Part 6

“I, too, was young like you, Jonah. Do you think your heart is the first to break? Other hearts have broken before; and other men have wept, as you are weeping. I know; for I, too, wept, Jonah, my son.”

He was silent. Jonah took the old man’s trembling hand between his two brown palms. “I am sorry,” he said. And he remained respectfully silent.

“But, Naaman,” he broke out at last, “what then is holy here on earth?”

Naaman replied gently and inexorably, “My son, the love of earth is holy, the love that God bears the least of His creatures, without desire, without envy, and without malice. That mercy and generosity with which the sun warms and the soil nourishes its flowers and trees, is holy; all that gives of itself, without reason, without measure, and without return. For that is the way of God; it is the way of the One, from which all things spring, to which all things return. Go back to the desert, Jonah; go back to the desert, and learn that God is One, and that His love is holy.”

But Jonah did not understand him. “Yes,” he said. “I shall go back to the desert, because that is all I can do. But I shall have no happiness, Naaman; my heart will never be at peace again. There is no beauty in the world for me now, ever. Oh, Naaman,” he cried suddenly, clasping his hands together, “if God loves His creatures, how can He make them suffer so?”

Naaman looked sadly at the young prophet whose face was hidden from him. “Must you have beauty, too, Jonah?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Jonah.

Rising to his feet, he added, “You do not know what it is to love and to be unhappy.”

And he went home again. As he entered his yard, a green beetle crossed his path. He went a few steps out of his way in order to tread upon it.

XIV

And so Jonah returned to the desert, to his hut among the rushes in Golan. As he stood waiting for the ferry to take him across the Jordan, a party of soldiers coming from Hamath passed him on their way home. “There is Jonah,” they said, “the prophet. Now we shall have another war.”

“That is the sort of prophet to have.”

“Hurrah for Jonah.”

But Jonah paid no attention to them. He was thin and deathly tired, and his eyes, which burned with a deep and weary fire, were fixed on the distant hills beyond the river. There, Naaman had said, he would have peace again.

He walked northward through Tob, climbing from the river valley toward the table-land behind the hills. His heart was heavy, so heavy it seemed to weigh him down; and he walked slowly. At dusk he found himself still far from Golan, with a river yet to cross, and near the little pool at which he had halted on his way to Bethel, months before. How different life had seemed to him then. Why, it was not the same thing at all any longer; now it seemed like a dream, without reality, without anything about it that he could feel.

He sank down and looked around him.

The night came on. The shrill frogs sang together; and the little fox came out of his hole, and lay down beside Jonah, whom he recognized.

“Ah,” he remarked, as he settled himself comfortably at his side, “here is the man of God again.”

Jonah let his hand stroke the fox’s soft fur. His face was turned to the west, and he peered back through the darkness over the way he had come, as though trying to see again the home he had left. Uncle David, Aaron--his mother....

He remembered how she had pressed him to her breast as he departed. “Go, my son,” she had said, “go back to God. He misses you. Here is a little cake for the journey, and a few silver pieces. They are all I have. Buy yourself a coat on the way.”

She had sold her shawl to give him a coat. But he left the silver pieces in a pot before the oven. He wanted nothing, only to forget the sickness of his heart, the heaviness like a weight of lead in his breast.

“Cheer up,” she had said at the last; “see, you will forget all this after a while. There is the storm, and then the sun shines. Do not stay away too long. Who knows, maybe God will send you home again soon.”

And she had kissed him. No, he would not forget all this soon. Would he ever forget it? that was what he wondered. And Judith, with her brown eyes, and the scent of lilies and jasmine in the moonlight....

“O Judith, Judith, how could you do such a thing to me?”

His eyes filled with tears, and he bowed his head.

The fox stirred beneath his hand. “Well, Jonah,” he said sadly, “God is a raven. I believe that now, since a jackal ate my wife. He could not very well be a fox, and allow such things; or even an old man with a beard.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Jonah in a low tone; “perhaps He is a raven.”

Hearing this, the Devil, who was going by in the form of a scorpion, stopped, and said to himself,

“I shall tempt this holy man a little.”

And remembering how Jonah’s quiet and pious spirit had vexed him in the past, Satan considered how best to be revenged on the prophet.

“There is nothing like an odor,” he thought, “to hurt the memory.”

And he changed himself into a jasmine vine. The unwilling night wind, trembling and sighing, carried the fragrance of its blossoms toward Jonah, who shivered as though with cold.

“Ak,” he thought, “I can never forget.”

And staring with wide eyes at the west, he saw again the garden, with the moonlight falling through the leaves like honey; heard the voices of the old men under the trees, the whispers of lovers, and laughter, like a sound of flutes; felt on his hand the touch of her fingers.... Judith’s....

“What a beautiful night.... It makes me sad. Why does it make me sad, Jonah?

“Listen ... there’s a bird singing. Just think, in the moonlight; isn’t it sweet, Jonah? This is beauty, isn’t it.

“I could stay here forever.”

“Oh, Judith, Judith....”

“There is a smell of sulphur here,” said the fox, wrinkling up his nose.

But Jonah did not hear him. Something was hurting in his throat. He sprang to his feet, and took a deep breath. “Look,” he cried out to God, “look; it is I, Jonah.”

And he stood there, with bowed head, in the silence.

“This is very good,” said Satan to himself.

After thinking for a moment, the Arch-Demon decided to become a woman with brown eyes and brown hair. She came up to Jonah out of the darkness, timidly, draped in her shawls. “Well, Jonah,” she said, “here is the desert. See how quiet it is; what peace, what beauty. How happy we shall be here.”

“Go away,” cried Jonah, throwing out his hands in front of his face, “go away.”

“Why do you want me to go away?” asked the woman quietly. “Have I not come all this long way with you, as you wished? Am I not your love, tender and gentle and kind? Come, let me make you happy.”

And as Jonah stood trembling, unable to reply, she continued in her soft voice,

“Are you not young, Jonah, and lonely? The young ought not to be lonely. See how beautiful the night is with its stars, its clouds, half seen, half guessed, how the music of the wind rises over the desert and sings in the hills, softly, softly. It is a night for love, Jonah, for young hearts beating each to each in the silence, in the darkness. That is what life is for, Jonah, for lips to kiss, for hands to fondle.... There is no beauty like mine, Jonah, no voice like mine to hurt your heart so, no hands like mine to hold your face tenderly, to kiss your mouth, Jonah, and your tired eyes, your mouth and your eyes....

“And you in your little hut, all alone among the rushes, all alone, Jonah, all alone....

“You will always be alone now, summer and winter, winter and summer, your pillow the earth, harder and colder than my arms; only the song of birds and the sound of rain in your ears.... And you will never see me again, Jonah, never hold my young white beauty close to your breast, never feel, as other men, love singing in your heart, and peace folding down upon your eyes. You will be all alone, Jonah, with no one to tell the secret things in your heart to at the set of sun, at the rise of moon ... until at last, old and sleepy, you take my single kiss with you into the darkness ... alone in the darkness too, Jonah ... alone in the darkness....”

“O God,” cried Jonah, sobbing, “help me, help me.”

“God will not help you now,” said the woman.

The drowsy fragrance of her body spread through the night. “Come,” she said, holding out her arms to him.

“God cannot help you now, my poor Jonah.”

Jonah took a step forward, and fell upon his knees. And then, one by one far off and near, the demons of the desert broke into laughter, wild peals of laughter, bitter and full of pain, cruel and without pity.

“Ha, ha, ha.”

“Alone, alone....”

“God cannot help you now.”

Under that mocking clamor, Jonah swayed like a reed, beaten to the earth, his face hidden in his hands. And then, at last, when it seemed to him as though he could bear no more, the terrible laughter stopped. There was a cry, and then silence.

Jonah got up and looked around him. Nothing was to be seen; the woman had vanished.

The little fox had run forward, and seized the demon by the leg. Once again the desert was filled with a holy peace, as though brooding beneath the wings of angels.

“One can at least always help oneself,” remarked the fox.

He lay down next to Jonah with a contented sigh. And presently the man and the fox fell asleep together.

In her kitchen at home, Deborah sat praying for her son. She prayed that God would be kind to him. “He is only a boy,” she said; “do not ask him to behave like a man. Watch over him a little. I do not ask for anything for myself. I am an old woman, and my heart was broken long ago. But he is so young ... leave a little of his heart unbroken.”

She lifted up her eyes full of tears. “Leave me my son,” she said.

And Judith, at her window in Tyre, knelt with a pale and weary face, peering out across the plains and hills of Phœnicia, across the wide waters of Meram, far off and unseen, toward the desert, where the night had already rolled up its cold blue clouds. And she, too, thought of Jonah; she, too, saw in the moonlight, in the little garden, the thin, worn face with its grave, dark eyes. They seemed to follow her, without reproach, but with infinite tenderness, pitying and forgiving. And suddenly she thought, “Yes, there in the desert there is peace; it is gentle out there, where Jonah is. O my dear, my dear, do you forgive me? Have you forgotten? It would have been different, Jonah, it would have been so different....”

Wearily she went to her little gold box, and drew out her silver dove. Holding it in her hands like a tiny live bird, she kissed its ruby eyes and its silver beak. “Little dove,” she said sadly, “tell me what love is.”

But the dove said nothing. And all at once she let it fall to the ground.

“Ak,” she cried, “you don’t know anything about it.”

And as she wept, Hiram’s steps mounted through the house to her room.

XV

God was worried about Jonah. Watched by reverent cherubim, whose wings fanned the air all about Him, the Lord of Hosts walked up and down in the sky, and said to Moses, who was accompanying Him,

“I must find something for this young man to do.”

Moses looked down at Jonah with an expression of contempt. “He is hardly worth the effort,” he declared gloomily. “He seems to me to lack character.”

“You are right,” said God. “Still, he expects something from Me.”

And He added, smiling gently, “Perhaps that is why I am fond of him. He has not your strong and resourceful mind, Moses, nor Noah’s faithful heart; but he has suffered. He is simply a man, like anybody.”

“What?” cried Noah, hurrying up, “are you talking about me?”

God replied: “I was saying that Jonah did not trust Me as you did, My friend.”

“No,” said Noah; “but then, what do you expect? There are so many different ideas now in the world. I do not recognize my posterity in these warring nations. Let us have another flood, Lord.”

Moses looked sadly down at Jerusalem, where golden idols were being sold in the streets. “You are right, Noah,” he said, “but I do not like the idea of a flood. A flood does not teach people how to live. Sometimes I wonder if anything can teach people what they are unwilling to learn.”

“Nonsense,” said Noah. “A flood is the most sanitary thing. Wait and see; even you could learn something about sewers from a good flood.”

God checked the old patriarch with a kindly hand. “Things are not the same as they used to be in the early days,” He said. “I cannot drown the world to-day without drowning My wife, Israel. She is young, and a nuisance, but she has yet to bear Me a son. I foresee that He will give His mother a great deal of pain, but that cannot be helped.

“Let us not think of Israel now, but of the prophet Jonah. Moses is of the opinion that he is not a first-class prophet, and I am inclined to agree with him. He is a poet; and for that reason I feel warmly inclined toward him. After all, you, Noah, and you, Moses, see only one side of My nature. You try to look upon the Greater Countenance, but what you see is the Lesser Countenance. It is different with a poet. He does not see Hod, or Chesed, the thrones of Glory and Mercy. He looks through Beauty to the Crown itself. Whereas you, Moses, have never seen beyond Knowledge; and you, my good Noah, have seen My face only in Severity.”

Moses and Noah bowed their heads. “It is true, Lord,” said Noah humbly.

God continued:

“At this moment Jonah does not see Me at all. In the first place, he is unhappy, and he no longer looks toward beauty. He believes that there is no more beauty in the world because his heart is broken. He is mistaken; and after a while his sorrow will sharpen his eyes. Then he will see more than before.”

“In that case,” said Moses, “why do You bother Yourself?”

The Lord considered a moment before replying. It was obvious that He wished to express Himself in terms intelligible to His hearers.

“The trouble, My friends,” He said at last, “is this: our young prophet is a patriot. He is convinced that I am God of Israel alone. I do not mind that point of view in a prophet, but it will not do in a poet. Severity, glory, knowledge, belong to the nations, if you like. But beauty belongs to the world. It is the portion of all mankind in its God.

“I have covered the heavens with beauty, the green spaces of the earth, the cloudy waters, the tall and snowy peaks. These are for all to see, these are for all to love. Shall any one take beauty from another, and say, ‘This is mine’?”

“Now He is beginning to talk,” said Moses in an undertone to Noah; “this is like old times.”

But God grew silent again. Presently he continued wearily,

“It is your fault, Moses, that the Jews believe I belong to them entirely. Well, I do not blame you, for you could not have brought them safely through the desert otherwise. But you did not tell them that I was a bull. I foresee that for a long time yet men will be irresistibly led to worship Me in the form of an animal.”

“Well, then,” said Noah, “if You foresee so much....”

“Be silent,” said God, in a voice of thunder which made the wings of angels tremble. He continued more gently, “Actually, at the moment, I am not interested in theology. I am thinking of Jonah.”

And He walked quietly up and down in the sky, thinking. The cherubim, moving all about Him, beat with their snowy wings the air perfumed with frankincense; and the clouds rolled under His feet.

Left to themselves, Moses and Noah regarded each other in an unfriendly manner. At last Moses shrugged his shoulders. He was vexed to think that he did not know everything.

“Well, old man,” he said to Noah, “have you nothing to talk about except the flood? You do not understand conditions in the world to-day.”

“I understand this much,” replied Noah calmly, “that faith is more important than knowledge. Where would you be, with all your wisdom, if it had not been for me and my ark? You would be a fish, swimming in the sea.”

“Do you take credit for saving your own skin?” cried Moses. “Wonderful. I, on the other hand, was very comfortable in Egypt. What I did was from the highest motives. I am not even sure that I am a Jew.”

“I believed in God,” said Noah stoutly, “and I did as He told me.”

“So did I,” said Moses angrily, “but I also used my wits a little. Faith is nothing; any animal can have faith. You and your faith had to get inside a wooden ark, in order to keep dry. But when I wished to take an entire nation across the sea, I simply parted the waters. I shall not tell you how I did it, because it would be lost on you. It takes a first-rate intelligence to understand such a thing.”

Noah replied excitedly, “Please remember that I am your ancestor, and treat me with more respect.”

“You are an old drunkard,” said Moses.

But at this point God joined them again, and they were silent, to hear what the Holy One had to say.

“This young man,” said God, “does not believe in Me any more. How then shall I convince him of Myself?”

Desirous of showing his knowledge, Moses began to quote from the Book of Wisdom: “Infidelity, violence, envy, deceit, extreme avariciousness, a total want of qualities, with impurity, are the innate faults of womankind.”

“Nevertheless,” said God, “they are also My creations. In My larger aspects I am as impure as I am pure; otherwise there would not be a balance. However, as I have said, we are not concerned with My larger aspects.”

Noah broke in at this point. “Send him to sea, Lord,” he begged. “There is nothing like a long trip at sea to quiet the mind. It is very peaceful on the water. One forgets one’s disappointments.”

“You are right,” said God; “we need the sea; it will give him peace. But as a matter of fact, I do not care whether he finds peace or not. As I have told you, I simply wish this poet to understand that I am God, and not Baal of Canaan. The attempt to confuse Me with a sun-myth, with the fertility of earth as symbolized by the figure of a bull, or a dove, vexes Me. Increase is man’s affair, not God’s. Besides, where will all this increase end? I regret the days of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Already there are more people on earth than I have any use for, socially speaking. Now I could wish there were more beauty in the world. I should like some poet to speak of Me in words other than those of a patriot. Yet if I try to explain Myself, who will understand Me? Not even you, Moses, with all your wisdom. And so I, in turn, must forget My wisdom, in order to explain Myself. I must act as the not-too-wise God of an ignorant people. That this is possible is due to the fact that along with infinite wisdom, I include within Myself an equal amount of ignorance.”

He sighed deeply. “I shall send Jonah to Nineveh,” he concluded. “The subjects of King Shalmaneser the Third are honest, hard-working men and women. I enjoy, in some of My aspects, their vigorous and spectacular festivals. Nevertheless, repentance will not do them any harm, since for one thing they will not know exactly what it is they are asked to repent of, and for another, they will soon go back to their old ways again.

“Thus I shall convince Jonah of Myself where he least expects to find Me. He shall hear from Me at sea, and again within the walls of Nineveh. It will surprise him. And perhaps the rude beauty of that city will speak to his heart, dreamy with woe.”

“I do not doubt that it will surprise him,” said Moses, “but will he be convinced?”

God did not answer. Already He was on his way to earth. And Noah, looking after Him, shook his hoary head with regret.

“A flood would have been the better way,” he said.

XVI

God went down to the water. He stood on the shores of the sea and called; like the voice of the storm a name rolled forth from those august lips across the deep. And the deeps trembled. Presently a commotion took place in the waters; wet and black the huge form of Leviathan rose gleaming from the sea, and floated obediently before its God.

The Lord spoke, and the whale listened. After He had explained the situation, God said:

“I foresee that Jonah will not go to Nineveh as I command. He will attempt to flee from Me, and he will choose the sea as the best means of escape. It will not help him. I shall raise a storm upon the waters, and the ignorant sailors will cast him overboard as a sacrifice to the gods of the storm. That is where you can be of assistance to Me, My old friend. As he sinks through the water, I wish you to advance upon him, and swallow him.”

“Ak,” said the whale; “O my.”

“Well,” said God impatiently, “what is the matter?”

The great fish blew a misty spray of water into the air. “It is impossible,” he declared; “in the first place, I should choke to death.”

“You are an ignorant creature,” said God; “you have neither faith, nor science. Let Me tell you a few things about yourself in the light of future exegesis. Know then, that you are a cetacean, or whalebone type of whale. Such animals obtain their food by swimming on or near the surface of the water, with their jaws open.”

“That is true,” said the whale, reverent and amazed.

“The screen of whalebone,” continued the Lord, “opens inward, and admits solid objects to the animal’s mouth. This screen does not allow the egress of any solid matter, only of water. As the gullet is very small, only the smallest objects can pass down it.

“Jonah will therefore be imprisoned in your mouth. You cannot swallow him; and he cannot get out, because of the screen of whalebone.”

“Then he will suffocate,” said the whale.

“Nonsense,” said God. “Remember that you are an air-breathing, warm-blooded animal, and can only dive because of the reservoir of air in your mouth. When this air becomes unfit to breathe, you must rise to the surface for a fresh supply.

“While you have air to breathe, Jonah will have it also.

“So do not hesitate any longer, but do as you are told.”

The whale heaved a deep sigh; his breath groaned through the ocean, causing many smaller fish, terrified, to flee with trembling fins.

“How horrid for me,” he exclaimed.

God replied soothingly, “It will assure you a place in history.”

So saying, the Lord blessed Leviathan, who sank sadly back to the depths of the sea; and, turning from the shore, the Light of Israel rolled like thunder across the valleys toward Golan.

The night came to meet Him from the east, pouring down over the hills like smoke. In the cold night air God went to look for Jonah.

Poor Jonah, he had not found peace after all. The lonely desert, so calm and quiet in the past, had given no rest to his thoughts. His mind went back over and over again to those days at home; he felt the wonder of the love-night, his heart shrank again with sickness for what followed. And he asked himself for the thousandth time how such things could be. Then he cried out against Judith for her cruelty; yet the next moment he forgave her.

And these thoughts, climbing and falling wearily up and down through his head, kept him awake until long after the desert was asleep. In the morning, when he awoke, it was with regret; he tried to sleep a little longer, to keep his eyes closed, to keep from thinking again ... why wake at all? he wondered. There was nothing to wake to. Only the hot sun over the desert, only his heavy heart, which grew no lighter as the days went by.

Why wake at all?

God found him sitting wearily upon a rock, his head bowed between his hands. The Lord spoke, and the desert was silent.

“Jonah,” said God in a voice like a great wave breaking, slowly, and with the peace of the sea, “Jonah, you have wept enough.”

Jonah replied simply, “I have been waiting for You a long while, and I am very tired.”

“I had not forgotten you,” said God; “I have been thinking.”

And He added, “Now I have something for you to do.”

Jonah remained seated without looking up. He seemed no longer to care what God had for him to do.

“Arise, Jonah,” said God, “and go to Nineveh. Cry out against that great city for its sins.”