Pages from the Life of Gibran and Howayek in Paris — 13 — The Spring Tempest

I made my way from the art institute in the direction of the Café du Dôme, and there I found my friend Calmi with Dr. Caspar, a young Belgian training in the study of microbes at the Pasteur Institute. The doctor soon rose, saying: I commend you to each other — I have an appointment...

— With a pretty girl?

— No! With a dying patient...

From outside there reached our ears the blast of a spring tempest... And I do not know what was going through Calmi's head when he turned to me and said: Every man carries the bale of his cares upon his shoulders... and it seems to me, my friend, that your bale is light... You walk with your back straight... Your drawings...

I handed him a few drawings I had with me, and he began going through them, gazing long at each one in turn...

At last he said:

— These drawings, too, have a price... and there is a demand for them...

— I have a whole collection of them... From this moment I place them in your keeping...

— You, Joseph, are truly kind of heart... but as for the commercial spirit — none whatever!

We laughed together, and then Calmi went on...

— This morning, in the company of a cinema director, I visited your friend Gibran, and he told us about the subjects of his stories; unfortunately, we did not find them suitable for the screen... His state of mind reminded me of the state I myself passed through... ten years ago. Gibran believes powerfully in his own feeling, and he is sincere in his thinking... In his brain there seethes a vast world without bounds... and he has the desire to make use of his gifts. But do not forget, my friend, that we are living in Paris, the pasture of immortal literary masterpieces... After Balzac and Flaubert and Zola

and France and the rest, it is not easy for the air to make room for a stranger... who does not command the language well...

I felt it my duty to defend Gibran, so I cut Calmi short:

— But... Gibran means to play his card in the United States... and he is making his preparations for it... There he has friends who appreciate his gifts and take an interest in his affairs... and he commands English like a native, so he can move easily in the American milieu.

— I have an idea! said Calmi. You and Gibran could earn enormous sums of money... and here, in the heart of Paris!.. If we put on Oriental dress... and a turban... and tried a kind of portraiture with a touch of the strange and the mysterious about it, with the help of certain ladies and of shop owners experienced in the art of advertising... The air of Paris is fertile ground these days for things of that sort...

— Am I to understand from your words that you would have us practice charlatanry?! God forbid! God forbid!! I beg you, my friend, never to return to such 'distinguished' proposals — above all in front of Gibran!! And now let us forget what has passed; come, tell me how and why you came to Paris?

And my tone was plain, more like a command.

Calmi said:

— ... At the age of twenty. I had finished my studies at the University of Bucharest and inclined toward letters, and I grew so passionate about writing that I achieved some success, which swelled the hopes in my head — as happens at that age! I loved a girl madly, and she too returned my love, and we saw happiness only in the fulfillment of our hopes in marriage; but we struck against a frightful reality, and we were told flatly that our happiness could never be harvested, because of the difference in our religions — for I am a Jew, and she a Christian, and a priest's daughter at that!.. And in the end they managed to marry her off — against her will — to a man she did not love... I went out of my mind; my nerves gave way; my reason took flight; and it seemed to me that everything outside the circle of nature was artificial... I counted up the artificialities and found them past numbering, and I saw people drowned in them above their heads... swimming as fish swim in the sea!... Woe to him whose neck stays under the yoke, groaning beneath its weight, and woe likewise to him who tries to break it, while in the hand of brutal, despotic fate are the goad and the whip!... After that crisis — do not ask me how much I suffered from it — I laid out a plan for writing a revolutionary romance, and I put the idea to a publisher, who answered me, aghast: 'Do you mean to wreck my house?' Had he only contented himself with weakening my resolve, the matter would have ended there; but he betrayed me and let the censor's office know what I was after... 'the spring's spout was broken'... and the news spread... and reached the rabbi and the men of religion, and they lost no time in approaching the heir apparent, Prince Ferdinand, and Princess Marie; and my friends advised me to flee to Paris, where my aunt had taken refuge with her children in similar circumstances, in which her husband had gone a victim of ignorance and injustice...

I broke into Calmi's story, meaning to end it there, and to lighten the shade of gloom that had settled over his face:

— You did well... 'Flight is two-thirds of valor!'

The tempest grew fiercer outside... and with each arrival at the café the cold air blew in upon us in anger... and there were girls — like seabirds — hovering about us, asking for their daily bread!.. At last Dr. Caspar came back at a trot and told us that the patient had passed away. And after a moment's thought he added: The truth is, brothers, when a man dies, he really dies! And life on earth is nothing but a bit of rot!

Then he asked us whether Miss Martine had passed by the café, and when Calmi answered no, he sat down, nervously devouring a bowl of hot onion soup... after which he rose, visibly anxious, and went off, leaving Calmi and me sitting in the warm corner, which had emptied of customers because of the foulness of the weather...

After a silence Calmi began:

— As we were leaving Mr. Gibran's this morning, we saw a lady — American, I fancy — come swaying gracefully in... as if she were entering her own house... Woman alone, my friend, warms the desolate, cold air around a man... Woe to him whose home no woman warms.

— 'It strikes me you're feeling the cold!' I said to him: Rest easy, my friend; after the tempest the weather will settle and the days of fair skies will return... and the days of heavy heat as well!..

We both turned toward the entrance of the café, through which three girls had come — of the seabirds! — Miss Martine among them. Calmi called out to her and told her that the doctor had asked after her, and that he had seemed anxious and full of gloom... and had devoured a bowl of soup and gone... She said:

— I too have a craving for a bowl of hot soup — and her two companions seconded the same wish...

So Calmi clapped for the waiter and called out in a loud voice:

— Bring us five bowls, and a plate of fried potatoes, and a bottle of red wine...

(and in a low voice): Man does not live twice upon this earth!!..

And how quickly we fell to eating and drinking; Calmi began bantering with the girls, and I seconded him; then he would pass once more to analyzing the tragedy of life, and I passed with him! And Miss Martine brought her mouth close to my ear and asked me in a whisper, guardedly: Please... tell me frankly. Does God exist or not??

I had been expecting every possible question except that one... above all in those circumstances and in that atmosphere of all atmospheres... and then from a Parisian girl like Martine... I did not know what to answer her... And she asked me again, insisting:

— You seem widely read and broad in knowledge; why then do you not answer my question and spare me the anxiety that pulls me this way and that? Would it cost you such great trouble? I said to her:

— Have you asked your friend the doctor this question? He too is widely read and broad in knowledge.

— Yes, I asked him... and one moment he would say that He exists, and the next that He does not!

Calmi caught the drift of the conversation and grasped its meaning, and he remarked, lifting his nose and his eyebrows:

— It is woman, as a rule, who makes a man believe or not believe in the existence of God.

— And if there is no woman in his life?

— Then he can 'feel' the existence of God, if he has need of it, without verbal, disputatious proofs, which, once they grow tangled and deep, no longer express anything at all. Kant inked eight hundred pages, and Spinoza I don't know how many hundred pages, and others have written whole volumes, to prove the existence of God... and yet doubt still troubles the consciences of many and disturbs their comfortable peace of mind... Martine said with a sigh:

— If only I could simply make certain whether He exists or not! I said to her:

— Set your mind at rest, Miss, and be assured that God exists in every place. And everything bears witness to His existence...

One of the young ladies agreed with a long nodding of the head and said to Martine in the tone of a victor:

— The gentleman is right! Didn't I tell you He exists?

I do not think that anyone who saw us drawn together in that warm corner — I do not think that anyone, were he even a prophet... could have guessed the subject of our conversation, on that cold night... at the Café du Dôme... I do not think so!!..