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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Garden of Allah"

"
Domini's hands moved apart, then joined themselves again.
"There was something physical in them. I felt as if my limbs had minds,
and that their minds, which had been asleep, were waking. My arms
twitched with a desire to stretch themselves towards the distant blue
of the lakes on which I should never sail. My--I was physically stirred.
And again and again I felt that hand laid closely upon mine, as if to
draw me away into something I had never known, could never know. Do not
think that I did not strive against these first stirrings of the nature
that had slept so long! For days I refused to let myself look out from
the cemetery. I kept my eyes upon the ground, upon the plain crosses
that marked the graves. I played with the red-eyed doves. I worked.
But my eyes at last rebelled. I said to myself, 'It is not forbidden to
look.' And again the sails, the seas, the towers, the mountains, were as
voices whispering to me, 'Why will you never know us, draw near to us?
Why will you never understand our meaning? Why will you be ignorant for
ever of all that has been created for man to know?' Then the pain within
me became almost unbearable.


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