'The only way,' he said, 'is to obtain annulment of the brother's marriage by proving it to be illegal in some way.' With that he left the subject and resumed his talk concerning poultry. My companion of the road was plucking at my sleeve.
I took leave of the Patriarch respectfully, with many thanks. He clapped me on the shoulder, saying: 'Come again! And never seek to wed the sister of thy brother's wife. Your Church does not forbid such marriage—does it?—being still tainted with the Latin heresy. Why does the Orthodox Church forbid it? Because it brings confusion into families, and is indecent.'
He seemed to jest, but the look he gave to my companion as we rode away was stern, I thought, and more than half-contemptuous.
Excepting that my head was bandaged, I felt well again; so we rode on, as we had first intended, towards Bethlehem. Over a rocky land with patches of pink cyclamen, black crows were wheeling in a sky of vivid blue.
We came into the olive groves beneath the hill on which stands the Greek priory of Mâr Elias, when my companion said ingratiatingly: 'If you please, we will call at the monastery and take refreshment. The monks are friends of mine. It was with the object of this visit that I led our ride in this direction.'
As I raised no objection, we tied up our horses in the garden of the monastery and went in. We found the Prior in the middle of a tea-party, a number of Greek neighbours, of both sexes, being gathered in a very comfortably-furnished room.
My friend, ere entering, implored me in a whisper not to tell them that my accident was owing to his clumsy horsemanship. Instead, he put about some story which I did not clearly overhear—something about a fight with desert Arabs, redounding to my credit, I conclude, from the solicitude which everyone expressed on my account when he had told it. Some of the ladies present insisted on a second washing of my wounds with rose-water, and a second bandaging with finer linen than the Patriarch had used. Some monks, their long hair frizzed coquettishly and tied with ribbon, helped in the work. I did not like the look of them. My friend meanwhile was talking to some pretty girls.
When we rode off again towards Jerusalem he asked me questions about the Anglican and Roman Churches, and seemed to think it a sad defect in the former that it lacked the faculty of dispensation with regard to marriage.
After a space of silence, as we were riding down the hill by the Ophthalmic Hospital, with the Tower of David and the city walls crowning the steep before us, he inquired: 'Did you observe those girls with whom I was conversing—especially the one with pale-blue ribbons. It is her I love.' And, when I complimented him on his good taste, he added: 'I think I shall become a Catholic,' and started weeping.
I then learnt from his broken speech that he was himself the hapless lover of his story to the Patriarch. The girl whom I had seen at Mâr Elias was the sister of his brother's wife. I was as sympathetic in appearance as I could be; but somehow all my sympathy was with the Patriarch, who seemed to me the only man whom I had seen that day.