THE CASTLE OF ANOUSH[1]
By RAFFI
“Anoush” in name, but full of bitterness in reality.
On one side of the road that leads from Tisbon to Ecbatana stands a steep, pointed crag. Its massive base rises from an extensive bed of rock, on which Nature has placed it as on a firm pedestal.
Not a handful of earth is to be found upon its denuded surface. Not a single plant grows on its hard, stony sides.
The burning rays of the southern sun have dried and baked it like an earthen vessel in the potter’s ever-burning fire. From time immemorial that rock has ever been so.
It happened one day that Farhat, the great Persian sculptor, passed at the foot of the rock with his pickaxe on his shoulder. He was aroused suddenly from the deep meditation in which he had been lost by the sound of horns and trumpets. He stopped. Greyhounds and hawk-bearers appeared, gay and thoughtless riders burst into sight like a storm, then passed away from sight like a storm.
The dim, shadowy outline of a face remained in his heart; that vision stole away his peace of mind. Every day at the same hour he was to be seen on the road waiting,—waiting with the tenderest feelings of his heart aroused. The beloved vision would appear, and after throwing a careless glance at him would pass by like a flash of lightning.
He lost his peace of mind, abandoned his Art, and wandered like one beside himself in the solitudes of the mountains.