac tints on the mountains are waxing grey; and the sombre twilight with his torch––the evening star had risen––is following in the wake of day; ’tis the hour of prayer.

But before we leave him to his devotion, we ask to be permitted to see his cell. Ah, that is against the monastic rules. We insist. And with a h’m, h’m, and a shake of the head, he rubs his hands caressingly and opens the door. Yes, the Reader shall peep into this eight by six cell, which is littered all 208 around with rubbish, sacred and profane. In the corner is a broken stove with a broken pipe attached,––broken to let some of the smoke into the room, we are told. “For smoke,” quoth the Hermit, quoting the Doctor, “destroys the microbes––and keeps the room warm after the fire goes out.”

In the corner opposite the stove is a little altar with the conventional icons and gewgaws and a number of prayer books lying pell-mell around. Nearby is an old pair of shoes, in which are stuck a few candles and St. Anthony’s Book of Contemplations. In the corner behind the door is a large cage, a pantry, suspended middleway between the floor and ceiling, containing a few earthen pots, an oil lamp, and a jar, covered with a cloth. Between the pantry and the altar, on a hair-mat spread on the floor, sleeps his Reverence. And his bed is not so hard as you might suppose, Reader; for, to serve your curiosity, we have been rude enough to lift up a corner of the cloth, and we found underneath a substantial mattress! On the bed is his book of accounts, which, being opened, when we entered, he hastened to close.

“You keep accounts, too, Reverence?”

“Indeed, so. That is a duty devolved on every one with mortal memory.”

Let it not be supposed, however, that he has charge of the crops. In his journal he keeps the accounts of his masses? And here be evil sufficient for the day.

This, then, is the inventory of Abd’ul-Messiah’s cell. And we do not think we have omitted much 209 of importance. Yes; in the fourth corner, which we have not mentioned, are three or four petroleum cans containing provisions. From one of these he brings out a handful of dried figs, from another a pinch of incense, which he gives us as a token of his love and blessing. One thing we fain would emphasise, before we conclude our account. The money part of this eremitic business need not be harshly judged; for we must bear in mind that this honest Servitor of Christ is strong enough not to have his will in the matter. And remember, too, that the abbey’s bills of expenses run high. If one of the monks, therefore, is blessed with a talent for solitude and seclusion, his brother monks shall profit by it. Indeed, we were told, that the income of the Hermitage, that is, the sum total in gold of the occult and the agricultural endeavours of Abd’ul-Messiah, is enough to defray the yearly expenditures of the monkery. Further, we have nothing to say on the subject. But Khalid has. And of his lengthy lucubration on The Uses of Solitude, we cull the following:

“Every one’s life at certain times,” writes he, “is either a Temple, a Hermitage, or a Vineyard: every one, in order to flee the momentary afflictions of Destiny, takes refuge either in God, or in Solitude, or in Work. And of a truth, work is the balm of the sore mind of the world. God and Solitude are luxuries which only a few among us nowadays can afford. But he who lives in the three, though his life be that of a silk larva in its cocoon, is he not individually considered 210 a good man? Is he not a mystic, though uncreative, centre of goodness? Surely, his influence, his Me alone considered, is living and benign, and though it is not life-giving. He is a flickering taper under a bushel; and this, billah, were better than the pissasphaltum-souls which bushels of quackery and pretence can not hide. But alas, that a good man by nature should be so weak as to surrender himself entirely to a lot of bad men. For the monks, my brother Hermit, being a silk worm in its cocoon, will asphyxiate the larva after its work is done, and utilise the silk. Ay, after the Larva dies, they pickle and preserve it in their chapel for the benefit of those who sought its oracles in life. Let the beef-packers of America take notice; the monks of my country are in the market with ‘canned hermits!’

“And this Larva, be it remembered, is not subject to decay; a saint does not decompose in the flesh like mortal sinners. One of these, I have been told, dead fifty years ago and now canonised, can be seen yet in one of the monasteries of North Lebanon, keeping well his flesh and bones together––divinely embalmed. It has been truly said that the work of a good man never dies; and these leathery hermits continue in death as in life to counsel and console the Faithful.

“In the past, these Larvæ, not being cultivated for the market, continued their natural course of development and issued out of their silk prisons full fledged moths. But those who cultivate them to-day are in sore need. They have masses and indulgences to sell; they have big bills to pay. But whether left to grow 211 their wings or not, their solitude is that of a cocoon larva, narrow, stale, unprofitable to the world. While that of a philosopher, a Thoreau, for instance, might be called Nature’s filter; and one, issuing therefrom benefited in every sense, morally, physically, spiritually, can be said to have been filtered through Solitude.”