Story of the Issue: The Madman of the Mountain

Story of the Issue

I heard of him and at first could not believe my ears. He is an old man with the strength of youth, eccentric, his hair thick and white, as my informant told me — he had seen him once walking with a heavy staff in his right hand, not to lean upon it but to defend himself with it in time of need. For he took shelter in the caves of the mountain near Afqa and in its grottoes, the earth his bed and the sky his cover.

The strange thing about him is that, for all his utter madness, he was exceedingly tender toward little children, and never smiled except at the sight of them; he would try to draw near to them, and they would run away screaming, "The madman of the mountain! The madman of the mountain!"
Then he would stand bewildered, stunned, staring after them with lost eyes; then he would shake his head right and left, smile a sweet smile, toss back the white hair that mantled his head, and walk on up the mountain.

He would spend the whole week wandering, bewildered, shunning people and turning away from them, while they feared him and dreaded his mischief. When a woman caught sight of him she would seek refuge in God from him and his ill omen and flee, carrying her child in her arms if she had a child with her; as for the men, they would stand at a distance, wary, ignoring his presence and avoiding the evil of any collision with him.

The inhabitants of the villages he passed near could tell the days of the week, when these slipped their minds, by his passing on the same day every week, at almost the same hour, on the outskirts of their village. Then my informant closed his talk, saying:
— Do you know the tower of "Mheish"?
— No; where is it?
— It is a tower on the seashore, before you reach Jbeil, near the Ibrahim River. It stands alone beside the waves, its structure fallen to ruin, or nearly so — a relic of the ancients. People pass close by it now and amuse themselves by shouting "Burj Mheish!" and hear the echo, so they claim, return their voices: "wishak wish." To this desolate, dread tower the madman of the mountain retires at the beginning of every week, and sits upon a raised ledge in it, gazing at the blue sea the whole day long, until he sees the sun become a red ball sinking behind the far sea horizon; then he comes down from his ledge and passes his night among the ruins and rubble of the fearsome tower! Neither does loneliness dismay him nor fear drive him away! Until curiosity got the better of some young men of the neighboring villages, and they drew near — with caution for their guide — to the side of the frightful tower, and heard plaintive melodies filling the air around them: the melodies of the madman's pipe when night had grown quiet and nature had gone still, sending them up with his breath, stirring what lies hidden and rousing sorrows!

The voice of the madman's pipe rings out in that pitch-dark night, adding awe and solemnity to the scene! A voice overflowing with simple, plaintive, moving melodies coming out of that little pierced reed as he blows into it in one continuous breath and plays his fingers over its holes! Weary Eastern melodies that carry you back to the bosom of nature; in them you hear the moan of pain and the death-rattle of misery, and the revolt of despair lifts you to the highest sphere; their long, continuous, unending voice rises until you fancy you hear the welling grief of the wronged, drawn out in the stillness of night; then the voice sinks gradually, melody by melody, until it fades away, breath into breath, so that you seem to hear it still even after the reed has fallen silent and the fingers have gone still — as though the spirits had been enraptured by the melody and were repeating it faintly, and your own soul, which is kin to them, repeats it with them!

All this while the madman's pipe returns, passing from melody to melody like a singing bird; and while you are in the intoxication of sorrow and pain, suddenly you hear the melody begin to break into quick phrases, the rhythm grow regular, the fingers play swiftly; and before you know it you are nodding your head in time to the dance of those fingers and the ordering of those melodies, and you feel every muscle of your body quivering with their quivering — all this while the speed increases little by little, and there is revealed to you the truth of triumph after defeat, rest after pain, joy after misery, laughter after moaning; and your soul rises up to face whatever may befall, whatever it be — and had the piper led you at that minute to death itself, you would not have hung back!

On the following day the mad piper would leave the tower for the mouth of the Ibrahim River, and there buy a beast's load of food and carry it to a remote, far-off house where two small children lived with their nearest of kin after the death of their parents; he would set the food before the door and walk on, heading for the mountain, following the course of the great river, until after days of walking he reached the waterfalls of Afqa; and there he would spend a day or two weeping and sobbing, the moaning of his pipe filling the air, around the remains of an ancient temple — until he returned once more to Burj Mheish at the beginning of the following week, where he would repeat the round... and so on and on, month after month and year after year.

My informant's talk stirred me and roused in me the desire to make the acquaintance of that eccentric man, so I asked him:
— And from where did you gather all this information about him?
— From the inhabitants of the villages there.
— And can I see him?

— If he is still alive.

So I overcame my natural fear of those who are touched in the head, and said that the best thing I could do was to surprise him at the beginning of some week while he was at Burj Mheish; for there is a fascinating secret in his life! Otherwise, what is the meaning of that tenderness toward the two little orphans? And that weekly journey from the ruins of an ancient tower on the shore to the remains of a temple in the high mountains! And why this madness and this seclusion? So I resolved to seize the nearest opportunity by which I might uncover the hidden things of the madman of the mountain!

I do not know what it was that moved me to bring these imaginings of mine into the realm of deed. One evening I boarded a car, and it carried me to the neighborhood of Burj Mheish, and there I lay in wait a while until darkness reigned, then walked toward it through the fields. I shall not conceal from the reader that I was in great fear, my soul trembling — especially as the pitch darkness surrounding me added dread and solemnity to the place, and I dared not light my way with my electric torch lest I rouse the madman's fears and he pounce upon me, or flee from me.

Many a time I nearly turned back, mocking myself for undertaking such hardships for the sake of seeing a madman — when the Asfuriyeh is full of his like! But some inner impulse, whose nature I do not know, kept driving me on; so I mastered my fears and drew near cautiously, stumbling over the jutting rocks and scattered stones and wounding thorns, now falling into a hollow, now colliding with a little rise — until I felt something round strike me on the head in that pitch darkness. Terror crept into me more than before, and I stood in my place dumbstruck, regretting my rashness. I felt my head, my fear having made me fancy that the madman had thrown a stone at me and split it — until after a moment I became aware of the bat hovering above me and knew the cause of the blow, and my senses returned to me a little.

There is nothing more dreadful than standing in pitch darkness when night has settled and nature has grown still; a man, hearing no whisper of any human being, fancies himself the only one left on the face of the earth — but for the continuous roar of the sea, and the sounds of the various insects whistling a whistle that adds dread and effect to the night. A continuous stillness in which the ears, worn out by the din of the city, are steeped; it beguiles them and they find rest in it; and there returns to a man that primal, instinctive feeling within him, born of the days when man roamed the forests and thickets, fighting their elements as they fought him, attacking their beasts as they attacked him.

And something returns to him of the illusory beliefs that science has overcome (that is, if he is an educated man): he dreads the phantoms of the night and imagines them leagued about him, and almost believes in the ghoul, the phoenix, the jinn, and the devils. How much more, then, if he is an ignorant man, whose ignorance fills the void with terror and delusion, with demons and spirits!

I tried my utmost to master my emotions, and began recalling to memory the reasonable experiences of the past, that they might drive away these whisperings of the night; and while I was thus, my nerves taut and wary — the least surprise ready to force me to leap and flee back the way I came — suddenly I heard a voice from within the dread, desolate tower, saying with a laugh:

— Welcome... welcome... you have returned, O Adonai... Behold, generations have passed while I awaited you!

I shall not conceal from you that I ran back twenty paces in terror and panic, so strong was the effect of the madman's sudden voice in that night. Nor did I stop until I heard him laughing aloud and saying:

— Do not be afraid, O Adonai... Have I become so frightening! Have you forgotten your old friend Eshmun?! Come near me... and fear no harm... Welcome, my friend!..

That was the last arrow in the quiver: it proved his madness to me, if any doubt of it still remained in me. Adonai? Eshmun? Where had I read those names? They are old, very old; their history goes back thousands of years! Could his madness, I wondered, be of that kind by which a man imagines himself clothed in another's person — like the man in the Asfuriyeh who claims he is the Emperor of Germany! Adonai! Eshmun! Two names that vanished thousands of years ago! The course of my thoughts and my fear was cut short by his drawing near me while I stood fast in my place, curiosity having overcome my panic! And behold, he said to me:

— Light your electric torch, that you may see your way. I can see it in your hand despite the pitch darkness, for my eyes have grown used to the coal-black of night, like these bats that keep my solitude company! Darkness is my only light!

He stretched out his hand, wanting to shake mine; fear crept into me a second time, and I glanced behind me, lit my way of a sudden, and leapt onto a nearby rock, shouting at him, the hair of my head standing on end:

— Do not come near me! Beware!

Then I aimed the light at his face, and he put his hand over his eyes and said:

— Shame on you, O Adonai, that I should meet you after these thousands of years and you treat me thus! Have you forgotten how we were bosom friends together? Have you forgotten my beloved Quds, the splendid gazelle in the thickets of Lebanon, slender among the flowers of sweet herbs and daisies, narcissus of the wild and lily of the valley! Have you forgotten how we used to walk together beneath the shade of the trees, in the presence of Pythagoras the sage? Do not be afraid. Draw near me, my friend, for the time of meeting has come.

I marveled at these contradictions in his speech; yet they bespoke abundant culture and a beautiful, poetic tongue. And Pythagoras, the famous mathematician, the ancient philosopher who died thousands of years ago! What does this madman know of him? He is cultivated, then, and learned! So my alarm began to lessen a little, and I began questioning him from a distance about various

scholarly and literary subjects — and behold, my surmises were confirmed, and behold, I saw before me a man. Deranged? Yes! But without doubt one possessed of high learning. So I pitied him, and my fear of him turned into compassion for him. But who am I to feel compassion or pity? And who knows the boundaries that separate madness from reason? In his own reckoning he is the only sane one and I am the madman. He sees in me one of his most intimate friends, and I flee from him — would not my conduct, in his eyes, be counted madness?

This thought restored my tranquillity and kindled the fire of my desire to know the man through and through; so I went with him into the tower and sat on a rock near him while he looked at me, smiling, musing.

After a deep silence he turned to me and said:

— You have become like the rest of people. You call me mad, no doubt! And you fear me as they fear me.

I answered him with a smile — knowing that this is the most effective way with madmen:

— I do not fear you; otherwise I would not have come in with you.

And I stood up suddenly, and began watching him without letting him feel it, lest he think I dreaded him and his madness do me harm. Then he gazed long at the sea and said:

— Here, O Adonai, Quds cast herself in and died, while I watched her from close by... A curse on me for a coward... with no gallantry in him...

I found nothing better than to shake my head, grieving with him, like one who understood who Quds was and why she had flung herself into the deep — though in truth I was "like a deaf man at the wedding procession."

— And here you found me and consoled me and lightened my pains! But no blame falls on you if you have forgotten, for your soul has not yet slipped free of the bonds of the body so as to remember the past. Listen, then, and I will recount to you its painful memories!

He was silent a moment, then said:

— Do you remember, my friend, the day we were novices in the secret circle of Pythagoras? Do you not grasp what I say?

I nodded my head in assent, and he returned to his silence; then he stared far off at the horizon like one in a dream, a strange shiver came over him, and he addressed me, saying:

— We were three together, thousands of years ago — you and she and I — playing together and rejoicing on this beautiful shore! Nature has not changed much, save that man has stripped her of her trees; but this sea is still a sea! And this shore a shore! Hundreds of years have passed since the days when the Phoenician Arabs — and I say Arabs, because they are sons of this Arabian peninsula to which we are all bound by ties of stock and lineage, not as they try to picture them to us — ... hundreds of years have passed by our reckoning, we being bound in the bonds of the body; yet they are moments in our free, unfettered spiritual life.

We played together from childhood, and my father was a bosom friend of her father's; and you were always with us, smoothing our affairs, until we grew up and a firm love was founded between us.

I loved her and she loved me — the leaping gazelle of Lebanon; in the meadows and the pastures, in the hollows and on the banks of the brooks we would meet.

She is mine and I am hers, my beloved bounding among the forests!

Who is this who comes from afar, dancing among the flowers of the fields and gardens?

Who is this beauty among the girls, this queen among the virgins?

Her eyes shoot arrows, and her heart blazes with love and passion. She is Quds!

My beloved, O Adonai! My splendid gazelle in the thickets of Lebanon!

Ah, Adonai, do you not remember her? You loved her as I did, but you sacrificed your love when you learned that she could not return it, so bound was she to me; so you were the friend, you were the affectionate one, and of your love you contented yourself with her happiness and mine! For this our two hearts adored you, and in you we knew the meaning of brotherhood and of pure love; and for this you see me now rejoicing at your return, awaiting your coming to me — for the bonds of true friendship are not sundered by the passing of generations! It is eternal!

Then I began to feel something hidden within me, yearning toward a past of which I had no acquaintance, longing to clasp the hand of the madman of the mountain as an old friend; and I almost grasped the secret of that drawing power which had dragged me to my mad deed of meeting him in that solitary place! I do not know — only that some hidden sense had awakened within me, as though it wished to slip free of its bonds and could not! So I said to him:

— But I do not understand what you are saying! I was your friend and Quds's friend thousands of years ago — when I have not yet passed my thirtieth spring? Nor do I recall ever seeing you before, or hearing of Quds except in the books of history.

He answered me, smiling:

— No wonder in what you say! Your soul is bound to your body, and so long as it is upon this earth it cannot grasp what I grasp, nor can you remember your past life of thousands of years ago here upon the earth.

— But... how did you come to grasp it, when you are bound like me?

— Something befell me that set me loose from my bonds, and I suddenly beheld the greatness of the far-off, near-at-hand past, like one looking down upon a deep valley from a towering height! Do you not remember what our master Pythagoras taught us when we left this land together in search of wisdom — that I might return afterward of wide renown, a chief among my people, and so be worthy of Quds, as her father made it a condition upon me, out of love for us and to raise our station? Do you not remember how we reached the sage's stronghold, and he tried us with many harsh trials, to test our steadfastness and our fitness to receive wisdom, and we fasted forty days, eating nothing but dry bread and drinking nothing but warm water? Then how we were gathered together in a dark room, and two of his followers led us through a narrow, dark passage, and we passed through the midst of burning fire, terrifying, frightful sounds troubling our progress, until we came to a locked door with two rings in it; and hardly had we grasped them when the door gave way beneath us and we hung over a deep abyss, and we remained thus a while, seeing death embodied

before us — until at last we were permitted to enroll in the ranks of his secret society? Do you not remember all this, and the sciences he taught us, until at last he unveiled to us the guarded secret — the wisdom of the days and the centuries — concerning the human soul: how it falls from the height of its glory and its home amid the heavenly lights, and takes the body as a bond upon itself, that it may be purified and cleansed of the stains of the past; and if it fails to do so, it returns time after time in different bodies, until at last, after many trials lasting thousands of years, it is granted to return to its original home? Those ages you count in thousands of years, but in the eyes of the free, unfettered soul they are a few numbered moments!

We lived together, O Adonai, and behold, we have now come back to the earth; my eyes have been opened and I have seen what I have seen, while yours are still shut, and you do not see what I see!

I remember how we returned from the school of the great sage to our homeland, all longing to see my splendid gazelle in the thickets of Lebanon — Quds, the heart's desire and the soul's beloved — after an absence of three years, until we arrived together... Ah, and oh, the horror of what I saw!!

I asked my mother then, where is Quds, and she said, care mounting to her face:

— She will come.

But I knew she would not come... My anger flared and I said:

— Tell me, what has happened to her? Where is my beloved?

My mother wept, and I felt the heavy weight of the calamity, and I asked her:

— Is she dead?

She answered me:

— No.

— Then where is she?...

Thereupon my father came in to me and told me the ill-omened news, saying:

— Bear up, my son... bear up, O Eshmun! Quds is no longer yours. The gods have claimed her!

I answered, raging with the rage of nature in the days of winter:

— The gods? What business have they with my beloved?

— Do not blaspheme, my son! She went some days ago to the temple of Afqa, to offer her body as a religious pleasure, according to the inspiration of the gods!

— Her body a religious pleasure?! Ah... that soft, tender body that I so often touched and doted upon; that bewitching figure, those fresh arms whose caress I so often promised myself — to become a religious pleasure for the frequenters of the temple of Afqa! She is mine — mine — and not the property of the gods or of anyone else!

And you remember, no doubt, how I rose at once and walked to the mouth of the Adonis River (the Ibrahim River), heading for the mountaintops, my goal the temple of Afqa, that I might perhaps save my beloved's body from being toyed with by the hands of pilgrims and visitors! For that was a religious obligation upon every girl who repaired to the temple! And you followed me, and we walked together until we arrived after three days and knocked at the temple's door!

Remember, remember, O Adonai; try to overcome the bonds of the body and return in imagination to that beautiful temple! How we entered its precincts, shaded by lofty trees of cedar and pine; how we wandered, the breeze caressing us, amid its magical, bewitching scenes, until we came to a courtyard in whose midst grew green grasses and flowers of many colors, water rippling and flowing among the folds of its floor; and behold, at the rear of the place we saw a hut of tree branches, beautiful and shady, and around it the virgin priestesses reclining on the grass, half naked! Wheat-hued, tender bodies gleaming under the rays of the sun that pierced through the branches, wreaths of crimson pomegranate blossom plaited about their heads, the fragrance of musk and incense wafting from their hut, while they sang beautiful hymns to Adonis, god of beauty and youth and vigor, to the measure of the pipe — a sight to rouse the latent feeling and the faint stir of the senses! And how, when we drew near, they rose languidly, swaying, coquetry and allure showing in their motions and their stillnesses! And they began to dance the famous religious dance, now lifting their hands to the heavens in supplication, now prostrating themselves, bewildered, melted with passion and longing, the lines of their bodies showing and standing forth, stirring what is latent and rousing what is still! Then they lay down together upon the grass and the flowers, as though each of them clasped a lover of her own, singing:

Who is this crouching like a lion by the watercourses?

The mighty one glorying in his strength,

Charmer of virgins and idol of maidens,

Firm as the cedar of Lebanon and fragrant as its deathless, bewitching perfume.

He is my beloved, O virgins! He is my charmer and the possessor of my soul.

Would that he pressed me to him, that I might graze in his sweet nearness;

Then would he taste the savor of the bewitching kiss;

Then would he know the secret of vigor and youth.

That sight I shall never forget so long as I live! But you do not remember it? Then we entered and went deep among the trees, searching and seeking — and behold, I saw her! Ah, and oh, the horror of what I saw! I saw her — my beloved Quds — as you too saw her, in the hands of one of the pilgrims in the temple, toying with her hair which my hands had toyed with, tasting her kisses which I had so often tasted, trifling with that slender, beautiful body. My rage flared and I hurled myself upon him — and behold, she slipped from between his claws, violating thereby the unjust religious laws, exposing herself to the terrible vengeance of the temple's high priestess, and threw herself at my feet, kissing them and murmuring:

— My beloved, my beloved, they forced me — I was compelled.

But I — I, the base coward — showed no mercy and no pity to the victim of unjust laws;

rather I followed the fury of the soul, and a fit of anger possessed me, and I kicked her and went on kicking her until I drew her blood, saying to her:
— Go, you traitress, you vile one! Is it thus you betray my pledges?
While you tried to calm my fury and to turn me back from her, and did not succeed.

I raged like a madman when I saw her purity and chastity squandered for the sake of shameful beliefs! When I saw her — my own, my beloved — in the arms of a stranger to us! I could no longer bear to stand there, and I ran out, with you following closer than my shadow.

Some days later I returned to this tower, which was then peopled with soldiers and guards, while you were away from me in Jbeil for a short while, your affairs having compelled you to leave me here with a kinsman of mine. One evening, while most of the guards and soldiers were far off in their camp near the tower, behold, I saw her — my beloved — coming through the meadows; and I was alarmed at the sight of her, and at her daring to violate the laws of the temple, which punish with death every girl chosen by the gods who flees. Yet in the face of her strong love she paid no heed to those laws, but came to me; and here she knelt before me and told me how her father, who feared to disobey the gods, had forced her to join the temple of Afqa; how they carried her there by force, and she resisted greatly, remembering me always; and how the sorceress of the temple, at my beloved's resistance, made use of a secret potion which she gave her, and it robbed her of her senses, and she did not come to herself until she had lost the most precious thing a virgin possesses; so she was compelled to submit to the laws of that age.

And instead of grieving for her and softening, and honoring the sacrifice she had made — flight from the temple, for love of me — I remembered how I had seen her in that man's hands, and my soul flared up and I turned upon her; and no sooner had I done so than she stood erect, threw her arms around me, kissed me a long kiss, then ran toward the deep and cast herself among its raging waves, and I saw her no more.

I was terror-stricken, and violent remorse seized me, and my conscience rebuked me for this deed of mine, for my brutality; and you arrived then, and saw what you saw, and tried to console me, and did not succeed.
Ah, the reproach of conscience, the revolt of the heart! My pains did not leave me even after my first death then...

And behold me in this age, returning to the earth a second time, my suffering soul returning clothed in this body; and I see Quds, come back in the body of an attractive modern girl, and I do not know her. And as though the memories of the past were still stamped upon our two souls, I inclined to her at first sight and she inclined to me, when we were in the bloom of youth, years ago. And I do not wonder now at that sudden love, for our two souls have been in harmony from all eternity.

At the beginning of my life in this modern age my father sent me to perfect my studies at one of the schools of Beirut, and she too went; and our love kept growing until we returned to the neighboring village, having gained an ample share of learning.

And while everyone was awaiting the happy day on which I should attain my wish and she hers, and marriage should bind our two enamored hearts, behold, she fled with one of the young men of the village, suddenly, without warning; and he married her and robbed me of her.

I saw her after a time and reproached her, and she could find no answer; then she looked at me long and said:

— I do not know. I loved you and I love you still. Only I do not know what inner force compelled me to torment you! For I did what I did only to make you taste the bitterness of parting. And with all this I still love you, and I hate myself because I have caused you these pains. Yet were it given me to do the same thing over again, I would not hold back — to increase your torment and mine.

Thereupon something like a touch of madness struck me and I fell down unconscious; and I awoke, and behold, I am as you see me now: I see the distant past, and I understand that I have but returned to the earth a second time, and that she returned with me, that I might receive from her the like of what she received from me in our first life — that pain might purify my sinning soul, and misery smelt its metal until it comes back pure, fit to meet the pure, chaste soul of the beloved.

After some years she died, and her husband died. And since I was a man of means, I took to caring for her two children, whom some of her kin have sheltered; and behold me making my weekly round, living in the distant past, moving between this tower and the remains of the temple, until pains smelt away all the soul's stains and the spirit returns to its own world.