VII.
That afternoon El-Râmi prepared to go out, as was his usual custom, immediately after the mid-day meal, which was served to him by Féraz, who stood behind his chair like a slave all the time he ate and drank, attending to his needs with the utmost devotion and assiduity. Féraz indeed was his brother’s only domestic,—Zaroba’s duties being entirely confined to the mysterious apartments upstairs and their still more mysterious occupant. El-Râmi was in a taciturn mood,—the visit of the Reverend Francis Anstruther seemed to have put him out, and he scarcely spoke, save in monosyllables. Before leaving the house, however, his humour suddenly softened, and, noting the wistful and timorous gaze with which Féraz regarded him, he laughed outright.
“You are very patient with me, Féraz!” he said—“And I know I am as sullen as a bear.”
“You think too much;”—replied Féraz gently—“And you work too hard.”
“Both thought and labour are necessary,” said El-Râmi—“You would not have me live a life of merely bovine repose?”
Féraz gave a deprecating gesture.
“Nay—but surely rest is needful. To be happy, God Himself must sometimes sleep.”
“You think so?” and El-Râmi smiled—“Then it must be during His hours of repose and oblivion that the business of life goes wrong, and darkness and the spirit of confusion walk abroad. The Creator should never sleep.”
“Why not, if He has dreams?” asked Féraz—“For if Eternal Thought becomes Substance, so a God’s Dream may become Life.”
“Poetic as usual, my Féraz”—replied his brother—“and yet perhaps you are not so far wrong in your ideas. That Thought becomes Substance, even with man’s limited powers, is true enough;—the thought of a perfect form grows up embodied in the weight and substance of marble, with the sculptor,—the vague fancies of a poet, being set in ink on paper, become substance in book-shape, solid enough to pass from one hand to the other;—even so may a God’s mere Thought of a world create a Planet. It is my own impression that thoughts, like atoms, are imperishable, and that even dreams, being forms of thought, never die. But I must not stay here talking,—adieu! Do not sit up for me to-night—I shall not return,—I am going down to the coast.”