The Carriage on the Crescent Beach

A retelling based on The Diary of Juliet Thompson by Juliet Thompson. Words in quotation marks are as recorded in that diary.

In August 1909 the American painter Juliet Thompson was a pilgrim in Haifa. 'Abdu'l-Bahá was about to return to 'Akká, and He had planned to take her with Him. Then He changed the plan. It was wiser, His daughter Rúhá Khánum explained, that Juliet should stay in Haifa until her friends the Kinneys arrived. On the morning He was to leave, Juliet rose, she wrote, "with a bleeding heart."

Once that morning He passed her house and went a little way up the mountain, on His way to see a sick boy. She crept to the corner of the wall and gazed down the road He had taken. He was wearing a gold-brown camel's hair coat over His white robe.

Later He sent for her. She found Him at Rúhá Khánum's house. He was tired, and asked whether she would excuse Him if He lay down. He lay on the linen-covered divan while Rúhá and Juliet sat at His feet. He took her hand and held it, and looked at her smiling, and she burst into tears.

"What is it?" He asked.

"I love You so. I love You so. It kills me to separate from You."

"I am never separated from you. I am with you always, in every world."

She said she knew that, but she wanted to see Him. Why must He go that day? She thought afterward that she should have been sent from the room. Instead He answered her: "Because I am busy. Because I am busy. I am invited to something this evening. Otherwise I would not go. But I will come to see you again, In shá'lláh."

Rúhá took her to see the Holy Mother, 'Abdu'l-Bahá's wife, who had been ill, and there too Juliet cried. "If you cry you will become like us, pale," the Holy Mother told her. Juliet answered that if crying could make her like them she would cry until she died. Tears came to the Holy Mother's eyes. "I am weeping," she said, "at the thought of the great calamities for which I wept once."

Then the Master sent for Juliet again. He placed her at His feet and wiped away her tears. "Don't cry! Don't cry!" He said in English. "If you cry, I cry!" She had lunch at His side. After lunch He called her once more. "See how I love you!" He said. "I have sent for you three times today. Three times." He held up three fingers.

"Now this is a secret. Go to My sister, Khánum, and ask her to supplicate that you may come to 'Akká. There is a wisdom in this."

"I had given it up!" Juliet said at last. She was to ask the next day. Soon Khánum herself came in and sat on the floor near her; then the others came to have tea with Him; and after tea He left for 'Akká.

When His carriage had gone, Juliet climbed Mount Carmel alone. She climbed very high and sat on a rock facing 'Akká, so that she could watch the carriage moving along the crescent beach until it disappeared. From the rock she spoke aloud to Him, though by then He was miles away: "In all things I submit to Thy Will, my Lord, for Thy Will is the Will of God. Thou art the Lord of Hosts. Thou art the Word of God."

The Master denied Khánum's supplication. When Juliet heard this, she wrote Him a brief line to say that she was content with His Will, and nothing more.

His answer came in His own hand. "Thy letter was received," it said. "Its contents proved firmness and steadfastness. Thank God that thou hast believed in the Lord of Hosts, were attracted to the Word of God and became the manifestation of Godly Favours." In it, Juliet noted, He repeated the very words she had spoken to Him from Mount Carmel, words she had put in no letter.

The Tablet is dated 18 August 1909. Beneath her copy of it she wrote: "It is weary waiting, this waiting to see my Lord."

On 20 August He came to stay in Haifa. That evening, with Rúhá Khánum translating, He said to her: "I hope you were not hurt, Juliet, that I did not let you come to 'Akká."

"Every command of Yours, since it comes from You, is dear to me."

"That is the sign of true love. I know your heart!"

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Diary of Juliet Thompson by Juliet Thompson.

Thompson, J.. (1983). *The Diary of Juliet Thompson*.