Jonah

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.