The beautiful bed was for the marabout to sleep on, the food was for his refreshment. After sunset all holy men are believed to rise from the earth and lie upon the more comfortable bed, and take a little light refreshment. Some Arabs go so far as to put a pipe and some tobacco and a box of lights on the table, in case the dead saint should like a smoke. What a delightful idea of death! Why, the grave would lose all its terrors to some men if they could be sure of a pipe after dinner!
CHAPTER X.
SAINTS AND SINNERS.
I bring a message from across the seas. I am requested by the venerable Father Antoine, of the monastery of La Trappe, at Staouëli, near Algiers, to make it known that the Trappists of Africa are very anxious to have an English brother among them. The monastery is delightfully situated. Its advantages are that you take a vow of perpetual silence; you only have one meal a day, which never includes meat; you labour healthfully in the fields, and, by way of recreation, you dig your own grave. The English brother will occasionally be relieved of the vow of perpetual silence, because his duties will be to receive the English visitors and conduct them over the monastery. I am absolutely in earnest. The request is a bonâ-fide one; and an English Roman Catholic willing to enter the order will be most heartily and cordially received.
I was much inclined to stay myself. I didn’t mind the work and the grave-digging and the vegetarian diet. I am sure many of my ailments would have disappeared under the treatment. My stumbling-block was the vow of silence. In the interior of the monastery silence is rigorously enforced. Even visitors, after they pass the inner portals, are requested to hold their tongues. I couldn’t do that even for ten minutes. I tried hard, but every now and then I found myself whispering a remark to my companions. The good Père Antoine smilingly rebuked me with a warning finger, and the silent Trappists gazed at me in mild remonstrance. No ladies are under any circumstances admitted. The utter impossibility of a woman remaining silent anywhere or under any circumstances is probably the reason for this rigorous exclusion.
On the day that I drove to Staouëli and visited the famous monastery, the African sun was pouring down its fierce rays from a sky of the deepest and intensest blue. The vast fields of scented geranium, from which the Trappists distil a famous perfume, were bathed in a great white heat. There hundreds of cattle lay about and lolled in the sun, and the great palm-trees in the glorious gardens of the monastery cast their long shadows over such a wealth of fruit and flower as I have never seen before. ‘If it is sad to live at La Trappe, how sweet it is to die there,’ says an inscription on the walls. I don’t want to die there, but I am sure I should not have found it sad to live and labour amid such calm and beautiful surroundings, ‘the world forgetting, by the world forgot.’ It must be a very comfortable existence. All the brothers I saw looked very happy. No posts, no telegraphs disturbed the calm serenity of their labours, and they all sat down to their one daily meal with an appetite and a digestion that filled me with a great envy.
I breakfasted at La Trappe. Brother Dominic spread the feast, and Father Antoine himself uncorked the wines—made on the premises—with which the dainty fare was washed down. I was the only visitor, so I breakfasted in solemn state alone. I had first an excellent omelette, then some cold sweet potatoes, then some cheese and salad, then some bread and honey, then some raisins, some oranges, and some bananas, and after I had drunk a bottle of red wine, the good father produced a bottle of exquisite white sweet dessert wine; and after that I had coffee and a glass of the famous Trappistine liqueur. Father Antoine and Brother Dominic waited upon me hand and foot. They piled my plate and filled my glass until I was obliged to cry, ‘Hold! enough!’ only I expressed myself more politely. And then I was shown to the shaded seat in the garden, and told that if I liked to enjoy a cigar under the palm-trees, the brother would look the other way.
I have a few pleasant memories to look back upon—green oases in the arid desert of my life; but there are none so fraught with calm and holy peace as that hot January day I spent with the good kind brothers of La Trappe in their African home. They showed me everything—their cells, their beds, their library, their kitchen, their farm, their winepresses, their laboratoire, their stables, their cattle, their thousands of cocks and hens and pigeons and rabbits, and then they loaded me with ripe oranges and bananas plucked from their own trees, and choicest roses gathered from their own gardens; and all they asked me in return was to mention in my book that they wanted an English brother to come and live among them. Go, English brother, go; and I promise you you will be happy—far happier than staying in the turmoil of the world, to endure its thousand worries and heartaches and disappointments. Go and tell Father Antoine that the Englishman who smoked a pipe, and who would keep talking in spite of the rules, kept his promise, and sent you out to dig your own grave, and to make the English visitors who don’t speak French welcome to the African home of the world-famed monks of La Trappe.
On the evening of the day that I visited La Trappe, I assisted at a very different scene. I received an invitation to be present at the Feast of the Assaouaï, a kind of religious fête, held in a Moorish house in the Rue Ben Ali, a narrow street in the top of the Arab quarter. The Arab quarter is a sight in itself. It is a labyrinth of narrow streets of steps and jumbled houses. You can only pass along two abreast, and the roofs of the houses hang over and almost join. To get to any given house, you must have a guide; for there are scores of streets crossing and recrossing one another, and they are all alike. Achmet conducted me at night to the Rue Ben Ali, and I witnessed a scene the like of which is to be seen nowhere else in the civilized world. I found myself in the courtyard of a Moorish house, open to the sky. Above me glittered the bright stars in a vault of blue. The courtyard was crammed with Arabs, and French and English ‘strangers.’ Next to me, standing on a chair, was Miss Jones of Clapham, with her mamma. I wondered how they got there, and what they thought of the Moorish ladies, who, dressed like the chorus in the Eastern extravaganza at the Gaiety Theatre, sat outside many of the houses in the narrow streets, and addressed endearing blandishments to the male passers-by. I blushed a little at much that I passed on my journey up the Arab quarter; but Miss Jones of Clapham and her mamma were possibly protected by their innocence from knowing what it meant. Before the Feast of the Assaouaï was over, they must have had their innocence severely put to the test; but I am bound to say they never blushed once.
The performance commenced with a dance of Moorish girls. The girls were lovely, and they were gorgeously dressed. They danced the Oriental dance, which is, perhaps, as absolutely and indelicately suggestive as any dance known to ancient or modern times. The French ladies present muttered ‘Mon Dieu!’ under their breath. Miss Jones of Clapham struggled for a closer view. Mamma pursed her lips a little, and once I thought I heard her groan, but she stood on tiptoe until a Moor’s fez got in her line of sight. After the dance, the girls sang a love-song. Achmet explained the burthen of it to me, when I heard Miss Jones say to her mamma that it was very ‘sweet.’ I felt convinced that Arabic didn’t form part of a young lady’s education at Clapham seminaries. What the natives who understood the song and appreciated the dances must have thought of the English young woman who almost jumped on the Arabs’ backs to get a good view of the proceedings, I have been wondering ever since.
After the songs and dances, the dervishes commenced their performances. A young dervish jumped into the ring, and swayed himself backwards and forwards for ten minutes, shouting, ‘Allah! Allah!’ while his motions became so rapid that I felt giddy. Then, having reached the required pitch of fanatical fervour, he began to cram live scorpions into his mouth, and bite off their heads and tails. I confess that if I could have got out of the crowd, I should gladly have been sick. Miss Jones of Clapham only murmured that it was very wonderful. Another fanatic, after swinging round till he fell down foaming at the mouth, ran skewers through his nose and under his eyelids, and left them hanging there while he bit pieces out of a glass bottle and chewed them to powder. Then he had an epileptic fit, or a paralytic stroke, and, as soon as he had recovered, sat down to rest on a pan of live charcoal. He then ran a knife through his tongue, turned his eyes out on to his cheeks, twisted his ears upside down, and stuck his nose full of red-hot needles. After this he bowed and retired, amid much applause, Miss Jones of Clapham almost splitting her dainty little kid gloves in her demonstrations of approval. Mamma, I am bound to say, whispered to her dear and enthusiastic child that she was not quite sure that she could stand very much more.