around Musa Dagh. Here along the
Syrian coast, and a little farther, in the country of four rivers, where
experts in Biblical geography are so fond of locating the Garden of Eden.
It goes without saying that the seven villages round the mountain had
retained their share of this benediction. They were not to be compared
with the wretched hamlets which Gabriel had passed as he rode through
the plain. Here there were no loam huts, which had not even the look of
human dwellings, but of caked deposits into which someone had bored a
dark hole for living-room and stable, humans and beasts. Most of these
houses were built of stone. Each contained several rooms. Little verandas
ran round the walls. Walls and windows sparkled with cleanliness. Only
a few huts from the dark ages, observing the custom of the East, had no
windows turned towards the street. As far as the dark shadows of Damlayik
extended, sharp across the plain, so far this friendly prosperity was
evident. Beyond these shadows began the desert. Here, wine, fruit,
mulberry, terrace upon terrace; there the flat, monotonous fields of
maize and cotton, revealing in places the naked steppe, as a beggar
shows his skin through rags. But it was not only the blessing of the
mountain. Here, after half a century, the energy of old Avetis Bagradian
had borne full fruit, the love of this one enterprising man, who had
concentrated such stormy energies on this, his strip of native earth,
despite all the enticements of the world. That man's grandson watched
with astonished eyes this people invested in some strange beauty. The
chattering groups became silent a few minutes before his approach; they
turned towards the center of the street and greeted him with loud evening
salutations: "Bari irikun!" He believed -- it may have been fancy --
that he saw in their eyes a brief flicker of gratitude, not towards him,
but towards the ancient benefactor. Women and girls stood looking after
him; the spindles in their hands twirled in and out, like separate beings.
These people were no less foreign than the crowd that day in the bazaar.
What had he to do with them -- he who a few months ago had gone out for
drives into the Bois, attended Bergson's lectures, talked of books,
published articles on art in precious reviews? And yet, deep peace
enveloped him from them. Because he had seen the threat of which they
knew nothing, he felt some strange fatherliness towards them. He bore a
great load of care in his heart, he alone, and would keep it from them
as long as he could. The old Agha Rifaat Bereket was no dreamer, even
though he wrapped his shrewdness in flowery sayings. He was right. Stay
in Yoghonoluk and await the event. Musa Dagh stood beyond the world.
No storm would reach it, even if one should break.
A warm love of his people invaded Gabriel. May you long continue to rejoice;
tomorrow, the day after . . .
And from his horse he raised his hand gravely in greeting.
In cool, starry darkness he climbed the road through the park to the villa.
He entered the big hall of his house. The old wrought-iron lamp hanging
from its ceiling rejoiced his heart with its pale light. In some
incomprehensible cranny of consciousness it seemed like his mother.
Not that old lady who, in Paris, in a standardized Parisian flat, had
welcomed him back from the lycée with a peck, but the mildly silent
mother of days as impalpable as dreams. "Hokud madagh kes kurban" --
had she really ever spoken those Eastern words as she bent down over
her sleeping child? "May I be as a sacrifice to your soul."
There was only one other benediction from that primal age -- the little
lamp under the Madonna in the niche on the stairs. Everything else dated
from the time of the young Avetis. And those, in so far at least as the
hall was concerned, had been days of war and of the chase. Trophies and
arms hung on the walls, a whole
Syrian coast, and a little farther, in the country of four rivers, where
experts in Biblical geography are so fond of locating the Garden of Eden.
It goes without saying that the seven villages round the mountain had
retained their share of this benediction. They were not to be compared
with the wretched hamlets which Gabriel had passed as he rode through
the plain. Here there were no loam huts, which had not even the look of
human dwellings, but of caked deposits into which someone had bored a
dark hole for living-room and stable, humans and beasts. Most of these
houses were built of stone. Each contained several rooms. Little verandas
ran round the walls. Walls and windows sparkled with cleanliness. Only
a few huts from the dark ages, observing the custom of the East, had no
windows turned towards the street. As far as the dark shadows of Damlayik
extended, sharp across the plain, so far this friendly prosperity was
evident. Beyond these shadows began the desert. Here, wine, fruit,
mulberry, terrace upon terrace; there the flat, monotonous fields of
maize and cotton, revealing in places the naked steppe, as a beggar
shows his skin through rags. But it was not only the blessing of the
mountain. Here, after half a century, the energy of old Avetis Bagradian
had borne full fruit, the love of this one enterprising man, who had
concentrated such stormy energies on this, his strip of native earth,
despite all the enticements of the world. That man's grandson watched
with astonished eyes this people invested in some strange beauty. The
chattering groups became silent a few minutes before his approach; they
turned towards the center of the street and greeted him with loud evening
salutations: "Bari irikun!" He believed -- it may have been fancy --
that he saw in their eyes a brief flicker of gratitude, not towards him,
but towards the ancient benefactor. Women and girls stood looking after
him; the spindles in their hands twirled in and out, like separate beings.
These people were no less foreign than the crowd that day in the bazaar.
What had he to do with them -- he who a few months ago had gone out for
drives into the Bois, attended Bergson's lectures, talked of books,
published articles on art in precious reviews? And yet, deep peace
enveloped him from them. Because he had seen the threat of which they
knew nothing, he felt some strange fatherliness towards them. He bore a
great load of care in his heart, he alone, and would keep it from them
as long as he could. The old Agha Rifaat Bereket was no dreamer, even
though he wrapped his shrewdness in flowery sayings. He was right. Stay
in Yoghonoluk and await the event. Musa Dagh stood beyond the world.
No storm would reach it, even if one should break.
A warm love of his people invaded Gabriel. May you long continue to rejoice;
tomorrow, the day after . . .
And from his horse he raised his hand gravely in greeting.
In cool, starry darkness he climbed the road through the park to the villa.
He entered the big hall of his house. The old wrought-iron lamp hanging
from its ceiling rejoiced his heart with its pale light. In some
incomprehensible cranny of consciousness it seemed like his mother.
Not that old lady who, in Paris, in a standardized Parisian flat, had
welcomed him back from the lycée with a peck, but the mildly silent
mother of days as impalpable as dreams. "Hokud madagh kes kurban" --
had she really ever spoken those Eastern words as she bent down over
her sleeping child? "May I be as a sacrifice to your soul."
There was only one other benediction from that primal age -- the little
lamp under the Madonna in the niche on the stairs. Everything else dated
from the time of the young Avetis. And those, in so far at least as the
hall was concerned, had been days of war and of the chase. Trophies and
arms hung on the walls, a whole
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