Part 13 (1/2)

Then, on a sudden, the vast view seemed to fall away into an immeasurable distance, and, as a landscape contracts when seen from the wrong end of the telescope, drew inwards from its edges with incredible rapidity until it occupied no more s.p.a.ce than is enclosed by the circ.u.mference of the smallest coin. And in the same flash of time it was gone altogether.

As it went, Abdulla felt his fingers close on the cold metal.

They closed on the metal, and Abdulla saw without the least surprise that the thing he held in his hand was the knocker of bra.s.s on the door of the Interpreter of Dreams.

He knew no shock, asked himself no questions, perceived no breach of continuity. He lifted the knocker, and its fall sounded in the street of Damascus at the very instant that the boom of the bursting sh.e.l.l, which had blown the water-seller to fragments, was reverberating over Tchatalja.

Abdulla knocked. As he waited for the door to open he looked up and down the street. He had arrived in Damascus overnight, and his surroundings were yet strange to him. Nevertheless, as he continued to look at the houses and the pa.s.sers-by, a suspicion crossed his mind that he had been in this place before. ”Perhaps I have dreamed of such a place,” he thought. ”But surely the face of yonder man is familiar. Where did I see one like him? In Paris? In London? Ho thou, with the courier's badge on thine arm! A word with thee.”

The man paused at the doorstep, and Abdulla looked him full in the face.

Instantly his mind became confused, his tongue began to stammer, and he heard himself speaking of he knew not what. ”Hast thou life in thee?” he said. ”If so, bestir thyself and thou and I----” But the words broke off, and Abdulla stood mouthing.

”Thou babblest like one intoxicated,” said the man. ”May Allah preserve thy wits!” And he pa.s.sed on.

The door opened, and Abdulla's mind became clear. A moment later he stood in the presence of the Interpreter of Dreams.

”Who art thou?” said the Interpreter, ”and what is the occasion of thy coming?”

”I am a Cairene,” said Abdulla, ”born of Syrian parentage in this city, but taken hence when I was an infant of five years. I am come to Damascus for a purpose which thou and I have in common. I, too, am a student of dreams.”

”Of which kind?” asked the Interpreter. ”For know that dreams are of two kinds: dreams of the worlds that were, and dreams of the worlds that are to be. Of which hast thou knowledge?”

”Of a world that was,” said Abdulla.

”Thou hast chosen a thankless study,” answered the other. ”Few will trust thy discoveries. For a thousand who will believe thee if thou teachest of a world that is to be, there is scarce one who will listen if thou speakest of a world that was. But tell me thy history, and name thy qualifications.”

”I have been educated in the Universities of the West,” said Abdulla, ”and there I sat at the feet of one who taught me a doctrine which he had learnt from a master of the ancient time. And the doctrine was this: that worlds without end lie enfolded one within the other like the petals of a rose; and the next world after differs from the next world before no more than a full water-skin differs from itself when two drops of water have fallen from its mouth. 'The world,' taught the master, 'is a memory and a dream, and at every stage of its existence it beholds the image of its past and the fainter image of its future reflected as in a gla.s.s.'”

”And why makest thou the world that was before of more account than the world that comes after?”

”I said not that I made it of more account,” answered Abdulla, ”but that my knowledge was of this rather than of that. But know that I am a dreamer of dreams, and it is the world before that my dreams have revealed to me.”

”Tell me thy dreams.”

”It is of them that I came to speak with thee. There is one dream that ever recurreth both in the day and the night. Seventy times seven have I seen a frayed water-skin, having a hole in a certain part, no larger than an olive-stone.”

”That is a small matter,” said the Interpreter, ”and such things concern us not. But I suspect that thou art not at the end of thy story. For, verily, thou hast not travelled from the cities of the West to speak of a thing so slight. Say, therefore, what has brought thee to Damascus.”

”That also I would tell thee; for it is a matter to be pondered. Thou art of the wise, and knowest, therefore, that there is a virtue in places and a power in localities. In one, the light of the soul is extinguished; in another, it is kindled; in one, the reason dies; in another, the half-thought becomes a whole, and the doctrine that is dimly apprehended becomes clear. Now, being in the city of Paris, I conversed with one of the French who had visited the holy places of his religion, where he had meditated in solitude and seen visions and dreamed dreams; and I told him that I had a doctrine newly born, half grown. 'O Abdulla,' he said, 'there is a virtue in places and a power in localities. Go thou, therefore, to the city of Damascus, for that is a place where, in days that are gone, the half-thought became a whole, and the doctrine dimly apprehended became clear. Put thyself on the way to Damascus and await the issue.'”

At these words the Interpreter rose from his seat and paced the room in thought.

”The man of whom thou speakest,” he said at length, ”is known to me; and many are they whom he has guided to this place. Rightly sayest thou that there is a virtue in places and a power in localities. And here the power still lingers which the world lost when mankind took to babbling.

Thy reason for coming hither is mine also. Seest thou not that I have made my dwelling in the Street that is called Straight?”

”I see and understand,” said Abdulla.