Pages from the Life of Gibran and Howayek in Paris (15): A Night Stroll with Gibran

Gibran entered the drawing hall of the institute carrying under his arm his portfolio of papers and pencils, and cast a long contemplative glance at the "model" — a naked young woman reclining on the platform, on whom the marks of boredom and weariness showed. A sign of displeasure appeared on him; he searched for me with his eyes, then drew near me and whispered in my ear:
— This poor creature inspires pity in me... I have no desire to draw... my soul tightens to the point of suffocation in this glum, dreary atmosphere... I would rather stroll along the riverside to watch the terror of the flood.

We left the papers and pencils in the keeping of Madame Catherina... who inquired anxiously whether the "model" had failed to please us — and a lovely stroll was ours...

Ten minutes on foot and we were on the Quai Voltaire — we passed before his statue, and Gibran said:
— That is your uncle, the "Patriarch of Ferney"... greet him... I said:
— Go up yourself and touch the hem of his garment, that the grace of laughter may descend upon you... and stop standing there scowling... wearing your face inside out!!

We stood a while watching the waters pour from beneath the bridges, boiling and seething and overflowing the edges of the quays — a frightening, magnificent spectacle of the powers of nature and her might... made the more terrible by the dark of night and the faint lights glittering and dancing on the face of the water, defying the black, angry waves... Gibran was the one who began to speak, though I had thought him sunk in contemplation:
— Miss Olga visited me this afternoon and told me that the damp from the rising of the river's water has begun to seep into the place where she practices the piano. She asked my leave to move it to my place... and I think that impossible... the entrance is narrow... and then I receive my friends and acquaintances, mostly, every afternoon... In my view your place is more suitable... its entrance gives onto the street, and you are away from it all afternoon. And Miss Olga, as you know, is gentle and well-bred and will cause you no annoyance... I was not wrong when I told you she is honorable and of lofty character... My admiration for her has been increased by her deep culture. She speaks English and German besides French and Russian...

And she talked to me of the Russian writer "Tolstoy" and the German philosopher "Nietzsche," and ventured such opinions and comments as raised my esteem for her... Ah, Youssef! How great is the difference between one woman and another — as if women were not all of a single species!"

We had drawn near the cathedral of "Notre-Dame," so we stood a little in the square, contemplating the lines of the entrance... and of the façade...

The utmost magnificence! I said to Gibran:
— This sumptuous temple was raised in honor of a "daughter of the country," our Lady Mary... And a young man and a girl passed close by us: hand in hand, talking in whispers and laughing in happiness and rapture... Gibran, having forgotten our Lady Mary, said:
— What might those two be saying?... Trifles, no doubt... a passage from the eternal hymn of love... a prelude to love's intoxications... And when feeling cools, after this blazing fire, the quarrel begins, and parting follows it... And perhaps the fruit of this love will be a new child, who feeds and grows, to grow up and act the eternal play over again... a little wave on the surface of the ocean of existence...

Our walk had brought us to the streets of old Paris behind the church of Saint "Julian the Poor," and Gibran asked me:
— What did this saint do, I wonder?
I answered him:
— Do you mean Julian the Poor?... I do not know exactly what he did, except that he died a martyr... I know approximately what "Julian the Heretic," the Roman emperor, did...
— You incline to heretics more than to

saints. That I have come to understand! Come, tell us what your friend the heretic did.
— First, he loved living in Paris — he was, like us, a man of taste! Then he tried to mend the error of his uncle the Emperor Constantine and restore to the gods of Olympus their temples and their glory, and to make Paris the capital of his realm in place of "Byzantium," to get away from the Eastern atmosphere where controversies spring up and spread with ease.

Gibran changed the subject, as though he had had enough, and fell to retelling anecdotes of Balzac — how he would roam these alleys on pitch-black nights, gathering impressions to deposit in his stories... And in truth, every alley and every door and every window and every passing shadow... all of it whispered to the imagination things upon things about the tragedy of life, its mockery, its beauty, and its horror...

In the flood of these deep meditations, Gibran would pass over into his unknown world and ask, or wonder: "And we — who are we? Whence have we come and whither are we going?? How like we are to phantoms astray in these narrow alleys... while a short distance off, in the wide streets — the "boulevards" — the river of humanity flows on, to lose itself in the ocean of oblivion... Strange is this life. Who can foretell a single letter of what it hides, or uncover its aims and its purposes?

I no longer remember every word Gibran spoke on that night stroll... but I remember well his state of soul... He dragged his feet, carrying his body over the cold ground, while his spirit soared in infinite space and his thought ranged out to the boundless... When we had drawn near the "Sorbonne"

I stopped before a statue standing in the middle of a small garden, lifted my hat in salute, and said to Gibran:
— This is the great poet "Dante"... He visited Paris at the opening of the fourteenth century, and his admirers raised this statue to him...

Gibran asked me: — How far have you come with your translation of the Inferno?... How many times over have you promised to read me something of it? And I see no time so fitting for it as this night — will you not do it?

We made for my place — the proposal had pleased me — and to arrive quickly we boarded the "tramway" to the Place "Denfert," and all along the way I was explaining to Gibran and analyzing the greatness of this great poet: ..."He is the third after Homer and Virgil, and perhaps he surpassed them both... he is the first modern man of letters... he left no meaning and no feeling without expressing it with surpassing eloquence and depth... He loved "Beatrice" when he was a boy of ten... and she not yet ten... but death snatched her away before she completed her twentieth spring. Dante was afterward exiled for political reasons, and lived out his life a stranger to "Florence," his beloved city... One day he sighed in anguish, from the depths of his heart, this famous saying: — Ah! How hard is the climbing and descending of other men's stairs!"

And with all that, Dante sang immortal cantos that set him in the rank of the greatest poets. He never forgot the beloved of his heart, "Beatrice" — her name echoes through his immortal cantos, as if she were his faithful "guide" on his journey to Heaven... And there are those who affirm that it was she, and none other, who inspired his poetry and remained the gushing spring of his inspiration!..."

Gibran interrupted me, intoxicated by my talk of Dante: — How I should like to visit Florence, to see the airs in which lived Dante and Giotto and Angelico and Botticelli and Leonardo and Michelangelo and Machiavelli and so many others... It will remain a pang in my heart if I am not able to climb to the summit of "Fiesole"...

At that moment we reached my place... and Gibran asked me: Is there anything to eat?

Talk of poetry does not fill the stomach"
When the house had taken us in, I handed him the bowl of laban, the jam jar, and a tin of biscuits... and I made two cups of coffee, and after eating we sat on the divan: Gibran listening, his head propped on his palm, and I reading my translation of the Fifth Canto, where Dante speaks of love.

I began to read the translation, repeating certain phrases in the Italian text — by way, as I claimed, of added clarity! — then raising my voice at the moving, emotional passages, until I came to the last line, which says: "And I fell as a dead body falls!" — I pronounced the phrase with grandeur and turned to Gibran to make out the effect of my reading upon him — and there he was, head bowed, eyes drooping... I could not keep from laughing out loud, which startled him in his slack, half-sleeping posture, and he asked me eagerly: why do I laugh! I said: I am in need of laughing! And he came straight back: And I am in need of sleep... the trek home is no longer worth making — I shall sleep on this divan!" — and he took off his shoes and pulled off his coat and stretched out...

We were living in Paris a simple life. "Every evening my soul returns to Paris and hovers among its houses... and every morning I wake thinking of those days we spent among the temples of art and the meadows of dreams"
(Gibran)

And Miss Olga moved the piano to my place, and we agreed that I would leave it free to her in the afternoons, and I handed her the key... She was reassured and felt at home in the atmosphere of artistic drawings and books and flowers... and gave herself willingly to practicing her playing... And from time to time she would invite the two of us, Gibran and me, to hear what pleased us of the melodies of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. The Russian "samovar" was always brimming with hot water for tea, so we would bring with us some cakes and sweets and sit sipping tea and talking of all manner of musical and artistic subjects, and nothing troubled the serenity of our friendship... And I remember, in those days, that Miss Olga gave each of us a Russian cap of black velvet embroidered with metal thread... We would preen ourselves in wearing them when we went roaming on our night strolls...