Chapter IV: BEDOUIN LOVE
Jim awoke next morning with the feeling that he had come back to earth from heaven. The events of the night before seemed to belong to a world of enchantment, and had no relation to the keen, practical sunlight which now struck into his room through the open windows, nor to the cool sea breeze which waved the curtains to and fro, nor yet to the vivid blue sea and the clean-cut rocks which came into sight as he sat up in bed.
“In the next room,” he mused to himself, “sleeps a woman who in the darkness was to me the gateway of my dreams, but who in this bright sunlight will be again only a capable, pretty creature and an amusing companion. Night, after all, is woman’s kingdom, and in it she is mistress of all the magic arts of enchantment, she becomes greater than herself; but day belongs to man. How, then, shall I greet her?—for my very soul seemed surrendered to her a few hours ago, yet now I find myself still master of my destiny.”
Like an artist who steps back to view his picture, or like a poet who measures up his dream, he allowed his mind to take stock of his emotions. When her head had been thrown back upon the pillows, and the white column of her throat could be seen in the dim light of the moon against the black confusion of her hair, it had seemed to him that the marks of the chisel of the Divine Artist were impressed upon the alabaster of her flesh. It was as though, gazing down at her beauty, his eyes had been opened and he had beheld the handicraft of Paradise.
And when, in his ardour, he had had the feeling of not knowing what next to do nor what words to utter, her silencing loveliness had baffled him, so it seemed, because her body was stamped with the seal of the Infinite and fashioned in the likeness of God. True, she was but imperfect woman; yet the art of the Lord of Arts had created her, and, by the magic of the night, he had found her rich in the inimitable craftsmanship of heaven.
He had seen the glory of heaven in her eyes. He had heard the voice of all the ages in her voice. In the touch of her lips there had been the rapture of the spheres, and the gods of the firmament had seemed to ride out upon the tide of her breath.
But was it she whom he had wanted when he held her pinioned in his arms? He could not say. It seemed more reasonable to suppose that through her he was looking towards the splendour which his soul sought. She was but the necromancy by which he had carried earth up to heaven; she was the magic by which he had brought heaven down to the earth. She had been the door of his dreams, the portal of the sky; and through her he had made his incursion into the kingdom beyond the stars.
“It was only an illusion,” he said, as he stood at the window, invigorated by the breeze. “We are actually almost strangers. I don’t know anything about her, and she knows little of me. It was the magic of the night employed by scheming Nature for her one unchanging purpose; and all that happened in the darkness will be forgotten in the sunlight. We shall meet as friends.”