Act 1 — Scene III. The Courtyard of a poor House.

In the right wall a large double door leads out to the street. An arch, which supports the upper part of the house, runs parallel to the wall at the right, thus screening the court from the street. At the back, a door leads into the inner house. Two cages with a bird in each, are hanging on the wall right. The left side of the court is taken up by a wall about seven feet high, a niche in its centre containing a well with ropes, buckets and a large jar or two. Over the wall can be seen some cypresses of a garden. In the shadow of this wall, a rose tree grows in a rim of masonry. An awning is stretched across the Court. A tom-tom stands in one corner.

The full morning sun over everything.

Marsinah, a beautiful girl of fourteen summers (which would correspond to a girl of eighteen in the west) is seated on some rough matting, in the centre of the court. She is clad in the simplest fashion, like the poorest Arabian women. She is busy with some needlework on a large embroidery frame, which rests on four legs like a low table.

Near her, idly fanning away the flies, sits Narjis, a stout, old Duenna, with a full-blown face. About them on the matting lie strands of different coloured wools.

Marsinah. (Looking up to the garden wall.) The sun grows hot.

Narjis. How’s thy border? Will it be done by noon-prayer? I promised it the merchant.

Marsinah. (Impatiently sighing.) I hear, O Narjis, I hear. Hast thou any yellow wool?

Narjis. (Turns away from Marsinah to look for it.) Yellow? Yellow? Did I not give it thee erstwhile?

Marsinah. (Quickly takes the yellow wool and hides it under the folds of her dress.) ’Twas red thou gavest me.

Narjis. By the life of thy youth, O Marsinah, ’twas yellow. (She rises and searches.)

Marsinah. Look thyself. Thou seest I lack it to finish the pattern.

Narjis. Alas! (Sighs.) What’s to be done? What’s to be done?

(She sits despondently on the rim of the well.)

Marsinah. Run to the wool market, O good Narjis.

Narjis. All the way to the wool market?

Marsinah. ’Tis none so far for one so sprightly as thou, O sweet Narjis. Thou didst promise it the merchant—remember!

Narjis. I could have laid an oath with the All-seeing there was yet another strand of yellow.

Marsinah. (Tucking away a tell-tale thread.) Couldst thou in sooth?

Narjis. Well-a-day! There’s nought for me but to go. We must finish the work or the money’s lost.

(She crosses to the large double door and takes down a huge iron door key, which hangs on the wall beside the door.)

And O Marsinah! No looking out of windows or peeping over walls.

Marsinah. By Lady Fatimah’s life of light! What dost thou suppose?

Narjis. Think of thy father. Thou knowest how he fears for thy safety. Was not his first wife stolen? His son slaughtered? Art thou not the last of his race? Is not thine own mother in the tomb of eternity? I tell thee, should one folly on thy part reach thy father’s ears, ’twere the undoing of us both.

Marsinah. Fear nought, O dear Narjis.

(Narjis has let herself out and locked the door outside.)

(Marsinah rises, and listens at the door. Then she hurries to the rim of the masonry by the well, gets up on it and peers over the wall. With a little cry of delight she exclaims “Waiting! Waiting!” Then claps her left palm with her right hand twice. She listens,—then claps again. Some one answers the signal in the same manner. She draws her veil across her face instinctively and stands expectant.)

(A youth appears over the masonry. In a moment he is down and in her arms. By his mole he is seen to be the young Caliph Abdallah,—but he is now dressed in the simple clothes of an artisan.)

Caliph. O my beloved! At last!

Marsinah. Dost thou still love me, O my master.

Caliph. Still?

(He draws away her veil and kisses her between the eyes.)

All my soul lieth between thine eyes! All my longing on thine untouched lips. Still love thee?

Marsinah. How can man love maid who unveileth her face as I have to thee?

Caliph. How can man not love?

Marsinah. (Veiling herself again.) I am ashamed at my shamelessness.

Caliph. Sooner be thou ashamed of mine. ’Twas I that climbed the wall, broke in on thee to tear the cloud from the new moon.

(He raises the veil from her face.)

Marsinah. I swear were to-day three days agone, and thou imploring me now, by thine eyes, I’d not betray my secrecy again.

Caliph. What! Is thy love grown faint so soon?

Marsinah. Allah help me, strong so soon. I am become a thousand times more watchful, more jealous of myself, and all because of thee. Alas! How must honour like thine judge of frailty like mine?

Caliph. (Passionately.) Mine honour judges as it judged the first moment of seeing thee: that thou art my love, that I hold thy little hands in mine, and that thou shalt be my wife—none other before thee.

(Drawing her towards him.)

Marsinah. (Sinking at his feet.) O my loved one; this is a dream of thine. Think of thy parents. What will they say? What wilt thou tell them?

Caliph. (He sits by her on the ground.) What? That I looked out from my father’s pavilion one blessed evening and saw thee feeding thy little birds at yon window. That I gazed on thy white wrists long—long. What more need I say. (He is about to kiss her wrists.)

Marsinah. (Withdrawing them playfully.) My wrists! Hath my face no say in thy loving?

Caliph. Thy face! The Forgiver forgive thee. Since I beheld its light, my nights are sleepless; my days burning sands. This stolen moment alone my shade, thy hair my breeze, thy voice my fountain.

Marsinah. (Drawing away.) O my love, leave me; forget me utterly. Thy mother will never choose me thy bride. Is thy father not far, far above my father? Did’st thou not say he was the Caliph’s gardener?

Caliph. Is the Caliph’s gardener such a mighty man?

Marsinah. Narjis says he is.

Caliph. (Secretly annoyed.) Narjis—the old woman?

Marsinah. Yea, and she says more. I asked her in a light way—O very lightly—had she e’er heard spoken of the gardener’s son. And she—the fool—she swears he never had a son; that his only wife is dead these many years; that the garden next door hath been leased by a grammarian, the new Caliph’s tutor; that once even the Caliph himself came to walk there in the cool of the day.

Caliph. (Curtly.) Narjis is an old gossip. She knows not what she chatters.

Marsinah. So I told her. But she said, “On with thy work, O thou daughter of ignorance.” Then I began to laugh, thinking of thee, and flung out a line of a song, till her forehead swelled with rage and she beat me.

Caliph. (Furiously.) She beat thee?

Marsinah. O ’tis naught. She does so often.

Caliph. The sister of Satan!

Marsinah. What would’st thou! She’s not my mother.

Caliph. (Tenderly.) O my Marsinah! Has this been thy life? Is thy mother gone long?

Marsinah. Three years ’tis now since she entered into the mercy of Allah! Alas! Those were different days. What I did for my mother I did in delight. What I learnt from her, I learnt with a dancing heart. All her songs, the plucking of the lute she taught me—as ’twere so much laughter. In her hour, ere my father took her to wife, she had been the slave of a rich merchant. The cunningest teachers in Baghdad had taught her. When the merchant gave her her freedom, she was besought to sing at all the rarest feasts. Then Allah took her voice and evil nights fell upon her. Thus my father found her, outcast and starving. Such was my mother.

(A short silence.)

Caliph. Thou did’st not tell me that thou could’st play, that thou could’st sing! What fresh perfection do I find in thee every moment!

Marsinah. ’Tis all my mother in me.

Caliph. ’Tis all thyself in thee. Blessed be He that fashioned thee in thy splendour of beauty. Thy face is fairer than health; thine eyes are the eyes of a gazelle; thy lips a cluster of coral; like a silver column is thy neck: and thy breasts, pomegranates in their glory. O, my beloved, when will come the hour that I shall hold thee close to my heart, while the night hangeth her silver lamp over our silence.

Marsinah. (In a whisper.) When Allah willeth—and Allah will it soon.

(Their lips meet in a kiss.)

Caliph. (Rises to his knees with sudden passion.) It shall be this night.

Marsinah. O, sweet my lord, I have told thee before, it cannot be. Not at night. Narjis is ever here, and ofttimes my father. My only freedom is a morn like to-day’s.

Caliph. (Drawing close to her.) Thou shalt have other freedom undreamt of by thee.

Marsinah. What wilt thou do?

Caliph. Can’st thou trust me?

Marsinah. With all my soul, an thou put not thy life in danger.

Caliph. Dost thou love me so?

Marsinah. (Hanging her head.) Sooner would I lose thee for ever.

Caliph. (After a pause, with a smile she does not observe.) Fear naught.

Marsinah. What is’t? Nothing to harm thee?

Caliph. (Cheek to cheek.) Thou’lt see! When the evening prayer hath locked the door of the day, then will I come to open the eyes of thy heart.

Marsinah. (Improvising.)

Caliph. (Turning surprised—joyously.) Yehh! Can’st cap verses too? By Allah! What is this Wonder of wonders, that the Giver of all things good——

Marsinah. (Rises, interrupting him.) Awah!

Caliph. Nothing.

Marsinah. It is. Fly, O my beloved.

Caliph. (Rises.) How can I leave my soul behind and not die? (He goes up to the rim of the well.)

Marsinah. Go, I implore thee! By all that’s holy! Here! (She plucks a rose from the bush, kisses it, and hands it to him.) Go!

(The Caliph presses the rose to his lips, then slips it into his breast and climbs over the wall.)

Caliph. (From the top of the wall.) After set of sun! (He disappears over the wall.)

Narjis. (Outside.) Marsinah! Marsinah!

(Marsinah hurries to her work, sits and stitches furiously.)

Narjis. (Entering the courtyard.) A gift of good news, O my roe. Thy father is coming.

Marsinah. My father? Never yet came he home during the day.

Narjis. Never yet. But to-day he cometh. I saw him leaving the hammam-bath, unlike himself—in robes of splendour, his locks combed, his beard trimmed, and (imitating him) striding along as proud and calm as a camel! I hasted ahead through the alleys. Had he found thee alone—— (There is a knock on the door.) By the Prophet! None too soon. (Calling out.) I come! I come! (Goes to the door and calls through it.) Who art thou? What seekest thou? (She winks at Marsinah and feigns surprise.) Allah! ’tis my master. O Marsinah! Thy father, as I am awake! (She unlocks the door.)

(Marsinah has risen; drawing her veil about the back of her head.)

(Hajj enters as described, wearing all his stolen robes, his beard neatly trimmed, his whole being refreshed by the bath. His manner is far more self-assured. He carries his little bundle of presents for his daughter, which he flings to the ground.)

Marsinah. Salam, O my father.

Narjis. Salam, O my master.

Hajj. Salam.

(All sit, Hajj between the two women.)

Marsinah. Thou smellest so sweet; is it musk?

Hajj. I have lain in the hammam all morning.

Marsinah. May thy bath profit thee, O my father. What blessed coming is thine?

Hajj. Thou mayst indeed call it blessed. For verily the Dispeller of woe hath turned the murk of my night into a day of light and delight. What say ye to this. (He takes out his purse.) Gold! Gold! Gold! What a sound it is! It chinks straight into the blood and sets the heart a-beating, so the temples throb and reason flies from the head. Dost thou mark it, O Marsinah. O Narjis, dost thou?

Marsinah. (Clapping her hands.) Yehh!

Narjis. (Suspicious.) Whence hadst thou this?

Hajj. Whence? (His brow clouds.) Whence? From a fool in his folly! An accursed for whom it shall weave the rope round his neck. But that’s for later. (Chinking the purse.) This for now. (He slips the purse in his breast.) Ha! Ha! Ha! O eyes of me! Ye should have beheld them in the hammam—the bath-keeper and his slaveboys. How they bowed before me—one and all. “O my master” here, and “O my lord” there. And such rinsings, and rubbings, and clappings, till my limbs rang aloud with smoothness! Then they laid me adown on silken sheets, the while censers fumed me sweetly from head to heel. And the bath-keeper knelt at my feet, and sung to the tom-tom a song. (He sings, imitating the playing of a tom-tom with his hands.)

(He draws out the purse and flings it in the air with a shout, catching it again.)

Marsinah. (Clapping her hands gleefully and rising to her knees.) O my father! Thou art magnificent!

Hajj. (Delighted.) Magnificent—am I?

Marsinah. Yea! Even as a prince in one of the tales thou tellest.

Hajj. A Prince! (He strokes his moustachios.) A King?

Marsinah. A King, in truth, a King! Is he not, O Narjis?

Narjis. (Ironically.) A King, in very sooth.

Marsinah. Never beheld I thee thus. Never till this hour. White as milk is this day of mine.

Hajj. It shall be whiter still, O my dainty. Give me the bundle, O Narjis. Thou shalt bless the day indeed, O my rose. (Opening the bundle.) Ah! Now thine eyes glisten. Now!

Marsinah. Thou didst remember me?

Hajj. Remember thee? What doth thy soul most desire in this world? Speak.

Marsinah. Most? (She glances unconsciously up over the garden wall, but looks down again quickly.)

Hajj. Ah, now thou blushest. What is it?

Marsinah. (Confused.) I—know—not.

Hajj. (Imitating.) “I know not.” O Narjis, was ever maid such maid. She knows not. By Allah, thou hast guarded her well. She is as simple as the hour she was born. “I know not.” (He fondles Marsinah’s cheek.)

Marsinah. (Hanging her head.) What should I know?

(Hajj and Narjis look at each other smiling knowingly.)

Hajj. Thou shouldest know that thy father loves thee! (He kisses her on both eyes.) And that he has brought thee these. (He produces the anklets from the bundle.)

Marsinah. Anklets! (She flings off her slippers laughing gleefully and puts on the anklets.) O Narjis! O Narjis! At last! Now! What girl in our street can laugh at me now? (Rises and circles about the two.) Look, O Narjis, look! Jamilah, or Mubarakah, or any of them. O my master, I kiss thy feet. (She kneels before Hajj and bows down.)

Hajj. (Laying his hand on her head.) Thou art content?

Marsinah. (Blissfully.) Content? Content?

Hajj. Then what sayst thou to a veil? (He unfolds the veil.)

Marsinah. (Springs up, then bashfully—overcome.) For me—too? (Hajj hands it to her smilingly.) (In rapture, holding it up; unconsciously looking up to the garden wall.) Oh! would I had had it this morn!

Hajj. This morn! What dost thou mean?

Marsinah. (Realising her self-betrayal.) I mean—I know not. My heart is so happy. La Yayhá! Do I fill thine eyes, O my father? (She drapes the veil about her.)

Hajj. (Smiling proudly.) Fill mine eyes! Go! Fetch thy lute! We will have music. This day shall be a day of rejoicing.

Marsinah. (Going.) I hear and I obey. (She hurries off across the courtyard into the house.)

Hajj. (Looking after her.) By Allah! How she glides swimmingly as she were a lily floating down the Tigris. Blessed indeed is he that taketh her to wife.

Narjis. Aye, and she’s ripe to wed, too.

Hajj. Fourteen! The pick of years! I must seek her a husband.

Narjis. (Huddles up to him.) What sayst thou to the basket-weaver’s son at the corner?

Hajj. The basket-weaver’s son? O thou hag! (Slaps her cheek with the back of his hand.) Why not a bean-seller? (Slap.) Or a camel-boy? (Slap.) Yea, or best and rarest, some blear-eyed mangy beggar? (Slap.)

(Marsinah appears with a lute.)

Hajj. (To Narjis.) Behold her now! I swear the very movement of her limbs maketh melody.

Marsinah. What shall I sing thee, O my father? (She stands tuning her instrument.)

Hajj. How many modes canst thou play in?

Marsinah. One-and-twenty.

Hajj. One-and-twenty. (To Narjis.) Are one-and-twenty modes for the basket-weaver’s son? (He slaps Narjis again. To Marsinah.) And sing how many?

Marsinah. The like number.

Hajj. And dance? How many steps did thy mother teach thee?

Marsinah. Far beyond counting.

Hajj. (To Narjis.) Thou hearest! Are they, the countless, for the basket-weaver’s son? (A final slap.) I tell thee, Marsinah is rare as a houri in Paradise. Wouldst thou know what secret the future hideth for Marsinah?

Narjis. (Rubbing her poor cheek.) What secret, O master?

Hajj. Sit thee down here, O my flower. And here thou, O my cactus. Mark me close, ye both. (Marsinah sits on the ground by Hajj.)

Hajj. (Drawing the purse from his breast.) This money in my bosom will I take and buy merchandise withal. (Tossing the purse from hand to hand; his voice in lyrical exaltation.) And I will trade and sell; and buy and trade; till it is doubled and trebled a hundred times hundredfold. Then shall I turn from toil and trouble, to clothe my Marsinah in a rope of pearls serene; with the crown of a queen on her forehead clear; two jewels of shine and sheen, pending o’er each ear,—here and there; on her breast will I set a ruby amulet of flash and fret; and stuffed within a priceless piece of ambergris.

Marsinah. (In wonder.) O my father!

Hajj. And the name of thy beauty shall be blown abroad, beyond Arabia, through Sind, into China, even as far as the islands of Wak. And suitors shall venture across deserts and sea, by caravel and camel, and fall on their knee in suppliance for thee.

Marsinah. Yehh!

Hajj. But I—thy sire, (leaning on Narjis lazily as though she were a feather bed.)—shall lie back on pillows of ostrich plumes, propping mine elbow thus, nor turning to right nor to left. And there shall be wailings and gnashings of teeth amongst thy lovers; the while thou, behind many lintels, in a court of marble with a roof of molten gold, dancest merrily, airily, to the sound of smitten strings.

Marsinah. (Laughing joyfully and clapping her hands.) Ya ha! Ya ha!

Hajj. (Triumphantly.) Ha! Ha! (Eagerly.) Dance now, O dawn-breeze, now! O Narjis, pluck a tune with thy talons. (Hands her the lute.) Up, O Marsinah, up! My tom-tom, O Narjis! My tom-tom!

(Marsinah springs up. She begins to dance slowly, then faster and faster. Narjis, after handing Hajj his tom-tom, plays and occasionally sings as well.)

Hajj. (Beating the tom-tom, shrilly.) Yehh! Allah! La Yayhá! La Yayhá! So shalt thou dance! So! And the kings of the earth shall send their sons! La Yayhá! By thy youth, thou art as a branch swaying! La Yayhá! But I shall laugh them to scorn, all and one—“Ye swine,” shall I say— “Ye——”

(There is a knock at the door.)

(Marsinah stops; so does Narjis.)

Hajj. Nought. Neighbours. On! (They begin again.)

Hajj. “Ye swine—who are ye to——”

(Another knock.)

A Voice. (Outside.) Open in the name of justice.

Hajj. (Instinctively looks at his garments.) Wah! Go indoors, O my delight, go! (He throws the bundle to Marsinah.)

(Marsinah, taking the bundle, goes into the house wondering.)

Hajj. (To Narjis.) Open! Open! Open! (Narjis opens the house door.)

(Hajj sits expectant, tracing figures in the sand with his finger-tips.)

(The Captain of the Watch enters—behind him come Zayd and Amru and Four Archers. The Archers fling open the double doors to the street and guard them. Nasir enters as well.)

Captain. Is this the house of Hajj, the beggar?

Hajj. What would ye?

Zayd. I knew ’twas he! Seize the dog!

Hajj. Seize me? (He rises abruptly.)

Zayd. Those are the very garments.

Captain. Thou must come before the Wazir Mansur.

Hajj. (Terrified at the name.) Mansur? I paid in part—I meant to pay in full.

Amru. Thou liest, O split of tongue.

Hajj. Lie? I? (He goes for Amru.)

(Two Archers secure Hajj between them.)

Captain. No words! Off with him.

(The Archers march Hajj to the door.)

Nasir. (Darting forward and grinning into Hajj’s face.) Ha! Ha!

Hajj. (Stopping as he sees Nasir.) Oh! Thou!

Nasir. (Mockingly imitating Hajj’s voice.) I saw no purse.

Hajj. (Spitting in Nasir’s face.) Thou filth! Thou son of filth.

(He is led off, the other men following.)

Narjis. (Wringing her hands.) Allah! Allah! Allah!

[Curtain]