Free Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel Page B

called Aldebaran. And do you know what gives it that reddish

tinge?" -- "Well -- perhaps our atmosphere." -- "Wrong, Teacher. The star

Aidebaran is composed of molten, magnetic iron, and that's what makes it

look so red. Such at least is the opinion of the famous Camille Flammarion,

as he writes in his last letter to me.
     
     
And that great astronomer's letter was no mere empty fabrication.

It existed in fact. Krikor, in the person of Camille Flammarion, had written

the letter to himself. To be sure, he rarely sent himself such letters;

only on the most solemn occasions. Usually the disciples heard nothing of

them, since even Voltaire and Raffi, the great Armenian poet, had several

times been inspired to exhaustive answers to Krikor's questions. Krikor

was therefore a corresponding member of Olympus.
     
     
All the educated families in Musa Dagh took an annual holiday, if only

to Aleppo or Marash, to the American, French, German missionary schools

there, in which their education had been completed. Not a few among the

village elders had returned from America to enjoy their earnings. Almost

as war broke out, a batch of émigrés had crossed the Atlantic. Only Krikor

had remained where he was. It was rare for him even to visit a neighboring

village. In his youth, he declared, his bodily eyes had seen enough

wonders of the world. Occasionally he hinted at these journeyings, which

had lost themselves in remote distances, eastwards and westwards, but

in which he had, on principle, taken no train. It is uncertain whether

they were of the same nature as Flammarion's letter. Nothing in Krikor's

tales savored in the least of exaggeration or bragging. His accounts were

steeped in shrewd observation and consistency, so that even such a man

as Bagradian might not have suspected. But Krikor was always insisting

on how little need he saw for travel. All places were alike, since the

outside world is contained in the inner. The sage sits, quiet as a spider,

in the net which his mind has spun round the universe. So that, when the

talk was of war or politics, of any burning question of the hour, Krikor

would begin to get restless. Last arrogance of the mind! He despised

all wars not contained in books. That was why Krikor had snubbed the

political observations of the schoolteacher. And he concluded:
     
     
"I can't make out why people must be forever eyeing their neighbors.

War, government orders, Wali, Kaimakam -- let the Turks do as they please.

If you don't worry about them, they won't worry about you. We have our

own earth here. And it has distinguished admirers. If you please . . ."
     
     
With this Krikor introduced a young man to his host, a foreigner, who had

either been hidden by all the others or whom Gabriel had failed to notice.

Krikor rolled out the young man's sonorous name: "Gonzague Maris."
     
     
This young man, to judge by his appearance, was a European, or at least

a distinctly Europeanized Levantine. His small black moustache, on a pale,

highly alert face, looked as French as his name sounded. His most distinctive

trait was the eyebrows, which forked upwards in a blunt angle. Krikor played

herald to the foreigner: "Monsieur Gonzague Maris is a Greek."
     
     
At once he improved on this, as though he were afraid of demeaning his guest:

"Not a Turkish Greek, but a European."
     
     
This stranger had very long eyelashes. He was smiling, and these feminine

lashes were lowered almost over his eyes. "My father was Greek, my mother's

French. I'm an American."
     
     
The quiet, almost shy approach of this young stranger favorably impressed

Bagradian. He shook his hand. "What extraordinary combination of

circumstances -- if you don't mind my calling it that -- brings an American

with a French mother here -- of all places?"
     
     
Gonzague smiled again, lowering his eyes. "It's quite simple. I had business

for a few weeks in Alexandretta and got ill there. The doctor sent me