Part 7

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.”

But Jonah looked more dejected than ever. “What have I to do with Nineveh?” he asked. “Am I prophet to the Assyrians? I am a Jew. Do not mock me, Lord.”

“I do not mock you,” said God gravely. “Go, then, and do My bidding.”

And as Jonah did not reply, he added sadly, “Do you still doubt Me?”

Jonah rose slowly to his feet. His eyes blazed, and his hands were tightly clenched. “Oh,” he cried bitterly, all the passion in his heart storming out at last in a torrent of despair, “You ... what are You God of? Were You God of Israel when a Tyrian stole my love? Was I Your prophet then? Have You power over Tyre, that You let Your servant suffer such anguish? Or are You God of the desert, where the demons mock me night and day, where the very stones cry out against me, and the whole night is noisy with laughter? Nineveh ... Nineveh ... in whose name shall I cry out against Nineveh? Do the gods of Assur visit their wrath upon Jerusalem? What power have You in Nineveh? For my youth which I gave You, what have You given me? How have You returned my love, with what sorrow? What have You done to me, Lord? I stand in the darkness, weary, and with a heavy heart. What are You God of? Answer: what are You God of?”

And God answered gently, “I am your God, Jonah, and where you go, there you will find Me.”

Jonah sank down upon the rock again. His passion had exhausted him; but he was not convinced. “Well,” he said in a whisper, “You are not God in Nineveh, and I will not go.”

Then the wrath of the Lord, slow to start, flamed for a moment over the desert, and Jonah cowered to earth while the heavens groaned and the ground shook with fright. And in his hole by the pool in the Land of Tob, the little fox said to himself, “Jonah is talking to God.”

But God’s anger passed, leaving Him sad and holy.

“Peace unto you, Jonah,” He said in tones of divine sweetness; “take up your task, and doubt Me no more.”

And He returned to heaven in a cloud. Overcome with weariness, empty of passion, Jonah fell asleep upon the ground.

No jackals laughed that night. Silence brooded over the desert. The stars kept watch without a sound, and Jonah slept with a quiet heart.

XVII

But in the morning his doubts returned more strongly than ever. “They will mock me in Nineveh,” he told himself. “I shall be made a laughing-stock. What power has the Light of Israel in the land of Marduk, of Dagon, of Istar, of the warrior Ashur? I should count myself lucky if I escaped being stoned to death.

“For how can God destroy Nineveh? I might as well preach to the fish in the sea.”

But now he had something to do, at least. He determined to flee from God. “I shall go to Tarshish,” he thought, “and begin life over again. There is nothing for me here any longer. The desert will be glad to be rid of me.”

And without bothering even to return to his hut, he started south, toward Joppa, where he expected to find a ship bound west for Tarshish.

He traveled swiftly, on other roads from those he had come. Late on the afternoon of the second day he crossed the Brook Kanah, and saw in the distance the white domed roofs of Joppa shining above the sea.

As he came down from the low hills, the sight of ocean rounded like a bowl under the wide arch of the sky, the distant and titanic clouds piled above the unseen shores of Africa, filled his heart for a moment with beauty. But then he thought:

“This is like Tyre. It is by the shore of this same sea that Judith has gone to live.”

And he cursed the beauty that hurt him.

It was late when he came to the shore, and night was already moving upon the deep. In profound silence he leaned above the harbor wall and regarded the shadowless water which with the sound of immemorial tides passed under him in the darkness. It was the season when the mists from the ocean blow landward in the evening. In the gray night fog the masts of the vessels at anchor rocked toward one another on the long, low waves; and the mist, salty with sea air, mingled along the quays with the odors of the city.

It was the dark of the moon in the month of Nisan. The moon was gone, and his youth with it. Other moons would rise, fall through the branches of a tree, and cheat a bird to sing. But where would Jonah be? And Judith, in her great house over the terraces of Tyre; she would grow old, soon she would be like Deborah, looking backward over her life.... What happened to youth, to beauty? Where did they go? They hardly lasted at all.

Night hung black and silent over the sea. The wings of angels leaned upon the wind which moved dark and vast between the earth and sky. The stars paled, and the sun rose like a ball of fire in the east. Then the ocean mist, cold as frost, melted away. The tide turned, and the waves, breaking far out, spoke with their murmur like the sound of wind to the sleeping city on the shore.

In the morning Jonah found a ship bound for Tarshish. The cargo was already loaded; and when he had made his bargain, he went aboard. Bearded and singing, the seamen hoisted the sails, yellow as a slice of moon; with a sly, tranquil motion the ship moved out of the harbor, over the blue sea, sparkling in the sun, past sails stained blue as the sky, or brown as the sands. The white roofs of Joppa faded behind them in the east, lost in the gradual fog; the seagulls cried above them; and Jonah sat silent, dreaming, gazing at the sea.

He was tired, and listless. “Now,” he said to himself, “God has lost me.”

And he thought of Deborah with sadness and peace. He remembered what she had said to him, as she had held him, weeping bitterly, in her arms, on her breast.

“Jonah,” she had said, “when you are dead, or perhaps very old and ready to die, people will say of you, ‘There, he was a great prophet.’ And they will feel honored because they knew you, because their names will be spoken of with yours. But now ...” she sighed; she wanted to say, “now you are only a nuisance.”

What she finally said was, “Well, people are like that.”

But Jonah knew what she wanted to say. And as he sat quietly on the deck of the ship under the yellow, curved sail, he thought,

“I shall not bother anybody now.”

The warmth of the sun, reflected from the sea, entered his mind and lulled his limbs. Sea-quiet took hold of him; the peace of ocean bathed his spirit. He grew drowsier and drowsier; he began to doze. And as he fell asleep, his last thought was that he had got away from God.