Ultill!!
º, tºº gº
!;
º
ºw
#
E.
É
a vº
§ - - flºº
: - §::::::g. Zºº /
º
z "#. .
-: S$5&t §º
i
-
---------4-----
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT III ſtill ſtillllllllllllll
BEQUEST OF
ARTH U R LYON GROSS
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH HISTORY
TO THE
|UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
1940
C
6
;





3.28.
º,
ſ”2.
%-4-4-


HYPATIA
OR
New Foes With an Old Face
A A/O VA. Z.
BY
CHARLES KINGSLEY, F.S.A., F.L.S.
2 -, * * *
CHICAGO :
E. A. WEEKS & COMPANY.,
52I-53I Wabash Ave.
BEQUEST OF
A. L. CROSS
* - I - 4 )
DEDICATION.
TO MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER.
MY DEAR PARENTs,
WHEN you shall have read this book, and considered the view of
human relationship which is set forth in it, you will be at no loss to
discover why I have dedicated it to you, as one paltry witness of an union
and of a debt which, though they may seem to have begun with birth,
and to have grown with your most loving education, yet cannot die with
death ; but are spiritual, indefeasible, eternal in the heavens with that God
from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named.
PREFACE.
A PICTURE of life in the fifth century must needs contain
much which will be painful to any reader, and which the
young and innocent will do well to leave altogether unread.
It has to represent a very hideous, though a very great,
age ; one of those critical and cardinal eras in the history
of the human race, in which virtues and vices manifest
themselves side by side—even, at times, in the same person
—with the most startling openness and power. One who
writes of such an era labors under a troublesome disadvan-
tage. He dare not tell how evil people were ; he will not
be believed if he tells how good they were. In the present
case that disadvantage is doubled, for while the sins of the
Church, however heinous, were still such as admit of being
expressed in words, the sins of the heathen world, against
which she fought, were utterly indescribable, and the
Christian apologist is thus compelled, for the sake of
decency, to state the Church's case far more weakly than
the facts deserve.
Not, be it ever remembered, that the slightest suspicion
of immorality attaches either to the heroine of this book,
or to the leading philosophers of her school, for several
centuries. Howsoever base and profligate their disciples,
or the Manichees, may have been, the great Neo-Platonists
were, as Manes himself was, persons of the most rigid and
ascetic virtue.
For a time had arrived in which no teacher who did
not put forth the most lofty pretensions to righteousness
could expect a hearing. That Divine Word who is, “The
Light who lighteth every man which cometh into the
world,” had awakened in the heart of mankind a moral
craving never before felt in any strength, except by a few
5 --
6 ARAEAEA CAE.
-
isolated philosophers or prophets. The spirit had been
poured out on all flesh ; and from one end of the Empire
to the other, from the slave in the mill to the emperor on
his throne, all hearts were either hungering and thirsting
after righteousness, or learning to do homage to those who
did so. And He who excited the craving was also furnish-
ing that which would satisfy it ; and was teaching man-
kind, by a long and painful education, to distinguish the
truth from its innumerable counterfeits, and to find, for
the first time in the world’s life, a good news not merely
for the select few, but for all mankind without respect of
rank or race.
For somewhat more than four hundred years the Roman
Empire and the Christian Church, born into the world
almost at the same moment, had been developing them-
selves side by side as two great rival powers, in deadly
struggle for the possession of the human race. The
weapons of the Empire had been not merely an over-
whelming physical force, and a ruthless lust of aggressive
conquest ; but, even more powerful still, an unequalled
genius for organization, and an uniform system of external
law and order. This was generally a real boon to con-
quered nations, because it constituted a fixed and regular
spoliation for the fortuitous and arbitrary miseries of
savage warfare ; but it arrayed, meanwhile, on the side of
the Empire the wealthier citizens of every province, by
allowing them their share in the plunder of the laboring
masses below them. These, in the country districts, were
utterly enslaved ; while in the cities, nominal freedom was
of little use to masses kept from starvation by the alms of
the government, and drugged into brutish good-humor by
a vast system of public spectacles, in which the realms of
nature and of art were ransacked to glut the wonder, lust,
and ferocity of a degraded populace.
Against this vast organization the Church had been
fighting for now four hundred years, armed only with its
own mighty and all-embracing message, and with the
manifestation of a spirit of purity and virtue, of love and
self-sacrifice, which had proved itself mightier to melt and
weld together the hearts of men than all the force and
terror, all the mechanical organization, all the sensual
AAEAAA CAE. 7
baits with which the Empire had been contending against
that Gospel in which it had recognized instinctively and
at first sight its internecine foe.
And now the Church had conquered. The weak things
of this world had confounded the strong. In spite of the
devilish cruelties of persecutors; in spite of the contamin-
ating atmosphere of sin which surrounded her ; in spite of
having to form herself, not out of a race of pure and sepa-
rate creatures, but by a most literal “new birth '' out of
those very fallen masses who insulted and persecuted her ;
in spite of having to endure within herself continual out-
bursts of the evil passions in which her members had once
indulged without check ; in spite of a thousand counterfeits
which sprang up around her and within her, claiming to
be parts of her, and alluring men to themselves by that
very exclusiveness and party arrogance which disproved
their claim ; in spite of all she had conquered. The very
emperors had arrayed themselves on her side. Julian's
last attempt to restore paganism by imperial influence had
only proved that the old faith had lost all hold upon the
hearts of the masses; at his death the great tide wave of
new opinion rolled on unchecked, and the rulers of earth
were fain to swim with the stream ; to accept, in words at
least, the Church’s laws as theirs; to acknowledge a King
of kings to whom even they owed homage and obedience ;
and to call their own slaves their “poorer brethren,” and
often, too, their “spiritual superiors.”
But if the emperors had become Christian, the Empire
had not. Here and there an abuse was lopped off; or an
edict was passed for the visitation of prisons and for the
welfare of prisoners; or a Theodosius was recalled to
justice and humanity for awhile by the stern rebukes of an
Ambrose. But the Empire was still the same : still a great
tyranny, enslaving the masses; crushing national life ;
fattening itself and its officials on a system of world-wide
robbery; and, while it was paramount, there could be no
hope for the human race. Nay, there were even those
among the Christians who saw, like Dante afterward in
the “fatal gift of Constantine,” and the truce between the
Church and the Empire, fresh and more deadly danger.
Was not the Empire trying to extend over the Church
8 AAEAEAE4 CE.
itself that upas shadow with which it had withered up
every other form of human existence ; to make her, too, its
stipendiary slave official, to be pampered when obedient,
and scourged whenever she dare assert a free will of her
own, a law beyond that of her tyrants; to throw on her,
by refined hypocrisy, the care and support of the masses
on whose life blood it was feeding? So thought many
then, and, as I believe, not unwisely.
But if the social condition of the civilized world was
anomalous at the beginning of the fifth century, its spiritual
state was still more so. The universal fusion of races,
languages, and customs, which had gone on for four cen-
turies under the Roman rule, had produced a correspond-
ing fusion of creeds, an universal fermentation of human
thought and faith. All honest belief in the old local
superstitions of paganism had been long dying out before
the more palpable and material idolatry of Emperor
worship, and the gods of the nations, unable to deliver
those who had trusted in them, became one by one the
vassals of the ‘‘Divus Caesar,” neglected by the philosophic
rich and only worshipped by the lower classes, where the
old rites still pandered to their grosser appetites or sub-
served the wealth and importance of some particular
locality. - -
In the meanwhile, the minds of men, cut adrift from
their ancient moorings, wandered wildly over pathless seas
of speculative doubt, and especially in the more metaphysi-
cal and contemplative East, attempted to solve for them-
selves the question of man’s relation to the unseen by those
thousand schisms, heresies, and theosophies (it is a dis-
grace to the word philosophy to call them by it), on the
records of which the student now gazes bewildered, unable
alike to count or to explain their fantasies, *
Yet even these, like every outburst of free human
thought, had their use and their fruit. They brought
before the minds of churchmen a thousand new questions
which must be solved, unless the Church was to relinquish
forever her claims as the grand teacher and satisfier of the
human soul. To study these bubbles, as they formed and
burst on every wave of human life ; to feel, too often by
sad experience, as Augustine felt, the charm of their
ARAEAEA CAE. 9
allurements; to divide the truths at which they aimed
from the falsehood which they offered as its substitute ; to
exhibit the Catholic Church as possessing, in the great
facts which she proclaimed, full satisfaction, even for the
most subtle metaphysical cravings of a diseased age ;--that
was the work of the time ; and men were sent to do it, and
aided in their labor by the very causes which had produced
the intellectual revolution. The general intermixture of
ideas, creeds, and races, even the mere physical facilities
for intercourse between different parts of the Empire,
helped to give the great Christian fathers of the fourth and
fifth centuries a breadth of observation, a depth of thought,
a large-hearted and large-minded patience and tolerance,
such as we may say boldly, the Church has since beheld
but rarely, and the world never; at least, if we are to judge
those great men by what they had, and not by what they
had not, and to believe, as we are bound, that had they
lived now, and not then, they would have towered as far
above the heads of this generation as they did above the
heads of their own. And thus an age which, to the
shallow insight of a sneerer like Gibbon, seems only a
rotting and aimless chaos of sensuality and anarchy,
fanaticism and hypocrisy, produced a Clement and an
- Athanase, a Chrysostom and an Augustine; absorbed into
the sphere of Christianity all which was most valuable in
the philosophies of Greece and Egypt, and in the social
Organization of Rome, as an heirloom for nations yet
unborn ; and laid in foreign lands, by unconscious agents,
the foundations of all European thought and Ethics. -
But the health of a Church depends not merely on the
Creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and
holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and
virtue of its individual members. The men's sana must
have a corpus samum to inhabit. And even for the Western
Church, the lofty future which was in store for it would
have been impossible, without some infusion of new and
healthier blood into the veins of a world drained and
tainted by the influence of Rome.
And the new blood, at the era of this story, was at hand.
The great tide of those Gothic nations, of which the
Norwegian and the German are the purest remaining types,
IO A/8/2/74 CAE
though every nation of Europe, from Gibraltar to St.
Petersburg, owes to them the most precious elements of
strength, was sweeping onward, wave over wave, in a
steady southwestern current across the whole Roman
territory, and only stopping and recoiling when it reached
the shores of the Mediterranean. Those wild tribes were
bringing with them into the magic circle of the Western
Church’s influence the very materials which she required
for the building up of a future Christendom, and which she
could find as little in the Western Empire, as in the
Eastern ; comparative purity of morals; sacred respect for
Woman, for family life, law, equal justice, individual
freedom, and, above all, for honesty in word and deed ;
bodies untainted by hereditary effeminacy, hearts earnest
though genial, and blest with a strange willingness to
learn, even from those whom they despised ; a brain equal
to that of the Roman in practical power, and not too far
behind that of the Eastern in imaginative and speculative
aCuteness.
And their strength was felt at once. Their vanguard,
confined with difficulty for three centuries beyond the
Eastern Alps, at the expense of sanguinary wars, had been
adopted, wherever it was practicable, into the service of
that Empire ; and the heart’s core of the Roman legion was:
composed of Gothic officers and soldiers. But now the
main body had arrived. Tribe after tribe was crowding
down to the Alps, and trampling upon each other on the
frontiers of the Empire. The Huns, singly their inferiors,
pressed them from behind with the irresistible weight of
numbers ; Italy, with her rich cities and fertile lowlands,
beckoned them on to plunder ; as auxiliaries, they had
learned their own strength and Roman weakness; a casus
be//? was soon found. How iniquitous was the conduct of
the sons of Theodosius, in refusing the usual bounty, by
which the Goths were bribed not to attack the Empire!—
The whole pent-up deluge burst over the plains of Italy,
and the Western Empire became from that day forth a
dying idiot, while the new invaders divided Europe among
themselves. The fifteen years before the time of this tale
had decided the fate of Greece ; the last four that of Rome .
itself. The countless treasures which five centuries of
ARAEAA CAE. I I
rapine had accumulated round the Capitol, had become the
prey of men clothed in sheepskin and horsehide ; and the
sister of an emperor had found her beauty, virtue, and
pride of race, worthily matched by those of the hard-
handed Northern hero who led her away from Italy as his
captive and his bride, to found new kingdoms in South
France and Spain, and to drive the newly-arrived Vandals
across the Straits of Gibraltar into the then blooming
Coastland of Northern Africa. Everywhere the mangled
limbs of the Old World were seething in the Medea's
caldron, to come forth whole, and young, and strong.
The Longbeards, noblest of their race, had found a
temporary resting-place upon the Austrian frontier, after
long southward wanderings from the Swedish mountains,
Soon to be dispossessed again by the advancing Huns,
and, crossing the Alps, to give their name forever to the
plains of Lombardy. A few more tumultuous years, and
the Franks would find themselves lords of the Lower
Rhineland ; and before the hairs of Hypatia's scholars had
grown gray, the mythic Hengst and Horsa would have
landed on the shores of Kent and an English nation have
begun its world-wide life.
But some great Providence forbade to our race tri-
umphant in every other quarter, a footing beyond the
Mediterranean, or even in Constantinople, which to
this day preserves in Europe the faith and manners of
Asia. The Eastern World seemed barred, by some stern
doom, from the only influence which could have
regenerated it. Every attempt of the Gothic races to
establish themselves beyond the sea, whether in the form
of an organized kingdom, as the Vandals attempted in
Africa; or of a mere band of brigands, as did the Goths in
Asia Minor, under Gainas; or of praetorian guard, as did
the Varangens of the middle age, or as religious invaders,
as did the Crusaders, ended only in the corruption and dis-
appearance of the colonists. That extraordinary reform in
morals, which, according to Salvian and his contempora-
ries, the Vandal conquerors worked in North Africa, availed
them nothing ; they lost more than they gave. Climate,
bad example, and the luxury of power degraded them in one
century into a race of helpless and debauched slaveholders,
f 2 - ARAAA CA.
doomed to utter extermination before the semi-Gothic armies
of Belisarius; and with them vanished the last chance that
the Gothic race would exercise, on the Eastern World the
same stern yet wholesome discipline under which the West-
ern had been restored to life. -
The Egyptian and Syrian Churches, therefore, were
destined to labor not for themselves, but for us. The signs
of disease and decrepitude were already but too manifest in
them. That very peculiar turn in the Graeco-Eastern mind
which made them the great thinkers of the then world had
the effect of drawing them away from practice to specula-
tion ; and the races of Egypt and Syria were effeniinate,
over-civilized, exhausted by centuries during which no
infusion of fresh blood had come to renew the stock. Mor-
bid, self-conscious, physically indolent, incapable then, as
now, of personal or political freedom, they afforded material
Out of which fanatics might easily be made, but not citizens
Of the kingdom of God. The very ideas of family and
national life—those two divine roots of the Church, severed
from which she is certain to wither away into that most god-
less and most cruel of spectres, a religious world—had per-
ished in the East from the evil influence of the universal
practice of slaveholding, as well as from the degradation of
that Jewish nation which had been for ages the great wit-
ness for those ideas ; and all classes, like their forefather
Adam—like, indeed, ‘‘the old Adam ” in every man and
every age—were shifting the blame of sin from their own
Consciences to human relationships and duties—and therein
to the God who had appointed them ; and saying as of
old, “The zwoman whom Zhou gazesł żo be wiſh me, she gave
me of the tree, and I did eat.” The passionate Eastern
character, like all weak ones, found total abstinence easier
than temperance, religious thought more pleasant than
godly action ; and a monastic world grew up all over the
East, of such vastness that in Egypt it was said to rival in
numbers the lay population, producing, with an enormous
decrease in the actual amount of moral evil, an equally
great enervation and decrease of the population. Such a
people could offer no resistance to the steadily increasing
tyranny of the Eastern Empire. In vain did such men as
Chrysostom and Basil oppose their personal influence to
ARAEA'A CAE. I3
the hideous intrigues and villainies of the Byzantine court ;
the ever downward career of Eastern Christianity went on
unchecked for two more miserable centuries, side by side
with the upward development of the Western Church ; and,
while the successors of the great Saint Gregory were Con-
verting and civilizing a new-born Europe, the Churches of
the East were vanishing before Mohammedan invaders,
strong by living trust in that living God, whom the Chris-
tians, while they hated and persecuted each other for
arguments about Him, were denying and blaspheming in
every action of their lives.
But at the period whereof this story treats, the Graeco-
Eastern mind was still in the middle of its great work.
That wonderful metaphysic subtlety, which in phrases and
definitions too often unmeaning to our grosser intellect,
saw the symbols of the most important spiritual realities,
and felt that on the distinction between homoousios and
Žomotoustos might hang the solution of the whole problem
of humanity, was set to battle in Alexandria, the ancient
stronghold of Greek philosophy, with the effete remains of
the very scientific thought to which it owed its extraordi-
nary Culture. Monastic isolation from family and national
duties especially fitted the fathers of that period for the
task, by giving them leisure, if nothing else, to face
questions with a lifelong earnestness impossible to the
more social and practical Northern mind. Our duty is,
instead of sneering at them as pedantic dreamers, to thank
Heaven that men were found, just at the time when they
were wanted, to do for us what we could never have done
for ourselves; to leave to us, as a precious heirloom,
bought most truly with the life blood of their race, a
metaphysic at Once Christian and scientific, every attempt
to improve on which has hitherto been found a failure, and
to battle victoriously with that strange brood of theoretic.
monsters begotten by effete Greek philosophy upon
Eygptian symbolism, Chaldee astrology, Parsee dualism,
Brahminic spiritualism—graceful and gorgeous phantoms,
whereof somewhat more will be said in the coming
chapters.
I have in my sketch of Hypatia and her fate, closely
followed authentic history, especially Socrates' account of
I4. -- ARAEA'4 CE.
the closing scenes, as given in Book vii., § 15, of his
“Ecclesiastical History.” I am inclined, however, for
various historical reasons, to date her death two years
earlier than he does. The tradition that she was the wife
of Isidore, the philosopher, I reject, with Gibbon, as a
palpable anachronism of at least fifty years (Isidore's
master, Proclus, not having been born till the year before
Hypatia's death), contradicted, moreover, by the very
author of it, Photius, who says distinctly, after comparing
Hypatia and Isidore, that Isidore married a certain
“Domna.” No hint, moreover, of her having been
married appears in any contemporary authors ; and the
name of Isidore nowhere occurs among those of the many
mutual friends to whom Synesius sends messages in his
letters to Hypatia, in which, if anywhere, we should find
mention of a husband, had one existed. To Synesius'
most charming letters, as well as to those of Isidore, the
good Abbot of Pelusium, I beg leave to refer those readers
who wish for further information about the private life of
the fifth century. -
I cannot hope that these pages will be altogether free from
anachronisms and errors. I can only say that I have labored
honestly and industriously to discover the truth, even in
its minutest details, and to sketch the age, its manners,
and its literature, as I found them—altogether artificial,
slipshod, effete, resembling far more the times of Louis
Quinze than those of Sophocles and Plato. And so I send
forth this little sketch, ready to give my hearty thanks to
any reviewer who, by exposing my mistakes, shall teach
me and the public somewhat more about the last struggle
between the Young Church and the Old World.

HYPATIA;
OR, NEW FOES WITH AN OLD FACE.
tºº-ºº-ºº -
}
CHAPTER I.
THE LAURA.
IN the four hundred and thirteenth year of the Christian
Era, some three hundred miles above Alexandria, the
young monk Philammon was sitting on the edge of a low
range of inland cliffs, crested with drifting sand. Behind
him the desert sand waste stretched, lifeless, interminable,
reflecting its lurid glare on the horizon of the cloudless
vault of blue. At his feet the sand dripped and trickled,
in yellow rivulets, from crack to crack and ledge to ledge,
or whirled past him in tiny jets of yellow smoke, before
the fitful summer airs. Here and there, upon the face of
the cliffs which walled in the opposite side of the narrow
glen below, were cavernous tombs, huge old quarries, with
obelisks and half-cut pillars, standing as the workmen had
left them centuries before ; the sand was slipping down
and piling up around them ; their heads were frosted with
the arid snow ; everywhere was silence, desolation—the
grave of a dead nation in a dying land. And there he sat
musing above it all, full of life and youth and health and
beauty—a young Apollo of the desert. His only clothing
was a ragged sheepskin, bound with a leathern girdle.
His long black locks, unshorn from childhood, waved and
glistened in the sun ; a rich dark down on cheek and chin
- I5
I6 A/YA-A 77.4.
showed the spring of healthful manhood ; his hard hands
and sinewy Sunburnt limbs told of labor and endurance ;
his flashing eyes and beetling brow, of daring fancy,
passion, thought, which had no sphere of action in such a
place. What did his glorious young humanity alone
among the tombs? -
So perhaps he, too, thought, as he passed his hand
across his brow, as if to sweep away some gathering dream,
and sighing, rose and wandered along the cliffs, peering
downward at every point and cranny in search of fuel for
the monastery from whence he came.
Simple as was the material which he sought, consisting
chiefly of the low arid desert shrubs, with now and then a
fragment of wood from some deserted quarry or ruin, it
was becoming scarcer and scarcer round Abbot Pambo's
Laura at Scetis ; and long before Philammon had collected
his daily quantity, he had strayed further from his home
than he had ever been before. - - -
Suddenly at a turn of the glen, he came upon a sight
new to him . . . a temple carved in the sandstone cliff:
and in front, a smooth platform, strewn with beams and
mouldering tools, and here and there a skull bleaching
among the sand, perhaps of some workman slaughtered at
his labor in one of the thousand wars of old. The abbot,
his spiritual father—indeed, the only father whom he knew,
for his earliest recollections were of the Laura and the old
man’s cell—had strictly forbidden him to enter, even to
approach any of those relics of ancient idolatry: but a
broad terrace-road let down to the platform from the
table-land above ; the plentiful supply of fuel was too
tempting to be passed by. . . . He would go down, gather
a few sticks, and then return, to tell the abbot of the
treasure which he had found, and consult him as to the
propriety of revisiting it. - *
So down he went, hardly daring to raise his eyes to the
alluring iniquities of the painted imagery which, gaudy in
crimson and blue, still blazed out upon the desolate soli-
tude, uninjured by that rainless air. But he was young,
and youth is curious; and the devil, at least in the fifth
century, busy with young brains. Now Philanimon
believed most utterly in the devil, and night and day
Aſ YAA 7T/A. 17
devoutly prayed to be delivered from him ; so he crossed
himself, and ejaculated, honestly enough, “Lord, turn
away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity!” . . . and looked
nevertheless. -
And who could have helped looking at those four colossal
kings, who sat there grim and motionless, their huge hands
laid upon their knees in everlasting self-assured repose,
seeming to bear up the mountain on their stately heads?
A sense of awe, weakness, all but fear, came over him.
He dare not stoop to take up the wood at his feet, their
great stern eyes watched him so steadily.
Round their knees and round their thrones were mystic
characters engraven, symbol after symbol, line below line
—the ancient wisdom of the Egyptians, wherein Moses the
man of God was learned of old—why should not he know
it too? What awful secrets might not be hidden there
about the great world, past, present, and future, of which
he knew only so small a speck? Those kings who sat
there, they had known it all ; their sharp lips seem parting,
ready to speak to him. . . ... Oh that they would speak for
once! . . . and yet that grim sneering smile, that seemed
to look down on him from the heights of their power and
wisdom, with calm contempt . . . him, the poor youth,
picking up the leaving and rags of their past majesty. . . .
He dared look at them no more. -
So he looked past them into the temple halls; into a
lustrous abyss of cool green shade, deepening on and
inward, pillar after pillar, vista after vista into deepest
night. And dimly through the gloom he could descry, on
every wall and column, gorgeous arabesques, long lines
of pictured story; triumphs and labors; rows of captives
in foreign and fantastic dresses, leading strange animals,
bearing the tributes of unknown lands; rows of ladies at
feasts, their heads crowned with garlands, the fragrant
lotus-flower in every hand, while slaves brought wine and
perfumes, and children sat upon their knees, and husbands
by their side ; and dancing girls, in transparent robes and
golden girdles, tossed their tawny limbs wildly among the
throng. . . . What was the meaning of it all? Why had
it all been P Why had it gone on thus, the great world
century after century, millennium after millennium, eating
I8 Aſ YAA ZZA.
and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, and
knowing nothing better . . . . how could they know any-
thing better? Their forefathers had lost the light ages and
ages before they were born. . . . And Christ had not come
for ages and ages after they were dead. . . . How could
they know? . . . And yet they were all in hell . . . every
One of them. Every one of those ladies who sat there,
with her bushy locks, and garlands, and jewelled collars,
and lotus-flowers, and gauzy dress, displaying all her
slender limbs—who, perhaps when she was alive, smiled
So Sweetly, and went so gayly, and had children, and
friends, and never once thought of what was going to
happen to her—what must happen to her. . . . She was
in hell. . . . Burning forever, and ever, and ever, there
below his feet. He stared down on the rocky floors. If
he could but see through them . . . and the eye of faith
could see through them he should behold her writhing and
twisting among the flickering flame, scorched, glowing . . .
in everlasting agony, such as the thought of enduring for a
moment made him shudder. He had burnt his hands
Once, when a palm-leaf hat caught fire. . . . He recol-
lected what that was like. . . . She was enduring ten
thousand times more than that forever. . . . He should
hear her shrieking in vain for a drop of water to cool her
tongue. . . . He had never heard a human being shriek
but once . . . a boy bathing on the opposite Nile bank,
whom a crocodile had dragged down . . . and that scream,
faint and distant as it came across the mighty tide, had
rung intolerable in his ear for days . . . and to think of
all which echoed through those vaults of fire—forever!
Was the thought bearable?—was it possible? Millions
upon millions burning forever for Adam’s fall. . . . Could
God be just in that? . . .
It was the temptation of a fiend! He had entered the
unhallowed precincts, where devils still lingered about
their ancient shrines; he had let his eyes devour the
abominations of the heathen, and given place to the devil.
He would flee home to confess it all to his father. He
would punish him as he deserved, pray for him, forgive
him. And yet could he tell him all? Could he, dare he
confess to him the whole truth—the insatiable craving to
A/V/PA 7/4. I9
know the mysteries of learning—to see the great roaring
world of men, which had been growing up in him slowly,
month after month, till now it had assumed this fearful
shape? He could stay no longer in the desert. This
world which sent all souls to hell—was it as bad as monks
declared it was P. It must be, else how could such be the
fruit of it? But it was too awful a thought to be taken on
trust. No ; he must go and see.
Filled with such fearful questionings, half-inarticulate
and vague, like the thoughts of a child, the untutored
youth went wandering on, till he reached the edge of the
cliff below which lay his home.
It lay pleasantly enough, that lonely Laura, or lane of
rude Cyclopean cells, under the perpetual shadow of the
southern wall of crags, amid its grove of ancient date-trees.
A branching cavern in the cliff supplied the purposes of a
chapel, a storehouse, and a hospital ; while on the sunny
slope across the glen lay the common gardens of the
brotherhood, green with millet, maize, and beans, among
which a tiny streamlet, husbanded and guided with the
most thrifty care, wandered down from the cliff foot, and
spread perpetual verdure over the little plot which volun-
tary and fraternal labor had painfully redeemed from the
inroads of the all-devouring sand. For that garden, like
everything else in the Laura, except each brother's seven
feet of stone sleeping-hut, was the common property, and
therefore the common care and joy of all. For the com-
mon good, as well as for his own, each man had toiled up
the glen with his palm-leaf basket of black mud from the
river Nile, over whose broad sheet of silver the glen's
mouth yawned abrupt. For the common good, each man
had swept the edges clear of sand, and sown in the scanty
artificial soil, the harvest of which all were to share alike.
To buy clothes, books, and chapel furniture for the com-
mon necessities, education and worship, each man sat, day
after day, week after week, his mind full of high and
heavenly thoughts, weaving the leaves of their little palm
copse into baskets, which an aged monk exchanged for
goods with the more prosperous and frequented monas-
teries of the opposite bank. Thither Philammon rowed
the old man over, week by week in a light canoe of
2O - Aſ VPA 7/4.
papyrus, and fished, as he sat waiting for him, for the
common meal. A simple, happy, gentle life was that of
the Laura, all portioned out by rules and methods, which
were held hardly less sacred than those of the Scriptures,
on which they were supposed (and not so very wrongly
either) to have been framed. Each man had food and
raiment, shelter on earth, friends and counsellors, living
trust in the continual care of Almighty God ; and blazing
before his eyes, by day and night, the hope of everlasting
glory beyond all poets' dreams. . . . And what more
would man have had in those days? Thither they had
fled out of cities, compared with which Paris is earnest
and Gomorrha chaste—out of a rotten, infernal, dying
world of tyrants and slaves, hypocrites, and wantons—to
ponder undisturbed on duty and on judgment, on death
and eternity, heaven and hell ; to find a common creed, a
common interest, a common hope, common duties,
pleasures, and sorrows. . . . True, they had many of
them fled from the posts where God had placed them,
when they fled from man into the Thebaid waste. . . .
What sort of posts and what sort of an age they were,
from which those old monks fled, we shall see, perhaps,
before this tale is told out.
“Thou art late, son,” said the abbot, steadfastly work-
ing away at his palm-basket as Philammon approached.
‘‘ Fuel is scarce and I was forced to go far.”
“A monk should not answer till he is questioned. I
did not ask the reason. Where didst thou find that
Wood P” - -
“Before the temple, far up the glen.”
“The temple! What didst thou see?” -
No answer. Pambo looked up with his keen black
eye. g
“Thou hast entered it, and lusted after its abomina-
tions.”. - -
“I—I did not enter : but I looked—”
“And what didst thou see? Women?”
Philammon was silent.
“Have I not bidden you never to look on the face of
women? Are they not the first fruits of the devil, the
authors of all evil, the subtlest of all Satan's snares? Are
Aſ VPA 77A. 21
they not accursed forever for the deceit of their first
mother, by whom sin entered into the world? A woman
first opened the gates of hell; and until this day, they are
the portresses thereof. Unhappy boy, what hast thou
done?” - .
“They were but painted on the walls.”
“Ah!” said the abbot, as if suddenly relieved from a
heavy burden. “But how knewest thou them to be
women, when thou hast never yet, unless thou liest—
which I believe not of thee—seen the face of a daughter of
Eve P”
‘‘Perhaps—perhaps,” said Philammon, as if suddenly
relieved by a new suggestion—“perhaps they were only
devils. They must have been, I think, for they were so
very beautiful.” - - -
“Ah! how knowest thou that devils are beautiful?”
“I was launching the boat a week ago, with Father
Aufugus, and on the bank, . . . not very near, . . . there
were two creatures . . . with long hair, and striped all
over the lower half of their bodies with black, and red, and
yellow, . . . and they were gathering flowers on the
shore. Father Aufugus turned away, but I, . . . I could
not help thinking them the most beautiful things that I had
ever seen, . . . so I asked him why he turned away, and he
said that those were the same sort of devils which tempted
the blessed St. Anthony. Then I recollected having heard
it read aloud, how Satan tempted Anthony in the shape of
a beautiful woman. . . . And so. . . . And so . . . those
figures on the wall were very like, . . . and I thought
they might be 22
And the poor boy, who considered that he was making
confession of a deadly and shameful sin, blushed scarlet
and stammered, and at last stopped.
“And thou thoughtest them beautiful? Oh, utter
corruption of the flesh! Oh, subtility of Satan! The Lord
forgive thee, as I do, my poor child; henceforth thou
goest not beyond the garden walls.”
“Not beyond the walls! Impossible! I cannot! If
thou wert not my father, I would say, I will not! I must
have liberty! I must see for myself—I must judge for
myself, what this world is of which you all talk so bitterly.
22 Aſ VPA 77.4.
I long for no pomps and vanities. I will promise you this
moment, if you will, never to re-enter a heathen temple—
to hide my face in the dust whenever I approach a woman,
But I must—I must see the world ; I must see the great
mother church in Alexandria and the patriarch and his
clergy. If thay can serve God in the city, why not I? I
could do more for God there than here. . . . Not that I
despise this work—not that I am ungrateful to you—oh,
never, never that! but I pant for the battle. Let me go!
I am not discontented with you, but with myself. I know
that obedience is noble ; but danger is nobler still. If you
have seen the world, why should not I? If you have fled
from it because you found it too evil to live in, why should
not I, and return to you here of my own will, never to
leave you? . . . And yet Cyril and his clergy have not fled
from it 7 x .
Desperately and breathlessly did Philammon drive this
speech out of his inmost heart ; and then waited, expecting
the good abbot to strike him on the spot. If he had, the
young man would have submitted patiently ; so would
any man, however venerable, in that monastery. Why
not? Duly, after long companionship, thought, and
prayer, they had elected Pambo for their abbot—abba—
father—the wisest, eldest-hearted of them—if he was that,
it was time that he should be obeyed. And obeyed he
was, with a loyal, reasonable love, and yet with an implicit,
soldier-like obedience, which many a king and conqueror
might envy. Were they cowards and slaves? The Roman
legionaries should be good judges on that point. They
used to say that no armed barbarian, Goth or Vandal,
Moor or Spaniard, was as terrible as the unarmed monk of
the Thebaid.
Twice the old man lifted his staff to strike ; twice he laid
it down again : and then, slowly rising, left Philammon
kneeling there, and moved away deliberately, and with
eyes fixed on the ground, to the house of the brother
Aufugus.
Every one in the Laura honored Aufugus. There was a
mystery about him which heightened the charm of his
surpassing sanctity, his childlike sweetness and humility.
It was whispered—when the monks seldom and cautiously
ATVA’A 7TWA. 23
did whisper together in their lonely walks—that he had
been once a great man ; that he had come from a great
city—perhaps from Rome itself. And the simple monks
Were proud to think that they had among them a man who
had seen Rome. At least, Abbot Pambo respected him,
He was never beaten ; never even reproved—perhaps he
never required it ; but still it was the meed of all ; and was
not the abbot a little partial? Yet, certainly, when Theo-
philus sent up a messenger from Alexandria, rousing every
Laura with the news of the sack of Rome by Alaric, did
not Pambo take him first to the cell of Aufugus, and sit
with him there three whole hours in secret consultation,
before he told the awful story to the rest of the brother-
hood? And did not Aufugus himself give letters to the
messenger, written with his own hand, containing, as was
said, deep secrets of worldly policy, known only to himself?
So, when the little lane of holy men, each peering stealthily
over his plaiting work from the doorway of his sandstone
cell, saw the abbot, after his unwonted passion, leave the
culprit kneeling, and take his way toward the sage's
dwelling, they judged that something strange and delicate
had befallen the common weal, and each wished, without
envy, that he were as wise as the man whose counsel was
to solve the difficulty.
For an hour or more the abbot remained there, talking
earnestly and low ; and then a solemn sound as of the two
old men praying with sobs and tears; and every brother
bowed his head, and whispered a hope that He whom they
served might guide them for the good of the Laura, and of
His Church, and of the great heathen world beyond : and
still Philammon knelt motionless, awaiting his sentence :
his heart filled—who can tell how P “The heart knoweth
its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with
its joy.” So thought he as he knelt ; and so think I, too,
knowing that in the pettiest character there are unfathom-
able depths, which the poet, all-seeing though he may
pretend to be, can never analyze, but must only dimly
guess at, and still more dimly sketch them by the actions
which they beget.
At last Pambo returned, deliberate, still, and slow, as he
had gone, and seating himself within his cell, spoke :
24 - A/VAA 7/4.
“And the youngest said, Father, give me the portion of
goods that falleth to my share. . . . And he took his
journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance
with riotous living. Thou shalt go, my son. But first
come after me, and speak with Aufugus.”
Philammon, like every one else, loved Aufugus, and
when the abbot retired and left the two alone together, he
felt no dread or shame about unburdening his whole heart
to him. Long and passionately he spoke, in answer to
the gentle questions of the old man, who, without the
rigidity or pedantic solemnity of the monk, interrupted the
youth, and let himself be interrupted in return, gracefully,
genially, almost playfully. And yet there was a melancholy
about his tone, as he answered to the youth’s appeal :
‘‘Tertullian, Origen, Clement, Cyprian—all these moved
in the world ; all these and many more besides, whose
names we honor, whose prayers we invoke, were learned
in the wisdom of the heathen, and fought and labored,
unspotted, in the world ; and why not I? Cyril the
patriarch himself, was he not called from the caves of
Nitria to sit on the throne of Alexandria?”
Slowly the old man lifted his hand, and putting back the
thick locks of the kneeling youth, gazed, with soft, pitying
eyes long and earnestly into his face.
“And thou wouldst see the world, poor fool? And thou
wouldst see the world?”
‘‘I would convert the world!” *
‘‘Thou must know it first. And shall I tell thee what
that world is like, which seems to thee so easy to convert?
Here I sit, the poor unknown old monk, until I die, fast-
ing and praying, if perhaps God will have mercy On my
soul : but little thou knowest how I have seen it. Little
thou knowest, or thou wouldst be well content to rest here
till the end. I was Arsenius. . . . Ah! vain old man that
I am! Thou has never heard that name, at which once
queens would whisper and grow pale. Vanitas vanitatum !
omnia vanitas' And yet he at whose frown half the world
trembles has trembled himself at mine. I was the tutor of
Arcadius.” .
“The emperor of Byzantium?”
“Even so, my son, even so. There I saw the world
Aſ VPA 7/A. 25
which thou wouldst see. And what saw I? Even what
thou wilt see. Eunuchs the tyrants of their own
Sovereigns. Bishops kissing the feet of parricides and
harlots. Saints tearing saints in pieces for a word, while
sinners cheer them on to the unnatural fight. Liars
thanked for lying, hypocrites rejoicing in their hypocrisy.
The many sold and butchered for the malice, the caprice,
the vanity of the few. The plunderers of the poor
plundered in their turn by worse devourers than them-
selves. Every attempt at reform the parent of worse
scandals ; every mercy begetting fresh cruelties; every
persecutor silenced, only to enable others to persecute
him in their turn ; every devil who is exorcised returning
with seven others worse than himself: falsehood and
Selfishness, spite and lust, confusion seven times con-
founded, Satan casting out Satan everywhere—from the
emperor who wantons on his throne to the slave who
blasphemes beneath his fetters.”
“If Satan cast out Satan, his kingdom shall not stand.”
“In the world to come. But in this world it shall stand
and conquer, even worse and worse, until the end. These
are the last days spoken of by the prophets, the beginning
of woes such as never have been on the earth before. ‘ On
earth distress of nations with perplexity, men’s hearts
failing them for fear, and for the dread of those things
which are coming on the earth.' I have seen it long.
Year after year I have watched them coming nearer and
ever nearer in their course, like the whirling sand-storms
of the desert, which sweep past the caravan, and past
again, and yet overwhelm it after all—that black flood of
the Northern barbarians. I foretold it ; I prayed against
it ; but, like Cassandra’s of old, my prophecy and my
prayers were alike unheard. My pupils spurned my warn-
ings. The lusts of youth, the intrigues of courtiers were
Stronger than the warning voice of God ; then I ceased to
hope ; I ceased to pray for the glorious city, for I knew
that her sentence was gone forth ; I saw her in the spirit,
even as St. John saw her in the Revelation; her, and her
sins, and her ruin. And I fled secretly at night, and buried
myself here in the desert, to await the end of the world.
Night and day I prayed the Lord to accomplish His elect,
26 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
and to hasten His kingdom. Morning by morning, I look
up trembling, and yet in hope, for the sign of the Son of
Man in heaven, when the sun shall be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood, and the stars shall fall from
heaven, and the skies pass away like a scroll, and the
fountains of the nether fire burst up around our feet, and
the end of all shall come. And thou wouldst go into the
world from which I fled?” -
“If the harvest be at hand, the Lord needs laborers. If
the times be awful, I should be doing awful things in them.
Send me, and let that day find me, where I long to be, in
the forefront of the battle of the Lord.”
“The Lord's voice be obeyed! Thou shalt go. Here
are letters to Cyril the patriarch. He will love thee for
my sake; and for thine own sake too, I trust. Thou goest
of our free will as well as thine own. The abbot and I
have watched thee long, knowing that the Lord had need
of such as thee elsewhere. We did but prove thee, to see,
by thy readiness to obey, whether thou wert fit to rule.
Go, and God be with thee. Covet no man’s gold or silver.
Neither eat flesh nor drink wine, but live as thou hast
lived—a Nazarite of the Lord. Fear not the face of man ;
but look not on the face of woman. In an evil hour came
they into the world, the mothers of all mischiefs which I
have seen under the sun. Come ; the abbot waits for us
at the gate.”
With tears of surprise, joy, sorrow, almost of dread,
Philammon hung back.
“Nay—come. Why shouldst thou break thy brethren's
hearts and ours by many leave-takings? Bring from the
storehouse a week's provision of dried dates and millet.
The papyrus boat lies at the ferry : thou shalt descend in
it. The Lord will replace it for us when we need it.
Speak with no man on the river except the monks of God.
When thou hast gone five days’ journey downward, ask for
the mouth of the canal of Alexandria. Once in the city,
any monk will guide thee to the archbishop. Send us news
of thy welfare by some holy mouth. Come.”
Silently they paced together down the glen to the lonely
beach of the great stream. Pambo was there, already,
his white hair glittering in the rising moon, as with slow
A/YA-4 7/4. - 27
and feeble arms he launched the light canoe. Philammon
flung himself at the old men's feet, and besought, with
many tears, their forgiveness and their blessing.
“We have nothing to forgive. Follow thou thine
inward call. If it be of the flesh, it will avenge itself; if it
be of the Spirit, who are we that we should fight against
God P Farewell.” -
A few minutes more, and the youth and his canoe were
lessening down the rapid stream in the golden summer
twilight. Again a minute, and the swift southern night
had fallen, and all was dark but the cold glare of the moon
on the river, and on the rock-faces, and on the two old
men, as they knelt upon the beach, and with their heads
upon each other's shoulders, like two children sobbed and
prayed together for the lost darling of their age. ,
CHAPTER II.
THE DYING WORLD.
IN the upper story of a house in the Museum street of
Alexandria, built and fitted up on the old Athenian model,
was a small room. It had been chosen by its occupant
not merely on account of its quiet ; for though it was
tolerably out of hearing of the female slaves who worked,
and chattered, and quarrelled under the cloisters of the
women’s Court on the south side, yet it was exposed to the
rattle of carriages and the voices of passengers in the
fashionable street below, and to strange bursts of roaring,
Squealing, and trumpeting from the menagerie, a short way
off on the opposite side of the street. The attraction of
the situation lay, perhaps, in the view which it commanded
over the wall of the museum gardens, of flower-beds,
shrubberies, fountains, statues, walks, and alcoves, which
had echoed for nearly seven hundred years to the wisdom
of the Alexandrian sages and poets. School after school,
they had all walked, and taught, and sung there, beneath
the spreading planes and chestnuts, figs and palm-trees.
The place seemed fragrant with all the riches of Greek
thought and song, since the days when Ptolemy Philadel-
phus walked here with Euclid and Theocritus, Callimachus
and Lycophron. -
On the left of the garden stretched the lofty eastern front
of the museum itself, with its picture galleries, halls of
statuary, dining-halls, and lecture-rooms; one huge wing
containing that famous library, founded by the father of
Philadelphus, which held in the time of Seneca, even after
the destruction of a great part of it in Caesar's siege, four
hundred thousand manuscripts. There it towered up, the
wonder of the world, its white roof bright against the rain-
less blue ; and beyond it, among the ridges and pediments
of noble buildings, a broad glimpse of the bright blue sea.
The room was fitted up in the purest Greek style, not
28
Aſ VPA 7/4. *S. 29
without an affectation of archaism, in the severe forms and
subdued half-tints of the frescoes which ornamented the
walls with scenes from the old myths of Athene. Yet the
general effect, even under the blazing sun which poured in
through the mosquito nets of the courtyard windows, was
one of exquisite coolness, and cleanliness, and repose.
The room had neither carpet nor fireplace ; and the only
movables in it were a sofa-bed, a table, and an arm-chair,
all of such delicate and graceful forms, as may be seen on
ancient vases of far earlier period than that whereof we
write. But, most probably, had any of us entered that
room that morning, we should not have been able to spare
a look either for the furniture, or the general effect, or the
museum gardens, or the sparkling Mediterranean beyond ;
but we should have agreed that the room was quite rich
enough for human eyes, for the sake of one treasure which
it possessed, and besides which nothing was worth a
moment’s glance. For in the light arm-chair, reading a
manuscript which lay on the table, sat a woman, of some
five-and-twenty years, evidently the tutelary goddess of
that little shrine, dressed, in perfect keeping with the
archaism of the chamber, in a simple old snow-white Ionic
robe, falling to the feet and reaching to the throat, and of
that peculiar and graceful fashion in which the upper part
of the dress falls downward again from the neck to the
waist in a sort of cape, entirely hiding the outline of the
bust, while it leaves the arms and the point of the shoulders
bare. Her dress was entirely without ornament, except
the two narrow purple stripes down the front, which
marked her rank as a Roman citizen, the gold-embroidered
shoes upon her feet, and the gold net, which looped back,
from her forehead to her neck, hair the color and gloss of
which were hardly distinguishable from that of the metal
itself, such as Athene herself might have envied for tint,
and mass, and ripple. Her features, arms and hands were
of the severest and grandest type of old Greek beauty, at
once showing everywhere the high development of the
bones, and covering them with that firm, round, ripe Out-
line, and waxy morbidezza of skin, which the old Greeks
owed to their continual use not only of the bath and
muscular exercise, but also of daily unguents. There
3O • A VA’.4 ZZA.
might have seemed to us much sadness in that clear gray
eye ; too much self-conscious restraint in those sharp
curved lips ; too much affectation in the studied severity
of her posture as she read, copied, as it seemed, from some
old vase or bas-relief. But the glorious grace and beauty
of every line of face and figure would have excused, even
hidden those defects, and we should have only recognized
the marked resemblance to the ideal portraits of Athene
which adorned every panel of the walls. -
She has lifted her eyes off her manuscript ; she is looking
out with kindling countenance over the gardens of the
museum; her ripe curling Greek lips, such as we never see
now, even among our own wives and sisters, open. She
is talking to herself. Listen :
“Yes. The statues there are broken. The libraries are
plundered. The alcoves are silent. The oracles are
dumb. And yet—who says that the old faith of heroes
and sages is dead? The beautiful can never die. If the
gods have deserted their oracles, they have not deserted
the souls who aspire to them. If they have ceased to
speak to their own elect, if they have cast off the vulgar
herd, they have not cast off Hypatia.
>k >k >k
>k >k >k
“Ay. To believe in the old creeds, while everyone else
is dropping away from them. . . . To believe in spite of
disappointment. . . . To hope against hope. . . . To
show one's self superior to the herd, by seeing boundless
depths of living glory in myths which have become dark
and dead to them. . . . To struggle to the last against the
new and vulgar superstitions of a rotting age, for the faith
of my forefathers, for the old gods, the old heroes, the old
Sages who gauged the mysteries of heaven and earth—and
perhaps to conquer—at least to have my reward! To be
welcomed into celestial ranks of the heroic—to rise to the
immortal gods, to the ineffable powers, onward, upward,
ever, through ages and through eternities, till I find my
home at last, and vanish in the glory of the nameless and
Absolute One!”
And her whole face flashed out into wild glory, and then
sank again suddenly into a shudder of something like fear
and disgust, as she saw, watching her from under the wall
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 3I
of the gardens opposite, a crooked, withered Jewish crone,
dressed out in the most gorgeous and fantastic style of
barbaric finery.
“Why does that old hag haunt me? I see her every-
where—till the last month, at least—and here she is again!
I will ask the prefect to find out who she is, and get rid of
her, before she fascinates me with that evil eye. Thank
the gods, there she moves away! Foolish—foolish of me,
a philosopher. I, to believe, against the authority of
Porphyry himself, too, in evil eyes and magic! But there
is my father, pacing up and down in the library.”
As she spoke, the old man entered from the next room.
He was a Greek, also, but of a more common and perhaps
lower type; dark and fiery, thin and graceful : his delicate
figure and cheeks, wasted by meditation, harmonized well
with the staid and simple philosophic cloak which he wore
as a sign of his profession. He paced impatiently up and
down the chamber, while his keen, glittering eyes and rest-
less gestures betokened intense inward thought. . . . “I
have it. . . . No! again it escapes—it contradicts itself.
Miserable man that I am. If there is faith in Pythagoras,
the symbol should be an expanding series of the powers of
three ; and yet that accursed binary factor will introduce
itself. Did you not work the sum out once, Hypatia?”
“Sit down, my dear father, and eat. You have tasted
no food yet this day.” .
“What do I care for food! The inexpressible must be
expressed, the work must be done, if it cost me the squar-
ing of the circle. How can he whose sphere lies above
the stars stoop every moment to earth?”
“Ay,” she answered, half-bitterly, “and would that we
could live without food, and imitate perfectly the immortal
gods. But while we are in this prison-house of matter,
we must wear our chain ; even wear it gracefully, if we
have the good taste; and make the base necessities of this
body of shame symbolic of the divine food of the reason.
There is fruit, with lentils and rice, waiting for you in
the next room ; and bread, unless you despise it too
much.”
“The food of slaves!” he answered. “Well, I will eat,
and be ashamed of eating. Stay, did I tell you? Six new
32 Aſ YAA TVA.
pupils in the mathematical school this morning. It grows!
It spreads! We shall conquer yet!”
She sighed. “How do you know that they have not
come to you, as Critias and Alcibiades did to Socrates, to
learn a merely political and mundane virtue? Strange!
that men should be content to grovel, and be men, when
they might rise to the rank of gods. Ah, my father!
That is my bitterest grief ; to see those who have been
pretending in the morning lecture-room to worship every
word of mine as an Oracle, lounging in the afternoon round
Pelagia’s litter ; and then at night—for I know that they
do it—the dice and the wine, and worse. That Pallas
herself should be conquered every day by Venus Pandemos!
That Pelagia should have more power than Il Not that
such a creature as that disturbs me ; no created thing, I
hope, can move my equanimity; but if I could stoop to
hate, I should hate her—hate her.”
And her voice took a tone which made it somewhat
uncertain whether, in spite of all the lofty impassability
which she felt bound to possess, she did not hate Pelagia
with a most human and mundane hatred.
But at that moment the conversation was cut short by
the hasty entrance of a slave girl, who, with fluttering
voice, announced : “His excellency, madam, the prefect!
His chariot has been at the gate for these five minutes,
and he is now coming upstairs.”
“Foolish child!” answered Hypatia, with some affecta-
tion of indifference. “And why should that disturb me?
Let him enter.” -
The door opened, and in came, preceded by the scent of
half a dozen different perfumes, a florid, delicate-featured
man, gorgeously dressed out in Senatorial costume, his
fingers and neck covered with jewels. -
“The representative of the Caesars honors himself by
offering at the shrine of Athene Polias, and rejoices to see
in her priestess as lovely a likeness as ever of the goddess
whom she serves. . . . Don’t betray me, but I really can-
not help talking sheer paganism whenever I find mysel
within the influence of your eyes.” -
“Truth is mighty,” said Hypatia, as she rose to greet
him with a smile and a reverence. .
#ypaza. 33
“Ah, so they say. Your excellent father has vanished.
He is really too modest—honest, though—about his
incapacity for state secrets. After all, you know it was
your Minervaship which I came to consult. How has this
turbulent Alexandrian rascaldom been behaving itself in
my absence?” -
“The herd has been eating, and drinking, and marry-
ing, as usual, I believe,” answered Hypatia, in a languid
tone. - - -
“And multiplying, I don’t doubt. Well, there will be
less loss to the empire if I have to crucify a dozen or two,
as I positively will, the next riot. It is really a great com-
fort to a statesman that the masses are so well aware that
they deserve hanging, and therefore so careful to prevent
any danger of public justice depopulating the province.
But how go on the schools?” -
Hypatia shook her head sadly. - -
“Ah, boys will be boys. . . . I plead guilty myself.
Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. You must not
be hard on us. . . . Whether we obey you or not in
private life, we do in public ; and if we enthrone you queen
of Alexandria, you must allow your courtiers and body-
guards a few court licenses. Now don’t sigh, Or I shall be
inconsolabie. At all events, your worst rival has betaken
herself to the wilderness, and gone to look for the city of
the gods above the cataracts.”
“Whom do you mean?” asked Hypatia, in a tone most
unphilosophically eager. -
‘‘Pelagia, of course. I met that prettiest and naughti-
est of humanities half-way between here and Thebes,
transformed into a perfect Andromache of chaste affec-
tion.”
“And to whom, pray?”
“To a certain Gothic giant. What men those bar-
barians do breed! I was afraid of being crushed under the
elephant's foot at every step I took with him '''
“What!” asked Hypatia, “ did your excellency con-
descend to converse with such savages?”
“To tell you the truth, he had some forty stout country-
men of his with him, who might have been troublesome to
a perplexed prefect ; not to mention that it is always as
34. - A. VPA 774.
well to keep on good terms with these Goths. Really,
after the sack of Rome, and Athens cleaned out like a
beehive by wasps, things begin to look serious. And as
for the great brute himself, he has rank enough in his way
—boasts of his descent from some cannibal dog or other—
really hardly deigned to speak to a paltry Roman governor,
till his faithful and adoring bride interceded for me. Still,
the fellow understood good living, and we celebrated our
new treaty of friendship with noble libations—but I must
not talk about that to you. However, I got rid of them ;
quoted all the geographical lies I had ever heard, and a
great many more ; quickened their appetite for their fool's
errand notably, and started them off again. So now the
star of Venus is set, and that of Pallas in the ascendant.
Wherefore tell me—what am I to do with Saint Firebrand?”
“Cyril?” - -
“Cyril.”
“Justice.” -
“Ah, Fairest Wisdom, don’t mention that horrid word
out of the lecture-room. In theory it is all very well ; but
in poor imperfect earthly practice, a governor must be con-
tent with doing very much what comes to hand. In
abstract justice, now, I Ought to nail up Cyril, deacons,
district visitors, and all in a row, on the sandhills outside.
That is simple enough ; but, like a great many simple and
excellent things, impossible.” .
“You fear the people?” -
“Well, my dear lady, and has not the villainous
demagogue got the whole mob on his side? Am I to have
the Constantinople riots re-enacted here? I really cannot
face it; I have not nerve for it ; perhaps I am too lazy.
Be it so.”
Hypatia sighed. “Ah, that your excellency but saw the
great duel which depends on you alone! Do not fancy
that the battle is merely between Paganism and Chris-
tianity—” • -
“Why, if it were, you know, I, as a Christian, under a
Christian and sainted emperor, not to mention his august
sister 73 -
“We understand,” interrupted she, with an impatient
wave of her beautiful hand. “Not even between them ; ;
AZYA4 774. - 35
not even between philosophy and barbarianism. The
struggle is simply one between the aristocracy and the
mob—between wealth, refinement, art, learning, all that
makes a nation great, and the savage herd of child-
breeders below, the many ignoble, who were meant to
labor for the noble few. Shall the Roman empire com-
mand or obey her own slaves? is the question which you
and Cyril have to battle out ; and the fight must be inter-
necine.”
“I should not wonder if it became so, really,” answered
the prefect, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I expect every
time I ride to have my brains knocked out by some mad
monk.” -
“Why not, in an age when, as has been well and often
said, emperors and consulars Crawl to the tombs of a tent-
maker and a fisherman, and kiss the mouldy bones of the
vilest slaves? Why not, among a people whose God is the
crucified son of a carpenter? Why should learning,
authority, antiquity, birth, rank, the system of empire
which has been growing up, fed by the accumulated wis-
dom of ages—why, I say, should any of these things pro-
tect your life a moment from the fury of any beggar who
believes that the Son of God died for him as much as for
you, and that he is your equal, if not your superior, in
the sight of his low-born and illiterate deity?”
“My most eloquent philosopher, this may be and per-
haps is all very true. I quite agree that there are very
great practical inconveniences of this kind in the new—I
mean the Catholic faith ; but the world is full of incon-
veniences. The wise man does not quarrel with his creed
for being disagreeable, any more than he does with his
finger for aching: he cannot help it, and must make the
best of a bad matter. Only tell me how to keep the
peace.”
“And let philosophy be destroyed?”
“That it never will be, as long as Hypatia lives to
illuminate the earth ; and as far as I am concerned, I
promise you a clear stage and a great deal of favor ; as is
*These are the arguments and the language which were commonly
employed by Porphyry, Julian, and the other opponents of Christianity.
36 Aſ YAA 7TWA.
proved by my visiting you publicly at this moment, before
I have given audience to one of the four hundred bores,
great and small, who are waiting in the tribunal to torment
me. Do help me and advise me. What am I to do?”
“I have told you.” -
“Ah, yes, as to general principles. But out of the
lecture-room I prefer a practical expedient. For instance,
Cyril writes to me here—plague on him! he would not let
me even have a week's hunting in peace—that there is a
plot on the part of the Jews to murder all the Christians.
Here is the precious document—do look at it, in pity.
For aught I know or care, the plot may be an exactly
opposite one, and the Christians intend to murder all
the Jews. But I must take some notice of the letter.”
‘‘I do not see that, your excellency.” .
“Why, if anything did happen, after all, conceive the
missives which would be sent flying off to Constantinople
against me!”
“Let them go. If you are secure in the consciousness
of innocence, what matter?”
“Consciousness of innocence! I shall lose my pre-
fecture l’’ -
“Your danger would be just as great if you took notice
of it. Whatever happened, you would be accused of
favoring the Jews.” -
“And really there might be some truth in the accusa-
tion. How the finances of the province would go on without
their kind assistance, I dare not think. If those Christians
would but lend me their money, instead of building alms-
houses and hospitals with it, they might burn the Jews'
quarter tomorrow for aught I care. But now—”
“But now, you must absolutely take no notice of this
letter. The very tone of it forbids you, for your own
honor and the honor of the empire. Are you to treat with
a man who talks of the masses at Alexandria as the flock
whom the King of Kings has committed to his rule and
care?" Does your excellency, or this proud bishop, govern
Alexandria?” . -
“Really, my dear lady, I have given up inquiring.”
“But he has not. He comes to you as a person pos-
Aſ VPA 77A. , i 37
lation, which he does not scruple to hint to you is derived
from a higher source than your own. The consequence is
clear. If it be from a higher source than yours, of course
it ought to control yours; and you will acknowledge the
root and ground of every extravagant claim which he
makes, if you deign to reply.”
“But I must say something, or I shall be pelted in the
street. You philosophers, however raised above your own
bodies you may be, must really not forget that we poor
worldlings have bones to be broken.”
“Then tell him, and by word of mouth merely, that as
the information which he sends you comes from his private
knowledge, and concerns not him as bishop, but you as
magistrate, you can only take it into consideration when
he addresses you as a private person, laying a regular
information at your tribunal.”
“Charming! queen of diplomatists as well as philoso-
phers! I go to obey you. Ah, why were you not
Pulcheria? No, for then Alexandria had been dark, and
Orestes missed the supreme happiness of kissing a hand
which Pallas, when she made you, must have borrowed
from the workshop of Aphrodite.”
“Recollect that you are a Christian,” answered Hypatia,
half-smiling. * -
So the prefect departed : and passing through the outer
hall, which was already crowded with Hypatia’s aristo-
cratic pupils and visitors, bowed his way out past them,
and regained his chariot, chuckling over the rebuff which
he intended to administer to Cyril, and comforting himself
with the only text of Scripture of the inspiration of which
he was thoroughly convinced—“Sufficient for the day is
the evil thereof.” .
At the door was a crowd of chariots, slaves with their
masters' parasols, and the rabble of on-looking boys and
market folk, as usual in Alexandria then, as in all great
cities since, who were staring at the prefect, and having
their heads rapped by his guards, and wondering what sort
of glorious personage Hypatia might be, and what sort of
glorious house she must live in, to be fit company for the
great governor of Alexandria. Not that there was not
many a sulky and lowering face among the mob, for the
38 -- Aſ VPA 7/4.
great majority of them were Christians, and very seditious
and turbulent politicians, as Alexandrians, ‘‘men of Mace-
donia,” were bound to be : and there was many a grumble
among them, all but audible, at the prefect’s going in state
to the heathen woman’s house—heathen sorceress, some
pious old woman called her—before he heard any poor
Soul's petition in the tribunal, or even said his prayers in
church. - -
Just as he was stepping into his curricle, a tall young
man, gorgeously bedizened as himself, lounged down the
steps after him, and beckoned lazily to the black boy who
carried his parasol.
“Ah, Raphael Aben-Ezra, my excellent friend, what
propitious deity—ahem! martyr—brings you to Alexandria
just as I want you? Get up by my side, and let us have a
chat on our way to the tribunal.”
The man addressed came slowly forward with an osten-
tatiously low salutation, which could not hide, and indeed
was not intended to hide, the contemptuous and lazy
expression of his face; and asked, in a drawling tone:
“And for what kind purpose does the representative of
the Caesars bestow such an honor on the humblest of his,
ect., etc. P. Your penetration will supply the rest.”
“Don’t be frightened ; I am not going to borrow money
of you,” answered Orestes, laughingly, as the Jew got into
the curricle. -
‘‘I am glad to hear it. Really, one usurer in a family is
enough. My father made the gold, and if I spend it, I
consider that I do all that is required of a philosopher.”
“A charming team of white Nisaeans, is not this? And
only one gray hoof among all the four.”
“Yes . . . horses are a bore, I begin to find, like every-
thing else. Always falling sick, or running away, or
breaking one's peace of mind in some way or other.
Besides, I have been pestered out of my life there in
Cyrene, by commissions for dogs and horses and bows
from that old episcopal Nimrod, Synesius.”
“What, is the worthy man as lively as ever?”
“Lively? He nearly drove me into a nervous fever in
three days. Up at four in the morning, always in the
most disgustingly good health and spirits, farming, cours-
AZYAA 774. 39
ing, shooting, riding over hedge and ditch after rascally
black robbers ; preaching, intriguing, borrowing money;
baptizing and excommunicating ; bullying that bully,
Andronicus ; comforting old women, and giving pretty
girls dowries ; scribbling one half-hour on philosophy,
and the next on farriery ; sitting up all night writing
hymns and drinking strong liquors; off again on horseback
at four the next morning ; and talking by the hour all the
while about philosophic abstraction from the mundane
tempest. Heaven defend me from all two-legged whirl-
winds! By-the-by, there was a fair daughter of my nation
came back to Alexandria in the same ship with me, with a
cargo that may suit your highness.”
“There are a great many fair daughters of your nation
who might suit me, without any cargo at all.”
“Ah, they have had good practice, the little fools, ever
since the days of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. But I mean
Old Miriam—you know. She has been lending Synesius
money to fight the black fellows with : and really it was
high time. They had burnt every homestead for miles
through the province. But the daring old girl must do a
little business for herself; so she went off in the teeth of
the barbarians, right away to the Atlas, bought all their
lady prisoners, and some of their own sons and daughters,
too, of them, for beads and old iron ; and has come back
with as pretty a cargo of Lybian beauties as a prefect of
good taste could wish to have the first choice of. You
may thank me for that privilege.”
. . “After, of course, you had suited yourself, my cunning
Raphael?” -
‘‘Not I. Women are bores, as Solomon found out long
ago. Did I never tell you? I began, as he did, with the
most select harem in Alexandria. But they quarrelled so,
that one day I went out and sold them all but one, who
was a Jewess—so there were objections on the part of the
rabbis. Then I tried one, as Solomon did ; but my ‘garden
shut up,” and my ‘sealed fountain' wanted me to be always
in love with her, so I went to the lawyers, allowed her a
comfortable maintenance, and now I am as free as a monk,
and shall be happy to give your excellency the benefit of
any good taste or experience which I may possess.”
4O Aſ VA’A 7/4.
“Thanks, worthy Jew. We are not yet as exalted as
yourself, and will send for the old Erictho this very after-
noon. Now listen a moment to base, earthly, and political
business. Cyril has written to me, to say that you Jews
have plotted to murder the Christians.”
“Well—why not? I most heartily wish it were true,
and think, on the whole, that it very probably is so.”
“By the immortal—Saints, man! you are not serious?”
“The four archangels forbid! It is no concern of mine.
All I say is, that my people are great fools, like the rest
of the world ; and have, for aught I know or care, some
such intention. They won’t succeed, of course ; and that
is all you have to care for. But if you think it worth the
trouble—which I do not—I shall have to go to the
synagogue on business in a week or so, and then I would
ask some of the rabbis.” &J
“Laziest of men! and I must answer Cyril this very
day.” -
“An additional reason for asking no questions of our
people. Now you can honorably say that you know noth-
ing about the matter.”
“Well, after all, ignorance is a stronghold for a poor
statesman. So you need not hurry yourself.”
“I assure your excellency I will not.”
“Ten days hence, or so, you know.”
“Exactly, after it is all over.’’
“And can’t be helped. What a comfort it is, now and
then, that ‘can’t be helped l’”
“It is the root and marrow of all philosophy. Your
practical man, poor wretch, will try to help this and that,
and torment his soul with ways and means, and preventives
and forestallings : your philosopher quietly says—it can't
be helped. If it ought to be, it will be : if it is, it ought to
be. We did not make the world, and we are not responsi-
ble for it. There is the sum and substance of all true
wisdom, and the epitome of all that has been said and
written thereon, from Philo the Jew to Hypatia the
Gentile. By the way, here’s Cyril coming down the steps
of the Caesareum. A very handsome fellow, after all,
though he is looking as sulky as a bear.” -
“With his cubs at his heels. What a scoundrelly –
Aſ YAA T/4. 4 I
visage that tall fellow—deacon, or reader, or whatever he
is by his dress—has l’”
“There they are—whispering together. Heaven give
them pleasant thoughts and pleasanter faces!”
“Amen!” quoth Orestes, with a sneer : and he would
have said amen in good earnest, had he been able to take
the liberty—which we shall—and listen to Cyril's answer
to Peter, the tall reader.
“From Hypatia's, you say? Why, he only returned to
the city this morning.”
‘‘I saw his four-in-hand standing at her door, as I came
down the Museum street hither, half an hour ago.”
“And twenty carriages besides, I don’t doubt?”
“The street was blocked with them. There! Look
round the corner now. Chariots, litters, slaves, and fops
—when shall we see such a concourse as that where it
ought to be?”
Cyril made no answer, and Peter went on—“Where it
Ought to be, my father—in front of your door at the
Serapeium ?”
“The world, the flesh, and the devil know their own,
Peter, and as long as they have their own to go to, we
cannot expect them to come to us.”
“But what if their own were taken out of the way?”
“They might come to us for want of better amuse-
ment . . . devil and all. Well, if I could get a fair hold
Of the two first, I would take the third into the bargain,
and see what could be done with him. But never, while
these lecture-rooms last—these Egyptian chambers of
imagery—these theatres of Satan, where the devil trans-
forms himself into an angel of light, and apes Christian
virtue, and bedizens his ministers like ministers of
righteousness—as long as that lecture-room stands, and
the great and powerful flock to it, to learn excuses for
their own tyrannies and atheisms, so long will the kingdom
of God be trampled under foot in Alexandria ; so long will
the princes of this world, with their gladiators, and
parasites, and money-lenders, be masters here, and not the
bishops and priests of the living God.”
It was now Peter's turn to be silent, and as the two, with
their little knot of district visitors behind them, walked
42 Aſ VPA 7/4.
moodily along the great esplanade which overlooked the
harbor, and then vanished suddenly up some dingy alley
into the crowded misery of the sailors' quarter, we will
leave them to go about their errand of mercy, and, like
fashionable people, keep to the grand parade, and listen
again to our two fashionable friends in the carved and
gilded curricle with four white blood-horses. -
“A fine sparkling breeze outside the Pharos, Raphael
—fair for the wheat-ships too.”
“Are they gone yet?”
“Yes—why? I sent the first fleet off three days ago;
and the rest are clearing outward today.”
“Oh—ah—sol Then you have not heard from Hera-
clian P” §
‘‘Heraclian P What the—blessed saints has the count
of Africa to do with my wheat-ships?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s no business of mine. Only he is
going to rebel. . . . But here we are at your door.”
“To what?” asked Orestes, in a horrified tone.
“To rebel, and attack Rome.”
“Good gods—God, I mean | A fresh bore! Come in
and tell a poor miserable slave of a governor—speak low,
for heaven's sake! I hope these rascally grooms haven’t
overheard you.” - -
“Easy to throw them into the canal, if they have,” quoth
Raphael, as he walked coolly through hall and corridor
after the perturbed governor. -
Poor Orestes never stopped till he reached a little
chamber of the inner court, beckoned the Jew in after him,
locked the door, threw himself into an arm-chair, put his
hands on his knees, and sat, bending forward, staring into
Raphael’s face with a ludicrous terror and perplexity.
“Tell me all about it. Tell me this instant!”
‘‘I have told you all I know,” quoth Raphael, quietly
seating himself on a sofa, and playing with a jewelled
dagger. “I thought, of course, that you were in the secret,
or I should have said nothing. It’s no business of mine,
you know.” -
Orestes, like most weak and luxurious men, Romans
especially, had a wild-beast vein in him—and it burst forth.
“Hell and furies! You insolent provincial slave—you
Aſ YAA 7/4. 43
will carry these liberties of yours too far! Do you know
who I am, you accursed Jew? Tell me the whole truth,
or, by the head of the emperor, I’ll twist it out of you with
red-hot pincers!” -
Raphael's countenance assumed a dogged expression,
which showed that the old Jewish blood still beat true,
under all its affected shell of Neo-Platonist nonchalance ;
and there was a quiet, unpleasant earnestness in his Smile as
he answered : -
“Then, my dear governor, you will be the first man on
earth who ever yet forced a Jew to say or do what he did
not choose.” §
“We’ll see!” yelled Orestes. “Here, slaves!” And he
clapped his hands loudly. -
“Calm yourself, your excellency,” quoth Raphael,
rising. “The door is locked ; the mosquito-net is across
the window; and this dagger is poisoned. If anything
happens to me, you will offend all the Jew money-lenders,
and die in about three days in a great deal of pain, having
missed our assignation with old Miriam, lost your
pleasantest companion, and left your own finances and
those of the prefecture in a considerable state of embarress-
ment. How much better to sit down, hear all I have to
say philosophically, like a true pupil of Hypatia, and not
expect a man to tell you what he really does not know.”
Orestes, after looking vainly round the room for a place
to escape, had quietly subsided into his chair again ; and
by the time that the slaves knocked at the door, he had so
far recovered his philosophy as to ask, not for the torturers,
but for a page and wine.
“Oh, you Jews!” quoth he, trying to laugh off matters.
“The same incarnate fiends that Titus found you!”
“The very same, my dear prefect. Now for this matter,
which is really important—at least to Gentiles. Heraclian
will certainly rebel. Synesius let out as much to me. He
has fitted out an armament for Ostia, stopped his own
wheat-ships, and is going to write to you to stop yours,
and to starve out the Eternal City, Goths, senate, emperor,
and all. Whether you will comply with his reasonable
little request depends, of course, on yourself.”
“And that, again, very much on his plans.”
44 A YPA 774.
“Of course. You cannot be expected to—we will
euphemize—unless it be made worth your while.”
Orestes sat buried in deep thought.
“Of course not,” said he at last, half-unconsciously.
And then, in sudden dread of having committed himself,
he looked up fiercely at the Jew.
“And how do I know that this is not some infernal trap
of yours? Tell me how you found out all this, or by
Hercules"—he had quite forgotten his Christianity by this
time—‘‘ by Hercules and the Twelve Gods, I’ll—”
“Don’t use expressions unworthy of a philosopher.
My source of information was very simple and very good.
He has been negotiating a loan from the rabbis at
Carthage. They were either frightened or loyal, or both,
and hung back. He knew—as all wise governors know
when they allow themselves time—that it is no use to
bully a Jew, and applied to me. I never lend money—it
is unphilosophical: but I introduced him to old Miriam,
who dare do business with the devil himself; and by that
move, whether he has the money or not, I cannot tell ; but
this I can tell, that we have his secret—and so have you
now ; and if you want more information, the old woman,
who enjoys an intrigue as much as she does Falernian, will
get it you.”
“Well, you are a true friend, after all.”
“Of course I am. Now, is not this method of getting
at the truth much easier and pleasanter than setting a
couple of dirty negroes to pinch and pull me, and so mak-
ing it a point of honor with me to tell you nothing but lies?
Here comes Ganymede with the wine, just in time to calm
your nerves and fill you with the spirits of divination. . . .
To the goddess of good counsels, my lord! What wine
this is '''
“True Syrian—fire and honey; fourteen years old next
vintage, my Raphael. Out, Hypocorisma! See that he is
not listening. The impudent rascal! I was humbugged
into giving two thousand gold pieces for him two years
ago, he was so pretty—they said he was only just rising
thirteen—and he has been the plague of my life ever since,
and is beginning to want the barber already. Now, what
is the count dreaming of?”
ATVA’A 7TWA. 45
“His wages for killing Stilicho.”
“What, is it not enough to be count of Africa?”
“I suppose he sets off against that his services during
the last three years.”
“Well, he saved Africa.”
“And thereby Egypt also. And you, too, as well as the
emperor, may be considered as owing him somewhat.”
“My good friend, my debts are far too numerous for me
to think of paying them. But what wages does he want?”
“The purple.” - - .
Orestes started, and then fell into thought. Raphael
sat watching him awhile. -
“Now, most noble lord, may I depart? I have said all
I have to say ; and unless I get home to luncheon at Once,
I shall hardly have time to find old Miriam for you, and get
through our little affair with her before sunset.” -
“Stay. What force has he?” -
“Forty thousand already, they say. And those Donatist
ruffians are with him to a man, if he can but scrape
together where with to change their bludgeons into good
Steel.” r - -
“Well, go. . . . So. A hundred thousand might do
it,” said he, meditating as Raphael bowed himself out.
“He won’t get them. I don’t know, though ; the man
has the head of a Julius. Well, that fool Attalus talked of
joining Egypt to the Western Empire. . . . Not such a
bad thought, either. Anything is better than being gov-
erned by an idiot child and three canting nuns. I expect
to be excommunicated every day for some Offense against
Pulcheria’s prudery. . . . Heraclian emperior at Rome
. . and I lord and master on this side the sea . . . the
Donatists pitted again fairly against the Orthodox, to cut
each other’s throats in peace . . . no more of Cyril's spy-
ing and tale-bearing to Constantinople . . . not such a
bad dish of fare . . . But then—it would take so much
trouble!” .
With which words Orestes went into his third warm
bath for that day,
CHAPTER III.
THE GOTHS.
For two days the young monk held on, paddling and
floating rapidly down the Nile stream, leaving city after
city to right and left with longing eyes, and looking back
to one villa after another, till the reaches of the banks hid
them from his sight, with many a yearning to know what
sort of places those gay buildings and gardens would look
like on a nearer view, and what sort of life the thousands
led who crowded the busy quays, and walked and drove in
an endless stream along the great high-roads which ran
along either bank. He carefully avoided every boat that
passed him, from the gilded barge of the wealthy landlord
or merchant, to the tiny raft buoyed up with empty jars
which was floating down to be sold at some market in the
Delta.
Here and there he met and hailed a crew of monks draw-
ing their nets in a quiet bay, or passing along the great
watery highway from monastery to monastery; but all the
news he received from them was that the canal of Alexan-
dria was still several days’ journey below him. It seemed
endless, that monotonous vista of the two high clay-banks,
with their sluices and water-wheels, their knots of palms
and date-trees ; endless seemed that wearisome succession
of bars of sand and banks of mud, every one like the One
before it, every one dotted with the same line of logs and
stones strewn along the water’s edge, which turned out, as
he approached them, to be basking crocodiles and sleeping
pelicans. His eyes, wearied with the continual confine-
ment and want of distance, longed for the boundless
expanse of the desert, for the jagged outlines of those far-
off hills which he had watched from boyhood rising mysteri-
ously at morn out of the eastern sky, and melting mysteri-
ously into it again at even, beyond which dwelt a whole
world of wonders, elephants and dragons, satyrs and
anthropophagi—ay, and the phoenix itself, º
- - 46 -
A/YA-A 7TWA. 47
Tired and melancholy, his mind returned inward to prey
on itself, and the last words of Arsenius rose again and
again to his thoughts. “Was his call of the spirit or of
the flesh?” How should he test that problem? He
wished to see the world . . . that might be carnal. True ;
but he wished to convert the world . . . was not that
spiritual? Was he not going on a noble errand? . . .
thirsting for toil, for saintship, for martyrdom itself,
if it would but come and cut the Gordian knot of
all temptations, and save him—for he dimly felt
that it would save him—a whole sea of trouble in getting -
safe and triumphant out of that world into which he had
not yet entered . . . and his heart shrank back from the
untried homeless wilderness before him. But no! the die
was cast, and he must down and onward, whether in
obedience to the spirit or the flesh. Oh, for one hour of
the quiet of that dear Laura and the old familiar faces !
At last, a sudden turn of the bank brought him in sight
of a guadily-painted barge, on board of which armed men
in uncouth and foreign dresses were chasing with barbaric
shouts some large object in the water. In the bows stood
a man of gigantic stature, brandishing a harpoon in his
right hand, and in his left holding the line of a second, the
head of which was fixed in the huge purple sides of a
hippopotamus, who foamed and wallowed a few yards
down the stream. An old grizzled warrior at the stern,
with a rudder in either hand, kept the boat's head con-
tinually toward the monster, in spite of its sudden and
frantic wheelings; and when it dashed madly across the
stream, some twenty oars flashed through the water in
pursuit. All was activity and excitement, and it was no
wonder if Philammon's curiosity had tempted him to drift
down almost abreast of the barge, ere he descried, peeping
from under a decorated awning in the after part, some
dozen pair of languishing black eyes, turned alternately to
the game and to himself. The serpents! chattering and
smiling, with pretty little shrieks and shaking of glossy
curls and gold necklaces, and fluttering of muslin dresses,
within a dozen yards of him! Blushing scarlet, he knew
not why, he seized his paddle and tried to back out of the
snare . . . but somehow his very efforts to escape those
48 ATYAA T/4.
sparkling eyes diverted his attention from everything else;
the hippopotamus had caught sight of him, and furious
with pain, rushed straight at the unoffending canoe; the
harpoon line became entangled round his body, and in a
moment he and his frail bark were overturned, and the
monster, with his huge white tusks gaping wide, closed on
him as he struggled in the stream.
Luckily Philammon, contrary to the wont of monks, was
a bather, and swam like a water-fowl; fear he had never
known ; death from childhood had been to him, as to the
other inmates of the Laura, a contemplation too perpetual
to have any paralyzing terror in it, even then, when life
seemed just about to open on him anew. But the monk
was a man, and a young one, and had no intention of dying
tamely or unavenged. In an instant he had freed himself
from the line, drawn the short knife which was his only
weapon, and diving suddenly, avoided the monster's rush,
and attacked him from behind with stabs, which, though
not deep, still dyed the waters with gore at every stroke.
The barbarians shouted with delight. The hippopotamus
turned furiously against his new assailant, crushing, alas!
the empty canoe to fragments with a single snap of his
enormous jaws; but the turn was fatal to him ; the barge
was close upon him, and as he presented his broad side to
the blow, the sinewy arm of the giant drove a harpoon
through his heart, and with one convulsive shudder
the huge blue mass turned over on its side and floated
dead.
Poor Philammon He alone was silent amid the yells of
triumph ; sorrowfully he swam round and round his little
paper wreck . . . it would not have floated a mouse.
Wistfully he eyed the distant banks, half-minded to strike
out for them and escape . . . and thought of the crocodiles,
... and paddled round again, . . . and thought of the
basilisk eyes; . . . he might escape the crocodiles, but who
could escape women? . . . and he struck out valiantly
for shore, . . . when he was brought to a sudden stop by
finding the stem of the barge close on him, a noose thrown
over him by some friendly barbarian, and himself hauled
on board, amid the laughter, praise astonishment and
grumbling of the good-natured crew, who had expected
Ayeazza. 49
him, as a matter of course, to avail himself at once of their
help, and could not conceive the cause of his reluctance.
Philammon gazed with wonder on his strange hosts,
their pale complexions, globular heads and faces, high
cheek-bones, tall and sturdy figures; their red beards, and
yellow hair knotted fantastically above the head ; their
awkward dresses, half Roman or Egyptian, and half of
foreign fur, soiled and stained in many a storm and fight,
but tastelessly bedizened with classic jewels, brooches, and
Roman coins strung like necklaces. Only the steersman,
who had come forward to wonder at the hippopotamus,
and to help in dragging the unwieldy brute on board,
seemed to keep genuine and unornamented the costume of
his race, the white linen leggings, strapped with thongs of
deer-skin, the quilted leather cuirass, the bear’s-fur cloak,
the only ornaments of which were the fangs and claws of
the beast itself, and a fringe of grizzled tufts, which looked
but too like human hair. The language which they spoke
was utterly unintelligible to Philammon, though it need
not be so to us.
“A well-grown lad and a brave one, Wulf the son of
Ovida,” said the giant to the old hero of the bear-skin
cloak ; “and understands wearing skins in this furnace-
mouth of a climate rather better than you do.” .
“I keep to the dress of my forefathers, Amalric the
Amal. What did to sack Rome in may do to find Asgard
in.” -
The giant, who was decked out with helmet, cuirass,
and senatorial boots, in a sort of mongrel mixture of the
Roman military and civil dress, his neck wreathed with a
dozen gold chains, and every finger sparkling with jewels,
turned away with an impatient sneer. -
“Asgard—Asgard! If you are in such a hurry to get to
Asgard up this ditch in the sand, you had better ask the
fellow how far it is thither.”
Wulf took him quietly at his word, and addressed a
question to the young monk, which he could only answer
by a shake of the head.
“Ask him in Greek, man.”
“Greek is a slave's tongue. Make a slave talk to him
in it, not me.”
50 Aſ VP4 7/4.
“Here—some of you girls! Pelagial you understand
this fellow's talk. Ask him how far it is to Asgard.”
“You must ask me more civilly, my rough hero,” replied
a soft voice from underneath the awning. “Beauty must
be sued, and not commanded.” -
“Come, then, my olive-tree, my gazelle, my lotus-
flower, my—what was the last nonsense you taught me?—
and ask this wild man of the sands how far it is from these
accursed endless rabbit burrows to Asgard.” -
The awning was raised, and lying luxuriously on a soft
mattress, fanned with peacocks’ feathers and glittering
with rubies and topazes, appeared such a vision as
Philammon had never seen before. -
A woman of some two-and-twenty summers, formed in
the most voluptuous mould of Grecian beauty, whose com-
plexion showed every violet vein through its veil of
luscious brown. Her little bare feet, as they dimpled the
Cushions, were more perfect than Aphrodite’s, softer than
a swan's bosom. Every swell of her bust and arms
showed through the thin gauze robe, while her lower limbs
were wrapped in a shawl of orange silk, embroided with
wreaths of shells and roses. Her dark hair lay carefully
spread out upon the pillow in a thousand ringlets,
entwined with gold and jewels ; her languishing eyes
blazed like diamonds from a cavern under eyelids darkened
and deepened with antimony ; her lips pouted of them-
selves, by habit or by nature, into a perpetual kiss ; slowly
she raised one little lazy hand ; slowly the ripe lips
Opened ; and in most pure and melodious Attic, she lisped
her huge lover's question to the monk, and repeated it
before the boy could shake off the spell and answer :
‘‘Asgard? What is Asgard?” -
The beauty looked at the giant for further instructions.
“The City of the Immortal Gods,” interposed the old
warrior, hastily and sternly, to the lady.
“The city of God is in heaven,” said Philammon to the
interpreter, turning his head away from those gleaming,
luscious, searching glances. -
His answer was received with a general laugh by all
except the leader, who shrugged his shoulders.
‘‘ It may as well be up in the skies as up the Nile. We
Aſ YAA 7TWA. w - 5I
shall be just as likely, I believe, to reach it by flying as by
rowing up this big ditch. Ask him where the river comes
from, Pelagia.” -
Pelagia obeyed . . . and thereon followed a confusion
Worse confounded, composed of all the impossible wonders
of that mythic fairy-land with which Philammon had
gorged himself from boyhood in his walks with the old
monks, and of the equally trustworthy traditions which
the Goths had picked up at Alexandria. There was noth-
ing which that river did not do. It rose in the Caucasus.
Where was the Caucasus? He did not know. In Para-
dise—in Indian AEthiopia—in AEthiopian India. Where
were they P. He did not know. Nobody knew. It ran
for a hundred and fifty days’ journey through deserts
where nothing but flying serpents and satyrs lived, and the
very lions’ manes were burnt off by the heat.
“Good sporting there, at all events, among these
dragons,” quoth Smid the son of Troll, armorer to the
party.
“As good as Thor's when he caught Snake Midgard
with the bullock’s head,” said Wulf.
It turned to the east for a hundred days’ journey more,
all round Arabia and India, among forests full of
elephants and dog-headed women.
“Better and better, Smid!” growled Wulf, approv-
ingly. - - -
“Fresh beef cheap there, Prince Wulf, eh?” quoth
Smid. “I must look over the arrow-heads.”
To the mountains of the Hyperboreans, where there was
eternal night, and the air was full of feathers. . . . That
is, one-third of it came from thence, and another third
came from the Southern ocean, over the Moon mountains,
where no one had ever been, and the remaining third from
the country where the phoenix lived, and nobody knew
where that was. And then there were the cataracts, and
the inundations—and—and—and above the cataracts,
nothing but sand-hills and ruins, as full of devils as they
could hold . . . and as for Asgard, no one had ever heard
of it . . . till every face grew longer and longer, as Pelagia
went on interpreting and misinterpreting ; and at last the
giant Smote his hand upon his knee, and swore a great Oath
52 . . Aſ VPA 7/4.
that Asgard might rot till the twilight of the gods before
he went a step farther up the Nile.
“Curse the monk!” growled Wulf. “How should such
a poor beast know anything about the matter?”
“Why should not he know as well as that ape of a
Roman governor?” asked Smid. -
“Oh, the monks know everything,” said Pelagia.
“They go hundreds and thousands of miles up the river,
and cross the deserts among fiends and monsters, where
anyone else would be eaten up, or go mad at once.”
“Ah, the dear holy men! It's all by the sign of the
blessed cross!” exclaimed all the girls together, devoutly
Crossing themselves, while two or three of the most
enthusiastic were half-minded to go forward and kneel to
Philammon for his blessing ; but hesitated, their Gothic
lovers being heathenishly stupid and prudish on such points.
“Why should he not know as well as the prefect?
Well said, Smid! I believe that prefect's quill-drivel was
humbugging us when he said Asgard was only ten days'
sail up.” -
“Why?” asked Wulf.
‘‘I never give any reasons. What's the use of being an
Amal, and a son of Odin, if one has always to be giving
reasons like a rascally Roman lawyer? I say the governor
looked like a liar, and I say this monk looks like an honest
fellow ; and I choose to believe him, and there is an end
of it.”
“Don’t look so cross at me, Prince Wulf; I’m sure its
not my fault ; I could only say what the monk told me,”
whispered poor Pelagia.
“Who looks cross at you, my queen?” roared the Amal.
“Let me have him out here, and by Thor's hammer,
I’ll—” -
“Who spoke to you, you stupid darling?” answered
Pelagia, who lived in hourly fear of thunder-storms.
“Who is going to be cross with anyone, except I with:
you, for mishearing and misunderstanding and meddling,
as you are always doing? I shall do as I threatened, and
run away with Prince Wulf, if you are not good. Don’t
you see that the whole crew are expecting you to make
them an oration?” - - - - - - - - - -- .- * * - ------
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 53
Whereupon the Amal rose. .
“See you here, Wulf the son of Ovida, and warriors all!
If we want wealth, we shan’t find it among the sand-hills.
If we want women, we shall find nothing prettier than
these among dragons and devils. Don’t look angry, Wulf.
You have no mind to marry one of those dog-headed girls
the monk talked of, have you? Well, then, we have money
and women ; and if we want sport, it’s better sport killing
men than killing beasts; so we had better go where we
shall find most of that game, which we certainly shall not
up this road. As for fame and all that, though I’ve had
enough, there's plenty to be got anywhere along the shores
of that Mediterranean. Let’s burn and plunder Alexandria;
forty of us Goths might kill down all those donkey-riders
in two days, and hang up that lying prefect who sent us
here on this fool's errand. Don’t answer, Wulf. I knew
he was humbugging us all along, but you were so open-
mouthed to all he said, that I was bound to let my elders
choose for me. Let’s go back ; send over for any of the
tribes ; send to Spain for those Vandals—they have had
enough of Adolf by now, curse him—I’ll warrant them ;
get together an army, and take Constantinople. I’ll be
Augustus, and Pelagia, Augusta ; you and Smid here, the
two Caesars ; and we’ll make the monk the chief of the
eunuchs, eh?—anything you like for a quiet life; but up
this accursed kennel of hot water I go no further. Ask
your girls, my heroes, and I’ll ask mine. Women are all
prophetesses, every one of them.”
“When they are not harlots,” growled Wulf to himself.
“I will go to the world’s end with you, my king!” sighed
Pelagia ; “but Alexandria is certainly pleasanter than
this.” -
Old Wulf sprang up fiercely enough.
“Hear me, Almaric the Amal, son of Odin, and heroes
all! When my fathers swore to be Odin’s men, and gave
up the kingdom to the holy Amals, the sons of the AEsir,
what was the bond between your fathers and mine? Was
it not that we should move and move, southward and
southward ever, till we came back to Asgard, the city
where Odin dwells forever, and gave into his hands the
kingdom of all the earth? And did we not keep our oath?
54 Aſ VPA 7/4.
Have we not held to the Amals? Did we not leave Adolf,
because we would not follow a Balth, while there was an
Amal to lead us? Have we not been true men to you, son
Of the AEsir?”
“NO man ever saw Wulf, the son of Ovida, fail friend
or foe.” - -
“Then why does his friend fail him? Why does his
friend fail himself? If the bison-bull lie down and wallow,
what will the herd do for a leader? If the king-wolf lose
the scent, how will the pack hold it? If the Yngling for-
gets the song of Asgard, who will sing it to the heroes?”
“Sing it yourself, if you choose. Pelagia sings quite
well enough for me.” .
In an instant the cunning beauty caught at the hint, and
poured forth a soft, low, sleepy song :
“Loose the sail, rest the oar, float away down,
Fleeting and gliding by tower and town ;
Life is so short at best! snatch, while thou canst, thy rest,
Sleeping by me!”
“Can you answer that, Wulf?” shouted a dozen voices.
“Hear the song of Asgard, warriors of the Goths! Did
not Alaric the king love it well? Did I not sing it before
him in the palace of the Caesars, till he swore, for all the
Christian that he was, to go southward in search of the
holy city? And when he went to Valhalla, and the ships
were wrecked off Sicily, and Adolf the Balth turned back
like a lazy hound, and married the daughter of the Romans,
whom Odin hates, and went northward again to Gaul, did
not I sing you all the song of Asgard in Messina there, till
you swore to follow the Amal through fire and water until
we found the hall of Odin and received the mead-cup from
his own hand? Hear it again, warriors of the Goths!”
“Not that song!” roared the Amal, stopping his ears
with both his hands. “Will you drive us blood-mad
again, just as we are settling down into our sober senses,
and finding out what our lives were given us for?”
“Hear the song of Asgard! On to Asgard, wolves of
the Goths!” shouted another ; and a babel of voices arose.
“Haven’t we been fighting and marching these seven
years?” -- — — — — . -- . — — ... --— — ... ==--- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ATVA’A 7TWA. 55
“Haven't we drank blood enough to satisfy Odin ten
times over? If he wants us, let him come himself and
lead us!” . - **
‘‘Let us get our wind again before we start afresh!”
“Wulf the Prince is like his name, and never tires; he
has a winter-wolf’s legs under him ; that is no reason why
we should have.” - -
“Haven’t you heard what the monk says? We can
never get over these cataracts.”
“We’ll stop his old-wives’ tales for him, and then settle
for ourselves,” said Smid ; and springing from the thwart
where he had been sitting, he caught up a bill with one
hand, and seized Philammon's throat with the other . . .
in a moment more, it would have been all over with
him. . . . - -
For the first time in his life Philammon felt a hostile
grip upon him, and a new sensation rushed through every
nerve, as he grappled with the warrior, clutched with his
left hand the uplifted wrist, and with his right the girdle,
and commenced, without any definite aim, a fierce struggle,
which, strange to say, as it went on, grew absolutely
pleasant.
The women shrieked to their lovers to part the com-
batants, but in vain. *
“Not for worlds! A very fair match and a very fair
fight! Take your long legs back, Itho, or they will be
Over you! That’s right, my Smid, don’t use the knife!
They will be overboard in a moment! By all the Valkyrs,
they are down! and Smid undermost!”
There was no doubt of it ; and in another moment
Philammon would have wrenched the bill out of his
Opponent’s hand, when, to the utter astonishment of the
on-lookers, he suddenly loosed his hold, shook himself
free by one powerful wrench, and quietly retreated to his
seat, conscience-stricken at the fearful thirst for blood
which had suddenly boiled up within him as he felt his
enemy under him. -
The on-lookers were struck dumb with astonishment ;
they had taken for granted that he would, as a matter of
course, have used his right of splitting his vanquished
opponent’s skull—an event which they would of course
-- *
56 Aſ VA’A 7/4.
have deeply deplored, but with which, as men of honor,
they could not on any account interfere, but merely con-
sole themselves for the loss of their comrade by flaying
his conqueror alive, ‘‘ carving him into the blood eagle,”
or any other delicate ceremony which might serve as a
vent for their sorrow and a comfort to the soul of the
deceased.
Smid rose, with a bill in his hand, and looked round
him—perhaps to see what was expected of him. He half
lifted his weapon to strike. . . . Philammon, seated,
looked him calmly in the face. . . . The old warrior's
eye caught the bank, which was now receding rapidly past
them ; and when he saw that they were really floating
downward again, without an effort to stem the stream, he
put away his bill, and sat himself down deliberately in his
place, astonishing the onlookers quite as much as
Philammon had done.
“Five minutes’ good fighting, and no one killed! This
is a shame!” quoth another. “Blood we must see, and it
had better be yours, master monk, than your betters”—
and there with he rushed on poor Philammon.
He spoke the heart of the crew ; the sleeping wolf in
them had been awakened by the struggle, and blood they
would have ; and not frantically, like Celts or Egyptians,
but with the cool, humorous cruelty of the Teuton, they
rose all together, and turning Philammon over on his
back, deliberated by what death he should die.
Philammon quietly submitted—if submission have any-
thing to do with that state of mind in which sheer
astonishment and novelty have broken up all the custom
of man’s nature, till the strangest deeds and sufferings are
taken as matters of course. His sudden escape from the
Laura, the new world of thought and action into which
he had been plunged, the new companions with whom he
had fallen in, had driven him utterly from his moorings,
and now anything and everything might happen to him.
He who had promised never to look upon woman found
himself, by circumstances over which he had no control,
amid a boatful of the most objectionable species of that
most objectionable genus—and the utterly worst having
happened, everything else which happened must be better
Aſ YAA 7/4. 57
than the worst. For the rest, he had gone forth to see the
world—and this was one of the ways of it. So he made
up his mind to see it, and be filled with the fruit of his own
devices.
And he would have been certainly filled with the same in
five minutes more, in some shape too ugly to be mentioned :
but, as even sinful women have hearts in them, Pelagia
shrieked out : -
“Almaric! Almaric! do not let them! I cannot bear it!”
“The warriors are free men, my darling, and know
what is proper. And what can the life of such a brute be
to you?”
Before he could stop her, Pelagia had sprung from her
cushions, and thrown herself into the midst of the laugh-
ing ring of wild beasts.
“Spare him Spare him for my sake!” shrieked she.
“Oh, my pretty lady! you mustn't interrupt warriors’
sport!” - -
In an instant she had torn off her shawl and thrown it
Over Philammon : and as she stood with all the outlines
of her beautiful limbs revealed through the thin robe of
Spangled gauze—
‘‘Let a man who dares, touch him beneath that shawl,
though it be a saffron one!”
The Goths drew back. For Pelagia herself they had as
little respect as the rest of the world had. But for a
moment she was not the Messalina of Alexandria, but a
woman ; and true to the old woman-worshipping instinct,
they looked one and all at her flashing eyes, full of noble
pity and indignation, as well as of mere woman's terror,
and drew back and whispered together.
Whether the good spirit or the evil one would conquer
seemed for a moment doubtful, when Pelagia felt a heavy
hand on her shoulder, and turning, saw Wulf the son of
Ovida. - .
“Go back, pretty woman! Men, I claim the boy.
Smid, give him to me. He is your man. You could have
killed him if you had chosen, and did not ; and no one else
shall.” -
“Give him us, Prince Wulf! We have not seen blood
for many a day!”
58 Ayy AA 77.4.
“You might have seen rivers of it, if you had had the
hearts to go onward. The boy is mine, and a brave boy.
He has upset a warrior fairly this day, and spared him ;
and we will make a warrior of him in return.”
And he lifted up the prostrate monk.
“You are my man now. Do you like fighting?”
Philammon, not understanding the language in which
he was addressed, could only shake his head—though if he
had known what its import was, he could hardly in honesty
have said, ‘No.
He shakes his head! He does not like it! He is craven!
Let us have him ſ”
“I had killed kings when you were shooting frogs,”
Cried Smid. “Listen to me, my sons! A coward grips
sharply at first, and loosens his hand after awhile, because
his blood is soon hot and soon cold. A brave man's grip
grows the firmer the longer he holds, because the spirit of
Odin comes upon him. I watched the boy's hands on my
throat: and he will make a man ; and I will make him one.
However, we may as well make him useful at once ; SO
give him an oar.”
“Well,” answered his new protector, “he can as well
row us as be rowed by us ; and if we are to go back to a
cow’s death and the pool of Hela, the quicker we go the
better.” -
And as the men settled themselves again to their oars
One was put into Philammon’s hand, which he managed
with such strength and skill that his late tormentors, who,
in spite of an occasional inclination to robbery and murder,
were thoroughly good-natured, honest fellows, clapped
him on the back, and praised him as heartily as they had
just now heartily intended to torture him to death, and
then went forward, as many of them as were not rowing,
to examine the strange beast which they had just
slaughtered, pawing him over from tusks to tail, putting
their heads into his mouth, trying their knives on his hide,
Comparing him to all beasts, like and unlike, which they
had ever seen, and laughing and shoving each other about
with the fun and childish wonder of a party of schoolboys,
till Smid, who was the wit of the party, settled the com-
parative anatomy of the subject for them : - - -
Aſ VA’A 7TWA. 59
‘‘Valhalla! I’ve found out what he's most like! One
of those big blue plums, which gave us all the stomach-
ache when we were encamped in the orchards above
Ravenna!”
CHAPTER IV.
MIRIAM.
ONE morning in the same week, Hypatia's favorite maid
entered her chamber with a somewhat terrified face.
“The old Jewess, madam—the hag who has been watch-
ing so often lately under the wall opposite. She frightened
us all out of our senses last evening by peeping in. We
all said she had the evil eye, if anyone ever had 7 ?
“Well, what of her?”
“She is below, madam, and will speak with you. Not
that I care for her; I have my amulet on. I hope you
have P”
“Silly girl! Those who have been initiated as I have
in the mysteries of the gods, can defy spirits and command
them. Do you suppose that the favorite of Pallas Athene
will condescend to charms and magic? Send her up.”
The girl retreated, with a look half of awe, half of doubt
at the lofty pretentions of her mistress, and returned with
old Miriam, keeping, however, prudently behind her, in
order to test as little as possible the power of her own
amulet by avoiding the basilisk eye which had terrified
her.
Miriam came in, and advancing to the proud beauty,
who remained seated, made an obeisance down to the very
floor, without, however, taking her eyes for an instant off
Hypatia’s face.
Her countenance was haggard and bony, with broad
sharp-cut lips, stamped with a strangely mingled expres-
sion of strength and sensuality. But the feature about her
which instantly fixed Hypatia’s attention, and from
which she could not in spite of herself withdraw it, was
the dry, glittering, coal-black eye which glared out from
underneath the gray fringe of her swarthy brows, between
black locks covered with gold coins. Hypatia could look
at nothing but those eyes; and she reddened and grew
- 6o
Aſ VPA 7TWA, 61
all but unphilosophically angry, as she saw that the old
woman intended her to look at them, and feel the strange
power which she evidently wished them to exercise.
After a moment’s silence, Miriam drew a letter from her
bosom, and with a second low obeisance presented it.
“From whom is this?”
‘‘Perhaps the letter itself will tell the beautiful lady, the
fortunate lady, the discerning lady,” answered she, in a
fawning, wheedling tone. “How should a poor old
Jewess know great folks' secrets?”
‘‘ Great folks?”
Hypatia looked at the seal which fixed a silk cord round
the letter. . It was Orestes’; and so was the hand-
writing. . . . Strange, that he should have chosen such a
messenger! What message could it be which required
such secrecy? -
She clapped her hands for the maid. “Let this woman
wait in the ante-room.” Miriam glided out backward,
bowing as she went. As Hypatia looked up over the
letter to see whether she was alone, she caught a last
glance of that eye still fixed upon her, and an expression
in Miriam's face which made her, she knew not why,
shudder and turn chill.
“Foolish that I am | What can that witch be to me?
But now for the letter.” - -
“To the most noble and most beautiful, the mistress of
philosophy, beloved by Athene, her pupil and slave sends
greeting.”
“My slave! and no name mentioned.”
“There are those who consider that the favorite hen
of Honorius, which bears the name of the Imperial
City, would thrive better under a new feeder ; and the
Count of Africa has been dispatched by himself and
by the immortal gods to superintend for the present
the poultry-yard of the Caesars—at least during the
absence of Adolph and Placidia. There are those also
who consider that in his absence the Numidian lion
might he prevailed on to become the yoke-fellow of the
Egyptian crocodile : and a farm which, ploughed by such
a pair, should it extend from the upper cataract to the pillars.
of Hercules, might have charms even for a philosopher.
62 - Aſ VA’A 7TWA
But while the ploughman is without a nymph, Arcadia is
imperfect. What were Dionusos without his Ariadne, Ares
without Aphrodite, Zeus without Hera P Even Artemis
has her Endymion ; Athene alone remains unwedded; but
Only because Hephæstus was too rough a wooer. Such is
not he who now offers to the representative of Athene the
Opportunity of sharing that which may be with the help of
her wisdom, which without her is impossible. Gzyzazza
ouveto/o/v. Shall Eros, invincible for ages, be balked at
last of the noblest game against which he ever drew his
bow P” . . .
If Hypatia's color had faded a moment before under the
withering glance of the old Jewess, it rose again swiftly
enough, as she read line after line of this strange epistle ;
till at last, crushing it together in her hand, she rose and
hurried into the adjoining library, where Theon sat over
his books.
“Father, do you know anything of this! Look what
Orestes has dared to send me by the hands of some base
Jewish witch!” And she spread the letter before him, and
stood impatient, her whole figure dilated with pride and
anger, as the old man read it slowly and carefully, and
then looked up, apparently not ill-pleased with the
contents. -
“What, father?” asked she, half-reproachfully. “Do
not you, too, feel the insult which has been put upon your
daughter?” -
“My dear child,” with a puzzled look, “do you not see
that he offers you—”
‘‘I know what he offers me, father. The empire of
Africa. . . . I am to descend from the mountain heights
of science, from the contemplation of the unchangeable
and the ineffable glories, into the foul fields and farmyards
of earthly practical life, and become a drudge among
political chicanery, and the petty ambitions, and sins, and
falsehoods of the earthly herd. . . . And the price he
offers me—me; the stainless—me, the virgin—me, the
untamed—is—his hand! Pallas Athene! dost thou not
blush for thy child?” º
“But, my child—my child—an empire
“Would the empire of the world restore my lost self-
; )
Aſ VPA 7/4. 63
respect—my just pride? Would it save my cheek from
blushes every time I recollected that I bore the hateful and
degrading name of wife? The property, the puppet of a
man—submitting to his pleasure—bearing his children—
wearing myself out with all the nauseous cares of wifehood
--no longer able to glory in myself, pure and self-sustained,
but forced by day and night to recollect that my very
beauty is no longer the sacrament of Athene's love for me,
but the plaything of a man—and such a man as that!
Luxurious, frivolous, heartless—courting my society, as
he has done for years, only to pick up and turn to his own
base earthly uses the scraps which fall from the festal
table of the gods! I have encouraged him too much—vain
fool that I have been l No, I wrong myself! I was only
—I thought—I thought that by his being seen at Our doors,
the cause of the immortal gods would gain honor and
strength in the eyes of the multitude. . . . I have tried to
feed the altars of heaven with earthly fuel. . . . And this
is my just reward! I will write to him this moment;--
return by the fitting messenger which he has sent, insult
for insult.” -
“In the name of Heaven, my daughter! for your father's
sake! for my sake! Hypatia! my pride, my joy, my only
hope! have pity on my gray hairs!”
And the poor old man flung himself at her feet, and
clasped her knees imploringly.
Tenderly she lifted him up, and wound her long arms
round him, and laid his head on her white shoulder, and
her tears fell fast upon his gray hairs; but her lip was firm
and determined.
“Think of my pride—my glory in your glory ; think of
me. Not for myself! You know I never cared for myself!”
sobbed out the old man. “But to die seeing you empress!”
“ Unless I die in childbed, father, as many a woman
dies who is weak enough to become a slave, and submit to
tortures only fit for slaves.”
“But—but—” said the old man, racking his bewildered
brains for some argument far enough removed from nature
and common sense to have effect on the beautiful fanatic—
“but the cause of the gods! What you might do for it!
. . . Remember Julian!”
64 - AYPAZIA
Hypatia's arms dropped suddenly. Yes; it was true!
The thought flashed across her mind with mingled delight
and terror. . . . Visions of her childhood rose Swift
and thick—temples—sacrifices — priesthoods—colleges—
museums! What might she not do? What might she not
make Africa! Give her ten years of power, and the hated:
name of Christian might be forgotten, and Athene Pallas,
colossal in ivory and gold watching in calm triumph Over
the harbors of a heathen Alexandria. . . . But the price!
And she hid her face in her hands, and bursting into
bitter tears, she walked slowly away into her own chamber,
her whole body convulsed with the internal struggle.
The old man looked after her, anxiously and perplexed,
and then followed, hesitating. She was sitting at the
table, her face buried in her hands. He did not dare to
disturb her. In addition to all the affection, the wisdom,
the glorious beauty, on which his whole heart fed day by
day, he believed hel to be the possessor of those super-
natural powers and favors, to which she so boldly laid
claim. And he stood watching her in the doorway, pray-
ing in his heart to all the gods and demons, principalities
and powers, from Athene down to his daughter's guardian
spirit, to move a determination which he was too weak to
gainsay, and yet too rational to approve.
At last the struggle was over, and she looked up, clear,
calm and glorious again.
“It shall be. For the sake of the immortal gods—for
the sake of art and science, and learning and philosophy—
it shall be. If the gods demand a victim, here am I. If a
second time in the history of the ages the Grecian fleet
cannot sail forth conquering and civilizing, without the
sacrificing of a virgin, I give my throat to the knife,
Father, call me no more Hypatia ; call me Iphigenia!”
“And me Agemennon?” asked the old man, attempting
a faint jest through his tears of joy. “I dare say you
think me a very cruel father ; but 2 3
“Spare me, father—I have spared you.”
And she began to write her answer.
“I have accepted his offer—conditionally, that is, And
on whether he have the courage or not to fulfill that condi-
tion, depends Do not ask me what it is. While Cyril
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 65
is leader of the Christian mob, it may be safer for you, my
father, that you should be able to deny all knowledge of
my answer. Be content. I have said this—that if he will do
as I would have him do, I will do as you would have me do.”
“Have you not been too rash? Have you not demanded
of him something which, for the sake of public opinion, he
dare not grant openly, and which he may allow you to do
for yourself when once 5 y
“I have. If I am to be a victim the sacrificing priest
shall at least be a man, and not a coward and a time-
server. If he believes this Christian faith, let him defend
it against me ; for either it or I shall perish. If he does
not—as he does not—let him give up living in a lie, and
taking on his lips blasphemies against the immortals, from
which his heart and reason revolt!”
And she clapped her hands again for the maid-servant,
gave her the letter silently, shut the doors of her chamber,
and tried to resume her Commentary on Plotinus. Alas!
what were all the wire-drawn dreams of metaphysics to her
in that real and human struggle of her heart? What
availed it to define the process by which individual souls
emanated from the universal one, while her own soul had,
singly and on its own responsibility, to decide so terrible
an act of will? or to write fine words with pen and ink
about the immutability of the supreme Reason, while her
own reason was left there to struggle for its life amid a
roaring shoreless waste of doubts and darkness? Oh, how
grand, and clear, and logical it had all looked half an hour
ago.! And how irrefragably she had been deducing from it
all, syllogism after syllogism, the nonexistence of evil! how
it was but a lower form of good, one of the countless pro-
ducts of the one great all-pervading mind which could not
err or change, only so strange and recondite in its form as
to excite antipathy in all minds but that of the philosopher,
who learnt to see the stem which connected the apparently
bitter fruit with the perfect root from whence it sprung.
Could she see the stem there—the connection between the
pure and supreme Reason, and the hideous caresses of the
debauched and cowardly Orestes? was not that evil, pure,
unadulterated with any vein of good, past, present, or
future? . .
66 Aſ VPA 7/4.
True, she might keep her spirit pure amid it all; she
might sacrifice the base body, and ennoble the soul by the
self-sacrifice. . . . And yet, would not that increase the
horror, the agony, the evil of it—to her at least, most real
evil, not to be explained away. And yet the gods required
it. Were they just, merciful in that? Was it like them
to torture her, their last unshaken votary? Did they
require it? Was it not required of them by some higher
power, of whom they were only the emanations, the tools,
the puppets—and required of that higher power by some
still higher one—some nameless, absolute destiny of which
Orestes and she, and all heaven and earth, were but the
victims, dragged along in an inevitable vortex, helpless,
hopeless, toward that for which each was meant? And she
was meant for this! The thought was unbearable ; it
turned her giddy, No! she would not! She would rebel!
Like Prometheus, she would dare destiny, and brave its
worst! And she sprang up to recall the letter. . . .
Miriam was gone ; and she threw herself on the floor and
wept bitterly. -
And her peace of mind would certainly not have been
improved could she have seen old Miriam hurry home with
her letter to a dingy house in the Jews' quarter, where it
was unsealed, read, and sealed up again with such marvel-
lous skill, that no eye could have detected the change ; and
finally still less would she have been comforted could she
have heard the conversation which was going on in a
summer-room of Orestes’ palace, between that illustrious
statesman and Raphael Aben-Ezra, who were lying on two
divans opposite each other, whiling away, by a throw or
two of dice, the anxious moments which delayed her
2.1].SW e1".
“Trays again! The devil is in you, Raphael!” -
‘‘I always thought he was,” answered Raphael, sweep-
ing up the gold pieces.
“When will that old witch be back?”
“When she has read through your letter and Hypatia's
answer.”
** Read them P”
“Of course. You don't fancy she is going to be fool
enough to carry a message without knowing what it is?
ATVA’.4 ZTV.4. 67
Don't be angry; she won’t tell. She would give one of
those two grave-lights there, which she calls her eyes, to
See the thing prosper.”
“Why?”
“Your excellency will know when the letter comes.
Here she is ; I hear steps in the cloister. Now, one bet
before they enter. I give you two to one she asks you to
turn pagan.”
“What in? Negro boys?”
“Anything you like.”
‘‘Taken. Come in, slaves!”
And Hypocorisma entered, pouting.
“That Jewish fury is outside with a letter, and has the
impudence to say she won’t let me bring it in l’”
“Bring her in then. Quick!”
‘‘I wonder what I am here for if people have secrets
that I am not to know,” grumbled the spoiled youth.
“Do you want a blue ribbon round those white sides of
yours, you monkey'?” answered Orestes. “Because if you
do, the hippopotamus hide hangs ready outside.”
‘‘Let us make him kneel down here for a couple of
hours, and use him as a dice-board,” said Raphael, “as
you used to do the girls in Armenia.”
“Ah, you recollect that? and how the barbarian papas
used to grumble, till I had to crucify one or two, eh? That
was something like life! I love those out-of-the-way
stations where nobody asks questions : but here one might
as well live among the monks in Nitria. Here comes
Canidia! Ah, the answer? Hand it here, my queen of
go-betweens!”
Orestes read it, -and his countenance fell.
‘‘I have won P”
“Out of the room, slaves, and no listening
‘‘I have won then P”
Orestes tossed the letter across to him, and Raphael
read :
“The immortal gods accept no divided worship ; and
he who would command the counsels of their prophetess
must remember that they will vouchsafe to her no illumina-
tion till their lost honors be restored. If he who aspires
to be the lord of Africa dare trample on the hateful cross,
17,
68 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
and restore the Caesareum to those for whose worship it
was built—if he dare proclaim aloud with his lips, and in
his deeds, that contempt for novel and barbarous supersti-
tions, which his taste and reason have already taught him,
then he would prove himself one with whom it were a glory
to labor, to dare, to die in a great cause. But till
then } } -
And so the letter ended.
“What am I to do?”
‘‘Take her at her word.”
“Good heavens! I shall be excommunicated! And—
and—what is to become of my soul?”
“What will become of it in any case, my most excellent
lord?” answered Raphael, blandly.
“You mean—I know what you cursed Jews think will .
happen to every one but yourselves. But what would the
world say? I an apostate! And in the face of Cyril and
the populace | I daren’t, I tell you!”
“No one asked your excellency to apostatize.”
“Why, what? What did you say just now?”
“I asked you to promise. It will not be the first time
that promises before marriage have not exactly coincided
with performance afterward.”
“I daren't—that is, I won't promise. I believe, now,
this is some trap of your Jewish intrigue, just to make me
commit myself against those Christians, whom you
hate.”
“I assure you, I despise all mankind far too profoundly
to hate them. How disinterested my advice was when I
proposed this match to you, you never will know ; indeed,
it would be boastful in me to tell you. But really you
must make a little sacrifice to win this foolish girl. With
all the depth and daring of her intellect to help you, you
might be a match for Romans, Byzantines, and Goths at
once. And as for beauty—why, there is one dimple inside
that wrist, just at the setting on of the sweet little hand,
worth all the other flesh and blood in Alexandria.”
“By Jove! you admire her so much, I suspect you must
be in love with her yourself. Why don't you marry her?
I’ll make you my prime minister, and then we shall have
the use of her wits without the trouble of her fancies. By
Aſ VPA 774. 69
the twelve gods! If you marry her and help me, I'll make
you what you like!”
Raphael rose and bowed to the earth.
“Your serene high-mightiness overwhelms me. But I
assure you, that never having as yet cared for anyone’s
interest but my own, I could not be expected, at my time
of life, to devote myself to that of another, even though it
were to yours.”
* Candid I’”
“Exactly so : and moreover, whosoever I may marry
will be practically, as well as theoretically, my private and
peculiar property. . . . You comprehend.”
“Candid again.”
“Exactly so ; and waiving the third argument, that she
probably might not choose to marry me, I beg to remark
that it would not be proper to allow the world to say, that
I, the subject, had a wiser and fairer wife than you, the
ruler ; especially a wife who had already refused that
ruler's complimentary offer.”
“By Jove! and she has refused me in good earnest! I'll
make her repent it! I was a fool to ask her at all! What's
the use of having guards, if one can’t compel what one
wants? If fair means can’t do it, foul shall! I’ll send for
her this moment!”
“Most illustrious majesty, it will not succeed. You do
not know that woman’s determination. Scourges and red-
hot pincers will not shake her, alive ; and dead, she will
be of no use whatsoever to you, while she will be of great
use to Cyril.”
“ How P”
“He will be most happy to make the whole story a
handle against you, give out that she died a virgin-martyr,
in defense of the most holy Catholic and Apostolic faith,
get miracles worked at her tomb, and pull your palace
about your ears on the strength thereof.”
“Cyril will hear of it anyhow ; that’s another dilemma
into which you have brought me, you intriguing rascal'
Why, this girl will be boasting all over Alexandria that I
have offered her marriage, and that she has done her-
self the honor to refuse me!”
“She will be much too wise to do anything of the kind :
7o Aſ VP4 7/A.
she has sense enough to know that if she did so, you would
inform a Christian populace what conditions she offered
you, and, with all her contempt for the burden of the
flesh, she has no mind to be lightened of that pretty load
by being torn in pieces by Christian monks : a very
probable ending for her in any case, as she herself, in her
melancholy moods, confesses!”
“What will you have me to do, then?” -
“Simply nothing. Let the prophetic spirit go out of
her, as it will in a day or two, and then—I know nothing
of human nature if she does not abate a little of her own
price. Depend on it, for all her ineffabilities and impassi-
bilities, and all the rest of the seventh-heaven moonshine
at which we play here in Alexandria, a throne is far too
pretty a bait for even Hypatia the Pythoness to refuse.
Leave well alone is a good rule, but leave ill alone is a
better. So now another bet before we part, and this time
three to one. Do nothing either way, and she sends to
you of her own accord before a month is out. In Cau-
casian mules? Done? Be it so.”
“Well, you are the most charming counsellor for a poor
perplexed devil of a prefect! If I had but a private
fortune like you, I could just take the money, and let the
work do itself.” .
“Which is the true method of successful government.
Your slave bids you farewell. Do not forget our bet.
You dine with me tomorrow?”
And Raphael bowed himself out.
And as he left the prefect’s door, he saw Miriam on the
Opposite side of the street, evidently watching for him.
As soon as she saw him, she held on her own side, with-
out a ppearing to notice him, till he turned a corner, and
then crossing, caught him eagerly by the arm.
“Does the fool dare?”
“Who, dare what?”
“You know what I mean. Do you suppose old Miriam
carries letters without taking care to know what is inside
them? Will he apostatize? Tell me. I am secret as the
grave!” .
“The fool has found an old wormeaten rag of conscience
somewhere in the corner of his heart, and dare not.”
AyyºA 77.4. - 71
“Curse the coward! And such a plot as I had laid! I
would have swept every Christian dog out of Africa within
the year. What is the man afraid of P”
** Hell-fire.” -
“Why, he will go there in any case, the accursed
Gentile!”
“So I hinted to him, as delicately as I could ; but, like
the rest of the world, he had a sort of partiality for getting
thither by his own road.”
“Coward! And whom shall I get now? Oh, if that
Pelagia had as much cunning in her whole body as
Hypatia has in her little finger, I’d seat her and her Goth
upon the throne of the Caesars. But—”
“But she has five senses, and just enough wit to use
them, eh?” -
“Don’t laugh at her for that, the darling. I do delight
in her, after all. It warms even my old blood to see how
thoroughly she knows her business, and how she enjoys
it, like a true daughter of Eve.”
“She has been your most successful pupil, certainly,
mother. You may well be proud of her.”
The old hag chuckled to herself awhile ; and then sud-
denly turning to Raphael— f
“See here ; I have a present for you ;” and she pulled
out a magnificent ring.
“Why, mother, you are always giving me presents. It
was but a month ago you sent me this poisoned dagger.”
“Why not, eh—why not? Why should not Jew give to
Jew? Take the old woman’s ring!” -
“What a glorious opal!”
“Ah, this is an opal indeed. And the unspeakable
name upon it ; just like Solomon's own. Take it, I say.
Whosoever wears that never need fear fire, steel, poison,
or woman’s eye.”
“Your own included, eh?”
“Take it, I say!” and Miriam caught his hand and
forced the ring on his finger. “There! Now you're safe.
And now call me mother again. I like it. I don’t know
why, but I like it. And—Raphael Aben-Ezra-don’t
laugh at me and call me witch and hag, as you often do.
I don’t care about it from anyone else; I’m accustomed
72 - AZYAA 77.4.
to it. But when you do it, I always long to stab you.
That’s why I gave you the dagger. I used to wear it; and
I was afraid I might be tempted to use it some day, when
the thought came across me how handsome you'd look,
and how quiet, when you were dead, and your soul up
there so happy in Abraham's bosom, watching all the
Gentiles frying and roasting forever down below. Don’t
laugh at me, I say ; and don’t thwart me! I may make
you the emperor's prime minister some day. I can if I
choose.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Raphael, laughing.
“Don’t laugh. I cast your nativity last night, and I
know you have no cause to laugh. A great danger hangs
Over you, and a deep temptation. And if you weather
this storm, you may be chamberlain, prime minister,
emperor, if you will. And you shall be—by the four arch-
angels, you shall!”
And the old woman vanished down a by-lane, leaving
Raphael utterly bewildered.
“Moses and the prophets! Does the old lady intend to
marry me? What can there be in this very lazy and selfish
personage who bears my name, to excite so romantic an
affection? Well, Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou hast one more
friend in the world besides Bran the mastiff; and therefore
One more trouble—seeing that friends always expect a due
return of affection and good offices, and what not. I
wonder whether the old lady has been getting into a scrape
kidnapping, and wants my patronage to help her out of
it. . . . Three-quarters of a mile of roasting sun between
me and home! . . . I must hire a gig, or a litter, or some-
thing, off the next stand . . . with a driver who has been
eating onions . . . and of course there is not a stand for
the next half-mile. Oh, divine ether! as Prometheus has
it, and ye swift-winged breezes (I wish there were any
here), when will it all be over? Three-and-thirty years
have I endured already of this babel of knaves and fools;
and with this abominable good health of mine, which won’t
even help me with gout or indigestion, I am likely to have
three-and-thirty years more of it? . . . I know nothing,
and I care for nothing, and I expect nothing, and I actually
can’t take the trouble to prick a hole in myself, and let the
A. VPA 77.4. 73
very small amount of wits out, to see something really
worth seeing, and try its strength at something really
worth doing—if, after all, the other side the grave does
not turn out to be just as stupid as this one. . . . When
will it be all over, and I in Abraham's bosom—or anyone
else's, provided it be not a woman’s?” *
CHAPTER V.
A DAY IN ALEXANDRIA.
IN the meanwhile, Philammon, with his hosts, the
Goths, had been slipping down the stream. Passing, one
after another, world-old cities now dwindled to decaying
towns, and numberless canal-mouths, now fast falling into
ruin with the fields to which they insured fertility, under
the pressure of Roman extortion and misrule, they had
entered one evening the mouth of the great canal of
Alexandria, slid easily all night across the star-bespangled
shadows of Lake Mareotis, and found themselves when
the next morning dawned among the countless masts and
noisy quays of the greatest seaport in the world. The
motley crowd of foreigners, the hubbub of all dialects from
the Crimea to Cadiz, the vast piles of merchandise, and
heaps of wheat, lying unsheltered in that rainless air, the
huge bulk of the corn-ships lading for Rome, whose tall
sides rose story over story, like floating palaces, above the
building of some inner dock—these sights, and a hundred
more, made the young monk think that the world did not
look at first sight a thing to be despised. In front of
heaps of fruit, fresh from the market-boats, black groups
of glossy negro slaves were basking and laughing on the
quay, looking anxiously and coquettishly round in hopes
of a purchaser : they evidently did not think the change
from desert toil to city luxuries a change for the worse.
Philammon turned away his eyes from beholding vanity;
but only to meet fresh vanity wheresoever they fell. He
felt crushed by that multitude of new objects, stunned by
the din around ; and scarcely recollected himself enough
to seize the first opportunity of escaping from his
dangerous companions.
‘‘Holloa' roared Smid the armorer, as he scrambled
on to the steps of the slip ; “you are not going to run
away without bidding us good-by?”
74
Hypazia. 75
“Stop with me, boy!” said old Wulf. “I saved you ;
and you are my man.”
Philammon turned and hesitated.
‘‘I am a monk, and God's man.”
“You can be that anywhere. I will make you a
warrior.” -
“The weapons of my warfare are not flesh and blood,
but prayer and fasting,” answered poor Philammon, who
felt already that he should have ten times more need of
the said weapons in Alexandria than ever he had had in
the desert. . . . ‘‘Let me go! I am not made for your
life! I thank you, bless you! I will pray for you, sir! but
let me go!”
“Curse the craven hound!” roared half a dozen voices.
“Why did you not let us have our will with him, Prince
Wulf? You might have expected such gratitude from a
monk.”
“He owes me my share of the sport,” quoth Smid.
“And here it is!” And a hatchet, thrown with practiced
aim, whistled right for Philammon's head—he had just
time to swerve, and the weapon struck and snapped
against the granite wall behind.
“Well saved ſ” said Wulf, coolly, while the sailors and
market-women above yelled murder, and the custom-house
officers, and other constables and catch-polls of the harbor
rushed to the place—and retired again quietly at the
thunder of the Amal from the boat’s stern :
“Never mind, my good fellows! we’re only Goths; and
on a visit to the prefect, too.”
“Only Goths, my donkey-riding friends!” echoed Smid,
and at that ominous name the whole posse comitatus tried
to look unconcerned, and found suddenly that their
presence was absolutely required in an opposite direction.
“Let him go,” said Wulf, as he stalked up the steps.
‘‘Let the boy go. I never set my heart on any man yet,”
he growled to himself in an under voice, ‘‘ but what he
disappointed me—and I must not expect more from this
fellow. Come, men, ashore, and get drunk!”
Philammon, of course, now that he had leave to go,
longed to stay—at all events, he must go back and thank
his hosts. He turned unwillingly to do so, as hastily as
76 Aſ VPA 77.4.
he could, and found Pelagia and her gigantic lover just
entering a palanquin. With downcast eyes he approached
the beautiful basilisk, and stammered out some common-
place ; and she, full of smiles, turned to him at once.
“Tell us more about yourself before we part. You
speak such beautiful Greek—true Athenian. It is quite
delightful to hear one's own accent again. Were you ever at
Athens?”
“When I was a child ; I recollect—that is, I think ; )
“What?” asked Pelagia, eagerly. -
“A great house in Athens—and a great battle there—
and coming to Egypt in a ship.”
“Heavens!” said Pelagia, and paused. . . . “How
Strange! Girls, who said he was like me?”
‘‘I’m sure we meant no harm, if we did say it in a joke,”
pouted one of the attendants. •
“Like me! you must come and see us. I have some-
thing to say to you. . . . You must!”
Philammon misinterpreted the intense interest of her
tone, and if he did not shrink back, gave some involuntary
gesture of reluctance. Pelagia laughed aloud.
‘‘Don’t be vain enough to suspect, foolish boy, but come!
Don’t you think that I have nothing to talk about but
nonsense? Come and see me. It may be better for you.
I live in—,” and she named a fashionable street, which
Philammon, though he inwardly vowed not to accept the
invitation, somehow could not help remembering.
“Do leave the wild man, and come,” growled the Amal
from within the palanquin. “You are not going to turn
nun, I hope?” - º
“Not while the first man I ever met in the world stays
in it,” answered Pelagia, as she skipped into the palan-
quin, taking care to show the most lovely white heel and
ankle, and, like the Parthian, send a random arrow as she
retreated. But the dart was lost on Philammon, who had
been already hustled away by the bevy of laughing attend-
ants, amid baskets, dressing-cases, and bird-cages, and
was fain to make his escape into the babel round, and
inquire his way to the patriarch’s house. s
‘‘ Patriarch’s house?” answered the man whom he first
addressed, a little lean, swarthy fellow, with merry black
Aſ VA’A 774. 77
eyes, who with a basket of fruit at his feet was sunning
himself on a balk of timber, meditatively chewing the
papyrus cane, and examining the strangers with a look of
absurd sagacity. “I know it ; without a doubt I know it ;
all Alexandria has good reason to know it. Are you a
monk?”
* * Yes.” -
“Then ask your way of the monks ; you won’t go far
without finding one.”
“But I do not even know the right direction. What is
your grudge against monks, my good man P”
“Look here, my youth : you seem too ingenuous for a
monk. Don’t flatter yourself that it will last. If you can
wear the sheepskin, and haunt the churches here for a
month without learning to lie, and slander, and hoot, and
perhaps play your part in a sedition-and-murder satyric
drama—why, you are a better man than I take you for.
I, sir, am a Greek, and a philosopher ; though the whirl-
pool of matter may have, and indeed has, involved my
ethereal spark in the body of a porter. Therefore, youth,”
continued the little man, starting up upon his balk like an
excited monkey and stretching out one oratoric paw, “I
bear a treble hatred to the monkish tribe. First, as a man
and a husband ; . . . for as for the smiles of beauty, or
otherwise—such as I have, I have ; and the monks, if they
had their wicked will, would leave neither men nor women
in the world. Sir, they would exterminate the human race
in a single generation by a voluntary suicide! Secondly,
as a porter ; for if all men turned monks, nobody would
be idle, and the profession of portering would be anni-
hilated. Thirdly, sir, as a philosopher ; for as the false
coin is odious to the true, so is the irrational and animal
asceticism of the monk to the logical and methodic self-
restraint of one who, like your humblest of philosophers,
aspires to a life according to the pure reason.”
“And pray,” asked Philammon, half-laughing, “who
has been your tutor in philosophy?”
“The fountain of classic wisdom, Hypatia herself. As
the ancient sage—the name is unimportant to a monk—
pumped water nightly that he might study by day, so I,
the guardian of cloaks and parasols, at the Sacred doors of
78 A/YA-A 7T/4.
her lecture-room, imbibe celestial knowledge. From my
youth I felt in me a soul above the matter-entangled herd.
She revealed to me the glorious fact, that I am a spark Of
divinity itself. A fallen star, I am, sir!” continued he,
pensively, stroking his lean stomach—“a fallen Star!
fallen, if the dignity of philosophy will allow of the simile,
among the hogs of the lower world—indeed, even into the
hog-bucket itself. Well, after all, I will show you the
way to the archbishop's. There is a philosophic pleasure
in Opening one's treasures to the modest young. Perhaps
you will assist me by carrying this basket of fruit?” And
the little man jumped up, put his basket on Philammon's
head, and trotted off up a neighboring street.
Philammon followed, half-contemptuous, half-wonder-
ing at what this philosophy might be which could feed
the self-conceit of anything so abject as his ragged little
apish guide ; but the novel roar and whirl of the street,
the perpetual stream of busy faces, the line of curricles,
palanquins, laden asses, camels, elephants, which met and
passed him, and squeezed him up steps and into doorways,
as they threaded their way through the great Moon gate
into the ample street beyond, drove everything from his
mind but wondering curiosity, and a vague, helpless dread
of that great living wilderness, more terrible than any dead
wilderness of sand which he had left behind. Already he
longed for the repose, the silence of the Laura—for faces
which knew him and smiled upon him ; but it was too late
to turn back now. His guide held on for more than a mile
up the great main street, crossed in the centre of the city,
at right angles, by one equally magnificent, at each end of
which, miles away, appeared, dim and distant over the
heads of the living stream of passengers, the yellow sand-
hills of the desert; while at the end of the vista in front of
them gleamed the blue harbor, through a network of
countless masts. *
At last they reached the quay at the opposite end of the
street ; and there burst on Philammon's astonished eyes a
vast semicircle of blue sea, fringed with palaces and
towers . . . He stopped involuntarily, and his little guide
stopped also and looked askance at the young monk, to watch
the effect which the great panorama should produce on him.
Aſ VP4 7/4. 79
“There! Behold our works! Us Greeks! us benighted
heathens! Look at it and feel yourself what you are, a
very small, conceited, ignorant young person, who fancies
that your religion gives you a right to despise everyone
else. Did Christians make all this? Did Christians build
that Pharos there on the left horn—wonder of the world?
Did Christians raise that mile-long mole which runs
toward the land, with its two draw-bridges, connecting the
two ports? Did Christians build that esplanade, or this
gate of the Sun above our heads? Or that Caesareum on
Our right here? Look at those obelisks before it!” And
he pointed upward to those two world-famous ones, one
of which still lies on its ancient site, as Cleopatra's needle.
“Look up! look up, I say, and feel small, very small
indeed! Did Christians raise them, or engrave them from
base to point with the wisdom of the ancients? Did
Christians build that museum next to it, or design its
statues and its frescoes—now, alas! re-echoing no more to
the hummings of the Attic bee? Did they pile up out of
the waves that palace beyond it, or that exchange; or fill
that Temple of Neptune with breathing brass and blushing
marble? Did they build that Timonium on the point,
where Anthony, worsted at Actium, forgot his shame in
Cleopatra's arms? Did they quarry out that Island of
Antirrhodus into a nest of docks, or cover those waters
with the sails of every nation under heaven? Speak!
Thou son of bats and moles—thou six feet of sand—thou
mummy Out of the cliff caverns! Can monks do works
like these P” : - -
‘‘ Other men have labored, and we have entered into
their labors,” answered Philammon, trying to seem as
unconcerned as he could. He was, indeed, too utterly
astonished to be angry at anything. The overwhelming vast-
ness, multiplicity, and magnificence of the whole scene ;
the range of buildings, such as mother earth never, per-
haps, carried on her lap before or since, the extraordinary
variety of form—the pure Doric and Ionic of the earlier
Ptolemies, the barbaric and confused gorgeousness of the
later Roman, and here and there an imitation of the grand
elephantic style of old Egypt, its gaudy colors relieving,
while they deepened, the effect of its massive and simple
8O - Aſ VPA 7TWA.
outlines ; the eternal repose of that great belt of stone
contrasting with the restless ripple of the glittering
harbor, and the busy sails which crowded out into the sea
beyond, like white doves taking their flight into boundless
space—all dazzled, overpowered, saddened him. . . .
This was the world. . . . This was the world. . . . Was
it not beautiful? . . . Must not men who made all this
have been—if not great . . . yet . . . he knew not what?
Surely they had great souls and noble thoughts in them!
Surely there was something godlike in being able to create
such things! Not for themselves alone, too : but for a
nation—for generations yet unborn. . . . And there was
the sea . . . and beyond it nations of men innumerable.
. . . His imagination was dizzy thinking of them. . . .
Were they all doomed—lost? . . . Had God no love for
them P
At last, recovering himself, he recollected his errand,
and again asked his way to the archbishop's house.
“This way, O youthful nonentity!” answered the little
man, leading the way to the great front of the Caesareum,
at the foot of the obelisks. . .
Philammon’s eyes fell on some new masonry in the pedi-
ment, ornamented with Christian symbols.
‘‘How P Is this a church P”
“It is the Caesareum. It has become temporarily a
church. The immortal gods have, for the time being,
Condescended to waive their rights; but it is the Caesareum,
nevertheless. This way; down this street to the right.
There,” said he, pointing to the doorway in the side of the
museum, “is the last haunt of the Muses—the lecture-
room of Hypathia, the school of my unworthiness. . . .
And here,” stopping at the door of a splendid house on
the opposite side of the street, “is the residence of that
blessed favorite of Athene—Neith, as the barbarians of
Egypt would denominate the goddess—we men of Mace-
donia retain the time-honored Grecian nomenclature. . . .
You may put down your basket.” And he knocked at the
door, and delivering the fruit to a black porter, made a
polite obeisance to Philammon, and seemed on the point
of taking his departure. ---
“But where is the archbishop's house?”
Aſ VPA 7T/A. 8I
“Close to the Serapeium. You cannot miss the place ;
four hundred columns of marble, now ruined by Christian
persecutors, stand on an eminence—”
* * But how far off?”
“About three miles; near the gate of the Moon.”
“Why, was not that the gate by which we entered the
city on the other side?” -
“Exactly so ; you will know your way back, having
already traversed it.”
Philammon checked a decidedly carnal inclination to
seize the little fellow by the throat, and knock his head
against the wall, and contented himself by saying :
“Then do you actually mean to say, you heathen
villain, that you have taken me six or seven miles out of
my road?”
“Good words, young man. If you do me harm, I call
for help ; we are close to the Jews’ quarter, and there are
Some thousands there who will swarm out like wasps on
the chance of beating a monk to death. Yet that which I
have done, I have done with a good purpose. First,
politically, or according to practical wisdom—in order that
you, not I, might carry the basket. Next, philosophically,
or according to the intuitions of the pure reason—in order
that you might, by beholding the magnificence of that
great civilization which your fellows wish to destroy, learn
that you are an ass, and a tortoise, and a nonentity, and so
beholding yourself to be nothing, may be moved to become
something.”
And he moved off.
Philammon seized him by the collar of his ragged tunic
and held him in a grip from which the little man, though
he twisted like an eel, could not escape.
“Peaceably, if you will, if not, by main force. You
shall go back with me, and show me every step of the way.
It is a just penalty.”
“The philosopher conquers circumstances by submitting
to them. I go peaceably. Indeed, the base necessities of
the hog-bucket side of existence compel me of themselves
back to the Moon gate, for another early fruit job.”
So they went back together.
Now, why Philammon's thoughts should have been
82 A YPATIA.
running on the next new specimen of womankind to whom
he had been introduced, though only in name, let psycholo-
gists tell, but certainly, after he had walked some half-mile
in silence, he suddenly woke up, as out of many medita
tions, and asked : .
“But who is this Hypatia, of whom you talk so much?”
“Who is Hypatia, rustic? The queen of Alexandria!
In wit, Athene ; Hera in majesty; in beauty, Aphrodite!”
“And who are they?” asked Philammon.
The porter stopped, surveyed him slowly from foot to
head with an expression of boundless pity and contempt,
and was in the act of walking off in the ecstasy of his dis-
dain, when he was brought to suddenly by Philammon's
Strong arm. *
“Ah! I recollect. There is a compact. . . . Who is
Athene? The goddess, giver of wisdom. Hera, spouse
of Zeus, queen of the Celestials. Aphrodite, the mother
of love. . . . You are not expected to understand.” .
Philammon did understand, however, so much as this,
that Hypatia was a very unique and wonderful person in
the mind of his little guide ; and therefore asked the only
further question by which he could as yet test any
Alexandrian phenomenon : -
“And is she a friend of the patriarch?”
The porter opened his eyes very wide, put his middle
finger in a careful and complicated fashion between his fore
and third finger, and, extending it playfully toward
Philammon, performed there with certain mysterious
signals, the effect whereof being totally lost on him, the
little man stopped, took another look at Philammon's
stately figure, and answered : *
“Of the human race in general, my young friend. The
philosopher must rise above the individual, to the contem-
plation of the universal. . . . Aha, here is something
worth seeing, and the gates are open.” And he stopped
at the portal of a vast building.
‘‘Is this the patriarch's house?”
‘‘The patriarch’s tastes are more plebeian. He lives,
they say, in two dirty little rooms—knowing what is fit for
him. The patriarch's house? Its antipodes, my young
friend—that is, if such beings have a cosmic existence, on
ATVA’A 7TWA. 83
which point Hypatia has her doubts. This is the temple
of art and beauty; the Delphic tripod of poetic inspiration;
the solace of the earthworn drudge ; in a word, the theatre;
which your patriarch, if he could, would convert tomorrow
into a-but the philosopher must not revile. Ah! I see
the prefect’s apparitors at the gate. He is making the
polity, as we call it here ; the dispositions; settling, in
short, the bill of fare for the day, in compliance with the
public palate. A facetious pantomime dances here on this
day every week—admired by some, the Jews especially.
To the more classic taste, many of his movements—his
recoil especially—are wanting in the true antique
severity—might be called, perhaps, on the whole, indecent.
Still the weary pilgrim must be amused. Let us step in
and hear.”
But before Philammon could refuse, an uproar arose
within, a rush outward of the mob, and inward of the
prefect’s apparitors. - -
“It is false!” shouted many voices. “A Jewish calumny!
The man is innocent.” - -
“There's no more sedition in him than there is in me!”
roared a fat butcher, who looked as ready to fell a man as
an ox. “He was always the first and the last to clap the
holy patriarch at sermon.”
“Dear tender soul,” whimpered a woman ; “and I said
to him only this morning, why don’t you flog my boys,
Master Hierax ; how can you expect them to learn if they
are not flogged? And he said he never could abide the
sight of a rod, it made his back tingle so.”
“Which was plainly a prophecy!”
“And proves him innocent ; for how could he prophesy
if he was not one of the holy ones?” -
“Monks, to the rescue! Hierax, a Christian, is taken
and tortured in the theatre!” thundered a wild hermit, his
beard and hair streaming about his chest and shoulders.
“‘ Nitria! Nitria! For God and the mother of God,
monks of Nitria! Down with the Jewish slanderers!
Down with heathen tyrants!” And the mob, reinforced as
if by magic by hundreds from without, swept down the
huge vaulted passage, carrying Philammon and the porter
with them, -
84 - Aſ VPA 77.4.
“My friends,” quoth the little man, trying to look
philosophically calm, though he was fairly off his legs, and
hanging between heaven and earth on the elbows of the
bystanders, “whence this tumult?” -
“The Jews got up a cry that Hierax wanted to raise a
riot. Curse them and their Sabbath, they are always riot-
ing On Saturdays about this dancer of theirs, instead of
working like honest Christians!”
“And rioting on Sunday instead. Ahem! sectarian
differences, which the philosopher 2 3
The rest of the sentence disappeared with the speaker,
as a sudden opening of the mob let him drop, and buried
him under innumerable legs.
Philammon, furious at the notion of persecution,
maddened by cries around him, found himself bursting
fiercely through the crowd, till he reached the front ranks,
where tall gates of open iron-work barred all further
progress, but left a full view of the tragedy which was
enacting within, where the poor innocent wretch,
suspended from a gibbet, writhed and shrieked at every
stroke of the hide-whips of his tormentors.
In vain Philammon and the monks around him knocked
and beat at the gates ; they were only answered by laughter
and taunts from the apparitors within, curses on the
turbulent mob of Alexandria, with its patriarch, clergy,
saints, and churches, and promises to each and all outside
that their turn would come next, while the piteous screams
grew fainter and more faint, and at last with a convulsive
shudder, motion and suffering ceased forever in the poor
mangled body.
“They have killed him! Martyred him! Back to the arch-
bishop! To the patriarch's house : he will avenge us!”
And as the horrible news, and the watchword which
followed it, passed outward through the crowd, they
wheeled round as one man, and poured through street after
street toward Cyril's house, while Philammon, beside him-
self with horror, rage and pity, hurried onward with them.
A tumultuous hour or more was passed in the street,
before he could gain entrance ; and then he was swept
along with the mob in which he had been fast wedged,
through a dark low passage, and landed breathless in a
Aſ VPA 7/A. 85
quadrangle of mean and new buildings, overhung by the
four hundred stately columns of the ruined Serapeium.
The grass was already growing on the ruined capitals and
architraves. . . . Little did even its destroyers dream then
that the day would come when one only of that four
hundred would be left, as “Pompey's Pillar,” to show
what the men of old could think and do.
Philammon at last escaped from the crowd, and putting
the letter which he had carried in his bosom into the hands
of one of the priests who was mixing with the mob, was
beckoned by him into a corridor, and up a flight of stairs,
and into a large, low, mean room, and there, by virtue of
the world-wide freemasonry which Christianity had, for
the first time on earth, established, found himself in five
minutes awaiting the summons of the most powerful man
south of the Mediterranean.
A curtain hung across the door of the inner chamber,
through which Philammon could hear plainly the steps of
someone walking up and down hurriedly and fiercely.
“They will drive me to it!” at last burst out a deep
sonorous voice. “They will drive me to it. . . . Their
blood be on their own head It is not enough for them
to blaspheme God and His church, to have the monopoly
of all the cheating, fortune-telling, usury, sorcery and
coining of the city, but they must deliver my clergy into
the hands of the tyrant!”
“It was so even in the apostles' time,” suggested a softer,
but far more unpleasant voice.
“Then it shall be so no longer! God has given me the
power to stop them ; and God do so to me, and more also,
if I do not use that power. Tomorrow I sweep out this
Augean stable of villainy, and leave not a Jew to blaspheme
and cheat in Alexandria.”
‘‘I am afraid such a judgment, however righteous, might
offend his excellency.”
“His excellency! His tyranny! Why does Orestes
truckle to these circumcised, but because they lend money
to him and to his creatures? He would keep up a den of
fiends in Alexandria if they would do as much for him
And then to play them off against me and mine, to bring
religion into contempt by setting the mob together by the
86 - Aſ VPA 7/4
ears, and to end with outrages like this. Seditious? Have
they not cause enough? The sooner I remove one of their
temptations the better; let the other tempter beware lest
his judgment be at hand l’”
“The prefect, your holiness?” asked the other voice,
slyly. -
“Who spoke of the prefect? Whosoever is a tyrant,
and a murderer, and an oppressor of the poor, and a
favorer of the philosophy which despises and enslaves the
poor, should not he perish, though he be seven times a
prefect?”
At this juncture Philammon, thinking perhaps that he
had already heard too much, notified his presence by some
slight noise, at which the secretary, as he seemed to be,
hastily lifted the curtain, and somewhat sharply demanded
his business. The names of Pambo and Arsenius, how-
ever, seemed to pacify him at once ; and the trembling
youth was ushered into the presence of him who in reality,
though not in name, sat on the throne of the Pharaohs.
Not, indeed, in their outward pomp ; the furniture of
the chamber was but a grade above that of the artisan's;
the dress of the great man was coarse and simple ; if
personal vanity peeped out anywhere, it was in the careful
arrangement of the bushy beard, and of the few curling
locks which the tonsure had spared. But the height and
majesty of his figure, the stern and massive beauty of his
features, the flashing eye, curling lip, and projecting brow
—all marked him as one born to command. As the youth
entered, Cyril stopped short in his walk, and looking him
through and through, with a glance which burnt upon his
cheeks like fire, and made him all but wish the kindly
earth would open and hide him, took the letters, read
them, and then began :
‘‘ Philannmon. A Greek. You are said to have learned
to obey. If so you have also learned to rule. Your father-
abbot has transferred you to my tutelage. You are now to
obey me.”
** And I will.” -
“Well said. Go to that window, then, and leap into
the court.”
Philammon walked to it, and opened it. The pavement
A. VPA 7/A. - 87
was full twenty feet below; but his business was to obey,
and not take measurements. There was a flower in a vase
upon the sill. He quietly removed it, and in an instant
more would have leaped for life or death, when Cyril's
voice thundered “Stop!”
“The lad will pass, my Peter. I shall not be afraid
now for the secrets which he may have overheard.”
Peter smiled assent, looking all the while as if he
thought it a great pity that the young man had not been
allowed to put tale-bearing out of his own power by break-
ing his neck.
“You wish to see the world. Perhaps you have seen
something of it today.”
“I saw the murder *
“Then you saw that you come hither to see : what the
world is, and what justice and mercy it can deal out. You
would not dislike to see God’s reprisals to man's tyranny?
Or to be a fellow-worker with God therein, if I judge
rightly by your looks?”
‘‘I would avenge that man.”
“Ah! my poor simple schoolmaster! And his fate is the
portent of portents to you now! Stay awhile, till you
have gone with Ezekiel into the inner chambers of the
devil’s temple, and you will see worse things than these—
women weeping for Thammuz : bemoaning the decay of
an idolatry which they themselves disbelieve—that, too, is
on the list of Hercules’ labors, Peter mine.”
At this moment a deacon entered. . . . “Your holiness,
the rabbis of the accursed nation are below, at your sum-
mons. We brought them in through the back gate, for
fear of 7 y
“Right, right. An accident to them might have ruined
us. I shall not forget you. Bring them up. Peter, take
this youth, introduce him to the parabolani. . . . Who
will be the best man for him to work under P”
“The brother Theopompus is especially sober and
2 3
gentle.”
Cyril shook his head, laughing. . . . “Go into the next
room, my son. . . . No, Peter, put him under some fiery
saint, some true Boanerges, who will talk him down, and
work him to death, and show him the best and worst of
88 Aſ VPA 7/4.
everything. Cleitophon will be the man. Now then, let
me see my engagements: five minutes for these Jews—
Orestes did not choose to frighten them ; let us see whether
Cyril cannot ; then an hour to look over the hospital
accounts ; an hour for the schools; a half-hour for the
reserved cases of distress ; and another half-hour for
myself ; and then divine service. See that the boy is
there. Do bring in every one in their turn, Peter mine.
So much time goes in hunting for this man and that man—
and life is too short for all that. Where are these Jews?” and
Cyril plunged into the latter half of his day’s work with
that untiring energy, self-sacrifice and method which com-
manded for him, in spite of all suspicions of his violence,
ambition, and intrigue, the loving awe and implicit obedi-
ence of several hundred thousand human beings.
So Philammon went out with the parabolani, a sort of
organized guild of district visitors. . . . And in their com-
pany he saw that afternoon the dark side of that world,
whereof the harbor panorama had been the bright one. In
squalid misery, filth, profligacy, ignorance, ferocity, dis-
content, neglected in body, house and soul by the civil
authorities, proving their existence only in aimless and
sanguinary riots, there they starved and rotted, heap on
heap, the masses of the old Greek population, close to the
great food-exporting harbor of the world. Among these,
fiercely perhaps, and fanatically, but still among them and
for them, labored those district visitors night and day.
And so Philammon toiled away with them, carrying food
and clothing, helping sick to the hospital, and dead to the
burial ; cleaning out the infected houses—for the fever was
all but perennial in those quarters—and comforting the
dying with the good news of forgiveness from above, till
the larger number had to return for evening service. He,
however, was kept by his superior watching at a sick
bedside, and it was late at night before he got home, and
was reported to Peter the Reader as having acquitted
himself like “a man of God,” as, indeed, without the
least thought of doing anything noble or self-sacrificing,
he had truly done, being a monk. And so threw himself
on a truckle-bed, in one of the many cells which opened
off a long corridor, and fell fast asleep in a minute.
Aſ VPA 7/4. 89
He was just weltering about in a dreary dream-jumble
of Goths dancing with district visitors ; Pelagia as an
angel with peacocks' wings ; Hypatia with horns and
cloven feet, riding three hippopotami at once round the
theatre; Cyril standing at an open window, cursing fright-
fully, and pelting him with flower-pots ; and a similar self-
Sown after-crop of his day's impressions, when he was
awakened by the tramp of hurried feet in the street outside,
and shouts, which gradually, as he became conscious,
shaped themselves into cries of “Alexander’s church is
on fire! Help, good Christians! Fire! Help!” -
Whereat he sat up in his truckle-bed, tried to recollect
where he was, and having with some trouble succeeded,
threw on his sheepskin, and jumped up to ask the news
from the deacons and monks who were hurrying along the
corridor outside. “Yes, Alexander’s church was on fire ;”
and down the stairs they poured, across the courtyard, and
out into the street, Peter's tall figure serving as a standard
and a rallying point.
As they rushed out through the gateway, Philammon,
dazzled by the sudden transition from the darkness within
to the blaze of moon and starlight which flooded the
street, and walls, and shining roofs, hung back a moment.
The hesitation probably saved his life ; for in an instant
he saw a dark figure spring out of the shadow, a long knife
flashed across his eyes, and a priest next to him sank upon
the pavement with a groan, while the assassin dashed
off down the street, hotly pursued by monks and
parabolani.
Philammon, who ran like a desert Ostrich, had soon out-
stripped all but Peter, when several more dark figures
sprang out of doorways and corners, and joined, or seened
to join, the pursuit. Suddenly, however, after running a
hundred yards they drew up opposite the mouth of a side
street ; the assassin stopped also. Peter, suspecting
something wrong, slackened his pace, and caught Philam-
mon's arm.
“Do you see those fellows in the shadow?”
But before Philammon could answer, some thirty or
forty men, their daggers gleaming in the moonlight, moved
out into the middle of the street, and received the fugitives
QO A/YA-A 774
into their ranks. What was the meaning of it? Here was
a pleasant taste of the ways Of the most Christian and
civilized city of the empire. -
“Well,” thought Philammon, “I have come out to see
the world, and I seem, at this rate, to be likely to see
enough of it.”
Peter turned at once, and fled as quickly as he had
pursued ; while Philammon, considering discretion the
better part of valor, followed, and they rejoined their party
breathless.
“There is an armed mob at the end of the street.”
“Assassins!” “Jews!” “A conspiracy!” Up rose a
babel of doubtful voices. The foe appeared in sight,
advancing stealthily, and the whole party took to flight, ..
led once more by Peter, who seemed determined to make
free use, in behalf of his own safety, of the long legs which
nature had given him.
Philammon followed, sulkily and unwillingly, at a foot's
pace ; but he had not gone a dozen yards when a pitiable
voice at his feet called to him :
“Help! mercy! Do not leave me here to be murdered!
I am a Christian ; indeed I am a Christian!”
Philammon stooped, and lifted from the ground a
comely negro woman, weeping and shivering in a few
tattered remnants of clothing.
‘‘I ran out when they said the church was on fire,”
sobbed the poor creature, ‘‘ and the Jews beat and wounded
me. They tore my shawl and tunic off me before I could
get away from them ; and then Our Own people ran over
me and trod me down. And now my husband will beat
me if I ever get home. Quick! up the side street, or we
shall be murdered l’’
The armed men, whosoever they were, were close on
them. There was no time to be lost ; and Philammon,
assuring her that he would not desert her, hurried her up
the side street which she pointed out. But the pursuers
had caught sight of them, and while the mass held on up
the main street, three or four turned aside and gave chase.
The poor negress could only limp along, and Philammon,
unarmed, looked back, and saw the bright steel points
gleaming in the moonlight, and made up his mind to die
Aſ YAA 774. 91
as a monk should. Nevertheless, youth is hopeful. One
chance for life. He thrust the negress into a dark door-
way, where her color hid her well enough, and had just
time to ensconce himself behind a pillar, when the fore-
most pursuer reached him. He held his breath in fearful
Suspense. Should he be seen P He would not die without
a struggle at least. No! the fellow ran on, panting. But
in a minute more another came up, saw him suddenly, and
sprang aside startled. That start saved Philammon.
Quick as a cat he leaped upon him, felled him to the earth
with a single blow, tore the dagger from his hand, and
Sprang to his feet again just in time to strike his new
weapon full into the third pursuer's face. The man put
his hand to his head, and recoiled against a fellow-ruffian,
who was close on his heels. Philammon, flushed with
victory, took advantage of the confusion, and before the
worthy pair could recover, dealt them half a dozen blows
which, luckily for them, came from an unpractised hand,
or the young monk might have had more than one life to
answer for. As it was, they turned and limped off, cursing
in an unknown tongue; and Philammon found himself
triumphant and alone with the trembling negress and the
prostrate ruffian, who, stunned by the blow and the fall, lay
groaning on the pavement.
It was all over in a minute. . . . The negress was
kneeling under the gateway, pouring out her simple thanks
to heaven for this unexpected deliverance ; and Philammon
was about to kneel, too, when a thought struck him ; and
coolly despoiling the Jew of his shawl and sash, he handed
them over to the poor negress, considering them fairly
enough as his own by right of conquest ; but, lo and
behold! as she was overwhelming him with thanks, a fresh
mob poured into the street from the upper end, and were
close on them before they were aware. . . . A flush of
terror and despair, . . . and then a burst of joy as by
mingled moonlight and torchlight Philammon descried
priestly robes, and in the forefront of the battle—there
being no apparent danger—Peter the Reader, who seemed
to be anxious to prevent inquiry by beginning to talk as
fast as possible.
“Ah, boy! Safe? The saints be praised. We gave
92 Aſ VPA 77.4.
you up for dead! Whom have you there? A prisoner?
And we have another. He ran right into our arms up the
street, and the Lord delivered him into our hand. He
must have passed you.”
“So he did,” said Philammon, dragging up his captive,
“ and here is his fellow-scoundrel.” Wherein the two
worthies were speedily tied together by the elbows; and
the party marched on once more in search of Alexander’s
church and the supposed conflagration. -
Philammon looked round for the negress, but she had
vanished. He was far too much ashamed of being known
to have been alone with a woman to say anything about
her. Yet he longed to see her again ; an interest—even
Something like an affection—had already sprung up in his
heart toward the poor simple creature whom he had
delivered from death. Instead of thinking her ungrateful
for not staying to tell what he had done for her, he was
thankful to her for having saved his blushes by disappear-
ing so opportunely. . . . And he longed to tell her so—to
know if she was hurt—to O Philammonſ only four
days from the Laura, and a whole regiment of women
acquaintances already! True, Providence having sent into
the world about as many women as men, it may be difficult
to keep out of their way altogether. Perhaps, too, Provi-
dence may have intended them to be of some use to that
other sex, with whom it has so mixed them up. Don’t
argue, poor Philammon ; Alexander’s church is on fire!
forward! º
And so they hurried on, a confused mass of monks and
populace, with their hapless prisoners in the centre, who,
hauled, cuffed, questioned and cursed by twenty self-
elected inquisitors at once, thought fit, either from Jewish
obstinacy or sheer bewilderment, to give no account
whatsoever of themselves. -
As they turned the corner of a street, the folding-doors of
a large gateway rolled open ; a long lane of glittering
figures poured across the road, dropped their spear-butts
on the pavement with a single rattle, and remained
motionless. The front rank of the mob recoiled, and an
awe-struck whisper ran through them. . . . “The Sta-
tionaries 1’’
Aſ YAA 7T/A. 93
“Who are they?” asked Philammon, in a whisper.
“The soldiers—the Roman soldiers,” answered a
whisperer to him. -
Philammon, who was among the leaders, had recoiled
too—he hardly knew why—at that stern apparition. His
next instinct was to press forward as close as he dared. . . .
And these were Roman soldiers! the conquerors of the
world! the men whose name had thrilled him from his
childhood with vague awe and admiration, dimly heard of
up there in the lonly Laura. . . . Roman soldiers! And
here he was face to face with them at last!
His curiosity received a sudden check, however, as he
found his arm seized by an officer, as he took him to be
from the gold ornaments on his helmet and cuirass, who
lifted his vinestock threateningly over the young monk’s
head and demanded :
“What’s all this about? Why are you not quietly in
your beds, you Alexandrian rascals?” -
“Alexander’s church is on fire,” answered Philammon,
thinking the shortest answer the wisest.
“So much the better.”
“And the Jews are murdering the Christians.”
“Fight it out, then. Turn in, men ; it's only a riot.”
And the steel-clad apparition suddenly flashed round
and vanished, trampling and jingling, into the dark jaws of
the guard-house gate, while the stream, its temporary
barrier removed, rushed on wilder than ever.
Philammon hurried on, too, with them, not without a
strange feeling of disappointment. “Only a riot!” Peter
was chuckling to his brothers over their cleverness in
“having kept the prisoners in the middle, and stopped the
rascals' mouths till they were past the guard-house.” “A
fine thing to boast of,” thought Philammon, “in the face
of the men who make and unmake kings and Caesars!”
“Only a riot!” He, and the corps of district visitors—
whom he fancied the most august body on earth—and
Alexander's church, Christians murdered by Jews, persecu-
tion of the Catholic faith, and all the rest of it, was simply,
then, not worth the notice of those forty men, alone and
secure in the sense of power and discipline, among tens of
thousands. . . . He hated them, those soldiers. Was it
94. Aſ VPA 774.
because they were indifferent to the cause of the
church? . . . or because they were indifferent to the
cause of which he was inclined to think himself a not
unimportant member, on the strength of his late Samsonic
defeat of Jewish persecutors? At least, he obeyed the
little porter's advice, and “felt very small indeed.”
And he felt smaller still, being young and alive to
ridicule, when at some sudden ebb or flow, wave or wave-
let of the babel sea, which weltered up and down every
street, a shrill female voice informed them from an upper
window that Alexander's church was not on fire at all ;
that she had gone to the top of the house, as they might
have gone, if they had not been fools etc., etc.; and that it
“looked as safe and as ugly as ever;” where with a brick-
bat or two having been sent up in answer, she shut the
blinds, leaving them to halt, inquire, discover gradually
and piecemeal—after the method of mobs, they had been
following the nature of mobs—that no one had seen the
church on fire, or seen anyone else who had seen the same,
or even seen any light in the sky in any quarter, or knew
who raised the cry ; or—or—in short, Alexander’s church
was two miles off; if it was on fire, it was either burnt
down or saved by this time ; if not, the night-air was, to
say the least, chilly ; and, whether it was or not, there
were ambuscades of Jews—Satan only knew how strong—
in every street between them and it. . . . Might it not be
better to secure their two prisoners, and then ask for
further orders from the archbishop? Where with, after the
manner of mobs, they melted off the way they came, by
twos and threes, till those of a contrary opinion began to
find themselves left alone, and having a strong dislike to
Jewish daggers, were fain to follow the stream. -
With a panic or two, a cry of “The Jews are on us!”
and a general rush in every direction (in which one or two,
seeking shelter from the awful nothing in the neighboring
houses, were handed over to the watch as burglars, and
sent to the quarries accordingly), they reached the
Serapeium, and there found, of course, a counter-mob
collected to inform them that they had been taken in—that
Alexander's church had never been on fire at all—that the
Jews had murdered a thousand Christians at least, though
A VAZA 7TWA. 95
three dead bodies, including the poor priest who lay in
the house within, were all of the thousand who had yet
been seen—and that the whole Jews' quarter was marching
upon them. At which news it was considered advisable
to retreat into the archbishop's house as quickly as possi-
ble, barricade the doors and prepare for a siege—a work
at which Philammon performed prodigies, tearing wood-
work from the rooms, and stones from the parapets,
, before it struck some of the sober-minded that it was as
well to wait for some more decided demonstration of attack
before incurring so heavy a carpenter's bill for repairs.
At last the heavy tramp of footsteps was heard coming
down the street, and every window was crowded in an
instant with eager heads, while Peter rushed downstairs to
heat the large coppers, having some experience in the
defensive virtues of boiling water. The bright moon
glittered on a long line of helmets and cuirasses. Thank
Heaven! it was the soldiery.
“Are the Jews coming?” “Is the city quiet?” “Why
did not you prevent the villainy?” “A thousand citizens
murdered while you have been snoring !”—and a volley of
similar ejaculations greeted the soldiers as they passed, and
were answered by a cool—“To your perches and sleep,
you noisy chickens, or we'll set the coop on fire about your
ears.” -
A yell of defiance answered this polite speech, and the
soldiery, who knew perfectly well that the unarmed ecclesi-
astics within were not to be trified with, and had no ambi-
tion to die by coping-stones and hot water, went quickly
on their way.
All danger was now past ; and the cackling rose jubilant,
louder than ever, and might have continued till daylight,
had not a window in the courtyard been suddenly thrown
open, and the awful voice of Cyril commanded silence.
“Every man sleep where he can. I shall want you at
daybreak. The superiors of the parabolani are to come
up to me with the two prisoners, and the men who took
them.” -
In a few minutes Philammon found himself, with some
twenty others, in the great man's presence : he was sitting
at his desk writing quietly small notes on slips of paper.
96 A/YA-A 7TWA.
“Here is the youth who helped me to pursue the
murderer, and having outrun me, was attacked by the
prisoners,” said Peter. “My hands are clean from blood,
I thank the Lord!”
“Three set on me with daggers,” said Philammon
apologetically, “ and I was forced to take this one's dagger
away, and beat off the two others with it.”
Cyril smiled, and shook his head.
“Thou art a brave boy; but hast thou not read, ‘If a
man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other?’”
‘‘I could not run away, as Master Peter and the rest
did.”
“So you ran away, eh, my worthy friend?”
“Is it not written,” asked Peter, in his blandest tone,
“If they persecute you in one city, flee unto another?’”
Cyril smiled again. “And why could not you run away,
bov P”
Fiammon blushed scarlet, but he dared not lie.
“There was a-a poor black woman, wounded and trodden
down, and I dare not leave her, for she told me she was a
Christian.” -
“Right, my son, right. I shall remember this. What
was her name?” .*
“I did not hear it. Stay, I think she said Judith.”
“Ah! the wife of the porter who stands at the lecture-
room, which God confound ! A devout woman, full of
good works, and sorely ill-treated by her heathen husband.
Peter, thou shalt go to her tomorrow with the physician,
and see if she is in need of anything. Boy, thou hast done
well. Cyril never forgets. Now bring up those Jews.
Their rabbis were with me two hours ago promising peace :
and this is the way they have kept their promise. So be
it. The wicked is snared in his own wickedness.”
The Jews were brought in, but kept a stubborn silence.
“Your holiness perceives,” said some one, “that they
have each of them rings of green palm-bark on their right
hand.”
“A very dangerous sign! An evident conspiracy!” com-
mented Peter.
“Ah ! What does that mean, you rascals? Answer
me, as you value your lives.”
ATVA’A 7TWA. 97
“You have no business with us : we are Jews, and none
of your people,” said one, sulkily.
“None of my people? You have murdered my people!
None of my people? Every soul in Alexandria is mine, if
the kingdom of God means anything ; and you shall find it
out. I shall not argue with you, my good friends, any
more than I did with your rabbis. Take these fellows
away, Peter, and lock them up in the fuel-cellar, and see
that they are guarded. If any man lets them go, his life
shall be for the life of them.”
And the two worthies were led out.
“Now, my brothers, here are your orders. You will
divide these notes among yourselves, and distribute them
to trusty and godly Catholics in your districts. Wait one
hour, till the city be quiet, and then start and raise the
church. I must have thirty thousand men by Sunrise.”
“What for, your holiness?” asked a dozen voices.
“Read your notes. Whosoever will fight tomorrow
under the banner of the Lord, shall have free plunder of
the Jews' quarter, outrage and murder only forbidden. As
I have said it, God do so to me, and more also, if there be
a Jew left in Alexandria by tomorrow at noon. Go.”
And the staff of orderlies filed out, thanking Heaven
that they had a leader so prompt and valiant, and spent
the next hour over the hall fire, eating millet cakes, drink-
ing bad beer, likening Cyril to Barak, Gideon, Samson,
Jephtha, Judas Maccabeus, and all the worthies of the
Old Testament, and then started on their pacific errand.
Philammon was about to follow them, when Cyril
stopped him.
“Stay, my son : you are young and rash, and do not
know the city. Lie down here and sleep in the ante-
room. Three hours hence the sun rises, and we go forth
against the enemies of the Lord.”
Philammon threw himself on the floor in a corner, and
slumbered like a child, till he was awakened in the gray
dawn by one of the parabolani.
“Up, boy! and see what we can do. Cyril goes down
greater than Barak the son of Abinoam, not with ten, but
with thirty thousand men at his feet!” -
“Ay, my brothers!” said Cyril, as he passed proudly
98 Aſ VA’A 774.
out in full pontificials, with a gorgeous retinue of priests
and deacons, “the Catholic Church has her organization,
her unity, her common cause, her watchwords, such as the
tyrants of the earth, in their weakness and their divisions,
may envy and tremble at, but cannot imitate. Could
Orestes raise, in three hours, thirty thousand men who
would die for him?”
“As we will for you!” shouted many voices.
“Say for the kingdom of God.” And he passed out.
And so ended Philammon's first day in Alexandria.
CHAPTER VI.
THE NEW DIOGENES.
ABOUT five o'clock the next morning, Raphael Aben-
Ezra was lying in bed, alternately yawning over a manu-
script of Philo Judaeus, pulling the ears of his huge British
mastiff, watching the sparkle of the fountain in the court
outside, wondering when that lazy boy would come to tell
him that the bath was warmed, and meditating half-
aloud. . . .
“Alas! poor me! Here I am, back again—just at the
point from which I started! . . . How am I to get free
from that heathen siren? Plagues on her! I shall end by
falling in love with her. . . . I don’t know that I have not
got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly
glad the other day when that fool told me he dare not
accept her modest offer. Ha! haſ A delicious joke it
would have been to have seen Orestes bowing down to
stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed in the ruins of
the Serapeium, as High Priestess of the Abomination of
Desolationſ . . . And now. . . . Well, I call all heaven
and earth to witness, that I have fought valiantly. I have
faced naughty little Eros like a man, rod in hand. What
could a poor human being do more than to try to marry
her to someone else, in hopes of sickening himself of the
whole matter? Well, every moth has its candle, and every
man his destiny. But the daring of the little fool! What
huge imagination she has! She might be another Zenobia
now, with Orestes as Odenatus, and Raphael Aben-Ezra
to play the part of Longinus . . . and receive Longinus’
salary of axe or poison. She don’t care for me: she would
sacrifice me, or a thousand of me, the cold-blooded fanati-
cal archangel that she is, to water with our blood the
foundation of some new temple of cast rags and broken
dolls. . . . O Raphael Aben-Ezra, what a fool you are!
. . . You know you are going off as usual to her lecture,
this very morning!”
99
IOO Aſ YAA 7T/4.
At this crisis of his confession the page entered, and
announced, not the bath, but Miriam,
The old woman, who, in virtue of her profession, had
the private entry of all fashionable chambers in Alex-
andria, came in hurriedly ; and instead of seating herself as
usual for a gossip, renained standing, and motioned the
boy Out of the room.
“Well, my sweet mother? Sit. Ah, I see! You rascal,
you have brought in no wine for the lady. Don’t you
know her little ways yet?”
‘‘EOs has got it at the door, of course,” answered the
boy with a saucy air of offended virtue.
“Out with you, imp of Satan!” cried Miriam. “ This
is no time for wine-bibbing. Raphael Aben-Ezra, why
are you lying here? Did you not receive a note last
night?”
“A note? So I did, but I was too sleepy to read it.
There it lies. Boy, bring it here. . . . What's this? A
scrap out of Jeremiah? “Arise, and flee for thy life, for
evil is determined against the whole house of Israel!’
Does this come from the chief rabbi P I always took the
Venerable father for a sober man. . . . Eh, Miriam P”
“Fool! instead of laughing at the sacred words of the
prophets, get up and obey them. I sent you the note.”
“Why can’t I obey them in bed P. Here I am reading
hard at the Cabbala, or Philo—who is stupider still—and
what more would you have?”
The old woman, unable to restrain her impatience, liter-
ally ran at him, gnashing her teeth, and, before he was
aware, dragged him out of bed on the floor, where he
stood meekly wondering what would come next.
“Many thanks, mother, for having saved me the one
daily torture of life—getting out of bed by one's own exer-
tion.”
“Raphael Aben-Ezra! are you so besotted with your
philosophy, and your heathenry, and your laziness, and
your contempt for God and man, that you will see your
nation given up for a prey, and your wealth plundered by
heathen dogs? I tell you, Cyril has sworn that God shall
do so to him, and more also, if there be a Jew left in
Alexandria by tomorrow this time.”
A/YAA 7/4. IOT
“So much the better for the Jews, then, if they are half
as tired of this noisy pandemonium as I am. But how can
I help it? Am I Queen Esther, to go to Ahasuerus ºthere
in the prefect's palace, and get him to hold out the golden
sceptre to me?”
“Fool! if you had read that note last night, you might
have gone and saved us, and your name would have been
handed down forever from generation to generation as a
second Mordecai.”
“My dear mother, Ahasuerus would have been either
fast asleep, or far too drunk to listen to me. Why did you
not go yourself?”
“Do you suppose that I would not have gone if I could?
Do you fancy me a sluggard like yourself? At the risk of
my life I have got hither in time, if there be time to save
you.”
“Well, shall I dress? What can be done now?”
“Nothing! The streets are blockaded by Cyril's mob-
there! do you hear the shouts and screams? They are
attacking the further part of the quarter already.”
“What! are they murdering them?” asked Raphael,
throwing on his pelisse. “Because, if it has really come
to a practical joke of that kind, I shall have the greatest
pleasure in employing a counter-irritant. Here, boy! my
sword and dagger! Quick!”
“No, the hypocrites! No blood is to be shed, they say,
if we make no resistance, and let them pillage. Cyril and
his monks are there, to prevent outrage and so forth. . . .
The angel of the Lord scatter them l’’
The conversation was interrupted by the rushing in of
the whole household, in an agony of terror ; and Raphael,
at last thoroughly roused, went to a window which looked
into the street. The thoroughfare was full of scolding
women and screaming children; while men, old and young,
looked on at the plunder of their property with true
Jewish doggedness, too prudent to resist, but too manful
to complain ; while furniture came flying out of every
window, and from door after door poured a stream of
rascality, carrying off money, jewels, silks, and all the
treasures which Jewish usury had accumulated during
many a generation. But unmoved amid the roaring sea of
ÍO2 Aſ VPA 77.4.
plunderers and plundered, stood, scattered up and down,
Cyril's spiritual police, enforcing, by a word, an obedience
which the Roman soldiers could only have compelled by
hard blows of the spear-butt. There was to be no outrage,
and no outrage there was ; and more than once some man
in priestly robes hurried through the crowd, leading by the
hand, tenderly enough, a lost child in search of its
parents. -
Raphael stood watching silently, while Miriam, who had
followed him upstairs, paced the room in an ecstasy of
rage, Calling vainly to him to speak or act.
‘‘Let me alone, mother,” he said, at last. “It will be
full ten minutes more before they pay me a visit, and in
the meantime what can one do better than watch the pro-
gress of this, the little exodus?” -
“Not like the first one! Then we went forth with
cymbals and songs to the Red Sea triumph! Then we bor-
rowed, every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and
jewels of gold, and raiment.”
“And now we pay them back again; . . . it is but fair,
after all. We ought to have listened to Jeremiah a
thousand years ago, and never gone back again, like fools,
into a country to which we were so deeply in debt.”
“Accursed land I’’ cried Miriam. “In an evil hour our
forefathers disobeyed the prophet ; and now we reap the
harvest of our sins! Our sons have forgotten the faith of
their forefathers for the philosophy of the Gentiles, and
fill their chambers”—with a contemptuous look round—
“with heathen imagery : and our daughters are—look
there!” -
As she spoke a beautiful girl rushed shrieking out of an
adjoining house, followed by some half-drunk ruffian, who
was clutching at the gold chains and trinkets with which
she was profusely bedecked, after the fashion of Jewish
women. The rascal had just seized with one hand her
streaming black tresses, and with the other a heavy collar
of gold, which was wound round her throat, when a priest
stepping up, laid a quiet hand upon his shoulder. The
fellow, too maddened to obey, turned and struck back the
restraining arm . . . and in an instant was felled to the
earth by a young monk. . . .
Aſ VPA 774. 1O3
“Touchest thou the Lord's anointed, sacrilegious
wretch?” cried the man of the desert, as the fellow dropped
On the pavement with his booty in his hand.
The monk tore the gold necklace from his grasp, looked
at it for a moment with childish wonder, as a savage might
at some incomprehensible product of civilized industry,
and then, spitting on it with contempt, dashed it on the
ground and trampled it into the mud.
“ Follow the golden wedge of Achan, and the silver of
Iscariot, thou root of all evil!” And he rushed on, yelling,
‘‘Down with the circumcision | Down with the blas-
phemers!” while the poor girl vanished among the
crowd. -
Raphael watched him with a quaint, thoughtful smile,
while Miriam shrieked aloud at the destruction of the
precious trumpery.
“The monk is right, mother. If those Christians go on
upon that method, they must beat us. It has been our
ruin from the first, our fancy for loading ourselves with the
thick clay.”
“What will you do?” cried Miriam, clutching him by
the arm.
“What will you do?”
‘‘I am safe. I have a boat waiting for me on the canal
at the garden gate, and in Alexandria I stay ; no Christian
hound shall make Old Miriam move a foot against her will.
My jewels are all buried—my girls all sold ; save what you
can, and come with me!” -
“My sweet mother, why so peculiarly solicitous about
my welfare, above that of all the sons of Judah?” ... •
“Because—because—no, I’ll tell you that another time.
But I loved your mother, and she loved me. Come!”
Raphael relapsed into silence for a few minutes, and
watched the tumult below.
“How those Christian priests keep their men in order!
There is no use resisting destiny. They are the strong
men of the time, after all, and the little exodus must needs
have its course. Miriam, daughter of Jonathan—”
“I am no man’s daughter! I have neither father nor
mother, husband nor Call me mother again!”
“Whatsoever I am to call you, there are jewels enough
IO4 Aſ VAA 77.4.
in that closet to buy half Alexandria. Take them. I am
going.” -
* * With me?”
“Out into the wide world, my dear lady. I am bored
with riches. That young savage of a monk, understood
them better than we Jews do. I shall just make a virtue
of necessity, and turn beggar.”
“Beggar?”
“Why not? Don’t argue. These scoundrels will make
me one, whether I like or not ; so forth I go. There will
be few leave-takings. This brute of a dog is the only
friend I have on earth ; and I love her, because she has
the true old, dogged, spiteful, cunning, obstinate Maccabee
spirit in her—of which if we had a spark left in us just
now, there would be no little exodus; eh, Bran, my
beauty?”
“You can escape with me to the prefect's, and save the
mass of your wealth.”
* Exactly what I don't want to do. I hate that prefect
as I hate a dead camel, or the vulture who eats him. And
to tell the truth, I am growing a great deal too fond of that
heathen woman there—”
“What?” shrieked the old woman—“Hypatia?”
“If you choose. At all events, the easiest way to cut
the knot is to expatriate. I shall beg my passage on board
the first ship to Cyrene, and go and study life in Italy with
Heraclian's expedition. Quick—take the jewels, and breed
fresh troubles for yourself with them. I am going. My
liberators are battering the outer door already.”
Miriam greedily tore out of the closet diamonds and
pearls, rubies and emeralds, and concealed them among
her ample robes. “Go! go! Escape from her! I will
hide your jewels” .
“Ay, hide them, as mother earth does all things, in
that all-embracing bosom. You will have doubled
them before we meet again, no doubt. Farewell,
mother!”
“But not forever, Raphael! not forever! Promise me,
in the name of the four archangels, that if you are in
trouble or danger, you will write to me at the house of
Eudaimon.” -
Aſ YPA TWA. iO5
“The little porter philosopher, who hangs about
Hypatia's lecture-room?”
“The same, the same. He will give me your letter, and
I swear to you, I will cross the mountains of Kaf to deliver
you! I will pay you all back. By Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob I swear! May my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth, if I do not account to you for the last penny!”
“Don’t commit yourself to rash promises, my dear
lady. If I am bored with poverty, I can but borrow a few
gold pieces of a rabbi, and turn peddler. I really do not
trust you to pay me back, so I shall not be disappointed if
you do not. Why should I?” -
“Because—because—O God! No–never mind! You
shall have all back. Spirit of Elias! where is the black
agate? Why is it not among these? The broken half of
the black agate talisman'ſ”
Raphael turned pale. “How did you know that I have
a black agate?”
“How did I? How did I not?” cried she, clutching
him by the arm. “Where is it? All depends on that!
Fool!” she went on, throwing him off from her at arm’s-
length, as a sudden suspicion stung her, “you have not
given it to the heathen woman?”
“By the soul of my fathers, then, you mysterious old
witch, you seem to know everything. That is exactly
what I have done.”
Miriam clapped her hands together wildly. “Lost!
lost! lost! No! I will have it, if I tear it out of her heart!
I will be avenged of her—the strange woman who flatters
with her words, to whom the simple go in, and know not
that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the
depths of hell? God do so to me, and more also, if she
and her sorceries be on earth a twelve-month hence!”
“Silence, Jezebel! Heathen or none, she is as pure as
the sunlight! I only gave it her because she fancied the
talisman upon it.” -
“To enchant you with it to your ruin!”
“Brute of a slave-dealer! you fancy every one as base
as the poor wretches whom you buy and sell to shame,
that you may make them as much the children of hell, if
that be possible, as yourself!”
Ioô - - Aſj/AA TWA.
Miriam looked at him, her large black eyes widening
and kindling. For an instant she felt for her poniard—
and then burst into an agony of tears, hid her face in her
withered hands, and rushed from the room, as a crash and
shout below announced the bursting of the door.
“There she goes with my jewels. And here come my
guests, with the young monk at their head. One rising
when the other sets. A worthy pair of Dioscuril Come,
Bran! . . . Boys! Slaves! Where are you? Steal every
One what he can lay his hands on, and run for your lives
through the back gate.”
The slaves had obeyed him already. He walked smil-
ingly downstairs through utter solitude, and in the front
passage met face to face the mob of monks, costermongers
and dock-workers, fish wives and beggars, who were
thronging up the narrow entry, and bursting into the doors
right and left ; and at their head, alas! the young monk
who had just trampled the necklace into the mud . . . no
Other, in fact, than Philammon.
“Welcome, my worthy guests! Enter, I beseech you,
and fulfil, in your own peculiar way, the precepts which
bid you not be over anxious for the good things of this
life. . . . For eating and drinking, my kitchen and cellar
are at your service. For clothing, if any illustrious
personage will do me the honor to change his holy rags
with me, here are an Indian shawl-pelisse and a pair of
silk trousers at his service. Perhaps you will accommodate
me, my handsome young Captain, choragus of this new
school of the prophets?”
Philammon, who was the person addressed, tried to push
by him contemptuously. -
“Allow me, sir. I lead the way. This dagger is
poisoned—a cratch and you are dead. This dog is of the
true British breed; if she seizes you, red hot iron will not
loose her, till she hears the bone crack. If anyone will
Change clothes with me, all I have is at your service. If
not, the first that stirs is a dead man.”
There was no mistaking the quiet, high-bred determina-
tion of the speaker. Had he raged and blustered, Philam-
mon could have met him on his own ground, but there
was an easy, self-possessed disdain about him which utterly
Aſ VPAT/A. to 7
abashed the young monk, and abashed, too, the whole
crowd of rascals at his heels.
“I’ll change clothes with you, you Jewish dog!” roared
a dirty fellow out of the mob.
‘‘I am your eternal debtor. Let us step into this side
room. Walk upstairs, my friends. Take care there, sir!
That porcelain, whole, is worth three thousand gold
pieces; broken, it is not worth three pence. I leave it to
your good sense to treat it accordingly. Now, then, my
friend.” And in the midst of the raging vortex of plun-
derers, who were snatching up everything which they could
carry away, and breaking everything which they could not,
he quietly divested himself of his finery, and put on the
ragged cotton tunic and battered straw hat which the fellow
handed over to him.
Philammon, who had had from the first no mind to
plunder, stood watching Raphael with dumb wonder ; and
a shudder of regret, he knew not why, passed through
him as he saw the mob tearing down pictures and dashing
statues to the ground. Heathen they were, doubtless ;
but still, the Nymphs and Venuses looked too lovely to be
so brutally destroyed. . . . There was something almost
humanly pitiful in their poor broken arms and legs, as
they lay about upon the pavement. . . . He laughed at
himself for the notion ; but he could not laugh it away.
Raphael seemed to think that he ought not to laugh it
away; for he pointed to the fragments, and with a quaint
look at the young monk,
“Our nurses used to tell us,-
“If you can’t make it
You ought not to break it.’”
}
‘‘I had no nurse,” said Philammon.
“Ah! that accounts—for this and other things. Well,”
he went on, with the most provoking good-nature, “you
are in a fair road, my handsome youth ; I wish you joy of
your fellow-workmen, and of your apprenticeship in the
noble art of monkery. Riot and pillage, shrieking women
and houseless children, in your twentieth summer, are the
sure path to a saintship, such as Paul of Tarsus, who, with
all his eccentricities, was a gentleman, certainly never
fo8 A. VPA 7/A.
contemplated. I have heard of Phoebus Apollo under
many disguises, but this is the first time I ever saw him in
the wolf’s hide.”
“Or in the lion's,” said Philammon, trying in his shame
to make a fine speech.
“Like the Ass in the Fable. Farewell? Stand out of
the way, friends! 'Ware teeth and poison!”
And he disappeared among the crowd, who made way
respectfully enough for his dagger and his brindled
companion.
CHAPTER VII.
THOSE By whom of FENSEs comE.
PHILAMMON's heart smote him all that day, whenever he
thought of his morning’s work. Till then all Christians,
monks above all, had been infallible in his eyes: all Jews
and heathens insane and accursed. Moreover, meekness
under insult, fortitude in Calamity, and contempt of worldly
comfort, the worship of poverty as a noble estate, were
virtues which the Church Catholic boasted as her peculiar
heritage : On which side had the balance of those qualities
inclined that morning? The figure of Raphael, stalking
out ragged and penniless into the wide world, haunted him
with its quiet self-assured smile. And there haunted him,
too, another peculiarity in the man, which he had rever
before remarked in any one but Arsenius—that ease and
grace, that courtesy and self-restraint, which made
Raphael's rebukes rankle all the more keenly, because
he felt that the rebuker was in some mysterious way
Superior to him, and saw through him, and could have won
him over, or crushed him in argument, or in intrigue—or
in anything, perhaps, except mere brute force. Strange—
that Raphael, of all men, should in those few moments
have reminded him so much of Arsenius ; and that the
very same qualities which gave a peculiar charm to the
latter should give a peculiar unloveliness to the former,
and yet be, without a doubt, the same. What was it?
Was it rank which gave it? Arsenius had been a great
Iman he knew—the companion of kings. And Raphael
seemed rich. He had heard of the mob crying out against
the prefect for favoring him. Was it then familiarity with
the great ones of the world which produced this manner
and tone? It was a real strength, whether in Arsenius or
in Raphael. He felt humbled before it—envied it. If it
made Arsenius a more complete and more captivating per-
IO9
I IO ATVA’A 7TWA.
son, why should it not do the same for him? Why should
not he, too, have his share of it?
Bringing with it such thoughts as these, the time ran on till
noon, and the midday meal, and the afternoon’s work, to
which Philammon looked forward joyfully, as a refuge
from his own thoughts.
He was sitting on his sheepskin upon a step, basking,
like a true son of the desert, in a blaze of fiery sunshine,
which made the black stonework too hot to touch with the
bare hand, watching the swallows as they threaded the
columns of the Serapeium, and thinking how often he had
delighted in their air-dance, as they turned and hawked up
and down the dear old glen at Scetis. A crowd of citizens,
with causes, appeals and petitions, were passing in and
out from the patriarch's audience-room Peter and the
archdeacon were waiting in the shade close by for the gather-
ing of the parabolani, and talking over the morning's work
in an earnest whisper, in which the names of Hypatia and
Orestes were now and then audible.
An old priest came up, and bowing reverently enough to
the archdeacon, requested the help of one of the para-
bolani. He had a sailor's family, all fever-stricken, who
must be removed to the hospital at once.
The archdeacon looked at him, answered an off-hand
“Very well,” and went on with his talk.
The priest, bowing lower than before, represented the
immediate necessity for help. .
“It is very odd,” said Peter to the swallows in the
Serapeium, “that some people cannot obtain influence
enough in their own parishes to get the simplest good
works performed without tormenting his holiness the
patriarch.”
The old priest mumbled some sort of excuse, and the
archdeacon, without deigning a second look at him said:
“Find him a man, brother Peter. Anybody will do.
What is that boy—Philammon—doing there? Let him go
with Master Hieracas.”
Peter seemed not to receive the proposition favorably,
and whispered something to the archdeacon. . . .
“No, I can spare none of the rest. Importunate
ATVA’A 7TWA. III
persons must take their chance of being well served.
Come—here our brethren ; we will all go together.”
“The further together the better for the boy's sake,”
grumbled Peter, loud enough for Philammon—perhaps for
the old priest—to overhear him.
So Philammon went out with them, and as he went
questioned his companions, meekly enough, as to who
Raphael was.
“A friend of Hypatia!” that name, too, haunted him ;
and he began, as stealthily and indirectly as he could, to
obtain information about her. There was no need for his
caution ; for the very mention of her name roused the
whole party into a fury of execration.
“May God confound her, siren, enchantress, dealer in
spells and sorceries! She is the strange woman of whom
Solomon prophesied.” - -
“It is my opinion,” said another, “that she is the fore-
runner of Antichrist.”
‘‘Perhaps the virgin of whom it is prophesied that he
will be born,” suggested another.
“Not that, I’ll warrant her,” said Peter, with a savage
SIleeſ. - -
“And is Raphael Aben-Ezra her pupil in philosophy?”
asked Philammon.
“Her pupil in whatsoever she can find where with to
delude men’s souls,” said the old priest. “The reality of
philosophy has died long ago, but the great ones find it
still worth their while to worship its shadow.”
“Some of them worship more than a shadow, when
they haunt her house,” said: Peter. “Do you think
Orestes goes thither only for philosophy?”
‘‘We must not judge harsh judgments,” said the old
priest; “Synesius of Cyrene is a holy man, and yet he
loves Hypatia well.” - . ** -
“He a holy man?—and keeps a wife! One who had
the insolence to tell the blessed Theophilus himself that
he would not be made bishop unless he were allowed to
remain with her; and despised the gift of the Holy Ghost
in comparison of the carnal joys of wedlock, not knowing
the Scriptures, which saith that those who are in the flesh
cannot please God. Well said Siricius of Rome of such
II 2 § A YPA 774.
men—“Can the Holy Spirit of God dwell in other than
holy bodies?” No wonder that such a one as Synesius
grovels at the feet of Orestes’ mistress!”
“Then she is profligate?” asked Philammon.
“She must be. Has a heathen face and grace! And
without faith and grace, are not all our righteousness as
filthy rags? What says St. Paul—that God has given
them over to a reprobate mind, full of all injustice,
uncleanliness, covetousness, maliciousness, you know the
catalogue—why do you ask me?”
“Alas! and is she this!” -
“Alas! And why alas? How would the Gospel be
glorified if heathens were holier than Christians? It Ought
to be so, therefore it is so. If she seems to have virtues,
they, being done without the grace of Christ, are only
bedizened vices, cunning shams, the devil transformed into
an angel of light. And as for chastity, the flower and
crown of all virtues—whosoever says that she, being yet a
heathen, has that, blasphemes the Holy Spirit, whose
peculiar and highest gift it is, and is anathema maranatha
forever! Amen!” And Peter, devoutly crossing himself,
turned angrily and contemptuously away from his young
companion.
Philammon was quite shrewd enough to see that asser-
tion was not identical with proof. But Peter's argument
of “it ought to be, therefore it is,” is one which saves a
great deal of trouble . . . and no doubt he had very good
sources of information. So Philammon walked on, sad,
he knew not why, at the new notion which he had formed
of Hypatia, as a sort of awful sorceress Messalina, whose
den was foul with magic rites and ruined souls of men.
And yet, if that was all she had to teach, whence had her
pupil Raphael learned that fortitude of his? If philosophy
had, as they said, utterly died out, then what was
Raphael? -
Just then Peter and the rest turned up a side street and
Philammon and Hieracas were left to go on their joint
errand together. They paced on for some way in silence
up one street and down another, till Philammon, for want
of anything better to say, asked where they were going?
“Where I choose, at all events. No, young man! If
ATVA’A 7TWA. II.3
I, a priest, am to be insulted by archdeacons and readers,
I won’t be insulted by you.”
‘‘ I assure you I meant no harm.”
“Of course not ; you all learn the same trick, and the
young ones catch it of the old ones fast enough. Words
smoother than butter, yet very swords.”
“You do not mean to complain of the archdeacon and
his companions?” said Philammon, who of course was
boiling over with pugnacious respect for the body to
which he belonged. - -
No answer.
“Why, sir, are they not among the most holy and
devoted of men?”
“Ah—yes,” said his companion, in a tone which
sounded very much like “Ah—no.”
“You do not think so?” asked Philammon, bluntly.
“You are young, you are young. Wait awhile till you
have seen as much as I have. A degenerate age this, my
son : not like the good old times, when men dare suffer
and die for the faith. We are too prosperous nowadays ;
and fine ladies walk about with Magdalens embroidered on
their silks, and gospels hanging round their necks. When
I was young they died for that with which they now bedizen
themselves.” -
“But I was speaking of the parabolani.”
“Ah, there are a great many among them who have not
much business where they are. Don’t say I said so. But
many a rich man puts his name on the list of the guild just
to get his exemption from taxes, and leaves the work to
poor men like you. Rotten, rotten' my son, and you will
find it out. The preachers, now—people used to say—I
know Abbot Isidore did—that I had as good a gift for
expounding as any man in Pelusium ; but since I came
here, eleven years since, if you will believe it, I have been
asked to preach in my own parish church.”
“You surely jest!”
‘’ True, as I am a christened man. I know why—I
know why : they are afraid of Isidore's men here. . . .
Perhaps they may have caught the holy man's trick
of plain speaking—and ears are dainty in Alexandria.
And there are some in these parts, too, that have never for-
II4 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
given him the part he took about those three villains,
Maro, Zosimus and Martinian, and a certain letter that
came of it; or another letter either which we know of,
about taking alms for the church from the gains of robbers
and usurers. “Cyril never forgets.’ So he says to every
one who does him a good turn. . . . And so he does to
every one who he fancies has done him a bad one. So
here am I, slaving away, a subordinate priest, while such
fellows as Peter the Reader look down on me as their
slave. But it’s always so. There never was a bishop yet,
except the blessed Augustine—would to Heaven I had
taken my abbot's advice and gone to him at Hippol—who
had not his flatterers and his tale-bearers, and generally
the archdeacon at the head of them, ready to step into the
bishop's place when he dies, over the heads of hardwork-
ing parish priests. But that is the way of the world. The
sleekest, and the oiliest, and the noisiest ; the man who
can bring most money to the charities, never mind whence
or how ; the man who will take most of the bishop's work
off his hands, and agree with him in everything he wants,
and save him by spying and eavesdropping the trouble of
using his own eyes; that is the man to succeed in Alex-
andria or Constantinople, or Rome itself. Look now :
there are but seven deacons to this great city, and all its
priests ; and they and the archdeacon are the masters of it
and us. They and that Peter manage Cyril's work for him,
and when Cyril makes the archdeacon a bishop, he will
make Peter archdeacon. . . . They have their reward,
they have their reward ; and so has Cyril, for that matter.”
* HOW P”
“Why, don’t say I said it. But what do I care? I
have nothing to lose, I’m sure. But they do say that there
are two ways of promotion in Alexandria : one by deserv-
ing it, the other by paying for it. That's all.” -
“Impossible!” -
“Oh, of course, quite impossible. But all I know is
just this, that when that fellow Martinian got back again
into Pelusium, after being turned out by the late bishop
for a rogue and hypocrite as he was, and got the ear of this
present bishop, and was appointed his steward, and
ordained priest—I’d as soon have ordained that street-dog
Aff VA’A 7TWA. II.5
—and plundered him and brought him to disgrace—for I
don’t believe this bishop is a bad man, but those who use
rogues must expect to be called rogues—and ground the
poor to the earth, and tyrannized over the whole city so
that no man's property, or reputation, scarcely their lives,
were safe ; and after all, had the impudence, when he was
called on for his accounts, to bring the Church in as owing
him money; I just know this, that he added to all his
other shamelessness this, that he offered the patriarch a
large sum of money to buy a bishopric of him. . . . And
what do you think the patriarch answered?”
“Excommunicated the sacrilegious wretch, of course!”
“Sent him a letter to say that if he dared to do such a
thing again he should really be forced to expose him So
the fellow, taking courage, brought his money himself the
next time ; and all the world says that Cyril would have
made him a bishop after all, if Abbot Isidore had not
written to remonstrate.”
“He could not have known the man’s character,” said
Philammon, hunting for an excuse. .
“The whole Delta was ringing with it. Isidore had
written to him again and again.”
“Surely, then, his wish was to prevent scandal, and
preserve the unity of the church in the eyes of the heathem.”
The old man laughed bitterly.
“Ah, the old story—of preventing scandals by retaining
them, and fancying that sin is a less evil than a little noise,
as if the worst of all scandals was not the being discovered
in hushing up a scandal. And as for unity, if you want
that you must go back to the good old times of Dioclesian
and Decius.”
“The persecutors?”
“Ay, boy—to the times of persecution, when Christians
died like brothers, because they lived like brothers. You
will see very little of that now, except in some little remote
Country bishopric which no one ever hears of from year's
end to year's end. But in the cities it is all one great fight
for place and power. Every one is jealous of his neigh-
bor. The priests are jealous of the deacons, and good
cause they have. The country bishops are jealous of the
Metropolitan, and he is jealous of the North African
II6 Aſ YAA 7TWA
bishops, and quite right he is. What business have they
to set up for themselves, as if they were infallible? It’s a
schism, I say—a complete schism. They are just as bad
as their own Donatists. Did not the council of Nice settle
that the Metropolitan of Alexandria should have authority
over Libya and Pentabolis, according to the ancient
custom P”
“Of course he ought,” said Philammon, jealous for the
honor of his own patriarchate.
“And the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople are
jealous of our patriarch.”
“Of Cyril?”
“Of course, because he won’t be at their beck and nod,
and let them be lords and masters of Africa.”
“But surely these things can be settled by councils?”
“Councils? Wait till you have been at one. The
blessed Abbot Isidore used to say, that if he ever was a
bishop—which he never will be—he is far too honest for
that—he would never go near one of them ; for he never
had seen one which did not call out every evil passion in
men's hearts, and leave the question more confounded
with words than they found it, even if the whole matter
was not settled beforehand by some chamberlain or
eunuch, or cook sent from Court, as if he were an anointed
vessel of the Spirit, to settle the dogmas of the Holy
Catholic Church.”
* : COOk P”
“Why, Valens sent his chief cook to stop Basil of
Caesarea from opposing the Court doctrine. . . . I tell you
the great battle in these cases is to get votes from Court,
or to get to Court yourself. When I was young, the
Council of Antioch had to make a law to keep bishops
from running off to Constantinople to intrigue, under
pretense of pleading the cause of the orphan and widow.
But what's the use of that, when every noisy and ambitious
man shifts and shifts, from one sea to another, till he
settles himself close to Rome or Byzantium, and gets the
emperor's ear, and plays into the hands of his courtiers?”
“Is it not written, “Speak not evil of dignities?’” said
Philammon, in his most sanctimonious tone.”
“Well, what of that? I don't speak evil of digni-
A VA-4 7/4. 1 17
ties when I complain of the men who fill them badly,
dO IP”
‘‘I never heard that interpretation of the text before.”
“Very likely not. That’s no reason why it should not
be true and orthodox. You will soon hear a good many
more things, which are true enough—though whether they
are orthodox or not the Court cooks must settle. Of
course, I am a disappointed, irreverent old grumbler. Of
course, and of course, too, young men must needs buy
their own experience, instead of taking old folks' at a gift.
There—use your own eyes, and judge for yourself. There
you may see what sort of saints are bred by this plan of
managing the Catholic Church. There comes one of them.
Now, I say no more!”
As he spoke two tall negroes came up to them, and set
down before the steps of a large church which they were
passing, an object new to Philammon—a sedan-chair—the
poles of which were inlaid with ivory and silver, and the
upper part inclosed in rose-colored silk curtains.
“What is inside of that cage?” asked he of the old
priest, as the negroes stood wiping the perspiration from
their foreheads, and a smart slave girl stepped forward,
with a parasol and slippers in her hand, and reverently
lifted the lower edge of the curtain.
“A saint, I tell you!”
An embroidered shoe, with a large gold cross on the
instep, was put forth delicately from beneath the curtain,
and the kneeling maid put on the slipper over it. .
“There!” whispered the old grumbler. “Not enough,
you see, to use Christian men as beasts of burden—Abbot
Isidore used to say—ay, and told Iron, the pleader, to his
face, that he could not conceive how a man who loved
Christ, and knew the grace which has made all men free,
could keep a slave.”
“Nor can I,” said Philammon.
“But we think otherwise, you see, in Alexandria here.
We cannot even walk up the steps of God’s temple with-
out an additional protection to our delicate feet.”
“I had thought it was written, “Put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy
ground.’”
1 I8 Aſ VPA 77.4.
“Ah, there are a good many more things written which
we do not find it convenient to recollect Look!
There is one of the pillars of the church—the richest and
most pious lady in Alexandria.”
And forth stepped a figure at which Philammon's eyes
opened wider than they had done even at the sight of
Pelagia. Whatever thoughts the rich and careless grace
of her attire might have raised in his mind, it had certainly
not given his innate Greek good taste the inclination to
laugh and weep at once, which he felt at this specimen of
the tasteless fashion of an artificial and decaying civiliza-
tion. Her gown was stuffed out behind in a fashion which
provoked from the dirty boys who lay about the steps,
gambling for pistachios on their fingers, the same Com-
ments with which St. Clement had upbraided from the pulpit
the Alexandrian ladies of his day. The said gown of white
silk was bedizened, from waist to ankle, with certain
mysterious red and green figures at least a foot long,
which Philammon gradually discovered to be a representa-
tion, in the very lowest and ugliest style of fallen art,
of Dives and Lazarus ; while down her back hung, upon a
bright blue shawl, edged with embroidered crosses, Job
sitting, potsherd in hand, surrounded by his three friends
—a memorial, the old priest whispered, of a pilgrimage
which she had taken a year or two before to Arabia to see and
kiss the identical dunghill on which the patriarch had sat.
Round her neck hung, by one of half a dozen necklaces,
a manuscript of the Gospels, gilt-edged and clasped with
jewels ; the lofty diadem of pearls on the head carried in
front a large cross ; while above and around it her hair,
stiffened with pomatum, was frizzled out half a foot from a
wilderness of plaits and curls, which must have cost some
helpless slave girl an hour’s work, and perhaps more than
One scolding that very morning.
Meekly, with simpering face and downcast eyes, and
now and then a penitent sigh and shake of the head and
pressure of her hand upon her jewelled bosom, the fair
penitent was proceeding up the steps, when she caught
sight of the priest and the monk, and turning to them with
an obeisance of the deepest humility, entreated to be
allowed to kiss the hem of their garments.
HYP1774. I Ig
“You had far better, madam,” said Philammon bluntly
enough, “kiss the hem of your own. You carry two
lessons there which you do not seem to have learnt yet.”
In an instant her face flushed up into pride and fury.
‘‘I asked you for your blessing, and not for a sermon. I
can have that when I like.”
“And such as you like,” grumbled the old priest, as she
swept up the steps, tossing some small coin to the ragged
boys, and murmuring to herself, loud enough for Philam-
mon's hearing, that she should certainly inform the con-
fessor, and that she would not be insulted in the streets by
Savage monks. -
‘‘Now she will confess her sins inside—all but those
which she had been showing off to us here outside, and
beat her breast, and weep like a very Magdalen, then the
worthy man will comfort her with—“What a beautiful
chain And what a shawl—allow me to touch it! How
soft and delicate this India wool! Ah! if you knew the
debts which I have been compelled to incur in the service
of the sanctuary—ſ’ And then of course the answer will
be, as indeed he expects it should, that if it can be of the
least use in the service of the temple, she, of course, will
think it only too great an honor. . . . And he will keep
the chain, and perhaps the shawl, too. And she will go
home believing that she has fulfilled to the very letter
the command to break off her sins by almsgiving, and only
sorry that the good priest happened to hit on that par-
ticular gewgaw!”
“What,” asked Philammon ; ‘‘dare she actually not
refuse such importunity?”
“From a poor priest like me, stoutly enough ; but from
a popular ecclesiastic like him. . . . As Jerome says, in a
letter of his I once saw, ladies think twice in such cases
before they offend the city newsmonger. Have you
anything more to say?” º -
Philammon had nothing to say, and wisely held his
peace, while the old grumbler ran on : --
“Ah, boy, you have yet to learn city fashions! When
you are a little older, instead of speaking unpleasant truths
to a fine lady with a cross on her forehead, you will be
ready to run to the pillars of Hercules at her beck and nod
120 Ayyº,4774.
for the sake of her disinterested help toward a fashionable
pulpit, or perhaps the bishopric. The ladies settle that
for us here.”
‘‘The Women?”
“The women, lad. Do you suppose that they heap
priests and churches with wealth for nothing? They have
their rewards. Do you suppose that a priest gets into a
pulpit of that church there without looking anxiously, at
the end of each peculiarly flowery sentence, to see whether
her saintship there is clapping or not? She has such a
delicate sense for orthodoxy, that she can scent out Nava-
tianism or Origenism where no other mortal nose would
suspect it. She who meets at her own house weekly all
the richest and most pious women of the city, to settle our
discipline for us, as the Court cooks do our doctrine.
She who has even, it is whispered, the ear of Augustus
Pulcheria herself, and sends monthly letters to her at Con-
stantinople, and might give the patriarch himself some
trouble, if he crossed her holy will!”
“What! will Cyril truckle to such creatures?”
“Cyril is a wise man in his generation—too wise, some
say, for a child of the light. But, at least, he knows there
is no use fighting with those whom you cannot conquer;
and while he can get money out of the great ladies for his
alms-houses, and Orphan-houses, and lodging-houses, and
hospitals, and workshops, and all the rest of it—and in
that, I will say for him, there is no man on earth equal to
him, but Ambrose of Milan and Basil of Caesarea—why, I
don’t quarrel with him for making the best of a bad matter,
and a very bad matter it is, and has been ever since
emperors and courtiers have given up burning and crucify-
ing us, and taken to patronizing and bribing us instead.”
Philammon walked on in silence by the old priest's side
stunned and sickened. . . . “And this is what I have
come out to see—reeds shaken in the wind, and men
clothed in soft raiments, fit only for kings' palaces?” For
this he had left the dear old Laura, and the simple joys
and friendships of childhood, and cast himself into a roar-
ing whirlpool of labor and temptation! This was the
harmonious strength and unity of that Church Catholic, in
which, as he had been taught from boyhood, there was but
A/VA’A 7/4. • 1 21
one Lord, one Faith, one Spirit. This was the indivisible
body, “without spot or wrinkle, which fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every member supplied,
according to the effectual and proportionate working of
every part, increased the body, and enabled it to build
itself up in love!” He shuddered as the well-known words
passed through his memory, and seemed to mock the base
and chaotic reality around him. He felt angry with the
old man for having broken his dream ; he longed to believe
that his complaints were only exaggerations of cynic
peevishness, of selfish disappointment: and yet, had not
Arsenius warned him? Had he not foretold, word for
word, what the youth would find—what he had found?
Then was St. Paul’s great idea an empty and an impossible
dream? No! God’s word could not fail; the church could
not err. The fault could not be in her, but in her enemies:
not, as the old man said, in her too great prosperity, but
in her slavery. And then the words which he had heard
from Cyril at their first interview rose before him as the
true explanation. How could the church work freely and
healthily while she was crushed and fettered by the rulers
of this world? And how could they be anything but the
tyrants and antichrists they were, while they were menaced .
and deluded by heathen philosophy, and vain systems of
human wisdom P If Orestes was the curse of the Alexan-
drian church, then Hypatia was the curse of Orestes. On
her head the true blame lay. She was the root of the evil.
Who would extirpate it? . . .
Why should not he? It might be dangerous; yet
successful or unsuccessful it must be glorious. The course
of Christianity wanted great examples. Might he not—
and his young heart beat high at the thought—might he
not, by some great act of daring, self-sacrifice, divine mad-
ness of faith, like David's of old, when he went out against
the giant—awaken selfish and luxurious souls to a noble
emulation, and recall to their minds, perhaps to their lives,
the patterns of those martyrs who were the pride, the
glory, the heirloom of Egypt? And as figure after figure
rose before his imagination, of simple men and weak
women who had conquered temptation and shame, torture
and death, to live forever on the lips of men, and take
*
1 22 Aſ YAA 774
their seats among the patricians of the heavenly court, with
brows glittering through all eternities with the martyr's
Crówn, his heart beat thick and fast, and he longed only
for an opportunity to dare and die.
And the longing begot the opportunity. For he had
hardly rejoined his brother visitors, when the absorbing
thought took word again, and he began questioning them
eagerly for more information about Hypatia.
On that point, indeed, he obtained nothing but fresh
invective ; but when his companions, after talking of the
triumph which the new faith had gained that morning,
went on to speak of the great overthrow of paganism
twenty years before, under the patriarch Theophilus ; of
Olympiodorus and his mob, who held the Serapeium for
many days by force of arms against the Christians, making
sallies into the city, and torturing and murdering the
prisoners whom they took ; of the martyrs who, among
those very pillars which overhung their heads, had died in
torments rather than sacrifice to Serapis ; and of the final
victory and the soldier who, in presence of the trembling
mob, clove the great jaw of the colossal idol, and snapped
forever the spell of heathenism, Philammon's heart burned
to distinguish himself like that soldier, and to wipe out his
qualms of conscience by some more unquestionable deed
of Christian prowess. There were no idols now to break:
but there was philosophy—“Why not carry war into the
heart of the enemy’s camp, and beard Satan in his very
den? Why does not some man of God go boldly into the
lecture-room of the sorceress, and testify against her to
her face l’’
“Do it yourself, if you dare,” said Peter. “We have
no wish to get our brains knocked out by all the profligate
young gentlemen in the city.”
‘‘I will do it,” said Philammon.
“That is if his holiness allows you to make such a fool
of yourself.”
“Take care, sir, of your words. You revile the blessed
martyrs, from St. Stephen to St. Telemachus, when you
call such a deed foolishness.” -
“I shall most certainly inform his holiness of your
insolence.”
Aſ VA’A 7/4. 123
“Do so,” said Philammon, who, possessed with a new
idea, wished for nothing more. And there the matter
dropped for the time.
>k >k >k >k >k >{< >k >k
“The presumption of the young in this generation is
growing insufferable,” said Peter to his master that
evening.
“So much the better. They put their elders on their
mettle in the race of good works. But who has been pre-
suming today?”
“That mad boy whom Pambo sent up from the desert
dared to offer himself as champion of the faith against
Hypatia. He actually proposed to go into her lecture-
room and argue with her to her face. What think you of
that for a specimen of youthful modesty and self-distrust?”
Cyril was silent awhile.
“What answer am I to have the honor of taking back?
A month’s relegation to Nitra on bread and water? You,
I am sure, will not allow such things to go unpunished ;
indeed, if they do, there is an end to all authority and
discipline.”
Cyril was still silent ; while Peter’s brow clouded fast.
At last he answered : -
“The cause wants martyrs. Send the boy to me.”
Peter went down with a shrug, and an expression of face
which looked but too like envy, and ushered up the
trembling youth, who dropped on his knees as soon as he
entered. -
“So you wish to go into the heathen woman's lecture-
room and defy her? Have you courage for it?”
“God will give it to me.”
“You will be murdered by her pupils.”
‘‘I can defend myself,” said Philammon, with a pardon-
able glance downward at his sinewy limbs. “And if not :
what death more glorious than martyrdom?”
Cyril Smiled genially enough. “Promise me two things.”
“Two thousand, if you will.”
“Two are quite difficult enough to keep. Youth is rash
in promises and rasher in forgetting them. Promise me
that, whatever happens, you will not strike the first blow.”
• ‘ I do.”
124 Arrazza.
“Promise me again, that you will not argue with her.”
• ‘What then P” -
“Contradict, denounce, defy. But give no reasons. If
you do, you are lost. She is subtler than the serpent,
skilled in all the tricks of logic, and you will become a
laughing-stock, and run away in shame. Promise me.”
‘ ‘ I do.”
“Then go.”
* * When P”
“The sooner the better. At what hour does the
accursed woman lecture tomorrow, Peter?”
“We saw her going to the museum at nine this morn-
ing.”
“Then go at nine tomorrow. There is money for you.”
“What is this for?” asked Philammon, fingering
curiously the first coins which he ever had handled in his
1ife. - .
“To pay for your entrance. To the philosopher none
enters without money. Not so to the Church of God, open
all day long to the beggar and the slave. If you convert
her, well. And if not ” And he added to himself
between his teeth: “And if not, well also—perhaps better.”
“Ay!” said Peter, bitterly, as he ushered Philammon
out. “Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper, young fool!
What evil spirit sent you here to feed the noble patriarch's
only weakness?”
“What do you mean?” asked Philammon, as fiercely as
he dared. - -
“The fancy that preachings, and protestations, and
martyrdoms can drive out the Canaanites, who can only be
got rid of with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. His
uncle, Theophilus, knew that well enough. If he had not
Olympiodorus might have been master of Alexandria, and
incense burning before Serapis to this day. Ay, go and
let her convert you! Touch the accursed thing, like
Achan, and see if you do not end by having it in your
tent. Keep company with the daughters of Midian, and
see if you do not join yourself to Baalpeor, and eat the
offerings of the dead!”
And with this encouraging sentence the two parted for
the night. . .
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EAST WIND.
AS Hypatia went forth the next morning in all her
glory, with a crowd of philosophers and philosophasters,
students and fine gentlemen following her in reverent
admiration across the street to her lecture-room, a ragged
beggarman, accompanied by a huge and villainous-looking
dog, planted himself right before her, and extending a
dirty hand, whined for an alms.
Hypatia, whose refined taste could never endure the
sight, much less the contact, of anything squalid and
degraded, recoiled a little, and bade the attendant slave
get rid of the man with a coin. Some of the younger
gentlemen, however, considered themselves adapts in that
noble art of “upsetting ” then in vogue in the African
universities, to which we all have reason enough to be
thankful, seeing that it drove Saint Augustine from Carth-
age to Rome ; and they, in compliance with the usual
fashion of tormenting any simple creature who came in
their way by mystification and insult, commenced a series
of personal witticisms, which the beggar bore stoically
enough. The coin was offered him, but he blandly put
aside the hand of the giver, and keeping his place on the
pavement, seemed inclined to dispute Hypatia's further
passage. **
“What do you want? Send the wretch and his fright-
ful dog away, gentleman l’” said the poor philosopher, in
some trepidation. - -
‘‘I know that dog,” said one of them ; “it is Aben-
Ezra's. Where did you find it before it was lost, you
rascal?”
“Where your mother found you when she palmed you
off upon her goodman, my child—in the slave-market.
Fair sibyl, have you already forgotten your humblest pupil,
as these young dogs have, who are already trying to upset
I25
126 ATVA’A T/4.
their master and instructor in the angelic science of bully-
ing?” . - *
And the beggar, lifting his broad straw hat, disclosed
the features of Raphael Aben-Ezra. Hypatia recoiled with
a shriek of surprise. -
“Ah! you are astonished. At what, I pray?”
“To see you, sir, thus !” -
“Why, then? You have been preaching to us as a lon
time the glory of abstraction from the allurement of sense.
It augurs ill, surely, for your estimate either of your pupils
or of your own eloquence, if you are so struck with conster-
nation because one of them has actually at last obeyed you.”
“What is the meaning of this masquerade, most excel-
lent sir?” asked Hypatia and a dozen voices besides.
“Ask Cyril. I am on my way to Italy, in the character
of the New Diogenes, to look, like him, for a man. When
I have found one, I shall feel great pleasure in returning
to acquaint you with the amazing news. Farewell! I
wish to look once more at a certain countenance, though I
have turned, as you see, Cynic ; and intend henceforth to
attend no teacher but my dog, who will luckily charge no
fees for instruction, if she did, I must go untaught, for my
ancestral wealth made itself wings yesterday morning.
You are aware, doubtless, of the Plebiscitum against the
Jews, which was carried into effect under the auspices of a
certain holy tribune of the people?”
‘‘Infamous!”
“And dangerous, my dear lady. Success is inspiriting
. and Theon's house is quite as easily sacked as the
Jews’ quarter. . . . Beware.”
“Come, come, Aben-Ezra,” cried the young men ; “you
are far too good company for us to lose you for that ras-
cally patriarch's fancy. We will make a subscription for
you, eh? And you shall live with each of us, month and
month about. We shall quite lose the trick of joking
without you.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. But really you have been my
butts far too long for me to think of becoming yours.
Madam, one word in private before I go.”
Hypatia leant forward, and speaking in Syriac, whispered
hurriedly : -*.
A. V.A.A. ZTV.4. I27
“Oh, stay, sir, I beseech you! You are the wisest of
my pupils—perhaps my only true pupil. . . . My father
will find some concealment for you from these wretches;
and if you need money, remember he is your debtor. We
have never repaid you the gold which—”
“Fairest Muse, that was but my entrance-fee to
Parnassus. It is I who am in your debt; and I have
brought my arrears in the form of this opal ring. As for
shelter near you,” he went on, lowering his voice, and
speaking like her in Syriac-‘‘Hypatia, the Gentile, is far
too lovely for the peace of mind of Raphael the Jew.”
And he drew from his finger Miriam's ring, and offered it.
‘‘Impossible!” said Hypatia, blushing scarlet ; “I can-
not accept it.” -
“I beseech you. It is the last earthly burden I have,
except this snail’s prison of flesh and blood. My dagger
will Open a crack through that when it becomes intolerable.
But as I do not intend to leave my shell, if I can help it,
except just when and how I choose ; and as, if I take this
ring with me, some of Heraclian’s Circumcellions will
assuredly knock my brains out for the sake of it—I must
entreat.” - - * *
“Never! Can you not sell the ring, and escape to
Synesius? He will give you shelter.”
“The hospitable hurricane! Shelter, yes; but rest,
none. As soon pitch my tent in the crater of Ætna.
Why, he will be trying day and night to convert me to that
eclectic farrago of his, which he calls philosophic Chris-
tianity. Well, if you do not take the ring, it is soon dis-
posed of. We Easterns know how to be magnificent, and
vanish as the lords of the world ought.”
“And he turned to the philosophic crowd.
“Here, gentlemen of Alexandria! Does any gay youth
wish to pay his debts once and for all? Behold the rain-
bow of Solomon, an opal such as Alexandria never saw
before, which would buy any one of you, and his Mace-
donian papa, and Macedonian mamma, and his Macedonian
sisters, and horses, and parrots, and peacocks, twice over,
in any slave market in the world. Any gentleman who
wishes to posses a jewel worth ten thousand gold pieces,
will only need to pick it out of the gutter into which I
I 28 ATVA’A 7TWA.
throw it. Scramble for it, you young Phaedrias and
Pamphili! There are Laides and Thaides enough about
who will help you to spend it!”
And raising the jewel on high he was in the act of toss-
ing it into the street, when his arm was seized from behind,
and the ring snatched from his hand. He turned, fiercely
enough, and saw behind him, her eyes flashing fury and
contempt, old Miriam. -
Bran sprang at the old woman’s throat in an instant ;
but recoiled again before the glare of her eye. Raphael
called the dog off, and turning quietly to the disappointed
Spectators, – -
“It is all right, my luckless friends. You must raise
money for yourselves, after all : which, since the departure
of my nation, will be a somewhat more difficult matter
than ever. The overruling destinies, whom, as you all
know so well when you are getting tipsy, not even philoso-
phers can resist, have restored the Rainbow of Solomon to
its original possessor. Farewell, Queen of Philosophy'
When I find the man, you shall hear of it. Mother, I am
coming with you for a friendly word before we part,
though,” he went on laughing as the two walked away
together, “it was a scurvy trick of you to balk one of The
Nation of the exquisite pleasure of seeing those heathen
dogs scrambling in the gutter for his bounty.”
Hypatia went on to the museum, utterly bewildered by
this strange meeting, and its still stranger end. She took
care, nevertheless, to betray no sign of her deep interest
till she found herself alone 1n her little waiting-room
adjoining the lecture-hall ; and there, throwing herself into
a chair, she sat and thought, till she found, to her surprise
and anger, the tears trickling down her cheeks. Not that
her bosom held one spark of affection for Raphael. If
there had ever been any danger of that, the wily Jew had
himself taken care to ward it off, by the sneering and
frivolous tone with which he quashed every approach to
deep feeling, either in himself or in others. As for his
compliments to her beauty, she was far too much
accustomed to such to be either pleased or displeased by
them. But she felt, as she said, that she had lost perhaps
her only true pupil; and more—perhaps her only true
A/VA’4 7/4. 129
master. For she saw clearly enough that under that
Silenus' mask was hidden a nature capable of perhaps
more than she dared think of. She had always felt him
her superior in practical cunning ; and that morning had
proved to her what she had long suspected, that he was
possibly also her superior in that moral earnestness and
strength of will for which she looked in vain among the
enervated Greeks who surrounded her. And even in those
matters in which he professed himself her pupil, she had
long been alternately delighted by finding that he alone, of
all her school, seemed thoroughly and instinctively to
comprehend her every word, and chilled by the disagree-
able suspicion that he was only playing with her, and her
mathematics and geometry, and metaphysic and dialect,
like a fencer practicing with foils, while he reserved his
real strength for some object more worthy of him. More
than Once some paradox or question of his had shaken her
neatest systems into a thousand cracks, and opened up
ugly depths of doubt, even on the most seemingly palpable
certainties ; or some half-jesting allusion to those Hebrew
Scriptures, the quantity and quality of his faith in which
he would never confess, made her indignant at the notion
that he considered himself in possession of a reserve
ground of knowledge, deeper and surer than her own, in
which he did not deign to allow her to share.
And yet she was irresistibly attracted to him. That
deliberate and consistent luxury of his, from which she
shrank, he had always boasted that he was able to put on
and take off at will like a garment; and now he seemed to
have proved his words; to be a worthy rival of the great
stoics of old time. Could Zeno himself have asked more
from frail humanity? Moreover, Raphael had been of
infinite practical use to her. He worked out, unasked, her
mathematical problems; he looked out authorities, kept
her pupils in order by his bitter tongue, and drew fresh
students to her lectures by the attractions of his wit, his
arguments, and last, but not least, his unrivalled cook and
cellar. Above all, he acted the part of a fierce and valiant
watch-dog on her behalf against the knots of clownish and
often brutal sophists, the wrecks of the old Cynic, Stoic
and Academic schools, who, with venom increasing, after
I3O Aſ VPA 7/4.
the wont of parties, with their decrepitude assailed the
beautifully bespangled card-castle of Neo-Platonism as an
empty medley of all Greek philosophies with all Eastern
superstitions. All such Philistines had as yet dreaded the
pen an tongue of Raphael, even more than those of the
chivalrous Bishop of Cyrene, though he certainly, to judge
from certain of his letters, hated them as much as he could
hate any human being ; which was, after all, not very
bitterly. -
But the visits of Synesius were few and far between :
Carthage and Alexandria, and the labor of his diocese, and
worse than all, the growing difference in purpose between
him and his beautiful teacher, made his protection all but
valueless. And now Aben-Ezra was gone too, and with
him were gone a thousand plans and hopes. To have con-
verted him at last to a philosophic faith in the old gods!
To have made him her instrument for turning back the
stream of human error! . . . . How often had that dream
crossed her! And now, who would take his place? .
Athanasius? Synesius in his good-nature might dignify
him with the name of brother, but to her he was a power-
less pedant, destined to die without having wrought any
deliverance on the earth, as indeed the event proved.
Plutarch of Athens? He was superannuated. Syrianus?
A mere logician, twisting Aristotle to mean what she
knew—and he ought to have known—Aristotle never
meant. Her father? A man of triangles and conic sec-
tions. How paltry they all looked by the side of the
unfathomable Jew! Spinners of charming cobwebs. . . .
But would the flies condescend to be caught in them
Builders of pretty houses. . . . If people would but enter
and live in them! Preachers of superfine morality . . .
which their admiring pupils never dreamed of practicing.
Without her, she well knew, philosophy must die in
Alexandria. And was it her wisdom—or other and more
earthly charms of hers—which enabled her to keep it alive?
Sickening thought! Oh, that she were ugly, only to test
the power of her doctrines. -
Ho! . The odds were fearful enough already; she would
be glad of any help, however, earthly and carnal. But
was not the work hopeless? What she wanted was men
Aſ YAZA 7TWA. I31
who could act while she thought. And those were just the
men whom she would find nowhere but—she knew it too
well—in the hated Christian priesthood. And then that
fearful Iphigenia sacrifice loomed in the distance as inevit-
able. The only hope for philosophy was in her despair.
>k >k >k >k >{< >k >k
She dashed away the tears, and proudly entered the
lecture-hall, and ascended the tribune like a goddess, amid
the shouts of her audience. . . . What did she care for
them? Would they do what she told them P She was half
through her lecture before she could recollect herself, and
banish from her mind the thought of Raphael. And at that
point we will take the lecture up. -
“Truth! Where is truth but in the soul itself? Facts,
objects, are but phantoms matter-woven—ghosts of this
earthly night, at which the soul, sleeping here in the mire
and clay of matter, shudders and names here its own
vague tremors, sense and perception. Yet, even as our
nightly dreams stir in us the suspicion of mysterious and
immaterial presences, unfettered by the bonds of time and
space, so do these waking dreams which we call sight and
sound. They are divine messengers, whom Zeus, pitying
his children even when he pent them in this prison-house
of flesh, appointed to arouse in them dim recollections of
that real world of souls whence they came. Awakened
once to them ; seeing, through the veil of sense and fact,
the spiritual truth of which they are but the accidental gar-
ment, concealing the very thing which they make palable,
the philosopher may neglect the fact for the doctrine, the
shell for the kernel, the body for the soul, of which it is
but the symbol and the vehicle. What matter, then, to the
philosopher whether these names of men, Hector or
Priam, Helen or Achilles, were ever visible as phantoms
of flesh and blood before the eyes of men? What matter
whether they spoke or thought as he of Scios says they
did? What matter, even, whether he himself ever had
earthly life? The book is here—the word which men call
his. Let the thoughts thereof have been at first whose
they may, now they are mine. I have taken them to
myself, and thought them to myself, and made them parts
I32 Aſ VPA 7T/A.
of my own soul. Nay, they were and ever will be parts of
me ; for they, even as the poet was, even as I am, are
but a part of the universal soul. What matter then
what myths grow up around those mighty thoughts
of ancient seers? Let others try to reconcile the
Cyclic fragments, or vindicate the Catalogue of ships.
What has the philosopher lost, though the former were
proved to be contradictory and the latter interpolated?
The thoughts are there, and ours. Let us open our hearts
lovingly to receive them, from whencesoever they may
have come. As in men, as in books, the soul is all with
which our souls must deal ; and the soul of the book is
whatsoever beautiful and true and noble we can find in it.
It matters not to us whether the poet was altogether con-
scious of the meanings which we can find in him.
Consciously or unconsciously to him, the meanings must
be there ; for were they not there to be seen, how could
we see them P There are those among the uninitiate
vulgar—and those, too, who carry under the philosophic
cloak hearts still uninitiate—who revile such interpreta-
tions as merely the sophistic and arbitrary sports of fancy.
It lies with them to show what Homer meant, if our
spiritual meanings be absurd ; to tell the world why
Homer is admirable, if that for which we hold him up to
admiration does not exist in him. Will they say that the
honor which he has enjoyed for ages was inspired by that
which seems to be his first and literal meaning? And more,
will they venture to impute that literal meaning to him P
Can they suppose that the divine soul of Homer could
degrade itself to write of actual and physical feastings, and
nuptials, and dances, actual nightly thefts of horses, actual
fidelity of dogs and swineherds, actual intermarriage
between deities and men, or that it is this seeming vulgar-
ity which has won for him from the wisest of every age the
title of the father of poetry? Degrading thought! fit only
for the coarse and sensebound tribe who can appreciate
nothing but what is palpable to sense and sight! As soon
believe the Christian Scriptures, when they tell us of a
deity who has hands and feet, eyes and ears, who conde-
scends to command the patterns of furniture and culinary
utensils, and is made perfect by being born—disgusting
A/VARA 774. 133
thought—as the son of a village maiden, and defiling him-
self with the wants and sorrows of the lowest slaves!”
“It is false! blasphemous! The Scriptures cannot lie!”
cried a voice from the other end of the room.
It was Philammon's. He had been listening to the
whole lecture, and yet not so much listening as watching,
in bewilderment, the beauty of the speaker, the grace of
her action, the melody of her voice, and last, but not least,
the maze of her rhetoric, as it glittered before his mind's
eye like a cobweb diamonded with dew. A sea of new
thoughts and questions, if not of doubts, came rushing in
at every sentence on his acute Greek intellect, all the more
plentifully and irresistibly because his speculative faculty
was yet altogether waste and empty, undefended by any
scientific culture from the inrushing flood. For the first
time in his life he found himself face to face with the root-
questions of all thought : “What am I, and where?
“What can I know?” And in the half-terrified struggle
with them, he had all but forgotten the purpose for which
he entered the lecture-hall. He felt that he must
break the spell. Was she not a heathen and a false
prophetess? Here was something tangible to attack; and
half in indignation at the blasphemy, half in order to force
himself into action, he had sprung up and spoke.
A yell rose. “Turn the monk out!” “Throw the
rustic through the window!” cried a dozen young gentle-
men. Several of the most valiant began to scramble over
the benches up to him ; and Philammon was congratulat-
ing himself on the near approach of a glorious martyrdom,
when Hypatia's voice, calm and silvery, stifled the tumult
in a moment.
“Let the youth listen, gentlemen. He is but a monk
and a plebeian, and knows no better; he has been taught
thus. Let him sit here quietly, and perhaps we may be
able to teach him otherwise.”
And without interrupting, even by a change of tone, the
thread of her discourse, she continued :
“Listen then to a passage from the sixth book of the
‘Iliad,” in which last night I seemed to see glimpses of
some mighty Inystery. You know it well, yet I will read it
to you ; the very sound and pomp of that great verse may
I34. Arpazza.
tune our souls to a fit key for the reception of lofty
wisdom. For well said Abamnon the Teacher, that ‘ the
soul consisted first of harmony and rhythm, and ere it
gave itself to the body, had listened to the divine harmony.”
Therefore it is that when, after having come into a body,
it hears such melodies as most preserve the divine foot-
step of harmony, it embraces such, and recollects from
them that divine harmony, and is impelled to it, and finds
its home in it, and shares of it as much as it can share.”
And there with fell on Philammon's ear, for the first time,
the mighty thunder-roll of Homer's verse —
So spoke the stewardess : but Hector rushed
From the house, the same way back, down stately streets,
Through the broad city, to the Scaian gates,
Whereby he must go forth toward the plain.
There running toward him came Andromache,
His ample-dowered wife, Eetion’s child—
Eetion the great-hearted, he who dwelt
In Thebe under Placos, and the woods
Of Placos, ruling over Kilic men.
His daughter wedded Hector brazen-helmed,
And met him then ; and with her came a maid,
Who bore in arms a playful-hearted babe,
An infant still, akin to some fair star,
Only and well-beloved child of Hector's house,
Whom he had named Scamandrios, but the rest
Astyanax, because his sire alone
Upheld the weal of Ilion the holy.
He smiled in silence, looking on his child ;
But she stood close to him, with many tears;
And hung upon his hand, and spoke, and called him.
“My hero, thy great heart will wear thee out;
Thou pitiest not thine infant child, nor me
The hapless, soon to be thy widow—
The Greeks will slay thee, falling one and all
Upon thee; but to me were sweeter far,
IHaving lost thee, to die ; no cheer to me
Will come thenceforth, if thou shouldst meet thy fate,
Woes only ; mother have I none, nor sire.
For that my sire divine Achilles slew,
And wasted utterly the pleasant homes
Of Kilic folk in Thebe lofty walled,
And slew Eetion with the sword! yet spared
To strip the dead : awe kept his soul from that.
Therefore he burnt him in his graven arms,
And heaped a mound above him ; and around
The damsels of the AEgis-holding Zeus,
Ay}^A4774. I35
The nymphs who haunt the upland, planted elms.
And seven brothers bred with me in the halls,
All in one day went down to Hades there;
For all of them swift-foot Achilles slew
Beside the lazy kine and snow-white sheep.
And her, my mother, who of late was queen
Beneath the woods of Placos, he brought here
Among his other spoils; yet set her free
Again, receiving ransom rich and great.
But Artemis, whose bow is all her joy,
Smote her to death within her father’s halls. .
Hector so thou art father to me now,
Mother, and brother, and husband fair and strong!
‘Oh, come now, pity me and stay thou here
Upon the tower, nor make thy child an orphan
And me thy wife a widow ; fange the men
IHere by the fig-tree, where the city lies
Lowest, and where the wall can well be scaled ;
For here three times the best have tried the assault
Round either Ajax, and Idomeneus,
And round the Atridai both, and Tydeus’ son,
Whether some cunning seer taught them craft
Or their own spirit stirred and drove them on.”
Then spoke tall Hector, with the glancing helm :
“All this I have watched, my wife; yet much
I hold in dread the scorn of Trojan men
And Trojan women with their trailing shawls,
If, like a coward, I should skulk from war.
Beside, I have no lust to stay ; I have learnt,
Aye, to be bold, and lead the van of fight—
To win my father and myself a name.
For well I know, at heart and in my thought,
The day will come when Ilios the holy
Shall lie in heaps, and Priam, and the folk
Of ashen-speared Priam, perish all.
But yet no woe to come to Trojan men,
Nor even to Hecabe nor Priam king,
Nor to my brothers, who shall roll in dust,
Many and fair, beneath the strokes of foes;
So moves me, as doth thine, when thou shalt go
Weeping, led off by some brass-harnessed Greek
Robbed of the daylight of thy liberty,
To weave in Argos at another's loom,
Or bear the water of Messeis home,
Or Hypereia, with unseemly toils, -
While heavy doom constrains thee, and perchance
The folk may say, who see thy tears run down,
‘This was the wife of IIector, best in fight
At Ilium, of horse-taming Trojan men.”
So will they say perchance; while unto thee
Now grief will come for such a husband’s loss,
136 Aſ VP4 7/4.
Who might have warded off the day of thrall.
But may the soil be heaped above my corpse
Before I hear thy shriek and see thy shame!”
He spoke, and stretched his arms to take the child ;
But back the child upon his nurse’s breast
Shrank crying, frightened at his father’s looks,
Fearing the brass and crest of horse's hair
Which waved above the helmet terribly.
Then out that father and dear mother laughed,
And glorious Hector took the helmet off,
And laid it gleaming on the ground, and kissed
His darling child, and danced him in his arms;
And spoke in prayer to Zeus, and all the gods:
“Zeu, and ye other gods, oh grant that this
My child, like me, may grow the champion here
As good in strength, and rule with might in Troy
That men may say, ‘The boy is better far g
Than was his sire,’ when he returns from war,
Bearing a gory harness, having slain
A foeman, and his mother’s heart rejoice.”
Thus saying, on the hands of his dear wife
He laid the child ; and she received him back
In fragrant bosom, smiling through her tears.”
“Such is the myth. Do you fancy that in it Homer
meant to hand down to the admiration of ages such earthly
Commonplaces as a mother's brufe affection and the terrors
of an infant? Surely the deeper insight of the philosopher
may be allowed, without the approach of fancifulness, to
see in it the adumbration of some deeper mystery.
“The elect soul, for instance—is not its name Astyanax,
king of the city; by the fact of its ethereal parentage, the
leader and lord of all around it, though it knows it not?
A child as yet, it lies upon the fragrant bosom of its mother
Nature, the nurse and yet the enemy of man—Andromache,
as the poet well, names her, because she fights with that
being, when grown to man's estate, whom as a child she
nourished. Fair is she, yet unwise ; pampering us, after
the fashion of mothers, with weak indulgences, fearing to
send us forth into the great realities of speculation, there
*The above lines are not meant as a “translation,” but as an humble
attempt to give the literal sense in some sort of metre. It would be an act
of arrogance even to aim at success where Pope and Chapman failed. It is
simply, I believe, impossible to render Homer into English verse; because,
for one reason among many, it is impossible to preserve the pomp of Sound
A/YA-4 77.4. 137
to forget her in her pursuit of glory, she would have us
while away our prime within the harem, and play forever
round her knees. And has not the elect soul a father, too,
whom it knows not? Hector, he who is without—uncon-
fined, unconditioned by nature, yet its husband? the all
pervading plastic Soul, informing, organizing, whom men
call Zeus the lawgiver, Æther the fire, Osiris the lifegiver;
whom here the poet has set forth as the defender of the
mystic city, the defender of harmony, and order, and
beauty throughout the universe? Apart sits his great
father—Priam, the first of existences, father of many sons,
the Absolute Reason unseen, tremendous, immovable, in
distant glory, yet himself amenable to that abysmal unity
which Homer calls Fate, the source of all which is, yet in
Itself Nothing, without predicate, unnamable.
“From It and for It the universal Soul thrills through
the whole Creation, doing the behests of that Reason from
which it overflowed, unwillingly, into the storm and crowd
of material appearances; warring with the brute forces of
gross matter, crushing all which is foul and dissonant to
itself, and clasping to its bosom the beautiful and all
wherein it discovers its own reflex ; impressing on it its
signature, reproducing from it its own likeness, whether
star or daemon, or soul of the elect—and yet, as the poet
hints in anthromorphic language, haunted all the while by
a sadness—weighed down amid all its labors by the sense
of a fate—by the thought of that First One from whom the
Soul is originally descended ; from whom it, and its Father
the Reason before it parted themselves when they dared
to think and act, and assert their own free will.
“And in the meanwhile, alas! Hector, the father, fights
around, while his children sleep and feed, and he is away
in the wars, and they know him not—know not that they, the
individuals, are but parts of him, the universal. And yet
at moments—oh thrice blessed they whose celestial
parentage has made such moments part of their appointed
which invests with grandeur his most common words. How can any skill
represent the rhythm of Homeric Greek in a language which—to take the
first verse which comes to hand—transforms “boos megaloio booien’’ into
“great ox’s hide?”
138 A VA-1774.
destiny—at moments flashes on the human child the
intuition of the unutterable secret. In the spangled glory
of the summer-night—in the roar of the Nile-flood, sweep-
ing down fertility in every wave—in the awful depths of
the temple-shrine—in the wild melodies of old Orphic
singers, or before the images of those gods of whose per-
fect beauty the divine theosophists of Greece caught a
fleeting shadow, and with the sudden might of artistic
ecstasy smote it, as by an enchanter's wand, into an
eternal sleep of snowy stone—in these there flashes on the
inner eye a vision beautiful and terrible, of a force, an
energy, a soul, an idea, one and yet million-fold, rushing
through all created things, like a wind across a lyre, thrill-
ing the strings into celestial harmony—one life-blood
through the million veins of the universe, from one great
unseen heart, whose thunderous pulses the mind hears far
away, beating forever in the abysmal solitude, beyond the
heavens and the galaxies, beyond the spaces and the
times, themselves but the veins and runnels from its all
teeming sea. -
“‘Happy, thrice happy! they who once have dared, even
though breathless, blinded with tears of awful joy, struck
down upon their knees in utter helplessness, as they feel
themselves but dead leaves in the wind which sweeps the
universe—happy they who have dared to gaze, if but for
an instant, on that glorious pageant ; who have not, like
the young Astyanax, clung shrieking to the breast of
mother Nature, scared by the heaven-wide flash of Hector's
arms, and the glitter of his rainbow crest! Happy, thrice
happy! even though their eyeballs, blasted by excess of
light, wither to ashes in their sockets! Were it not a noble
end to have seen Zeus, and die like Semelet burnt up by
his glory? Happy, thrice happy! though their mind reel
from the divine intoxication, and the hogs of Circe call
them henceforth madmen and enthusiasts. Enthusiasts
they are for Deity is in them, and they in It. For the
time, this burden of individuality vanishes, and recogniz-
ing themselves as portions of the universal Soul, they
rise upward, through and beyond that reason from
whence the soul proceeds, to the front of all—the
ineffable and Supreme One—and seeing It, become
Aſ VPA TIA. I 39
by that act portions of Its essence. They speak no more,
but It speaks in them, and their whole being, transmuted
by that glorious sunlight into whose rays they have dared,
like the eagle, to gaze without shrinking, becomes an
harmonious vehicle for the words of Deity, and passive
itself, utters the secrets of the immortal gods. What
wonder if to the brute mass they seem as dreamers? Be
it so. . . . Smile if you will. But ask me not to teach
you things unspeakable, above all sciences, which the
word battle of dialectic, the discursive struggle of reason
can never reach, but which must be seen only, and when
seen confessed to be unspeakable. Hence, thou disputer
of the Academy! hence, thou sneering Cynic! hence, thou
sense-worshipping Stoic, who fanciest that the soul is
to derive her knowledge from those material appearances
which she herself creates! . . . hence ; and yet no:
stay and sneer if you will. It is but a little time—a few
days longer in this prison house of our degradation, and each
thing shall return to its own fountain ; the blood-drop to
the abysmal heart, and the water to the river, and the
river to the shining sea ; and the dewdrop which fell from
heaven shall rise to heaven again, shaking off the dust-
grains which weighed it down, thawed from the earth frost
which chained it here to herb and sward, upward and
upward ever through stars and suns, through gods, and
through the parents of the gods, purer and purer through
successive lives, till it enters The Nothing, which is
The All, and finds its home at last.” . . .
And the speaker stopped suddenly, her eyes glistening
with tears, her whole figure trembling and dilating with
rapture. She remained for a moment motionless, gazing
earnestly at her audience, as if in hopes of exciting in them
Some kindred glow ; and then recovering herself, added in
a more tender tone, not quite unmixed with sadness :
“Go now, my pupils. Hypatia has no more for you
today Go now, and spare her at least–woman as she is
after all—the shame of finding that she has given you too
much, and lifted the veil of Isis before eyes which are not
enough purified to behold the glory of the goddess.-
Farewell!” -
She ended : and Philammon, the moment that the spell
I4C Aſ VPA 774.
of her voice was taken off him sprung up, and hurried out
through the corridor into the street. . . . .
So beautiful! So calm and merciful to him So
enthusiastic toward all which was noble! Had not she too
spoken of the unseen world, of the hope of immortality, of
the conquest of the spirit over the flesh, just as a Christian
might have done? Was the gulf between them so infinite?
If so, why had her aspirations awakened echoes in his own
heart—echoes, too, just such as the prayers and lessons of
the Laura used to awaken P. If the fruit was so like, must
not the root be like also P. . . . Could that be a counter-
feit? That a minister of Satan in the robes of an angel of
light? Light at least it was ; purity, simplicity, courage,
earnestness, tenderness flashed out from eye, lip, gesture.
A heathen who disbelieved? What was the meaning of it
all P .
But the finishing stroke yet remained which was to com-
plete the utter confusion of his mind. For before he had
gone fifty yards up the street, his little friend of the fruit
basket, whom he had not seen since he vanished under the
feet of the mob in ths gateway of the theatre, clutched him
by the arm, and burst forth breathless with running—
“The-gods—heap their favors—on those who—who
least deserve them Rash and insolent rustic! , And this
is the reward of thy madness!” -
“Off with you!” said Philammon, who had no mind at
the moment to renew his acquaintance with the little
porter. But the guardian of parasols kept a firm hold on
his sheepskin. -
“Fool! Hypatia herself commands! Yes, you will see
her, have speech with her! while I—I the illuminated–I
the appreciating—I the obedient—I the adoring—who for
these three years past have grovelled in the kennel, that
the hem of her garment might touch the tip of my little
finger—I –I—I–”
“What do you want madman?” *
“She calls for thee, insensate wretch! Theon sent me
—breathless at once with running and with envy. Go
favorite of the unjust gods!”
“Who is Theon?” -
“Her father, ignorant! He commands thee to be at
Aſ VPA ZZA. I4 I
f
her house—here—opposite—tomorrow, at the third hour.
Hear and obey! There! they are coming out of the
Museum, and all the parasols will get wrong. Oh, miser-
able me!”
And the poor little fellow rushed back again, while
Philammon, at his wits' end between dread and longing,
started off and ran the whole way home to the Serapeium,
regardless of carriages, elephants and foot-passengers; and
having been knocked down by a surly porter, and left a
piece of his sheepskin between the teeth of a spiteful
camel—neither of which insults he had time to resent—
arrived at the archbishop's house, found Peter the Reader,
and tremblingly begged an audience from Cyril.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SNAPPING OF THE BOW.
CYRIL heard Philammon's story and Hypatia's message
with a quiet smile, and then dismissed the youth to an
afternoon of labor in the city, commanding him to mention
no word of what had happened, and to come to him that
evening and receive his order, when he should have had
time to think over the matter. So forth Philammon went
with his companions, through lanes and alleys hideous
with filth and poverty, compulsory idleness and native sin.
Fearfully real and practical it all was ; but he saw it all
dimly as in a dream. Before his eyes one face was
shining ; in his ears one silvery voice was ringing. . . . “He
is a monk, and knows no better.” . . . True! And how
should he know better? How could he tell how much
more there was to know, in that great new universe, in
such a cranny whereof his life had till now been passed?
He had heard but one side already. What if there were
two sides? Had he not a right—that is, was it not proper,
fair, prudent, that he should hear both, and then judge?
Cyril had hardly, perhaps, done wisely for the youth in
sending him out about the practical drudgery of benevo-
lence, before deciding for him what was his duty with
regard to Hypatia's invitation. He had not calculated on
the new thoughts which were tormenting the young monk;
perhaps they would have been unintelligible to him had he
l:nown of them. Cyril had been bred up under the most
stern dogmatic training, in those vast monastic establish-
ments, which had arisen amid the neighboring saltpetre
quarries of Nitria, where thousands toiled in voluntary.
poverty and starvation at vast bakeries, dyeries, brickfields,
tailors' shops, carpenters’ yards; and expended the profit
of their labor, not on themselves, for they had need of
nothing, but on churches, hospitals, and alms. Educated
in that world of practical industrial production as well as
I42
ATVA’A 7TWA. I43
of religious exercise, which by its proximity to the great
city accustomed monks to that world which they despised ;
entangled from boyhood in the intrigues of his fierce and
anbitious uncle, Theophilus, Cyril had succeeded him in
the patriarchate of Alexandria without having felt a doubt,
and stood free to throw his fiery energy and clear practical
intellect into the cause of the Church without scruple,
even, where necessary, without pity. How could such a
man sympathize with the poor boy of twenty, suddenly
dragged forth from the quiet cavern-shadow of the Laura
into the full blaze and roar of the world's noonday? He,
too, was cloister-bred. But the busy and fanatic atmos-
phere of Nitria, where every nerve of soul and body was
kept on a life-long artificial strain, without rest, without
simplicity, without human affection, was utterly antipodal
to the government of the remote and needy, though no less
industrious commonwealths of Coenobites, who dotted the
lonely mountain-glens, far up into the heart of the Nubian
desert. In such a one Philammon had received, from a
venerable man, a mother’s sympathy as well as a father's
care, and now he yearned for the encouragement of a
gentle voice, for the greeting of a kindly eye, and was
lonely and sick at heart. . . . And still Hypatia's voice
haunted his ears, like a strain of music, and would not die
away. That lofty enthusiasm, so sweet and modest in its
grandeur—that tone of pity—in one so lovely it could not
be called contempt—for the many; that delicious phantom
of being an elect spirit . . . unlike the crowd. . . . “And
am I altogether like the crowd P” said Philammon to him-
self, as he staggered along under the weight of a groaning
fever-patient. “Can there be found no fitter work for me
than this, which any porter from the quay might do as
well? Am I not somewhat wasted on such toil as this?
Have I not an intellect, a taste, a reason? I could
appreciate what she said. Why should not my faculties
be educated? Why am I only to be shut out from knowl-
edge? There is a Christian Gnosis as well as a heathen
one. What was permissible to Clement”—he had nearly
said to Origen, but checked himself on the edge of heresy
—“is surely lawful for me! Is not my very craving for
I44 ATVA’A 7/4.
knowledge a sign that I am capable of it? Surely my
sphere is the study rather than the street!” • *
And then his fellow-laborers—he could not deny it to
himself—began to grow less venerable in his eyes. Let
him try as he might to forget the old priest's grumblings
and detractions, the fact was before him. The men were
coarse, fierce, noisy . . . so different from her! Their
talk seemed mere gossip—Scandalous, too, and hard-
judging, most of it; about that man’s private ambition,
and that woman’s proud looks; and who had stayed for
the Eucharist the Sunday before, and who had gone out
after the sermon ; and how the majority who did not stay
could possibly dare to go, and how the minority who did
not go could possibly dare to stay. . . . Endless
suspicions, sneers, complaints . . . what did they care for
the eternal glories and the beatific vision P Their one test
for all men and things, from the patriarch to prefect,
seemed to be—did he or it advance the cause of the
Church?—which Philammon soon discovered to mean
their own cause, their influence, their self-glorification.
And the poor boy, as his faculty for fault-finding quickened
under the influence of theirs, seemed to see under the
humble stock-phrases in which they talked of their labors
of love, and the future reward of their present humiliations,
a deep and hardly hidden pride, a faith in their own
infallibility, a contemptuous impatience of every man,
however venerable, who differed from their party on any,
even the slightest, matter. They spoke with sneers of
Augustine's Latinizing tendencies, and with open execra-
tion of Chrysostom, as the vilest and most impious of
Schismatics ; and, for aught Philammon knew, they were
right enough. But when they talked of wars and desola-
tions past and impending, without a word of pity for the
slain and ruined, as a just judgment of Heaven upon
heretics and heathens; when they argued over the awful
struggle for power which, as he gathered from their words,
was pending between the Emperor and the Count of
Africa, as if it contained but one question of interest to
them—would Cyril, and they as his body-guard, gain or
Jose power in Alexandria? And lastly, when at some
mention of Orestes, and of Hypatia as his counsellor, they
Aſ VPA 7TWA. I45
broke out into open imprecations of God’s curse, and
comforted themselves with the prospects of everlasting
torments for both, he shuddered and asked himself
involuntarily—were these the ministers of a Gospel?—were
these the fruits of Christ's Spirit? . . . . And a whisper
thrilled through the inmost depth of his soul—“Is there a
Gospel? Is there a. spirit of Christ? Would not their
fruits be different from these?”
Faint, and low, and distant, was that whisper, like the
mutter of an earthquake miles below the soil. And yet,
like the earthquake-roll, it had in that one moment jarred
every belief, and hope, and memory of his being each a
hair’s-breadth from its place. . . . Only one hair’s-breadth.
But that was enough ; his whole inward and outward
world changed shape, and cracked at every joint. What
if it were to fall in pieces? His brain reeled with the
thought. He doubted his own identity. The very light
of heaven had altered its hue. Was the firm ground on
which he stood after all no solid reality, but a fragile shell
which covered—what?
The nightmare vanished, and he breathed once more.
What a strange dream The sun and the exertion must
have made him giddy. He would forget all about it.
Weary with labor, and still wearier with thought, he
returned that evening, longing, and yet dreading to be
permitted to speak with Hypatia. He half hoped at
moments that Cyril might think him too weak for it; and
the next, all his pride and daring, not to say his faith and
hope, spurred him on. Might he but face the terrible
enchantress, and rebuke her to her face! And yet so
lovely, so noble as she looked | Could he speak to her,
except in tones of gentle warning, pity, counsel, entreaty?
Might he not convert her—save her? Glorious thought!
to win such a soul to the true cause! To be able to show,
as the first-fruits of his mission, the very champion of
heathendom! It was worth while to have lived only to do
that, and, having done it, to die. .
The archbishop's lodgings when he entered them were
in a state of ferment even greater than usual. Groups of
monks, priests, parabolani and citizens, rich and poor,
were hanging about the courtyard, talking earnestly and
I46 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
angrily. A large party of monks fresh from Nitria, with
ragged hair and beards, and the peculiar expression of
countenance which fanatics of all Creeds acquire, fierce
and yet abject, self-conscious and yet ungoverned, silly
and yet sly, with features coarsened and degraded by
continual fasting and self-torture, prudishly shrouded from
head to heel in their long ragged gowns, were gesticulating
wildly and loudly, and calling on their more peaceable
companions, in no measured terms, to revenge some insult
offered to the Church.
“What is the matter?” asked Philammon of a quiet,
portly citizen, who stood looking up, with a most perplexed
visage, at the windows of the patriarch's apartments.
“Don’t ask me; I have nothing to do with it. Why
does not his holiness come out and speak to them P
Blessed Virgin, mother of God! that we were well through
it all!”—
“Coward!” bawled a monk in his ear. “These shop-
keepers care for nothing but seeing their stalls safe.
Rather than lose a day’s custom, they would give the very
churches to be plundered by the heathen l''
“We do not want them l’’ cried another. “We man-
aged Dioscuros and his brother, and we can manage
Orestes. What matter what answer he sends? The devil
shall have his own!” r
“They ought to have been back two hours ago; they
are murdered by this time!”
“He would not dare to touch the archdeacon!”
“He will dare anything. Cyril should never have
sent them forth as lambs among wolves. What neces-
sity was there for letting the prefect know that the
Jews were gone? He would have found it out for himself
fast enough the next time he wanted to borrow money.”
“What is this all about, reverend sir?” asked Philammon
of Peter the Reader, who made his appearance at that
moment in the quadrangle, walking with great strides, like
the soul of Agamemnon across the meads of Asphodel, and
apparently beside himself with rage.
“Ah! you here? You may go tomorrow, young fool!
The patriarch can’t talk to you. Why should he? Some
people have a great deal too much notice taken of them,
Aſ YAA ZTAA. I47
in my opinion. Yes; you may go. If your head is not
turned already, you may go and get it turned tomorrow.
We shall see whether he who exalts himself is not abased,
before all is over!” And he was striding away, when
Philammon, at the risk of an explosion, stopped him,
“His holiness commanded me to see him, sir,
before—”
Peter turned on him in a fury. “ Fool! will you dare to
intrude your fantastical dreams on him at such a moment
as this?”
“He commanded me to see him,” said Philammon, with
the true soldier-like discipline of a monk; “and see him I
will, in spite of any man. I believe in my heart you wish
to keep me from his counsels and his blessings.”
Peter looked at him for a moment with a right wicked
expression, and then, to the youth's astonishment, struck
him full in the face, and yelled for help.
If the blow had been given by Pambo in the Laura a
week before, Philammon would have borne it. But from
that man, and coming unexpectedly as the finishing stroke
to all his disappointment and disgust, it was intolerable ;
and in an instant Peter's long legs were sprawling on the
pavement, while he bellowed like a bull for all the monks
of Nitria.
A dozen lean brown hands were at Philammon's throat
as Peter rose.
‘‘Seize him hold him l’ half blubbered he. “The
traitor! the heretic! He holds communion with heathens!”
“Down with him!” “Cast him out!” “ Carry him to
the archbishop!” while Philammon shook himself free and
Peter returned to the charge.
‘‘I call all good Catholics to witness! He has beaten
an ecclesiastic in the courts of the Lord’s house, even in
the midst of thee, O Jerusalem! And he was in Hypatia's
lecture-room this morning !” .
A groan of pious horror rose. Philammon set his back
against the wall.
“His holiness the patriarch sent me.”
“He confesses, he confesses. He deluded the piety of
the patriarch into letting him go, under color of converting
her ; and even now he wants to intrude on the sacred
I48 Aſ VA’.4 ZT/4.
presence of Cyril, burning only with carnal desire that he
may meet the sorceress in her house tomorrow.”
“Scandal!” “Abomination in the holy place!” and a
rush at the poor youth took place.
His blood was thoroughly up. The respectable part
of the crowd, as is usual in such cases, prudently
retreated, and left him to the mercy of the monks, with
an eye to their own reputation for orthodoxy, not to
mention their personal safety, and he had to help himself
as he could. He looked round for a weapon. There was
none. The ring of monks was baying at him like hounds
round a bear ; and though he might have been a match for
any one of them singly, yet their sinewy limbs and
determined faces warned him that against such odds the
struggle would be desperate.
‘‘Let me leave this court in safety God knows
whether I am an heretic ; and to Him I commit my cause!
The holy patriarch shall know of your iniquity. I will
not trouble you ; I give you leave to call me heretic, or,
heathen, if you will, if I cross this threshold till Cyril him-
self sends for me back to shame you.”
And he turned and forced his way to the gate, amid a
yell of derision which brought every drop of blood in his
body into his cheeks. Twice as he went down the
vaulted passage a rush was made on him from behind, but
the soberer of his persecutors checked it. Yet he could
not leave them, young and hot-headed as he was, without
One last word, and on the threshold he turned.
“You! who call yourselves the disciples of the Lord,
and are more like the demoniacs who abode day and night
in the tombs, crying and cutting themselves with
Stones—”
In an instant they rushed upon him ; and, luckily for
him, rushed also into the arms of a party of ecclesiastics,
who were hurrying inward from the street, with faces of
blank terror. -
“He has refused" shouted the foremost. “He
declares war against the Church of God!”
“O my friends,” panted the archdeacon, “we are
escaped like the bird out of the snare of the fowler. The
tyrant kept us waiting two hours at his palace gates, and
A VAA 77.4. I49
then sent lictors out upon us, with rods and axes, telling
us that they were the only message which he had for
robbers and rioters.”
“Back to the patriarch 1” and the whole mob streamed
in again, leaving Philammon alone in the street—and in
the world.
Whither now?
He strode on in his wrath some hundred yards or more
before he asked himself that question. And when he
asked it, he found himself in no humor to answer it. He
was adrift, and blown out of harbor upon a shoreless sea,
in utter darkness; all heaven and earth were nothing to
him. He was alone in the blindness of anger.
Gradually one fixed idea, as a light tower, began to
glimmer through the storm. . . . To see Hypatia and
Convert her. He had the patriarch's leave for that. That
must be right. That would justify him—bring him back,
perhaps, in a triumph more glorious than any Caesar’s,
leading captive, in the fetters of the Gospel, the Queen of
Heathendom. Yes, there was that left for which to live.
His passion cooled down gradually as he wandered on
in the fading evening light, up one street and down
another, till he had utterly lost his way. What matter?
He should find that lecture-room tomorrow at least. At
last he found himself in a broad avenue, which he seemed
to know. Was that the Sun-gate in the distance? He
Sauntered carelessly down it, and found himself at last on
the great Esplanade, whither the little porter had taken
him three days before. He was close then to the Museum
and to her house. Destiny had led him, unconsciously,
toward the scene of his enterprise. It was a good omen ;
he would go thither at once. He might sleep upon her
door-step as well as upon any other. Perhaps he might
catch a glimpse of her going out or coming in, even at that
late hour. It might be well to accustom himself to the
sight of her. There would be the less chance of his being
abashed tomorrow before those sorceress eyes. And, more-
Over, to tell the truth, his self-dependence, and his self-
will, too, crushed, or rather laid to sleep by the discipline
of the Laura, had started into wild life, and gave him a
mysterious pleasure, which he had not felt since he was a
I 50 Aſ VA24 TWA
disobedient little boy, of doing what he chose, right or
wrong, simply because he chose it. Such moments come
to every free-willed creature. Happy are those who have
not, like poor Philammon, been kept by a hotbed cultiva-
tion from knowing how to face them! But he had yet to
learn, or rather his tutors had to learn, that the sure path
toward willing obedience and manful self-restraint lies not
through slavery, but through liberty.
He was not certain which was Hypatia's house ; but the
door of the Museum he could not forget. So there he sat
himself down under the garden-wall, soothed by the cool
night, and the holy silence, and the rich perfume of the
thousand foreign flowers which filled the air with enervat-
ing balm. There he sat, and watched, and watched, and
watched in vain for some glimpse of his one object. Which
of the houses was hers? Which was the window of her
chamber? Did it look into the street? What business
had his fancy with women's chambers? . . . But that one
open window, with the lamp burning bright inside—he
could not help looking up to it—he could not help fancy-
ing—hoping. He even moved a few yards to see better
the bright interior of the room. High up as it was, he
could still discern shelves of books—pictures on the walls.
Was that a voice? Yes, a woman’s voice—reading aloud
in metre-—was plainly distinguishable in the dead stillness
of the night, which did not even awaken a whisper in the
trees above his head. He stood spellbound by curiosity.
Suddenly the voice ceased, and a woman’s figure came
forward to the window, and stood motionless, gazing
upward at the spangled star-world overhead, and seeming
to drink in the glory, and the silence, and the rich per-
fume. . . . Could it be she? Every pulse in his body
throbbed madly. . . . Could it be? What was she doing?
|He could not distinguish the features; but the full blaze
of the eastern moon showed him an upturned brow,
between a golden stream of glittering tresses which hid her
whole figure, except the white hands clasped upon her
bosom. . . . Was she praying? were these her midnight
sorceries? . . .
And still his heart throbbed and throbbed, till he
almost fancied she must hear its noisy beat—and still she
Aſ VPA 774. Í51
stood motionless, gazing upon the sky, like some exquisite
chryselephantine statue, all ivory and gold. And behind
her, round the bright room within, paintings, books, a
whole world of unknown science and beauty . . . and she
the priestess of it all . . . inviting him to learn of her and
be wise! It was a temptation. He would flee from it!
Fool that he was 1 and it might not be she after all!
He made some sudden movement. She looked down,
saw him, and shutting the blind vanished for the night.
In vain now that the temptation had departed, he sat and
waited for its reappearance, half cursing himself for having
broken the spell. But the chamber was dark and silent
henceforth ; and Philammon, wearied out, found himself
soon wandering back to the Laura in quiet dreams, beneath
the balmy, semi-tropic night.
CHAPTER X.
THE INTERVIEW.
PHILAMMON was aroused from his slumbers at sunrise the
next morning by the attendants who came in to sweep out
the lecture-rooms, and wondered disconsolately enough up
and down the street, longing for, and yet dreading, the
three weary hours to be over which must pass before he
would be admitted to Hypatia. But he had tasted no food
since noon the day before ; he had had but three hours' sleep
the previous night, and had been working, running, and
fighting for two whole days without a moment's peace of
body or mind. Sick with hunger and fatigue, and aching.
from head to foot with his hard night’s rest on the granite-
flags, he felt as unable as man could well do to collect his
thoughts or brace his nerves for the coming interview.
How to get food he could not guess : but having two
hands, he might at least earn a coin by carrying a load ; so
he went down to the Esplanade in search of work. Of
that, alas! there was none. So he sat down on the
parapet of the quay, and watched the shoals of sardines
which played in and out over the marble steps below, and
wondered at the strange crabs and sea locusts which
crawled up and down the face of the masonry, a few feet
below the surface, scrambling for bits of Offal, and making
occasional fruitless dashes at the nimble little silver arrows
which played round them. And at last his whole soul,
too tired to think of anything else, became absorbed in a
mighty struggle between two great crabs, who held on
stoutly, each by a claw, to his respective bunch of sea-
weed, while with the others they tugged, one at the head
and the other at the tail of a dead fish. Which would
conquer? . . . Ay, which? And for five minutes Philam-
mon was alone in the world with the two struggling heroes.
. . . Might not they be emblematic? Might not the
upper One typify Cyril—the lower one Hypatia?—and the
I52
A/VAA 77.4. 153
dead fish between, himself? . . . But at last the dead-
lock was suddenly ended—the fish parted in the middle :
and the typical Hypatia and Cyril, losing hold of their
respective seaweeds by the jerk, tumbled down, each with
its half fish, and vanished head over heels into the blue
depths in so undignified a manner that Philammon burst
into a shout of laughter. .
“What’s the joke?” asked a well-known voice behin
him ; and a hand patted him familiarly on the back. He
looked round and saw the little porter, his head crowned
with a full basket of figs, grapes and watermelons, on
which the poor youth cast a longing eye. “Well, my
young friend, and why are you not at church P Look at
all the saints pouring into the Caesareum there behind
you.”
Philammon answered sulkily enough something inar-
ticulate. -
“Ho, ho! Quarrelled with the successor of the Apostles
already? Has my prophecy come true, and the strong
meat of pious riot and plunder proved too highly spiced
for your young palate, eh?” -
Poor Philammon | Angry with himself for feeling that
the porter was right ; shrinking from the notion of expos-
ing the failings of his fellow-Christians ; shrinking still
more from making such a jackanapes his confidant : and
yet yearning in his loneliness to open his heart to some
one he dropped out, hint by hint, word by word, the
events of the past evening, and finished by a request to be
put in the way of earning his breakfast. - -
“Earning your breakfast! Shall the favorite of the gods
—shall the guest of Hypatia—earn his breakfast, while I
have an obol to share with him? Base thought! Youth I
have wronged you. Unphilosophically I allowed, yester-
day morning, envy to ruffle the ocean of my intellect. We
are now friends and brothers in hatred to the monastic
tribe.” ū
“I do not hate them, I tell you,” said Philammon.
“But these Nitrian savages—” *
“Are the perfect examples of monkery, and you hate
them ; and therefore, all greaters containing the less, you
hate all less monastic monks—I have not heard logic
154. Aſ VPA 7/4.
lectures in vain. Now, up! The sea woos our dusty
limbs. Nereids and Tritons, charging no cruel coin, call
us to Nature's bath. At home a mighty sheat-fish smokes
upon the festive board ; beer crowns the horn, and onions
deck the dishes ; come then, my guest and brother?”
Philammon swallowed certain scruples about becoming
the guest of a heathen, seeing that otherwise there seemed
no chance of having anything else to swallow ; and after a
refreshing plunge in the sea, followed the hospitable little
fellow to Hypatia's door, where he dropped his daily load
of fruit, and then into a narrow by-street, to the ground
floor of a huge block of lodgings, with a common staircase,
swarming with children, cats, and chickens; and was
ushered by his host into a little room, where the savory
smell of broiling fish revived Philammon’s heart.
“Judith ! Judith where lingerest thou? Marble of
Pentelicus! foam-flake of the wine-dark main! lily of the
Mareotic lake! You accursed black Andromeda, if you
don’t bring the breakfast this moment, I’ll cut you in two!”
The inner door opened, and in bustled, trembling, her
hands full of dishes, a tall lithe negress dressed in true
negro fashion, in a snow-white cotton shift, a scarlet cotton
petticoat, and a bright yellow turban of the same, making
a light in that dark place which would have served as a
landmark a mile off. She put the dishes down, and the
porter majestically waved Philammon to a stool ; while
she retreated and stood humbly waiting on her lord and
master, who did not deign to introduce to his guest the
black beauty which composed his whole seraglio. . . . But,
indeed, such an act of courtesy would have been needless,
for the first morsel of fish was hardly safe in Philammon's
mouth, when the negress rushed upon him, caught him by
the head, and covered him with rapturous kisses.
Up jumped the little man with a yell, brandishing a
knife in one hand and a leek in the other; while Philam-
mon, scarcely less scandalized, jumped up too, and shook
himself free of the lady, who, finding it impossible to vent
her feelings further on his head, instantly changed her
tactics, and, wallowing on the floor, began frantically kiss-
ing his feet. - -
“What is this? Before my face! Up, shameless bag-
Aſ VPA 7/4. 155
gage, or thou diest the death !” and the porter pulled her
up upon her knees.
“It is the monk! the young man I told you of, who
saved me from the Jews the other night! What good
angel sent him here that I might thank him?” cried the
poor creature, while the tears ran down her black shining
face.
‘‘I am that good angel,” said the porter, with a look of
intense self-satisfaction. “Rise, daughter of Erebus :
thou art pardoned, being but a female. What says the
poet?—
“Woman is passion's slave, while rightful lord
O'er her and passion, rules the nobler male.”
Youth! to my arms! Truly say the philosophers, that the
universe is magical in itself, and by mysterious sympathies
links like to like. The prophetic instinct of thy future
benefits toward me drew me to thee as by an invisible
warp, hawser, or chain-cable, from the moment I beheld
thee. Thou wert a kindred spirit, my brother, though
thou knewest it not. Therefore I do not praise thee—no,
nor thank thee in the least, though thou hast preserved for
me the one palm which shadows my weary steps—the
single lotus-flower (in this case black, not white) which
blooms for me above the mud-stained ocean waves of the
Hylic Borboros. That which thou hast done, thou hast
done by instinct—by divine compulsion—thou couldst no
more help it than thou canst help eating that fish, and art
no more to be praised for it.”
“Thank you,” said Philammon.
“Comprehend me. Our theory in the schools for such
cases is this—has been so at least for the last six months :
similar particles, from one original source, exist in you
and me. Similar causes produce similar effects ; Our
attractions, antipathies, impulses, are therefore, in similar
circumstances, absolutely the same ; and therefore you did
the other night exactly what I should have done in your
case.” -
Philammon thought the latter part of the theory open to
question, but he had by no means stopped eating when he
rose, and his mouth was much too full of fish to argue.
“And therefore,” continued the little man, “we are to
156 ATVA’A 7"/4.
consider ourselves henceforth as one soul in two bodies.
You may have the best of the corporeal part of the
division . . . yet it is the soul which makes the person.
You may trust me, I shall not disdain my brotherhood. .
If anyone insults you henceforth, you have but to call me;
and if I be within hearing, why, by this right arm } }
And he attempted a pat on Philammon's head, which, as
there was a head and shoulder’s difference between them,
might on the whole have been considered, from a theatric
point of view, as a failure. Whereon the little man seized
the calabash of beer, and filling there with a cow's horn,
his thumb on the small end, raised it high in the air.
“To the Tenth Muse, and to your interview with her!”
And removing his thumb, he sent a steady jet into his
open mouth, and having drained the horn without drawing
breath, licked his lips, handed it to Philammon, and flew
ravenously upon the fish and onions.
Philammon, to whom the whole was supremely absurd,
had no invocation to make, but one which he felt too
sacred for his present temper of mind ; so he attempted to
imitate the little man’s feat, and, of course, poured the
beer into his eyes, and up his nose, and in his bosom, and
finally choked himself black in the face, while his host
observed, smilingly—
“Aha, rustic! unacquainted with the ancient and classi-
cal customs preserved in this centre of civilization by the
descendants of Alexander's heroes? Judith] clear the
table. Now to the sanctuary of the Muses!”
Philammon rose, and finished his meal by a monkish
grace. A gentle and reverend “Amen” rose from the
other end of the room. It was the negress. She saw him
look up at her, dropped her eyes modestly, and bustled
away with the remnants, while Philammon and his host
started for Hypatia's lecture-room.
“Your wife is a Christian?” asked he, when they were
outside the door. - -
“Ahem ! The barbaric mind is prone to supersti-
tion. Yet she is, being but a woman and a negress, a
good soul and thrifty, though requiring, like all lower
animals, occasional chastisement. I married her on
philosophic grounds. A wife was necessary to me for
ATVA’A 7TWA. I 57
several reasons ; but mindful that the philosopher should
subjugate the material appetite, and rise above the
swinish desires of the flesh, even when his nature requires
him to satisfy them, I proposed to make pleasure as
unpleasant as possible. I had the choice of several
Cripples—their parents, of ancient Macedonian family like
myself, were by no means adverse : but I required a house-
keeper with whose duties the want of an arm or a leg
might have interfered.”
“Why did you not marry a scold?” asked Philammon.
“Pertinently observed : and indeed the example of
Socrates rose luminous more than once before my imagi-
nation. But philosophic calm, my dear youth, and the
peaceful contemplation of the ineffable! I could not
relinquish those luxuries. So having, by the bounty of
Hypatia and her pupils, saved a small sum, I went out,
bought me a negress, and hired six rooms in the block we
have just left, where I let lodgings to young students of
the Divine Philosophy.”
“Have you any lodgers now?”
“Ahem Certain rooms are occupied by a lady of rank.
The philosopher will, above all things, abstain from
babbling. To bridle the tongue is to But there is a
closet at your service ; and for the hall of reception, which
you have just left—are you not a kindred and fraternal
spark? We can combine our meals, as our souls are
already united.” -
Philammon thanked him heartily for the offer, though he
shrank from accepting it ; and in ten minutes more found
himself at the door of the very house which he had been
watching the night before. It was she, then, whom he had
seen! . . . He was handed over by a black porter to a smart
slave-girl, who guided him up, through cloisters and
corridors, to the large library, where five or six young men
were sitting, busily engaged under Theon's superintend-
ence in copying manuscripts and drawing geometric dia-
grams.
Philammon gazed curiously at these symbols of a science
unknown to him, and wondered whether the day would
ever come when he too would understand their mysteries ;
but his eyes fell again as he saw the youths staring at his
158 Aſ VPA 7/4.
ragged sheepskin and matted locks with undisguised con-
tempt. He could hardly collect himself enough to obey
the summons of the venerable old man, as he beckoned
him silently out of the room, and led him, with the titters
of the young students ringing in his ears, through the door
by which he had entered, and along a gallery, till he
stopped and knocked humbly at a door. . . . She must be
within' . . . Now! . . . at last. . . . His knees knocked
together under him. His heart sank and sank into abysses!
Poor wretch! . . . He was half-minded once to escape
and dash into the street . . . but was it not his one hope,
his one object? . . . But why did not that old man speak?
If he would have but said something! . . . If he would
only have looked cross, contemptuous! . . . But with the
same impressive gravity as of a man upon a business in
which he had no voice, and wished it to be understood that
he had none, the old man silently opened the door, and
Philammon followed. . . . There she was! looking more
glorious than ever : more than when glowing with the
enthusiasm of her own eloquence ; more than when trans-
figured last night in golden tresses and glittering moon-
beams. There she sat, without moving a finger, as the
two entered. She greeted her father with a smile, which
made up for all her seeming want of courtesy to him, and
then fixed her large gray eyes full on Philammon.
“Here is the youth, my daughter. It was your wish,
you know ; and I always believe that you know best 3 7
Another smile put an end to the speech, and the old man
retreated humbly toward another door, with a somewhat
anxious visage, and then lingering and looking back, his hand
upon the latch— -
“If you require anyone, you know you have only to call
—we shall be all in the library.” -
Another smile ; and the old man disappeared, leaving
the two alone.
Philammon stood trembling, choking, his eyes fixed on
the floor. Where were all the fine things he had conned
over for the occasion? He dared not look up at that face,
lest it should drive them out of his head. And yet the
more he kept his eyes turned from the face, the more he
was conscious of it, conscious that it was watching him ;
Aſ YAA ZTVA. I 59
and the more all the fine words were, by that very knowl-
edge, driven out of his head. . . . When would she speak?
Perhaps she wished him to speak first. It was her duty
to begin ; for she had sent for him. . . . But still she kept
silence, and sat scanning him intently from head to foot,
herself as motionless as a statue ; her hands folded
together before her, over the manuscript which lay upon
her knee. If there was a blush on her cheek at her own
daring, his eyes swam too much to notice it. -
When would the intolerable suspense end? She was,
perhaps, as unwilling to speak as he. But some One must
strike the first blow ; and, as often happens, the weaker
party, impelled by sheer fear, struck it and broke the
silence in a tone half indignańt, half apologetic—
“You sent for me hither?” -
“I did. It seemed to me, as I watched you during my
lecture, both before and after you were rude enough to
interrupt me, that your offence was one of mere youthful
ignorance. It seemed to me that your countenance
bespoke a nobler nature than that which the gods are
usually pleased to bestow upon monks. That I may now
ascertain whether or not my surmises were correct, I ask
you for what purpose are you come hither?”
Philammon hailed the question as a godsend. Now for
his message! And yet he faltered, as he answered, with a
desperate effort—“To rebuke you for your sins.”
“My sins? What sins?” she asked, as she looked up,
with a stately, slow surprise in those large gray eyes,
before which his own glance sank abashed, he knew not
why. What sins? He knew not. Did she look like a
Messalina? But was she not a heathen and a sorceress?—
And yet he blushed, and stammered, and hung down his
head, as shrinking at the sound of his own words, he
replied—
“The foul sorceries—and profligacy worse than sor-
ceries, in which, they say—” He could get no further :
for he looked up again and saw an awful quiet smile upon
that face. His words had raised no blush upon the marble
cheek.
“They say! The bigots and slanderers; wild beasts of
the desert, and fanatic intriguers, who, in the words
I6O Aſ VPA 77.4.
of Him they call their master, compass heaven and
earth to make one proselyte, and when they have found
him, make him twofold more the child of hell than them-
selves. GO-I forgive you : you are young, and know not
yet the mystery of the world. Science will teach you some
day that the outward frame is the sacrament of the soul's
inward beauty. Such a soul I had fancied your face
expressed ; but I was mistaken. Foul hearts alone harbor
such foul suspicions, and fancy others to be what they
know they might become themselves. Go! Do I look
like P The very tapering of these fingers, if you could
read their symbolism, would give your dream the lie.” And
she flashed full on him, like sun-rays from a mirror, the
full radiance of her glorious countenance.
Alas, poor Philammon! where were thy eloquent argu-
ments, thy Orthodox theories then? Proudly he struggled
with his own man’s heart of flesh, and tried to turn his
eyes away ; the magnet might as well struggle to escape
from the spell of the north. In a moment, he knew not
how, utter shame, remorse, longing for forgiveness, swept
Over him, and crushed him down ; and he found himself
On his knees before her, in abject and broken syllables
entreating pardon.
“Go-I forgive you. But know, before you go, that the
celestial milk which fell from Here’s bosom, bleaching the
plant which it touched to everlasting whiteness, was not
more taintless than the soul of Theon’s daughter.”
He looked up in her face as he knelt before her. Unerring
instinct told him that her words were true. He was a
monk, accustomed to believe animal sin to be the deadliest
and worst of all sins—indeed, ‘‘the great offence ’’ itself,
beside which all others were comparatively venial : where
there was physical purity, must not all other virtues follow
in its wake? All other failings were invisible under the
dazzling veil of that great loveliness : and in his self-
abasement he went on— - -
“Oh, do not spurn me! do not drive me away! I have
neither friend, home nor teacher, I fled last night from
the men of my own faith, maddened by bitter insult
and injustice—disappointed and disgusted with their
ferocity, narrowness, ignorance. I dare not, I cannot,
Aſ VPA 7/4. I6 I
I will not return to the obscurity and the dullness of
a Thebaid Laura. I have a thousand doubts to solve, a
thousand questions to ask about that great ancient world
of which I know nothing—of whose mysteries, they say,
you alone possess the key! I am a Christian ; but I thirst
for knowledge . . . I do not promise to believe you—I do
not promise to obey you ; but let me hear! Teach me
what you know, that I may compare it with what I know.
. . . If indeed” (and he shuddered as he spoke the words)
“I do know anything!”
“Have you forgotten the epithets which you used to me
just now!”
‘‘No, no! But do you forget them ; they were put into
my mouth. I—I did not believe them when I said them.
It was agony to me ; but I did it, as I thought, for your
sake—to save you. Oh, say that I may come and hear
you again! Only from a distance—in the very farthest.
corner of your lecture-room. I will be silent ; you shall
never see me. But your words yesterday awoke in me—no,
not doubts ; but still I must, I must hear more, or be as
miserable and homeless inwardly as I am in my outward
circumstances!” And he looked up imploringly for Con-
Sent. -
“Rise. This passion and that attitude are fitting
neither for you nor me.”
And as Philammon rose, she rose also, went into the
library to her father, and in a few minutes returned with
him.
“Come with me, young man,” said he, laying his hand
kindly enough on Philammon’s shoulder. . . . “The rest
of this matter you and I can settle ;” and Philammon
followed him, not daring to look back at Hypatia, while
the whole room swam before his eyes.
“So, so I hear you have been saying rude things to my
daughter. Well, she has forgiven you—”
“Has she?” asked the young monk, with an eager start.
“Ah! you may well look astonished. But I forgive you
too. It is lucky for you, however, that I did not hear you,
or else, old man as I am, I can’t say what I might not have
done. Ah, you little know, you little know what she is!”
and the old pedant’s eyes kindled with loving pride.
I62 Aſ VPA 7/4
“May the gods give you some day such a daughter! that
is, if you learn to deserve it—as virtuous as she is wise, as
wise as she is beautiful. Truly they have repaid me for
my labors in their service. Look, young man! little as
you merit it, here is a pledge of your forgiveness, such as
the richest and noblest in Alexandria are glad to purchase
with many an ounce of gold—a ticket of free admission to
all her lectures henceforth! Now go ; you have been
favored beyond your deserts, and should learn that the
philosopher can practice what the Christian only preaches,
and return good for evil! And he put into Philammon's
hand a slip of paper, and bid one of the secretaries show
him to the outer door. -
. The youths looked up at him from their writing as he
passed, with faces of surprise and awe, and evidently
thinking no more about the absurdity of his sheepskin and
his tanned complexion ; and he went out with a stunned,
confused feeling, as of one who, by a desperate leap, has
plunged into a new world. He tried to feel content ; but
he dare not. All before him was anxiety, uncertainty.
He had cut himself adrift ; he was on the great stream.
Whither would it lead him. Well—was it not the great
stream? Had not all mankind, for all the ages, been float-
ing on it? Or, was it but a desert-river, dwindling away
beneath the fiery sun, destined to lose itself a few miles on
among the arid sands? Were Arsenius and the faith of his
childhood right? And was the Old World coming speedily
to its death throe, and the Kingdom of God at hand? Or,
was Cyril right, and the Church Catholic appointed to
spread, and conquer, and destroy, and rebuild, till the
kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of God
and of His Christ? If so, what use in this old knowledge
which he craved? And yet, if the day of the destruction
of all things were at hand, and the times destined to
become worse and not better till the end—how could that
be? . . .
“What news?” asked the little porter, who had been
waiting for him at the door all the while. “What news,
O favorite of the gods?”
“I will lodge with you, and labor with you. Ask me no
more at present. I am—I am—”
Aſ YAA 7TWA. 163
“Those who descended into the Cave of Trophonius,
and beheld the unspeakable, remained astonished for three
days, my young friend—and so will you!” And they went
forth together to earn their bread.
But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon that
cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far above the
noise and struggle of man and his work-day world?
She is sitting again, with her manuscripts open before
her ; but she is thinking of the young monk, not of them.
‘‘Beautiful as Antinous! . . . Rather as the young
Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the slaughter of the
Python. Why should not he, too, become a slayer of
Pythons and loathsome monsters, bred from the mud of
sense and matter? So bold and earnest! I can forgive
him those words for the very fact of his having dared, here
in my father's house, to say them to me. . . . And yet so
tender, so open to repentance and noble shame! That is no
plebeian by birth ; patrician blood surely flows in those
veins: it shows out in every attitude, every tone, every
motion of the hand and lip. He cannot be one of the
herd. Who ever knew one of them crave after knowledge
for its own sake? . . . And I have longed so for one real
pupill I have longed so to find one such man, among the
effeminate selfish triflers who pretend to listen to me. I
thought I had found one—and the moment that I had lost
him, behold, I find another ; and that a fresher, purer,
simpler nature than ever Raphael's was at its best. By all
the laws of physiognomy—by all the symbolism of gesture
and voice and complexion—by the instinct of my own
heart, that young monk might be the instrument—the
ready, valiant, obedient instrument—for carrying out all
my dreams. If I could but train him into a Longinus, I
could dare to play the part of a Zenobia, with him as coun-
sellor. . . . And for my Odenatus—Orestes? Horrible!”
She covered her face with her hand a minute. “No!”
she said, dashing away the tears—“That—and anything—
and everything for the cause of Philosophy and the gods!”
CHAPTER XI.
THE LAURA AGAIN.
NOT a sound, not a moving object, broke the utter still-
ness of the glen of Scetis. The shadows of the crags,
though paling every moment before the spreading dawn,
still shrouded all the gorge in gloom. A winding line of
haze slept above the course of the rivulet. The plumes of
the palm-trees hung motionless, as if awaiting in resigna-
tion the breathless blaze of the approaching day. At
length, among the green ridges of the monastery garden,
two gray figures rose from their knees, and began with
slow and feeble strokes to break the silence by the clatter
of their hoes among the pebbles.
“These beans grow wonderfully, brother Aufugus. We
shall be able to sow our second crop, by God’s blessing, a
week earlier than we did last year.”
The person addressed returned no answer ; and his com-
panion, after watching him for some time in silence,
recommenced—
“What is it, my brother? I have remarked lately a
melancholy about you which is hardly fitting for a man of
God.”
A deep sigh was the only answer. The speaker laid
down his hoe, and placing his hand affectionately on the
shoulder of Aufugus, asked again—
“What is it, my friend? I will not claim with you my
abbot's right to know the secrets of your heart ; but surely
that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken
to me, however unworthy I may be to hear it!”
“Why should I not be sad, Pambo, my friend? Does
not Solomon say that there is a time for mourning?”
“True ; but a time for mirth also.” -
“None to the penitent, burdened with the guilt of many
Sins.”
“Recollect what the blessed Anthony used to say—
I64
Aſ VPA 7/A, 165
‘Trust not in thine own righteousness, and regret not that
which is past.’”
‘‘I do neither, Pambo.”
“Do not be too sure of that. Is it not because thou
art still trusting in thyself that thou dost regret the past,
which shows thee that thou art not that which thou
wouldst gladly pride thyself on being?”
“Pambo, my friend,” said Arsenius, solemnly, “I will
tell thee all. My sins are not yet past ; for Honorius, my
pupil, still lives, and in him lives the weakness and the
misery of Rome. My sins past? If they are, why do I
See rising before me, night after night, that train of accus-
ing spectres, ghosts of men slain in battle, widows and
orphans, virgins of the Lord shrieking in the grasp of
barbarians, who stand by my bedside and cry, ‘Hadst
thou done thy duty, we had not been thus! Where is the
imperial charge which God committed to thee?’” . . . And
the old man hid his face in his hands and wept bitterly.
Pambo laid his hand again tenderly on the weeper's
shoulder. -
“Is there no pride here, my brother? Who art thou, to
change the fate of nations and the hearts of emperors,
which are in the hand of the King of kings? If thou wert
weak and imperfect in thy work—for unfaithful, I will
warrant thou wert never. He put thee there, because thou
wert imperfect, that so that which has come to pass might
come to pass ; and thou bearest thine own burden only—
and yet not thou, but He who bore it for thee.” -
“Why then am I tormented by these nightly visions?
“Fear them not, friend. They are spirits of evil, and
therefore lying spirits. Were they good spirits they
would speak to thee only in pity, forgiveness, encourage-
ment. But, be they ghosts or demons, they must be evil,
because they are accusers, like the Evil One himself, the
accuser of the saints. He is the father of lies, and his
children will be like himself. What said the blessed
Anthony? That a monk should not busy his brain with
painting spectres, or give himself up for lost; but rather
be cheerful, as one who knows that he is redeemed, and
in the hands of the Lord, where the Evil One has no
power to hurt him. ‘For,’ he used to say, ‘the demons
77
166 A/VPA 77.4.
behave to us even as they find us. If they see us cast
down and faithless, they terrify us still more, that they
may plunge us into despair. But if they see us full of
faith, and joyful in the Lord, with our souls filled with the
glory which shall be, then they shrink abashed, and flee
away in confusion.” Cheer up, friend! such thoughts are
of the night, the hour of Satan and of the power of dark-
ness; and with the dawn they flee away.”
“And yet things are revealed to men upon their beds,
in visions of the night.”
“Be it so. Nothing, at all events, has been revealed to
thee upon thy bed, except that which thou knowest already
far better than Satan does, namely, that thou art a sinner.
But for me, my friend, though I doubt not that such things
are, it is the day, and not the night, which brings revela-
tions.”
“How, then?”
“Because by day I can see to read that book which is
written, like the Law given on Sinai, upon tables of stone,
by the finger of God himself.” -
Arsenius looked up at him inquiringly. Pambo Smiled.
“Thou knowest that, like many holy men of old, I am
no scholar, and knew not even the Greek tongue, till thou,
out of thy brotherly kindness, taughtest it to me. But
hast thou never heard what Anthony said to a certain
Pagan who reproached him with his ignorance of books?
“Which is first,” he asked, “spirit or letter? Spirit, sayest
thou? Then know, the healthy spirit needs no letters.
My book is the whole creation, lying open before me,
wherein I can read, whensoever I please, the word of
God.” ”
“Dost thou not undervalue learning, my friend?”
“I am old among monks, and have seen much of their
ways; and among them my simplicity seems to have seen
this—many a man wearing himself with study, and
tormenting his soul as to whether he believed rightly this
doctrine and that, while he knew not with Solomon that in
much learning is much sorrow, and that, while he was
puzzling at the letter of God’s message, the spirit of it was
going fast and faster Out of him.”
“And how didst thou know that of such a man?”
Aſ YAZA 7/4. 167
“By seeing him become a moré and more learned
theologian, and more and more zealous for the letter of
Orthodoxy; and yet less and less loving and merciful—-less
and less full of trust in God, and of hopeful thoughts for
himself and for his brethren, till he seemed to have
darkened his whole soul with disputations, which breed
Only strife, and to have forgotten utterly the message
which is written in that book where with the blessed
Anthony was content.”
“Of what message dost thou speak?”
“Look,” said the old abbot, stretching his hand toward
the Eastern desert, ‘‘ and judge, like a wise man, for thy-
self!” As he spoke, a long arrow of level light flashed down
the gorge from Crag to crag, àwakening every crack
and slab to vividness and life. The great crimson sun
rose swiftly through the dim night-mist of the desert,
and as he poured his glory down the glen, the haze
rose in threads and plumes, and vanished, leaving the
stream to sparkle round the rocks, like the living, twink-
ling eye of the whole scene. Swallows flashed by hun-
dreds out of the cliff, and began their air-dance for the day;
the jerboa hopped stealthily homeward on his stilts from
his stolen meal in the monastery garden ; the brown sand-
lizards underneath the stones opened one eyelid each, and
having satisfied themselves that it was day, dragged their
bloated bodies and whip-like tails out into the most burn-
ing patch of gravel which they could find, and nestling
together as a further protection against cold, fell fast
asleep again ; the buzzard, who considered himself lord of
the valley, awoke with a long querulous bark, and rising
aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretch himself after his
night's sleep, hung motionless, watching every lark which
chirruped on the cliffs while from the far off Nile below,
the awakening croak of pelicans, the clang of geese, the
whistle of the godwit and curlew, came ringing up the
windings of the glen ; and last of all the voices of the
monks rose, chanting a morning hymn to some wild
Eastern air; and a new day had begun in Scetis, like those
which went before, and those which were to follow after,
week after week, year after year, of toil and prayer as
quiet as its sleep. -
I68 Aſ V.A.47/4.
“What does that teach thee, Aufugus, my friend?”
Arsenius was silent.
“To me it teaches this : that God is light, and in Him
is no darkness at all. That in his presence is life, and ful-
ness of joy for evermore. That He is the giver, who
delights in His own bounty; the lover, whose mercy is
Over all His works—and why not over thee, too, O thou of
little faith? Look at those thousand birds—and without
Our Father not one of them shall fall to the ground; and
art thou not of more value than many sparrows, thou for
whom God sent His Son to die? . . . Ah, my friend, we
must look out and around to see what God is like. It is
when we persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying
curiously over our own imperfections, that we learn to
make a God after our own image, and fancy that our own
darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of His
light and love.”
“Thou speakest rather as a philosopher than as a
penitent Catholic. For me, I feel that I want to look
more, and not less inward. Deeper self-examination,
completer abstraction than I can attain even here, are what
I Crave for. I long—forgive me, my friend—but I long
more and more, daily, for the solitary life. This earth is
accursed by man's sin : the less we see of it, it seems to
me, the better.” -
‘‘I may speak as a philosopher, or as a heathen, for
aught I know : yet it seems to me that, as they say, the
half loaf is better than none ; that the wise man will make
the best of what he has, and throw away no lesson because
the book is somewhat torn and soiled. The earth teaches
me thus far already. Shall I shut my eyes to those invisible
things of God which are clearly manifested by the things
which are made, because some day they will be more
clearly manifested than now? But as for more abstraction,
are we so worldly here in Scetis?”
“Nay, my friend, each man has surely his vocation, and
for each some peculiar method of life is more edifying than
another. In my case, the habits of mind which I acquired
in the world will cling to me in spite of myself even here.
It cannot help watching the doings of others, studying
their characters, planning and plotting for them, trying to
Aſ VPA 7/4. 169
prognosticate their future fate. Not a word, not a gesture
of this Our little family, but turns away my mind from the
one thing needful.”
“And do you fancy that the anchorite in his cell has
fewer distractions?”
“What can he have but the supply of the mere neces-
sary wants of life? And them, even, he may abridge to
the gathering of a few roots and herbs. Men have lived
like the beasts already, that they might at the same time
live like the angels—and why should not I also P”
“And thou art the wise man of the world—the student
of the hearts of others—the anatomizer of thine own P
Hast thou not found out that, besides a craving stomach,
man carries with him a corrupt heart? Many a man I have
seen who, in his haste to fly from the fiends without him,
has forgotten to close the door of his heart against worse
fiends who were ready to harbor within him. Many a
monk, friend, changes his place, but not the anguish of
his soul. I have known those who, driven to feed on their
own thoughts in solitude, have desperately cast themselves
from cliffs, or ripped up their own bodies, in the longing
to escape from thoughts, from which one companion, one
kindly voice, might have delivered them. I have known
those, too, who have been so puffed up by those very
penances which were meant to humble them, that they
have despised all means of grace, as though they were
already perfect, and refusing even the Holy Eucharist,
have lived in self-glorying dreams and visions suggested
by the evil spirits. One such I knew, who, in the mad-
ness of his pride, refused to be counselled by any mortal
man—saying that he would call no man master : and what
befell him? He who used to pride himself on wandering
a day's journey into the desert without food or drink, who
boasted that he could sustain life for three months at a
time only on wild herbs and the Blessed Bread, seized with
an inward fire, fled from his cell back to the theatres, the
circus, and the taverns, and ended his miserable days in
desperate gluttony, holding all things to be but phantasms,
denying his own existence, and that of God himself.”
Arsenius shook his head.
“Be it so. But my case is different. I have yet more
170 Aſ VPA 7/4.
to confess, my friend. Day by day I am more and more
haunted by the remembrance of the world from which I
fled. I know that if I returned I should feel no pleasure
in those pomps, which, even when I fattened on them, I
despised. Can I hear any more the voice of singing men
and singing women ; or discern any longer what I eat or
what I drink? And yet—the palaces of those seven hills,
their statesmen and their generals, their intrigues, their
falls, and their triumphs—for they might rise and conquer
yet! for no moment are they out of my imagination—no
moment in which they are not tempting me back to them,
like a moth to the candle which has already scorched him,
with a dreadful spell, which I must at last obey, wretch
that I am, against my own will, or break by fleeing into
some outer desert, from whence return will be impossible!”
Pambo smiled.
“Again I say, this is the worldly-wise man, the searcher
of hearts! And he would fain flee from the little Laura,
which does turn his thoughts at times from such vain
dreams, to a solitude where he will be utterly unable to
escape those dreams. Well, friend!—and what if thou art
troubled at times by anxieties and schemes for this brother
and for that? Better to be anxious for others than only
for thyself. Better to have something to love—even some-
thing to weep over—than to become in some lonely cavern
thine own world—perhaps, as more than one whom I
have known, thine own God.” -
“Do you know what you are saying?” asked Arsenius,
in a startled tone.
“I say, that by fleeing into solitude a man cuts himself
off from all which makes a Christian man ; from law,
obedience, fellow-help, self-sacrifice—from the Com-
munion of Saints itself.” -
** HOW then P”
“How canst thou hold communion with those toward
whom thou canst show no love? And how canst thou
show thy love but by works of love?”
‘‘I can, at least, pray day and night for all mankind.
Has that no place—or rather, has it not the mightiest
place—in the communion of Saints?”
“He who cannot pray for his brothers whom he does
Ayy AA 774. t?f
see, and whose sins and temptations he knows, will pray
but dully, my friend Aufugus, for his brothers whom he
does not see, or for anything else. And he who will not
labor for his brothers, the same will soon cease to pray
for them, or love them either. And then, what is written ?
* If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how
will he love God whom he hath not seen P’”
‘‘Again, I say, do you know whither your argument
leads P”
‘‘I am a plain man, and know nothing about arguments.
If a thing be true, let it lead where it will, for it leads
where God wills.”
“But at this rate, it were better for a man to take a
wife, and have children, and mix himself up in all turmoil
of carnal affections, in order to have as many as possible
to love, and fear for, and work for.”
Pambo was silent for awhile.
“I am a monk and no logician. But this I say, that
thou leavest not the Laura for the desert with my good
will. I would rather, had I my wish, see thy wisdom
installed somewhere nearer the metropolis, at Troé or
Canopus, for example—where thou mightest be at hand to
fight the Lord's battles. Why wert thou taught worldly
wisdom, but to use it for the good of the Church? It is
enough. Let us go.”
And the two old men walked homeward across the
valley, little guessing the practical answer which was
ready for their argument in Abbot Pambo's cell, in the
shape of a tall and grim ecclesiastic, who was busily satis-
fying his hunger with dates and millet, and by no means
refusing the palm wine, the sole delicacy of the monastery,
which had been brought forth only in honor of a guest.
The stately and courteous hospitality of Eastern
manners, as well as the self-restraining kindness of
monastic Christianity, forbade the abbot to interrupt the
stranger ; and it was not till he had finished a hearty
meal that Pambo asked his name and errand.
“My unworthiness is called Peter the Reader. I come
from Cyril, with letters and messages to the brother
Aufugus.”
Pambo rose, and bowed reverentially.
t?2 A/YA4 7/4.
“We have heard your good report, sir, as of one
zealously affected in the cause of the Church Catholic.
Will it please you to follow us to the cell of Aufugus?”
Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important
air to the little hut, and there taking from his bosom
Cyril's epistle, handed it to Arsenius, who sat long, read-
ing and re-reading with a clouded brow, while Pambo
watched him with simple awe, not daring to interrupt by a
question lucubrations which he considered of unfathom-
able depth. *
“These are indeed the last days,” said Arsenius at
length, “ spoken of by the prophet, when many shall
run to and fro. So Heraclian has actually sailed for
Italy?”
“His armament was met on the high seas by Alex-
andrian merchantmen, three weeks ago.”
“And Orestes hardens his heart more and more?”
“Ay, Pharaoh that he is ; or rather, the heathen woman
hardens it for him.” - - * *
‘‘ I always feared that woman above all the schools of
the heathen,” said Arsenius. “But the Count Heraclian,
whom I always held for the wisest as well as the most
righteous of men | Alas—alas! what virtue will withstand,
when ambition enters the heart!” -
“Fearful, truly,” said Peter, “is that same lust of
power ; but for him, I have never trusted him since he
began to be indulgent to those Donatists.”
“Too true. So does one sin beget another.”
“And I consider that indulgence to sinners is the worst
of all sins whatsoever.”
“Not of all, surely, reverend sir?” said Pambo, humbly.
But Peter, taking no notice of the interruption, went on to
Arsenius:
“And now, what answer am I to bear back from your
wisdom to his holiness?”
“Let me see—let me see. He might—it needs con-
sideration—I ought to know more of the state of parties.
He has, of course, communicated with the African bishops,
and tried to unite them with him?”
‘’ Two months ago. But the stiff-necked schismatics
are still jealous of him and hold aloof.”
Aſ VP4 7/4. I73
“Schismatics is too harsh a term, my friend. But has
he sent to Constantinople?”
“He needs a messenger accustomed to courts. It was
possible, he thought, that your experience might under-
take the mission.” -
“Me? Who am I? Alas! alas! fresh temptation daily
Let him send by the hand of whom he will. . . . And
yet—were I—at least in Alexandria—I might advise from
day to day. . . . I should certainly see my way clearer.
. . And unforeseen chances might arise, too. . . . Pambo,
my friend, thinkest thou that it would be sinful to obey
the holy patriarch?”
“Aha!” said Pambo, laughing, “ and thou art he who
was for fleeing into the desert an hour agone! And now,
when once thou smellest the battle afar off, thou art paw-
ing in the valley, like the old war-horse. Go, and God be
with thee! Thou wilt be none the worse for it. Thou art
too old to fall in love, too poor to buy a bishopric, and too
righteous to have one given thee.”
** Art thou in earnest?”
“What did I say to thee in the garden P Go, and see
our son, and send me news of him.”
“Ah! shame on my worldly-mindedness! I had for-
gotten all this time to inquire for him. How is the youth,
reverend sir?”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Philammon, our spiritual son, whom we sent down to
you three months ago,” said Pambo. “Risen to honor he
is, by this time, I doubt not?”
“He? He is gone!”
* “Gone?”
“Ay, the wretch, with the curse of Judas on him. He
had not been with us three days before he beat me openly
in the patriarch's court, cast off the Christian faith, and
fled away to the heathen woman, Hypatia, of whom he is
enamored.” -
The two old men looked at each other with blank and
horror-stricken faces.
“Enamored of Hypatia!” said Arsenius, at last.
“It is impossible!” sobbed Pambo. “The boy must
have been treated harshly, unjustly! Some one has
I74. A. VPA 7TWA.
wronged him, and he was accustomed only to kindness,
and could not bear it. Cruel men that you are, and
unfaithful stewards. The Lord will require the child's
blood at your hands!” -
“Ay,” said Peter, rising fiercely, “that is the world's
justice! Blame me, blame the patriarch, blame any and
everyone but the sinner. As if a hot head and a hotter
heart were not enough to explain it all!. As if a young fool
had never before been bewitched by a fair face!”
“Oh, my friends, my friends,” cried Arsenius, “why
revile each other without cause? I—I only am to blame.
I advised you, Pambo! I sent him—I ought to have
known—what was I doing, old worldling that I am, to
thrust the poor innocent forth into the temptations of
Babylon P. This comes of all my schemings and my plot-
tings! And now his blood will be on my head—as if I had
not sins enough to bear already, I must go and add this
over and above all, to sell my own Joseph, the son of my
old age, to the Midianites! Here, I will go with you—now
—at once—I will not rest till I find him, clasp his knees
till he pities my gray hairs! Let Heraclian and Orestes
go their way for aught I care—I will find him, I say.
O Absalom, my son, would to God I had died for thee, my
son! my son!”
CHAPTER xII.
THE BOWER OF ACRASIA.
THE house which Pelagia and the Amal had hired after
their return to Alexandria, was one of the most splendid in
the city. They had been now living there three months
or more, and in that time Pelagia’s taste had supplied the
little which it needed to convert it into a paradise of lazy
luxury. She herself was wealthy; and her Gothic guests,
Overburdened with Roman spoils, the very use of which
they could not understand, freely allowed her and her
nymphs to throw away for them the treasures which they
had won in many a fearful fight. What matter? If they
had enough to eat, and more than enough to drink, how
could the use iess surplus of their riches be better spent
than in keeping their ladies in good humor? . . . And
when it was all gone . . . they would go somewhere or
Other—who cared whither?—and win more. The whole
world was before them waiting to be plundered, and they
would fulfil their mission, whensoever it suited them. In
the meantime they were in no hurry. Egypt furnished in
profusion every sort of food which could gratify palates far
more nice than theirs. And as for wine—few of them went
to bed sober from one week’s end to another. Could the
souls of warriors have more, even in the halls of Valhalla?
So thought the party who occupied the inner court of
the house, one blazing afternoon in the same week in
which Cyril's messenger had so rudely broken in on the
repose of the Scetis.
Their repose, at least, was still untouched. The great
city roared without ; Orestes plotted, and Cyril counter-
plotted, and the fate of a continent hung, or seemed to
hang, trembling in the balance ; but the turmoil of it no
more troubled those lazy Titans within than did the roll
and rattle of the carriage wheels disturb the paralzeets and
Sunbirds which peopled, under an awning of gilded wire,
I75
176 HyP.1774.
the inner court of Pelagia's house. Why should they fret
themselves with it at all? What was every fresh riot,
execution, conspiracy, bankruptcy, but a sign that the fruit
was growing ripe for the plucking? Even Heraclian's
rebellion, and Orestes’ suspected conspiracy, were to the
younger and coarser Goths a sort of child’s play, at which
they could look on and laugh, and bet, from morning till
night ; while to the more cunning heads, such as Wulf and
Smid, they were but signs of the general rottenness—new
cracks in those great walls over which they intended, with
a simple and boyish consciousness of power, to mount to
victory when they chose.
And in the meantime, till the right opening offered, what
was there better than to eat, drink and sleep? And
certainly they had chosen a charming retreat in which to
fulfil that lofty mission. Columns of purple and green
porphyry, among which gleamed the white limbs of delicate
statues, surrounded a basin of water, fed by a perpetual
jet, which sprinkled with cool spray the leaves of oranges
and the mimosas, mingling its murmurs with the warblings
of the tropic birds who nestled among the branches.
On one side of the fountain, under the shade of a broad-
leaved palmetto, lay the Amal’s mighty limbs, stretched
out on cushions, his yellow hair crowned with vine-leaves,
his hand grasping a golden cup, which had been won from
Indian Rajahs by Parthian Chosroos, from Chosroos by
Roman generals, from Roman generals by the heroes of
sheepskin and horsehide ; while Pelagia, by the side of
the sleepy Hercules-Dionysos, lay leaning over the brink
of the fountain, lazily dipping her fingers into the water,
and basking, like the gnats which hovered over its surface,
in the mere pleasure of existence.
On the opposite brink of the basin, tended each by a
dark-eyed Hebe, who filled the wine-cups and helped now
and then to empty them, lay the especial friends and com-
panions in arms of the Amal, Goderic the son of Ermenric,
and Agilmund the son of Cniva, who both, like the Amal,
boasted a descent from the gods; and last, but not least,
that most important and all but sacred personage, Smid,
the son of Troll, reverenced for cunning beyond the sons
of men ; for not only could he make and mend all matters,
AZYAA ZTV4. I77
from a pontoon bridge to a gold bracelet, shoe horses and
doctor them, charm all diseases out of man and beast,
carve runes, interpret war-omens, foretell weather, raise
the winds, and, finally, conquer in the battle of mead-horns
all except Wulf the son of Ovida; but he had actually,
during a sojourn among the half-civilized Maesogoths,
picked up a fair share of Latin and Greek, and a rough
knowledge of reading and writing. .
A few yards off lay old Wulf upon his back, his knees in
the air, his hands crossed behind his head, keeping up,
even in his sleep, a half-conscious comment of growls on
the following intellectual conversations: -
“Noble wine this, is it not?”
“Perfect. Who bought it for us?”
“Old Miriam bought it at some great tax-farmer's sale.
The fellow was bankrupt, and Miriam said she got it for
the half what it was worth.”
“Serve the penny-turning rascal right. The old vixen-
fox took care, I’ll warrant her, to get her profit out of the
bargain.”
“Never mind if she did. We can afford to pay like
men, if we earn like men.”
“We shan’t afford it long at this rate,” growled Wulf.
“Then we’ll go and earn more. I am tired of doing
nothing.”
“People need not do nothing unless they choose,” said
Goderic. “Wulf and I had coursing fit for a king, the
other morning on the sandhills. I had had no appetite
for a week before, and I have been as sharp set as a Danube
pike ever since.”
“Coursing? What, with those long-legged brushtailed
brutes, like a fox upon stilts, which the prefect Cozened
you into buying?”
“All I can say is, that we put up a herd of those—what
do they call them here—deer with goat’s horns?”
“Antelopes.” --
“That’s it—and the curs ran into them as a falcon does
into a skein of ducks. Wulf and I galloped and galloped
Over these accursed sandheaps till the horses stuck fast ;
and when they got their wind again, we found each pair of
dogs with a deer down between them—and what can a man
178 A/VPA 7/4.
want more, if he cannot get fighting? You ate them, so
you need not sneer.” -
“Well, dogs are the only things worth having then, that
this Alexandria does produce.” -
“Except fair ladies!” put in one of the girls.
“Of course. I’ll except the women. But the men
“The what? I have not seen a man since I came here,
except a dock-worker or two——priests and fine gentlemen
they are all—and you don’t call them men, surely?”
“What on earth do they do besides riding donkeys?”
“Philosophize, they say.” -
• ‘What’s that?” * -
“I’m sure I don’t know ; some sort of slave's quill-
driving, I suppose.”
‘‘Pelagia! do you know what philosophizing is?”
‘‘No–and I don’t care.” -
‘‘I do,” quoth Agilmund, with a look of superior wis-
dom ; “I saw a philosopher the other day.” -
“And what sort of thing was it?”
“I’ll tell you. I was walking down the great street
there, going to the harbor, and I saw a crowd of boys—
men they call them here—going into a large doorway. So
I asked one of them what was doing, and the fellow,
instead of answering me, pointed at my legs, and set all
the other monkeys laughing. So I boxed his ears, and he
tumbled down.” -
“They all do so here, if you box their ears,” said the
Amal, meditatively, as if he had hit upon a great inductive
law.
“Ah,” said Pelagia, looking up with her most winning
Smile, “they are not such giants as you, who make a poor
little woman feel like a gazelle in the lion's pawl’
“Well—it struck me that, as I spoke in Gothic, the boy
might not have understood me, being a Greek. So I
walked in at the door, to save questions, and see for
myself. And there a fellow held out his hand—I suppose
for money. So I gave him two or three gold pieces, and
a box on the ear, at which he tumbled down of course,
but seemed very well satisfied. So I walked in.”
“And what did you see?”
“A great hall, large enough for a thousand heroes, full
} }
ATVA’.4 7/4. I79
of these Egyptian rascals scribbling with pencils on tab-
lets. And at the farther end of it the most beautiful
woman I ever saw—with right fair hair and blue eyes,
talking—talking—I could not understand it—but the
donkey-riders seemed to think it very fine, for they went
on looking first at her, and then at their tablets, gaping
like frogs in drouth. And certainly she looked as fair as
the sun, and talked like an Alruna-wife. Not that I knew
what it was about, but one can see somehow, you know.
So I fell asleep ; and when I woke, and came out, I met
someone who understood me, and he told me that it was
the famous maiden, the great philosopher. And that’s
what I know about philosophy.”
“She was very much wasted, then, on such soft-handed
starvelings. Why don’t she marry some hero?”
“Because there are none here to marry,” said Pelagia ;
“except some who are fast netted, I fancy, already.”
“But what do they talk about, and tell people to do,
these philosophers, Pelagia?”
* Oh, they don’t tell anyone to do anything—at least, if
they do nobody ever does it, as far as I can see ; but they
talk about suns and stars, and right and wrong, and
ghosts and spirits, and that sort of thing ; and about not
enjoying one's self too much. Not that I ever saw that
they were any happier than anyone else.”
“She must have been an Alruna-maiden,” said Wulf,
half to himself. -
“She is a very conceited creature, and I hate her,” said
Pelagia. -
“I believe you,” said Wulf. -
“What is an Alruna-maiden?” asked one of the girls.
“Something as like you as a salmon is like a horse-
leech. Heroes, will you hear a saga P” -
“If it is a cool one,” said Agilmund ; “about ice, and
pine-trees, and snowstorms. I shall be roasted brown in
three days more.” - -
“Oh,” said the Amal, “that we were on the Alps again
for only two hours, sliding down those snow slopes on Our
shields, with the sleet whistling about our ears! That was
sport!” -
“To those who could keep their seat,” said Goderic,
I8O Aſ YPA 7TWA.
Who went head over heels into a glacier crack, and was
dug out of fifty feet of snow, and had to be put inside a
fresh-killed horse before he could be brought to life?”
“Not you, surely,” said Pelagia. “Oh, you wonderful
creature! what things you have done and suffered l’” -
“Well,” said the Amal, with a look of stolid self-
satisfaction, “I suppose I have seen a good deal in my
time, eh?”
“Yes, my Hercules, you may have gone through your
twelve labors, and saved your poor little Hesione after
them all, when she was chained to the rock, for the ugly
sea-monsters to eat ; and she will cherish you, and keep
you out of scrapes now, for her own sake,” and Pelagia
threw her arms around the great bullneck, and drew it
down to her. -
“Will you hear my saga P” said Wulf, impatiently.
“Of course we will,” said the Amal; “anything to pass
the time.” -
“But let it be about snow,” said Agilmund.
“Not about Alruna-wives?”
“About them, too,” said Goderic ; “my mother was
one, so I must needs stand up for them.”
“She was, boy. Do you be her son! Now hear,
Wolves of the Goths!”
And the old man took up his little lute, or, as he would
probably have called it “fidel,” and began chanting to
his own accompaniment:
Over the camp-fires
Drank I with heroes,
Under the Donau bank
Warm in the snow-trench,
Sagemen heard I there,
Men of the Longbeards,
Cunning and ancient,
Honey-sweet-voiced.
Scaring the wolf-cubs,
Scaring the horn-owl out,
Shaking the snow-wreaths
Down from the pine-boughs,
Up to he star-roof
Rang out , heir song.
Singing how Winil men
Over the icefloes
Sledging from Scanland on
Aſ VPATIA, 181
&
&
Came unto Scoring ;
Singing of Gambara
Freya’s beloved.
Mother of Ayo,
Mother of Ibor.
Singing of Wendel men,
Ambri and Assi ;
How to the Winil-folk
*Went they with war-robes—
Few are ye, strangers,
And many are we ;
Pay us now toll and fee,
Clothyarn, and rings, and beeves ;
Else at the raven’s meal
Bide the sharp bill’s doom.”
Clutching the dwarf's work then,
Clutching the bullock’s shell,
Girding gray iron on,
Forth fared the Winils all,
Fared the Alruna’s sons,
Ayo and Ibor.
Mad of heart stalked they :
Ioud wept the women all,
Loud the Alruna-wife ;
Sore was their need.
Out of the morning land,
Over the snowdrifts,
Beautiful Freya came,
Tripping to Scoring.
White were the moorlands,
And frozen before her ;
But green were the moorlands,
And blooming behind her,
Out of her golden locks
Shaking the spring flowers,
Out of her garments
Shaking the south wind,
Around in the birches
Awaking the throstles,
And making chaste housewives all
Long for their heroes home.
T.oving and love-giving,
Came she to Scoring—
Came unto Gambara,
Wisest of Valas.
Vala, why weepest thou?
Far in the wide blue,
High up in the Elfin home,
Heard I thy weeping.”
I82 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
“Stop not my weeping,
Till one can fight seven,
Sons have I, heroes tall,
First in the sword play;
This day at the Wendel’s hands
Eagles must tear them ;
While their mothers, thrall-weary,
Must grind for the Wendels.”
Wept the Alruna wife;
Kissed her fair Freya—
“Far off in the morning land,
High in Valhalla, -
A window stands open,
Its sill is the snow-peaks,
Its posts are the water-spouts;
Storm-racked its lintel,
Gold cloud-flakes above it
Are piled for the roofing.
Far up to the Elfin-home,
High in the wide blue,
Smiles out each morning thence
Odin Allfather :
From under the cloud-eaves
Smiles out on the heroes, •
Smiles out on chaste housewives all,
Smiles on the brood mares,
Smiles on the Smith’s work :
And theirs is the sword-luck,
With them is the glory—
So Odin hath sworn it—
Who first in the morning
Shall meet him and greet him.”
Still the Alruna wept—
“Who then shall greet him?
Women alone are here :
Far on the moorlands
Behind the war-lindens,
In vain for the bill’s doom
Watch Winil heroes all,
One against seven.”
Sweetly the Queen laughed—
“Hear thou my counsel now ;
Take to thee cunning.
Beloved of Freya,
Take thou thy women-folk,
Maidens and wives:
Over your ankles
Lace on the white war-hose,
HyPATIA,
183
Over your bosoms mailnets:
Link up the hair
Over your lips
Plate long tresses with cunning;
So war-beasts full-bearded
King Odin shall deem you,
When off the gray sea-beach
At sunrise ye greet him.”
Night’s son was driving
His golden-haired horses up;
Over the Eastern firths
High flashed their manes.
Smiled from the cloud-eaves out
Allfather Odin,
Waiting the battle sport :
Freya stood by him.
“Who are these heroes tall—
Lusty-limbed Longbeards?
Over the swans' bath
Why cry they to me?
Bones should be crashing fast,
Wolves should be full-fed,
Where’er such, mad-hearted,
Swing hands in the sword-play.”
Sweetly laughed Freya—
“A name thou hast given them
Shames neither thee or them ;
Well can they wear it.
Give them the victory;
First have they greeted thee,
Give them the victory,
Yokefellow mine!
Maidens and wives are these—
Wives of the Wimils;
Few are their heroes,
And far on the war-road,
So over the swans’ bath
They cry unto thee.”
Royally laughed he then ;
Dear was that craft to him,
Odin Allfather,
Shaking the clouds:
“Cunning are women all
Bold and importunate!
Longbeards their name shall be,
184 A YPAT/A.
. Ravens shall thank them :
Where the women are heroes,
What must the men be like?
Theirs is the victory ;
No need of me!’”
“There!” said Wulf, when the song was ended; “ is
that cool enough for you?”
“Rather too cool, eh, Pelagia?” said the Amal, laughing.
“Ay,” went on the old man, bitterly enough, “such
were your mothers, and such were your sisters, and such
your wives must be, if you intend to last much longer on
the face of the earth—women who care for something
better than good eating, strong drinking and soft lying.”
“All very true, Prince Wulf,” said Agilmund, “but I
don’t like the saga after all. It was a great deal too like
what Pelagia here says those philosophers talk about—
right and wrong, and that sort of thing.”
‘‘I don’t doubt it.”
“Now, I like a really good saga, about gods and giants,
and the fire kingdoms and the snow kingdoms, and the
AEsir making men and women out of two sticks, and all
that.”
“Ay,” said the Amal, ‘‘something like nothing one
ever saw in one’s life, all stark mad and topsy-turvy, like
one’s dreams when one has been drunk ; something grand
which you cannot understand, but which sets you thinking
over it all the morning after.”
“Well, said Goderic, “my mother was an Alruna-
woman, so I will not be the bird to foul its own nest.
But I like to hear about wild beasts and ghosts, ogres and
firedrakes, and nicors—something that one could kill if
one had a chance, as one’s fathers had.” *
“Your fathers would never have killed nicors,'
Wulf, “if they had been—” . -
“Like us—I know,” said the Amal. ‘‘Now tell me,
prince, you are old enough to be our father ; and did you
ever see a nicor?” -
3.
said
* This punning legend may be seen in Paul Warnefrid's “Gesta
Langobardorum.” The metre and language are intended as imitations of
those of the earlier Eddaic poems.
Aſ VPA 77.4. 185
“My brother saw one, in the Northern sea, three
fathoms long, with the body of a bison-bull, and the head
of a cat, and the beard of a man, and tusks an ell long,
lying down on its breast, watching for the fishermen ; and
he struck it with an arrow, so that it fled to the bottom of
the sea, and never came up again.”
“What is a nicor, Agilmund?” asked one of the girls.
“A sea-devil who eats sailors. There used to be plenty
of them where our fathers came from, and ogres, too, who
came out of the fens into the hall at night, when the
warriors were sleeping, to suck their blood, and steal along,
and steal along, and jump upon you—SO!”
Pelagia, during the saga, had remained looking into the
fountain, and playing with the water-drops, in assumed
indifference. Perhaps it was to hide burning blushes, and
something very like two hot tears, which fell unobserved
into the ripple. Now she looked up suddenly— .
“And of course you have killed some of these dreadful
creatures, Amalric P”
‘‘I never had such good luck, darling. Our forefathers
were in such a hurry with them, that by the time we were
born, there was hardly one left.”
“Ay, they were men,” growled Wulf.
“As for me,” went on the Amal, “the biggest thing I
ever killed was a snake in the Donau fens. How long
was he, prince? You had time to see, for you sat eating
your dinner and looking on, while he was trying to crack
my bones.” -
‘‘ Four fathoms,” answered Wulf.
“With a wild bull lying by him, which he had just
killed. I spoilt his dinner, eh, Wulf?”
“Yes,” said the old grumbler, mollified, “that was a
right good fight.” -
“Why don’t you make a saga about it, then, instead of
about right and wrong, and such things?” -
“Because I am turned philosopher. I shall go and hear
that Alruna-maiden this afternoon.”
“Well said. Let us go too, young men ; it will pass
the time, at all events.”
“Oh, no! no! no! do not! you shall not!” almost
shrieked Pelagia.
186 A/YAA ZZA,
“Why not, then, pretty one?” -
“She is a witch—she-I will never love you again if
you dare to go. Your only reason is that Agilmund's
report of her beauty.”
“So? You are afraid of my liking her golden locks
better than your black ones?”
“I? Afraid?” And she leapt up, panting with pretty.
rage. “Come, we will go too—at once—and brave this
nun, who fancies herself too wise to speak to a woman,
and too pure to love a man! Look out my jewels! Saddle
my white mule! We will go royally. We will not be
ashamed of Cupid’s livery, my girls—saffron shawl and all!
Come, let us see whether saucy Aphrodite is not a match
after all for Pallas Athene and her owl!”
And she darted out of the cloister.
The three younger men burst into a roar of laughter,
while Wulf looked with grim approval.
“So you want to go and hear the philosopher, prince?”
said Smid.
“Wheresoever a holy and a wise woman speaks, a
warrior need not be ashamed of listening. Did not Alaric
bid us spare the nuns in Rome, comrade? And although
I am no Christian as he was, I thought it no shame for
Odin’s man to take their blessing ; nor will I to take this
one's, Smid, son of Troll.” -
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BOTTOM OF THE ABYss.
“HERE am I at last!” said Raphael Aben-Ezra to him-
self. “Fairly and safely landed at the very bottom of the
bottomless ; disporting myself on the firm floor of the
primeval nothing, and finding my new element, like boys
when they begin to swim, not so impracticable after all.
No man, angel or demon can this day cast in my teeth
that I am weak enough to believe or disbelieve any
phenomenon or theory in or concerning heaven or earth ;
or even that any such heaven, earth, phenomena or
theories exist—or otherwise. . . . I trust that is a sufficiently
exhaustive statement of my opinions? . . . I am certainly
not dogmatic enough to deny—or to assert either—that
there are sensations . . . far too numerous for com-
fort . . . but as for proceeding any further, by induction,
deduction, analysis or synthesis, I utterly decline the
office of Arachne, and will spin no more cobwebs out of
my own inside—if I have any. Sensations? What are
they but parts of one's self—if one has a self! What put
this child’s fancy into one's head, that there is anything
outside of one which produces them P You have exactly
similar feelings in your dreams, and you know that there
is no reality corresponding to them.—No, you don't!
How dare you be dogmatic enough to affirm that? Why
should not your dreams be the reality, and your waking
thoughts the dream? What matter which?
“What matter, indeed? Here have I been staring for
years—unless that, too, is a dream, which it very probably
is—at every mountebank “ism” which ever tumbled and
Capered on the philosophic tight-rope; and they are
every one of them dead dolls, wooden, worked with wires,
which are petitiones principii. . . . Each philosopher begs
the question in hand, and then marches forward, as brave
as a triumph, and prides himself—on proving it all after-
187
I88 Aſ VAZA 77.4.
ward. No wonder that his theory fits the universe,
when he has first clipped the universe to fit his theory.
Have I not tried my hand at many a one—starting, too, no
One can deny, with the very minimum of clipping, . . .
for I suppose One cannot begin lower than at simple ‘ I am
I ' . . . unless—which is equally demonstrable—at “I am
not I.’ I recollect—or dream——that I offered that sweet
dream, Hypatia, to deduce all things in heaven and earth,
from the Astronomics of Hipparchus to the number of
plumes in an archangel’s wing, from that one simple propo-
sition, if she would but write me out a demonstration of it
first, as some sort of noz of zw for the apex of my inverted
pyramid. But she disdained . . . people are apt to dis-
dain what they know they cannot do. . . . . It was an
axiom,’ it was ‘like one and one making two.' . . . How
cross the sweet dream was at my telling her that I did not
consider that any axiom either, and that one thing and one
thing seeming to us to be two things, was no more proof
that they really were two, and not three hundred and sixty-
five, than a man seeming to be an honest man proved him
not to be a rogue ; and at my asking her, moreover, when
she appealed to universal experience, how she proved that
the combined folly of all fools resulted in wisdom |
‘‘‘ I am I ? an axiom, indeed! What right have I to say
that I am not anyone else? How do I know it? How do
I know that there is anyone else for me not to be? I, or
rather something, feel a number of sensations, longings,
thoughts, fancies—the great devil take them all—fresh
ones every moment, and each at war, tooth and nail, with
all the rest ; and then, on the strength of this infinite
multiplicity and contraction, of which alone I am aware, I
am to be illogical enough to stand up and say, ‘I by myself
I; ' and swear stoutly that I am one thing, when all I am
conscious of is the devil only knows how many things. Of
all quaint deductions from experience, that is the quaint-
est! Would it not be more philosophical to conclude that
I, who never saw or felt or heard this which I call myself,
and what I have seen, heard, and felt—and no more and
no less—that sensation which I call that horse, that dead
man, that jackass, those forty thousand two-legged jack-
asses who appear to be running for their lives below there,
HYPATIA. I89
having got hold of this same notion of their being one
thing each—as I chose to fancy in my foolish habit of
imputing to them the same disease of thought which I find
in myself—crucify the word! The folly of my ancestors—
if I ever had any—prevents my having any better expres-
Sion. . . . Why should I not be all I feel—that sky, those
clouds—the whole universe? Hercules! what a creative
genius my sensorium must be! I'll take to writing poetry
—a mock epic, in seventy-two books, entitled, “The
Universe ; or, Raphael Aben-Ezra ; ' and take Homer's
Margites for my model. Homer's? Mine! Why must
not the Margites, like everything else, have been a sensa-
tion of my own? Hypatia used to say Homer's poetry
was a part of her . . . only she could not prove it . . .
but I have proved that the Margites is a part of me . . .
not that I believe my own proof–skepticism forbid! Oh,
would to heaven that the said whole disagreeable universe
were annihilated, if it were only just to settle by fair
experiment whether any of master ‘I,’ remained when they
were gone! Buzzard and dogmatist! And how do you
know that that would settle it? And if it did—why need
it be settled? . . .
‘‘I dare say there is an answer pat for all this. I could
write a pretty one myself in half an hour. But then I
should not believe it . . . nor the rejoinder to that . . .
nor the demurrer to that again. . . . So . . . I am both
sleepy and hungry . . . Or, rather, sleepiness and hunger
are me. Which is it? Heigh-ho . . . .” and Raphael
finished his meditation by a mighty yawn.
This hopeful oration was delivered in a fitting lecture-
room. Between the bare walls of a doleful fire-scarred
tower in the Campagna of Rome, standing upon a knoll of
dry brown grass, fringed with a few grim pines, blasted
and black with smoke ; there sat Raphael Aben-Ezra,
working out the last formula of the great world problem—
“Given Self: to find God.” Through the doorless stone
archway he could see a long vista of the plain below,
covered with broken trees, trampled crops, smoking villas,
and all the ugly scars of recent war, far onward to the
quiet purple mountains and the silver sea, toward which
struggled, far in the distance, long dark lines of moving
I90 Aſ VA’A 7T/A
specks, flowing together, breaking up, stopping short,
recoiling back, to surge forward by some fresh channel,
while now and then a glitter of keen white sparks ran
through the dense black masses. . . . The Count of
Africa had thrown for the empire of the world—and lost.
“Brave old Sun!” said Raphael, “how merrily he
flashes off the sword blades yonder, and never cares that
every tiny sparkle brings a death-shriek after it? Why
should hel It is no concern of his. Astrologers are fools.
His business is to shine ; and, on the whole, he is one of
my few satisfactory sensations! How now? This is ques-
tionably pleasant!”
As he spoke a column of troops came marching across
the field, straight toward the retreat.
“If these new sensations of mine find me here, they will
infallibly produce in me a new sensation, which will render
all further ones impossible. . . . Well, what kinder thing
could they do for me? . . . Ay—but how do I know that
they would do it? What possible proof is there that if a
two-legged phantasm pokes a hard iron-gray phantasm in
among my sensations, those sensations will be my last?
Is the fact of my turning pale, and lying still and being in
a day or two converted into crow’s flesh, any reason why I
should not feel? And how do I know that would happen?
It seems to happen to certain sensations of my eyeball—or
something else—who cares? which I call soldiers; but
what possible analogy can there be between what seems to
happen to those single sensations called soldiers, and what
may or may not really happen to all my sensations put
together, which I call me? Should I bear apples if a
phantasm seemed to come and plant me? Then why
should I die if another phantasm seemed to come and poke
me in the ribs? -
“Still I don't intend to deny it. . . . I am no dogmatist.
Positively the phantasms are marching straight for my
tower! Well, it may be safer to run away on the chance.
But as for losing feeling,” continued he, rising and
cramming a few moldy crusts into his wallet, ‘‘that, like
everything else, is past proof. Why—if now, when I have
some sort of excuse for fancying myself one thing in one
place, I am driven mad with the number of my sensations,
A/YA-2A 7TWA, IQI
what will it be when I am eaten, and turned to dust, and
undeniably many things in many places. . . . Will not my
sensations be multiplied by—unbearable! I would swear
at the thought, if I had anything to swear by . . To be
transmuted into the sensoria of forty different nasty carrion
Crows, besides two or three foxes, and a large black beetle !
I'll run away, just like anybody else . . . if anybody
existed. Come, Bran!”
‘‘Bran! where are you ; unlucky inseparable sensation
of mine? Picking up a dinner already off those dead
soldiers? Well, the pity is that this foolish contradictory
taste of mine, while it makes me hungry, forbids me to
follow your example. Why am I to take lessons from my
soldier phantasms, and not from my canine one? Illogical!
Bran! Bran!” and he went out and whistled in vain for
the dog.
‘‘Bran! unhappy phantom, who will not vanish by
night or day, lying on my chest even in dreams; and who
would not even let me vanish, and solve the problem—
though I don’t believe there is any—why did you drag me
out of the sea there at Ostia? Why did you not let me
become a whole shoal of crabs? How did you know, or I
either, that they may not be very jolly fellows, and not in
the least troubled with philosophic doubts? . . . But
perhaps there were no crabs, but only phantasms of crabs.
. . . And, on the other hand, if the crab-phantasms give
jolly sensations, why should not the crow phantasms? So,
whichever way it turns out, no matter; and I may as well
wait here, and seem to become crows, as I certainly shall
do. Bran! . . . Why should I wait for her? What
pleasure can it be to me to have the feeling of a four-
legged, brindled, lop-eared, toad-mouthed thing always
between what seems to be my legs? There she is! Where
have you been, madam? Don’t you see I am in marching
order, with staff and wallet ready shouldered? Come!”
“But the dog, looking up in his face as only dogs can
look, ran toward the back of the ruin, and up to him again,
and back again, until he followed her.
“What's this? Here is a new sensation with a ven-
geance! Oh, storm and cloud of material appearances,
I92 ATVA’A 7TWA.
were there not enough of you already, that you must add
to your number these also? Bran! Bran! Could you
find no other day in the year but this, whereon to present
my ears with the squeals of one—two—three—nine blind
puppies?”
Bran answered by rushing into the hole where her new
family lay tumbling and squalling, bringing out one in her
mouth, and laying it at his feet. -
“Needless, I assure you. I am perfectly aware of the
state of the case already. What! another? Silly old
thing! do you fancy, as the fine ladies do, that burdening
the world with noisy likenesses of your precious self is a
thing of which to be proud? Why she's bringing out the
whole litter! . . . What was I thinking of last? A
the argument was self-contradictory was it, because I
could not argue without using the very terms which I
repudiated. Well. . . . And—why should it not be con-
tradictory? Why not? One must face that too, after all.
Why should not a thing be true, and false also? What
harm in a thing's being false? What necessity for it to be
true? True? What is, truth? Why should a thing be
the worse for being illogical? Why should there be any
logic at all? Did I ever see a little beast flying about with
“Logic” labelled on its back? What do I know of it, but
as a sensation of my own mind—if I have any? What
proof is that that I am to obey it, and not it me? If a flea
bites me, I get rid of that sensation ; and if logic
bothers me, I’ll get rid of that too. Phantasms must be
taught to vanish courteously. One's only hope of comfort
lies in kicking feebly against the tyranny of one’s own
boring notions and sensations—every philosopher confesses
that—and what god is logic, pray, that it is to be the sole
exception? . . . What, old lady? I give you fair warning,
you must choose this day, like any nun, between the ties
of family and those of duty.” -
Bran seized him by the skirt, and pulled him down
toward the puppies ; took up one of the puppies and lifted
it toward him ; and then repeated the action with another.
“You unconscionable old brute! You don’t actually
dare to expect me to carry your puppies for you?” and he
turned to go.
ATVA’A 7T/4. - I93
Bran sat down on her tail, and began howling.
“Farewell, old dog! you have been a pleasant dream
after all. . . . But if you will go the way of all phantasms.”
. And he walked away.
Bran ran with him, leaping and barking ; then recol-
lected her family and ran back; tried to bring them, one
by one, in her mouth, and then to bring them all at once ;
and failing sat down and howled.
“Come Bran! Come, old girl!”
She raced half-way up to him ; then half-way back again
to the puppies; then toward him again ; and then suddenly
gave it up, and, dropping her tail, walked slowly back to
the blind suppliants, with a deep reproachful growl.
“* * * * * !” said Raphael, with a mighty oath ; “you
are right after all! Here are nine things come into the
world ; phantasms or not, there it is, I can’t deny it. They
are something, and you are something, old dog ; or at
least like enough to something to do instead of it ; and
you are not I, and as good as I, and they too, for aught I
know, and have as good a right to live as I; and by the
seven planets and all the rest of it, I’ll carry them!” -
And he went back, tied up the puppies in his blanket,
and set forth, Bran barking, squeaking, wagging, leaping,
running between his legs and upsetting him, in her agonies
of joy. - . -
“Forward! Whither you will, old lady! The world is
wide. You shall be my guide, tutor, queen of philosophy,
for the sake of this mere common sense of yours. For-
ward, you new Hypatia! I promise you I will attend no
lectures but yours this day!”
He toiled on, every now and then stepping across a dead
body, or clambering a wall out of the road, to avoid some
plunging, shrieking horse, or obscene knot of prowling
camp-followers, who were already stripping and plunder-
ing the slain. . . . At last, in front of a large villa, now a
black and smoking skeleton, he leaped a wall and found
himself landed on a heap of corpses. . . . . They were piled
up against the garden fence for many yards. The struggle
had been fierce there some three hours before.
“Put me out of my misery! In mercy kill me!” moaned
a voice beneath his feet.
I94. A. VPA 7/4.
Raphael looked down ; the poor wretch was slashed
and mutilated beyond all hope.
“Certainly, friend, if you wish it,” and he drew his
dagger. The poor fellow stretched out his throat, and
awaited the stroke with a ghastly smile. Raphael caught
his eye : his heart failed him, and he rose.
“What do you advise, Bran?” But the dog was far
ahead, leaping and barking impatiently. -
‘‘I obey,” said Raphael; and he followed her, while the
wounded man called piteously and upbraidingly after him.
“He will not have long to wait. Those plunderers will
not be as squeamish as I. . . . Strange, now! From
Armenian reminiscences I should have fancied myself as
free from such tender weakness as any of my Canaanite-slay-
ing ancestors. . . . And yet by some mere spirit of contra-
diction I couldn't kill that fellow exactly, because he
asked me to do it. . . . There is more in that than will fit
into the great inverted pyramid of “I am I.’ . . . Never
mind, let me get the dog's lesson by heart first.
What next, Bran? Ah! Could one believe the trans-
formation? Why this is the very trim villa which I passed
yesterday morning, with the garden-chairs standing among
the flower-beds, just as the young ladies had left them,
and the peacocks and silver pheasants running about,
wondering why their pretty mistresses did not come to
feed them. And here is a trampled mass of wreck and
corruption for the girls to find, when they venture back
from Rome, and complain how horrible war is for breaking
down all their shrubs, and how cruel soldiers must be to
kill and cook all their poor dear tame turtle-doves! Why
not? Why should they lament over other things—which
they can just as little mend—and which perhaps need no
more mending? Ah! there lies a gallant fellow under-
neath that fruit-tree!”
Raphael walked up to a ring of dead, in the midst of
which lay, half sitting against the trunk of the tree, a tall
and noble officer, in the first bloom of manhood. His
casque and armor, gorgeously inlaid with gold, were hewn
and battered by a hundred blows; his shield was cloven
through and through ; his sword broken in the stiffened
hand which grasped it still. Cut off from his troop, he
ATYAA 7TWA. . I95
had made his last stand beneath the tree, knee-deep in the
gay summer flowers, and there he lay, bestrewn, as if by
Some mockery—or pity—of nother nature, with faded
roses and golden fruit, shaken from off the boughs in that
last deadly struggle. Raphael stood and watched him
with a sad sneer. -
“Well, you have sold your fancied personality dear!
How many dead men? . . . Nine. . . . Eleven | Con-
ceited fellow ! Who told you that your one life was worth
the eleven which you have taken P”
Bran went up to the corpse—perhaps from its sitting
posture fancying it still living—smelt the cold cheek, and
recoiled with a mournful whine.
“Eh P. That is the right way to look at the phenomena,
is it? Well, after all, I am sorry for you . . . almost like
you. . . . All your wounds in front, as man’s should be.
Poor fop | Lais and Thais will never curl those dainty
ringlets for you again! What is that bas-relief upon your
shield? Venus receiving Psyche into the abode of the
gods! . . . Ah! you have found out all about Psyche's
wings by this time. . . . How do I know that? And yet,
why am I, in spite of my common sense—if I have any—
talking to you as you, and liking you, and pitying you, if
you are nothing now, and probably never were anything?
Bran! What right had you to pity him without giving
your reasons in due form, as Hypatia would have done?
Forgive me, sir, however—whether you exist or not, I can-
not leave that collar round your neck for these camp-
wolves to convert into strong liquor.” -
And as he spoke, he bent down, and detached, gently
enough, a magnificent necklace.
“Not for myself, I assure you. Like Ate's golden
apple it shall go to the fairest. Here, Bran!”
And he wreathed the jewels round the neck of the
mastiff, who, evidently exalted in her own eyes by her
burden, leaped and barked forward, again taking appar-
ently, as a matter of course, the road back toward Ostia,
by which they had come thither from the sea. And as he
followed, careless where he went, he continued, talking to
himself aloud, after the manner of restless, self-
discontented men. . . . “And then man talks big about
I96 Aſ YAZA T/4
his dignity and his intellect, and his heavenly parentage,
and his aspirations after the unseen and the beautiful, and
the infinite—and everything else unlike himself. How can
he prove it? Why, these poor blackguards lying about
are very fair specimens of humanity. And how much
have they been bothered since they were born with aspira-
tion after anything infinite, except infinite sour wine? To
eat, to drink, to destroy a certain number of their
species ; to reproduce a certain number of the same,
two-thirds of whom will die in infancy, a dead waste of
pain to their mothers and of expense to their putative
sires . . . and then—what says Solomon? What befalls
them befalls beasts. As one dies, so dies the other ; so
that they have all one breath, and a man has no pre-
eminence over a beast ; for all is vanity. All go to one
place ; all are of the dust, and turn to dust again. Who
knows that the breath of man goes upward, and that the
breath of the beast goes downward to the earth? Who,
indeed, my most wise ancestor? Not I, certainly. Raphael
Aben-Ezra, how art thou better than a beast? What pre-
eminence hast thou, not merely over this dog, but over the
fleas whom thou so wantonly cursest? Man must painfully
win house, clothes, fire. . . . A pretty proof of his
wisdom, when every flea has the wit to make my blanket,
without any labor of his own, lodge him a great deal better
than it lodges me! Man makes clothes, and the fleas live
in them. . . . Which is the wiser of the two P . . .
“Ah, but—man is fallen. . . . Well—and the flea is
not. So much better he than the man ; for he is what he
was intended to be, and so fulfils the very definition of
virtue . . . which no one can say of us of the red-ochre
vein. And even if the old myth be true, and the man
only fell, because he was set to do higher work than the
flea ; what does that prove—but that he could not do it?
“But his arts and his sciences? . . . Apage! The very
sound of those grown children’s rattles turns me sick. . . .
One conceited ass in a generation increasing labor and
sorrow, and dying after all even as the fool dies, and ten
million brutes and slaves, just where their forefathers
were, and where their children will be after them, to the
end of the farce. . . . The thing that has been, it is that
A. VPA 77.4. 197
which shall be ; and there is no new thing under the sun.
* And as for your palaces, and cities, and temples . . .
look at this Campagna, and judge. Flea-bites go down
after awile—and so do they. What are they but the
bumps which we human fleas make in the old earth's
skin? . . . Make them? We only cause them, as fleas
cause flea-bites. . . . What are all the works of man, but
a sort of cutaneous disorder in this unhealthy earth-hide,
and we a race of larger fleas, running about among its
fur, which we call trees? Why should not the earth be an
animal? How do I know it is not? Because it is too big?
Bah! What is big and what is little? Because it has not
the shape of one? . . . Look into a fisherman’s net, and
see what forms are there! Because it does not speak?
. Perhaps it has nothing to say, being too busy. Per-
haps it can talk no more sense than we. . . . In both
cases it shows its wisdom by holding its tongue. Because
it moves in one necessary direction? . . . How do I know
that it does? How can I tell that it is not flirting with all
the seven spheres at once at this moment? But if it does
—so much the wiser of it, if that be the best direction for
it. Oh, what a base satire on ourselves and our notions
of the fair and fitting, to say that a thing cannot be alive
and rational, just because it goes steadily on upon its own
road, instead of skipping and scrambling fantastically up
and down without method or order, like us and the fleas,
from the cradle to the grave! Besides, if you grant, with
the rest of the world, that fleas are less noble than we,
because they are our parasites, then you are bound to
grant that we are less noble than the earth, because we are
its parasites. . . . Positively, it looks more probable than
anything I have seen for many a day. . . . And, by-the-by,
why should not earthquakes, and floods, and pestilences,
be only just so many ways which the cunning old brute
earth has of Scratching herself, when the human fleas and
their palace and city bites get too troublesome?”
At a turn of the road he was aroused from this profitable
meditation by a shriek, the shrillness of which told him
that it was a woman's. He looked up, and saw close to
him, among the smoldering ruins of a farmhouse, two
ruffians driving before them a young girl, with her hands
198 - ATVA’A 7/4.
ried behind her, while the poor creature was looking back
ixteously after something among the ruins, and struggling
in vain bound as she was, to escape from her captors and
to turn.
pe “Conduct unjustifiable in any fleas—eh, Bran? How
I know that, though? Why should it not be a piece of
decellent fortune for her, if she had but the equanimity to
see it? Why—what will happen to her? She will be
taken to Rome, and sold as a slave. . . . And, in spite of
a few discomforts in the transfer, and the prejudice which
Some persons have against standing an hour on the catasta
to be handled from head to foot in the minimum of cloth-
ing, she will most probably end in being far better housed,
fed, bedizened, and pampered to her heart's desire, than
ninety-nine out of a hundred of her sister-fleas . . . till
she begins to grow old . . . which she must do in any
case. . . . And if she have not contrived to wheedle her
master out of her liberty, and to make up a pretty little
purse of savings by that time—why, it is her own fault.
Eh, Bran?”
But Bran by no means agreed with this view of the
case, for, after watching the two ruffians, with her head
stuck on one side, for a minute or two, she suddenly and
silently, after the manner of mastiffs, sprang upon them,
and dragged one to the ground.
“Oh that is the ‘fit and beautiful,” in this case, as they
say in Alexandria, is it? Well—I obey. You are at least
a more practical teacher than ever Hypatia was. Heaven
grant that there may be no more of them in the ruins!”
And rushing on the second plunderer, he laid him dead
with a blow of his dagger, and then turned to the first,
whom Bran was holding down by the throat.
“Mercy, mercy!” shrieked the wretch. “Life! only
life I’’ -
“There was a fellow half a mile back begging me to kill
him ; with which of you two am I to agree?—for you can’t
both be right.”
“Life only life!”
“A carnal appetite, which man must learn to conquer,”
said Raphael, as he raised the poniard. . . . . In a moment
it was over, and Bran and he rose. Where was the girl?
Aſ VPA 7TWA. I99
She had rushed back to the ruins, whither Raphael
followed her; while Bran ran to the puppies, which he
had laid upon a stone, and commenced her maternal
CalTeS.
“What do you want, my poor girl?” asked he in Latin.
“I will not hurt you.” -
“My father! My father!”
He untied her bruised and swollen wrists ; and without
stopping to thank him, she ran to a heap of fallen stones
and beams, and began digging wildly with her little
strength, breathlessly calling “Father!”
“Such is the gratitude of flea to flea'ſ What is there,
now, in the mere fact of being accustomed to call another
person father, and not master, or slave, which should pro-
duce such passion as that? . . . Brute habit! . . . What
services can the said man render, or have rendered, which
make him worth Here is Bran! . . . What do you
think of that, my female philosopher?”
Bran sat down and watched too. The poor girl's tender
hands were bleeding from the stones, while her golden
tresses rolled down over her eyes, and entangled in her
impatient fingers : but still she worked frantically. Bran
seemed suddenly to comprehend the case, rushed to the
rescue, and began digging too, with all her might.
Raphael rose with a shrug, and joined in the work.
>k >k >k >k >k >{< >k
“Hang these brute instincts! They make one very hot.
What was that?” t
A feeble moan rose from under the stones. A human
limb was uncovered. The girl threw herself on the place,
shrieking her father's name. Raphael put her gently back,
and exerting his whole strength drew out of the ruins a
stalwart elderly man, in the dress of an officer of high
rank.
He still breathed. The girl lifted up his head and
covered him with wild kisses. Raphael looked round for
water ; found a spring and a broken sherd, and bathed the
wounded man's temples till he opened his eyes and showed
signs of returning life.
The girl still sat by him, fondling her recovered treasure,
and bathing the grizzled face in holy tears.
2CC) AyyºA 7/4.
“It is no business of mine,” said Raphael. “Come,
Bran l’’
The girl sprang up, threw herself at his feet, kissed his
hands, called him her saviour, her deliverer, sent by God.
“Not in the least, my child. You must thank my
teacher the dog, not me.” -
And she took him at his word, and threw her soft arms
round Bran's neck ; and Bran understood it, and wagged
her tail, and licked the gentle face lovingly.
“Intolerably absurd, all this!” said Raphael. “I must
be going, Bran.” .
“You will not leave us? You surely will not leave an
old man to die here?” . -
“Why not? What better thing could happen to him P”
“Nothing,” murmured the officer, who had not spoken
before.
“Ah, God! he is my father!”
* Well?”
“He is my father!”
< * Well ?” * -
“You must save him! You shall, I say!” And she
seized Raphael’s arm in the imperiousness of her passion.
He shrugged his shoulders : but felt, he knew not why,
marvellously inclined to obey her.
‘‘I may as well do this as anything else, having nothing
else to do. Whither now, sir?”
“Whither you will. Our troops are disgraced, our
eagles taken. We are your prisoners by right of war.
We follow you.” e
“Oh, my fortune! A new responsibility! Why can-
not I stir, without live animals, from fleas upward, attach-
ing themselves to me? Is it not enough to have nine blind
puppies at my back and an old brute at my heels, who
will persist in saving my life, that I must be burdened
Over and above with a respectable elderly rebel and his
daughter? Why am I not allowed by fate to care for
nobody but myself? Sir, I give you both your freedom.
The world is wide enough for us all. I really ask no
ransom.”
“You seem philosophically disposed, my friend.”
“I? Heaven forbid! I have gone right through that
Aſ YAPA 77.4. 2Of
slough, and come out sheer on the other side. For sweep-
ing the last lingering taint of it out of me, I have to thank,
not sulphur and exorcisms, but your soldiers and their
morning’s work. Philosophy is superfluous in a world
where all are fools.”
“Do you include yourself under that title?”
“Most certainly, my best sir. Don’t fancy that I make
any exceptions. If I can in any way prove my folly to
you, I will do it.”
“Then help me and my daughter to Ostia.”
“A very fair instance. Well, my dog happens to be
going that way ; and, after all, you seem to have a
sufficient share of human imbecility to be a very fit com-
panion for me. I hope, though, you do not set up for a
wise man.”
“God knows—no! Am I not of Heraclian’s army?”
“True ; and the young lady here made herself so great
a fool about you, that she actually infected the very dog.”
“So we three fools will forth together.”
“And the greatest one, as usual, must help the rest.
But I have nine puppies in my family already. How an
I to carry you and them?”
‘‘I will take them,” said the girl ; and Bran, after look-
ing on at the transfer with a somewhat dubious face,
seemed to satisfy herself that all was right, and put her
head contentedly under the girl’s hand.
“Eh P You trust her, Bran?” said Raphael, in an
undertone. “I must really emancipate myself from your
instructions if you require a similar simplicity in me.
Stay! there wanders a mule without a rider ; we may as
well press him into the service.”
He caught the mule, lifted the wounded man into the
saddle, and the cavalcade set forth, turning out of the high-
road into a by-lane, which the officer, who seemed to
know the country thoroughly, assured him would lead them
to Ostia by an unfrequented route.
“If we arrive there before sundown, we are saved,”
said he.
“And in the meantime,” answered Raphael, “be-
tween the dog and this dagger, which, as I take care to
inform all comers, is delicately poisoned, we may keep
2O2 Aſ VA24 7/4.
ourselves clear of marauders. And yet, what a meddling
fool I am!” he went on to himself. “What possible
interest can I have in this uncircumcised rebel? The least
evil is, that if we are taken, which we most probably shall
be, I shall be crucified for helping him to escape. But
even if we get safe off—here is a fresh tie between me and
those very brother fleas to be rid of whom I have chosen
beggary and starvation. Who knows where it may end?
Pooh! The man is like other men. He is certain before
the day is over to prove ungrateful, or attempt the mounte-
bank-heroic, or give me some other excuse for bidding him
good evening. And in the meantime there is something
quaint in the fact of finding so sober a respectability, with
a young daughter, too, abroad on this fool’s errand, which
really makes me curious to discover with what variety of
flea I am to class him.”
But while Aben-Ezra was talking to himself about the
father, he could not help, somehow, thinking about the
daughter. Again and again he found himself looking at
her. She was undeniably most beautiful. Her features
were not as regular perfect as Hypatia’s, nor her stature SO
commanding ; but her face shone with a clear and joyful
determination, and with a tender and modest thoughtful-
ness, such as he had never beheld before united in One
countenance ; and as she stepped along, firmly and lightly,
by her father's side, looping up her scattered tresses as she
went, laughing at the struggles of her noisy burden, and
looking up with rapture at her father's gradually brighten-
ing face, Raphael could not help stealing glance after
glance, and was surprised to find them returned with a
bright, honest, smiling gratitude, which met him full-eyed,
as free from prudery as it was from coquetry. . . . “A
lady she is,” said he to himself, “but evidently no city
one. There is nature—or something else—there, pure and
unadulterated, without any of man’s additions or beautifi-
cations.” And as he looked, he began to feel it a pleasure,
such as his weary heart had not known for many a year,
simply to watch her. . . .
“Positively there is a foolish enjoyment after all in
making other fleas smile. . . . Ass that I am! As if I had
not drank all that ditchwater cup to the dregs years ago!”
A/YA-A 774. 2O3
They went on for some time in silence, till the officer,
turning to him—
“And may I ask you, my quaint preserver, whom I
would have thanked before but for this foolish faintness,
which is now going off, what and who are you?”
“A flea, Sir–a flea-nothing more.”
“But a patrician flea, Surely, to judge by your language
and manners?”
“Not that exactly. True, I have been rich, as the say-
ing is : I may be rich again, they tell me, when I am fool
enough to choose.”
“Oh, if we were but rich l’” sighed the girl.
“You would be very unhappy, my dear young lady.
Believe a flea who has tried the experiment thoroughly.”
“Ah! but we could ransom my brother! and now we can
find no money till we get back to Africa.”
“And none then,” said the officer, in a low voice.
“You forget, my poor child, that I mortgaged the whole
estate to raise my legion. We must not shrink from
looking at things as they are.”
“Ah! and he is a prisoner! he will be sold for a slave—
perhaps—ah! perhaps crucified, for he is not a Roman!
Oh, he will be crucified l’” and she burst into an agony of
weeping. . . . Suddenly she dashed away her tears and
looked up clear and bright once more. “No, forgive me,
father! God will protect His own.”
“My dear young lady,” said Raphael, “if you really
dislike such a prospect for your brother, and are in want
of a few dirty coins where with to prevent it, perhaps I may
be able to find you them in Ostia.”
She looked at him incredulously, as her eye glanced over
his rags, and then, blushing, begged his pardon for her
unspoken thoughts.
“Well—as you choose to suppose. But my dog has
been so civil to you already, that perhaps she may have
no objection to make you a present of that necklace of hers.
I will go to the rabbis, and we will make all right ; SO
don’t cry. I hate crying; and the puppies are quite chorus
enough for the present tragedy.”
“The rabbis? Are you a Jew?” asked the officer.
“Yes, sir, a Jew. And you, I presume, a Christian ;
2O4. A/YA-24 TWA.
perhaps you may have scruples about receiving—your sect
has generally none about taking from—one of our stubborn
and unbelieving race. Don’t be frightened, though, for
your conscience; I assure you I am no more a Jew at heart
than I am a Christian.”
“God help you, then!”
“Someone, or something, has helped me a great deal
too much, for three-and-thirty years of pampering. But,
pardon me, that was a strange speech for a Christian.”
“You must be a good Jew, sir, before you can be a good
Christian.”
“Possibly. I intend to be neither—nor a good Pagan
either. My dear sir, let us drop the subject. It is beyond
me. If I can be as good a brute animal as my dog there—
it being first demonstrated that it is good to be good—I
shall be very well content.”
The officer looked down on him with a stately, loving
sorrow. Raphael caught his eye, and felt that he was in
the presence of no common man.
‘‘I must take care what I say here, I suspect, or I shall
be entangled shortly in a regular Socratic dialogue. . .
And now, sir, may I return your question, and ask who
and what are you? I really have no intention of giving
you up to any Caesar, Antiochus, Tiglath Pileser, or other
flea-devouring flea. . . . They will fatten well enough
without your blood. So I only ask as a student of the
great nothing-in-general, which men call the universe.”
“I was prefect of a legion this morning. What I am
now, you know as well as I.”
“Just what I do not. I am in deep wonder at seeing
your hilarity, when, by all flea analogies, you ought to be
either behowling your fate like Achilles on the shores of
Styx, or pretending to grin and bear it, as I was taught to
do when I played at Stoicism. You are not of that sect
certainly, for you confessed yourself a fool just now.”
“And it would be long, would it not, before you made
one of them do as much? Well, be it so. A fool I am ;
yet, if God helps us as far as Ostia, why should I not be
cheerful ?”
“Why should you?”
“What better thing can happen to a fool, than that God
Aſ VPA 7T/A. 2O5
should teach him that he is one, when he fancied himself
the wisest of the wise? Listen to me, sir. Four months
ago I was blessed with health, honor, lands, friends—all
for which the heart of man could wish. And if, for an
insane ambition, I have chosen to risk all those, against
the solemn warnings of the truest friend, and the wisest
saint, who treads this earth of God’s—should I not rejoice
to have it proved to me, even by such a lesson as this,
that the friend who never deceived me before was right in
this case too ; and that the God who has checked and
turned me for forty years of wild toil and warfare, when-
ever I dared to do what was right in the sight of my own
eyes, has not forgotten me yet, or given up the thankless
task of my education?”
“And who, pray, is this peerless friend?”
“Augustine of Hippo.”
“Humph! It had been better for the world in general
if the great dialectician had exerted his powers of
persuasion on Heraclian himself.”
“He did so, but in vain.” -
‘‘I don’t doubt it. I know the sleek count well enough to
judge what effect a sermon would have upon that smooth
vulpine determination of his. . . . “An instrument in the
hands of God, my dear brother. . . . We must obey His
call, even to the death,” etc., etc.” And Raphael laughed
bitterly.
“You know the count P’’
“As well, sir, as I care to know any man.”
“I am sorry for your eyesight, then, sir,” said the
prefect, severely, “if it has been able to discern no more
than that in so august a character.”
“My dear sir, I do not doubt his excellence—nay, his
inspiration. How well he divined the perfectly fit moment
for stabbing his old comrade Stilicho! But really, as two
men of the world, we must be aware by this time that
every man has his price.” . . .
‘‘Oh, hush! hush!” whispered the girl. “You cannot
guess how you pain him. He worships the count. It was
not ambition, as he pretends, but merely loyalty to him,
which brought him here against his will.”
“My dear madam, forgive me. For your sake I am silent.”
2O6 Aſ VPA 774.
“For her sake! A pretty speech for me! What next!”
said he to himself. “Ah, Bran, Bran, this is all your
fault!” - . -
“For my sake? Oh, why not for your own sake? How
sad to hear one—one like you, only sneering and speaking
evil l’’ -
“Why then? If fools are fools, and one can safely call
them, so, why not do it?” -
“Ah—if God was merciful enough to send down his
Own Son to die for them, should we not be merciful enough
not to judge their failings harshly P” -
“My dear young lady, spare a worn-out philosopher
any new anthropological theories. We really must push
On a little faster, if we intend to reach Ostia tonight.”
But, for some reason or other, Raphael sneered no more
for a full half-hour.
Long, however, ere they reached Ostia, the night had
fallen ; and their situation seemed to be more than ques-
tionably safe. Now and then a wolf, slinking across the
road toward his ghastly feast, glided like a lank ghost out
of the darkness, and into it again, answering Bran’s growl
by a gleam of his white teeth. Then the voices of some
marauding party rang coarse and, loud through the still
night, and made them hesitate and stop awhile. And at
last, worst of all, the measured tramp of an imperial
column began to roll like distant thunder along the plain
below. They were advancing upon Ostia! What if they
arrived there before the routed army could rally, and
defend themselves long enough to re-embark? . . . What
if—a thousand ugly possibilities began to crowd up.
“Suppose we found the gates of Ostia shut, and the
Imperialists bivouacked outside?” said Raphael half to
himself.
“God would protect His own,” answered the girl ; and
Raphael had no heart to rob her of her hope, though he
looked upon their chances of escape as growing smaller
and smaller every moment. The poor girl was weary ;
the mule weary also ; and as they crawled along, at a pace
which made it certain that the fast passing column would
be at Ostia an hour before them, to join the vanguard of
the pursuers, and aid them in investing the town, she had
ATYAA 7/4. 2O7
to lean again and again on Raphael's arm. Her shoes,
unfitted for so rough a journey, had been long since torn
off, and her tender feet were marking every step with
blood. Raphael knew it by her faltering gait; and
remarked, too, that neither sigh nor murmur passed her
lips. But as for helping her, he could not ; and began to
curse the fancy which had led him to eschew even sandals
as unworthy the self-dependence of a Cynic.
And so they crawled along, while Raphael and the pre-
fect, each guessing the terrible thoughts of the other, were
thankful for the darkness which hid their despairing coun-
tenances from the young girl ; she, on the other hand,
chatted cheerfully, almost laughingly, to her silent father.
At last the poor child stepped on some stone more sharp
than usual—and with a sudden writhe and shriek, sank to
the ground. Raphael lifted her up, and she tried to pro-
ceed, but sank down again. . . . What was to be done?
“I expected this,” said the prefect, in a slow, stately
voice. “Hear me, sir! Jew, Christian, or philosopher,
God seems to have bestowed on you a heart which I can
trust. To your care I commit this girl—your property,
like me, by right of war. Mount her upon this mule.
Hasten with her—where you will—for God will be there
also. And may He so deal with you as you deal with her
henceforth. An old and disgraced soldier can do no more
than die.”
And he made an effort to dismount ; but fainting from
his wounds, sank upon the neck of the mule. Raphael
and his daughter caught him in their arms.
“Father! Father! Impossible! Cruel! Oh—do you
think that I would have followed you hither from Africa,
against your own entreaties, to desert you now?”
“My daughter, I commandſ''
The girl remained firm and silent. 3.
“How long have you learned to disobey me? Lift the
old disgraced man down, sir, and leave him to die in the
right place—on the battle-field where his general sent.
him.” -
The girl sank down on the road in an agony of weep-
ing. “I must help myself, I see,” said her father, drop-
ping to the ground. “Authority vanishes before old age
208 - Aſ VPA 774.
and humiliation. Victoria! has your father no sins to
answer for already, that you will send him before his God
with your blood too upon his head?”
Still the girl sat weeping on the ground ; while Raphael,
utterly at his wits' end, tried hard to persuade himself
that it was no concern of his.
‘‘ I am at the service of either or of both, for life or
death ; only be so good as to settle it quickly. . . . Hell!
here it is settled for us with a vengeance!”
And as he spoke, the tramp and jingle of horsemen rang
along the lane, approaching rapidly.
In an instant Victoria had sprung to her feet—weakness
and pain had vanished. .
“There is one chance—one chance for him! lift him
over the bank, sir! Lift him over, while I run foward and
meet them. My death will delay them long enough for
you to save him!”
“Death!” cried Raphael, seizing her by the arm. “If
that were all—”
“God will protect His own,” answered she, calmly,
laying her finger on her lips; and then breaking from his
grasp in the strength of her heroism, vanished into the night.
Her father tried to follow her, but fell on his face groan-
ing. Raphael lifted him, strove to drag him up the steep
bank : but his knees knocked together ; a faint sweat
seemed to melt every limb. . . . There was a pause.
which seemed ages long. . . . Nearer and nearer came the
trampling. . . . A sudden gleam of the moon revealed
Victoria, with outspread arms, right before the horses'
heads. A heavenly glory seemed to bathe her from head
to foot . . . or was it tears sparkling in his own eyes? . . .
Then the grate and jar of the horse-hoofs on the road as
they pulled up suddenly. . . . He turned his face away
and shut his eyes. . . . -
“What are you?” thundered a voice.
“Victoria, the daughter of Majoricus the prefect.”
The voice was low, but yet so clear and calm that every
syllable rang through Aben-Ezra's tingling ears. .
A shout—a shriek—the confused murmur of many
voices. . . . He looked up in spite of himself—a horses
man had sprung to the ground, and clasped Victoria in hi-
#YPA 774. 209
arms. The human heart of flesh, asleep for many a year,
leaped into mad life within his breast, and drawing his
dagger, he rushed into the throng
“Villains! Hellhounds! I will balk you! She shall
die first!” :
And the bright blade gleamed over Victoria's head. . . .
He was struck down—blinded—half stunned—but rose
again with the energy of madness. . . . What was this?
Soft arms around him. . . . Victoria's
“Save him, spare him! he saved us! Sir! It is my
brother! We are safe! Oh, spare the dog! It saved my
father!” -
“We have mistaken each other, indeed, sir!” said a gay
young tribune, in a voice trembling with joy. “Where is
my father?”
“Fifty yards behind. Down, Bran! Quiet! O Solo-
mon, mine ancestor, why did you not prevent me making
such an egregious fool of myself? Why, I shall be forced
in self-justification to carry through the farce!” *
There is no use telling what followed during the next
five minutes, at the end of which time Raphael found him-
self astride of a goodly war-horse, by the side of the young
tribune, who carried Victoria before him. Two soldiers in
the meantime were supporting the prefect on his mule, and
convincing that stubborn bearer of burdens that it was not
quite so unable to trot as it had fancied, by the combined
arguments of a drench of wine and two sword-points,
while they heaped their general with blessings, and kissed
his hands and feet.
“Your father's soldiers seem to consider themselves in
debt to him ; not surely for taking them where they could
best run away?” -
“Ah, poor fellows!” said the tribune ; “we have had as
real a panic among us as I ever read of in Arriam or
Polybius. But he has been a father rather than a general
to them. It is not often that out of a routed army twenty
gallant men will volunteer to ride back into the enemy's
ranks on the chance of an old man’s breathing still.”
“Then you knew where to find us?” said Victoria.
“Some of them knew. And he himself showed us this
very by-road yesterday, when we took up our ground, and
2 IO AMYAA 7T/4.
told us it might be of service on occasion—and so it has
been.”
“But they told me that you were taken prisoner. Oh,
the torture I have suffered for you!”
“Silly child ! Did you fancy my father's son would be
taken alive? I and the first troop got away over the
garden-walls, and cut our way out into the plain, three
hours ago.”
“Did I not tell you,” said Victoria, leaning toward
Raphael, “that God would protect his own?”
“You did,” answered he, and fell into a long and silent
meditation.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ROCKS OF THE SIRIENS.
THESE four months had been busy and eventful enough
to Hypatia and to Philammon ; yet the events and the
business were of so gradual and uniform a tenor, that it is
as well to pass quickly over them, and show what had
happened principally by its effects.
The robust and fiery desert lad was now metamorphosed
into the pale and thoughtful student, oppressed with the
weight of careful thought and weary memory. But those
remembrances were all recent ones. With his .entrance
into Hypatia’s lecture-room, and into the fairy realms of
Greek thought, a new life had begun for him ; and the
Laura, and Pambo, and Arsenius seemed dim phantoms
from some antenatal existence, which faded day by day
before the inrush of new and startling knowledge.
But though the friends and scenes of his childhood had
fallen back so swiftly into the far horizon, he was not
lonely. His heart found a lovelier, if not a healthier home,
than it had ever known before. For during those four
peaceful and busy months of study there had sprung up
between Hypatia and the beautiful boy one of those pure
and yet passionate friendships—call them rather, with St.
Augustine, by the sacred name of love—which, fair and
holy as they are when they link youth to youth or girl to
girl, reach their full perfection only between man and
woman. The unselfish adoration with which a maiden
may bow down before some strong and holy priest, or
with which an enthusiastic boy may cling to the wise and
tender matron, who, amid the turmoil of the world, and
the pride of beauty and the cares of wifehood, bends down
to him with counsel and encouragement—earth knows no
fairer bonds than these save wedded love itself. And that
Second relation, motherly rather than sisterly, had bound
2 II
2 I 2 - Aſ VAZA 7./A.
Philammon with a golden chain to the wondrous maid of
Alexandria.
From the commencement of his attendance in her
lecture-room she had suited her discourses to what she
fancied were his especial spiritual needs; and many a
glance of the eye toward him, on any peculiarly important
sentence, set the poor boy's heart beating at that sign that
the words were meant for him. But before a month was
past, won by the intense attention with which he watched
for every utterance of hers, she had persuaded her father
to give him a place in the library as one of his pupils,
among the youths who were employed there daily in tran-
scribing, as well as in studying, the authors then in fashion.
She saw him at first but seldom—more seldom than
she would have wished ; but she dreaded the tongue of
Scandal, heathen as well as Christian, and contented
herself with inquiring daily from her father about the
progress of the boy. And when at times she entered
for a moment the library, where he sat writing, or
passed him on her way to the Museum, a look was inter-
changed, on her part of most gracious approval, and
on his of adoring gratitude, which was enough for
both. Her spell was working surely; and she was too
confident in her own cause and her own powers to wish to
hurry that transformation for which she so fondly hoped.
“He must begin at the beginning,” thought she to her-
self. “Mathematics and the Parmenides are enough for
him as yet. Without a training in the liberal sciences he
cannot gain a faith worthy of those gods to whom some
day I shall present him ; and I should soon find his
Christian ignorance and fanaticism transferred, whole and
rude, to the service of those gods whose shrine is unap-
proachable save to the spiritual man, who has passed
through the successive vestibules of science and philoso-
phy.”
But soon, attracted herself, as much as wishing to
attract him, she employed him in copying manuscripts
for her own use. She sent back his themes and declama-
tions, corrected with her own hand ; and Philammon laid
them by in his little garret at Endaemon's house as precious
badges of honor, after exhibiting them to the reverential
Aſ VA’A 7TWA. 2I3
and envious gaze of the little porter. So he toiled on,
early and late, counting himself well paid for a week’s
intense exertion by a single smile or word of approbation,
and went home to pour out his soul to his host on the One
inexhaustible theme which they had in common—Hypatia
and her perfections. He would have raved often enough
On the same subject to his fellow-pupils, but he shrank not
Only from their artificial city manners, but also from their
morality, for suspecting which he saw but too good cause.
He longed to go out into the streets, to proclaim to the
whole world the treasure which he had found, and call On
all to come and share it with him. For there was no
jealousy in that pure love of his. Could he have seen her
lavishing on thousands far greater favors than she had
conferred on him, he would have rejoiced in the thought
that there were so many more blest beings upon earth, and
have loved them all and everyone as brothers for having
deserved her notice. Her very beauty, when his first
flush of wonder was past, he ceased to mention—ceased
even to think of it. Of course she must be beautiful. It
was her right; the natural complement of her other graces;
but it was to him only what the mother's smile is to the
infant, the sunlight to the skylark, the mountain breeze to
the hunter—an inspiring element, on which he fed uncon-
sciously. Only when he doubted for a moment some
especially startling or fanciful assertion, did he become
really aware of the great loveliness of her who made it ;
and then his heart silenced his judgment with the thought
—could any but true words come out of those perfect lips?
—any but royal thoughts take shape within that queenly .
head? . . . Poor fool! Yet was it not natural enough?
Then, gradually, as she passed the boy, poring over
his book, in some alcove of the Museum Gardens, she
would invite him by a glance to join the knot of
loungers and questioners who dangled about her and
her father, and fancied themselves to be reproducing the
days of the Athenian sages amid the groves of another
Academus. Sometimes, even, she had beckoned him to
her side as she sat in some retired arbor, attended only by
her father ; and there some passing observation, earnest
and personal, however lofty and measured, made him
2I4. Aſ YAA 7T/A.
aware, as it was intended to do, that she had a deeper
interest in him, a livelier sympathy for him, than for the
many; that he was in her eyes not merely a pupil to be
instructed, but a soul whom she desired to educate. And
those delicious gleams of sunlight grew more frequent and
more protracted ; for by each she satisfied herself more
and more that she had not mistaken either his powers or
his susceptibilities ; and in each, whether in public or
private, Philammon seemed to bear himself more worthily.
For over and above the natural ease and dignity which
accompanies physical beauty, and the modesty, self-
restraint, and deep earnestness which he had acquired
under the discipline of the Laura, his Greek character
was developing itself in all its quickness, subtlety, and
versatility, until he seemed to Hypatia some young Titan,
by the side of the flippant, hasty and insincere talkers
who made up her chosen circle.
But man can no more live upon Platonic love than upon
the more prolific species of that common ailment; and for
the first month Philammon would have gone hungry to his
couch full many a night, to lie awake from baser causes
than philosophic meditation, had it not been for his
magnanimous host, who never lost heart for a moment,
either about himself or any other human being. As for
Philammon's going out with him to earn his bread, he
would not hear of it. Did he suppose that he could meet
any of those monkish rascals in the street without being
knocked down and carried off by main force? And besides,
there was a sort of impiety in allowing so hopeful a student
to neglect the ‘‘Divine Ineffable” in order to supply the
base necessities of the teeth. So he should pay no rent
for his lodgings—positively none ; and as for eatables—
why, he must himself work a little harder in order to cater
for both. Had not all his neighbors their litters of children
to provide for, while he, thanks to the immortals, had been
far too wise to burden the earth with animals who would
add to the ugliness of their father the Tartarean hue of
their mother? And, after all, Philammon could pay him
back when he became a great sophist, and made money,
as of course he would some day or other ; and in the mean-
time, something might turn up—things were always turn-
ATYAA 7TWA. 2I 5
ing up for those whom the gods favored ; and besides, he
had fully ascertained that on the day on which he first met
Philammon, the planets were favorable, the Mercury being
in something or other, he forgot what, with (Helios, which
portended for Philammon, in his opinion, a similar career
with that of the glorious and devout Emperor Julian.
Philammon winced somewhat at the hint, which seemed
to have an ugly verisimilitude in it ; but still, philosophy
he must learn, and bread he must eat ; so he submitted.
But one evening, a few days after he had been admitted
as Theon's pupil, he found, much to his astonishment,
lying on the table in his garret, an undeniable glittering
gold piece. He took it down to the porter the next morn-
ing, and begged him to discover the owner of the lost coin,
and return it duly. But what was his surprise when the
little man, amid endless capers and gesticulations, informed
him, with an air of mystery, that it was anything but lost :
that his arrears of rent had been paid for him ; and that,
by the bounty of the upper powers, a fresh piece of coin
would be forthcoming every month! In vain Philammon
demanded to know who was his benefactor. Eudaemon
resolutely kept the secret, and imprecated a whole tar-
tarus of unnecessary curses on his wife if she allowed her
female garrulity—though the poor creature seemed never
to Open her lips from morning till night—to betray so
great a mystery. -
Who was the unknown friend? There was but one
person who could have done it. . . . And yet he dared
not—the thought was too delightful—think that it was
she. It must have been her father. The old man had
asked him more than once about the state of his purse. True,
he had always returned evasive answers; but the kind old
man must have divined the truth. Ought he not—must he
not—go and thank him? No; perhaps it was more
courteous to say nothing. If he—she—for of course she
had permitted, perhaps advised the gift—had intended him
to thank them, would they have so carefully concealed
their own generosity? . . . Be it so then. But how would
he not repay them for it? How delightful to be in her
debt for anything—for everything! Would that he could
have the enjoyment of owing her existence itself!
216 Ayya.4774.
So he took the coin, bought unto himself a cloak of the
most philosophic fashion, and went his way, such as it
was, rejoicing.
But his faith in Christianity? What had become of that?
What usually happens in such cases. It was not dead ;
but nevertheless it had fallen fast asleep for the time
being. He did not disbelieve it ; he would have been
shocked to hear such a thing asserted of him : but he
happened to be busy believing something else—geometry,
conic sections, cosmogonies, psychologies, and what not.
And so it befell that he had not just then time to believe
in Christianity. He recollected at times its existence ; but
even then he neither affirmed nor denied it. When he
had solved the great questions—those which Hypatia set
forth as the roots of all knowledge—how the world was
made, and what was the origin of evil, and what his own
personality was, and—that being settled—whether he had
one, with a few other preliminary matters, then it would
be time to return, with his enlarged light, to the study of
Christianity; and if, of course, Christianity should be
found to be at variance with that enlarged light, as Hypatia
seemed to think. . . . Why, then—what then? . . . He
would not think about such disagreeable possibilities.
Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof. Possibilities?
It was impossible. . . . Philosophy could not mislead.
Had not Hypatia defined it as man’s search after the
unseen P And if he found the unseen by it, did it not come
to just the same thing as if the unseen had revealed itself
to him? And he must find it—for logic and mathematics
could not err. If every step was correct, the conclusion
must be correct also, so he must end, after all, in the right
path—that is, of course, supposing Christianity to be the
right path—and return to fight the Church's battles
with the sword which he had wrested from Goliath the
Philistine. . . . But he had not won the sword yet : and
in the meanwhile, learning was weary work; and
sufficient for the day was the good, as well as the evil,
thereof.
. So, enabled by his gold coin each month to devote him-
self entirely to study, he became very much what Peter
would have coarsely termed a heathen. At first, indeed,
A VA4 7/4. 217
he slipped into the Christian churches, from a habit of
conscience. But habits soon grow sleepy ; the fear of
discovery and recapture made his attendance more and
more of a labor. And keeping himself apart as much as
possible from the congregation, as a lonely and secret
worshiper, he soon found himself as separate from them in
heart as in daily life. He felt that they, and even more
than they, those flowery and bombastic pulpit rhetoricians,
who were paid for their sermons by the clapping and cheer-
ing of the congregation, were not thinking of, longing after,
the same things as himself. Besides, he never spoke to a
Christian ; for the negress at his lodgings seemed to avoid
him—whether from modesty or terror he could not tell ;
and cut off thus from the outward “ communion of
Saints,” he found himself fast parting away from the
inward one. So he went no more to church ; and looked
the other way, he hardly knew why, whenever he passed
the Caesareum ; and Cyril, and all his mighty organization,
became to him another world, with which he had even less
to do than with those planets over his head, whose
mysterious movements, and symbolisms, and influences
Hypatia's lectures on astronomy were just opening before
his bewildered imagination. -
Hypatia watched all this with growing self-satisfaction,
and fed herself with the dream that through Philanmon
she might see her wildest hopes realized. After the
manner of woman, she crowned him, in her own imagina-
tion, with all powers and excellences which she would
have wished him to possess, as well as with those which
he actually manifested, till Philammon would have been
as much astonished as self-glorified could he have seen the
idealized caricature of himself which the sweet enthusiast
had painted for her private enjoyment. They were bliss-
ful months those to poor Hypatia. Orestes, for some
reason or other, had neglected to urge his suit, and the
Iphigenia sacrifice had retired mercifully into the back-
ground. Perhaps she should be able now to accomplish
all without it. And yet—it was so long to wait! Years
might pass before Philammon's education was matured,
and with them golden opportunities which might never
recur again.
218 A/] 'AA 7/4.
“Ah!” she sighed at times, “that Julian had lived a
generation later! That I could have brought all my hard-
earned treasures to the feet of the Poet of the Sun, and
cried: ‘Take me! Hero, warrior, statesman, sage, priest
of the God of light! Take thy slave! Command her—
send her to martyrdom, if thou wilt!’ A petty price would
that have been where with to buy the honor of being the
meanest of thy apostles, the fellow-laborer of Iamblichus,
Maximus, Libanius, and the choir of sages who upheld
the throne of the last true Caesar!”
CHAPTER XV.
NEPHELO COCCU Gl.JIA.
HYPATIA had always avoided carefully discussing with
Philammon any of those points on which she differed from
his former faith. She was content to let the divine light
of philosophy penetrate by its own power, and educe its
own conclusions. But one day, at the very time at which
this history reopens, she was tempted to speak more
openly, to her pupil than she had yet done. Her father had
introduced him, a few days before, to a new work of hers
On Mathematics; and the delighted and adoring look with
which the boy welcomed her, as he met her in the Museum
Gardens, pardonably tempted her curiosity to inquire what
miracles her own wisdom might have already worked.
She stopped in her walk, and motioned her father to begin
a conversation with Philammon.
“Well!” asked the old man, with an encouraging smile,
‘‘ and how does our pupil like his new—”
“You mean my conic sections, father! It is hardly fair
to expect an unbiased answer in my presence.”
“Why so?” said Philammon. “Why should I not tell
you, as well as all the world, the fresh and wonderful field
of thought which they have opened to me in a few short
hours?”
“What then?” asked Hypatia, smiling, as if she knew
what the answer would be. “ In what does my commen-
tary differ from the original text of Apollonius, on which I
have so faithfully based it?”
“Oh, as much as a living body differs from a dead one.
Instead of mere dry disquisitions on the properties of lines
and curves, I found a mine of poetry and theology. Every
dull mathematical formula seemed transfigured, as if by a
miracle, into the symbol of some deep and noble principle
of the unseen world.”
“And do you think that he of Perga did not see as much?
- 2 IQ *
22O - A. VPA 774
or that we can pretend to surpass, in depth of insight, the
sages of the elder world? Be sure that they, like the
poets, meant only spiritual things, even when they seem to
talk Only of physical ones, and conceal heaven under an
earthly garb, only to hide it from the eyes of the profane ;
while we, in these degenerate days, must interpret and
display each detail to the dull ears of men.”
“Do you think, my young friend,” asked Theon, “that
mathematics can be valuable to the philosopher otherwise
than as vehicles of spiritual truth? Are we to study num-
bers merely that we may be able to keep accounts ; or as
Pythagoras did, in order to deduce from their laws the
ideas by which the universe, man, Divinity itself,
subsists?” - *
“That seems to me certainly to be the nobler purpose.”
“Or conic sections, that we may know better how to
construct machinery ; or rather to devise from them
symbols of the relations of Deity to its various emana-
tions?” -
“You use your dialect like Socrates himself, my father,”
said Hypatia.
“If I do, it is only for a temporary purpose. I should
be sorry to accustom Philammon to suppose that the
essence of philosophy was to be found in those minute
investigations of words and analyses of notions, which
seem to constitute Plato's chief power in the eyes of those
who, like the Christian sophist Augustine, worship his
letter while they neglect his spirit ; not seeing that those
dialogues, which they fancy the shrine itself, are but
vestibules 7 2
“Say rather, veils, father.” -
‘‘Veils, indeed, which were intended to baffle the rude
gaze of the carnal-minded ; but still vestibules, through
which the enlightened soul might be led up to the inner
sanctuary, to the Hesperid gardens and golden fruit of the
Timaeus and the oracles. . . . And for myself, were but
those two books left, I care not whether every other writ-
ing in the world perished tomorrow.””
*This astounding speech is usually attributed to Proclus, Hypatia’s
“great '' successor.
A/YA-A 7/4. 22 I
“You must except Homer, father.”
* Yes, for the herd. . . . But of what use would he be
to them without some spiritual commentary?”
“He would tell them as little, perhaps, as the circle
tells to the carpenter who draws one with his compasses.”
“And what is the meaning of the circle?” asked
Philammon. -
“It may have infinite meanings like every other natural
phenomenon ; and deeper meanings in proportion to the
exaltation of the soul which beholds it. But, consider, is
it not, as the one perfect figure, the very symbol of the
totality of the spiritual world ; which, like it, is invisible
except at its circumference, where it is limited by the dead
gross phenomena of sensuous matter! And even as the
circle takes its origin from one centre itself unseen—a
point, as Euclid defines it, whereof neither parts nor
magnitude can be predicted—does not the world of spirits
revolve round one abysmal being, unseen and undefinable
—in itself, as I have so often preached, nothing, for it is
conceivable only by the negation of all properties, even of
those of reason, virtue, force : and yet, like the centre of
the circle, the cause of all other existences?”
“I see,” said Philammon ; for the moment, certainly,
the said abysmal Deity struck him as a somewhat chill and
barren notion . . . but that might be caused only by the
dullness of his own spiritual perceptions. At all events,
if it was a logical conclusion, it must be right.
‘‘Let that be enough for the present. Hereafter you
may be—I fancy that I know you well enough to prophesy
that you will be—able to recognize in the equilateral
triangle inscribed within the circle, and, touching it only
with its angles, the three supra-sensual principles of exist-
ence, which are contained in Deity as it manifests itself in
the physical universe, coinciding with its utmost limits and
yet, like it, independent on that unseen central One which
none dare name.” -
“Ah!” said poor Philammon, blushing scarlet at the
sense of his own dullness, ‘‘ I am, indeed, not worthy to
have such wisdom wasted upon my imperfect apprehen-
sion. . . . But, if I may dare to ask . . . does not
Apollonius regard the circle like all other curves, as not
222 HYPATIA
depending primarily on its own centre for its existence,
but as generated by the section of any cone by a plane at
right angles to its axis?”
“But must we not draw, or at least conceive a circle, in
order to produce that cone? And is not the axis of that
cone determined by the centre of that circle?”
Philammon stood rebuked. -
“Do not be ashamed ; you have only unwittingly laid
Open another, and, perhaps, as deep a symbol. Can you
guess what it is?”
Philammon puzzled in vain. -
“Does it not show you this : that, as every conceivable
right section of the cone discloses the circle, so in all
which is fair and symmetric you will discover Deity, if
you but analyze it in a right and symmetric direction?”
“Beautiful!” said Philammon, while the old man
added—
* And does it not show us, too, how the one perfect and
original philosophy may be discovered in all great writers,
if we have but that scientific knowledge which will enable
us to extract it?”
“True, my father : but just now I wish Philammon, by
such thoughts as I have suggested, to rise to that higher
and more spiritual insight into nature, which reveals her to
us as instinct throughout—all fair and noble forms of her
at least—with Deity itself; to make him feel that it is not
enough to say, with the Christians, that God has made the
world, if we make that very assertion an excuse for believ-
ing that His presence has been ever since withdrawn
from it.” . *'.
“Christians, I think, would hardly say that,” said
Philammon.
“Not in words. But, in fact, they regard Deity as the
maker of a dead machine, which, once made, will move of
itself thenceforth, and repudiate as heretics every philoso-
phic thinker, whether Gnostic or Platonist, who,
unsatisfied with so dead, barren, and sordid a conception
of the glorious all, wishes to honor the Deity by acknowl-
edging His universal presence, and to believe, honestly,
the assertion of their own Scriptures, that He lives and
moves, and has His being in the universe.”
A. VPATIA. 223
Philammon gently suggested that the passage in ques-
tion was worded somewhat differently in the Scripture.
“True. But if the one be true, its converse will be true
also. If the universe lives and moves, and has its being
in Him, must He not necessarily pervade all things?”
“Why?—Forgive my dullness and explain.”
“Because, if He did not pervade all things, those things
which He did not pervade would be as it were interesting
in His being, and in so far, without Him.”
“True, but still they would be within His circum-
ference.”
“Well argued. But yet they would not live in Him,
but in themselves. To live in Him they must be pervaded
by His life. Do you think it possible—do you think it
even reverent to affirm that there can be anything within
the infinite glory of Deity which has the power of exclud-
ing from the space which it occupies that very being from
which it draws is worth, and which must have originally
pervaded that thing, in order to bestow on it its organiza-
tion and its life? Does He retire, after creating, from the
spaces which He occupied during creation, reduced to the
base necessity of making room for His own universe, and
endure the suffering—for the analogy of all material nature
tells tis that it is suffering—of a foreign body, like a thorn
within the flesh, subsisting within His own substance?
Rather believe that His wisdom and splendor, like a subtle
and piercing fire, insinuates itself eternally with resistless
force through every organized atom, and that were it with-
drawn but for an instant from the petal of the meanest
flower, gross matter, and the dead chaos from which it was
formed, would be all which would remain of its loveli-
Île SS. . . .
“Yes”—she went on, after the method of her school,
who preferred, like most decaying ones, harangues to
dialectic, and synthesis to induction. . . . “Look at yon
lotus-flower, rising like Aphrodite from the wave in which
it has slept throughout the night, and saluting with bend-
ing swan-neck that sun which it will follow lovingly
around the sky. Is there no more there than brute matter,
pipes and fibres, color and shape, and the meaningless
life-in-death which men call vegetation? Those old Egyp-
224 - - • HMYPA 7/4. .
tian priests knew better, who could see in the number and
the form of those ivory petals and golden stamina, in that
mysterious daily birth out of the wave, in that nightly
baptism, from which it rises each morning reborn to a new
life, the signs of some divine idea, some mysterious law,
common to the flower itself, to the white-robed priestess
who held it in the temple-rites, and to the goddess to whom
they both were consecrated. . . . The flower of Isis' . . .
Ah!—well. Nature has her sad symbols, as well as her
fair ones. And in proportion as a misguided nation has
forgotten the worship of her to whom they owed their
greatness, for novel and barbaric superstitions, so has her
sacred flower grown rarer and more rare, till now—fit
emblem of the worship over which it used to shed its per-
fume—it is only to be found in gardens such as these—a
Curiosity to the vulgar, and, to such as me, a lingering
monument of wisdom and of glory passed away.”
Philammon, it may be seen, was far advanced by this
time ; for he bore the allusions to Isis without the slightest
shudder. Nay—he dared even to offer consolation to the
beautiful mourner.
“The philosopher,” he said, “will hardly lament the
loss of a mere outward idolatry. For if, as you seem to
think, there was a root of spiritual truth in the symbolism
of nature, that cannot die. And thus the lotus-flower must
still retain its meaning, as long as its species exist on
earth.” .
‘‘Idolatry!” answered she, with a smile. “My pupil
must not repeat to me that worn-out Christian calumny.
Into whatsoever low superstitions the vulgar may have
fallen, it is the Christians now, and not the heathens, who
are idolaters. They who ascribe miraculous power to dead
men's bones, who make temples of charnel-houses, and
bow before the images of the meanest of mankind,
have surely no right to accuse of idolatry the Greek or the
Egyptian who embodies in a form of symbolic beauty ideas
beyond the reach of words! *
“Idolatry? Do I worship the Pharos when I gaze at it,
as I do for hours with loving awe, as the token to me of
the all-conquering might of Hellas? Do I worship the
roll on which Homer’s words are written, when I welcome
HTVA’A 7TWA. . 225
with delight the celestial truths which it unfolds to me,
and even prize and love the material book for the sake of
the message which it brings? Do you fancy that any but
the vulgar worship the image itself, or dream that it can
help or hear them? Does the lover mistake his mistress's
picture for the living, speaking reality? We worship the
idea of which the image is a symbol. Will you blame us
because we use that symbol to represent the idea to our own
affections and emotions, instead of leaving it a barren
notion, a vague imagination of our own intellect?”
“Then,” asked Philammon, with a faltering voice, yet
unable to restrain his curiosity, “then you do reverence
the heathen gods?” -
Why Hypatia should have felt his question a sore one,
puzzled Philammon; but she evidently did feel it as such,
for she answered haughtily enough—
“If Cyril had asked me that question, I should have
disdained to answer. To you I will tell that before I can
answer your question you must learn what those whom you
call heathen gods are. The vulgar, or rather those who
find it to their interest to calumniate the vulgar for the
sake of confounding philosophers with them, may fancy
them mere human beings, subject like man to the suffer-
ings of pain and love, to the limitations of personality
We, on the other hand, have been taught by the primeval
philosophers of Greece, by the priests of ancient Egypt,
and the sages of Babylon, to recognize in them the universal
powers of nature, those children of the all-quickening
spirit which are but various emanations of the one primeval
unity—say, rather, various phases of that unity, as it has
been variously conceived, according to the differences of
climate and race, by the wise of different nations. And
thus, in our eyes, he who reverences the many, worships
by that very act, with the highest and fullest adoration,
the one of whose perfection they are the partial antitypes ;
perfect each in themselves, but each the image of only one
of its perfections.”
“Why then,” said Philammon, much relieved by this
explanation, “do you so dislike Christianity? May it not
be one of the many methods—”
“Because,” she answered, interrupting him impatiently,
226 - Aſ VA’A 7TWA.
“because it denies itself to be one of those many meth-
ods, and stakes its existence on the denial ; because it
arrogates to itself the exclusive revelation of the Divine,
and cannot see in its self-conceit that its own doctrines
disprove that assumption by their similarity to those of all
creeds. There is not a dogma of the Galileans which may
not be found, under some form or other, in some of those
very religions from which it pretends to disdain borrow-
ing.” - •,
“Except,” said Theon, “its exaltation of all which is
human and low-born, illiterate and leveling.”
“Except that But look! here comes someone whom
I cannot—do not choose to meet. Turn this way—quick!”
And Hypatia, turning pale as death, drew her father
with unphilosophic haste down a side-walk. -
“Yes,” she went on to herself, as soon as she had
recovered her equanimity. “Were this Galilean supersti-
tion content to take its place humbly among the other
‘religiones licitas' of the empire, one might tolerate it well
enough as an antropomorphic adumbration of divine things
fitted for the base and toiling herd ; perhaps peculiarly
fitted, because peculiarly flattering to them. But
In OW 7 7 -
“There is Miriam again,” said Philammon, “right
before us!” -
“Miriam P’’ asked Hypatia, severely. “You know her
then P. How is that?”
“She lodges at Eudaemon's house, as I do,” answered
Philammon, frankly. “Not that I ever interchanged, or
wish to interchange, a word with so base a creature.”
“Do not! I charge you!” said Hypatia, almost implor-
ingly. But there was no way of avoiding her, and
perforce Hypatia and her tormentress met face to face.
“One word! one moment, beautiful lady,” began the
old woman, with a slavish obeisance. “Nay, do not push
by so cruelly. I have—see what I have for you!” and she
held out, with a mysterious air, “The Rainbow of
Solomon.” - -
“Ah! I knew you would stop a moment—not for the
ring’s sake of course, not even for the sake of one who
once offered it to you.-Ah! and where is he now? Dead
HYPA 77A. - 227
of love perhaps! At least, here is his last token to the
fairest one, the cruel One. . . . Well, perhaps she is right.
. . . To be an empress—an empress! . . . Far finer than
anything the poor Jew could have offered. . . . But still—
an empress need not be above hearing her subject's
petition.” . . . ... "
All this was uttered rapidly, and in a wheedling under-
tone, with a continual snaky writhing of her whole body,
except her eye, which seemed, in the intense fixity of its
glare, to act as a fulcrum for all her limbs ; and from that
eye, as long as it kept its mysterious hold, there was no
escaping. -
“What do you mean? What have I to do with this
ring?” asked Hypatia, half frightened. . -
“He who owned it once offers it to you now. You
recollect a little black agate—a paltry thing. . . . If you
have not thrown it away, as you most likely have, he
wishes to redeem it with this opal . . . a gem surely more
fit for such a hand as that.”
“He gave me the agate, and I shall keep it.
“But this opal—worth, oh, worth ten thousand gold
pieces—in exchange for that paltry broken thing not worth
one?” .
“I am not a dealer, like you, and have not yet learned
to value things by their money price. If that agate had
been worth money, I would never have accepted it.”
“Take the ring, take it, my darling,” whispered Theon
impatiently; “it will pay all our debts.” -
“Ah, that it will—pay them all,” answered the old
woman, who seemed to have mysteriously overheard him.
“What!—my father! Would you, too, counsel me to be
so mercenary? My good woman,” she went on, turning
to Miriam, “I cannot expect you to understand the reason
of my refusal. You and I have a different standard of
worth. But for the sake of the talisman engraven on the
agate, if for no other reason, I cannot give it up.”
“Ah! for the sake of the talisman. That is wise, now !
That is noble! Like a philosopher! Oh, I will not say a
word more. Let the beautiful prophetess keep the agate,
and take the opal too ; for see, there is a charm on it also
The name by which Solomon compelled the demons to do
5 y
228 A/YA-A 7TMA.
his bidding. Look! What might you not do now, if you
knew how to use that? To have great glorious angels,
with six wings each, bowing at your feet whensoever you
called them, and saying, ‘Here am I mistress; send me.”
Only look at it!”
Hypatia took the tempting bait, and examined it with
more curiosity than she would have wished to confess;
while the old woman went on :
“But the wise lady knows how to use the black agate,
of course? Aben-Ezra told her that, did he not?”
Hypatia blushed somewhat ; she was ashamed to confess
that Aben-Ezra had not revealed the secret to her,
probably not believing that there was any, and that the
talisman had been to her only a curious plaything, of
which she liked to believe one day that it might possibly
have some occult virtue, and the next day to laugh at the
notion as unphilosophical and barbaric; so she answered,
rather severely, that her secrets were her own property.
“Ah, then! she knows it all—the fortunate lady! And
the talisman has told her whether Heraclian has lost or
won Rome by this time, and whether she is to be the
mother of a new dynasty of Ptolemies, or to die a virgin,
which the Four Angels avert! And surely she has had the
great demon come to her already, when she rubbed the
flat side, has she not?” -
“Go, foolish woman! I am not, like you, the dupe of
childish superstitions.”
“Childish superstitions! Ha! haſ haſ” said the old
woman, as she turned to go, with obeisance more lowly
than ever. “And she has not seen the Angels yet! . . .
Ah well! perhaps some day, when she wants to know how
to use the talisman, the beautiful lady will condescend to
let the poor old Jewess show her the way.”
And Miriam disappeared down an alley, and plunged
into the thickest shrubberies, while the three dreamers
went on their way.
Little thought Hypatia that the moment the old woman
had found herself alone, she had dashed herself down on
the turf, rolling and biting at the leaves like an infuriated
wild beast. . . . “I will have it yet! I will have it, if I
tear out her heart with it!” -
CHAPTER XVI.
VENUS AND PALLAS.
As Hypatia was passing across to her lecture-room that
afternoon, she was stopped midway by a procession of
some twenty Goths and damsels, headed by Pelagia her-
self, in all her glory of jewels, shawls, and snow-white
mule; while by her side rode the Amal, his long legs, like
those of Gang-Rolf the Norseman, all but touching the
ground, as he crushed down with his weight a delicate
little barb, the best substitute to be found in Alexandria
for the huge black chargers of his native land. -
On they came, followed by a wondering and admiring
mob, straight to the door of the Museum, and stopping
began to dismount, while their slaves took charge of the
mules and horses.
There was no escape for Hypatia ; pride forbade her to
follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among the
crowd behind her ; and in another moment the Amal had
lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties of
Alexandria stood, for the first time in their lives, face to
face.
“May Athene befriend you this day, Hypatia!” said,
Pelagia, with her sweetest smile. “I have brought my
guards to hear somewhat of your wisdom this afternoon.
I am anxious to know whether you can teach them any-
thing more worth listening to than the foolish little songs
which Aphrodite taught me, when she raised me from the
sea-foam, as she rose herself, and named me Pelagia.”
Hypatia drew herself up to her stateliest height, and
returned no answer.
“I think my body-guard will well bear comparison with
yours. At least they are the princes and descendants of
deities. So it is but fitting that they should enter before
your provincials, Will you show them the way?”
No answer.
229
230 Aſ YAA 7TWA.
“Then I must do it myself. Come, Amal!” and she
swept up the steps, followed by the Goths, who put the
Alexandrians aside right and left, as if they had been
children. -
“Ah! treacherous wanton that you are!” cried a young
man's voice out of the murmuring crowd. “After having
plundered us of every coin out of which you could dupe
us, here you are squandering our patrimonies on bar-
barians!” . - * * *
“Give us back our presents, Pelagia,” cried another,
‘‘ and you are welcome to your herd of wild bulls!”
“And I will!” cried she, stopping suddenly ; and clutch-
ing at her chains and bracelets, she was on the point of
dashing them among the astonished crowd, - -
“There! take your gifts! Pelagia and her girls scorn to
be debtors to boys, while they are worshipped by men like
these!” -
But the Amal, who, luckily for the students, had not
understood a word of this conversation, seized her arm,
asking if she were mad.
“No, no!” panted she, inarticulate with passion. “Give
me gold—every coin you have. These wretches are twitting
me with what they gave me before—before—O Amal,
you understand me?” And she clung imploringly to his
3. ſIll.
“Oh! Heroes! each of you throw his purse among
these fellows! they say that we and our ladies are living on
their spoils!” And he tossed his purse among the crowd.
In an instant every Goth had followed his example:
more than one following it up by dashing a bracelet or
necklace into the face of some hapless philosophaster.
‘‘I have no lady, my young friends,” said old Wulf, in
good enough Greek, “and owe you nothing’; so I shall
keep my money, as you might have kept yours ;
and as you might, too, old Smid, if you had been as
wise as I.” -
“Don’t be stingy, prince, for the honor of the Goths,”
said Smid, laughing. -
“If I take in gold I pay in iron,” answered Wulf, draw-
ing half out of its sheath the huge broad blade, at the
ominous brawn stains of which the studentry recoiled ;
A/V/24 7/4. 231
and the whole party swept into the empty lecture-room,
and seated themselves at their ease in the front ranks.
Poor Hypatia! At first she determined not to lecture—
then to send for Orestes—then to call on her students to
defend the sanctity of the Museum ; but pride, as well as
prudence, advised her better ; to retreat would be to con-
fess herself conquered—to disgrace philosophy—to lose
her hold on the minds of all waverers. No! she would
go on and brave everything, insults, even violence ; and
with trembling limbs and pale cheek, she mounted the
tribune and began. - -
To her surprise and delight, however, her barbarian
auditors were perfectly well-behaved. Pelagia, in childish
good-humor at her triumph, and perhaps, too, determined
to show her contempt for her adversary by giving her every
chance, enforced silence and attention, and checked the
tittering of the girls for a full half-hour. But at the end
of that time the heavy breathing of the slumbering Amal,
who had been twice awoke by her, resounded unchecked
through the lecture-room, and deepened into a snore ; for
Pelagia herself was as fast asleep as he. But now another
censor took upon himself the office of keeping order. Old
Wulf, from the moment Hypatia had begun, had never
taken his eyes off her face ; and again and again the
maiden's weak heart had been cheered, as she saw the
smile of sturdy intelligence and honest satisfaction which
twinkled over that scarred and bristly visage ; while every
now and then the graybeard wagged approval, until she
found herself, long before the end of the oration, address-
ing herself straight to her new admirer.
At last it was over, and the students behind, who had
sat meekly through it all, without the slightest wish to
“upset ’’ the intruders, who had so thoroughly upset them,
rose hurriedly, glad enough to get safe out of so dangerous
a neighborhood. But to their astonishment, as well as to
that of Hypatia, old Wulf rose also, and stumbling along
to the foot of the tribune, pulled out his purse, and laid it
at Hypatia’s feet. -
“What is this?” asked she, half terrified at the approach
of a figure more rugged and barbaric than she had ever
beheld before.
232 HYPATIA,
“My fee for what I have heard today. Your are a right
noble maiden, and may Freya send you a husband worthy
of you, and make you the mother of kings!”
And Wulf retired with his party.
Open homage to a rival, before her very face! Pelagia
felt quite inclined to hate old Wulf.
But at least he was the only traitor. The rest of the
Goths agreed unanimously that Hypatia was a very foolish
person, who was wasting her youth and beauty in talking
to donkey-riders, and Pelagia remounted her mule, and the
Goths their horses, for a triumphal procession homeward.
And yet her heart was sad, even in her triumph. Right
and wrong were ideas as unknown to her as they were to
hundreds of thousands in her day. As far as her own
consciousness was concerned, she was as destitute of a
soul as the mule on which she rode. Gifted by nature
with boundless frolic and good humor, wit and cunning,
her Greek taste for the physically beautiful and graceful
developed by long training, until she had become, without
a rival, the most perfect pantomime, dancer and musician
who catered for the luxurious tastes of the Alexandrian
theatres ; she had lived since her childhood only for enjoy-
ment and vanity, and wished for nothing more. But her
new affection, or rather worship, for the huge manhood of
her Gothic lover had awoke in her a new object—to keep
him—to live for him—to follow him to the ends of the
earth, even if he tired of her, ill-used her, despised her.
And slowly, day by day, Wulf's sneers awakened in
her a dread that perhaps the Amal might despise
her. . . . Why, she could not guess : but what sort of
women were those Alrunas, of whom Wulf sung, of
whom even the Amal and his men spoke with rever-
ence, as something nobler, not only than her, but even
than themselves? And what was it which Wulf had
recognized in Hypatia which had bowed the stern and
coarse old warrior before her in that public homage? . . .
It was not difficult to say what. . . . But why should that
make Hypatia or anyone else attractive? . . . And the poor
little child of nature gazed in deep bewilderment at a
crowd of new questions, as a butterfly might at the pages
of the book on which it has settled, and was sad and dis-
ATVA’A 7TWA. 233
contented—not with herself, for was she not Pelagia the
perfect?—but with these strange fancies which came into
other people's heads.--Why should not everyone be as
they could? And who knew better than she how to be
happy, and to make others happy? -
“Look at that old monk standing on the pavement,
Amalric! Why does he stare so at me? Tell him to
go away.”
The person at whom she pointed, a delicate-featured
old man, with a venerable white beard, seemed to hear
her ; for he turned with a sudden start, and then, to
Pelagia's astonishment, put his hands before his face and
burst convulsively into tears. º
“What does he mean by behaving in that way? Bring
him here to me this moment! I will know!” cried she,
petulantly, catching at the new object in order to escape
from her own thoughts.
In a moment a Goth had led up the weeper, who came
without demur, to the side of Pelagia’s mule.
“Why were you so rude as to burst out crying in my
face?” asked she, petulantly.
The old man looked up sadly and tenderly, and answered
in a low voice, meant only for her ear— -
“And how can I help weeping, when I see anything as
beautiful as you are destined to the flames of hell forever?”
“The flames of hell?” said Pelagia, with a shudder.
< * What for P” -
“Do you not know?” asked the old man, with a look of
sad surprise. “Have you forgotten what you are?”
“I? I never hurt a fly!” -
“Why do you look so terrified, my darling? What
have you been saying to her, you old villain?” and the
Amal raised his whip.
“Oh! do not strike him. Come, come tomorrow, and
tell me what you mean.”
‘‘No, we will have no monks within our doors, frighten-
ing silly women. Off, sirrah! and thank the lady that you
have escaped with a whole skin.” And the Amal caught
the bridle of Pelagia’s mule, and pushed forward, leaving
the old man gazing sadly after them.
But the beautiful sinner was evidently not the object
234 -- ATVA’4774.
which had brought the old monk of the desert into a
neighborhood so strange and ungenial to his habits ; for
recovering himself in a few moments, he hurried on to the
door of the Museum, and there planted himself, scanning
earnestly the faces of the passers-out, and meeting, of
course, with his due share of student ribaldry.
“Well, old cat, and what mouse are you on the watch
for, at the hole's mouth here?”
“Just come inside, and see whether the mice will not
singe your whiskers for you.”
“Here's my mouse, gentlemen,” answered the old monk,
with a bow and a smile, as he laid his hand on Philam-
mon's arm, and presented to his astonished eyes the deli-
cate features and high retreating forehead of Arsenius.
“My father!” cried the boy, in the first impulse of
affectionate recognition ; and then—he had expected some
such meeting all along, but now it had come at last—he
turned pale as death. The students saw his emotion.
“Hands off, old Heautontimoroumenos! He belongs to
our guild now! Monks have no more business with sons
than with wives. Shall we hustle him for you, Philammon?”
‘‘Take care how you show off, gentlemen : the Goths
are not yet out of hearing!” answered Philammon, who was
learning fast how to give a smart answer ; and then fearing
the temper of the young dandies, and shrinking from the
notion of any insult to one so reverend and so beloved as
Arsenius, he drew the old man gently away, and walked
up the street with him in silence, dreading what was
coming.
“And are these your friends.”
“Heaven forbid! I have nothing in common with such
animals but flesh and blood and a seat in the lecture-
room.”
“Of the heathen woman?” . -
Philammon, after the fashion of young men in fear,
rushed desperately into the subject himself, just because
he dreaded Arsenius's entering on it quietly.
“Yes, of the heathen woman. Of course you have seen
Cyril before you came hither?” 4.
‘‘I have, and ; )
“And,” went on Philammon, interrupting him, “you
Aſ VPA 77.4. 235
have been told every lie which prudence, stupidity and
revenge can invent. That I have trampled on the Cross—
sacrificed to all the deities in the pantheon—and probably ”
—and he blushed scarlet—“that that purest and holiest
of beings—who, if she were not what people call a pagan,
would be, and deserves to be, worshipped as the queen of
Saints—that she—and I ” and he stopped. -
“Have I said that I believed what I may have heard?”
“NO-and, therefore, as they are all simple and sheer
falsehoods, there is no more to be said on the subject.
Not that I shall not be delighted to answer any questions
of yours, my dearest father.”
“Have I asked any, my child?” -
“No. So we may as well change the subject for the
present.” And he began overwhelming the old man with
inquiries about himself, Pambo and each and all of the
inhabitants of the Laura, to which Arsenius, to the boy’s
infinite relief, answered cordially and minutely, and even
vouchsafed a smile at some jest of Philammon's on the
contrast between the monks of Nitria and those of Scetis.
Arsenius was too wise not to see well enough what all
this flippancy meant ; and too wise also not to know that
Philammon's version was probably quite as near the truth
as Peter's and Cyril's ; but for reasons of his own merely
replied by an affectionate look, and a compliment to
Philammon’s growth.
“And yet you seem thin and pale my boy.”
“Study,” said Philammon, “study. One cannot burn
the midnight oil without paying some penalty for it. . . .
However, I am richly repaid already ; I shall be more so
hereafter.” -- - -
“Let us hope so. But who are those Goths whom I
passed in the streets just now?” -- -
“Ah! my father,” said Philammon, glad in his heart of
any excuse to turn the conversation, yet half uneasy and
suspicious at Arsenius's evident determination to avoid the
very object of his visit. “It must have been you, then,
whom I saw stop and speak to Pelagia at the farther end
of the street. What words could you possibly have had
where with to honor such a creature?”
“God knows. . Some secret sympathy touched my
236 AYP47/4.
heart. . . . Alas! poor child! But how came you to know
her P’’
“All Alexandria knows the shameless abomination,”
interrupted a voice at their elbow—none other than that
of the little porter, who had been dodging and watching
the pair the whole way, and could no longer restrain his
longing to meddle. “And well it had been for many a
rich young man had old Miriam never brought her over,
in an evil day, from Athens hither.”
‘‘ Miriam P” .
“Yes, monk ; a name not unknown, I am told, in
palaces as well as in slave-markets.”
“An evil-eyed old Jewess?”
“A Jewess she is, as her name might have informed
you ; and as for her eyes, I consider them, or used to do
so, of course—for her injured nation have been long
expelled from Alexandria by your fanatic tribe—as
altogether divine and demoniac, iet the base imagination
of monks call them what it likes.”
“But how did you know this Pelagia, my son? She is
not fit company for such as you.” - *
Philammon told, honestly enough, the story of his Nile
journey, and Pelagia's invitation to him.
“You did not surely accept it?”
“Heaven forbid that Hypatia's scholar should so
degrade himself.” --
Arsenius shook his head sadly.
“You would not have had me go?” -
“No, boy. But how long hast thou learned to call thy-
self Hypatia's scholar, or to call it a degradation to visit the
most sinful, if thou mightest thereby bring back a lost
lamb to the Good Shepherd? Nevertheless, thou art too
young for such employment—and she meant to tempt thee,
doubtless.” t
“I do not think it. She seemed struck by my talking
Athenian Greek, and having come from Athens.”
“And how long since she came from Athens?” said
Arsenius, after a pause. “Who knows?”
“Just after it was sacked by the barbarians,” said the
little porter, who, beginning to suspect a mystery, was
peeking and peering like an excited parrot. “The old
Aſ VPA TIA. 237
dame brought her hither among a cargo of captive boys
and girls.” -
“The time agrees. . . . Can this Miriam be found?”
“A sapient and courteous question for a monk to ask!
Do you not know that Cyril has expelled all Jews four
months ago?”
“True, true. . . . Alas!” said the old man to himself,
“how little the rulers of this world guess their own
power! They move a finger carelessly, and forget that
that finger may crush to death hundreds whose names they
never heard—and every soul of them as precious in God’s
sight as Cyril's own.”
“What is the matter, my father?” asked Philammon.
“You seem deeply moved about this woman.”
“And she is Miriam's slave?”
“Her freedwoman this four years past,” said the porter.
“The good lady—for reasons doubtless excellent in them-
selves, though not altogether patent to the philosophic
mind—thought good to turn her loose on the Alexandrian
republic, to seek what she might devour.”
“God help her! And you are certain that Miriam is
not in Alexandria?” -
The little porter turned very red, and Philammon
did so likewise ; but he remembered his promise, and
kept it. -
“You both know something of her, I can see. You
cannot deceive an old statesman, sir!”—turning to the
little porter with a look of authority—“Poor monk though
he be now. If you think fitting to tell me what you know,
I promise you neither she nor you shall be the losers by
your confidence in me. If not, I shall find means to dis-
cover.”
Both stood silent.
“Philammon, my son! and art thou too in league against
—no, not against me; against thyself, poor misguided
boy?”
“Against myself?” *
“Yes—I have said it. But unless you will trust me, I
cannot trust you.”
“I have promised.”
“And I, sir, statesman, or monk, or both, or neither,
238 HYPA 774.
have sworn by the immortal gods!” said the porter, looking
very big. ...
Arsenius paused. -
“There are those who hold that an oath by an idol,
being nothing, is of itself void. I do not agree with them.
If thou thinkest it sin to break thine oath, to thee it is sin.
And for thee, my poor child, thy promise is sacred, were
it made to Iscariot himself. But hear me. Can either of
you, by asking this woman, be so far absolved as to give
me speech of her? Tell her—that is, if she be in Alexan-
dria, which God grant—all that has passed between us
here, and tell her, on the solemn oath of a Christian, that
Arsenius whose name she knows well, will neither injure
nor betray her. Will you do this?” - -
“Arsenius?” said the little porter, with a look of mingled
awe and pity.
The old man smiled. “Arsenius who was once called
the Father of the Emperors. Even she will trust that name.”
‘‘I will go this moment, sir; I will fly!” and off rushed
the little porter. -
“The little fellow forgets,” said Arsenius, with a smile,
“to how much he has confessed already, and how easy it
were to trace him to the old hag's lair. . . . Philammon,
my son . . . I have many tears to weep over thee—but
they must wait awhile. I have thee safe now,” and the
old man clutched his arm. “Thou wilt not leave thy poor
old father? Thou wilt not desert me for the heathen
WOman P” . -
“I will stay with you, I promise you, indeed! if—if you
will not say unjust things of her.” -
“I will speak evil of no one, accuse no one but myself.
I will not say one harsh word to thee, my poor boy. But
listen ; thou knowest that thou camest from Athens.
Knowest thou that it was I who brought thee hither?”
You?” - .
‘‘I, my son : but when I brought thee to the Laura, it
seemed right that thou, as the son of a noble gentleman,
shouldst hear nothing of it. But tell me; dost thou recol-
lect father or mother, brother or sister; or anything of thy
home in Athens?” -
* : No!”
HYPAT/A. 239
“Thanks be to God. But, Philammon, if thou hadst
had a sister—hush! And if—I only say if y 2
“A sister!” interrupted Philammon. “ Pelagia?”
“God forbid, my son! But a sister thou hadst once—
some three years older than thee she seemed.”
“What! did you know her?”
“I saw her but once—on one sad day. Poor children
both ! I will not sadden you by telling you where and
how.” .
“And why did you not bring her hither with me? You
surely had not the heart to part us?” -
- “Ah, my son, what right had an old monk with a fair
young girl? And, indeed, even had I had the courage, it
would have been impossible. There were others, richer
than I, to whose covetousness her youth and beauty
seemed a precious prize. When I saw her last, she was in
company with an ancient Jewess. Heaven grant that this
Miriam may prove to be the one!”
“And I have a sister!” gasped Philammon, his eyes
bursting with tears. “We must find her! You will help
me?—Now—this moment! There is nothing else to be
thought of, spoken of, done, henceforth, till she is found!”
“Ah, my son, my son! Better, better, perhaps, to leave
her in the hands of God! What if she were dead? To
discover that, would be to discover needless sorrow. And
what if—God grant that it be not so! she had only a name
to live, and were dead, worse than dead, in sinful
pleasure—?” .
‘‘We would save her, or die trying to save her! Is it
not enough for me that she is my sister?”
Arsenius shook his head. He little knew the strange
new light and warmth which his words had poured in upon
the young heart beside him. . . . “A sister!” What
mysterious virtue was there in that simple word, which
made Philammon’s brain reel and his heart throb madly?
A sister! not merely a friend, an equal, a helpmate, given
by God himself, for loving whom none, not even a monk,
could blame him. Not merely something delicate, weak,
beautiful—for of course she must be beautiful—whom he
might cherish, guide, support, deliver, die for, and find
death delicious. Yes, all that, and more than that, lay in
24o HYPA TIA.
the sacred word. For those divided and partial notions
had flitted across his mind too rapidly to stir such passion
as moved him now ; even the hint of her sin and danger
had been heard heedlessly, if heard at all. It was the
word itself which bore its own message, its own spell to
the heart of the fatherless and motherless foundling, as he
faced for the first time the deep, everlasting, divine reality
of kindred. . . . A sister! of his own flesh and blood—
born of the same father, the same mother—his, his forever!
How hollow and fleeting seemed all “spiritual sonships,”
“Spiritual daughterhoods,” inventions of the changing
fancy, the wayward will of man! Arsenius—Pambo—ay,
Hypatia herself—what were they to him now? Here was
a real relationship. . . . A sister! What else was worth
caring for upon earth? -
“And she was at Athens when Pelagia was ”—he cried
at last—“perhaps knew her—let us go to Pelagia herself!”
** Heaven forbid!” said Arsenius. “We must wait at
least till Miriam's answer comes.”
‘‘I can show you her house at least in the meanwhile ;
and you can go in yourself when you will. I do not ask
to enter. Come! I feel certain that my finding her is in
some way bound up with Pelagia. Had I not met her on
the Nile, had you not met her in the street, I might never
have heard that I had a sister. And if she went with
Miriam, Pelagia must know her—she may be in that very
house at this moment!”
Arsenius had his reasons for suspecting that Philammon
was but too right. But he contented himself with yielding
to the boy’s excitement, and set off with him in the direc-
tion of the dancer’s house. -
They were within a few yards of the gate, when hurried
footsteps behind them, and voices calling them by name,
made them turn, and behold, evidently to the disgust of
Arsenius as much as Philammon himself, Peter the Reader
and a large party of monks! -
Philammon's first impulse was to escape ; Arsenius him-
self caught him by the arm, and seemed inclined to hurry on.
“NO!” thought the youth, “am I not a free man, and a
philosopher?” and facing round, he awaited the enemy.
“Ah, young apostate! So you have found him, reverend
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 24.I
and ill-used sir. Praised be Heaven for this rapid
success!”
“My good friend,” asked Arsenius, in a trembling
voice, “what brings you here?”
“Heaven forbid that I should have allowed your
sanctity and age to go forth without some guard against
the insults and violence of this wretched youth and his
profligate companions. We have been following you afar
off all the morning, with hearts full of filial solicitude.”
“Many thanks; but indeed your kindness has been
superfluous. My son here, from whom I have met with
nothing but affection, and whom, indeed, I believe far
more innocent than report declared him, is about to return
peaceably with me. Are you not, Philammon?”
“Alas! my father,” said Philammon, with an effort,
“how can I find courage to say it?—but I cannot return
with you.”
‘‘ Cannot return P”
“I vowed that I would never again cross that threshold
till—”
“And Cyril does. He bade me, indeed he bade me,
assure you that he would receive you back as a son, and
forgive and forget all the past.”
“Forgive and forget? That is my part—not his. Will
he right me against that tyrant and his crew P Will he pro-
claim me openly to be an innocent and persecuted man,
unjustly beaten and driven forth for obeying his commands?
Till he does that I shall not forget that I am a free man.”
“A free man?” said Peter, with an unpleasant smile ;
‘‘ that remains to be proved, my gay youth : and will need
more evidence than that smart philosophic cloak and those
well-curled locks which you have adopted since I saw you
last.” *
“Remains to be proved?”
Arsenius made an imploring gesture to Peter to be silent.
“Nay, sir. As I foretold to you, this one way alone
remains : the blame of it, if there be blame, must rest on
the unhappy youth whose perversity renders it necessary.”
“For God’s sake, spare me!” cried the old man,
dragging Peter aside, while Philammon stood astonished,
divided between indignation and vague dread,
242 . H. VPA TIA.
“Did I not tell you again and again that I never could
bring myself to call a Christian man my slave? And him
above all, my spiritual son P”
“And, most reverend sir, whose zeal is only surpassed
by your tenderness and mercy, did not the holy patriarch
assure you that your scruples were groundless? Do you
think that either he or I can have less horror than you
have of slavery in itself? Heaven forbid! But when an
immortal soul is at stake—when a lost lamb is to be brought
back to the fold—surely you may employ the authority
which the law gives you for the salvation of that precious
charge Committed to you? What could be more conclu-
sive than his Holiness's argument this morning? Chris-
tians are bound to obey the laws of this world for
conscience's sake, even though, in the abstract, they may
disapprove of them, and deny their authority. Then by
parity of reasoning it must be lawful for them to take
the advantage which those same laws offer them, when by
so doing the glory of God may be advanced.’”
Arsenius still hung back, with eyes brimming with tears;
Philammon himself put an end to the parley.
“What is the meaning of all this? Are you, too, in a
conspiracy against me? Speak, Arsenius!” -
“This is the meaning of it, blind sinner!”, cried Peter.
“That you are by law the slave of Arsenius, lawfully
bought with his money in the city of Ravenna; and that he
has the power, and, as I trust, for the sake of your salva-
tion, the will also, to compel you to accompany him.”
Philammon recoiled across the pavement, with eyes
flashing defiance. A slave! The light of heaven grew
black to him. . . . Oh, that Hypatia might never know
his shame! Yet it was impossible. Too dreadful to be
true. . . .
“You lie!” almost shrieked he. “I am the son of a
noble citizen of Athens. Arsenius told me so but this
moment with his own lips"
“Ay, but he bought you—bought you in the public
market, and he can prove it!” - -
“Hear me—hear me, my son l’’ cried the old man,
springing toward him. Philammon, in his fury, mistook
the gesture, and thrust him fiercely back.
HYPATIA. 243
“Your son?—your slave! Do not insult the name of
son by applying it to me. Yes, sir; your slave in body,
but not in soul! Ay, seize me—drag home the fugitive—
scourge him—brand him—chain him in the mill if you can ;
but even for that the free heart has a remedy. If you will not
let me live as a philosopher, you shall see me die like one!”
“Seize the fellow, my brethrenſ” cried Peter, while
Arsenius, utterly unable to restrain either party, hid his
face and wept. . -
“Wretches!” cried the boy ; “ you shall never take me
alive, while I have teeth or nails left. Treat me as a
brute beast, and I will defend myself as such!”
“Out of the way there, rascals' Place for the prefect!
What are you squabbling about here, you unmannerly
monks?” shouted peremptory voices behind. The crowd
parted, and disclosed the apparitors of Orestes, whd
followed in his robes of office.
A sudden hope flashed before Philammon, and in an
instant he had burst through the mob, and was clinging to
the prefect's chariot. -
“I am a free-born Athenian, whom these monks wish to
kidnap back into slavery ! I claim your protectionſ"
“And you shall have it, right or wrong, my handsome
fellow. By Heaven, you are much too good-looking to be
made a monk of ! What do you mean, you villains, by
attempting to kidnap free men? Is it not enough for you
to lock up every mad girl whom you can dupe, but you
must—” -
“His master is here present, your excellency, who will
swear to the purchase.” - -
“Or to anything else for the glory of God. Out of the
way! And take care, you tall scoundrel, that I do not get
a handle against you. You have been one of my marked
men for many a month. Off!” .
“His master demands the rights of the law as a Roman
citizen,” said Peter, pushing forward Arsenius.
“If he be a Roman citizen, let him come and make his
claim at the tribune tomorrow, in legal form. But I would
have you remember, ancient sir, that I shall require you to
prove your citizenship before we proceed to the question
of purchase,”
244 Aſ VPA 7T/4.
“The law does not demand that,” quoth Peter.
“Knock that fellow down, apparitor!” Whereat Peter
vanished, and an ominous growl rose from the mob of
monks.
“What am I to do, most noble sir?” said Philammon.
“Whatever you like, till the third hour tomorrow—if
you are fool enough to appear at the tribune. If you will
take my advice, you will knock down these fellows right
and left, and run for your life.” And Orestes drove on.
Philammon saw that it was his only chance, and did
so ; and in another minute he found himself rushing head-
long into the archway of Pelagia's house, with a dozen
monks at his heels. -
As luck would have it, the outer gates, at which the
Goths had just entered, were still open ; , but the inner
ones which led into the court beyond were fast. He tried
them but in vain. There was an open door in the wall on
his right : he rushed through it, into a long range of
stables, and into the arms of Wulf and Smid, who were
unsaddling and feeding, like true warriors, their own
horses. .
“Souls of my fathers!” shouted Smid, “here's our
young monk come back! What brings you here, head
over heels in this way, young curly pate?”
“Save me from those wretches!” pointing to the monks
who were peeping into the doorway. -
Wulf seemed to understand it all in a moment, for,
Snatching up a heavy whip, he rushed at the foe, and with
a few tremendous strokes cleared the doorway, and shut
to the door.
Philammon was going to explain and thank, but Smid
stopped his mouth.
“Never mind, young one, you are our guest now. Come
in, and you shall be as welcome as ever. See what comes
of running away from us at first.”
“You do not seem to have benefited much by leaving
me for the monks,” said Wulf. “Come in by the inner
door. Smid, go and turn those monks out of the gateway.”
But the mob, after battering the door for a few minutes,
had yielded to the agonized entreaties of Peter, who
assured them that if those incarnate fiends once broke out
Aſ VPA 77.4. 245
upon them, they would not leave a Christian alive in
Alexandria. So it was agreed to leave a few to watch for
Philammon's coming out ; and the rest, balked of their
prey, turned the tide of their wrath against the prefect,
and rejoined the mass of their party, who were still hang-
ing round his chariot, ready for mischief.
In vain the helpless shepherd of the people attempted
to drive on. The apparitors were frightened and hung
back; and without their help it was impossible to force
the horses through the mass of tossing arms and beards in
front. The matter was evidently growing serious. -
“The bitterest ruffians in all Nitria, your Excellency,”
whispered one of the guards, with a pale face ; “and two
hundred of them, at the least. The very same set, I will
be sworn, who nearly murdered Dioscuros.” -
“If you will not allow me to proceed, my holy breth-
ren,” said Orestes trying to look collected, “perhaps it
will not be contrary to the canons of the Church if I turn
back. Leave the horses' heads alone. Why, in God's
name, what do you want?”
“Do you fancy we have forgotten Hieracas?” cried a
voice from the rear ; and at that name, yell upon yell arose,
till the mob, gaining courage from its own noise, burst Out
into open threats. “Revenge for the blessed martyr,
Hieracas P’ ‘‘ Revenge for the wrongs of the Church!”
“Down with the friend of Heathens, Jews and Bar-
barians!” “ Down with the favorite of Hypatia!”
“Tyrant!” “Butcher!” And the last epithet so smote
the delicate fancy of the crowd, that a general cry arose of
“Kill the butcher!” and one furious monk attempted to
clamber into the chariot. An apparitor tore him down,
and was dragged to the ground in his turn. The monks
closed in. The guards, finding the enemy numbered ten to
their one, threw down their weapons in a panic and
vanished ; and in another minute the hopes of Hypatia and
the gods would have been lost forever, and Alexandria
robbed of the blessing of being ruled by the most finished
gentleman south of the Mediterranean, had it not been for
unexpected succor ; of which it will be time enough, Con-
sidering who and what is in danger, to speak in a future
chapter.
CHAPTER XVII.
A STRAY GLEAM.
THE last blue headland of Sardinia was fading fast on
the northwest horizon, and a steady breeze bore before it
innumerable ships, the wrecks of Heraclian's armament,
plunging and tossing impatiently in their desperate home-
ward race toward the coast of Africa. Far and wide, under
a sky of cloudless blue, the white sails glittered on the
glittering sea, as gayly now, above their loads of shame
and disappointment, terror and pain, as when, but one
short month before, they bore with them only wild hopes
and gallant daring. Who can calculate the sum of misery
in that hapless flight? . . . And yet it was but one, and
that one of the least known and most trivia], of the
tragedies of that age of woe : one petty death-Spasm
among the unnumbered throes which were shaking to dis-
solution the Babylon of the West. Her time had come.
Even as Saint John beheld her in his vision, by agony
after agony, she was rotting to her well-earned doom.
“Tyrannizing it luxuriously over all nations, she had sat
upon the mystic beast—building her power on the brute
animal appetites of her dupes and slaves; but she had
duped herself even more than them. She was finding Out
by bitter lessons that it was “to the beast,” and not to
her, that her vassal kings of the earth had been giving
their power and strength ; and the ferocity and lust which
she had pampered so cunningly in them, had become her
curse and her destruction. . . . Drunk with the blood of
the saints, blinded by her own conceit and jealously to the
fact that she had been crushing and extirpating out of her
empire, for centuries past, all which was noble, purifying,
regenerative, divine, she sat impotent and doting, the
prey of every fresh adventurer, the slave of her own
slaves. “And the kings of the earth who had sinned with
her, hated the harlot, and made her desolate and naked,
246
Aſ YAA 7TWA. 247
and devoured her flesh, and burned her with fire. For
God had put into their hearts to fulfil His will, and to
agree, and to give their kingdom to the beasts, until the
words of God should be fulfilled.” . . . Everywhere
sensuality, division, hatred, treachery, cruelty, uncer-
tainty, terror ; the vials of God’s wrath poured out. Where
was to be the end of it all? asked every man of his neigh-
bor, generation after generation ; and received for answer
only, “It is better to die than to live.”
And yet in one ship out of that sad fleet there was
peace, peace amid shame and terror ; amid the groans of
the wounded, and the sighs of the starving ; amid all but
blank despair. The great triremes and quinqueremes
rushed onward past the lagging transports, careless, in the
mad race for safety, that they were leaving the greater
number of their comrades defenceless in the rear of the
flight ; but from one little fishing craft alone no base
entreaties, no bitter execrations greeted the passing flash
and roll of their mighty oars. One after another, day by
day, they came rushing up out of the northern offing, each
like a huge hundred-footed dragon, panting and quivering,
as if with terror, at every loud pulse of its oars, hurling
the wild water right and left with the mighty share of its
beak, while from the bows some gorgon or chimaera,
elephant or boar, stared out with brazen eyes toward the
coast of Africa, as if it, too, like the human beings which it
carried, was dead to every care but that of dastard flight.
Past they rushed, one after another ; and off the poop
some shouting voice chilled all hearts for a moment with
the fearful news that the emperor's Neapolitan fleet was in
full chase. . . . And the soldiers on board that little
vessel looked silently and steadfastly into the silent, stead-
fast face of the old prefect, and Victoria saw him shudder,
and turn his eyes away—and stood up among the rough
fighting men, like a goddess, and cried aloud that “the Lord
would protect His own ;” and they believed her and were
still ; till many days and many ships were passed, and the
little fishing craft, outstripped even by the transports and
merchantmen, as it strained and crawled along before its
single square-sail, was left alone upon the sea.
And where was Raphael Aben-Ezra?
248 AyyºA 774.
He was sitting, with Bran’s head between his knees, at
the door of a temporary awning in the vessel's stern, which
shielded the wounded men from sun and spray ; and as he
sat he could hear from within the tent the gentle voices of
Victoria and her brother, as they tended the sick like
ministering angels, or read to them words of divine hope
and comfort—in which his homeless heart felt that he had
no share. . . .
“As I live, I would change places now with any one of
those poor mangled ruffians, to have that voice speaking
such words to me . . . and to believe them.” . . . And
he went on perusing the manuscript which he held in his
hand. -
>k >k >{< >k >}< >{<
“Well!” he sighed to himself after awhile, ‘‘ at least it
is the most complimentary, not to say hopeful, view of our
destinies with which I have met since I threw away my
nurse's belief that the seed of David was fated to conquer
the whole earth, and set up a second Roman Empire at
Jerusalem, only worse than the present one, in that the
devils of superstition and bigotry would be added to those
of tyranny and rapine.” - -
A hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice asked :
“And what may this so hopeful view be?”
“Ah! my dear general!” said Raphael, looking up. “I
have a poor bill of fare whereon to exercise my culinary
powers this morning. Had it not been for that shark,
who was so luckily deluded last night, I should have been
reduced to the necessity of stewing my friend the fat
decurion's big boots.”
“They would have been savory enough, I will warrant,
after they had passed under your magical hand.”
“It is a comfort, certainly, to find that after all one did
learn something useful in Alexandria! So I will even go
forward at once, and employ my artistic skill.”
Tell me first what it was about which I heard you just
now soliloquizing, as so hopeful a view of some matter or
Other.”
“Honestly—if you will neither betray me to your son
and daughter, nor consider me as having in any wise Com-
mitted myself—it was Paul of Tarsus’ notion of the history
Aſ VPA 7/4. 249
and destinies of our stiff-necked nation. See what your
daughter has persuaded me into reading!” And he held
up a manuscript of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
“It is execrable Greek. But it is sound philosophy, I
cannot deny. He knows Plato better than all the ladies
and gentlemen in Alexandria put together, if my opinion
on the point be worth having.” g
“I am a plain soldier, and no judge on that point, sir.
He may or may not know Plato ; but I am right sure that
he knows God.” .
“Not too fast,” said Raphael, with a smile. “You do
not know, perhaps, that I have spent the last ten years of
my life among men who professed the same knowledge?”
“Augustine, too, spent the best ten years of his life
among such ; and yet he is now combating the very errors
which he once taught.” .
“Having found, he fancies, something better?”
“Having found it, most truly. But you must talk to
him yourself, and argue the matter over with one who can
argue. To me such questions are unknown land.”
“Well. . . . Perhaps I may be tempted to do even that.
At least a thoroughly converted philosopher—for poor dear
Synesius is half heathen still, I often fancy, and hankers
after the wisdom of the Egyptians—will be a curious sight ;
and to talk with so famous and so learned a man would
always be a pleasure; but to argue with him, or any other
human being, none whatsoever.”
“Why, then?” - -
“My dear sir, I am sick of syllogisms, and probabilities,
and pros and contras. What do I care if, on weighing
both sides, the nineteen pounds’ weight of questionable
arguments against, are overbalanced by the twenty
pounds' weight of equally questionable arguments for?
Do you not see that my belief of the victorious proposition
will be proportioned to the one overbalancing pound only,
while the whole other nineteen will go for nothing?” -
“I really do not.” . .
“‘Happy are you, then. I do, from many a sad experi-
ence. No, my worthy sir. I want a faith past arguments;
one which, whether I can prove it or not to the satisfaction
of the lawyers, I believe to my own satisfaction, and act
250 HYPAT/A.
on it as undoubtingly and unreasoningly as I do upon my
own newly rediscovered personal identity. I don’t want
to possess a faith. I want a faith which will possess me.
And if I ever arrived at such a one, believe me, it would
be by some such practical demonstration as this very tent
has given me.” - -
“This tent?”
“Yes, sir, this tent ; within which I have seen you and
your children lead a life of deeds as new to me, the Jew,
as they would be to Hypatia, the Gentile. I have watched
you for many a day, and not in vain. When I saw you, an
experienced officer, encumber your flight with wounded
men, I was only surprised. But since I have seen you and
your daughter, and, strangest of all, your gay young
Alcibiades of a son, starving yourselves to feed those poor
ruffians—performing for them, day and night, the offices of
menial slaves—comforting them, as no man ever comforted
me—blaming no one but yourselves, caring for everyone
but yourselves, sacrificing nothing but yourselves; and all
this without hope of fame or reward, or dream of appeasing
the wrath of any god or goddess, but simply because you
thought it right. . . . When I saw that, sir, and more
which I have seen ; and when, reading in this book here,
I found most unexpectedly those very grand moral rules
which you were practicing, seeming to spring uncon-
sciously, as natural results, from the great thoughts, true
or false, which had preceded them ; then, sir, I began to
suspect that the creed which could produce such deeds as
I have watched within the last few days, might have on its
side not merely a slight preponderance of probabilities,
but what we Jews used once to call, when we believed in
it—or in anything—the mighty power of God.” - -
And as he spoke, he looked into the prefect's face with
the look of a man wrestling in some deadly struggle ; so
intense and terrible was the earnestness of his eye, that
even the old soldier shrank before it.
“And therefore,” he went on, “therefore, sir, beware
of your own actions, and of your children’s. If, by any
folly or baseness, such as I have seen in every human
being whom I ever met as yet upon this accursed stage of
fools, you shall crush my new-budding hope that there is
Aſ VPA 7/4. 251
something somewhere which will make me what I know
that I ought to be, and can be—if you shall crush that, I
say, by any misdoing of yours, you had better have been
the murderer of my first-born ; with such a hate—a hate
which Jews alone can feel—will I hate you and yours.”
“God help us and strengthen us!” said the old warrior
in a tone of noble humility.
“And now,” said Raphael, glad to change the subject
after this unwonted outburst, “we must once more
seriously consider whether it is wise to hold on our present
course. If you return to Carthage, or to Hippo—”
‘‘ I shall be beheaded.”
“Most assuredly. And how much soever you may con-
sider such an event a gain to yourself, yet for the sake of
your son and your daughter 2 3
“My dear sir,” interrupted the prefect, “you mean
kindly. But do not, do not tempt me. By the Count’s
side I have fought for thirty years, and by his side I will
die, as I deserve.”
“Victorius! Victoria!” cried Raphael ; “help me!
Your father,” he went on, as they came out from the tent,
“is still decided on losing his own head, and throwing away
ours, by going to Carthage.”
“For my sake—for our sakes—father!” cried Victoria,
clinging to him.
“And for my sake, also, most excellent sir,” said
Raphael, smiling quietly. “I have no wish to be so
uncourteous as to urge any help which I may have seemed
to afford you. But I hope that you will recollect that I
have a life to lose, and that it is hardly fair of you to
imperil it, as you intend to do. If you could help to save
Heraclian, I should be dumb at once. But now, for a
mere point of honor to destroy fifty good soldiers, who
know not their right hands from their left—shall I ask
their opinion?” -
“Will you raise a mutiny against me, sir?” asked the
old man sternly.
“Why not mutiny against Philip drunk, in behalf of
Philip sober? But really, I will obey you . . . only you
must obey us. . . . What is Hesiod's definition of the
man who will neither counsel himself nor be counselled by
252 A VA’A 77.4.
his friends? . . . Have you no trusty acquaintances in
Cyrenaica, for instance?”
The prefect was silent.
“Oh, hear us, my father! Why not go to Euodius?
He is your old comrade—a well-wisher, too, to this . . .
this expedition. . . . And recollect, Augustine must be
there now. He was about to sail for Berenice, in order to
consult Synesius and the Pentapolitan bishops, when we
left Carthage.”
And at the name of Augustine the old man paused.
“Augustine will be there ; true. And this our friend
must meet him. And thus at least I should have his
advice. If he thinks it my duty to return to Carthage, I
can but do so after alſ. But the soldiers!”
“Excellent sir!” said Raphael, “Synesius and the
Pentapolitan landlords—who can hardly call their lives
their own, thanks to the Moors—will be glad enough to
feed and pay them, or any other brave fellows with arms
in their hands at this moment. And my friend, Victorius,
here, will enjoy, I do not doubt, a little wild campaigning
against marauding blackamoors.” *
The old man bowed silently. The battle was won.
The young tribune, who had been watching his father's
face with the most intense anxiety, caught at the gesture,
and hurrying forward, announced the change of plan to
the soldiery. It was greeted with a shout of joy, and in
another five minutes the sails were about, the rudders
shifted, and the ship on her way toward the western point
of Sicily, before a steady northwest breeze.
“Ah!” cried Victoria, delighted. “And now you will
see Augustine! You must promise me to talk to him l’’
“This, at least, I will promise, that whatsoever the
great sophist shall be pleased to say, shall meet with a
patient hearing from a brother sophist. Do not be angry
at the term. Recollect that I am somewhat tired, like my
ancestor Solomon, of wisdom and wise men, having found
it only too like madness and folly. And you cannot surely
expect me to believe in man, while I do not yet believe in
God?” • *
Victoria sighed. “I will not believe you. Why always
pretend to be worse than you are?”
Aſ YAA 7TWA. 253
“That kind souls like you may be spared the pain of
finding me worse than I seem. . . . There, let us say no
more ; except that I heartily wish that you would hate me!”
“Shall I try?”
“That must be my work, I fear, not yours. However,
I shall give you good cause enough before long, doubt it
not.”
Victoria sighed again, and retired into the tent to nurse
the sick.
“And now, sir,” said the prefect, turning to Raphael
and his son ; “do not mistake me. I may have been
weak, as worn-out and hopeless men are wont to be, but
do not think of me as one who has yielded to adversity in
fear for his own safety. As God hears me, I desire nothing
better than to die; and I only turn out of my course on the
understanding that if Augustine so advise, my children
hold me free to return to Carthage and meet my fate. All
I pray for is, that my life may be spared until I can place
my dear child in the safe shelter of a nunnery.”
“A nunnery?”
“Yes, indeed ; I have intended ever since her birth to
dedicate her to the service of God. And in such times as
these, what better lot for a defenceless girl?” •
“Pardon me!” said Raphael ; ‘‘ but I am too dull to
comprehend what benefit or pleasure your Deity will derive
from the celibacy of your daughter. . . . Except, indeed,
On one supposition, which, as I have some faint remnants
of reverence and decency reawakening in me just now, I
must leave to , be uttered only by the pure lips of sexless
priests.”
“You forget, sir, that you are speaking to a Christian.”
“I assure you, no! I had certainly been forgetting it
till the last two minutes, in your very pleasant and rational
society. There is no danger henceforth of making so silly
a mistake.”
“Sir!” said the prefect, reddening at the undisguised
contempt of Raphael's manner. . . . “When you know a
little more of St. Paul’s Epistles, you will cease to insult
the opinions and feelings of those who obey them, by
sacrificing their most precious treasures to God.”
“Oh, it is Paul of Tarsus, then, who gives you the
254 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
advice? I thank you for informing me of the fact :
for it will save me the trouble of any future study of his
works. Allow me, therefore, to return by your hands this
manuscript of his with many thanks from me to that
daughter of yours, by whose perpetual imprisonment you
intend to give pleasure to your Deity. Henceforth the less
communication which passes between me and any member
of your family the better.” And he turned away.
“But, my dear sir!” said the honest soldier, really
chagrined, “you must not! we owe you too much, and love
you too well to part thus for the caprice of a moment. If
any word of mine has offended you—forget it, and forgive
me, I beseech you!” and he caught both Raphael’s hands
in his own.
“My very dear sir,” answered the Jew, quietly; “let
me ask the same forgiveness of you ; and believe me, for
the sake of past pleasant passages, I shall not forget my
promise about the mortgage. . . . But—here we must part.
To tell you the truth, I half an hour ago was fearfully near
becoming neither more nor less than a Christian. I had
actually deluded myself into the fancy that the Deity of the
Galileans might be, after all, the God of our old Hebrew
forefathers—of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and David,
and of the rest who believed that children and the fruit of
the womb were an heritage and gift which cometh of the
Lord—and that Paul was right—actually right—in his
theory that the Church was the development and fulfilment
of our old national polity. . . . I must thank you for
opening my eyes to a mistake which, had I not been
besotted for the moment, every monk and nun would have
contradicted by the mere fact of their existence, and reserve
my nascent faith for some Deity who takes no delight in
seeing his creatures stultify the primary laws of their being.
Farewell!”
And while the prefect stood petrified with astonishment,
he retired to the further extremity of the deck, muttering
to himself—
“Did I not know all along that this gleam was too sud-
den and too bright to last? Did I not know that he, too,
would prove himself like all the rest—an ass? . . . Fool!
to have looked for common sense on such an earth as this!
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 255
Back to chaos again, Raphael Aben-Ezra, and spin
ropes of sand to the end of the farce!”
And mixing with the soldiers, he exchanged no word
with the prefect and his children, till they reached the
port of Berenice; and then putting the necklace in Vic-
toria's hands, vanished among the crowds upon the quay,
no one knew whither.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PREFECT TESTED.
WHEN we lost sight of Philammon, his destiny had
hurled him once more among his old friends the Goths,
in search of two important elements of human com-
fort, freedom and a sister. The former he found at
Once, in a large hall where sundry Goths were loung-
ing and toping, into the nearest corner of which he
shrank, and stood, his late terror and rage forgotten
altogether in the one new and absorbing thought—his
sister might be in that house! . . . And yielding to so
Sweet a dream, he began fancying to himself which of
all those gay maidens she might be who had become
in one moment more dear, more great to him than all
things else in heaven or earth. That fair-haired,
rounded Italian? That fierce, luscious, acquiline-faced
Jewess P That delicate, swart, sidelong-eyed Copt?
No. She was Athenian, like himself. That tall, lazy
Greek girl, then, from beneath whose sleepy lids
flashed, once an hour, sudden lightnings, revealing
depths of thought and feeling uncultivated, perhaps
even unsuspected by their possessor? Her? Or that,
her seeming sister? Or the next? . . . Or—was it
Pelagia herself, most beautiful and most sinful of them
all? Fearful thought! He blushed scarlet at the bare
imagination : yet why, in his secret heart, was that the
most pleasant hypothesis of them all? And suddenly
flashed across him that observation of one of the girls on
board the boat, on his likeness to Pelagia! Strange, that
he had never recollected it before... It must be so! And
yet on what a slender thread, woven of scattered hints and
surmises, did that “must'' depend! He would be sane!
he would wait ; he would have patience. Patience, with a
sister yet unfound, perhaps perishing? Impossible!
256
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 257
Suddenly the train of his thoughts was changed
perforce—
“Come! come and see! There’s a fight in the streets,”
called one of the damsels down the stairs, at the highest
pitch of her voice.
“I shan’t go,” yawned a huge fellow, who was lying on
his back on a sofa.
“Oh, come up, my hero,” said one of the girls. “Such
a charming riot, and the prefect himself in the middle of
it! We have not had such a one in the street this month.”
“The princes won’t let me knock any of these donkey-
riders. On the head, and seeing other people do it only
makes me envious. Give me the wine jug—curse the girl!
she has run upstairs!”
The shouting and trampling came nearer; and in
another minute Wulf came rapidly downstairs, through
the hall into the harem-court, and into the presence of the
Amal.
“Prince—here is a chance for us. These rascally
Greeks are murdering their prefect under our very
windows.” *
“The lying cur! Serve him right for cheating us. He
has plenty of guards. Why can’t the fool take care of
himself?”
“They have all run away, and I saw some of them
hiding among the mob. As I live, the man will be killed
in five minutes more.”
“Why not?”
“Why should he, when we can save him and win his
favor forever? The men's fingers are itching for a fight;
its a bad plan not to give hounds blood now and then, or
they lose the knack of hunting.”
“Well, it wouldn’t take five minutes.”
“And heroes should show that they can forgive when an
enemy is in distress.”
‘‘Very true! Like an Amal, too!” And the Amal sprang
up and shouted to his men to follow him.
“Good-by, my pretty one. Why, Wulf,” cried he, as
he burst out into the court, “here’s our monk again! By
Odin, you’re welcome, my handsome boy! Come along and
fight too, young fellow; what were those arms given you for?'
258 - Aſ YAA 7/4.
“He is my man,” said Wulf, laying his hand on Philam-
mon's shoulder, “and blood he shall taste.” And out the
three hurried, Philammon, in his present reckless mood,
ready for anything.”
“Bring your whips. Never mind swords. Those
rascals are not worth it!” shouted the Amal, as he hurried
down the passage brandishing his heavy thong, some ten
feet in length, threw the gate open, and the next moment
recoiled from a dense Crush of people who surged in—and
surged out again as rapidly, as the Goth, with the com-
bined force of his weight and arm, hewed his way straight
through them, felling a wretch at every blow, and followed
up by his terrible companions.
They were but just in time. The four white blood-
horses were plunging and rolling over each other, and
Orestes, reeling in his chariot, with a stream of blood
running down his face, and the hands of twenty wild monks
clutching at him. “Monks again!” thought Philammon ;
and as he saw among them more than one hateful face,
which he recollected in Cyril's courtyard on that fatal
night, a flush of fierce revenge ran through him.
“Mercy!” shrieked the miserable prefect, ‘‘ I am a
Christian! I swear that I am a Christian! the Bishop
Atticus baptized me at Constantinople!”
“Down with the butcher! down with the heathen tyrant
who refuses the abjuration of the Gospels rather than be
reconciled to the patriarch! Tear him out of the chariot!”
yelled the monks. -
“The craven hound!” said the Amal, stopping short.
‘‘I won’t help him!” But in an instant Wulf rushed for-
ward and struck right and left ; the monks recoiled, and
Philammon, burning to prevent so shameful a scandal to
the faith to which he still clung convulsively, sprung into
the chariot and caught Orestes in his arms.
“You are safe, my lord ; don’t struggle,” whispered he,
while the monks flew on him. A stone or two struck him,
but they only quickened his determination, and in another
moment the whistling of the whips around his head, and
the yell and backward rush of the monks, told him that he
was safe. He carried his burden safely within the door-
way of Pelagia's house, into the crowd of peeping and
A/VPA 774. 259
shrinking damsels, where twenty pairs of the prettiest
hands in Alexandria seized on Orestes, and drew him into
the court.
“Like a second Hylas, carried off by the nymphs!”
simpered he, as he vanished into the harem, to reappear
in five minutes, his head bound up with silk handkerchiefs,
and with as much of his usual impudence as he could
muster.
“Your excellency—heroes all—I am your devoted slave,
I owe you life itself; and more, the valor of your succor is
only surpassed by the deliciousness of your care. I would
gladly undergo a second wound to enjoy a second time the
services of such hands, and to see such feet busying
themselves on my behalf.” -
“You wouldn’t have said that five minutes ago,” quoth
the Amal, looking at him very much as a bear might at a
monkey. - -
“Never mind the hands and feet, old fellow, they are
none of yours!” bluntly observed a voice from behind,
probably Smid's, and a laugh ensued.
“My savoirs, my brothers!” said Orestes, politely
ignoring the laughter. “How can I repay you? Is there
anything in which my office here enables me—I will not
say to reward, for that would be a term beneath your
dignity as free barbarians—but to gratify you?”
“Give us three days’ pillage of the quarter!” shouted
SO1]] 6-OI le.
“Ah, true valor is apt to underrate obstacles; you
forget your small numbers.”
“I say,” quoth the Amal ; “I say, take care, prefect.
If you mean to tell me that we forty couldn’t cut all the
throats in Alexandria in three days, and yours into
the bargain, and keep your soldiers at bay all the
time 7 3
“Half of them would join us!” cried someone. “They
are half our own flesh and blood after all!”
“Pardon me, my friends, I do not doubt it a moment.
I know enough of the world never to have found a sheep-
dog yet who would not, on occasion, help to make away
with a little of the mutton which he guarded. Eh, my
venerable sir?” turning to Wulf, with a knowing bow.
26O A/VA’A 7TV4.
<>
Wulf Chuckled grimly, and said something to the Amal
in German about being civil to guests. -
“You will pardon me, my heroic friends,” said Orestes,
‘‘ but with your kind permission I will observe that I am
somewhat faint and disturbed by late occurrences. To
trespass on your hospitality further would be an imperti-
nence. If, therefore, I might send a slave to find some of
my apparitors—”
“No, by all the gods!” roared the Amal; “you’re my
guest now—my lady’s at least. And no one ever went out
of my house sober yet, if I could help it. Set the cooks to
work, my men! The prefect shall feast with us like an
emperor, and we’ll send him home tonight as drunk as he
can wish. Come along, your excellency; we're rough
fellows, we Goths; but by the Valkyrs, no one can say
that we neglect our guests!”
“It is a sweet compulsion,” said Orestes, as he went in.
“Stop, by-the-by! Didn't one of you men catch a
monk?”
“Here he is, prince, with his elbows safe behind him.”
And a tall, haggard, half-naked monk was dragged forward.
“Capital! bring him in. His excellency shall judge
him while dinner's cooking, and Smid shall have the
hanging of him. He hurt nobody in the scuffle ; he was
thinking of his dinner.”
“Some rascal bit a piece out of my leg, and I tumbled
down,” grumbled Smid.
“Well, pay out this fellow for it then. Bring a chair,
slaves! Here, your highness, sit there and judge.”
“Two chairs!” said someone ; “the Amal shan’t stand
before the emperor himself.”
“By all means, my dear friends. The Amal and I will
act as the two Caesars, with divided empire ; I presume we
shall have little difference of opinion as to the hanging of
this worthy.” - . .
“Hanging's too quick for him.”
“Just what I was about to remark—there are certain
judicial formalities considered generally to be conducive
to the stability, if not necessary to the existence, of the
Roman empire—”
“I say, don't talk so much,” shouted a Goth. “If you
A VA’A 7/4. 26I
want to have the hanging of him yourself, do. We
thought we would save you trouble.”
“Ah, my excellent friend, would you rob me of the
delicate pleasure of revenge? I intend to spend at least
four hours tomorrow in killing this pious martyr. He will
have a good time to think, between the beginning and the
end of the rack.”
“Do you hear that, master monk?” said Smid, chuck-
ing him under the chin, while the rest of the party seemed
to think the whole business an excellent joke, and divided
their ridicule openly enough between the prefect and his
victim.
“The man of blood has said it. I am a martyr,”
answered the monk, in a dogged voice.
“You will take a good deal of time in becoming one.”
“Death may be long, but glory is everlasting.”
“True. I forgot that, and will save you the said glory,
if I can help it, for a year or two. Who was it struck me
with the stone?” -
No answer. ----- - - -...- - ----- ---- - - - - - - - -
“Tell me, and the moment he is in my lictor's hand I
pardon you freely.” . : --
The monk laughed. “Pardon? Pardon me eternal bliss,
and the things unspeakable, which God has prepared for
those who love Him? Tyrant and butcher! I struck thee,
thou second Dioclesian—I hurled the stone—I, Ammonius.
Would to heaven that it had smitten thee through, thou
Sisera, like the nail of Jael the Kenite!”
“Thanks, my friend. Heroes, you have a cellar for
monks as well as for wine? I will trouble you with this
hero's psalm-singing tonight, and send my apparitors for
him in the morning.”
“If he begins howling when we are in bed, your men
won’t find much of him left in the morning,” said the Amal.
“But here come the slaves, announcing dinner.”
“Stay,” said Orestes ; “there is one more with whom I
have an account to settle—that young philosopher there.”
“Oh, he is coming in, too. He never was drunk in his
life, I’ll warrant, poor fellow, and its high time for him to
begin.” .
And the Amal laid a good-natured bear's paw on
262 A VAA 7'ZA.
Philammon's shoulder, who hung back in perplexity, and
cast a piteous look toward Wulf.
Wulf answered it by a shake of the head, which gave
Philammon courage to stammer Out a courteous refusal.
The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister
ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent
him staggering half across the court : but Wulf interposed.
“The boy is mine, prince. He is no drunkard, and I
will not let him become one. Would to heaven,” added
he, under his breath, “that I could say the same to some
others. Send us out our supper here, when you are done.
Half a sheep or so will do between us ; and enough of the
strongest to wash it down with. Smid knows my quantity?”
“Why in heaven's name are you not coming in?”
“That mob will be trying to burst the gates again
before two hours are out ; and as some one must stand
sentry, it may as well be a man who will not have his ears
stopped up by wine and women's kisses. The boy will
stay with me.” So the party went in, leaving Wulf and
Philammon alone in the outer hall.
There the two sat for some half-hour, casting stealthy
glances at each other, and wondering, perhaps, each of
them vainly enough, what was going on in the opposite
brain. Philammon, though his heart was full of his sister,
could not help noticing the air of deep sadness which hung
about the scarred and weatherbeaten features of the old
warrior. The grimness which he had remarked on their
first meeting seemed to be now changed into a settled
melancholy. The furrows round his mouth and eyes had
become deeper and sharper. Some perpetual indignation
seemed smouldering in the knitted brow and protruding
upper lip. He sat there silent and motionless for some
half-hour, his chin resting on his hands ; and then again
upon the butt of his axe, apparently in deep thought, and
listening with a silent sneer at the clinking of glasses and
dishes within. -
Philammon felt too much respect, both for his age and
his stately sadness, to break the silence. At last some
louder burst of merriment than usual aroused him.
“What do you call that?” said he, speaking in Greek,
“Folly and vanity.”
A/VA4 7/4. 263
“And what does she there—the Alruna—the prophet-
woman, call it?”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Why the Greek woman whom we went to hear talk
this morning.”
“Folly and vanity.”
“Why can’t she cure that Roman hairdresser there of it,
then P”
Philammon was silent.—“Why not, indeed!”
“Do you think she could cure anyone of it?”
* Of What P”
“Of getting drunk, and wasting their strength and their
fame, and their hard-won treasures upon eating and drink-
ing, and fine clothes, and bad women.”
“She is most pure herself, and she preaches purity to
all who hear her.”
“Curse preaching. I have preached for these four
months.”
‘‘Perhaps she may have some more winning arguments
–perhaps—”
‘‘I know. Such a beautiful bit of flesh and blood as
she is might get a hearing, when a grizzled old head-
splitter like me was called a dotard. Eh P Well. It’s
natural.”
A long silence.
“She is a grand woman. I never saw such a one, and
I have seen many. There was a prophetess once, lived in
an island in the Weserstream—and when a man saw her,
even before she spoke a word, one longed to crawl to her
feet on all fours, and say: ‘There, tread on me ; I am not
fit for you to wipe your feet upon.’ And many a warrior
did it. . . . Perhaps I may have done it myself before
now. . . . And this one is strangely like her. She would
make a prince's wife, now.”
Philammon started. What new feeling was it, which
made him so indignant at the notion?
“Beauty? What's body without soul? What's beauty
without wisdom? What's beauty without chastity? Beast!
fool! wallowing in the mire which every hog has fouled!”
“Like a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair
woman who is without discretion.”
264 AAVA24 7/4,
‘‘Who said that?”
“Solomon, the king of Israel.”
‘‘I never heard of him. But he was a right Sagaman,
whoever said it. And she is a pure maiden, that other
C; ne?”
“Spotless as the ”—blessed Virgin, Philammon was
going to say—but checked himself. There were sad recol-
lections about the words.
Wulf sat silent for a few minutes, while Philammon's
thoughts reverted at once to the new purpose for which
alone life seemed worth having. . . . To find his sister.
That one thought had in a few hours changed and matured
the boy into the man. Hitherto he had been only the leaf
before the wind, the puppet of every new impression; but
now circumstance, which had been leading him along in
such soft fetters for many a month, was become his deadly
foe ; and all his energy and cunning, all his little knowl-
edge of man and of society, rose up sturdily and shrewdly
to fight in this new cause. Wulf was now no longer a
phenomenon to be wondered at, but an instrument to be
used. The broken hints which he had just given of dis-
content with Pelagia's presence inspired the boy with
sudden hope, and cautiously he began to hint at the
existence of persons who would be glad to remove her.
Wulf caught at the notion, and replied to it with searching
questions, till Philammon, finding plain speaking the
better part of cunning, told him openly the whole events
of the morning, and the mystery which Arsenius had half
revealed ; and then shuddered with mingled joy and horror
as Wulf, after ruminating over the matter for a weary five
minutes, made answer—
“And what if Pelagia herself was your sister?”
Philammon was bursting forth in some passionate
answer, when the old man stopped him, and went on
slowly, looking him through and through—
“Because, when a penniless young monk claims kin
with a woman who is drinking out of the wine-cups of the
Caesars, and filling a place for a share of which kings'
daughters have been thankful—and will be again before
long—why then, though an old man may be too good-
natured to call it all a lie at first sight, he can’t help
Aſ VPA 77.4. - 265
Supposing that the young monk has an eye to his own per-
sonal profit, eh?”
“My profit?” cried poor Philammon, starting up.
“Good God! what object on earth can I have but to
rescue her from this infamy to purity and holiness?”
He had touched the wrong chord.
“Infamy? you cursed Egyptian slave!” cried the prince,
starting up, in his turn, red with passion, and clutching at
the whip which hung over his head. “Infamy? As if
she, and you too, Ought not to consider yourselves blest in
her being allowed to wash the feet of an Amal!”
‘‘Oh, forgive me!” said Philammon, terrified at the
fruits of his own clumsiness. “But you forget—you for-
get, she is not married to him!”
“Married to him? A freed woman? No, thank Freya!
he has not fallen as low as that, at least ; and never shall,
if I kill the witch with my own hands. A freedwoman l’’
Poor Philammon | And he had been told but that
morning that he was a slave. He hid his face in his
hands, and burst into an agony of tears. -
“Come, come,” said the testy warrior, softened at once.
“Women’s tears don’t matter ; but somehow I never
could bear to make a man cry. When you are cool, and
have learnt common courtesy, we'll talk more about this.
So! Hush ; enough is enough. Here comes the supper,
and I am as hungry as Loke.” -
And he commenced devouring like his namesake, ‘‘the
gray beast of the wood,” and forcing, in his rough, hospit-
able way, Philammon to devour also, much against his
will and stomach.
“There, I feel happier now,” quoth Wulf, at last.
“There is nothing to be done in this accursed place but
to eat. I get no fighting, no hunting. I hate women as
they hate me. I don’t know anything, indeed, that I
don’t hate, except eating and singing. And now, what
with those girls’ vile unmanly harps and flutes, no one
cares to listen to a true rattling war-song. There they are
at it now, with their catterwauling, squealing all together
like a set of starrings on a foggy morning! We’ll have a
song, too, to drown the noise.” And he burst out with a
wild, rich melody, acting, in uncouth gestures and a
266 Aſ VPA 774.
suppressed tone of voice, the scene which the words
described—
“An elk looked out of the pine forest ;
He snuffed up east, he snuffed down west,
Stealthy and still.
“His mane and his horns were heavy with snow ;
I laid my arrow across my bow,
Stealthy and still.”
And then, quickening his voice, as his whole face blazed
up into fierce excitement—
“The bow it rattled, the arrow flew,
It smote his bladebones through and through,
Hurrah!
“I sprang at his throat like a wolf of the wood,
And I warmed my hands in the smoking blood,
Hurrah!”
And, with a shout that echoed and rang from wall to wall,
and pealed away above the roofs, he leapt to his feet with
a gesture and look of savage frenzy which made Philam-
mon recoil. But the passion was gone in an instant, and
Wulf sat down again, chuckling to himself—
“There—that is something like a warrior's song. That
makes the old blood spin along again! But this debauch-
ing furnace of a climate! no man can keep his muscle, or
his courage, or his money, or anything else in it. May
the gods curse the day when first I saw it!”
Philammon said nothing, but sat utterly aghast at an
outbreak so unlike Wulf's usual caustic reserve and stately
self-restraint, and shuddering at the thought that it might
be an instance of that demoniac possession to which these
barbarians were supposed by Christians and Neo-Platonists
to be peculiarly subject. But the horror was not yet at its
height ; for in another minute the door of the women's
court flew open, and, attracted by Wulf's shout, out
poured the whole Bacchanalian crew, with Orestes,
crowned with flowers, and led by the Amal and Pelagia,
reeling in the midst, wine-cup in hand.
“There is my philosopher, my preserver, my patron
saint!” hiccoughed he, “Bring him to my arms, that I
A/VA’A 774. 267
may encircle his lovely neck with pearls of India and
barbaric gold.”
“For God's sake let me escape!’ whispered he to Wulf,
as the rout rushed upon him. Wulf opened the door
in an instant, and he dashed through it. As he went the old
man held out his hand—
“Come and see me again, boy. Me only. The old
warrior will not hurt you!”
There was a kindly tone in the voice, a kindly light
in the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He
glanced one look back through the gateway as he fled, and
just saw a wild whirl of Goths and girls, spinning madly
round the court in the world-old Teutonic waltz ; while,
high above their heads, in the uplifted arms of the mighty
Amal, was tossing the beautiful figure of Pelagia, tearing
the garland from her floating hair to pelt the dancers with
its roses. And that might be his sister! He hid his face
and fled, and the gate shut out the revellers from his eyes;
and it is high time that it should shut them out from ours
also.
Some four hours more had passed. The revellers were
sleeping off their wine, and the moon shining bright and
cold across the court, when Wulf came out, carrying a
heavy jar of wine, followed by Smid, a goblet in each hand.
“Here, comrade, out into the middle to catch a breath
of night air. Are all the fools asleep?”
“Every mother’s son of them. Ah! this is refreshing
after that hot room. What a pity it is that all men are not
born with heads like ours!”
“Very sad indeed,” said Wulf, filling his goblet.
“What a quantity of pleasure they lose in this life!
There they are, snoring like hogs. Now, you and I are
good to finish that jar, at least.”
“And another after it, if our talk is not over by that
time.”
“Why, are you going to hold a council of war?”
“That is as you take it. Now, look here, Smid.
Whomsoever I cannot trust, I suppose I may trust you, eh?”
“Well!” quoth Smid, surlily, putting down his goblet,
“that is a strange question to ask of a man who has
marched and hungered, and plundered, and conquered,
268 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
and been well-beaten by your side for five and twenty
years, through all lands between the Wesel and Alexan-
dria.” - -
“I am growing old, I suppose, and so I suspect every
one. But hearken to me, for between wine and ill-temper
out it must come. You saw that Alruna-woman?”
“Of course.”
• * Well?”
* : Well?”
“Why, did not you think she would make a wife for any
man?”
* . Well?”
“And why not for our Amal?”
“That’s his concern as well as hers, and hers as well as
ours.” - -
“She? Ought she not to think herself only too much
honored by marrying a son of Odin P Is she going to be
more dainty than Placidia?”
“What was good enough for an emperor's daughter
must be good enough for her.”
“Good enough? And Adolf only a Balt, while Amalric
is a full-blooded Amal—Odin's son by both sides?”
‘‘I don’t know whether she would understand that.”
“Then we would make her. Why not carry her off and
marry her to the Amal whether she choose or not? She
would be well-content enough with him in a week, I will
warrant.” -
“But there is Pelagia in the way.”
“Put her out of the way, then.”
“Impossible.”
“It was this morning : a week hence it may not be. I
heard a promise made tonight which will do it, if there be
the spirit of a Goth left in the poor besotted lad whom we
know of.”
‘‘Oh, he is all right at heart ; never fear him. But
what was the promise?” -
‘‘I will not tell till it is claimed. I will not be the man
to shame my own nation and the blood of the gods. But
if that drunken prefect recollects it—why let him recollect
it. And what is more, the monk-boy who was here
tonight—” … -
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 269
Ah, what a well-grown lad that is wasted!”
“More than suspects—and if his story is true, I more
than suspect too—that Palagia is his sister.”
“His sister? But what of that?”
“He wants, of course, to carry her off, and make a nun
of her.”
“You would not let him do such a thing to the poor
Child?” -
“If folks get in my way, Smid, they must go down. So
much the worse for them ; but old Wulf was never turned
back yet by man or beast, and he will not be now.”
“After all, it will serve the hussy right. But Amalric P”
“Out of sight, out of mind.”
“But they say the prefect means to marry the girl.”
“He? That scented ape? She would not be such a
wretch.” -
“But he does intend : and she intends too. It is the
talk of the whole town. We should have to put him out
of the way first.”
“Why not? Easy enough, and a good riddance for
Alexandria. Yet if we made away with him we should
be forced to take the city too ; and I doubt whether we
have hands enough for that.”
“The guards might join us. I will go down to the
barracks and try them, if you choose, tomorrow. I am
boon companion with a good many of them already. But,
after all, Prince Wulf—of course you are always right : we
all know that—but what’s the use of marrying this Hypatia
to the Amal?”
“ Use?” said Wulf, smiting down his goblet on the pave-
ment. “Use? you purblind old hamster-rat, who think of
nothing but filling your own cheek-pouches! To give him
a wife worthy of a hero, as he is, in spite of all—a wife
who will make him sober instead of drunk, wise instead of
a fool, daring instead of a sluggard—a wife who can com-
mand the rich people for us, and give us a hold here,
which if once we get, let us see who will break it! Why,
with those two ruling in Alexandria, we might be masters
of Africa in three months. We’d send to Spain for the
Wendels, to move on Carthage; we’d send up the Adriatic
for the Longbeards to land in Pentapolis; we'd sweep the
27o Aſ VPA 77.4.
whole coast without losing a man, now it is drained of
troops by that fool Heraclian's Roman expedition ; make
the Wendels and Longbeards shake hands here in Alex-
andria ; draw lots for their shares of the coast ; and
then—”
** And then what?”
“Why, when we had settled Africa, I would call out a
crew of picked heroes, and sail away south for Asgard—I’d
try that Red Sea this time—and see Odin face to face, or
die searching for him.”
“Oh!” groaned Smid. “And I suppose you would
expect me to come too, instead of letting me stop half-way,
and settle here among the dragons and elephants. Well,
well, wise men are like moorlands—ride as far as you will
on the sound ground, you are sure to come upon a soft
place at last. However, I will go down to the guards
tomorrow, if my head don’t ache.”
“And I will see the boy about Pelagia. Drink to our
plot!”
And the two old iron-heads drank on, till the stars paled
out and the eastward shadow of the cloister vanished in
the blaze of dawn
CHAPTER XIX.
JEWS AGAINST CHRISTIANS.
THE little porter, after having carried Arsenius's message
to Miriam, had run back in search of Philammon and his
foster-father ; and not finding them, had spent the evening
in such frantic rushing to and fro, as produced great doubts
of his sanity among the people of the quarter. At last
hunger sent him home to supper ; at which meal he tried
to find vent for his excited feelings in his favorite employ-
ment of beating his wife. Whereon Miriam's two Syrian
slave-girls, attracted by her screams, came to the rescue,
threw a pail of water over him, and turned him out of
doors. He, nothing discomfited, likened himself smilingly
to Socrates conquered by Xantippe, and philosophically
yielding to circumstances, hopped about like a tame mag-
pie for a couple of hours at the entrance of the alley, pour-
ing forth a stream of light raillery on the passers-by, which
several times endangered his personal safety: till at last
Philammon, hurrying breathlessly home, rushed into his
a TTY) S.
“Hush! Hither with me! Your star still prospers.
She calls for you.”
• Who P”
“Miriam herself. Be secret as the grave. You she
will see and speak with. The message of Arsenius she
rejected in language which it is unnecessary for philo-
sophic lips to repeat. Come ; but give her good words—as
are fit to an enchantress who can stay the stars in their
course, and command the spirits of the third heaven.”
Philammon hurried home with Eudaemon. Little cared
he now for Hypatia's warning against Miriam. . . . Was
he not in search of a sister?
“So, you wretch, you are back again!” cried one of the
girls, as they knocked at the outer door of Miriam's apart-
27 I
272 ATVA’A 7TWA.
ments. “What do you mean by bringing young men here
at this time of night?”
“Better go down, and beg pardon of that poor wife of
yours. She has been weeping and praying for you to her
crucifix all the evening, you ungrateful little ape!”
“Female superstitions—but I forgive her. . . . Peace,
barbarian women! I bring this youthful philosopher
hither by your mistress's own appointment.”
“He must wait, then, in the ante-room. There is a
gentleman with my mistress at present.”
So Philammon waited in a dark, dingy ante-room,
luxuriously furnished with faded tapestry, and divans which
lined the walls; and fretted and fidgeted, while the two
girls watched him over their embroidery out of the corners
of their eyes, and agreed that he was a very stupid person
for showing no inclination to return their languishing
giances.
In the meanwhile, Miriam, within, was listening, with a
smile of grim delight, to a swarthy and weatherbeaten
young Jew.
“I knew, mother in Israel, that all depended on my
pace; and night and day I rode from Ostia toward Taren-
tum ; but the messenger of the uncircumcised was bettee
mounted than I. I therefore bribed a certain slave to 1amr
his horse, and passed him by a whole stage on the second
day. Nevertheless, by night the Philistine had caught me
up again, the evil angels helping him ; and my soul was
mad within me.”
“And what then, Jonabad Bar Zebudah?”
“I bethought me of Ehud, and of Joab also, when he
was pursued by Asahel, and considered much of the law-
fulness of the deed, not being a man of blood. Neverthe-
less, we were together in the darkness, and I smote him.”
Miriam clapped her hands. -
“Then putting on his clothes, and taking his letters and
credentials, as was but reasonable, I passed myself off for
the messenger of the emperor, and so rode the rest of that
journey at the expense of the heathen ; and I hereby return
you the balance saved.”
“Never mind the balance. Keep it, thou worthy son of
Jacob. What next?”
Aſ YAA 7T/4. 273
“When I came to Tarentum, I sailed in the galley which
I had chartered from certain sea-robbers. Valiant men
they were, nevertheless, and kept true faith with me. For
when we had come half-way, rowing with all our might,
behold another galley coming in our wake and about to
pass us by, which I knew for an Alexandrian, as did the
captain also, who assured me that she had come from
hence to Brundusium with letters from Orestes.”
* Well P”
‘‘It seemed to me both base to be passed, and more
base to waste all the expense where with you and our
elders had charged themselves ; so I took counsel with the
man of blood, offering him, over and above our bargain,
two hundred gold pieces of my own, which please to pay
to my account with Rabbi Ezekiel, who lives by the
water-gate in Pelusium. Then the pirates, taking counsel,
agreed to run down the enemy; for our galley was a sharp-
beaked Liburnian, while theirs was only a messenger
trireme.”
“And you did it?” -
“Else had I not been here. They were delivered into
our hands, so that we struck them full in mid-length, and
they sank like Pharaoh and his host.”
“So perish all the enemies of the nation l’’ cried Miriam.
“And now it is impossible, you say, for fresh news to
arrive for these ten days?”
‘‘Impossible, the captain assured me, owing to the
rising of the wind, and the signs of southerly storm.”
“Here, take this letter for the chief rabbi, and the bless-
ing of a mother in Israel. Thou hast played the man for
thy people; and thou shalt go to the grave full of years
and honors, with men-servants and maid-servants, gold
and silver, children and children’s children, with thy foot
on the necks of heathens, and the blessing of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, to eat of the goose which is fattening in
the desert, and the Leviathan which lieth in the great sea,
to be meat for all true Israelites at the last day.”
And the Jew turned and went out, perhaps, in his
simple fanaticism, the happiest man in Egypt at that
moment.
He passed out through the ante-chamber, leering at the
274 Aſ VPA ZZ 1.
slave-girls, and scowling at Philammon ; and the youth
was ushered into the presence of Miriam.
She sat, coiled up like a snake, on a divan, writing
busily in a tablet upon her knees, while on the cushions
beside her glittered splendid jewels, which she had been
fingering over as a child might its toys. She did not look
up for a few minutes; and Philammon could not help, in
spite of his impatience, looking round the little room and
contrasting its dirty splendor, and heavy odor of wine, and
food, and perfumes, with the Sunny grace and cleanliness
of Greek houses. Against the wall stood presses and chests
fretted with fantastic Oriental carving ; illuminated rolls of
parchment lay in heaps in a corner ; a lamp of strange
form hung from the ceiling, and shed a dim and lurid light
upon an object which chilled the youth's blood for a
moment—a bracket against the wall, on which, in a plate
of gold, engraven with mystic signs, stood the mummy of
an infant’s head ; One of those teraphim, from which, as
Philammon knew, the sorcerers of the East professed to
evoke oracular responses.
At last she looked up, and spoke in a shrill, harsh
voice. .
“Well, my fair boy, and what do you want with the
poor old proscribed Jewess? Have you coveted yet any of
the pretty things which she has had the wit to make her
slave-demons save from the Christian robbers?”
Philammon's tale was soon told. The old woman
listened, watching him intently with her burning eye; and
then answered slowly— *
“Well, and what if you are a slave?”
“Am I one, then? Am I ?” -
“Of course you are. Arsenius spoke the truth. I saw
him buy you at Ravenna, just fifteen years ago. I bought
your sister at the same time. She is two-and-twenty now.
You were four years younger than she, I should say.”
“O heavens! and you know my sister still? Is she
Pelagia?” •rº
“You were a pretty boy,” went on the hag, apparently
not hearing him. “If I had thought you were going to
grow up as beautiful and as clever as you are, I would
have bought you myself. The Goths were just marching,
Aſ YAA 7TWA. 275
and Arsenius gave only eighteen gold pieces for you—or
twenty, I am growing old, and forget everything—I think.
But there would have been the expense of your education,
and your sister cost me in training—oh, what sums! Not
that she was not worth the money—no, no, the darling!”
“And you know where she is? Oh, tell me—in the
name of mercy, tell me!”
“Why, then?” -
“Why, then? Have you not the heart of a human being
in you? Is she not my sister?”
“Well? You have done very well for fifteen years with-
Out your sister—why can you not do as well now? You
don’t recollect her—you don’t love her.”
“Not love her? I would die for her—die for you if you
will but help me to see her!”
“You would, would you? And if I brought you to her,
what then? What if she were Pelagia herself, what then?
She is happy enough now, and rich enough. Could you
make her happier or richer?”
“‘Can you ask? I must—I will—reclaim her from the
infamy in which I am sure she lives.”
“Ah, ha, sir monk! I expected as much. I know,
none knows better, what those fine words mean. The
burnt child dreads the fire : but the burnt old woman
quenches it, you will find. Now listen. I do not say that
you shall not see her, I don’t say that Pelagia herself is
not the woman whom you seek—but—you are in my power.
Don’t frown and pout. I can deliver you as a slave to
Arsenius when I choose. One word from me to Orestes,
and you are in fetters as a fugitive.”
‘‘I will escape!” cried he, fiercely.
“Escape me!”—she laughed, pointing to the teraph.
—“Me, who, if you fled beyond Kaf, or dived to the
depths of the ocean, could make these dead lips confess
where you were, and command demons to bear you back
to me upon their wings! Escape me! Better to obey me,
and see your sister.”
Philammon shuddered and submitted. The spell of the
woman's eye, the terror of her words, which he half
believed, and the agony of longing conquered him, and he
gasped out— -
276 Aſ YPA 7T/A.
“I will obey you—only—only 5 5
“Only you are not quite a man yet, but half a monk
still, eh? I must know that before I help you, my prett
boy. Are you a monk still, or a man?” -
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, ha, ha!” laughed she shrilly. “And these Chris-
tian dogs don’t know what a man means? Are you a
monk, then? leaving the man alone, as above your under-
standing.”
“IP—I am a student of philosophy.”
‘‘ But no man P”
‘‘I am a man, I suppose.”
“I don’t ; if you had been, you would have been making
love like a man to that heathen woman many a month
ago.” -
‘‘I-to her?”
“Yes, I–to her!” said Miriam, coarsely imitating his
tone of shocked humility. “I, the poor penniless boy-
scholar, to her, the great rich, wise, worshipped she-
philosopher, who holds the sacred keys of the inner shrine
of the east wind—and just because I am a man, and the
handsomest man in Alexandria, and she a woman, and the
vainest woman in Alexandria, and therefore I am stronger
than she, and can twist her round my finger, and bring her
to her knees at my feet when I like, as soon as I open my
eyes, and discover that I am a man. Eh, boy? Did she
ever teach you that among her mathematics and
metaphysics and gods and goddesses?”
Philammon stood blushing scarlet. The sweet poison
had entered, and every vein glowed with it for the first
time in his life. Miriam saw her advantage.
“There, there—don't be frightened at your new lesson.
After all, I liked you from the first moment I saw you, and
asked the teraph about you, and I got an answer—such
an answer! You shall know it some day. At all events, it
set the poor old soft-hearted Jewess on throwing away her
money. Did you ever guess from whom your monthly
gold pieces came?”
Philammon started, and Miriam burst into loud, shrill
laughter.
“From Hypatia, I’ll warrant! From the fair Greek
Ayy AA 774. 277
woman, of course—vain child that you are—never think-
ing of the poor old Jewess.”
“And did you? did you?” gasped Philammon. “Have
I to thank you, then, for that strange generosity?”
“Not to thank me but to obey me : for mind, I can
prove your debt to me, every obol, and claim it if I choose.
But don’t fear; I won’t be hard on you just because you
are in my power. I hate every one who is not so. As
soon as I have a hold on them, I begin to love them. Old
folks, like children, are fond of their own playthings.”
“And I am yours then?” said Philammon, fiercely.
“You are indeed, my beautiful boy,” answered she,
looking up with so insinuating a smile that he could not be
angry. “After all, I know how to toss my balls gently—
and for these forty years I have only lived to make young
folks happy; so you need not be afraid of the poor soft-
hearted old woman. Now—you saved Orestes’ life yester-
day.” -
“How did you find out that?”
‘‘IP I know everything. I know what the swallows
say when they pass each other on the wing, and what the
fishes think of in the summer sea. You, too, will be able
to guess some day, without the teraph’s help. But in the
meantime you must enter Orestes' service. Why? What
are you hesitating about? Do you not know that you are
high in his favor? He will make you secretary—raise you
to be chamberlain some day, if you know how to make
good use of your fortune.” .
Philammon stood in astonished silence ; and at last— ,
“Servant to that man? What care I for him or his
honors? Why do you tantalize me thus? I have no wish
on earth but to see my sister.” -
“You will be far more likely to see her if you belong to
the court of a great officer—perhaps more than an officer—
than if you remain a penniless monk. Not that I believe
you. Your only wish on earth, eh? Do you not care,
then, ever to see the fair Hypatia again?” .
“I? Why should I not see her? Am I not her pupil?”
“She will not have pupils much longer, my child. If
you wish to hear her wisdom—and much good may it do
you—you must go for it henceforth somewhat nearer to
278 - Ayy/24 7/4.
Orestes' palace than the lecture-room 1s. Ah! you start.
Have I found you an argument now? No-ask no ques-
tions. I explain nothing to monks. But take these
letters; tomorrow morning at the third hour go to Orestes'
palace, and ask for his secretary, Ethan the Chaldee. Say
boldly that you bring important news of state ; and then
follow your star : it is a fairer one than you fancy. Go!
obey me, or you see no sister.”
Philammon felt himself trapped ; but, after all, what
might not this strange woman do for him P. It seemed, if
not his only path, still his nearest path to Pelagia; and in
the meanwhile he was in the hag's power, and he must
submit to his fate; so he took the letters and went out.
“And so you think that you are going to have her?”
chuckled Miriam to herself, when Philammon went out.
“To make a penitent of her, eh? a nun, or a she-hermit :
to set her to appease your God by crawling on all-fours
among the mummies for twenty years, with a chain round
her neck and a clog at her ankle, fancying herself all the
while the bride of the Nazarene? And you think that old
Miriam is going to give her up to you for that? No, no,
sir monk! Better she were dead! . . . Follow your dainty
bait!—follow it, as the donkey does the grass which his
driver offers him, always an inch from his nose. . . . You
in my power! and Orestes in my power! . . . I must nego-
tiate that new loan tomorrow, I suppose. . . . I shall
never be paid. The dog will ruin me, after all! How
much is it now? Let me see.” . . . And she began
fumbling in her escritoire over bonds and notes of hand.
“I shall never be paid : but power—to have power! To
see those heathen slaves and Christian hounds plotting
and vaporing, and fancying themselves the masters of the
world, and never dreaming that we are pulling the strings,
and that they are our puppets! we the children of the
promises—we, The Nation—we, the seed of Abraham!
Poor fools! I could almost pity them as I think of their
faces when Messiah comes, and they find out who were the
true lords of the world, after all! . . . He must be
Emperor of the South, though, that Orestes; he must,
though I have to lend him Raphael's jewels to make him
so, For he must marry the Greek woman. He shall.
A/YA-4 7/4, 279
She hates him, of course. . . . So much the deeper
revenge for me. And she loves that monk. I saw it in
her eyes there in the garden. So much the better for me,
too. He will dangle willingly enough at Orestes' heels for
the sake of being near her—poor fool! We will make him
secretary, or chamberlain. He has wit enough for it, they
say, or for anything. So Orestes and he shall be the two
jaws of my pincers, to squeeze what I want out of the
Greek Jezebel. . . . And then—then for the black agate!”
Was the end of her speech a bathos? Perhaps not ; for
as she spoke the last word, she drew from her bosom,
where it hung round her neck by a chain, a broken talis-
man, exactly similar to the One which she coveted so
fiercely, and looked at it long and lovingly—kissed it—
wept over it—spoke to it—fondled it in her arms as a
mother would a child—murmured over it snatches of
lullabies; and her grim, withered features grew softer,
purer, grander ; and rose ennobled, for a moment, to their
long lost might-have-been, to that personal ideal which
every soul brings with it into the world, which shines, dim
and potential, in the face of every sleeping babe, before it
has been scarred, and distorted, and encrusted in the long
tragedy of life. Sorceress she was, pander and slave-
dealer, steeped to the lips in falsehood, ferocity and
avarice ; yet that paltry stone brought home to her some
thought, true, spiritual, impalpable, unmarketable, before
which all her treasures and all her ambition were as worth-
less in her own eyes as they were in the eyes of the angels
of God.
But little did Miriam think that at the same moment a
brawny, clownish monk was standing in Cyril's private
chamber, and, indulged with the special honor of a cup of
good wine in the patriarch’s very presence, was telling to
him and Arsenius the following history :
“So I, finding that the Jews had chartered this pirate
ship, went to the master thereof, and finding favor in his
eyes, hired myself to row therein, being sure, from what I
had overheard from the Jews, that she was destined to
bring the news to Alexandria as quickly as possible.
Therefore, fulfilling the work which his holiness had
intrusted to my incapacity, I embarked, and rowed con-
28o A/YA-4 7/A.
tinually among the rest ; and being unskilled in such
labor, received many curses and stripes in the cause of the
Church—the which I trust are laid to my account here-
after. Moreover, Satan entered into me, desiring to slay
me, and almost tore me asunder, so that I vomited nuch,
and loathed all manner of meat. Nevertheless, I rowed
on valiantly, being such as I am, vomiting continually, till
the heathens were moved with wonder, and forbore to beat
me, giving me strong liquors in pity; wherefore I rowed
all the more valiantly day and night, trusting that by my
unworthiness the cause of the Catholic Church might be
in some slight wise assisted.”
“And so it is,” quoth Cyril. “Why do you not sit
down, man?” -
“Pardon me,” quoth the monk, with a piteous gesture ;
‘‘ of sitting, as of all carnal pleasure, cometh satiety at the
last.”
“And now,” said Cyril, “what reward am I to give you
for your good service?” .
“It is reward enough to know that I have done good
service. Nevertheless, if the holy patriarch be so inclined
without reason, there is an ancient Christian, my mother
according to the flesh—”
“Come to me tomorrow, and she shall be well seen to.
And mind—look to it, if I make you not a deacon of the
city, when I promote Peter.”
The monk kissed his superior's hand, and withdrew.
Cyril turned to Arsenius, betrayed for once into geniality
by his delight and smiting his thigh—
“We have beaten the heathen once, eh?” And then in
the usual artificial tone of the ecclesiastic, “And what
would my father recommend in furtherance of the advan-
tage so mercifully thrown into our hand?”
Arsenius was silent.
‘‘I,” went on Cyril, “should be inclined to announce
the news this very night, in my sermon.”
Arsenius shook his head.
“Why not? why not?” asked Cyril, impatiently. .
“Better to keep it secret till others tell it. Reserved
knowledge is always reserved strength ; and if the man, as
I hope he does not, intends evil to the Church, let him
A VPA 7/4. 28I
*-*.
commit himself before you use your knowledge against
him. True, you may have a scruple of conscience as to
the lawfulness of allowing a sin which you might prevent.
To me it seems that the sin lies in the will rather than in
the deed, and that sometimes—I only say sometimes—it
may be a means of saving the sinner to allow his root of
iniquity to bear fruit, and fill him with his own devices.”
“Dangerous doctrine, my father.”
“Like all sound doctrine—a savor of life or of death,
according as it is received. I have not said it to the multi-
tude, but to a discerning brother. And even politically
speaking—let him commit himself, if he be really plotting
rebellion, and then speak, and smite his Babel tower.”
“You think that he does not know of Heraclian’s defeat
already?” -
“If he does, he will keep it secret from the people ; and
our chances of turning them suddenly will be nearly the
same.” -
“Good. After all, the existence of the Catholic Church
in Alexandria depends on this struggle, and it is well to be
wary. Be it so. It is well for me that I have you for an
adviser.”
And thus Cyril, usually the most impatient and intract-
able of plotters, gave in, as wise men should, to a wiser
man than himself, and made up his mind to keep the secret,
and to command the monk to keep it also.
Philammon, after a sleepless night and a welcome visit
to the public baths, which the Roman tyranny, wiser in its
generation than modern liberty, provided so liberally for
its victims, set forth to the prefect’s palace, and gave his
message ; but Orestes, who had been of late astonishing
the Alexandrian public by an unwonted display of alacrity,
was already in the adjoining Basilica. Thither the youth
was conducted by an apparitor, and led up the centre of
the enormous hall, gorgeous with frescoes and colored
marbles, and surrounded by aisles and galleries, in which
the inferior magistrates were hearing causes, and doing
such justice as the complicated technicalities of Roman
law chose to mete out. Through a crowd of anxious
loungers the youth passed to the apse of the upper end,
in which the prefect's throne stood empty, and then turned
282 A/YAEA 7/4.
into a side chamber, where he found himself alone with
the secretary, a portly Chaldee eunuch, with a sleek pale
face, small pig's eyes, and an enormous turban. The man
of pen and paper took the letter, opened it with solemn
deliberation, and then, springing to his feet, darted out of
the room in most undignified haste, leaving Philammon to
wait and wonder. In half an hour he returned, his little
eyes growing big with some great idea.
“Youth your star is in the ascendant; you are the
fortunate bearer of fortunate news! His excellency him-
self commands your presence.” And the two went
Out. -
In another chamber, the door of which was guarded by
armed men, Orestes was walking up and down in high
excitement, looking somewhat the worse for the events
of the past night, and making occasional appeals to a gold
goblet which stood on the table.
“Ha! No other than my preserver himself! Boy, I
will make your fortune. Miriam says that you wish to
enter my service.” -
Philammon, not knowing what to say, thought the best
answer would be to bow as low as he could.
“Ah, ah! Graceful, but not quite according to eti-
quette. You will soon teach him, eh, secretary? Now to
business. Hand me the notes to sign and seal. To the
Prefect of the Stationaries } }
“Here, your excellency.
“To the Prefect of the Corn-market—how many wheat-
ships have you ordered to be unladen?”
“Two, your excellency.”
“Well, that will be largess enough for the time being.
To the Defender of the Plebs—the devil break his neck!”
“He may be trusted, most noble ; he is bitterly jealous
of Cyril's influence. And, moreover, he owes my insig-
nificance much money.”
‘‘ Good. Now the notes to the Gaol-masters, about the
gladiators.”
“Here, your excellency.”
“To Hypatia. No. I will honor my bride elect with
my own illustrious presence. As I live, here is a morning's
work for a man with a racking headache!”
“Your excellency has the strength of seven. May you
live forever!”
And really Orestes' power of getting through business
when he chose was surprising enough. A cold head and
a colder heart make many things easy.
But Philammon's whole soul was fixed on these words,
“His bride elect!” . . . Was it that Miriam’s hints of the
day before had raised some selfish vision, or was it pity
and horror at such a fate for her—for his idol? But he
passed five minutes in a dream, from which he was
awakened by a sound of another and still dearer name.
“And now for Pelagia. . We can but try.”
“Your excellency might offend the Goth.” -
“Curse the Goth ! He shall have his choice of all the
beauties in Alexandria, and be Count of Pentapolis if he
likes. But a spectacle I must have : and no one but
Pelagia can dance Venus Anadyomene.”
Philammon's blood rushed to his heart, and then
back again to his brow, as he reeled with horror and
shame.
“The people will be mad with joy to see her on the
stage once more. Little they thought, the brutes, how I
was plotting for their amusement, even when as drunk as
Silenus.” -
“Your nobility only lives for the good of your slaves.”
“Here, boy! So fair a lady requires a fair messenger.
You shall enter on my service at once, and carry this
letter to Pelagia. Why?—why do you not come and
take it?”
“To Pelagia?” gasped the youth. “In the theatre?
Publicly? Venus Anadyomene?”
“Yes, fool! Were you, too, drunk last night after all?”
“She is my sister!” -
“Well, and what of that? Not that I believe you, you
villain! So!” said Orestes, who comprehended the matter
in an instant. “Apparitors!” •
The door opened and the guard appeared. -
“Here is a good boy who is inclined to make a fool of
himself. Keep him out of harm's way for a few days.
But don't hurt him ; for, after all, he saved my life yester-
day, when you scoundrels ran away.”
284 A/VA2A 77.4.
And, without further ado, the hapless youth was collared
and led down a vaulted passage into the guardroom, amid
the jeers of the guard, who seemed only to owe him a
grudge for his yesterday's prowess, and showed great
alacrity in fitting him with a heavy set of irons; which
done, he was thrust head foremost into a cell of the prison,
locked in, and left to his meditations.
CHAPTER XX.
SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.
“BUT, fairest Hypatia, conceive yourself struck in the
face by a great stone, several hundred howling wretches
leaping up at you like wild beasts—two minutes more, and
you are torn from limb to limb. What would even you do
in such a case?”
‘‘Let them tear me limb from limb, and die as I have
lived.”
“Ah, but When it came to fact, and death was
staring you in the face?” -
“And why should man fear death?”
“Ahem! No, not death, of course, but the act of
dying. That may be, surely, under such circumstances, to
say the least, disagreeable. If our ideal, Julian the Great,
found a little dissimulation necessary, and was even a
better Christian than I have ever pretended to be, tili he
found himself able to throw off the mask, why should not
I? Consider me as a lower being than yourself—one of the
herd, if you will ; but a penitent member thereof, who
comes to make the fullest possible reparation, by doing any
desperate deed on which you may choose to put him, and
prove myself as able and willing, if once I have the
power, as Julian himself.”
Such was the conversation which passed between
Hypatia and Orestes half an hour after Philammon had
taken possession of his new abode. &
Hypatia looked at the prefect with calm penetration not
unmixed with scorn and fear.
“And pray what has produced this sudden change in
your excellency’s earnestness? For four months your
promises have been lying fallow.” She did not confess
how glad she would have been at heart to see them lying
fallow still.
“Because
This morning I have news; which I
285
286 * Aſ VPA 7TWA.
tell to you the first as a compliment. We will take care
that all Alexandria knows it before sundown—Heraclian
has conquered.”
“Conquered?” cried Hypatia, springing from her seat.
“Conquered, and utterly destroyed the emperor's forces
at Ostia. So says a messenger on whom I can depend.
and even if the news should prove false, I can prevent the
contrary report from spreading, or what is the use of being
prefect? You demur? Do you not see that if we can keep
the notion alive but a week our cause is won?”
** How SOP”
‘‘I have treated already with all the officers of the city,
and every one of them has acted like a wise man, and
given me a promise to help, conditional of course on
Heraclian's success, being tired as I am of that priest-
ridden court at Byzantium. Moreover, the Stationaries
are mine already. So are the soldiery all the way up the
Nile. Ah! you have been fancying me idle for these four
months, but You forget that you yourself were the
prize of my toil. Could I be a sluggard with that goal in
sight?”
Hypatia shuddered, but was silent ; and Orestes .
Went On- -
“I have unladen several of the wheat-ships for enor-
mous largesses of bread ; though those rascally monks of
Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was
forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had
sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really
most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously
half the poor of the city! What possible business have
they with Alexandria?”
“The wish for popularity, I presume.”
“Just so ; and then what hold can the government have
on a set of rogues whose stomachs are filled without our
help?”
“Julian made the same complaint to the high-priest of
Galatia, in that priceless letter of his.”
“Ah, you will set that all right, you know, shortly.
Then again, I do not fear Cyril's power just now. He has
injured himself deeply, I am happy to say, in the opinion
of the wealthy and educated, by expelling the Jews. And
Aſ VA2A 7TWA. 287
as for his mob, exactly at the right moment, the deities—
there are no monks here, so I can attribute my blessings
to the right source—have sent us such a boon as may put
them into as good a humor as we need.”
“And what is that?” asked Hypatia.
“A white elephant.”
“A white elephant?”
“Yes,” he answered, mistaking or ignoring the tone of
her answer. “A real, live, white elephant ; a thing which
has not been seen in Alexandria for a hundred years! It
was passing through with two tame tigers, as a present to
the boy at Byzantium, from some hundred-wived kinglet
of the Hyperboréan Taprobane, or other no-man's-land in
the far East. I took the liberty of laying an embargo on
them, and, after a little argumentation and a few hints of
torture, elephant and tigers are at our service.”
“And of what service are they to be?”
“My dearest madam Conceive. . . . How are we to
win the mob without a show? . . . When were there
more than two ways of gaining either the whole or part of
the Roman empire—by force of arms or force of trumpery?
Can even you invent a third? The former is unpleasantly
exciting, and hardly practicable just now. The latter
remains; and, thanks to the white elephant, may be
triumphantly successful. I have to exhibit something
every week. The people are getting tired of that pan-
tomime; and since the Jews were driven out, the fellow
has grown stupid and lazy, having lost the more enthusi-
astic half of his spectators. As for horse-racing, they are
sick of it. . . . Now, suppose we announce, for the earli-
est possible day—a spectacle—such a spectacle as never
was seen before in this generation. You and I–I as
exhibitor, you as representative—for the time being only—
of the Vestals of old—sit side by side. . . . Some worthy
friend has his instructions, when the people are beside
themselves with rapture, to cry, “Long live Orestes
Caesar!' . . . Another reminds them of Heraclian's victory
—another couples your name with mine . . . the people
applaud . . . Some Mark Antony steps forward, salutes
me as Imperator, Augustus—what you will—the cry is
taken up—I refuse as meekly as Julius Caesar himself—am
288 AYP4774.
compelled, blushing, to accept the honor—I rise, make
an oration about the future independence of the southern
continent—union of Africa and Egypt—the empire no
longer divided into Eastern and Western, but Northern
and Southern. Shouts of applause, at two drachmas per
man, shake the skies. Everybody believes that every-
body else approves, and follows the lead. . . . And the
thing is won.”
“And pray,” asked Hypatia, crushing down her con-
tempt and despair, “how is this to bear on the worship of
the gods?” - -
“Why . . . why . . . if you thought that people's
minds were sufficiently prepared, you might rise in your
turn, and make an oration—you can conceive One. Set
forth how these spectacles, formerly the glory of the
empire, had withered under Galilaean superstition. . . .
How the only path toward the full enjoyment of eye and
ear was a frank return to those deities, from whose worship
they originally sprung, and connected with which they
could alone be enjoyed in their perfection. . . . But I
need not teach you how to do that which you have so often
taught me ; so now to consider our spectacle, which, next
to the largess, is the most important part of our plans. I
ought to have exhibited to them the monk who so nearly
killed me yesterday. That would indeed have been a
triumph of the laws over Christianity. He and the wild
beasts might have given the people ten minutes' amuse-
ment. But wrath conquered prudence ; and the fellow
has been crucified these two hours. Suppose, then, we
had a little exhibition of gladiators! They are forbidden
by law, certainly.”
“Thank heaven they are!”
“But do you not see that it is the very reason why we,
to assert our own independence, should employ them?”
‘‘No! they are gone. Let them never reappear to dis-
grace the earth.”
“My dear lady, you must not, in your present character,
say that in public : lest Cyril should be impertinent enough
to remind you that Christian emperors and bishops put
them down.”
Hypatia bit her lip, and was silent,
A/YAA 7TWA. 289
“Well, I do not wish to urge anything unpleasant to
you. . . . If we could but contrive a few martyrdoms—but
I really fear we must wait a year or two longer, in the
present state of public opinion, before we can attempt
that.”
“Wait? wait forever! Did not Julian—and he must be
our model—forbid the persecution of the Galilaeans, con-
sidering them sufficiently punished by their own atheism
and self-tormenting superstition?”
“Another small error of that great man. He should
have recollected that for three hundred years, nothing, not
even the gladiators themselves, had been found to put the
mob in such good-humor as to see a few Christians,
especially young and handsome women, burned alive, or
thrown to the lions.”
Hypatia bit her lip once more. “I can hear no more of
this, sir. You forget that you are speaking to a woman.”
“Most supreme wisdom,” answered Orestes, in his
blandest tone, “you cannot suppose that I wish to pain
your ears. But allow me to observe, as a general theorem,
that if one wishes to effect any purpose, it is necessary to
use the means ; and on the whole, those which have been
tested by four hundred years' experience will be the safest.
I speak as a plain, practical statesman—but surely your
philosophy will not dissent?”
Hypatia looked down in painful thought. What could
she answer? Was it not too true? and had not Orestes
fact and experience on his side?
“Well, if you must—but I cannot have gladiators.
Why not a-one of those battles with wild beasts? They
are disgusting enough : but still they are less inhuman
than the others; and you might surely take precautions to
prevent the men being hurt.” -
“Ah! that would indeed be a scentless rose! if there is
neither danger nor bloodshed, the charm is gone. But
really wild beasts are too expensive just now ; and if I kill
down my present menagerie, I can afford no more. Why
not have something which costs no money, like prisoners?”
“What! do you rank human beings below brutes?”
“Heaven forbid! But that they are practically less
expensive, Remember that without money we are power-
29O HYPA 7A,
less ; we must husband our resources for the cause of the
gods "
Hypatia was silent.
“Now, there are fifty or sixty Libyan prisoners just
brought in from the desert. Why not let them fight an
equal number of soldiers? They are rebels to the empire
taken in war.”
“Ah, then,” said Hypatia, catching at any thread of
self-justification, “their lives are forfeit in any case.”
“Of course. So the Christians could not complain of
us for that. Did not the most Christian Emperor Con-
stantine set some three hundred German prisoners to
butcher each other in the amphitheatre of Treves?”
“But they refused, and died like heroes, each falling on
his own sword.”
“Ah—those Germans are always unmanageable. My
guards, now, are just as stiff-necked. To tell you the
truth, I have asked them already to exhibit their prowess
on these Libyans, and what do you suppose they
answered?”
“They refused, I hope.”
‘’ They told me in the most insolent tone that they were
men, and not stage-players ; and hired to fight, and not to
butcher. I expected a Socratic dialogue after such a
display of dialectic, and bowed myself out.”
“They were right.”
“Not a doubt of it, from a philosophic point of view ;
from a practical one they were great pedants, and I an ill-
used master. However, I can find unfortunate and mis-
understood heroes enough in the prisons, who, for the
chance of their liberty will acquit themselves valiantly
enough ; and I know of a few old gladiators still lingering
about the wine-shops, who will be proud enough to give
them a week's training. So that may pass. Now for
some lighter species of representation to follow—some-
thing more or less dramatic.”
“You forget that you speak to one who trusts to be, as
soon as she has the power, the high-priestess of Athene,
and who in the meantime is bound to obey her tutor
Julian's commands to the priests of his day, and imitate
the Galilaeans as much in their abhorence for the theatre
Aſ VPA 7TWA. - 29I
as she hopes hereafter to do in their care for the widow
and the stranger.”
“Far be it from me to impugn that great man's wisdom.
But allow me to remark, that to judge by the present state
of the empire, one has a right to say that he has failed.”
“The Sun God whom he loved took him to himself, too
early, by a hero's death.”
“And the moment he was removed, the wave of Chris-
tian barbarism rolled back again into its old channel.”
“Ah! had he but lived twenty years longer!”
“The Sun God, perhaps, was not so solicitous as we are
for the success of his high-priest’s project.”
Hypatia reddened—was Orestes, after all, laughing in
his sleeve at her and her hopes?
“Do not blaspheme !” she said solemnly.
“Heaven forbid! I only offer one possible explanation
of a plain fact. The other is, that as Julian was not going
quite the right way to work to restore the worship of the
Olympians, the Sun God found it expedient to withdraw
him from his post, and now sends in his place Hypatia the
philosopher, who will be wise enough to avoid Julian's
error, and not copy the Galilaeans too closely, by imitating
a severity of morals at which they are the only true and
natural adepts.”
“So Julian's error was that of being too virtuous? If it
be so, let me copy him, and fail like him. The fault will
then not be mine, but fate’s.”
“Not in being too virtuous himself, most stainless like-
ness of Athene, but in trying to make others so. He for-
got one-half of Juvenal's great dictum about ‘Panem and
Circenses,’ as the absolute and overruling necessities of
rulers. He tried to give the people the bread without the
games. . . . And what thanks he received for his enor-
mous influence, let himself and the good folks of Antioch
tell—you just quoted his Misopogon } }
“Ay—the lament of a man too pure for his age.”
“Exactly so. He should rather have been content to
keep his purity to himself, and have gone to Antioch not
merely as a philosophic high-priest, with a beard of ques-
tionable cleanliness, to offer sacrifices to a God in whom—
forgive me—nobody in Antioch had believed for many a
292 HYPA 7'IA.
year. If he had made his entrance with ten thousand
gladiators, and our white elephant, built a theatre of
ivory and glass in Daphnae, and proclaimed games in
honor of the Sun, or of any other member of the
Pantheon } }
“He would have acted unworthily of a philosopher.”
“But instead of that one priest draggling up, poor devil,
through the wet grass to the deserted altar with his soli-
tary goose under his arm, he would have every goose in
Antioch—forgive my stealing a pun from Aristophanes—
running open mouthed to worship any god, known or
unknown—and to see the sights.”
“Well,” said Hypatia, yielding perforce to Orestes'
cutting arguments. “Let us then restore the ancient
glories of the Greek drama. Let us give them a trilogy of
AEschylus or Sophocles.”
“Too calm, my dear madam. The Eumenides might
do certainly, or Philoctetes, if we could but put Philoctetes
to real pain, and make the spectators sure that he was
yelling in good earnest.”
“Disgusting!”
“But necessary, like many disgusting things.”
“Why not try the Prometheus?” -
“A magnificent field for stage effect certainly. What
with those ocean nymphs in their winged chariot, and
Ocean on his griffin. . . . But I should hardly think it
safe to reintroduce Zenus and Hermes to the people under
the somewhat ugly light in which Æschylus exhibits them.”
‘‘I forgot that,” said Hypatia. “The Orestean trilogy
will be best, after all.” -
“Best? perfect—divine! Ah, that it were to be my
fate to go down to posterity as the happy man who once
more revived AEschylus's masterpiece on the Grecian stage!
But Is there not, begging the pardon of the great
tragedian, too much reserve in the Agemennon for our
modern taste? If we could have the bath scene repre-
sented on the stage, and an Agemennon who could be
really killed—though I would not insist on that because a
good actor might make it a reason for refusing the part—
but still the murder ought to take place in public.”
“Shocking! an outrage on all the laws of the drama.
A VA’A 7/4. 293
Does not even the Roman Horace lay down as a rule the
AVec pueros coram populo Medea frucide??” -
“Fairest and wisest, I am as willing a pupil of the dear
old Epicurean as any man living—even to the furnishing of
my chamber, of which fact the Empress of Africa may
Some day assure herself. But we are not now discussing
the art of poetry, but the art of reigning; and, after all, while
Horace was sitting in his easy-chair, giving his country-
men good advice, a private man, who knew somewhat
better than he what the mass admired, was exhibiting forty
thousand gladiators at his mother's funeral.”
“But the canon has its foundation in the eternal laws of
beauty. It has been accepted and observed.”
“Not by the people for whom it was written. The
learned Hypatia has surely not forgotten that within sixty
years after the Ars Poetica was written, Annaeus Seneca,
or whosoever wrote that very bad tragedy called the
Medea, found it so necessary that she should, in despite
of Horace, kill her children before the people, that he
actually made her do it!”
Hypatia was still silent—foiled at every point, while
Orestes ran on with provoking glibness.
“And consider, too, even if we dare alter Æschylus a
little, we could find no one to act him.”
“Ah, true! fallen, fallen days!”
“And really, after all, omitting the questionable com-
pliment to me, as candidate for a certain dignity, of hav-
ing my namesake kill his mother, and then be hunted over
the stage by furies—”
“But Apollo vindicates and purifies him at last. What
a noble occasion that last scene would give for winning
them back to their old reverence for the god!”
“True, but at present the majority of spectators will
believe more strongly in the horrors of matricide and
furies than in Apollo's power to dispense there with. So
that, I fear, must be one of your labors of the future.”
“And it shall be,” said Hypatia. But she did not
speak cheerfully. -
“Do you not think, moreover,” went on the tempter,
“that those old tragedies might give somewhat too gloomy
a notion of those deities whom we wish to reintroduce—I
2.94. A/VAEA 7/4.
beg pardon, to rehonor? The history of the house of
Atreus is hardly more cheerful, in spite of its beauty, than
one of Cyril's sermons on the day of judgment, and the
Tartarus prepared for hapless rich people.”
“Well,” said Hypatia, more listlessly, “it might be
more prudent to show them first the fairer and more grace-
1 side of the old Myths. Certainly the great age of
futhenian tragedy had its playful reverse in the old
Amedy.” -
co** And in certain Dionysiac sports and processions which
shall be nameless, in order to awaken a proper devotion
for the gods in those who might not be able to appreciate
AEschylus and Sophocles?”
“You would not reintroduce them?”
“Pallas forbid! but give as fair a substitute for them as
we can.”
“And we are to degrade ourselves because the masses
are degraded?” -
“Not in the least. For my own part, this whole busi-
ness, like the catering for the weekly pantomimes, is as
great a bore to me as it could have been to Julian him-
self. But, my dearest madam—‘Panem and Circenses '
—they must be put in good humor, and there is but one
way—by “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye,
and the pride of life,’ as a certain Galilaean correctly
defined the time-honored Roman method.”
‘‘ Put them into good humor? I wish to lustrate them
afresh for the service to the gods. If we must have comic
representation, we can only have them conjoined to
tragedy, which, as Aristotle defines it, will purify their
affections by pity and terror.” Orestes smiled.
‘‘I certainly can have no objection to so good a purpose.
But do you not think that the battle between the gladiators
and the Libyans will have done that sufficiently before-
hand? I can conceive nothing more fit for that end, unless
it be Nero's method of sending his guards among the spec-
tators themselves, and throwing them down to the wild
beasts in the arena. How thoroughly purified by pity and
terror must every worthy shopkeeper have been, when he
sat uncertain whether he might not follow his fat wife into
the claws of the nearest lion?”
Aſ VPA 77A, 295
“You are pleased to be witty, sir,” said Hypatia, hardly
able to conceal her disgust.
“My dearest bride elect, I only meant the most harm-
less of reductiones ad absurdum of an abstract canon of
Aristotle, with which I, who am a Platonist after my mis-
tress’s model, do not happen to agree. But do, I beseech
you, be ruled, not by me, but by your own wisdom. You
annot bring the people to appreciate your designs at the
rst sight. You are too wise, too pure, too lofty, too far-
sighted for them. And therefore you must get power to
compel them. Julian, after all, found it necessary to com-
pel—if he had lived seven years more he would have found
it necessary to persecute.” -
“The gods forbid that—that such a necessity should
ever arise here.”
“The only way to avoid it, believe me, is to allure and
to indulge. After all, it is for their good.”
“True,” sighed Hypatia. “Have your way, sir.”
“Believe me, you shall have yours in turn. I ask you
to be ruled by me now, only that you may be in a position
to rule me and Africa hereafter.”
“And such an Africa! Well if they are born low and
earthly, they must, i suppose, be treated as such ; and the
fault of such a necessity is Nature's, and not ours. Yet it
ts most degrading! But still, if the only method by which
ihe philosophic few can assume their rights, as the
divinely-appointed rulers of the world, is by indulging
those lower beings whom they govern for their good—why
be it so. It is no worse necessity than many another
which the servant of the gods must endure in days like
these.”
“Ah,” said Orestes, refusing to hear the sigh, or to see
the bitterness of the lip which accompanied the speech,
“now Hypatia is herself again ; and my counsellor and
giver of deep and celestial reasons for all things at which
poor I can only snatch and guess by vulpine Cunning.
So now for our lighter entertainment. What shall it be?”
“What you will, provided it be not, as most such are,
unfit for the eyes of modest women. I have no skill in
catering for folly.”
“A pantomime, then? We may make that as grand
296 - AZYZ2A 7TWA.
and as significant as we will, and expend too on it all our
treasure in the way of gewgaws and wild beasts.”
“As you like.”
“Just consider, too, what a scope for mythologic learn-
ing a pantomime affords. Why not have a triumph of
some deity? Could I commit myself more boldly to the
service of the gods? Now—who shall it be?”
“Pallas—unless, as I suppose, she is too modest and
too sober for your Alexandrians.”
“Yes—it does not seem to me that she would be appre-
ciated—at all events for the present. Why not try
Aphrodite? Christians as well as Pagans will thoroughly
understand her ; and I know no one who would not
degrade the virgin goddess by representing her, except a
certain lady, who has already, I hope, consented to sit in
that very character, by the side of her too much honored
slave ; and one Pallas is enough at a time in any theatre.”
Hypatia shuddered. He took it all for granted, then—
and claimed her conditional promise to the uttermost.
Was there no escape? She longed to spring up and rush
away, into the streets, into the desert—anything to break
the hideous net which she had wound around herself.
And yet—was it not the cause of the gods—the one object
of her life? And after all, if he, the hateful, was to be her
emperor, she at least was to be an empress : and do what
she would—and half in irony, and half in the attempt to
hurl herself perforce into that which she knew that she
must go through, and forget misery in activity, she
answered as cheerfully as she could—
“Then, my goddess, thou must wait the pleasure of
these base ones! At least the young Apollo will have
charms even for them.”
“Ay, but who will represent him? This puny genera-
tion does not produce such figures as Pylades and Bathyl-
Jus—except among those Goths. Besides, Apollo must
have golden hair ; and our Greek race has intermixed itself
so shamefully with these Egyptians, that our stage-troop
is as dark as Andromeda, and we should have to apply
again to those accursed Goths, who have nearly" (with a
bow) “all the beauty, and nearly all the money and the
power, and will, I suspect, have the rest of it before I am
Aſ YAA TV4. - 297
safe out of this wicked world, because they have not
nearly, but quite, all the courage. Now—shall we ask a
Goth to dance Apollo? for we can get no one else.”
“Hypatia smiled in spite of herself at the notion.
“That would be too shameful! I must forego the god of
light himself, if I am too see him in the person of a
clumsy barbarian. ” *
“Then why not try my despised and rejected Aphrodite?
Suppose we had her triumph, finishing with a dance of
Venus Anadyomene. Surely that is a graceful myth
enough.”
“As a myth ; but on the stage in reality?”
“Not worse than what this Christian city has been look-
ing at for many a year. We shall not run any danger of
corrupting morality, be sure.”
Hypatia blushed.
“Then you must not ask for my help.”
“Or for your presence at the spectacle? For that be
sure is a necessary point. You are too great a person,
my dearest madam, in the eyes of these good folks to be
allowed to absent yourself on such an occasion. If my
little stratagem succeeds, it will be half owing to
the fact of the people knowing that in crowning me, they
Crown Hypatia. . . . Come now—do you not see that as
you must needs be present at their harmless scrap of
mythology, taken from the authentic and undoubted
histories of those very gods whose worship we intend to
restore, you will consult your own comfort most in agree-
ing to it cheerfully, and in lending me your wisdom
toward arranging it? Just conceive now, a triumph of
Aphrodite entering, preceded by wild beasts led in chains
by Cupids, the white elephant and all—what a field for the
plastic art! You might have a thousand groupings, dis-
persions, regroupings, in as perfect bas-relief style as those
of any Sophoclean drama. Allow me only to take this
paper and pen ; )
And he began sketching rapidly group after group.
“Not so ugly, surely?”
“They are very beautiful, I cannot deny,” said poor
Hypatia.
“Ah, sweet Empress! you forget sometimes that I,
298 - Aſ YAA 77.4.
too, world-worm as I am, am a Greek, with as intense a
love of the beautiful as even you yourself have. Do not
fancy that every violation of good taste does not torture
me as keenly as it does you. Some day, I hope, you will
have learned to pity and excuse the wretched compromise
between that which ought to be and that which can be,
in which we hapless statesmen must struggle on, half
stunned and wholly misunderstood. Ah, well! Look,
now, at these fauns and dryads among the shrubs upon the
stage, pausing in startled wonder at the first blast of
music which proclaims the exit of the goddess from her
temple.”
“The temple? Why, where are you going to exhibit?”
“In the Theatre, of course. Where else pantos
mimes?”
“But will the spectators have time to move all the way
from the Amphitheatre after—that—those P”
“The Amphitheatre? We shall exhibit the Libyans,
too, in the Theatre.”
“Combats in the Theatre sacred to Dion usos?”
“My dear lady”—penitently—‘‘ I know it is an offence
against all the laws of the drama.”
“Oh, worse than that! Consider what an impiety
toward the god, to desecrate his altar with bloodshed!”
“Fairest devotee, recollect that, after all, I may fairly
borrow Dionusos' altar in this my extreme need; for I
save its very existence for him, by preventing the magis-
trates from filling up the whole orchestra with benches for
the patricians, after the barbarous Roman fashion. And
besides, what possible sort of representation or misrepre-
sentation, has not been exhibited in every theatre of the
empire for the last four hundred years? Have we not had
tumblers, conjurers, allegories, martyrdoms, marriages,
elephants on the tight-rope, learned horses, and learned
asses too, if we may trust Apuleius of Madaura ; with a
good many other spectacles of which we must not speak
in the presence of a vestal? It is an age of execrable taste,
and we must act accordingly.”
“Ah!” answered Hypatia; “the first step in the down-
ward career of the drama began when the successors of
Alexander dared to profane theatres which had re-echoed
Aſ VPA 7/4. 299
the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides by degrading the
altar of Dionusos into a stage for pantomimes!”
“Which your pure mind must, doubtless, consider not
so very much better than a little fighting. But, after all,
the Ptolomies could not do otherwise. You can only have
Sophoclean dramas in a Sophoclean age ; and theirs was
no more of one than ours is, and so the drama died a
natural death ; and when that happens to man or thing,
you may weep over it if you will, but you must, after all,
bury it, and get something else in its place—except, of
course, the worship of the gods.”
“I am glad that you except that, at least,” said Hypatia,
somewhat bitterly. “But why not use the Amphitheatre
for both spectacles?”
“What can I do? I am over head and ears in debt
already ; and the Amphitheatre is half in ruins, thanks to
that fanatic edict of the late emperor's against gladiators.
There is no time or money for repairing it; and besides,
how pitiful a poor hundred of combatants will look in an
arena built to hold two thousand! Consider, my dearest
lady, in what fallen times we live!”
“I do indeed!” said Hypatia. “But I will not see the
altar poijuted by biood. It is the desecration which it has
undergone already which has provoked the god to with-
draw the poetic inspiration.”
‘‘I do not doubt the fact. Some curse from Heaven
certainly has fallen on our poets, to judge by their exceed-
ing badness. Indeed, I am inclined to attribute the insane
vagaries of the water-drinking monks and nuns, like those
of the Argive women, to the same celestial anger. But I
will see that the sanctity of the altar is preserved, by con-
fining the combat to the stage. And as for the pantomime
which will follow, if you would only fall in with my fancy
of the triumph of Aphrodite, Dionusos would hardly refuse
his altar for the glorification of his own lady-love.”
“Ah—that myth is a late and in my opinion a degraded
One.” -
“Be it so : but recollect, that another myth makes her,
and not without reason, the mother of all living beings.
Be sure that Dionusos will have no objection, or any other
god either, to allow her to make her children feel her con-
3oo A/VAEA 7/4.
quering might ; for they all know well enough, that if we
can once get her well worshipped here, all Olympus will
follow in her train.” .
“That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose
symbol is the tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty
and chastity : not of that baser Pandomic one.”
“Then we will take care to make the people aware of
whom they are admiring by exhibiting in the triumph
whole legions of tortoises; and you yourself shall write the
chant, while I will see that the chorus is worthy of what it
has to sing. No mere squeaking double flute and a pair of
boys : but a whole army of cyclops and graces, with such
trebles and such bass-voices! It shall make Cyril's ears
tingle in his palace!”
“The chant! A noble office for me, truly That is the
very part of the absurd spectacle to which you used to say
the people never dreamed of attending. All which is
worth settling you seem to have settled for yourself before
you deigned to consult me.”
“I said so? Surely you must mistake. But if any hired
poetaster's chant do pass unheeded, what has that to do
with Hypatia's eloquence and science, glowing with the
treble inspiration of Athene, Phoebus and Dionusos? And
as for having arranged beforehand, my adorable mistress,
what more delicate compliment could I have paid you?”
‘‘I cannot say that it seems to me to be one.”
“How? After saving you every trouble which I could,
and racking my overburdened wits for stage-effects and
properties, have I not brought hither the darling children
of my own brain, and laid them down ruthlessly, for life or
death, before the judgment seat of your lofty and unspar-
ing criticism?”
Hypatia felt herself tricked ; but there was no escape
In O.W.
“And who, pray, is to disgrace herself, and me, as
Venus Anadyomene?”
“Ah! that is the most exquisite article in all my bill of
fare! What if the kind gods have enabled me to exact a
promise from--whom, think you?”
“What care I? How can I tell?” asked Hypatia, who
Suspected and dreaded that she could tell. *
HYPATIA. 3OI
* Pelagia herself!”
Hypatia rose angrily.
“This, sir, at least is too much! It was not enough
for you, it seems, to claim, or rather to take for granted,
so imperiously, so mercilessly, a conditional promise—
weakly, weakly made, in the vain hope that you would
help forward aspirations of mine which you have let lie
fallow for months—in which I do not believe that you
sympathize now! It was not enough for you to declare
yourself publicly yesterday a Christian, and to come
hither this morning to flatter me into the belief that you
will dare, ten days hence, to restore the worship of the
gods whom you have abjured! It was not enough to plan
without me all those movements in which you told me I
was to be your fellow-counsellor—the very condition
which you yourself offered It was not enough for you to
command me to sit in that theatre, as your bait, your
puppet, your victim, blushing and shuddering at sights
unfit for the eyes of god and men ;-but over and above
all this, I must assist in the renewed triumph of a woman
who has laughed down my teaching, seduced away my
scholars, braved me in my very lecture-room—who for
four years has done more than even Cyril himself to
destroy all the virtue and truth which I have toiled to sow
—and toiled in vain! Oh, beloved gods! where will end
the tortures through which your martyr must witness for
you to a fallen race?”
And, in spite of all her pride, and of Orestes' presence,
her eyes filled with scalding tears.
Orestes’ eyes had sunk before the vehemence of her just
passion : but as she added the last sentence in a softer and
sadder tone, he raised them again, with a look of sorrow
and entreaty, as his heart whispered—
‘‘ Fool! fanatic! But she is too beautiful! Win her I
must and will !”
“Ah! dearest, noblest Hypatia! what have I done?
Unthinking fool that I was In the wish to save you
trouble—in the hope that I could show you by the aptness
of my own plans, that my practical statesmanship was not
altogether an unworthy helpmate for your loftier wisdom
—wretch that I am, I have offended you ; and I have
3O2 HYPA 77A.
ruined the cause of those very gods for whom, I swear, I
am as ready to sacrifice myself as ever you can be!”
The last sentence had the effect which it was meant to
have. -
“Ruined the cause of the gods?” asked she, in a startled
tone.
“Is it not ruined without your help? And what am I
to understand from your words but that—helpless man
that I am! you leave me, and them, henceforth to our own
unassisted strength P” -
‘‘The unassisted strength of the gods is omnipotence.”
“Be it so. But—why is Cyril and not Hypatia, master
of the masses of Alexandria this day? Why but because
he and his have fought, and suffered, and died too, many
a hundred of them, for their god, omnipotent as they
believed him to be? Why are the old gods forgotten, my
fairest logician P-for forgotten they are.”
Hypatia trembled from head to foot, and Orestes went
on more blandly than ever.
‘‘I will not ask an answer to that question of mine. All
I entreat is forgiveness for—what for I know not : but I
have sinned and that is enough for me. What if I have
been too confident—too hasty? Are you not the prize for
which I strain? and will not the preciousness of the victor's
wreath excuse some impatience in his struggle for it?
Hypatia has forgotten who and what the gods have made
her—she has not even consulted her own mirror when she
blames one of her innumerable adorers for a forwardness
which ought to be rather imputed to him as a virtue!”
And Orestes stole meekly such a glance of adoration
that Hypatia blushed, and turned her face away. . . .
After all, she was a woman. . . . And she was a fanatic.
. And she was to be an empress. . . . And Orestes'
voice was as melodious, and his manner as graceful, as
ever charmed the heart of woman.
“But Pelagia?” she said at last, recovering herself.
“Would that I had never seen the creature! But, after
all, I really fancied that in doing what I have done I
should gratify you.” -
• ‘ Me?”
“Surely if revenge be sweet, as they say, it could
HyPAZZA, - 3O3
hardly find a more delicate satisfaction than in the degrada-
tion of one who—” . -
“Revenge, sir? Do you dream that I am capable of so
base a passion?”
“I? Pallas forbid!” said Orestes, finding himself on the
wrong path again. “But recollect that the allowing this
spectacle to take place might rid you forever of an unpleas-
ant—I will not say rival.”
“How, then?”
“Will not her reappearance on the stage, after all her
proud professions of contempt for it, do something toward
reducing her in the eyes of this scandalous little town to
her true and native level? She will hardly dare thence-
forth to go about parading herself as the consort of a god-
descended hero, or thrusting herself unbidden into
Hypatia’s presence, as if she were the daughter of a
consul.”
“But I cannot—I cannot allow it even to her. After
all, Orestes, she is a woman. And can I, philosopher
as I am, help to degrade her even one step lower than she
lies already?”
Hypatia had all but said “a woman even as I am ;” but
Neo-Platonic philosophy iaught her better ; and she
checked the hasty assertion of anything like a common sex
or common humanity between two beings so antipodal.
“Ah,” rejoined Orestes, “that unlucky word degrade!
|Unthinking that I was to use it, forgetting that she her-
self will be no more degraded in her own eyes, or anyone's
else, by hearing again the plaudits of those “dear Mace-
donians,’ on whose breath she has lived for years, than a
peacock when he displays his train. Unbounded vanity and
self-conceit are not unpleasant passions, after all, for their
victim. After all, she is what she is, being so is no fault
of yours. Oh! Oh, it must be! indeed it must!”
Poor Hypatia! The bait was too delicate, the tempter
too wily; and yet she was ashamed to speak aloud the
philosophic dogma which flashed a ray of comfort and
resignation through her mind, and reminded her that after
all there was no harm in allowing lower natures to develop
themselves freely in that direction which Nature had
appointed for them, and in which only they could fulfil the
3O4. ATVA’A 7TWA.
laws of their being, as necessary varieties in the manifold
whole of the universe. So she cut the interview short
with——
“If it must be, then. . . . . I will now retire, and write
the ode. Only, I refuse to have any communication what-
soever with—I am ashamed of even mentioning her name.
I will send the ode to you, and she must adapt her dance
to it as best she can. By her taste, or fancy rather, I will
not be ruled.” - -
“And I,” said Orestes, with a profusion of thanks,
‘‘will retire to rack my faculties over the ‘dispositions.”
On this day week we exhibit—and conquer! Farewell,
queen of wisdom! Your philosophy never shows to better
advantage than when you thus wisely and gracefully
subordinate that which is beautiful in itself to that which
is beautiful relatively and practically.”
He departed; and Hypatia, half dreading her own
thoughts, sat down at once to labor at the ode. Certainly
it was a magnificent subject. What etymologies, cosmog-
onies, allegories, myths, smybolisms between all heaven
and earth, might she not introduce—if she could but banish
that figure of Pelagia dancing to it all, which would not
be banished, but hovered like a spectre in the background
of all her imaginations. She became quite angry, first with
Pelagia, then with herself, for being weak enough to think
of her. Was it not positive defilement of her mind to be
haunted by the image of so defiled a being? She would
purify her thoughts by prayer and meditation. But to
whom of all the gods should she address herself? To her
chosen favorite, Athene? She who had promised to be
present at that spectacle? Oh, how weak she had been to
yield! And yet she had been snared into it. Snared—
there is no doubt of it—by the very man whom she had
fancied that she could guide and mould to her own
purposes. He had guided and moulded her now against
her self-respect, her compassion, her innate sense of right.
Already she was his tool. True, she had submitted to be
so for a great purpose. But, suppose she had to submit
again hereafter—always henceforth? And what made the
thought more poignant was, her knowledge that he was
right; that he knew what to do, and how to do it. She
A/YAA 7/4. 3O5
could not help admiring him for his address, his quickness,
his clear, practical insight ; and yet she despised, mis-
trusted, all but hated him. But what if his were the very
qualities which were destined to succeed? What if her
purer and loftier aims, her resolutions—now, alas! broken
—never to act but on the deepest and holiest principles
and by the most sacred means, and destined never to exert
themselves in practice, except conjointly with miserable
stratagems and cajoleries such as these? What if state-
craft, and not philosophy and religion, were the appointed
rulers of mankind? Hideous thought! And yet—she who
had all her life tried to be self-dependent, originative, to
face and crush the hostile mob of circumstances and
custom, and do battle single-handed with Christianity and
a fallen age—how was it that in her first important and
critical opportunity of action she had been dumb, irreso-
lute, passive, the victim of the very corruption which she
was to exterminate? She did not know that those who
have no other means for regenerating a corrupted time
than dogmatic pedantries concerning the dead and unre-
turning past, must end in practice, by borrowing insin-
cerely and using clumsily the very weapons of that novel
age which they deprecate, and “sewing new cloth into old
garments,” till the rent becomes patent and incurable.
But in the meanwhile, such meditations as these drove
from her mind for that day both Athene, and the ode, and
philosophy, and all things but—Pelagia the wanton.
In the meanwhile Alexandrian politics flowed onward
in their usual pure and quiet course. The public buildings
were placarded with the news of Heraclian's victory; and
groups of loungers expressed, loudly enough, their utter
indifference as to who might rule at Rome—or even at
Byzantium. Let Heraclian or Honorius be emperor, the
capitals must be fed ; and while the Alexandrian wheat
trade was uninjured, what matter who received the tribute?
Certainly, as some friends of Orestes found means to
suggest, it might not be a bad thing for Egypt if she could
keep the tribute in her own treasury, instead of sending it
to Rome, without any adequate return save the presence
of an expensive army. . . . Alexandria had been once the
metropolis of an independent empire. . . . Why not again?
306 HyPATIA,
Then came enormous largesses of corn, proving, more
satisfactorily to the mob than to the shipowners, that
Egyptian wheat was better employed at home than abroad.
Nay, there were even rumors of a general amnesty for all
prisoners; and as, of course, every evil-doer had a kind of
friend who considered him an injured martyr, all parties
were well content, on their own account at least, with such
a. [I] O Ve.
And so Orestes’ bubble swelled, and grew, and glittered
every day with fresh prismatic radiance ; while Hypatia sat
at home with a heavy heart, writing her Ode to Venus
Urania, and submitting to Orestes’ daily visits.
One cloud, indeed, not without squalls of wind and rain,
disfigured that sky which the prefect had invested with
such serenity by the simple expedient, well known to
politicians, of painting it bright blue, since it would not
assume that color of its own accord. For, a day or two
after Ammonius's execution, the prefect’s guards informed
him that the corpse of the crucified man, with the cross
on which it hung, had vanished. The Nitrian monks had
come down in a body and carried them off before the very
eyes of the sentinels. Orestes knew well enough that the
fellows must have been bribed to allow the theft ; but he
dare not say so to men on whose good humor his very life
might depend: so stomaching the affront as best he could,
he vowed fresh vengeance against Cyril, and went on his
way. But, behold! within four-and-twenty hours of the
theft, a procession of all the rascality, followed by all the
piety of Alexandria—monks from Nitria counted by the
thousand—priests deacons, archdeacons, Cyril himself,
in full pontificals, and, borne aloft in the midst upon a
splendid bier the missing corpse, its nail-pierced hands
and feet left uncovered for the pitying gaze of the Church.
Under the very palace windows, from which Orestes
found it expedient to retire for the time being, out upon
the quays, and up the steps of the Caesareum defiled that
new portent ; and in anothor half-hour a servant entered
breathlessly, to inform the shepherd of the people that
his victim was lying in state in the centre of the nave, a
martyr duly canonized–Ammonius now no more, but hence-
forth Thaumasius the wonderful, on whose heroic virtues
Aſ YPA 7/A, 307
and more heroic faithfulness unto the death, Cyril was
already descanting from the pulpit, amid thunders of
applause at every allusion to Sisera at the brook Kishon,
Sennacherib in the house of Nisroch, and the rest of the
princes of this world who come to naught.
Here was a storm' To order a cohort to enter the
church and bring away the body was easy enough : to
make them do it, in the face of certain death, was not so
easy. Besides, it was “too early yet for so desperate a
move as would be involved in the violation of the church.
So Orestes added this fresh item to the long column
of accounts which he intended to settle with the patriarch ;
Cursed for half an hour in the name of all divinities, saints
and martyrs, Christian and Pagan, and wrote off a
lamentable history of his wrongs and sufferings to the
very Byzantine court against which he was about to rebel,
in the comfortable assurance that Cyril had sent, by the
same post, a counterstatement, contradicting it in every
particular. . . . Never mind. . . . In case he failed in
rebelling, it was as well to be able to prove his allegiance
up to the latest possible date ; and the more completely
the two statements contradicted each other, the longer it
would take to sift the truth out of them ; and thus so much
time was gained, and so much the more chance, meantime,
of a new leaf being turned over in that Sibylline oracle of
politicians—the Chapter of Accidents. And, for the time
being, he would make a pathetic appeal to respectability
and moderation in general, of which Alexandria, wherein
some hundred thousand tradesmen and merchants had
property to lose, possessed a goodly share.
Respectability responded promptly to the appeal ; and
loyal addresses and deputations of condolence flowed in
from every quarter, expressing the extreme sorrow with
which the citizens had beheld the late disturbances of
civil order, and the contempt which had been so unfortu-
nately evinced for the constituted authorities: but taking,
nevertheless, the liberty to remark, that while the extreme
danger to property which might ensue from the future
exasperation of certain classes prevented their taking
those active steps on the side of tranquillity, to which their
feelings inclined them, the known piety and wisdom of
3O8 Aſ VPA 7TWA,
their esteemed patriarch made it presumptuous in them to
offer any opinion on the present conduct, beyond the
expression of their firm belief that he had been unfor-
tunately misinformed as to those sentiments of affection
and respect which his excellency, the prefect, was well
known to entertain toward him. They ventured, there-
fore, to express a humble hope that by some mutual com-
promise, to define which would be an unwarrantable
intrusion on their part, a happy reconciliation would be
effected, and the stability of law, property and the Catholic
faith insured. . . . All which Orestes heard with blandest
smiles, while his heart was black with curses, and Cyril
answered by a very violent though a very true and prac-
tical harangue on the text, “How hardly shall they that
have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
So respectability and moderation met with its usual
hapless fate, and, soundly cursed by both parties, in the
vain attempt to please both, wisely left the upper powers
to settle their own affairs, and went home to their desks
and counters, and did a very brisk business all that week
On the strength of the approaching festival. One hapless
innkeeper only tried to carry out in practice the principles
which the deputation from his guild had so eloquently
advocated ; and being convicted of giving away bread in
the morning to the Nitrian monks, and wine in the evening
to the prefect’s guards, had his tavern gutted, and his
head broken by a joint Plebiscitum of both the parties
whom he had conciliated, who afterwards fought a little
together, and then, luckily for the general peace, mutually
ran away from each other.
Cyril in the meanwhile, though he was doing a foolish
thing, was doing it wisely enough, Orestes might curse,
and respectability might deplore those nightly sermons,
which shook the mighty arcades of the Caesareum, but
they could not answer them. Cyril was right, and knew
that he was right. Orestes was a scoundrel hateful to God
and to the enemies of God. The middle classes were luke-
warm, covetous cowards ; the whole system of govern-
ment was a swindle and an injustice ; all men's hearts
were mad with crying, “Lord, how long?”
The fierce bishop had only to thunder förth text on text,
A/YA-4 77.4. 3O9
from every book of scripture, old and new, in order to
array on his side not merely the common sense and the
right feeling, but the bigotry and ferocity of the masses.
In vain did the good Arsenius represent to him not only
the Scandal but the unrighteousness of his new canoniza-
tion. “I must have fuel, my good father,” was his
answer, “where with to keep alight the flame of zeal. If I
am to be silent as to Heraclian's defeat, I must give them
some irritant which will put them in a proper temper to
act on that defeat when they are told of it. If they hate
Orestes, does he not deserve it? Even if he is not alto-
gether as much in the wrong in this particular case as they
fancy he is, are there not a thousand other crimes of his
which deserve their abhorrence even more? At all events,
he must proclaim the empire, as you yourself say, or we
shall have no handle against him. He will not dare to
proclaim it, if he knows that we are aware of the truth.
And if we are to keep the truth in reserve, we must have
something else to serve meanwhile as a substitute for it.”
And poor Arsenius submitted with a sigh as he saw
Cyril making a fresh step in that alluring path of evil-
doing that good might come, which led him in after years
into many a fearful sin, and left his name disgraced,
perhaps forever, in the judgment of generations, who
know as little of the pandemonium against which he
fought as they do of the intense belief which sustained him
in his warfare ; and who have therefore neither under-
standing nor pardon for the occasional outrages and errors
of a man no worse, even if no better, than themselves,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SQUIRE-BISHOP.
IN a small and ill-furnished upper room of a fortified
country-house sat Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene.
A goblet of wine stood beside him on the table, but it
was untasted. Slowly and sadly, by the light of a tiny
lamp, he went on writing a verse or two, and then burying
his face in his hand, while hot tears dropped between his
fingers on the paper, till a servant entering, announced
Raphael Aben-Ezra. . -
Synesius rose with a gesture of surprise, and hurried
toward the door. “No, ask him to come hither to me.
To pass through those deserted rooms at night is more
than I can bear.” And he waited for his guest at the
chamber door, and as he entered, caught both his hands in
his, and tried to speak; but his voice was choked within
him. -
“Do not speak,” said Raphael, gently leading him to
his chair again. “I know all.”
“You know all? And are you, then, so unlike the rest
of the world, that you alone have come to visit the
bereaved and the deserted in his misery?”
‘‘I am like the rest of the world, after all : for I came
to you on my own selfish errand to seek comfort. Would
that I could give it instead! But the servants told me all
below.”
“And yet you persisted in seeing me, as if I could help
you! Alas! I can help no one now. Here I am at last,
utterly alone, utterly helpless. As I came from my
mother's womb, so I shall return again. My last child—
my last and fairest—gone after the rest! Thank God, that
I have had even a day’s peace wherein to lay him by his
mother and his brothers : though He alone knows how
long the beloved graves may remain unrifled. Let it have
been shame enough to sit here in my lonely tower and
3IO
AyAA774. - 3 II
watch the ashes of my Spartan ancestors, the sons of
Hercules himself, my glory and my pride, sinful fool that
I was! cast to the winds by barbarian plunderers. . . .
When wilt thou make an end, O Lord, and slay me?”
“And how did the poor boy die?” asked Raphael, in
hope of soothing sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in
words.
“The pestilence. What other fate can we expect, who
breathe an air tainted with corpses, and sit under a sky
darkened with carrion birds? But I could endure even
that, if I could work, if I could help. But to sit here
imprisoned now for months between these hateful towers ;
night after night to watch the sky, red with burning home-
steads ; day after day to have my ears ring with the shrieks
of the dying and the captives—for they have begun now to
murder every male, down to the baby at the breast—and to
feel myself utterly fettered, impotent, sitting here like
some palsied idiot, waiting for my end I long to rush out
and fall fighting, sword in hand ; but I ain their last, their
only hope. The governors care nothing for Our supplica-
tions. In vain have I memorialized Gennadius and
Innocent, with the little eloquence my misery had not
stunned in me. But there is resolution, Ilo unanimity ieft
in the land. The soldiery are scattered in small garrisons,
employed entirely in protecting the private property of
their Officers. The Ausurians defeat them piecemeal, and,
armed with their spoils, actually have begun to beleaguer
fortified towns : and now there is nothing left for but
to pray that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured the last.
What am I doing? I am selfishly pouring out my own
sorrows instead of listening to yours.”
“Nay, friend, you are talking of the sorrows of your
country, not of your own. As for me, I have no sorrow—
only a despair : which, being irremediable, may well wait.
But you—oh, you must not stay here. Why not escape to
Alexandria?”
‘‘I will die at my post as I have lived, the father of my
people. When the last ruin comes, and Cyrene itself is
besieged, I shall return thither from my present outpost,
and the conquerors shall find the bishop in his place
before the altar. There I have offered for years the
312 * < HyPA 774.
unbloody sacrifice to Him, who will perhaps require of me
a bloody one, that so the sight of an altar polluted by the
murder of His priest, may end the sum of Pentapolitan
woe, and arouse Him to avenge His slaughtered sheep!
There, we will talk no more of it. This at least I have
left in my power, to make you welcome. And after Supper
you shall tell me what brings you hither.”
And the good bishop, calling his servants, set to worſ:
to show his guest such hospitality as the invaders had left
in his power. *
Raphael's usual insight had not deserted him when, in
his utter perplexity he went, almost instinctively, straight
to Synesius. The Bishop of Cyrene, to judge from the
charming private letters which he has left, was one of those
many-sided, volatile, restless men, who taste joy and
sorrow, if not deeply or permanently, yet abundantly and
passionately. He lived, as Raphael had told Orestes, in a
whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and toiling for the
mere pleasure of action ; and as soon as there was nothing
to be done, which till lately had happened seldom enough
with him, paid the penalty for past excitement in fits of
melancholy. A man of magniloquent and flowery style,
not without a vein of self-conceit ; yet withal of over-
flowing kindness, racy humor and unflinching courage,
both physical and moral ; with a very clear practical
faculty, and a very muddy speculative one—though, of
course, like the rest of the world, he was especially proud
of his own weakest side, and professed the most passionate
affection for philosophic meditation ; while his detractors
hinted, not without a show of reason, that he was far more
of an adept in soldiering and dog-breaking than in the
mysteries of the unseen world. - *
To him Raphael betook himself, he hardly knew why—
certainly not for philosophic consolation ; perhaps because
Synesius was, as Raphael used to say, the only Christian
from whom he had ever heard a hearty laugh ; perhaps
because he had some wayward hope, unconfessed even to
himself, that he might meet at Synesius's house the very
companions from whom he had just fled. He was flutter-
ing round Victoria's new and strange brilliance like a moth
round the candle, as he confessed, after supper, to his
Ayy/24 7/4. 3I 3
host ; and now he was hither on the chance of being
able to singe his wings once more.
Not that his confession was extracted without much
trouble to the old man, who, seeing at once that Raphael
had some weight upon his mind, which he longed to tell
and yet was either too suspicious or too proud to tell, set
himself to ferret out the secret, and forgot all his sorrows
for the time, as soon as he found a human being to whom
he might do good. But Raphael was inexplicably way-
ward and unlike himself. All his smooth and shallow
persiflage, even his shrewd satiric humor had vanished.
He seemed parched by some inward fever, restless, moody,
abrupt, even peevish ; and Synesius's curiosity rose with
his disappointment as Raphael went on obstinately declin-
ing to . consult the very physician before whom he had-
presented himself as patient.
“And what can you do for me if I did tell you?”
“Then allow me, my very dear friend, to ask this : As
you deny having visited me on my own account, on what
account did you visit me?”
“Can you ask? To enjoy the society of the most
finished gentleman of Pentapolis.”
“And was that worth a week’s journey in perpetual
danger of death?” •r
“As for danger of death, that weighs little with a man
who is careless of life. And as for the week’s journey, I
had a dream one night on my way which made me question
whether I were wise in troubling a Christian bishop with
any thoughts or questions which relate merely to poor
human beings like myself, who marry and are given in
marriage.”
“You forget, friend, that you are speaking to one who
was married, and loved, and—lost.”
“I did not. But you see how rude I am growing. I am
no fit company for you or any man. I believe I shall end
by turning robber chief, and heading a party of
Ausurians.”
“But,” said the patient Synesius, “you have forgotten
your dream all this while.”
“Forgotten I did not promise to tell it to you, did I?”
“No ; but as it seems to have contained some sort of
3f4. - A/YAEA 7/4.
accusation against my capacity, do you not think it but
fair to tell the accused what it was P”
Raphael smiled. “Well, then. . . . Suppose I had
dreamt this : That a philosopher, an academic, and a
believer in nothing and in no man, had met at Berenice
certain rabbis of the Jews, and heard them reading and
expounding a certain book of Solomon—the Song of Songs.
You, as a learned man, know into what sort of trumpery
allegory they would contrive to twist it ; how the bride's
eyes were to mean the scribes who were full of wisdom, as
the pools of Heshbon were of water ; and her stature,
spreading like a palm-tree, the priests who spread out their
hands when blessing the people; and the left hand, which
should be under her head, the Tephilim which these old
pedants wore on their left wrists ; and the right hand,
which should hold her, the Mezuzah which they fixed on
the right side of their doors to keep off devils ; and so
forth.”
‘‘I have heard such silly Cabbalisms, certainly.”
“You have? Then suppose that I went on, and saw in
my dream how this same academic and unbeliever, being
himself also a Hebrew of the Hebrews, snatched the roll
out of the rabbi’s hand, and told them that they were a
party of fools for trying to set forth what the book might
possibly mean, before they had found out what it really
did mean, and that they could only find out that by
looking honestly at the plain words to see what Solomon
meant by it. And then suppose that this same apostate
Jew, this member of the synagogue of Satan, in his carnal
and lawless imaginations, had waxed eloquent with the
eloquence of devils, and told them that the book set forth,
to those who had eyes to see, how Solomon the great king,
with his threescore queens and fourscore concubines, and
virgins without number, forgets all his seraglio and his
luxury in pure and noble love for the undefiled, who is but
one ; and how as his eyes are opened to see that God
made the one man for the one woman, and the one
woman to the one man, even as was in the garden of Eden,
so all his heart and thoughts become pure, and gentle, and
simple; how the song of the birds, and the scent of the
grapes, and the spicy southern gales, and all the simple
HyPATIA, 315
country pleasures of the glens of Lebanon, which he shares
with his own vine-dressers and slaves, become more
precious in his eyes than all his palaces and artificial
pomp ; and the man feels that he is in harmony, for the
first time in his life, with the universe of God, and with
the mystery of the seasons; that within him, as well as
without him, the winter is past, and the rain is over and
gone ; the flowers appear on the earth, and the voice of
the turtle is heard in the land. . . . And suppose I saw in
my dream how the rabbis, when they heard those wicked
words, stopped their ears with one accord, and ran upon
that son of Belial and cast him out, because he blas-
phemed their sacred books by his carnal interpretations.
And suppose—I only say suppose—that I saw in my
dream how the poor man said in his heart, “I will go to
the Christians ; they acknowledge the sacredness of this
same book, and they say that their God taught them that
‘in the beginning God made man, male and female.'
Perhaps they will tell me whether this Song of Songs does
not, as it seems to me to do, show the passage upward
from polygamy to that monogamy which they so solemnly
command ; and agree with me, that it is because the song
~~~~~~ l- > →
‘holy writings?’ You, as a Christian bishop, should know
what answer such a man would receive. . . . You are
silent? Then I will tell you what answer he seemed to
receive in my dream. ‘O blasphemous and carnal man,
who pervertest Holy Scripture into a cloak for thine own
licentiousness, as if it spoke of man's base sensual affec-
tions, know that this book is to be spiritually interpreted
of the marriage between the soul and its Creator, and that
it is from this very book that the Catholic Church derives
her strongest arguments in favor of holy virginity, and the
glories of a celibate life.’”
Synesius was still silent.
“And what do you think I saw in my dream that that
man did when he found these Christians enforcing, as a
necessary article of practice, as well as of faith, a baseless
and bombastic metaphor, borrowed from that very Neo-
Platonism out of which he had just fled for his life? He
cursed the day he was born, and the hour in which his
316 HyPAT/A.
father was told, ‘Thou hast gotten a man-child,’ and said,
* Philosophers, Jews and Christians, farewell forever and a
day. The clearest words of your most sacred books mean
anything or nothing, as the case may suit your fancies;
and their is neither truth nor reason under the sun. What
better is there for a man than to follow the example of his
people, and turn to usurer, and money-getter, and cajoler of
fools in his turn, even as his father was before him?’”
Synesius remained awhile in deep thought, and at last—
“And yet you came to me?” -
“I did, because you have loved and married ; because
you have stood out manfully against this strange modern
insanity, and refused to give up, when you were made a
bishop, the wife whom God had given you. You, I
thought, could solve the riddle for me, if any man could.”
“Alas, friend! I have begun to distrust of late my
power of solving riddles. After all, why should they be
solved? What matters one more mystery in a world of
mysteries? “If thou marry, thou hast not sinned,’ are
St. Paul’s own words; and let them be enough for us. Do
not ask me to argue with you, but to help you. Instead
of puzzling me with deep questions, and tempting me to
set up my private judgment, as I have done too often
already, against the opinion of the Church, tell me your
story, and test my sympathy rather than my intellect. I
shall feel with you and work for you, doubt not, even
though I am unable to explain to myself why I do it.”
“Then you cannot solve my riddle?”
‘‘Let me help you,” said Synesius with a sweet smile,
“to solve it for yourself. You need not try to deceive me.
You have a love, an undefiled, who is but one. When you
possess her you will be able to judge better whether your
interpretation of the song is the true one ; and if you still
think that it is, Synesius, at least, will have no quarrel
against you. He has always claimed for himself the right
of philosophizing in private, and he will allow the same
liberty to you, whether the mob do or not.” * .
“Then you agree with me? Of course you do!”
“Is it fair to ask me whether I accept a novel interpre-
tation, which I have only heard five minutes ago, deliv-
ered in a somewhat hasty and rhetorical form?”
Aſ YPA 7TWA. 3 I?
“You are shirking the question,” said Raphael,
peevishly.
“And what if I am? Tell me point-blank, most self-
tormenting of men, can I help you in practice, even though
I choose to leave you to yourself in speculation?”
“Well, then, if you will have my story, take it and
judge for yourself of Christian common sense.”
And hurried, as if ashamed of his own confession, and
yet compelled in spite of himself to unbosom it, he told
Synesius all, from the first meeting with Victoria to his
escape from her at Berenice.
The good bishop, to Aben-Ezra's surprise, seemed to
treat the whole matter as infinitely amusing. He chuckled,
Smote his hand on his thigh, and nodded approval at every
pause—perhaps to give the speaker courage—perhaps
because he really thought that Raphael’s prospects were
considerably less desperate than he fancied. . . .
“If you laugh at me, Synesius, I am silent. It is quite
enough to endure the humiliation of telling you that I am
—confound it! like any boy of sixteen.”
“Laugh at you? With you, you mean. A convent?
Pooh, pooh! The old prefect has enough sense, I
will warrant him, not to refuse a good match for his
child.”
“You forget that I have not the honor of being a
Christian.” º
“Then we'll make you one. You won’t let me convert
you, I know ; you always used to gibe and jeer at my
philosophy. But Augustine comes tomorrow.”
“Augustine?” -
“He does indeed ; and we must be off by daybreak,
with all the armed men we can muster, to meet and escort
him, and to hunt, of course, going and coming ; for we
have had no food this fortnight but what our own dogs
and bows have furnished us. He shall take you in hand,
and cure you of all your Judaism in a week; and then just
leave the rest to me; I will manage it somehow or other.
It is sure to come right. No ; do not be bashful. It will
be real amusement to a poor wretch who can find nothing
else to do—heigho! And as for lying under an obligation
to me, why we can square that by your lending me three
318 A. VPA TVA.
or four thousand gold pieces—Heaven knows I want them!
on the certainty of never seeing them again.”
Raphael could not help laughing in his turn.
“Synesius is himself still, I see, and not unworthy of
his ancestor Hercules; and though he shrinks from cleans-
ing the Augean stable of my soul, paws like a war-horse
in the valley at the hope of undertaking any lesser labors
in my behalf. But, my dear generous bishop, this matter
is more serious, and I, the subject of it, have become more
serious also, than you fancy. Consider: by the uncorrupt
honor of your Spartan forefathers, Agis, Brasidas, and the
rest of them, don’t you think that you are, in your hasty
kindness, tempting me to behave in a way which they
would have called somewhat rascally?”
“How then, my dear man? You have a very honorable
and praiseworthy desire ; and I am willing to help you to
compass it.”
“Do not think that I have not cast about before now
for more than one method of compassing it for myself.
My good man, I have been tempted a dozen times already
to turn Christian ; but there has risen up in me the strang-
est fancy about conscience and honor. . . . I never was
scrupulous before, Heaven knows—I am not over-
Scrupulous now—except about her. I cannot dissemble
before her. I dared not look in her face when I had a lie
in my right hand. . . . She looks through one—into one—
like a clear-eyed, awful goddess. . . . I never was
ashamed in my life till my eyes met hers.” -
“But if you really became a Christian?”
‘‘I cannot, I should suspect my own motives. Here is
another of these absurd soul-anatomizing scruples which
have risen up in me. I should suspect that I had changed
my creed because I had wished to change it—that if I was
not deceiving her, I was deceiving myself. If I had not
loved her, it might have been different ; but now—just
because I do love her, I will not, I dare not, listen to
Augustine's arguments or my own thoughts on the matter.”
“Most wayward of men!” cried Synesius, half pettishly ;
“you seem to take some perverse pleasure in throwing
yourself into the waves again the instant you have climbed
a rock of refuge!” -
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 3I9
“Pleasure! Is there any pleasure in feeling one's self at
death-grips with the devil? I had given up believing in
him for many a year. . . . And behold, the moment that
I awaken to anything noble and right, I find the old
serpent alive and strong at my throat! No wonder that I
suspect him, you, myself—I, who have been tempted
every hour in the last week, tempted to become a devil.
Ay,” he went on, raising his voice, as all the fire of his
intense Eastern nature flashed from his black eyes, ‘‘to be
a devil! From my childhood till now never have I known
what it was to desire, and not to possess. It is not often
that I have had to trouble any poor Naboth for his vine-
yard : but when I have taken a fancy to it, Naboth has
alwas found it wiser to give way! And now. . . . Do you
fancy that I have not had a dozen hellish plots flashing
across me in the last week? Look here? This is the
mortgage of her father’s whole estate. I bought it—
whether by the instigation of Satan or God—of a banker in
Berenice, the very day I left them ; and now they, and
every straw which they possess, are in my power. I can
ruin them—sell them as slaves—betray them to death as
rebels—and last, but not least, cannot I hire a dozen
worthy men to carry her off, and cut the Gordian knot
most simply and summarily? And yet I dare not. I must
be pure to approach the pure ; and righteous to kiss the
feet of the righteous. Whence came this new conscience
to me I know not, but come it has ; and I dare no more do
a base thing toward her, than I dare toward a God, if there
be one. This very mortgage—I hate it, curse it, now that
I possess it—the tempting devil!”
“Burn it,” said Synesius, quietly.
‘‘Perhaps I may. At least, used it never shall be.
Compel her? I am too proud, or too honorable, or some-
thing or other, even to solicit her. She must come to me;
tell me with her own lips that she loves me, that she will
take me, and make me worthy of her. She must have
mercy on me, of her own free will, or—let her pine and die
in that accursed prison ; and then a scratch with the trusty
old dagger for her father, and another for myself, will save
him from any more superstitions, and me from any more
philosophic doubts, for a few aeons of ages, till we start
32O A. VPA 774.
again in new lives—he, I suppose, as a jackass, and I as a
babboon. What matter? but unless I possess her by fair
means, God do so to me, and more also, if I attempt base
ones!” -
“God be with you, my son, in the noble warfare!” said
Synesius, his eyes filling with kindly tears.
“It is no noble warfare at all. It is a base coward fear,
in one who never before feared man or devil, and is now
fallen low enough to be afraid of a helpless girl!”
“Not so,” cried Synesius, in his turn : “it is a noble
and a holy fear. You fear her goodness. Could you see
her goodness, much less fear it, were there not a Divine
Light within you which showed you what, and how awful,
goodness was P Tell me no more, Raphael Aben-Ezra,
that you do not fear God : for he who fears virtue, fears
Him whose likeness virtue is. Go on—go on. . . . Be
brave, and his strength will be made manifest in your
weakness.”
>k >{< >k >k >{< >k >{< >k
It was late that night before Synesius compelled his
guest to retire, after having warned him not to disturb
himself if he heard the alarm-bell ring, as the house was
well garrisoned, and having set the water-clock by which
he and his servants measured their respective watches.
And then the good bishop, having disposed his sentinels,
took his station on the top of his tower, close by the
warning-bell; and as he looked out over the broad lands
of his forefathers and prayed that there desolation might
come to an end at last, he did not forget to pray for the
Consolation of the guest who slept below, a happier and
more healthy slumber than he had known for many a week.
For before Raphael lay down that night, he had torn to
shreds Majoricus's mortgage, and felt a lighter and a better
man as he saw the cunning temptation consumed scrap
by scrap in the lamp-flame. And then, wearied out with
fatigue of body and mind, he forgot Synesius, Victoria
and the rest, and seemed to himself to wonder all night
among the vine-clad glens of Lebanon, among the gardens
of lilies and the beds of spices; while shepherds' music
lured him on and on, and girlish voices, chanting the
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 32 I
mystic idyl of his mighty ancestor, ran soft and fitful
through his weary brain.
>k >}< >k >k >k :k
Before sunrise the next morning, Raphael was faring
forth gallantly, well armed and mounted, by Synesius's
side, followed by four or five brace of tall, brush-tailed
grayhounds, and by the faithful Bran, whose lop-ears and
heavy jaws, unique in that land of prick-ears and fox-
noses, formed the absorbing subject of conversation among
some twenty smart retainers, who, armed to the teeth for
chase and war, rode behind the bishop on half-starved,
raw-boned horses, inured by desert training and bad times
to do the maximum of work upon the minimum of food.
For the first few miles they rode in silence, through
ruined villages and desolated farms, from which here and
there a single inhabitant peeped forth fearfully, to pour
his tale of woe into the ears of the hapless bishop, and
then, instead of asking alms from him, to entreat his
acceptance of some paltry remnant of grain or poultry,
which had escaped the hands of the marauders; and as
they clung to his hands, and blessed him as their only
hope and stay, poor Synesius heard patiently again and
again the same purposeless tale of woe, and mingled his
tears with theirs, and then spurred his horse on impa-
tiently, as if to escape from the sight of misery which he
could not relieve ; while a voice in Raphael’s heart seemed
to ask him, “Why was thy wealth given to thee, but that
thou mightest dry, if but for a day, such tears as these?”
And he fell into a meditation which was not without its
fruit in due season, but which lasted till they had left the
inclosed country, and were climbing the slopes of the low
rolling hills, over which lay the road frona the distant sea.
But as they left the signs of war behind them, the volatile
temper of the good bishop began to rise. He petted his
hounds, chatted to his men, discoursed on the most
probable quarter for finding game, and exhorted them,
cheerfully enough, to play the man, as their chance of
having anything to eat at night depended entirely on their
prowess during the day.
“Ah!” said Raphael at last, glad of a pretext for break-
ing his own chain of painful thought, ‘‘there is a vein of
&
322 A/VA’A 7TWA.
your land-salt. I suspect that you were all at the bottom
of the sea once, and that the old Earth-shaker, Neptune,
tired of your bad ways, gave you a lift one morning, and
set you up as dry land, in order to be rid of you.”
“It may really be so. They say that the Argonauts
returned back through this country from the Southern
Ocean, which must have been, therefore, far nearer us than
it is now, and that they carried their mystic vessel over
these very hills to the Syrtis. However, we have forgot-
ten all about the sea thoroughly enough since that time.
I well remember my first astonishment at the sight of a
galley in Alexandria, and the roar of laughter with which
my fellow-students greeted my not unreasonable remark,
that it looked very like a centipede.”
“And do you recollect, too, the argument, which I
had once with your steward about the pickled fish
which I brought you from Egypt; and the way in
which, when the jar was opened, the servants shrieked
and ran right and left, declaring that the fish bones were
the spines of poisonous serpents?” *
‘‘The old fellow is as obstinate as ever, I assure you, in
his disbelief of salt water. He torments me continually
by asking me to tell him the story of my shipwreck, and
does not believe me after all, though he has heard it a
dozen times. “Sir,’ he said to me, solemnly, after you
were gone, “will that strange gentleman pretend to per-
suade me that anything eatable can come out of his great
pond there at Alexandria, when every one can see that the
best fountain in the country never breeds anything but
frogs and leeches?’”
As he spoke they left the last field behind them, and
entered upon a vast sheet of breezy down, speckled with
shrubs and copse, and split here and there by rocky glens,
ending in fertile valleys, once thick with farms and home-
steads. *
“Here,” cried Synesius, ‘‘ are our hunting-grounds.
And now for one hour's forgetfulness, and the joys of the
noble art! What could old Homer have been thinkin gof
when he forgot to number it among the pursuits which are
glorious to heroes, and make man illustrious, and yet could
laud in those very words the forum ?”
AYPazza. 323
“The forum?” said Raphael. “I never saw it yet make
men anything but rascals.” . -
“Brazen-faced rascals, my friend. I detest the whole
breed of lawyers, and never met one without turning him
into ridicule ; effeminate pettifoggers, who shudder at the
very sight of roast venison, when they think of the dan-
gers by which it has been procured. But it is a cowardly
age, my friend—a cowardly age. Let us forget it, and
ourselves.”
“And even philosophy and Hypatia?” said Raphael,
archly. -
‘‘I have done with philosophy. To fight like an
Heracleid, and to die like a bishop, is all I have left—
except Hypatia, the perfect, the wise, I tell you, friend, it
is a comfort to me, even in my deepest misery, to recollect
that the corrupt world yet holds one being so divine 5 y
And he was running on in one of his high-flown lauda-
tions of his idol, when Raphael checked him.
‘‘I fear our common sympathy on that subject is rather
weakened. I have begun to doubt her lately nearly as
much as I doubt philosophy.”
** Not her virtue?” -
‘‘No, friend; nor her beauty, nor her wisdom ; simply
her power of making me a better man. A selfish criterion,
you will say. Be it so. . . . What a noble horse that is
of yours!”
“He has been—he has been ; but worn out now, like
his master, and his master's fortunes.” . . . .
“Not so, certainly, the colt on which you have done me
the honor to mount me.”
“Ah, my poor boy's pet! . . . You are the first person
who has crossed him since $ 3
“Is he of your own breeding?” asked Raphael, trying
to turn the conversation. -
“A cross between that white Nisaean which you sent
me, and one of my own mares.” . .
“Not a bad cross ; though he keeps a little of the bull-
head and greyhound flank of your Africans.” -
“So much the better, friend. Give me bone—bone and
endurance for this rough down country. Your delicate
Nisaeans are all very well for a few minutes over those flat
324. A/YA-A 7TMA.
sands of Egypt : but here you need a horse who will go
forty miles a day over rough and smooth, and dine thank-
fully off thistles at night. Aha, poor little man!” as a
jerboa sprang up from a turf of bushes at his feet—“I fear
you must help to fill our soup-kettle in these hard times.”
And with a dexterous sweep of his long whip, the worthy
bishop entangled the jerboa’s long legs, whisked him up
to his saddle bow, and delivered him to the groom and the
game-bag. : -
“Kill him at once. Don’t let him squeak, boy! he cries
too like a child.”
“Poor little wretch!” said Raphael. “What more
right, now, have we to eat him than he to eat us?”
“Eh P If he can eat us, let him try. How long have
you joined the Manichees?” .
‘‘Have no fear on that score. But, as I told you,
since my wonderful conversion by Bran, the dog, I have
begun to hold dumb animals in respect, as probably quite
as good as myself.”
“Then you need a further conversion, friend Raphael,
and to learn what is the dignity of man ; and when that
arrives, you will learn to believe with me, that the life of
every beast upon the face of the earth would be cheap
price to pay in exchange for the life of the meanest human
being.”
“Yes, if they be required for food : but really, to kill
them for our amusement!” -
“Friend, when I was still a heathen, I recollect well
how I used to haggle at that story of the cursing of the fig-
tree ; but when I learnt to know what man was, and that
I had been all my life mistaking for a part of nature that
race which was originally, and can be again, made in the
likeness of God, then I began to see that it were well if
every fig-tree upon earth were cursed, if the spirit of one
man could be taught thereby a single lesson. And so I
speak of these, my darling field-sports, on which I have
not been ashamed, as you know, to write a book.”
“And a very charming one : yet you were still a pagan,
recollect, when you wrote it.”
‘‘I was ; and then I followed the chase by mere nature
and inclination. But now I know I have a right to follow
A VA’A 77.4. 325
it, because it gives me endurance, promptness, courage,
self-control, as well as health and cheerfulness : and there-
fore—ah! a fresh ostrich-track!”
And stopping short, Synesius began pricking slowly up
the hill-side.
“Back!” whispered he, at last. “Quietly and silently.
Lie down on your horse's neck, as I do, or the long-necked
rogues may see you. They must be close to us over the
brow. I know that favorite grassy slope of old. Round
under yon hill, or they will get wind of us, and then fare-
well to them l’’
And Synesius and his groom cantered on, hanging each
to their horses’ necks by an arm and a leg, in a way which
Raphael endeavored in vain to imitate.
Two or three minutes more of breathless silence brought
them to the edge of the hill, where Synesius halted,
peered down a moment, and then turned to Raphael,
his face and limbs quivering with delight, as he held up
two fingers, to denote the number of the birds.
“Out of arrow-range! Slip the dogs, Syphax!”
And in another minute Raphael found himself galloping
headlong down the hill, while two magnificent ostriches,
their outspread plumes waving in the bright breeze, their
necks stooped almost to the ground, and their long legs
flashing out behind them, were sweeping away before the
greyhounds at a pace which no mortal horse could have
held for ten minutes.
“Baby that I am still!” cried Synesius, tears of excite-
ment glittering in his eyes; . . . while Raphael gave him-
self up to the joy, and forgot even Victoria, in the breath-
less rush over rock and bush, sandhill and watercourse.
‘‘Take care of that dry torrent-bed ) . Hold up, old
horse This will not last two minutes more. They can-
not hold their pace against this breeze. . . . Well tried,
good dog, though you did miss him Ah, that my boy
were here! There—they double. Spread right and left
my children, and ride at them as they pass!”
And the ortsiches, unable, as Synesius said, to keep
their pace against the breeze, turned sharp on their pur-
suers, and beating the air with outspread wings, came down
the wind again at a rate even more wonderful than before.
326 - HyPA 7/4.
“Ride at him, Raphael—ride at him and turn him into
those bushes!” cried Synesius, fitting an arrow to his bow.
Raphael obeyed and the bird swerved into the low
scrub ; the well-trained horse leapt at him like a cat; and
Raphael, who dared not trust his skill in archery, struck
with his whip at the long neck as it struggled past him,
and felled the noble quarry to the ground. He was in the
act of springing down to secure his prize, when a shout
from Synesius stopped him.
“Are you mad? He will kick out your heart! Let the
dogs hold him!” -
“Where is the other?” asked Raphael, panting.
“Where he ought to be. I have not missed a running
shot for many a month.”
“Really, you rival the Emperor Commodus himself.”
“Ah! I tried his fancy of crescent headed arrows once,
decapitated an ostrich or two tolerably: but they are only
fit for the amphitheatre : they will not lie safely in the
quiver on horseback, I find. But what is that?” And he
pointed to a cloud of white dust about a mile down the
valley. “A herd of antelopes? If so, God is indeed
gracious to us! Come down—whatsoever they are we
have no time to lose.” -
And collecting his scattered forces, Synesius pushed on
rapidly toward the object which had attracted his atten-
tion.
“Antelopes!” cried one.
• ‘Wild horses!” cried another.
“ Tame ones, rather!” cried Synesius, with a gesture
of wrath. “I saw the flash of arms!”
“The Ausurians!” And a yell of rage rang from the
whole troop.
“Will you follow me, children?”
• ‘To death!” shouted they. -
“I know it. Oh, that I had seven hundred of you, as
Abraham had We would see then whether these scoun-
drels did not share within a week the fate of Chedor-
laomers.’
“Happy man who can actually trust your own slaves!”
said Raphael, as the party galloped on, tightening their
girths and getting ready their weapons. .
A. VPA 7/4 327
“Slaves? If the law gives me the power of selling one
or two of them who are not yet wise enough to be trusted
to take care of themselves, it is a fact which both I and
they have long forgotten. Their fathers grew gray at my
father's table, and God grant that they may grow gray at
mine! We eat together, work together, hunt together,
fight iogether, jest together and weep together. God
help us all! for we have but one common weal. Now—do
you make out the enemy, boy?”
“Ausurians, your holiness. The same party who tried
Myrsinitis last week. I know them by the helmets which
they took from the Markmen.”
“And with whom are they fighting?”
No one could see. Fighting they certainly were: but
their victims were beyond them, and the party galloped
Oil.
“That was a smart business at Myrsinitis. The
Ausurians appeared while the people were at morning
prayer. The soldiers, of course, ran for their lives, and
hid in the caverns, leaving the matter to the priests.”
“If they were of your presbytery, I doubt not they
proved themselves worthy of their diocesan.” -
“Ah, if all my priests were but like them! or my people
either!” said Synesius, chatting quietly in full gallop, like
a true son of the saddle. “They offered up prayers for
victory, sallied out at the head of the peasants, and met
the Moors in a narrow pass. There their hearts failed
them a little. Faustus, the deacon, makes them a speech ;
charges the leader of the robbers, like young David, with
a stone, beats his brains out there with, strips him in true
Homeric fashion, and routs the Ausurians with their
leader's sword ; returns and erects a trophy in due classic
form, and saves the whole valley.”
“You should make him archdeacon.”
‘‘I would send him and his townsfolk round the
province, if I could, crowned with laurel, and proclaim
before them at every market-place, ‘These are men of
God.” With whom can those Ausurians be dealing?
Peasants would have been all killed long ago, and soldiers
would have run away long ago. It is truly a portent in
this country to see a fight last ten minutes. Who can they
328 HyP4774.
be? I see them now, and hewing away like men too.
They are all on foot but two ; and we have not a cohort of
infantry left for many a mile round.”
“I know who they are!” cried Raphael, suddenly strik-
ing spurs into his horse. “I will swear to that armor
among a thousand. And there is a litter in the midst of
them. On 1 and fight them, men, if you ever fought in
your lives!”
“Softly l’’ cried Synesius. “Trust an old soldier, and
perhaps—alas! that he should have to say it—the best left
in this wretched country. Round by the hollow, and take
the barbarians suddenly in flank. They will not see us
then till we are within twenty paces of them. Aha! you
have a thing or two to learn yet Aben-Ezra.”
And chuckling at the prospect of action, the gallant
bishop wheeled his little troop, and in five minutes more
dashed out of the copse with a shout and a flight of arrows,
and rushed into the thickest of the fight.
One cavalry skirmish must be very like another. A
crash of horses, a flashing of sword-blades, five minutes of
blind confusion, and then those who have not been knocked
out of their saddles by their neighbors' knees, and have
not cut off their own horses’ heads instead of their enemy’s,
find themselves, they know not how, either running away
or being run away from—not one blow in ten having taken
effect on either side. And even so Raphael, having made
vain attempts to cut down several Moors, found himself
standing on his head, in an altogether undignified posture,
among innumerable horses’ legs, in all possible frantic
motions. To avoid one, was to get in the way of another ;
so he philosophically sat still, speculating on the sensation
of having his brains kicked out, till the cloud of legs
vanished, and he found himself kneeling abjectly opposite
the nose of a mule, on whose back sat, utterly unmoved,
a tall and reverend man, in episcopal costume. The
stranger, instead of bursting out laughing, as Raphael did,
solemnly lifted his hand, and gave him his blessing. The
Jew sprang to his feet, heedless of all such courtesies, and,
looking round, saw the Ausurians galloping off up the hill
in scattered groups, and Synesius standing close by him,
wiping a bloody sword.
Aſ VPA 77.4. 329
‘‘Is the litter safe?” were his first words.
“Safe; and so are all. I gave you up for killed, when
I saw you run through with that lance.”
“Run through? I am as sound in the hide as a croco-
dile,” said Raphael, laughing.
“Probably the fellow took the butt instead of the point
in his hurry. So goes a cavalry scuffle. I saw you hit
three or four fellows running with the flat of your sword.”
“Ah, that explains,” said Raphael. “Why, I thought
myself once the best swordsman on the Armenian
frontier.” . . .
“I suspect you were thinking of some one besides the
Moors,” said Synesius, archly, pointing to the litter; and
Raphael, for the first time for many a year, blushed like a
boy of fifteen, and then turned haughtily away and
remounted his horse, saying, “ Clumsy fool that I was!”
“Thank God rather that you have been kept from the
shedding of blood,” said the stranger bishop, in a soft,
deliberate voice, with a peculiarly clear and delicate
enunciation. “If God have given us the victory, why
grudge His having spared any other of His creatures
besides ourselves?”
“Because there are so many the more of them left to
ravish, burn and slay,” answered Synesius. “Neverthe-
less, I am not going to argue with Augustine.”
Augustine! Raphael looked intently at the man, a tall,
delicate-featured personage, with a lofty and narrow fore-
head, scarred like his cheeks with the deep furrows of
many a doubt and woe. Resolve, gentle but unbending,
was expressed in his thin close-set lips and his clear quiet
eye; but the calm of his mighty countenance was the calm
of a worn-out volcano, over which centuries must pass
before the earthquake-rents be filled with kindly soil, and
the cinder slopes grow gray with grass and flowers. The
Jew’s thoughts, however, were soon turned into another
channel by the hearty embraces of Majoricus and his son.
“We have caught you again, you truant!” said the
young tribune; “you could not escape us, you see, after all.”
‘‘ Rather,” said the father, “we owe him a second debt
of gratitude for a second deliverance. We were right hard
bestead when you rode up.”
330 A/YAEA 7/4.
“Oh, he brings nothing but good with him whenever he
appears ; and then he pretends to be a bird of ill-omen,”
said the light-hearted tribune, putting his armor to rights.
Raphael was in his secret heart not sorry to find that
his old friends bore him no grudge for his caprice : but all
he answered was—‘‘Pray thank anyone but me ; I have,
as usual, proved myself a fool. But what brings you here,
like God's e Machina P. It is contrary to all probabilities.
One would not admit so astounding an incident, even in
the modern drama.”
“Contrary to none whatsoever, my friend. We found
Augustine at Berenice, in act to set off to Synesius : we-
one of us, that is—were certain that you would be found
with him ; and we decided on acting as Augustine’s guard,
for none of the dastard garrison dare stir out.”
“One of us,” thought Raphael—“which one?” And
conquering his pride, he asked, as carelessly as he could,
for Victoria. -
“She is there in the litter, poor child!” said her father,
in a serious tone.
“Surely, not ill?”
“Alas, either the overwrought excitement of months of
heroism broke down when she found us safe at last, or
some stroke from God. . . . Who can tell what I may not
have derserved? But she has been utterly prostrate in
body and mind, ever since we parted from you at
Berenice.”
The blunt soldier little guessed the meaning of his own
words. But Raphael, as he heard, felt a pang shoot
through his heart, too keen for him to discern whether it
sprang from joy or from despair. -
“Come,” cried the cheerful voice of Synesius, “ come
Aben-Ezra : you have knelt for Augustine's blessing
already, and now you must enter into the fruition of it.
Come, you two philosophers must know each other. Most
holy, I entreat you to preach to this friend of mine, at
once the wisest and the foolishest of men.”
“Only the latter,” said Raphael ; ‘‘ but open to any
speech of Augustine's, at least when we are safe home, and
game enough for Synesius's new guests killed.”
And turning away, he rode silent and sullen by the side
A/YAA 7/~1. 33i
of his companions, who began at once to consult together
as to the plans of Majoricus and his soldiers.
In spite of himself, Raphael soon became interested in
Augustine's conversation. He entered into the subject of
Cyrenian misrule and ruin as heartily and shrewdly as any
man of the world, and when all the rest were at a loss, the
prompt practical hint which cleared up the difficulty was
certain to come from him. It was by his advice that
Majoricus had brought his soldiery hither ; it was his
proposal that they should be employed for a fixed period
in defending these remote southern boundaries of the
province ; he checked the impetuosity of Synesius, cheered
the despair of Majoricus, appealed to the honor and the
Christianity of the soldiers, and seemed to have a word
—and that the right word—for every man ; and after awhile,
Aben-Ezra quite forgot the stiffness and deliberation of
his manner, and the quaint use of Scripture texts in far-
fetched illustrations of every opinion which he propounded.
It had seemed at first a mere affectation ; but the arguments
which it was employed to enforce were in themselves so
moderate and so rational, that Raphael began to feel,
little by little, that his apparent pedantry was only the
result of a wish to refer every matter, even the most vul-
gar, to some deep and divine rule of right and wrong.
“But you forget all this while, my friends,” said Majori-
cus at last, ‘‘the danger which you incur by sheltering
proclaimed rebels.”
“The King of kings has forgiven our rebellion, in that
while He has punished you by the loss of your lands and
honors, He has given you your life for a prey in this city
of refuge. It remains for you to bring forth worthy fruits
of penitence ; of which I know none better than those
which John the Baptist commanded to the solitary of old,
“Do no violence to any man, and be content with your
wages.’”
“As for rebels and rebellion,” said Synesius, ‘‘they are
matters unknown among us ; for where there is no king
there can be no rebellion. Whosoever will help us against
Ausurians is loyal in our eyes. And as for our political
creed, it is simple enough—namely, that the emperor never
dies, and that his name is the Agamemnon, who fought at
332 HYPA 774.
Troy; which any of my grooms will prove to you syllogisti-
cally enough to satisfy Augustine himself. And thus—
“Agamemnon was the greatest and the best of kings.
“The emperor is the greatest and best of kings.
“Therefore, Agamemnon is the emperor, and con-
versely.”
‘‘It had been well,” said Augustine, with a grave smile,
“if some of our friends had held the same doctrine, even
at expense of their logic.”
“Or if,” answered Synesius, “they believed with us,
that the emperor's chamberlain is a clever old man, with a
bald head like my own, Ulysses by name, who was
rewarded with the prefecture of all lands north of the
Mediterranean, for putting out the Cyclop's eye two years
ago. However, enough of this. But, you see, you are
not in any extreme danger of informers and intriguers.
. . The real difficulty is how you will be able to obey
Augustine by being content with your wages. For,”
lowering his voice, “you will get literally none.”
“It will be as much as we deserve,” said the young
tribune ; “but my fellows have a trick of eating 5 7
“They are welcome, then, to all deer and ostriches
which they can catch. But I am not only penniless, but
reduced myself to live, like the Laestrygons, on meat and
nothing else ; all crops and stocks for miles round being
either burnt or carried off.”
“A nihi/o nihiſ/’’ said Augustine, having nothing else to
say. But here Raphael woke up on a sudden with—
“Did the Pentapolitan wheat-ships go to Rome?”
“No ; Orestes stopped them when he stopped the
Alexandrian convoy.”
“Then the Jews have the wheat, trust them for it ; and
what they have, I have. There are certain moneys of
mine lying at interest in the seaports, which will set that
matter to rights for a month or two. Do you find an
escort tomorrow, and I will find wheat.”
“But, most generous of friends, I can neither repay you
interest nor principal.”
“Be it so. I have spent so much money during the last
thirty years in doing nothing but evil, that it is hard if I
may not at last spend a little in doing good. Unless his
Aſ VPA 7TWA. - 333
Holiness of Hippo thinks it wrong for you to accept the
good-will of an infidel?”
“Which of these three,” said Augustine, “was neighbor
to him who fell among thieves, but he who had mercy on
him? Verily, my friend Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou art not
far from the kingdom of God.”
“Of which God?” asked Raphael, slyly.
“Of the God of thy forefather Abraham, whom thou
shalt hear us worship this evening, if He will. Synesius,
have you a church wherein I can perform the evening
service, and give a word of exhortation to these my
children?” -
Synesius sighed. “There is a ruin, which was last
month a church.” -
“And is one still. Man did not place there the presence
of God, and man cannot expel it.”
And so sending out hunting-parties right and left in
search of everything which had animal life, and picking up
before nightfall a tolerably abundant supply of game, they
went homeward, where Victoria was intrusted to the care
of Synesius's old stewardess, and the soldiery was marched
straight into the church ; while Synesius's servants, to
whom the Latin service would have been unintelligible,
busied themselves in cooking the still warm game.
Strangely enough it sounded to Raphael that evening to
hear among those smoke-grimed pillars and fallen rafters
the grand old Hebrew psalm of his nation ring aloft, to the
chants, too, which were said by the rabbi to have been
used in the Temple-worship of Jerusalem. . . . They, and
the invocations, thanksgivings, blessings, the very out-
ward ceremonial itself, were all Hebraic, redolent of the
thoughts, the words of his own ancestors. That lesson
from the book of Proverbs, which Augustine's deacon was
reading in Latin—the blood of the man who wrote these
words was flowing in Aben-Ezra's veins. . . . Was it a
mistake, an hypocrisy P or were they indeed worshipping,
as they fancied, the Ancient One who spoke face to face
with his forefathers, the Archetype of man, the friend of
Abraham and of Israel?
And now the sermon began ; and as Augustine stood
for a moment in prayer in front of the ruined altar, every
334 ATYP21 7TWA. --
furrow in his worn face lit up by a ray of moonlight which
streamed in through the broken roof, Raphael waited
impatiently for his speech. What would he, the refined
dialectician, the ancient teacher of heathen rhetoric, the
courtly and learned student, the ascetic, celibate theoso-
pher, have to say to those coarse, war-worn soldiers,
Thracians and Markmen, Gauls and Belgians, who sat
watching there, with those sad, earnest faces? What one
thought or feeling in common could there be between
Augustine and his congregation?
At last, after signing himself with the cross, he began.
The subject was one of the psalms which had just been
read—a battle psalm, concerning Moab and Amalek, and
the older border wars of Palestine. What would he make
of that?
He seemed to start lamely enough, in spite of the
exquisite grace of his voice, and manner, and language,
and the epigrammatic terseness of every sentence. He
spent some minutes over the inscription of the psalm
—allegorized it—made it mean something which it
never did mean in the writer’s mind, and which it, as
Raphael well knew, never could mean, for his inter-
pretation was founded on a sheer mistranslation. He
punned on the Latin version—derived the meaning of
Hebrew words from Latin etymologies. . . . And as he
went on with the psalm itself, the common sense of David
seemed to evaporate in mysticism. The most fantastic
and far-fetched illustrations, drawn from the commonest
objects, alternate with mysterious theosophic dogma.
Where was that learning for which he was so famed?
Where was that reverence for the old Hebrew Scriptures
which he professed? He was treating David as ill as
Hypatia used to treat Homer—worse even than old Philo
did, when in the home life of the old Patriarchs, and in
the mighty acts of Moses and Joshua, he could find nothing
but spiritual allegories where with to pamper the private
experience of the secluded theosophist. And Raphael felt
very much inclined to get up and go away, and still more
inclined to say with a smile, in his haste, “All men are
liars.” . . . .
And yet, what an illustration that last one was! No
ATVA’A 7TWA. 335
mere fancy, but a real deep glance into the working of the
material universe, as symbolic of the spiritual and unseen
one. And not drawn, as Hypatia's were, exclusively from
Sublime or portentous phenomenon, but from some dog, or
kettle, or fish wife, with a homely insight worthy of old
Socrates himself. How personal he was becoming, too. . . .
No long bursts of declamation, but dramatic dialogue and
interrogation, by-hints and unexpected hits at one and the
Other most commonplace soldier's failing. . . . And yet
each pithy rebuke was put in a universal, comprehensive
form, which made Raphael himself wince—which might,
he thought, have made any man, or woman either, wince
in like manner. Well, whether or not Augustine knew
truths for all men, he at least knew sins of all men, and
for himself as well as his hearers. There was no denying
that He was a real man, right or wrong. What he
rebuked in others he had felt in himself, and fought it to
the death grip, as the flash and quiver of that worn face
proclaimed. . . . But yet, why were the Edomites, but an
utterly mistaken pun on their name, to signify one sort of
sin, and the Ammonites another, and the Amalekites
another? What had that to do with the old psalm? What
had it to do with the present auditory? Was not this the
wildest and lowest form of that unreal, subtilizing, mystic
pedantry, of which he had sickened long ago in Hypatia’s
lecture-room, till he fled to Bran, the dog, for honest,
practical realities?
No. . . . Gradually, as Augustine's hints became more
practical and pointed, Raphael saw that there was in his
mind a most real and organic connection, true or false, in
what seemed at first mere arbitrary allegory. Amalekites,
personal sins, Ausurian robbers and ravishers, were to him
only so many different forms of one and the same evil.
He who helped any of them fought against the righteous
God; he who fought against them fought for that God; but
he must conquer the Amalekites within, if he expected to
conquer the Amalekites without.
Could the legionaries permanently put down the lust
and greed around them, while their own hearts were
enslaved to lust and greed within P Would they not be
helping it by example, while they pretended to crush it by
336 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
Sword strokes? Was it not a mockery, an hypocrisy P
Could God’s blessing be on it? Could they restore unity
and peace to the country while there was neither unity nor
peace within them? What had produced the helplessness
of the people, the imbecility of the military, but inward
helplessness, inward weakness? They were weak against
Moors, because they were weak against enemies more
deadly than Moors. How could they fight for God out-
wardly, while they were fighting against Him inwardly?
He would not go forth with their hosts. How could He,
when He was not among their hosts. He, a spirit, must
dwell in their spirits. . . . And then the shout of a King
would be among them, and one of them should chase a
thousand. . . . Or if not—if both people and soldiers
require further chastening and humbling—what matter,
provided that they were chastened and humbled? What
matter if their faces were confounded, if they were thereby
driven to seek His Name, who alone was the Truth, the
Light, and the Life? What if they were slain? Let
them have conquered the inward enemies, what matter
to them if the outward enemies seemed to prevail for
a moment? They should be recompensed at the resur-
rection of the just, when death was swallowed up
in victory. It would be seen then who had really
conquered in the eyes of the just God—they, God’s
ministers, the defenders of peace and justice, or the
Ausurians, the enemies thereof. . . . And then, by
some quaintest turn of fancy, he introduced a word of pity
and hope, even for the wild Moorish robbers. It might be
good for them to have succeeded thus far ; they might
learn from their Christian captives, purified by affliction,
truths which those captives had forgotten in prosper-
ity. And, again, it might be good for them, as well as
for Christians, to be confounded and made like chaff
before the wind, and so they, too, might learn His name.
. . . And so on, through and in spite of all conceits,
allegories, overstrained interpretations Augustine went on
evolving from the Psalms, and from the past, and from the
future, the assertion of a Living, Present God, the eternal
helper and deliverer of those who were enslaved and
crushed thereby in soul or body. . . . It was all most
A/VA’A 7TWA. 337
strange to Raphael. . . . Strange in its utter unlikeness
to any teaching, Platonist or Hebrew, which he had ever
heard before, and stranger still in its agreement with those
teachings ; in the instinctive ease with which it seemed to
unite and justify them all by the talisman of some one
idea—and what that might be, his Jewish prejudices could
not prevent his seeing, and yet would not allow him to
acknowledge. But, howsoever he might redden with
Hebrew pride, howsoever he might long to persuade him-
self that Augustine was building up a sound and right
practical structure on the foundation of a sheer lie, he
could not help watching, at first with envy, and then with
honest pleasure, the faces of the rough soldiers, as they
gradually lightened up into fixed attention, into cheerful
and solemn resolve.
“What wonder?” said Raphael to himself, “what
wonder, after all? He has been speaking to these wild
beasts as to sages and saints ; he has been telling them
that God is as much with them as with prophets and
psalmists. . . . I wonder if Hypatia, with all her beauty,
could have touched their hearts as he has done?”
And when Raphael rose at the end of this strange dis-
course, he felt more like an old Hebrew than he had done
since he sat upon his nurse's knee, and heard legends
about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. What if Augustine
were right after all? What if the Jehovah of the old
Scriptures were not merely the national patron of the
children of Abraham, as the rabbis held ; not merely, as
Philo held, the Divine Wisdom which inspired a few elect
sages, even among the heathen ; but the Lord of the whole
earth, and of the nations thereof P And suddenly, for the
first time in his life, passages from the psalms and prophets
flashed across him, which seemed to assert this. What
else did that whole book of Daniel and history of
Nebuchadnezzar mean—if not that? Philosophic latitudi-
narianism had long ago cured him of the rabbinical notion
of the Babylonian conquerer as an incarnate fiend, devoted
to Tophet, like Sennacherib before him. He had long in
private admired the man as a magnificent human charac-
ter, a fairer one in his eyes than either Alexander or Julius
Caesar. . . . What if Augustine had given him a hint
338 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
which might justify his admiration? . . . But more. . . .
What if Augustine were right in going even further than
Philo and Hypatia” What if this same Jehovah, Wisdom,
Flogos, call Him what they might, were actually the God
of the spirits, as well as of the bodies of all flesh? What
if He was as near—Augustine said that he was—to the
hearts of those wild Markmen, Gauls, Thracians, as to
Augustine's own heart? What if He were—Augustine
said He was—yearning after, enlightening, leading home
to Himself, the souls of the poorest, the most brutal, the
most sinful? What if He loved man as man and not
merely one favored race or one favored class of minds?
. And in the light of that hypothesis, that strange
story of the Cross of Calvary seemed not so impossible
after all. . . . But then, celibacy and asceticism, utterly
non-human as fbey were, what had they to do with the
theory of a human God?
And filled with many questionings, Raphael was not
sorry to have the matter brought to an issue that very
evening in Synesius's sitting-room. Majoricus, in his
blunt, soldier-like way, set Raphael and Augustine at each
other without circumlocution ; and Raphael, after trying
to smile and pooh-pooh away the subject, was tempted to
make a jest on a seeming fallacious conceit of Augustine's
—found it more difficult than he thought to trip up the
serious and wary logician, lost his temper a little—a sign,
perhaps, of returning health in a skeptic—and soon found
himself fighting desperately, with Synesius backing him,
apparently for the mere pleasure of seeing a battle, and
Majoricus making him more and more cross by the
implicit dogmatic faith with which he hewed at one
Gordian knot after another, till Augustine had to save
himself from his friends by tripping the good prefect
gently up, and leaving him miles behind the disputants,
who argued on and on, till broad daylight shone in, and
the sight of the desolation below recalled all parties to
more material weapons and sterner warfare. -
But little thought Raphael Aben-Ezra, as he sat there,
calling up every resource of his wit and learning, in the
hope, half malicious, half honestly cautious, of upsetting
the sage of Hippo, and forgetting all heaven and earth in
A/VA2A 7TWA. 339
the delight of battle with his peers, that in a neighboring
chamber, her tender limbs outspread upon the floor, her
face buried in her dishevelled locks, lay Victoria, wrestling
all night long for him in prayer and bitter tears, as the
murmur of busy voices reached her eager ears, longing in
vain to catch the sense of words, on which hung now her
hopes and bliss—how utterly and entirely, she had never
yet confessed to herself, though she dare confess it to that
Son of Man to whom she prayed, as to One who felt with
tenderness and insight beyond that of a brother, a father,
even of a mother, for her maiden's blushes and her
maiden's woes. -
CHAPTER XXII.
PANTDEMONIUM.
BUT where was Philammon all that week?
For the first day or two of his imprisonment he had
raved like some wild beast entrapped. His new-found
purposes and energy, thus suddenly dammed back and
checked, boiled up in frantic rage. He tore at the bars
of his prison ; he rolled himself, shrieking, on the floor.
He called in vain on Hypatia, on Pelagia, on Arsenius—
on all but God. Pray he could not, and dare not ; for to
whom was he to pray? To the stars?—to the Abysses and
the Eternities? . .
Alas! as Augustine said once, bitterly enough, of his
Own Manichaean teachers, Hypatia had taken away the
living God, and given him instead the four Elements. . . .
And in utter bewilderment and hopeless terror he implored
the pity of every guard and jailer who passed along the
corridor, and conjured them, as brothers, fathers, men to
help him. Moved at once by his agony and by his exceed-
ing beauty, the rough Thracians, who knew enough of
their employer's character to have little difficulty in
believing his victim to be innocent, listened to him and
questioned him. But when they offered the very help
which he implored, and asked him to tell his story, the
poor boy’s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. How
could he publish his sister’s shame? And yet she was
about to publish it herself! . . . And instead of words, he
met their condolence with fresh agonies, till they gave him
up as mad, and, tired by his violence, compelled him,
with blows and curses, to remain quiet : and so the week
wore out, in dull and stupefied despair, which trembled on
the very edge of idiocy. Night and day were alike to him.
The food which was thrust in through his gate remained
untasted ; hour after hour, day after day he sat upon the
ground, his head buried in his hands, half-dozing from
34O
A/V A4 77.4. 34T
mere exhaustion of body and mind. Why should he care
to stir, to eat, to live? He had but one purpose in heaven
and earth, and that one purpose was impossible.
At last his cell-door grated on its hinges. “ Up, my
mad youth!” cried a rough voice. “Up and thank the
favor of the gods, and the bounty of our noble—ahem'
prefect. Today he gives freedom to all prisoners. And I
suppose a pretty boy like you may go about your business,
as well as uglier rascals!”
Philammon looked up in the jailer's face with a dim
half-comprehension of his meaning.
“Do you hear?” cried the man, with a curse, “You
are free. Jump up, or I shut the door again, and your
one chance is over.”
“Did she dance Venus Anadyomene?”
* * Shel Who?” -
“My sister! Pelagia
“Heaven only knows what she has not danced in her
time! But they say she dances today once more. Quick!
out, or I shall not be ready in time for the sports. They
begin an hour hence. Free admission into the theatre,
today for all—rogues and honest men, Christians and
heathens. Curse the boy! he's as mad as ever.”
So indeed Philammon seemed ; for springing suddenly
to his feet, he rushed out past the jailer, upsetting him
into the corridor, and fled wildly from the prison among
the crowd of liberated ruffians, ran from the prison home,
from home to the baths, from the baths to the theatre, and
was soon pushing his way, regardless of etiquette, toward
the lower tiers of benches, in order, he hardly knew why,
to place himself as near as possible to the very sight which
he dreaded and abhorred. -
As fate would have it, the passage by which he had
entered opened close to the prefect's chair of state, where
sat Orestes, gorgeous in his robes of office, and by him—
to Philammon's surprise and horror—Hypatia herself.
More beautiful than ever, her forehead sparkling, like
Juno's own, with a lofty tiara of jewels, her white Ionic
robe half-hidden by a crimson shawl, there sat the vestal,
the philosopher. What did she there? But the boy’s
eager eyes, accustomed but too well to note every light
|
342 Aſſ WPA 77.4.
and shade of feeling which crossed that face, saw in a
moment how wan and haggard was its expression. She
wore a look of constraint, of half-terrified self-resolve, as
of a martyr; and yet not an undoubting martyr : for as
Orestes turned his head at the stir of Philammon's intru-
sion, and flashing with anger at the sight, motioned him
fiercely back, Hypatia turned too, and as her eyes met her
pupil’s, she blushed crimson, and started, and seemed in
the act to motion him back also ; and then, recollecting her-
self, whispered something to Orestes which quieted his
wrath, and composed herself, or rather sunk into her
place again, as one who was determined to abide the
WOrSt. *— - 2
A knot of gay young gentlemen, Philammon's fel-
low-students, pulled him down among them, with wel-
come and laughter; and before he could collect his
thoughts, the curtain in front of the stage had fallen, and
the sport began. -
The scene represented a background of desert mountains,
and on the stage itself, before a group of temporary huts,
stood huddling together the black Libyan prisoners, some
fifty men, women, and children, bedizened with gaudy
feathers and girdles of tasselled leather, brandishing their
spears and targets, and glaring out with white eyes on the
strange scene before them in childish awe and wonder.
Along the front of the stage a wattled battlement had
been erected, while below the hyposcenium had been
painted to represent rocks, thus completing the rough
imitation of a village among the Libyan hills.
Amid breathless silence, a herald advanced, and pro-
claimed that these were prisoners taken in arms against
the Roman senate and people, and therefore worthy of
immediate death ; but that the prefect, in his exceeding
clemency toward them, and especial anxiety to afford the
greatest possible amusement to the obedient and loyal
citizens of Alexandria, had determined, instead of giving
them at once to the beasts, to allow them to fight for their
lives, promising to the survivors a free pardon if they
acquitted themselves valiantly.
The poor wretches on the stage, when this proclamation
was translated to them, set up a barbaric yell of joy, and
Aſ VPA 7TW4. 3 43
brandished their spears and targets more fiercely than
€ Veſ.
But their joy was short. The trumpets sounded the
attack ; a body of gladiators, equal in number to the
savages, marched out from one of the two great side-
passages, made their obeisance to the applauding specta-
tors, and planting their scaling ladders against the front
of the stage, mounted to the attack.
The Libyans fought like tigers ; yet from the first
Hypatia, and Philammon also, could see that their
promised chance of life was a mere mockery. Their light
darts and naked limbs were no match for the heavy
swords and complete armor of their brutal assailants, who
endured carelessly a storm of blows and thrusts on heads
and faces protected by visored helmets : yet so fierce was
the valor of the Libyans, that even they recoiled twice,
and twice the scaling-ladders were hurled down again,
while more than one gladiator lay below, rolling in the
death agony. -
And then burst forth the sleeping devil in the hearts of
that great brutalized multitude. Yell upon yell of savage
triumph, and still more savage disappointment rang from
every tier of that vast ring of seats, at each blow and
parry, onslaught and repulse ; and Philammon saw, with
horror and surprise, that luxury, refinement, philosophic
culture itself, were no safe-guards against the infection of
blood-thirstiness. Gay and delicate ladies, whom he had
seen three days before simpering delight at Hypatia's
heavenward aspirations, and some, too, whom he seemed
to recollect in Christian churches, sprang from their seats,
waved their hands and handkerchiefs, and clapped and
shouted to the gladiators. For alas! there was no doubt
as to which side the favor of the spectators inclined.
With taunts, jeers, applause, entreaties, the hired ruffians
were urged on to their work of blood. The poor wretches
heard no voice raised in their favor ; nothing but contempt,
hatred, eager lust of blood, glared from those thousands
of pitiless eyes; and, broken-hearted, despairing, they
flagged and drew back one by one. A shout of triumph
greeted the gladiators as they climbed over the battle-
ment, and gained a footing on the stage. The wretched
344 Aſ VPA 77.4.
blacks broke up, and fled wildly from corner to corner,
looking vainly for an outlet. -
And then began a butchery. . . . Some fifty men,
women, and children were cooped together in that narrow
space. . . . And yet Hypatia's countenance did not falter.
Why should it? What were their numbers, beside the
thousands who had perished year by year for centuries,
by that and far worse deaths, in the amphitheatres of that
empire, for that faith which she was vowed to re-establish.
It was part of the great system and she must endure it.
Not that she did not feel; for she, too, was woman ;
and her heart, raised far above the brutal excitement
of the multitude, lay calmly open to the poignant stings
of pity. Again and again she was in the act to entreat
mercy for some shrieking woman or struggling child ;
but before her lips could shape the words, the blow
had fallen, or the wretch was whirled away from
her sight in the dense undistinguishable mass of slayers
and slain. Yes, she had begun, and she must follow to
the end. . . . And, after all, what were the lives of those
few semi-brutes, returning thus a few years earlier to the
clay from which they sprang, compared with the regener-
ation of a world? . . . And it would be over in a few
minutes more, and that black writhing heap be still for-
ever, and the curtain fall. . . . And then for Venus
Anadyomene, and art, and joy, and peace, and the grace-
ful wisdom and beauty of the old Greek art, calming and
civilizing all hearts, and softening them into pure devotion
for the immortal myths, the immortal deities, who had
inspired their forefathers in the glorious days of old. . . .
But still the black heap writhed ; and she looked away,
up, down, and round, everywhere, to avoid the sickening
sight, and her eye caught Philammon's gazing at her
with looks of horror and disgust. . . . A thrill of shame
rushed through her heart, and blushing scarlet, she sank
her head, and whispered to Orestes—
“Have mercy! spare the rest!”
“Nay, fairest vestal! The mob has tasted blood, and
they must have their fill of it, or they will turn on us for
aught I know. Nothing so dangerous as to check a brute,
whether he be horse, dog, or man, when once his spirit is
AfyºA 7/4. 345
up. Ha! there is a fugitive! How well the little rascal
runs.”
As he spoke, a boy, the only survivor, leaped from the
stage, and rushed across the orchestra toward them,
followed by a rough cur-dog.
“You shall have this youth, if he reaches us.”
Hypatia watched breathlessly. The boy had just
arrived at the altar in front of the orchestra, when
he saw a gladiator close upon him. The ruffian’s arm
was raised to strike, when, to the astonishment of the
whole theatre, boy and dog turned valiantly to bay, and
leaping on the gladiator, dragged him between them
to the ground. The triumph was momentary. The
uplifted hands, the shout of “Spare him ſ” came too late.
The man, as he lay, buried his sword in the slender body
of the child, and then rising, walked coolly back to the
side passages, while the poor cur stood over the little
Corpse, licking his hands and face, and making the whole
building ring with his doleful cries. The attendants
entered, and striking their hooks into corpse after corpse,
dragged them out of sight, marking their path by long red
furrows in the sand ; while the dog followed, until his
inauspicious howling died away down distant passages.
Philammon felt sick and giddy, and half rose to escape.
But Pelagia! . . . No–he must sit it out, and see the
worst, if worse than this were possible. He looked round.
The people were coolly sipping wine and eating cakes,
while they chatted admiringly about the beauty of the
great curtain, which had fallen and hidden the stage, and
represented, on a ground of deep blue sea, Europa carried
by the bull across the Bosphorus, while Nereids and
Tritons played around.
A single flute within the curtain began to send forth
luscious strains, deadened and distant, as if through far-
off glens and woodlands; and from the side passages
issued three Graces, led by Peitho, the goddess of persua-
sion, bearing a herald's staff in her hand. She advanced
to the altar in the centre of the orchestra, and informed
the spectators that, during the absence of Ares in aid of a
certain great military expedition, which was shortly to
decide the diadem of Rome, and the liberty, prosperity,
346 AYPA 774.
and supremacy of Egypt and Alexandria, Aphrodite had
returned to her lawful allegiance, and submitted for the
time being to the commands of her husband, Hephæstus ;
that he, as the deity of artificers, felt a peculiar interest in
the welfare of the city of Alexandria, the workshop of the
world, and had, as a sign of his especial favor, prevailed
upon his fair spouse to exhibit for this once, her beauties
to the assembled populace, and, in the unspoken poetry
of motion, to represent to them the emotion with which,
as she arose new-born from the sea, she first surveyed that
fair expanse of heaven and earth of which she now reigned
undisputed queen.
A shout of rapturous applause greeted this announce-
ment, and forthwith limped from the opposite slip the
lame deity himself, hammer and pincers on shoulder, fol-
lowed by a train of gigantic Cyclops, who bore on their
shoulders various pieces of gilded metal work.
Hephæstus, who was intended to supply the comic
element in the vast pantomimic pageant, shambled for-
ward with studied uncouthness, amid roars of laughter ;
surveyed the altar with ludicrous contempt ; raised his
mighty hammer, shivered it to pieces with a single blow,
and beckoned to his attendants to carry off the fragments,
and replace it with something more fitting for his august
spouse.
With wonderful quickness the metal open-work was put
in its place, and fitted together, forming a frame of coral
branches intermingled with dolphins, Nereids, and
Tritons. Four gigantic Cyclops then approached, stag-
gering under the weight of a circular slab of green marble,
polished to a perfect mirror, which they placed on the frame-
work. The Graces wreathed its circumference with gar-
lands of sea-weed, shells, and corallines, and the mimic
sea was complete.
Peitho and the Graces retired a few steps, and grouped
themselves with the Cyclops, whose grimed and brawny
limbs, and hideous one-eyed masks, threw out in striking
contrast the delicate hue and grace of the beautiful maiden
figures ; while Hephæstus turned toward the curtain, and
seemed to await impatiently the forthcoming of the
goddess.
Aſ VPA 774. 347
Every lip was breathless with expectation as the flutes
swelled louder and nearer ; horns and cymbals took up the
harmony; and, to a triumphant burst of music, the curtain
rose, and a simultaneous shout of delight burst from ten
thousand voices.
The scene behind represented a magnificent temple,
half-hidden in an artificial wood of tropic trees and shrubs,
which filled the stage. Fauns and Dryads peeped laugh-
ing from among their stems, and gorgeous birds, tethered
by unseen threads, fluttered and sang among their branches.
In the center an over-arching avenue of palms led from
the temple doors to the front of the stage, from which the
mimic battlements had disappeared, and had been replaced,
in those few moments, by a broad slope of smooth green-
Sward, leading down into the orchestra, and fringed with
myrtles, roses, apple-trees, poppies and crimson hyacinths,
stained with the life-blood of Adonis.
The folding-doors of the temple opened slowly; the
crash of instruments resounded from within ; and preceded
by the musicians, came forth the triumph of Aphrodite,
and passed down the slope, and down the outer ring of the
Orchestra.
A splendid car, drawn by white oxen, bore the rarest
and gaudiest of foreign flowers and fruits, which young
girls, dressed as Hours and Seasons, strewed in front of
the procession and among the spectators.
A long line of beautiful youths and maidens, crowned
with garlands, and robed in scarfs of purple gauze, followed
by two and two. Each pair carried or led a pair of wild
animals, captives of the conquering might of Beauty.
Foremost was borne, on the wrists of the actors, the
birds especially sacred to the goddess—doves and sparrows,
wry-necks and swallows; and a pair of gigantic Indian
tortoises, each ridden by a lovely nymph, showed that
Orestes had not forgotten one wish, at least, of his
intended bride.
Then followed strange birds from India, parakeets,
peacocks, pheasants, silver and golden ; bustards and
ostriches; the latter bestridden each by a tiny cupid, were
led on in golden leashes, followed by antelopes and
oryzes, elks from beyond the Danube, four-horned rams
348 - A/VPA 77.4.
from Isles of the Hyperborean Ocean, and the strange
hybrid of the Libyan hills, believed by all spectators to be
half-bull, half-horse. And then a murmur of delighted
awe ran through the theatre, as bears and leopards, lions
and tigers, fettered in heavy chains of gold, and made
gentle for the occasion by narcotics, paced sedately down
the slope, obedient to their beautiful guides ; while behind
them, the unwieldy bulk of two double-horned rhinoceroses,
from the far south, was overtopped by the long slender
necks and large soft eyes of a pair of giraffes, such as had
not been seen in Alexandria for more than fifty years.
A cry arose of “Orestes! Orestes! Health to the
illustrious prefect! Thanks for his bounty l’’ And a hired
voice or two among the crowd cried, “Hail to Orestes!
Hail, Emperor of Africa!” . . . But there was no response.
“The rose is still in the bud,” simpered Orestes to
Hypatia. He rose, beckoned and bowed the crowd into
silence ; and then, after a short pantomimic exhibition of
rapturous gratitude and humility, pointed triumphantly to
the palm avenue, among the shadows of which appeared
the wonder of the day—the huge tusks and trunk of the
white elephant himself.
There it was at last! Not a doubt of it! A real ele-
phant, and yet as white as Snow—sight never seen before
in Alexandria—never to be seen again! “Oh, thrice blest
men of Macedonial” shouted some worthy on high, “the
gods are bountiful to you this day!” And all mouths and
eyes confirmed the opinion, as they opened wider and yet
wider to drink in the inhaustible joy and glory.
On he paced solemnly, while the whole theatre resounded
to his heavy tread, and the Fauns and Dryads fled in
terror. A choir of nymphs swung round him hand in hand,
and sang, as they danced along, the conquering might of
beauty, the tamer of beasts and men, and deities. Skirm-
ishing parties of little winged cupids spread themselves
over the orchestra, from left to right, and pelted the spec-
tators with perfumed comfits, shot among them from their
tiny bows arrows of fragrant sandal-wood, or swung smok-
ing censers, which loaded the air with intoxicating odors.
The procession came on down the slope, and the
elephant approached the spectators; his tusks were
A. YAA 7TWA. 349
wreathed with roses and myrtles; his ears were pierced
with splendid earrings, a jewelled frontlet hung between
his eyes, Eros himself, a lovely winged boy, sat on his
neck, and guided him with the point of a golden arrow.
But what precious thing was it which that shell-formed
car upon his back contained? Pelagia Aphrodite herself?
Yes; whiter than the snow-white elephant—more rosy
than the pink-tipped shell in which she lay, among crimson
cushions and silver gauze, there shone the goddess, thrill-
ing all hearts with those delicious smiles, and glances of
the bashful, playful eyes, and grateful wavings of her tiny
hand, as the whole theatre rose with one accord, and ten
thousand eyes were concentrated on the unequalled loveli-
ness beneath them.
Twice the procession passed around the whole circum-
ference of the orchestra, and then returning from the foot
of the slope toward the central group around Hephæstus,
deployed right and left in front of the stage. The lions
and tigers were led away into the side passages; the
youths and maidens combined themselves with the gentler
animals into groups lessening gradually from the centre to
the wings, and stood expectant, while the elephant came
forward, and knelt behind the platform destined for the
goddess.
The valves of the shell closed. The Graces unloosed
the fastenings of the car. The elephant turned his trunk
Over his back, and guided by the hands of the girls,
grasped the shell, and lifting it high in air, deposited it on
the steps at the back of the platform.
Hephæstus limped forward, and with his most uncouth
gestures, signified the delight which he had in bestowing
such a sight upon his faithful artisans of Alexandria, and
the unspeakable enjoyment which they were to expect
from the mystic dance of the goddess ; and then retired,
leaving the Graces to advance in front of the platform, and
with their arms twined round each other, begin Hypatia’s
song of invocation. -
As the first strophe died away, the valves of the shell
reopened, and disclosed Aphrodite crouching on one
knee within. She raised her head, and gazed around the
vast circle of seats. A mild surprise was on her counte-
350. . HYPATIA.
nance, which quickened into delighted wonder, and bashful.
ness struggling with the sense of new enjoyment and new
powers. She glanced downward at herself ; and smiled,
astonished at her own loveliness, then upward at the sky,
and seemed ready, with an awful joy, to spring up into the
boundless void. Her whole figure dilated ; she seemed to
drink in strength from every object which met her in the
great universe around ; and slowly from among the shells
and sea-weeds she rose to her full height, the mystic
cestus, glittering round her waist, in deep festoons of
emeralds and pearls, and stepped forward upon the marble
sea floor, wringing the dripping perfume from her locks,
as Aphrodite rose of old.
For the first minute the crowd was too breathless with
pleasure to think of applause. But the goddess seemed to
require due homage, and when she folded her arms across
her bosom, and stood motionless for an instant, as if to
demand the worship of the universe, every tongue was
loosed, and a thunderclap of “Aphrodite!” rang out
across the roofs of Alexandria, and startled Cyril in his
chamber at the Serapeium, and weary muleteers on distant
sand-hills, and dozing mariners far out at sea. -
And then began a miracle of art, such as was only
possible among a people of the free and exquisite physical
training, and the delicate aesthetic perception of those old
Greeks, even in their most fallen days. A dance, in which
every motion was a word, and rest as eloquent as motion :
in which every attitude was a fresh motive for a sculptor
of the purest school, and the highest physical activity was
manifested, not as in the coarser comic pantomimes, in
fantastic bounds and unnatural distortion, but in perpetual
delicate modulations of a stately and self-restraining grace.
The artist was for a monent transformed into the goddess.
The theatre, and Alexandria, and the gorgeous pageant
beyond, had vanished from her imagination, and therefore
from the imagination of the spectators, under the constrain-
ing inspiration of her art, and they and she alike saw
nothing but the lonely sea around Cythera, and the god-
dess hovering above its emerald mirror, raying forth on
sea and air, and shore, beauty, and joy, and love. . . . .
Philammon's eyes were bursting from his head with
HyPAZIA. 35 I
shame and horror, and yet he could not hate her ; not even
despise her. He would have done so, had there been the
faintest trace of human feeling in her countenance, to
prove that some germ of moral sense lingered within ;
but even the faint blush and the downcast eye with which
she had entered the theatre, were gone ; and the only
expression on her face was that of intense enjoyment of
her own activity and skill, and satisfied vanity, as of a
petted child. . . . Was she accountable? A reasonable
soul, capable of right or wrong at all? He hoped not. . . .
He would trust not. . . . And still Pelagia danced on ;
and for a whole age of agony, he could see nothing in
heaven or earth but the bewildering maze of those white
feet, as they twinkled Over their white image in the marble
mirror. . . . At last it was over. Every limb suddenly
collapsed, and she stood drooping in soft, self-satisfied
fatigue, awaiting the burst of applause which rang through
Philammon's ears, proclaiming to heaven and earth, as
with a mighty trumpet-blast, his sister's shame.
The elephant rose, and moved forward to the side of the
slabs. His back was covered with crimson cushions, on
which it seemed that Aphrodite was to return without her
shell. She folded her arms across her bosom, and stood
Smiling, as the elephant gently wreathed his trunk around
her waist, and lifted her slowly from the slab, in act to
place her on his back.
The little feet, clinging half fearfully together, had just
risen from the marble. The elephant started, dropped
his delicate burden heavily on the slab, looked down,
raised his forefoot, and throwing his trunk into the air,
gave a shrill scream of terror and disgust.
The foot was red with blood, the young boy’s blood,
which was soaking and bubbling up through the fresh sand
where the elephant had trodden, in a round, dark, purple
Spot. . . . -
Philammon could bear no more. Another moment and
he had hurled down through the dense mass of spectators,
clearing rank after rank of seats by the sheer strength of
madness, leaped the balustrade into the orchestra below,
and rushed across the space to the foot of the platform.
“Pelagia! Sister! My sister! Have mercy on me and
352 Aſ VP4 7/4.
*
yourself! I will hide you! save you! and we will flee
together out of this infernal place! this world of devils! I
am your brother! Come!”
She looked at him one moment with wide, wild eyes.
The truth flashed on her! -
* * Brother l’” .
And she sprang from the platform into his arms. . . .
A vision of a lofty window in Athens, looking out over fair
Olive yards and gardens, and the bright roofs and basins
of the Piraeus and the broad blue sea, with the purple peaks
of AEgina beyond all. . . . And a dark-eyed boy, with his
arm around her neck, pointed laughing to the twinkling
masts in the far harbor, and called her sister. . . . The
dead soul woke within her ; and with a wild cry she recoiled
from him in an agony of shame, and covering her face with
both her hands, sank down among the blood-stained sand.
A yell, as of all hell broke loose, ran along that vast
circle : - -
‘‘Down with him ſ” “Away with him " “Crucify the
slave!” “Give the barbarian to the beasts l’’ ‘‘To the
beasts with him, noble prefect!” A crowd of attendants
rushed upon him, and many of the spectators sprang from
their seats, and were on the point of leaping down into the
orchestra.
Philammon turned upon them like a lion at bay; and
clear and loud his voice rose through the roar of the multi-
tude.
“Ay! murder me as the Romans murdered Saint
Telemachus! Slaves as besotted and accursed as your
besotted and accursed tyrants! Lower than the beasts
whom you employ as your butchers! Murder and lust go
fitly hand in hand, and the throne of my sister's shame is
well built on the blood of innocents! Let my death end
the devil’s sacrifice, and fill up the cup of your iniquity!”
“To the beasts l’’ ‘‘Make the elephant trample him to
powder!” -
And the huge brute, goaded on by the attendants, rushed
on the youth, while Eros leaped from his neck, and fled
weeping up the slope. &
He caught Philammon in his trunk and raised him high
in air. For an instant the great bellowing ocean of heads
ATYAA 7TWA. 353
spun round and round. He tried to breathe one prayer
and shut his eyes—Pelagia’s voice rang sweet and clear
even in the shrillness of intense agony—
“Spare him! He is my brother! Forgive him, men of
Macedonia! For Pelagia’s sake—your Pelagia! One
boon—only this one!” -
And she stretched her arms imploringly toward the spec-
tators, and then clasping the huge knees of the elephant,
called madly to it in terms of passionate entreaty and
endearment.
The men wavered. The brute did not. Quietly he
lowered his trunk, and set down Philammon on his feet.
The monk was saved. Breathless and dizzy, he found
himself hurried away by the attendants, dragged through
dark passages, and hurled out into the street, with curses,
warnings, and congratulations, which fell on an unheeding
€2.1".
But Pelagia kept her face still hidden in her hands, and
rising, walked slowly back, crushed by the weight of some
tremendous awe, across the orchestra, and up the slope ;
and vanished among the palms and oleanders, regardless
of the applause and entreaties, and jeers, and threats, and
curses, of that great multitude of sinful slaves.
For a moment all Orestes’ spells seemed broken by this
unexpected catastrophe. A cloud, whether of disgust or
of disappointment, hung upon every brow. More than
one Christian rose hastily to depart, touched with real
remorse and shame at the horrors of which they had been
the willing witnesses. The common people behind, having
glutted their curiosity with all that there was to see, began
openly to murmur at the cruelty and heathenry of it.
Hypatia, utterly unnerved, hid her face in both her hands.
Orestes alone rose with the crisis. Now, or never, was
the time for action ; and stepping forward, with his most
graceful obeisance, waved his hand for silence, and began
his well-studied oration.
‘‘Let me not, O men of Macedonia, suppose that you
can be disturbed from that equanimity which benefits
politicians by so light an accident as the caprice of a
dancer. The spectacle which I have had the honor and
delight of exhibiting to you—(roars and applause from the
354. A VAA 7TWA.
liberated prisoners and the young gentlemen)—and on
which it seemed to me you have deigned to look with not
altogether unkindly eyes—(Fresh applause, in which the
Christian mob, relenting, began to join)—is but a pleasant
prelude to that more serious business, for which I have
drawn you here together. Other testimonials of my good
intentions have not been wanting in the release of suffering
innocence, and in the largess of food, the growth and
natural property of Egypt, destined by your late tyrants to
pamper the luxury of a distant court. . . . Why should I
boast? Yet even now this head is weary, these limbs fail
me, worn out in ceaseless efforts for your welfare, and in
the perpetual administration of the strictest justice. For
a time has come in which the Macedonian race, whose
boast is the gorgeous city of Alexandria, must rise again to
the political pre-eminence which they held of old, and
becoming once more the masters of one-third of the
universe, be treated by their rulers as freemen, citizens,
heroes, who have a right to choose and to employ their
rulers. Rulers, did I say? Let us forget the word, and
substitute in its place the more philosophic term of
ministers. To be your minister, the servant of you all—to
sacrifice myself, my leisure, health, life, if need be, to the
one great object of securing the independence of Alex-
andria—this is my work, my hope, my glory, longed for
through weary years, now for the first time possible by
the fall of the late puppet Emperor of Rome. Men of
Macedonia, remember that Honorius reigns no more! An
African sits on the throne of the Caesars! Heraclian, by
one decisive victory, has gained, by the favor of—of
Heaven, the imperial purple ; and a new era opens for the
world. Let the conqueror of Rome balance his account
with that Byzantine court, so long the incubus of Our
Trans-Mediterranean wealth and civilization ; and let a
free, independent, and united Africa rally round the
palaces and docks of Alexandria, and find there its natural
centre of polity and of prosperity.”
A roar of hired applause interrupted him ; and not a few,
half for the sake of his compliments and fine words, half
from a natural wish to be on the right side—namely, the
one which happened to be in the ascendant for the time
Aſ VPA ZZA. 355
being—joined. . . . The city authorities were on the point
of crying, “Imperator Orestes,” but thought better of it,
and waited for some one else to cry first—being respectable.
Whereon the prefect of the guards, being a man of
some presence of mind, and also not in anywise respect-
able, pricked up the prefect of the docks with the point of
his dagger, and bade him, with a fearful threat, take care
how he played traitor. The worthy burgher roared incon- .
tinently—whether with pain or patriotism ; and the whole
array of respectabilities—having found a Curtius who would
leap into the gulf, joined in unanimous chorus, and saluted
Orestes as Emperor ; while Hypatia, amid the shouts of
her aristocratic scholars, rose and knelt before him, writh-
ing inwardly with shame and despair, and entreated him to
accept that tutelage of Greek commerce, supremacy, and
philosophy which was forced on him by the unanimous
voice of an adoring people. . . .
“It is false!” shouted a voice from the highest tiers,
appropriated to the women of the lower classes, which
made all turn their heads in bewilderment.
‘‘False! false! You are tricked! He is tricked!
Heraclian was utterly routed at Ostia, and is fled to Car-
thage, with the emperor's fleet in chase.”
“She lies! Drag the beast down!” cried Orestes,
utterly thrown off his balance by the sudden check.
“She? Hel I, a monk, brought the news! Cyril has
known it—every Jew in the Delta has known it, for a
week past! So perish all the enemies of the Lord, caught
in their own snare!”
And bursting desperately through the women who
Surrounded him, the monk vanished.
An awful silence fell on all who heard. For a minute
every man looked in his neighbor’s face as if he longed to
cut his throat, and get rid of one witness, at least, of his
treason. And then arose a tumult, which Orestes in vain
attempted to subdue. Whether the populace believed the
monk’s words or not, they were panic-stricken at the mere
possibility of their truth. Hoarse with denying, protest-
ing, appealing, the would-be emperor had at last to
summon his guards around him and Hypatia, and make
356 A. VPA 7'IA.
his way out of the theatre as best he could ; while the .
multitude melted away like snow before the rain, and
poured out into the streets in eddying and roaring streams,
to find every church placarded by Cyril with the particulars
of Heraclian's ruin.
CHAPTER XXIII.
NEMesis.
THAT evening was a hideous one in the palace of Orestes.
His agonies of disappointment, rage and terror were at
Once so shameful and so fearful, that none of his slaves
dare approach him ; and it was not till late that his confi-
dential secretary, the Chaldean eunuch, driven by terror of
the exasperated Catholics, ventured into the tiger’s den,
and represented to him the immediate necessity for action.
What could he do? He was committed—Cyril only
knew how deeply. What might not the wily archbishop
have discovered? What might he not pretend to have
discovered? What accusations might he not send off on
the spot to the Byzantine Court?
‘‘Let the gates be guarded, and no one allowed to leave
the city,” suggested the Chaldee. -
“Keep in monks? As well keep in rats! No ; we must
send off a counter-report instantly.”
“What shall I say, your excellency?” quoth the ready
scribe, pulling out pen and inkhorn from his sash.
“What do I care? Any lie which comes to hand.
What in the devil's name are you here for at all, but to
invent a lie when I want one?”
“True, most noble,” and the worthy sat meekly down
to his paper . . . but did not proceed rapidly.
“I don't see anything that would suit the emergency,
unless I stated, with your august leave, that Cyril, and not
you, celebrated the gladiatorial exhibition : which might
hardly appear credible.”
Orestes burst out laughing, in spite of himself. The
sleek Chaldee smiled and purred in return. The victory
was won ; and Orestes, somewhat more master of himself,
began to turn his vulpine cunning to the one absorbing
question of the saving of his worthless neck. .
‘‘No, that would be too good. Write that we had
357
358 ATYAA 77.4.
discovered a plot on Cyril's part to incorporate the whole
of the African churches (mind and specify Carthage and
Hippo) under his own jurisdiction, and to throw off
allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in case of
Heraclian's success.”
The secretary purred delighted approval, and scribbled
away now with right good heart.
“Heraclian's success, your excellency.”
“We of course desired, by every means in our power, to
gratify the people of Alexandria, and, as was our duty, to
excite by every lawful method their loyalty toward the
throne of the Caesars (never mind who sat on it) at so
critical a moment.”
“So critical a moment -
“But as faithful Catholics, and abhorring, even in the
extremest need, the sin of Uzzah, we dreaded to touch
with the unsanctified hands of laymen the consecrated ark
of the Church, even though for its preservation—”
‘‘Its preservation, your excellency 7 ) -
“We, therefore, as civil magistrates, felt bound to
confine ourselves to those means which were already
allowed by law and custom to our jurisdiction, and
accordingly made use of those largesses, spectacles, and
public execution of rebels, which have unhappily appeared
to his holiness the patriarch (too ready, perhaps, to find a
cause of complaint against faithful adherents of the Byzan-
tine See) to partake of the nature of those gladiatorial
exhibitions, which are equally abhorrent to the spirit of
the Catholic Church, and to the charity of the sainted
emperors by whose pious edicts they have been long since
abolished,” -
“Your excellency is indeed great . . . but—pardon
your slave's remark—my simplicity is of opinion that it
may be asked why you did not inform the Augusta
Pulcheria of Cyril's conspiracy?”
“Say that we sent a messenger off three months ago,
but that. . . . Make something happen to him, stupid,
and save me the trouble.”
“Shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighborhood of
Palmyra, your excellency?”
“Let me see. . . . No. They may make inquiries
2 3
A YPAT/A. 359
there. Drown him at sea. Nobody can ask questions of
the sharks.”
“Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad
calamity only one man escaped on a raft, and being picked
up, after three weeks’ exposure to the fury of the elements,
by a returning wheat-ship By-the-by, most noble,
what am I to say about those wheat-ships not having even
sailed?” -
“Head of Augustus! I forget them utterly. Say that
—say that the plague was making such ravages in the
harbor-quarter that we feared carrying the infection to the
seat of the empire ; and let them sail tomorrow.”
The secretary’s face lengthened.
“My fidelity is compelled to remark, even at the risk of
your just indignation, that half of them have been unloaded
again for your munificent largesses of the last two days.”
Orestes swore a great oath.
“Oh, that the mob had but one throat, that I might
give them an emetic! Well, we must buy more corn, that's
all.”
The secretary's face grew longer still.
“The Jews, most august * }
“What of them?” yelled the hapless prefect. “Have
they been forestalling?” - - .
“My assiduity has discovered this afternoon that they
have been buying up and exporting all the provisions
which they could obtain.”
“Scoundrels! Then they must have known of Hera-
clian’s failure!” -
“Your sagacity has, I fear, divined the truth. They
have been betting largely against his success for the last
week, both in Canopus and Pelusium.”
“For the last week! Then Miriam betrayed me know-
ingly!” And Orestes broke forth again into a paroxysm
of fury. g -
“Here—call the tribune of the guard! A hundred gold
pieces to the man who brings me the witch alive!” .
“She will never be taken alive.” -
“Dead, then—in any way! Go, you Chaldee hound!
what are you hesitating about?” - -
“Most noble lord,” said the secretary, prostrating him-
360 Aſ YAA 7/A.
self upon the floor, and kissing his master's feet in an
agony of fear. . . . “Remember, that if you touch one
Jew you touch all! Remember the bonds! remember the
—the—your own most august reputation, in short.”
“Get up, brute, and don’t grovel there, but tell me
what you mean, like a human being. If old Miriam is
once dead, her bonds die with her, don’t they?” -
“Alas, my lord, you do not know the customs of that
accursed folk. They have a damnable practice of treating
every member of their nation as a brother, and helping
each freely and faithfully without reward ; whereby they
are enabled to plunder all the rest of the world, and thrive
themselves, from the least to the greatest. Don’t fancy
that your bonds are in Miriam's hands. They have been
transferred months ago. Your real creditors may be in
Carthage, or Rome, or Byzantium, and they will attack
you from thence; while all that you would find if you seized
the old witch's property, would be papers, useless to you,
belonging to Jews all over the empire, who would rise as a
man in defence of their money. I assure you, it is a net
without a bound. If you touch one you touch all. . . .
And besides, my diligence, expecting some such command,
has already taken the liberty of making inquiries as to
Miriam's place of abode ; but it appears, I am sorry to say,
utterly unknown to any of your excellency's servants.”
“You lie!” said Orestes. . . . “I would much sooner
believe that you have been warning the hag to keep out of
the way.”
Orestes had spoken, for that once in his life, the exact
truth.
The secretary, who had his own private dealings with
Miriam, felt every particular atom of his skin shudder at
those words; and had he had hair on his head, it would
certainly have betrayed him by standing visibly on end.
But as he was, luckily for him, close shaven, his turban
remained in its proper place, as he meekly replied— -
‘‘Alas! a faithful servant can feel no keener woe than
the causeless suspicion of that sun before whose rays he
daily prostrates his—” - s
‘‘Confound your periphrases! Do you know where she
is?” -
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 361
“No!” cried the wretched secretary, driven to the lie
direct at last ; and confirmed the negation with such a
string of oaths, that Orestes stopped his volubility with a
kick, borrowed of him, under threat of torture, a thousand
gold pieces as largess to the soldiery, and ended by con-
centrating the stationaries round his own palace, for the
double purpose of protecting himself in case of a riot, and
of increasing the chances of the said riot, by leaving the
distant quarters of the city without police.
“If Cyril would but make a fool of himself, now that he
is in the full-blown pride of victory—the rascal! about that
Ammonius, or about Hypatia, or anything else, and give
me a real handle against him! After all, truth works
better than lying now and then. Oh, that I could poison
him | But one cannot bribe those ecclesiastics; and as for
the dagger, one could not hire a man to be torn in pieces
by monks. No ; I must just sit still and see what
Fortune's dice may turn up. Well, your pedants like
Aristides or Epaminondas—thank Heaven, the race of
them has died out long ago! might call this no very credit-
able piece of provincial legislation ; but, after all, it is
about as good as any now going, or likely to be going till
the world’s end ; and one can’t be expected to strike out a
new path. I shall stick to the wisdom of my predecessors,
and—Oh, that Cyril may make a fool of himself tonight!”
And Cyril did make a fool of himself that night, for the
first and last time in his life ; and suffers for it, as wise
men are wont to do when they err, to this very day and
hour ; but how much Orestes gained by his foe's false
move cannot be decided till the end of his story; perhaps
not even then.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LOST LAMIBS.
AND Philammon P
For a long while he stood in the street outside the
theatre, too much maddened to determine on any course
of action ; and, ere he had recovered his self-possession,
the crowd began to pour from every outlet and, filling the
rtreet, swept him away in its stream.
Then, as he heard his sister’s name, in every tone of
pity, contempt, and horror, mingle with their angry
exclamations, he awoke from his dream, and bursting
through the mob, made straight for Pelagia’s house.
It was fast closed, and his repeated knocks at the gate
sliought only, after long waiting, a surly negro face to a
bttle wicket. -
He asked eagerly and instinctively for Pelagia : of
course she had not yet returned. For Wulf ; he was not
within. And then he took his station close to the gateway,
while his heart beat loud with hope and dread.
At last the Goths appeared, forcing their way through
the mob in a close column. There were no litters with
them. Where, then, were Pelagia and her girls? Where,
too, was the hated figure of the Amal, and Wulf, and
Smid? The men came on, led by Goderic and Agilmund,
with folded arms, knitted brows, downcast eyes; a stern
disgust, not unmingled with shame, on every countenance,
told Philammon afresh of his sister’s infamy.
Goderic passed him close, and Philammon summoned
up courage to ask for Wulf. . . . Pelagia he had not
courage to name. -
“Out, Greek hound ! we have seen enough of your
accursed race race today! What! are you trying to follow
us in P” and the young man, s sword flashed from its sheath
so swiftly that Philammon had but just time enough to
spring back into the street, and wait there in an agony
362
A/YAA 7/A. 363
of disappointment and anxiety, as the gates slid together
again, and the house was as silent as before.
For a miserable hour he waited, while the mob thickened
instead of flowing away, and the scattered groups of chat-
terers began to form themselves into masses, and parade the
streets with shouts of “Down with the heathen P’ ‘‘ Down
with the idolaters!” “Vengeance on all blaspheming
harlots!”
At last the steady tramp of legionaries, and in the midst
of the glittering lines of armed men—oh, joy! a string of
litters!
He sprang forward and called Pelagia’s name again and
again. Once he fancied he heard an answer ; but the
soldiers thrust him back.
“She is safe here, young fool, and has seen and been
seen quite enough today already. Back!”
“Let me speak to her!”
“That is her business. Ours is now to see her home
safe.” -
“Let me go in with you, I beseech"
“If you want to go in, knock for yourself when we are
gone. If you have any business in the house they will
Open to you, I suppose. Out, you interfering puppy!”
And a blow of the spear-butt in his chest sent him
rolling back into the middle of the street, while the sol-
diers, having delivered up their charge, returned with the
same stolid indifference. In vain Philammon, returning,
knocked at the gate. Curses and threats from the negro
were all the answer which he received ; and at last, wearied
into desperation, he wandered away, up one street and
down another, struggling in vain to form some plan of
action for himself, until the sun was set.
Wearily he went homeward at last. Once the thought
of Miriam crossed his mind. It was a disgusting alter-
native to ask help of her, the very author of his sister's
shame ; but yet she at least could obtain for him a sight of
Pelagia ; she had promised as much. But then—the con-
dition which she had appended to her help! To see his
sister, and yet to leave her as she was Horrible contra-
diction! But could he not employ Miriam for his own
ends?—outwit her?—deceive her?—for it came to that,
364 HYPA TIA.
The temptation was intense ; but it lasted only a moment.
Could he defile so pure a cause by falsehood? And hurry-
ing past the Jewess' door, hardly daring to look at it, lest
the temptation should return, he darted upstairs to his
own little chamber, hastily flung open the door, and
stopped short in astonishment. +
A woman, covered from head to foot in a large dark veil,
in the center of the chamber.
“Who are you? This is no place for you!” cried he,
after a minute's pause. She replied only by a shudder
and a sob. . . . He caught sight, beneath the folds of
the veil, of a too well-known saffron shawl, and springing
upon her like the lion on the lamb, clasped to his bosom
his sister.
The veil fell from her beautiful forehead. She gazed
into his eyes one moment with a look of terrified inquiry,
and saw nothing there but love. . . . And clinging heart
to heart, brother and sister mingled holy kisses, and
strained nearer and nearer still, as if to satisfy their last
lingering doubts of each other's kin. -
Many a minute passed in silent joy. . . . Philammon
dare not speak : he dare not ask her what brought her
thither—dare not wake her to recollect the frightful present
by questions of the past, of his long forgotten parents,
their home, her history . . . . And, after all, was it not
enough for him that he held her at last?—her, there by
her own will—the lost lamb returned to him?—and their
tears mingled as their cheeks were pressed together.
At last she spoke. -
‘‘I ought to have known you—I believe I did kno
you from the first day ! When they mentioned your like-
ness to me, my heart leapt up within me; and a voice
whispered . . . but I would not hear it! I was ashamed
—ashamed to acknowledge my brother, for whom I had
sought and longed for years . . . ashamed to think that
I had a brother. . . . Ah, God! and ought I not to be
ashamed P”
And she broke from him again, and threw herself on the
floor. *
“Trample upon me; curse me—anything but part me
from him!”
A/YAA 7TWA. 365
Philammon had not the heart to answer her ; but he
made an involuntary gesture of Sorrowful dissent.
“No! Call me what I am!—what he called me just
now!—but do not take me away! Strike me, as he struck
me!—anything but parting!” -
“Struck you? The curse of God be on him l’”
“Ah, do not curse him! not him! It was not a blow,
indeed!—only a push—a touch—and it was my fault—
all mine. I angered him—I upbraided him—I was mad.
. . . Oh, why did he deceive me? Why did he let me
dance?—command me to dance.” -
“Command you?”
“He said that we must not break our words. He
would not hear me, when I told him that we could deny
having promised. I said that promises made over wine
need never be kept. . . . Who ever heard of keeping
them? And Orestes was drunk, too. But he said that I
might teach a Goth to be what I liked, except a liar. . . . .
Was not that a strange speech? . . . And Wulf bade him
be strong, and blest him for it.”
“He was right,” sobbed Philammon.
“Then I thought he would love me for obeying him,
though I loathed it!—O God, how I loathed it! . . . But
how could I fancy that he did not like my doing it! Who
ever heard of any one doing of their own will what they
did not like?”
Philammon sobbed again, as the poor civilized savage
artlessly opened to him all her moral darkness. What
could he say? . . . He knew what to say. The disease
was so utterly patent, that any of Cyril's school children
could have supplied the remedy. But how to speak it?—
how to tell her, before all things, as he longed to do, that
there was no hope of her marrying the Amal, and, there-
fore, no peace for her till she left him?
“Then you did hate the—the
catching at some gleam of light.
“Hate it! Do I not belong, body and soul, to him?—
him only? . . . And yet . . . Oh, I must tell you all!
When I and the girls began to practice, all the old feelings
came back—the love of being admired, and applauded,
and cheered ; dancing is so delicious! so delicious to feel
” said he, at last,
366 Aſ VAZA 7TWA.
that you are doing anything beautiful perfectly, and better
than every one else! . . . And he saw that I liked it, and
despised me for it. . . . And, deceitful! he little guessed
how much of the pains which I took were taken to please
him, to do my best before him, to win admiration, only
that I might take it home and throw it all at his beloved
feet, and make the world say once more, “She has all
Alexandria to worship her, and yet she cares for that one
Goth more than for ' But he deceived me, true man
that he is! He wished to enjoy my smiles to the last
moment, and then to cast me off, when I had once given
him an excuse. . . . Too cowardly to upbraid me, he let
me ruin myself, to save him the trouble of ruining me.
O men, men! all alike! They love us for their own sake
and we love them for love's sake. We live by love, we die
for love, and yet we never find it, but only selfishness
dressed up in love's mask. . . . And then we take up
with that, poor, fond, self-blinded creatures that we are
and in spite of the poisoned hearts around us, persuade
ourselves that our latest asp’s egg, at least, will hatch into
a dove, and that though all men are faithless, our own
tyrant can never change, for he is more than man l’’
“But he has deceived you! You have found out your
mistake. Leave him, then, as he deserves!”
Pelagia looked up, with something of a tender smile.
“Poor darling! Little do you know of love!”
Philammon, utterly bewildered by this newest and
strangest phase of human passion, could only gasp out,
“But do you not love me, too, my sister?” -
“Do I not love you? But not as I love him! Oh,
hush, hush | you cannot understand yet!” And Pelagia
hid her face in her hands, while convulsive shudderings
ran through every limb. . . .
‘‘I must do it! I must! I will dare everything, stoop
to everything, for love's sake! Go to her! to the wise
woman!—to Hypatia! She loves you! I know that she
loves you! She will hear you, though she will not me!”
“Hypatia? Do you know that she was sitting there
unmoved at—in the theatre?” - • *
“She was forced Orestes compelled her! Miriam told
me so. And I saw it in her face. As I passed beneath
A/YA-A 7/4. 367
her, I looked up ; and she was as pale as ivory, trembling
in every limb. There was a dark hollow round her eyes—
she had been weeping, I saw. And I sneered in my mad
self-conceit, and said, “She looks as if she was going to be
crucified, not married!' . . . But now, now ! Oh, go to
her! Tell her that I will give her all I have—jewels,
money, dresses, house! Tell her that I–I–entreat her
pardon, that I will crawl to her feet myself and ask it, if
she requires! Only let her teach me—teach me to be wise
and good, and honored, and respected, as she is! Ask her
to tell a poor broken-hearted woman her secret. She can
make old Wulf, and him, and Orestes even, and the magis-
trates, respect her. . . . Ask her to teach me how to be
like her, and to make him respect me again, and I will
give her all—all!” -
Philammon hesitated. Something within warned him,
as the Demon used to warn Socrates, that his errand would
be bootless. He thought of the theatre, and of that firm,
compressed lip ; and forgot the hollow eye of misery which
accompanied it, in his wrath against his lately worshipped
idol. -
** Oh, go! go! I tell you it was against her will. She felt
for me—I saw it—O God! when I did not feel for myself!
And I hated her, because she seemed to despise me in my
fool's triumph P. She cannot despise me now in my misery.
. . . Go! Go! or you will drive me to the agony of going
myself.”
There was but one thing to be done.
“You will wait, then, here? You will not leave me
again?”
“Yes. But you must be quick! If he finds out that I
am away, he may fancy. . . . Ah, heavens' let him kill
me, but never let him be jealous of me! Go now ! this
moment! Take this as an earnest——the cestus which I
wore there. Horrid thing! I hate the sight of it! But I
brought it with me on purpose, or I would have thrown it
into the canal. There ; say it is an earnest—only an
earnest—of what I will give her!”
In ten minutes more Philammon was in Hypatia's hall.
The household seemed full of terror and disturbance ; the
hall was full of soldiers. At last Hypatia's favorite maid
368 * Aſ VA’A 7TWA.
passed, and knew him. Her mistress could not speak
with anyone. Where was Theon, then? He, too, had
shut himself up. Never mind. Philammon must, would
speak with him. And he pleaded so passionately and so
sweetly, that the soft-hearted damsel, unable to resist so
handsome a suppliant, undertook his errand, and led him
up to the library, where Theon, pale as death, was pacing
to and fro apparently half beside himself with terror.
Philammon's breathless message fell at first upon
unheeding ears. *
“A new pupil, sir! Is this a time for pupils ; when my
house, my daughter's life, is not safe? Wretch that I am
And have I led her into the snare? I, with my vain ambi-
tion and covetousness! Oh, my child! my child! my one
treasure! Oh, the double curse which will light upon me,
if—” -
“She asks for but one interview.”
“With my daughter, sir? Pelagia! Will you insult
me? Do you suppose, even if her own pity should so far
tempt her to degrade herself, that I could allow her so to
contaminate her purity?”
“Your terror, sir, excuses your rudeness.”
“Rudeness, sir? The rudeness lies in your intruding
on us at such a moment.” -
“Then this, perhaps, may, in your eyes at least, excuse
me in my turn.” Philammon held out the cestus. “You
are a better judge of its value than I. But I am commis-
sioned to say, that it is only an earnest of what she will
give, willingly and at once, even to the half of her wealth,
for the honor of becoming your daughter's pupil.” And
he laid the jewelled girdle on the table.
The old man halted in his walk. The emeralds and
pearls shone like the galaxy. He looked at them ; and
walked on again more slowly. . . . What might be their
value? What might it not be? At least, they would pay
all his debts. . . . And after hovering to and fro for
another minute before the bait, he turned to Philammon.
“If you would promise to mention the thing to no one—”
“I will promise.” -
“And in case my daughter, as I have a right to expect,
shall refuse ; 3
Aſ YAA TWA 369
“Let her keep the jewels. Their owner has learnt,
thank God, to despise and hate them | Let her keep the
jewels—and my curse! For God do so to me, and more
also, if I ever see her face again!”
The old man had not heard the latter part of Philam-
mon's speech. He had seized his bait as greedily as a
crocodile, and hurried off with it into Hypatia’s chamber,
while Philammon stood expectant : possessed with a new
and fearful doubt. “Degrade herself?” “Contaminate
her purity!” If that notion were to be the fruit of all her
philosophy? If selfishness, pride, Pharisaism, were all
its outcome? Why—had they not been its outcome
already? When had he seen her helping, even pitying,
the poor, the outcast? When had he heard from her One
word of real sympathy for the sorrowing ; for the sinful?
. . . He was still lost in thought when Theon re-entered,
bringing a letter.
“Afrom Hypatia to her weſ/-äe/oved pupi/.
‘‘I pity you—how should I not? And more, I thank
you for this your request, for it shows me that my unwill-
ing presence at the hideous pageant of today, has not
alienated from me a soul of which I had cherished the
noblest hopes, for which I had sketched out the loftiest
destiny. But—how shall I say it? Ask yourself whether
a change—apparently impossible—must not take place in
her for whom you plead, before she and I can meet? I
am not so inhuman as to blame you for having asked me ;
I do not even blame her for being what she is. She does
but follow her nature; who can be angry with her, if
destiny have informed so fair an animal with a too gross
and earthly spirit? Why weep over her? Dust she is,
and unto dust she will return : while you, to whom a more
divine spark was allotted at your birth, must rise, and
unrepining, leave below you one only connected with you
by the unreal and fleeting bonds of fleshly kin.”
Philammon crushed the letter together in his hand, and
Strode from the house without a word.
The philosopher had no gospel then for the harlot! No
word for the sinner, the degraded! Destiny, forsooth !
She was to follow her destiny, and be base, miserable, self-
37O - ATVA’A 7TWA.
condemned. She was to crush the voice of conscience and
reason, as often as it awoke within her, and compel herself
to believe that she was bound to be that which she knew
herself bound not to be. She was to shut her eyes to that
present palpable misery which was preaching to her, with
the voice of God himself, that the wages of sin are death.
Dust she was, and unto dust she will return! Oh, glorious
hope for her, for him, who felt as if an eternity of bliss
would be worthless, if it parted him from his new-found
treasure! Dust she was, and unto dust she must return!
Hapless Hypatia! If she must needs misapply, after
the fashion of her school, a text or two here and there
from the Hebrew scriptures, what suicidal fantasy set her
on quoting that one? For now, upon Philammon's mem-
Ory flashed up in letters of light, old words forgotten for
months—and ere he was aware, he found himself repeating
aloud and passionately, “I believe in the forgiveness of
sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlast-
ing,” . . . and then clear and fair arose before him the
vision of the God-man, as He lay at meat in the Pharisee's
house; and of her who washed His feet with tears, and
wiped them with the hairs of her head. . . . And from
the depths of his agonized heart arose the prayer, ‘‘Blessed
Magdalene, intercede for her!” -
So high he could rise : but not beyond. For the notion
of that God-man was receding fast to more and more awful
and abysmal heights, in the minds of a generation who
were forgetting His love in His power, and practically
losing sight of His humanity in their eager doctrinal asser-
tion of His Divinity. And Philammon’s heart re-echoed
the spirit of his age, when he felt that for an apostate like
himself it were presumptuous to entreat for any light or
help from the fountain-head itself. He who had denied
his Lord, he who had voluntarily cut himself off from the
Communion of the Catholic Church—how could he restore
himself? How could he appease the wrath of Him who
died on the Cross, save by years of bitter supplication and
self-punishment?
‘‘ Fool! Vain and ambitious fool that I have been
For this I threw away the faith of my childhood! For
this I listened to words at which I shuddered ; crushed
Aſ VPATIA. 37 I
down my own doubts and disgusts ; tried to persuade
myself that I could reconcile them with Christianity—that
I could make a lie fit into the truth! For this I puffed
myself up in the vain hope of becoming not as other men
are—superior, forsooth, to my kind! It was not enough
for me to be a man made in the image of God : but I must
needs become a god myself, knowing good and evil. And
here is the end! I call upon my fine philosophy to help
me once, in one real practical human struggle, and it folds
its arms and sits serene and silent, smiling upon my
misery! O fool, fool, thou art filled with the fruit of thy
own devices! Back to the old faith ! Home again, thou
wanderer! And yet how home? Are not the gates shut
against me? Perhaps against her too. . . . What if she,
like me, were a baptized Christian P”
Terrible and all but hopeless that thought flashed across
him, as in the first revolution of his conscience he plunged
utterly and implicitly back again into the faith of his child-
hood, and all the dark and cruel theories popular in his
day rose up before him in all their terrors. In the inno-
cent simplicity of the Laura he had never felt their force ;
but he felt them now. If Pelagia were a baptized woman,
what was before her but unceasing penance? Before her,
as before him, a life of cold and hunger, groans and tears,
loneliness and hideous soul-sickening uncertainty. Life
was a dungeon for them both henceforth. Be it so!
There was nothing else to believe in. No other rock of
hope in earth or heaven. That at least promised a possi-
bility of forgiveness, of amendment, of virtue, of reward—
ay, of everlasting bliss and glory ; and even if she missed
that, better for her the cell in the desert than a life of self-
contented impurity! If that latter were her destiny, as
Hypatia said, she should at least die fighting against it,
defying it, cursing it! Better virtue with hell, than sin
with heaven! And Hypatia had not even promised her a
heaven. The resurrection of the flesh was too carnal a
notion for her refined and lofty creed. And so, his four
months' dream swept away in a moment, he hurried back
to his chamber with one fixed thought before him—the
desert; a cell for Pelagia, another for himself. There they
would repent, and pray and mourn out life side by side, if
372 HYPATIA.
perhaps God would have mercy upon their souls. Yet
—perhaps, she might not have been baptized at all. And
then, she was safe. Like other converts from Paganism,
she might become a catechumen, and go on to baptism,
where the mystic water would wash away in a moment all
the past, and she would begin life afresh, in the spotless
robes of innocence. Yet he had been baptized, he knew
from Arsenius, before he left Athens; and she was older
than he. It was all but impossible : yet he would hope ;
and breathless with anxiety and excitement, he ran up the
narrow stairs and found Miriam standing outside her hand
upon the bolt, apparently inclined to dispute his passage.
“Is she still within P”
“What if she be?”
“Let me pass into my own room.”
“Yours? Who has been paying the rent for you, these
four months past? You! What can you say to her?
What can you do for her? Young pedant, you must be in
love yourself before you can help poor creatures who are
in love!” -
But Philammon pushed past her so fiercely, that the old
woman was forced to give way, and with a sinister smile
she followed him into the chamber.
Pelagia sprang toward her brother.
‘‘Will she?—will she see me?” .
“Let us talk no more of her, my beloved,” said Philam-
mon, laying his hands gently on her trembling shoulders,
and looking earnestly into her eyes. . . . “Better that we
two should work out our deliverance for ourselves, without
the help of strangers. You can trust me?”
“You? And can you help me? Will you teach
me P’’
“Yes, but not here. . . . We must escape—Nay, hear
me, one moment! dearest sister, hear me! Are you so
happy here that you can conceive of no better place! And
—and, O.God! that it may not be true after all!—but is
there not a hell hereafter?” -
Pelagia covered her face with her hands—“The old
monk warned me of it!” -
“Oh, take his warning.” . . . And Philammon was
bursting forth with some such words about the lake of fire
A/YPA 7/4. 373
and brimstone as he had been accustomed to hear from
Pambo and Arsenius, when Pelagia interrupted him.
“O Miriam | Is it true? Is it possible? What will
become of me?” almost shrieked the poor child.
“What if it were true? Let him tell, you how he will
save you from it,” answered Miriam quietly. -
“Will not the Gospel save her from it—unbelievin
Jew? Do not contradict me! I can save her.”
“If she does what?”
“Can she not repent? Can she not mortify these base
affections? Can she not be forgiven P Oh, my Pelagia!
forgive me for having dreamed one moment that I could
make you a philosopher, when you may be a saint of God,
a—”
He stopped short suddenly, as the thought about baptism
flashed across him, and in a faltering voice asked, “Are
you baptized?”
“Baptized?” asked she, hardly understanding the term.
“Yes—by the bishop—in the church.”
“Ah,” she said, “I remember now. . . . When I was
four or five years old. . . . A tank, and women undress-
ing. . . . And I was bathed too, and an old man dipped
my head under the water three times. . . . I have forgot-
ten what it all meant—it was so long ago. I wore a white
dress, I know, afterward.”
Philammon recoiled with a groan.
“ Unhappy child! May God have mercy on you!”
“Will He not forgive me, then? You have forgiven me.
He?—He must be more good even than you. Why not?”
“He forgave you then, freely, when you were baptized ;
and there is no second pardon, unless—”
“ Unless I leave my love!” shrieked Pelagia.
. “When the Lord forgave the blessed Magdalene freely,
and told her that her faith had saved her—did she live on
in sin, or even in the pleasures of this world? No! though
God had forgiven her, she could not forgive herself. She
fled forth into the desert, and there, naked and barefoot
clothed only with hair, and feeding on the herb of the field
she stayed fasting and praying till her dying day, never
seeing the face of man, but visited and comforted by angels
and archangels. And if she, she who never fell again
374. A/YA4 77.4.
needed that long penance to work out her salvation—O
Pelagia, what will not God require of you, who have
broken your baptismal vows, and defiled the white robes,
which the tears of penance only can wash clean once
more?”
“But I did not know! I did not ask to be baptized
Cruel, cruel parents, to bring me to it! And God! Oh,
why did He forgive me so soon? And to go into the
deserts! I dare not! I cannot! See me, how delicate
and tender I am! I should die of hunger and cold! I
should go mad with fear and loneliness! O brother,
brother, is this the Gospel of the Christians? I came to
you to be taught how to be wise and good, and respected,
and you tell me that all I can do is to live this horrible life
of torture here, on the chance of escaping torture forever!
And how do I know that I shall escape it? How do I
know that I shall make myself miserable enough P. How
do I know that He will forgive me after all? Is this true,
Miriam? Tell me, or I shall go mad!”.'
“Yes,” said Miriam, with a quiet sneer, “this is the
gospel and good news of salvation, according to the
doctrine of the Nazarenes.”
“I will go with you!” cried Philammon. “I will go!
I will never leave you! I have my own sins to wash away!
—Happy for me if I ever do it!—And I will build you a
cell near mine, and kind men will teach us, and we will
pray together night and morning, for ourselves, and for
each other, and weep out our weary lives together—”
“Better end them here, at once!” said Pelagia, with a
gesture of despair, and dashed herself down on the floor.
Philammon was about to lift her up, when Miriam
caught him by the arm, and in a hurried whisper—“Are
you mad? Will you ruin your own purpose? Why did
you tell her this? Why did you not wait?—give her hope
—time to collect herself—time to wean herself from
her lover, instead of terrifying and disgusting her at
the outset, as you have done? Have you a man's heart in
you? No word of comfort for that poor creature, nothing
but hell, hell, hell? See to your own chance of hell first!
It is greater than you fancy!”
“It cannot be greater than I fancy!”
Aſ VA’4 7/4. 375
“Then see to it. For her, poor darling! Why, even.
we Jews, who know that all you Gentiles are doomed to
Gehenna alike, have some sort of hope for such a poor
untaught creature as that.”
“And why is she untaught? Wretch that you are
You have had the training of her! You brought her up to
sin and shame! You drove from her recollection the faith
in which she was baptized ''
“So much the better for her, if the recollection of it is
to make her no happier than it does already. Better to
wake unexpectedly in Gehenna when you die, than to
endure over and above the dread of it here. And as for
leaving her untaught, on your own showing she has been
taught too much already. Wiser it would be in you to
curse your parents for having had her baptized, than me
for giving her ten years' pleasure before she goes to the
pit of Tophet. Come now, don’t be angry with me. The
old Jewess is your friend, revile her as you will. She
shall marry this Goth.”
“An Arian heretic l’’
“She shall convert him and make a Catholic of him, if
you like. At all events, if you wish to win her, you must
win her my way. You have had your chance, and spoiled
it. Let me have mine. Pelagia, darling! Up, and be a
woman! We will find a philtre downstairs to give that
ungrateful man, that shall make him more mad
about you, before a day is over, than ever you were about
him.”
“No!” said Pelagia, looking up. “No love-potions!
No poisons!”
“Poisons, little fool! Do you doubt the old woman's
skill? Do you think I shall make him lose his wits, as
Callisphyra did to her lover last year, because she would
trust to old Megaera's drugs, instead of coming to me?”
“No! No drugs; no magic! He must love me really
or not at all! He must love me for myself, because I am
worth loving, because he honors, worships me, or let me
die! I, whose boast was, even when I was basest, that I
never needed such mean tricks, but conquered like Aphro-
dite, a queen in my own right! I have been my own love-
charm ; when I cease to be that, let me die,”
376 *3
- Aſ VP-1774.
“One as mad as the other,” cried Miriam, in utter per-
plexity. “Hist! what is that tramp upon the stairs?”
At this moment heavy footsteps were heard ascending
the stairs. . . . All three stopped aghast : Philammon,
because he thought the visitors were monks in search of
him ; Miriam, because she thought they were Orestes'
guards in search of her ; and Pelagia, from vague dread of
anything and everything. . . .
“Have you an inner room?” asked the Jewess.
‘‘ None.”
The old woman set her lips firmly, and drew her dagger.
Pelagia wrapped her face in her cloak, and stood trem-
bling, bowed down, as if expecting another blow. The
door opened, and in walked, neither monks nor guards,
but Wulf and Smid. -
“Heyday, young monk!” cried the latter worthy,
with a loud laugh—“Veils here, too, eh? At your old
trade, my worthy portress of hell-gate? Well, walk out
now ; we have a little business with this young gentleman.”
And slipping past the unsuspecting Goths, Pelagia and
Miriam hurried downstairs.
“The young one, at least, seems a little ashamed of her
errand. . . . Now, Wulf, speak low ; and I will see that
no one is listening at the door.”
Philammon faced his unexpected visitors with a look of
angry inquiry. What right had they, or any man, to
intrude at such a moment on his misery and disgrace? . . .
But he was disarmed the next instant by old Wulf, who
advanced to him, and looking him fully in the face with an
expression which there was no mistaking, held out his
broad brown hand.
Philammon grasped it, and then covering his face with
his hands, burst into tears.
“You did right. You are a brave boy. If you had died,
no man need have been ashamed to die your death.”
“You were there, then?” sobbed Philammon.
* * We Were.” - -
“And what is more,” said Smid, as the poor boy writhed
at the admission, “we were mightily minded, some of us,
to have leapt down on you and cut you a passage out.
One man at least, whom I know of, felt his old blood as
HYP4 7/4. 377
hot for the minute as a four-year old’s. The foul curs!
And to hoot her, after all! Oh, that I may have one good
hour's hewing at them before I die!”
“And you shall!” said Wulf. “Boy, you wish to get
this sister of yours into your power?”
“It is hopeless—hopeless! She will never leave her—
the Amal.”
“Are you so sure of that?”
“She told me so with her own lips not ten minutes ago.
That was she who went out as you entered!”
A curse of astonishment and regret burst from Smid. . . .
“Had I but known her! By the soul of my fathers, she
should have found that it was easier to come here than t
go home again!”
“Hush, Smid | Better as it is. Boy, if I put her into
your power, dare you carry her off?”
Philammon hesitated one moment.
“What I dare you know already. But it would be an
unlawful thing, surely, to use violence.”
“Settle your philosopher’s doubts for yourself. I have
made my offer. I should have thought a man in his
senses could give but one answer, much more a mad
monk.”
“You forget the money matters, prince,” said Smid,
with a smile. .
“I do not. But I don’t think the boy so mean as to
hesitate on that account.” - .
“He may as well know, however, that we promise to
send all her trumpery after her, even to the Amal’s
presents. As for the house, we won’t trouble her to lend
it us longer than we can help. We intend shortly to move
into more extensive premises, and open business
On a grander scale, as the shop-keepers say—eh,
prince?” - . .
“Her money? That money? God forgive her!”
answered Philammon. “Do you fancy me base enough
to touch it? But I am resolved. Tell me what to do, and
I will do it.”
“You know the lane which runs down to the canal,
under the left wall of the house?” -
• * Yes.” -
378 A. YPA TIA.
“And a door in the corner tower, close to the landing
place?” - :
* “I do.”
“Be there, with a dozen stout monks, tomorrow, an
hour after sundown, and take what we give you. After
that, the concern is yours, not ours.”
“Monks?” said Philammon. “I am at open feud with
the whole order.” - * *
“Make friends with them, then,” shortly suggested
Smid.
Philammon writhed inwardly. . “It makes no difference
to you, I presume, whom I bring?” .
“No more than it does whether or not you pitch her
into the canal, and put a hurdle over her when you have
got her,” answered Smid : “which is what a Goth would
do, if he were in your place.”
“Do not vex the poor lad, friend. If he thinks he can
mend her instead of punishing her, in Freya's name, let
him try. You will be there, then? And mind, I like you.
I liked you when you faced that great river-hog. I like
you better now than ever ; for you have spoken today like
a Sagaman, and dared like a hero. . Therefore mind ; if
you do not bring a good guard tomorrow night, your life
will not be safe. The whole city is out in the streets ; and
Odin alone knows what will be done, and who will be alive
eight-and-forty hours hence. Mind you! The mob may
do strange things, and they may see still stranger things
done. If you once find yourself safe back here, stay where
you are if you value her life or your own. And—if you
are wise, let the men whom you bring with you be monks,
though it cost your proud stomach 2 3 -
“That’s not fair, prince! You are telling too much!”
interrupted Smid, while Philammon gulped down the said
proud stomach, and answered, “Be it so!”
“I have won my bet, Smid,” said the old man, chuck-
ling, as the two tramped out into the streets, to the sur-
prise and fear of all the neighbors, while the children clap-
ped their hands, and the street dogs felt it their duty to
bark lustily at the strange figures of their unwonted
visitors. -
“No play, no pay, Wulf. We shall see tomorrow.”
Aſ YPA 7/A. - 379
‘‘I knew that he would stand the trial I knew he was
right at heart!” .
“At all events, there is no fear of his ill-using the poor
thing, if he loves her well enough to go down on his knees
to his sworn foes for her.”
“I don’t know that,” answered Wulf, with a shake of
the head. “These monks, I hear, fancy that their God
likes them the better the more miserable they are ; so per-
haps they may fancy that he will like them all the more,
the more miserable they make other people. However,
it’s no concern of ours.”
“We have quite enough of our own to see to just now.
But mind, no play, no pay.” -
“Of course not. How the streets are filling! We shall
not be able to see the guards tonight, if this mob thickens
much more.”
“We shall have enough to do to hold our own, perhaps.
Do you hear what they are crying there? ‘Down with all
heathens! Down with barbarians!' That means us, you
know.”
“Do you fancy no one understands Greek but yourself?
Let them come. . . . It may give us an excuse. . . .
And we can hold the house a week.”
“But how can we get speech of the guards?”
“We will slip round by water. And after all, deeds will
win them better than talk. They will be forced to fight on
the same side as we, and most probably be glad of Our
help ; for if the mob attacks anyone, it will begin with the
prefect.”
“And then—curse their shouting! Let the soldiers once
find our Amal at their head, and they will be ready to go
with him a mile, where they meant to go a yard.”
“The Goths will, and the Markman, and those Dacians,
and Thracians, or whatever the Romans call them. But
I hardly trust the Huns.”
“The curse of heaven on their pudding faces and pigs'
eyes! There will be no love lost between us. But there
are not twenty of them scattered in different troops : one of
us can thrash three of them ; and they will be sure to side
with the winning party. Besides, plunder, plunder, Com-
rade! When did you know a Hun turn back from
38o º Aſ VPA 7/A,
that, even if he were only on the scent of a lump of
tallow P” •.
“As for the Gauls and Latins,” . . . went on Wulf,
meditatively, “they belong to any man who can pay
them.” . . . -
“Which we can do, like all wise generals, one penny out
of our own pocket, and nine out of the enemy’s. And the
Amal is stanch P”
“Stanch as his own hounds, now there is something to
be done on the spot. His heart was in the right place
after all. I knew it all along. But he could never in his
life see four-and-twenty hours before him. Even now, if
that Pelagia gets him under her spell again, he may throw
down his sword, and fall as fast asleep as ever.”
“Never fear : we have settled her destiny for her, as far
as that is concerned. Look at the mob before the door!
We must get in by the postern-gate.” -
“Get in by the sewer, like a rat! I go my own way.
Draw, old hammer and tongs! or run away?”
“Not this time.” And sword in hand, the two marched
into the heart of the crowd, who gave way before them
like a flock of sheep.
“They know their intended shepherds already,” said
Smid. But at that moment the crowd, seeing them
about to enter the house, raised a yell of “Goths!
Heathens! Barbarians!” and a rush from behind took
place.
“If you will have it, then!” said Wulf. And the two
long bright blades flashed round and round their heads,
redder and redder every time they swung aloft. . . . The
old men never even checked their steady walk, and knock-
ing at the gate, went in, leaving more than one lifeless
corpse at the entrance. - -
“We have put the coal in the thatch, now, with a
vengeance,” said Smid, as they wiped their swords inside.
‘‘We have. Get out a boat and half a dozen men, and
I and Goderic will go round by the canal to the palace,
and settle a thing or two with the guards.” -
“Why should not the Amal go, and offer our help him-
self to the prefect?” -
“What? Would you have him after that turn against
Aſ VPA 7TWA 381
the hound? For truth and honor’s sake, he must keep
quiet in the matter.”
“He will have no objection to keep quiet—trust him for
that! But don’t forget Sagaman Moneybag, the best of
all orators,” called Smid laughingly after him, as he went
off to man the boat.
CHAPTER XXV.
SEEKING AFTER A SIGN.
‘‘WHAT answer has he sent back, father?” asked
Hypatia, as Theon re-entered her chamber, after delivering
that hapless letter to Philammon.
“Insolent that he is he tore it to fragments and fled
forth without a word.”
“Let him go, and desert us like the rest, in our
calamity!”
“At least we have the jewels.”
“The jewels? Let them be returned to their owner.
Shall we defile ourselves by taking them as wages or any-
thing—above all, for that which is unperformed P”
“But, my child, they were given to us freely. He bade
me keep them ;—and—and, to tell the truth, I must keep
them. After this unfortunate failure, be sure of it, every
creditor we have will be clamoring for payment.”
‘‘Let them take our house and furniture, and sell us as
slaves, then. Let them take all, provided we keep our
virtue.”
“Sell us as slaves? Are you mad?” tº,
“Not quite mad yet, father,” answered she with a sad
smile. “But how should we be worse than we are now,
were we slaves? Raphael Aben-Ezra told me that he
obeyed my precepts, when he went forth as a houseless
beggar ; and shall I not have courage to obey them myself,
if the need come? The thought of his endurance has
shamed my luxury for this many a month. After all, what
does the philosopher require but bread and water, and the
clear brook in which to wash away the daily stains of his
earthly prison house? Let what is fated come. Hypatia
struggles with the stream no more!”
“My daughter! And have you given up all hope? So
soon disheartened! What! Is this paltry accident to
sweep away the purposes of years? Orestes remains still
382
Aſ VPA 7TWA. 383
faithful. His guards have Orders to garrison the house
for so long as we shall require them.”
“Send them away, then. I have done no wrong, and I
fear no punishment.” -
“You do not know the madness of the mob ; they are
shouting your name in the streets already in company with
Pelagia’s.”
Hypatia shuddered. Her name in company with
Pelagia's] And to this she had brought herself!
“I have deserved it! I have sold myself to a lie and
disgrace! I have stooped to truckle to intrigue! I have
bound myself to a sordid trickster! Father! never mention
his name to me again! I have leagued myself with the
impure and the blood-thirsty, and I have my reward! No
more politics for Hypatia from henceforth, my father;
no more orations and lectures ; no more pearls of divine
wisdom cast before swine. I have sinned in divulging the
secrets of the Immortals to the mob. Let them follow
their natures! Fool that I was, to fancy that my speech,
my plots, could raise them above that which the gods had
made them l’’ -
“Then you give up our lectures? Worse and worse!
We shall be ruined utterly l’”
“We are ruined utterly already. Orestes? There is
no help in him. I know the man too well, my father, not
to know that he would give us up tomorrow to the fury of the
Christians, were his own base life—even his own baser
office—in danger.”
“Too true—too true! I fear,” said the poor old man,
wringing his hands in perplexity. “What will become of
us—of you, rather? What matter what happens to the
useless old star-gazer? Let him die! Today or next
year is alike to him. But you—you! Let us escape by
the canal. We may gather up enough, even without
these jewels, which you refuse, to pay our voyage to
Athens, and there we shall be safe with Plutarch ; he will
welcome you—all Athens will welcome you—we will col-
lect a fresh school—and you shall be Queen of Athens, as
you have been Queen of Alexandria!”
“No, father, What I know, henceforth I will know for
384 Ayeazza.
myself only. Hypatia will be, from this day, alone with
the immortal gods!”
“You will not leave me?” cried the old man, terrified.
“Never on earth!” answered she, bursting into real
human tears, and throwing herself on his bosom. “Never
—never! father of my spirit as well as of my flesh! the
parent who has trained me, taught me, educated my
soul from the cradle to use her wings! the only human
being who never misunderstood me—never thwarted me—
never deceived me!” -
“My priceless child! And I have been the cause of
your ruin!”
“Not you! a thousand times not you! I only am to
blame! I tampered with worldly politics. I tempted you
on to fancy that I could effect what I so rashly undertook!
Do not accuse yourself unless you wish to break my heart.
We can be happy together yet. A palm-leaf hut in the
desert, dates from the grove, and water from the spring—
the monk dares be miserable alone in such a dwelling,
and cannot we dare to be happy together in it?”
“Then you will escape?”
“Not today. It were base to flee before danger comes.
We must hold out at our post to the last moment, even if
we dare not die at it like heroes. And tomorrow I go to
the lecture-room—to the beloved Museum, for the last
time, to take farewell of my pupils. Unworthy as they
are, I owe it to myself and to philosophy to tell them why
I leave them.”
“It will be too dangerous—indeed it will!”
“I could take the guards with me, then. And yet—no.
. . . They shall never have occasion to impute fear to the
philosopher. Let them see her go forth as usual on her
errand, strong in the courage of innocence, secure in the
protection of the gods. So, perhaps, some sacred awe,
some suspicion of her divineness, may fall on them at
last.”
“I must go with you.”
‘‘No, I go alone. You might incur danger where I am
safe. After all, I am a woman. . . . And, fierce as they
are, they would not dare harm me.”
The old man shook his head,
HYPA 774. 385
“Look now,” she said smilingly, laying her hands on
his shoulders, and looking into his face. . . . “You tell
me that I am beautiful, you know ; and beauty will tame the
lion. Do you not think that this face might disarm even a
monk P” -
And she laughed and blushed so sweetly, that the old
man forgot his fears, as she intended that he should, and
kissed her, and went his way for the time being to com-
mand all manner of hospitalities to the soldiers, whom he
prudently determined to keep in his house as long as he
could make them stay there ; in pursuance of which wise
purpose he contrived not to see a great deal of pleasant
flirtation between his valiant defenders and Hypatia’s
maids, who, by no means so prudish as their mistress,
welcomed as a rare boon from heaven an afternoon’s chat
with twenty tall men of war.
So they jested and laughed below, while old Theon,
having brought out the very best old wine, and actually
proposed in person, by way of mending matters, the health
of the Emperor of Africa, locked himself into the library,
and comforted his troubled soul with a tough problem of
astronomy, which had been haunting him the whole day,
even in the theatre itself. But Hypatia sat still in her
chamber, her face buried in her hands, her heart full of
many thoughts, her eyes of tears. She had smiled away
her father's fears; she could not smile away her own.
She felt, she hardly knew why, but she felt as clearly as
if a god had proclaimed it to her bodily ears, that the crisis
of her life was come ; that her political and active career
was over, and that she must now be content to be for her-
self and in herself alone, all that she was, or might become.
The world might be regenerated : but not in her day ; the
gods restored, but not by her. It was a fearful discovery
—and yet hardly a discovery. Her heart had told her for
years that she was hoping against hope—that she was
struggling against a stream too mighty for her. And now
the moment had come when she must either be swept help-
less down the current, or, by one desperate effort, win firm
land, and let the tide roll on its own way henceforth. . . .
Its own way? . . . Not the way of the gods, at least ; for
it was sweeping their names from off the earth. What if
386 - Aſ VPA 7/4.
they did not care to be known P What if they were weary
of worship and reverence from mortal men, and, self-
sufficing in their own perfect bliss, recked nothing for the
weal or woe of earth? Must it not be so? Had she not
proof of it in everything which she beheld? What did Isis
care for her Alexandria? What did Athene care for
Athens? . . . And yet Homer and Hesiod, and those old
Orphic singers, were of another mind. . . . Whence got
they that strange fancy of gods counselling, warring, inter-
marrying with mankind, as with some kindred tribe?
“Zeus, father of gods and men.” . . . Those were
words of hope and comfort. . . . But were they true?
Father of men? Impossible! not father of Pelagia, surely.
Not father of the base, the foul, the ignorant. . . . Father
of heroic souls, only, the poets must have meant. . . .
But where were the heroic souls now? Was she one? If
so, why was she deserted by the upper powers in her utter
need? Was the heroic race indeed extinct? Was she
merely assuming, in her self-conceit, an honor to which she
had no claim P Or was it all a dream of those old singers?
Had they, as some bold philosophers had said, invented
gods in their own likeness, and palmed off on the awe and
admiration of men their own fair phantoms? . . . . It
must be so. If they were gods, to know them was the
highest bliss of man. Then would they not teach men of
themselves, unveil their own loveliness to a chosen few,
even for the sake of their own honor, if not, as she had
dreamed once, from love to those who bore a kindred flame
to theirs? . . . What if there were no gods? What if
the stream of fate, which was sweeping away their names,
were the only real power? What if that old Pyrrhonic
notion were the true solution of the problem of the
universe? What if there were no center, no order, no rest,
no goal—but only a perpetual flux, a down-rushing change?
And before her dizzy brain and heart arose that awful
vision of Lucretius, of the homeless Universe falling,
falling, falling, forever from nowhence toward nowhither
through the unending ages, by causeless and unceasing
gravitation, while the changes and efforts of all mortal
things were but the jostling of the dust-atoms amid the
everlasting storm. . . .
Aſ VPA 7/4. 387
It could not be There was a truth, a virtue, a beauty,
a nobleness, which could never change, but which were
absolute, the same forever. The God-given instinct of her
woman’s heart rebelled against her intellect, and, in the
name of God, denied its lie. . . . Yes—there was virtue,
beauty. . . . And yet—might not they, too, be accidents
of that enchantment, which man calls mortal life ; tem-
porary and mutable accidents of consciousness; brilliant
Sparks, struck out by the clashing of the dust-atoms?
Who could tell?
There were those once who could tell. Did not Plotinus
speak of a direct mystic intuition of the Deity, an enthu-
siasm without passion, still intoxication of the soul, in
which she rose above life, thought, reason, herself, to that
which she contemplated, the absolute and first One, and
united herself with that One, or rather, became aware of
that union which had existed from the first moment in
which she emanated from the One? Six times in a life of
sixty years had Plotinus risen to that height of mystic
union, and known herself to be a part of God. Once had
Porphyry attained the same glory. Hypatia, though often
attempting, had never yet succeeded in attaining to any
distinct vision of a being external to herself; though
practice, a firm will, and a powerful imagination, had long
since made her an adept in producing, almost at will, that
mysterious trance, which was the preliminary step to
supernatural vision. But her delight in the brilliant, and,
as she held, divine imaginations, in which at such times
she revelled, had been always checked and chilled by the
knowledge that, in such matters, hundreds inferior to her
in intellect and in learning—ay, saddest of all, Christian
monks and nuns, boasted themselves her equals—indeed,
if their own account of their visions was to be believed,
her superiors—by the same methods which she employed.
For by celibacy, and intense fasts, perfect bodily quies-
cence, an intense contemplation of one thought, they, too,
pretended to be able to rise above the body into the
heavenly regions, and to behold things unspeakable, which,
nevertheless, like most other unspeakable things, contrived
to be most carefully detailed and noised abroad. . . . And
it was with a half feeling of shame that she prepared her-
388 . A. VPA 7TWA.
self that afternoon for one more, perhaps one last attempt,
to scale the heavens, as she recollected how many an
illiterate monk and nun, from Constantinople to the The-
baid, was probably employed at that moment exactly as she
was. Still, the attempt must be made. In that terrible
abyss of doubt, she must have something palpable, real ;
something beyond her own thoughts, and hopes, and
speculations, whereon to rest her weary, faith, her weary
heart. . . . Perhaps this time at last in her extremest
need, a god might vouchsafe some glimpse of his own
beauty. . . . Athene might pity at last. . . . Or, if not
Athene, some archetype, angel, demon. . . . And then
she shuddered at the thought of those evil and deceiving
spirits, whose delight it was to delude and tempt the
votaries of the gods, in the forms of angels of light. But
even in the face of that danger, she must make the trial
once again. Was she not pure and spotless as Athene's
self? Would not her innate purity enable her to discern,
by an instinctive antipathy, those foul beings beneath the
fairest mask? At least she must make the trial. . . .
And so, with a look of intense humility, she began to lay
aside her jewels and her upper robes. Then, baring her
bosom and her feet, and shaking her golden tresses loose,
she laid herself down upon the couch, crossed her hands
upon her breast, and, with upturned ecstatic eyes waited
for that which might befall.
There she lay, hour after hour, as her eye gradually
kindled, her bosom heaved, her breath came fast ; but
there was no more sign of life in those straight still limbs,
and listless feet and hands, than in Pygmalion’s ivory
bride, before she bloomed into human flesh and blood.
The sun sank toward his rest ; the roar of the city grew
louder and louder without ; the soldiers revelled and
laughed below ; but every sound passed through uncon-
scious ears, and went its way unheeded. Faith, hope,
reason itself were staked upon the result of that daring
effort to scale the highest heaven. And, by one continuous
effort of her practised will, which reached its highest
virtue, as mystics hold, in its own suicide, she chained
down her senses from every sight and sound, and even
her mind from every thought, and lay utterly self-resigned
AyyºA 7/A. 389
self-emptied, till consciousness of time and place had
vanished, and she seemed to herself alone in the abyss.
She dared not reflect, she dared not hope, she dared not
rejoice, lest she should break the spell. . . . Again and
again had she broken it at this very point, by some sud-
den and tumultuous yielding to her own joy or awe; but
now her will held firm. . . . She did not feel her own
limbs, hear her own breath. . . . A light bright mist, an
endless network of glittering films, coming, going, uniting,
resolving themselves, was above her and around her. .
Was she in the body or out of the body? . . .
>k >k >{< >k >k >k
The network faded into an abyss of still clear light.
A still warm atmosphere was around her, thrilling
through and through her. . . . She breathed the light,
and floated in it, as a mote in the midday beam. . . . And
still her will held firm. g
>k >k >k >}: >k :k
Far away, miles, and aeons, and abysses away, through
the interminable depths of glory, a dark and shadowy
spot.
It neared and grew. . . . A dark globe, ringed with
rainbows. . . . What might it be? She dared not hope.
. . . It came nearer, nearer, nearer, touched her. . . .
The centre quivered, flickered, took form—a face. . . . A
god's? No-Pelagia’s.
Beautiful, sad, craving, reproachful, indignant, awful.
. . . . Hypatia could bear no more, and sprang to her feet
with a shriek, to experience in its full bitterness the fear-
ful revulsion of the mystic, when the human reason and
will which he has spurned reassert their God-given rights;
and after the intoxication of the imagination, comes its
prostration and collapse.
And this, then, was the answer of the gods! The
phantom of her whom she had despised, exposed, spurned
from her! ‘‘No, not their answer—the answer of my own
soul! Fool that I have been I have been exerting my
will most while I pretended to resign it most! I have
been the slave of every mental desire, while I tried to
trample upon them. What if that network of light, that
blaze, that globe of darkness, have been like the face of
390 - A. VP477.4.
Pelagia, the phantoms of my own imagination—ay, even
of my own senses? What if I have mistaken for Deity my
own self? What if I have been my own light, my own
abyss? . . . Am I not my own abyss, my own light—my
own darkness?” And she smiled bitterly as she said it,
and throwing herself again upon the couch, buried her
head in her hands, exhausted equally in body and in mind.
At last she rose, and sat, careless of her dishevelled
locks, gazing out into vacancy. “Oh, for a sign, for
a token Oh, for the golden days of which the poets
sang, when gods walked among men, fought by their
sides as friends! And yet . . . are those old stories
credible, pious, even modest? Does not my heart revolt
from them? Who has shared more than I in Plato's
contempt for the foul deeds, the degrading trans-
formations, which Homer imputes to the gods of
Greece? Must I stoop to think that gods who live in
a region above all sense, will deign to make themselves
palpable to those senses of ours, which are whole aeons
of existence below them P-degrade themselves to the
base accidents of matter? Yes! That, rather than
nothing. . . . Be it even so. Better, better, better, to
believe that Ares fled shrieking and wounded from a
mortal man—better to believe in Zeus’s adulteries and
Hermes's thefts—than to believe that gods have never
spoken face to face with men! Let me think, lest I go
mad, that beings from that unseen world for which I
hunger, have appeared and held communion with man-
kind, such as no reason or sense could doubt—even though
those beings were more capricious and baser than our-
selves! Is there, after all, an unseen world? Oh, for a
sign, a signſ”
Haggard and dizzy, she wandered into her “chamber of
the gods;” a collection of antiquities, which she kept there
rather as matters of taste than of worship. All around
her they looked out into vacancy with their white soulless
eyeballs, their dead motionless beauty, those cold dreams
of the buried generations. Oh, that they could speak, and
set her heart at rest! At the lower end of the room stood
a Pallas, completely armed with aegis, spear, and helmet ;
a gem of Athenian sculpture, which she had bought from
A/YAEA 7/4. 391
some mercharts after the sack of Athens by the Goths.
There it stood, severely fair ; but the right hand, alas! was
gone; and there the maimed arm remained extended, as if
in sad mockery of the faith of which the body remained,
while the power was dead and vanished.
She gazed long and passionately on the image of her
favorite goddess, the ideal to which she had longed for
years to assimilate herself; till—was it a dream? was it a
frolic of the dying sunlight? or did those lips bend them-
selves into a smile?
Impossible! No, not impossible. Had not, only a few
years before, the image of Hecate smiled on a philosopher?
Were there not stories of moving images, and winking
pictures, and all the material miracles by which a dying
faith strives desperately—not to deceive others—but to
persuade itself of its own sanity? It had been—it might
be—it was
No! there the lips were, as they had been from the
beginning, closed upon each other in that stony self-
collected calm, which was only not a sneer. The wonder,
if it was one, had passed : and now—did her eyes play her
false, or were the snakes round that Medusa's head upon
the shield all writhing, grinning, glaring at her with stony
eyes, longing to stiffen her with terror into their own like-
ness?
No! that, too, passed. Would that even it had stayed,
for it would have been a sign of life! She looked up at
the face once more : but in vain—the stone was stone ;
and ere she was aware, she found herself clasping passion-
ately the knees of the marble. w
“Athene! Pallas! Adored Ever Virgin' Absolute
reason, springing unbegotten from the nameless One!
Hear me! Athene! Have mercy on me! Speak, if it be
to curse me! Thou who alone wieldest the lightnings of
thy father, wield them to strike me dead, if thou wilt; only
do something! to prove thine own existence—something
to make me sure that anything exists beside this gross
miserable matter, and my miserable soul. I stand alone
in the centre of the universe! I fall and sicken down the
abyss of ignorance, and doubt, and boundless blank and
darkness! Oh, have mercy! I know that thou art not
392 Aſ VPA 77.4.
this! Thou art everywhere and in all things! But I know
that this is a form which pleases thee, which symbolizes
thy nobleness! I know that thou hast deigned to speak to
those who—oh! what do I know? Nothing! nothing!
nothing.”
And she clung there, bedeving with scalding tears the
cold feet of the image, while there was neither sign, nor
voice, nor any that answered.
On a sudden she was startled by a rustling near ; and,
looking round, saw close behind her the old Jewess.
“Cry aloud!” hissed the hag, in a tone of bitter scorn ;
‘‘cry aloud, for she is a goddess. Either she is talking,
or pursuing, or she is on a journey; or perhaps she has
grown old, as we shall all do some day, my pretty lady,
and she is too cross and lazy to stir. What! her haughty
doll will not speak to her, will it not? or even open its
eyes, because the wires are grown rusty? Well, we will
find a new doll for her, if she chooses.”
“Begone, hag! What do you mean by intruding here?”
said Hypatia, springing up ; but the old woman went on
coolly—
“Why not try the fair young gentleman over there?”
pointing to a copy of the Apollo which we call Belvedere
—“What is his name? Old maids are always cross and
jealous, you know. But he—could not be cruel to such a
sweet face as that. Try the fair young lad! Or, perhaps,
if you are bashful, the old Jewess might try him for you?”
These last words were spoken with so marked a sig-
nificance, that Hypatia, in spite of her disgust, found her-
self asking the hag what she meant. She made no answer
for a few seconds, but remained looking steadily into her eyes
with a glance of fire, before which even the proud Hypatia,
as she had done once before, quailed utterly, so deep was
the understanding, so dogged the purpose, so fearless the
power, which burned within those withered and sunken
sockets. -
“Shall the old witch call him up, the fair young Apollo,
with the beauty-bloom upon his chin? He shall come!
He shall come! I warrant him he must come, civilly
enough when old Miriam's finger is once held up.”
“To you? Apollo, the god of light, obey a Jewess?”
Aſ VPA 7/A. 393
“A Jewess? And you a Greek?” almost yelled the old
woman. “And who are you who ask? And who are your
gods, your heroes, your devils, your children of yesterday,
compared with us? You, who were a set of half-naked
savages squabbling about the siege of Troy, when our
Solomon, amid splendors such as Rome and Constantinople
never saw, was controlling demons and ghosts, angels and
archangels, principalities and powers, by the ineffable
name? What science have you that you have not stolen
from the Egyptians and Chaldees? And what had the
Egyptians which Moses did not teach them? And what
have the Chaldees which Daniel did not teach them?
What does the world know but from us, the lords of the
inner secrets of the universe! Come, you Greek baby—as
the priests in Egypt said of your forefathers, always chil-
dren, craving for a new toy, and throwing it away the next
day—come to the fountain head of all your paltry wisdom!
Name what you will see, and you shall see it!” -
Hypatia was cowed for of one thing there was no doubt
—that the woman utterly believed her own words ; and
that was a state of mind of which she had seen so little,
that it was no wonder if it acted on her with that over-
powering sympathetic force, with which it generally does,
and perhaps ought to, act on the human heart. Besides,
her school has always looked to the ancient nations of the
East for the primaeval founts of inspiration, the mysterious
lore of mightier races long gone by. Might she not have
found it now?
The Jewess saw her advantage in a moment, and ran on,
without giving her time to answer—
“What sort shall it be, then? By glass and water, or
by the moonlight on the wall, or by the sieve, or by the
meal? By the cymbals, or by the stars? By the table of
the twenty-four elements, by which the empire was promised
to Theodosius the Great, or by the sacred counters of the
Assyrians, or by the sapphire of the Hecatio sphere?
Shall I threaten, as the Egyptian priests used to do, to tear
Osiris again in pieces, or to divulge the mysteries of Isis?
I could do so if I chose ; for I know them all and more.
Or shall I use the ineffable name on Solomon’s seal, which
we alone, of all nations of the earth, know? No; it would
394 Aſ VPA 774.
be a pity to waste them upon a heathen. It shall be by
the sacred wafer. Look here! here they are, the wonder-
working atomies! Eat no food this day, except one of these
every three hours, and come to me tonight at the house of
your porter, Eudaemon, bringing with you the black agate ;
and then, why then, when you have the heart to see, you
shall see!”
Hypatia took the wafers, hesitating—
“But what are they?”. --
“And you profess to explain Homer? Whom did
hear the other morning lecturing away so glibly on the
nepenthe which Helen gave the heroes, to fill them with
the spirit of joy and love ; how it was an allegory of the
inward inspiration which flows from spiritual beauty, and
all that?—pretty enough, fair lady; but the question still
remains, what was it? And I say it was this. Take it
and try, and then confess, that while you can talk about
Helen, I can act her, and know a little more about Homer
than you do, after all.” -
‘‘I cannot believe you! Give me some sign of your
power, or how can I trust you?”
“A sign? A sign? Kneel down, then, there, with your
face toward the north : you are over tall for the poor old
cripple!” -
** If I never knelt to human being.”
“Then consider that you kneel to the handsome idol
there, if you will—but kneel!”
And constrained by that glittering eye, Hypatia knelt
before her. -
“Have you faith? Have you desire? Will you submit?
Will you obey? Self-will and pride see nothing. If you
do not give up yourself, neither God nor devil will care to
approach. Do you submit?”
“I do! I do!” cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of
curiosity and self-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing
and her limbs loosening more and more every moment
under that intolerable fascination.
The old woman drew from her bosom a crystal and
placed the point against Hypatia's breast. A cold shiver
ran through her. . . . The witch waved her hands mys-
teriously round her head, muttering from time to time.
“Down! down, proud spirit!” and then placed the tips of
her skinny fingers on the victim's forehead. Gradually
her eyelids became heavy : again and again she tried to
raise them and dropped them again before those fixed
glaring eyes . . . and in another moment she lost con-
Sciousness. . . .
When she awoke she was kneeling in a distant part of
the room, with dishevelled hair and garments. What was
it so cold that she was clasping in her arms? The feet of
the Apollo. The hag stood by her, chuckling to herself
and clapping her hands.
“How came I here? What have I been doing?”
“Saying such pretty things! paying the fair youth there
such compliments, as he will not be rude enough to forget
in his visit tonight. A charming prophetic trance you
have had. Ah, ah! you are not the only woman who is
wiser asleep than awake! Well, you will make a very
pretty Cassandra—or a Clytia, if you have the sense. . . .
It lies with you, my fair lady. Are you satisfied now?
Will you have any more signs? Shall the old Jewess blast
those blue eyes blind to show that she knows more than the
heathen P”
‘‘Oh, I believe you—I believe,” cried the poor exhausted
maiden. “I will come ; and yet—"
“Ah! yes! You had better settle first how he shall
appear.” .
“As he wills! let him only come! Only let me know
that he is a god. Abamnon said that gods appeared in a
clear, steady, unbearable light, amid a choir of all the
lesser deities, archangels, principalities, and heroes, who
derive their lives from them.” -
“Abamnon was an old fool, then. Do you think young
Phoebus ran after Daphne with such a mob at his heels?
or that Jove, when he swam up to Leda, headed a whole
Nile-flock of ducks, and plover, and curlews? No, he
shall come alone—to you alone ; and then you may choose
for yourself between Cassandra and Clytia. . . . Fare-
well. Do not forget your wafers or the agate either, and
talk with no one between now and sunset. And then—
my pretty lady!”
And laughing to herself, the old hag glided from the room.
396 - Aſ VPATIA,
Hypatia sat trembling with shame and dread. She, as
a disciple of the more purely spiritualistic school of
Porphyry, had always looked with aversion, with all
but contempt, on those theurgic arts which were so much
lauded and employed by Iamblicus, Abamnon, and
those who clung lovingly to the old priestly rites of
Egypt and Chaldaea. They had seemed to her vul-
gar toys, tricks of legerdemain, suited only for the
wonder of the mob. . . . She began to think of them
with more favor now. How did she know that the
vulgar did not require signs and wonders to make them
believe? . . . How, indeed? for did she not want such
herself? And she opened Abamnon’s famous letter
to Porphyry, and read earnestly over, for the twentieth
time, his subtle justification of magic, and felt it to be
unanswerable. Magic? What was not magical? The
whole universe, from the planets over her head to the
meanest pebble at her feet, was utterly mysterious,
ineffable, miraculous, influencing and influenced by
affinities and repulsions as unexpected, as unfathomable,
as those which, as Abamnon said, drew the gods toward
those sounds, those objects, which, either in form,
or color, or chemical properties, were symbolic of,
or akin to themselves. What wonder in it, after
all? Was not love and hatred, sympathy and antip-
athy, the law of the universe? Philosophers, when
they gave mechanical explanations of natural phenomena,
came no nearer to the real solution of them. The mys-
terious “Why?” remained untouched. . . . All their
analyses could only darken with big words the plain fact
that the water hated the oil with which it refused to mix,
the lime loved the acid which it eagerly received into itself,
and like a lover, grew warm with the rapture of affection.
Why not? What right had we to deny sensation, emotion,
to them, any more than to ourselves? Was not the same
universal spirit stirring in them as in us? And was it not
by virtue of that spirit that we thought, and felt, and
loved? Then why not they, as well as we ? If the one
spirit permeated all things, if its all-energizing presence
linked the flower with the crystal as well as with the demon
and the god, must it not link together also the two
A/YA-A 7TWA. 397
extremes of the great chain of being? bind even the name-
less One itself to the smallest creature which bore its
creative impress? What greater miracle in the attraction
of a god or angel, by material incense, symbols, and spells,
than in the attraction of one soul to another by the material
sounds of the human voice? Was the affinity between
spirit and matter implied in that, more miraculous than
the affinity between the soul and body?—than the retention
of that soul within that body by the breathing of material
air, the eating of material food? Or even, if the physicists
were right and the soul were but a material product or
energy of the nerves, and the sole law of the universe the
laws of matter, then was not magic even more probable,
more rational? Was it not fair by every analogy to sup-
pose that there might be other, higher beings than our-
selves, obedient to those laws, and therefore possible to be
attracted, even as human beings were, by the baits of
material sights and sounds? . . . If spirit pervaded all
things, then was magic probable ; if nothing but matter
had existence, magic was morally certain. All that
remained in either case was the test of experience. . . .
And had not that test been applied in every age, and
asserted to succeed? What more rational, more philo-
sophic action, than to try herself those methods and cere-
monies which she was assured on every hand had never
failed but through the ignorance or unfitness of the
neophyte? . . . Abamnon must be right. . . . She dared
not think him wrong : for if this last hope failed, what was
there left but to eat and drink, for tomorrow we die?
CHAPTER xxvi.
MIRIAM's T'LOT.
HE who has worshipped a woman, even against his will
and Conscience, knows well how storm may follow storm,
and earthquake earthquake, before his idol be utterly over-
thrown. And so Philammon found that evening, as he
sat pondering over the strange changes of the day; for, as
he pondered, his old feelings toward Hypatia began, in
spite of the strugglesºof his conscience and reason, to
revive within him. Not only pure love of her great loveli-
ness, the righteous instinct which bids us welcome and
honor beauty, whether in man or woman, as something of
real worth—divine, heavenly, ay, though we know not
how, in a most deep sense eternal ; which makes our
reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental
maunderings of moralists about “the fleeting hues of this
our painted clay,” telling men, as the old Hebrew Script-
ures tell them, that physical beauty is the deepest of all
spiritual symbols; and that though beauty without discre-
tion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel
of gold—it is still the sacrament of an inward beauty, which
ought to be, perhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit
and in truth. Not only this, which whispered to him, and
who shall say that the whisper was of the earth, or of the
lower world? “She is too beautiful to be utterly evil ;”
but the very defect in her creed which he had just dis-
covered, drew him toward her again. She had no gospel
for the Magdalene, because she was a Pagan. . . . That,
then, was the fault of her Paganism, not of herself. She
felt for Pelagia : but even if she had not, was not that, too,
the fault of her Paganism? And for that Paganism who
was to be blamed? She? . . . Was he the man to affirm
that? Had he not seen scandals, stupidities, brutalities,
enough to shake even his faith, educated a Christian?
How much more excuse for her, more delicate, more acute,
398
A VA’A za 399
more lofty than he ; the child, too, of a heathen father?
Her perfections, were they not her own P-her defects,
those of her circumstances? . . . And had she not wel-
comed him, guarded him, taught him, honored him P . . .
Could he turn against her?—above all now in her distress
—perhaps her danger? Was he not bound to her, if by
nothing else, by gratitude P Was not he, of all men,
bound to believe that all she required to make her perfect
was conversion to the true faith? . . . And that first dream
of converting her arose almost as bright as ever. . . .
Then he was checked by the thought of his first failure.
. . At least, if he could not convert her, he could love
her, pray for her. . . . No, he could not even do that ; for
to whom could he pray? He had to repent, to be forgiven,
to humble himself by penitence, perhaps for years, ere he
could hope to be heard even for himself, much less for
another. . . . And so backward and forward swayed his
hope and purpose, till he was roused from his meditation
by the voice of the little porter, summoning him to his
evening meal; and recollecting, for the first time, that he
had tasted no food that day, he went down, half unwillingly,
and ate.
But as he, the porter, and his negro wife were sitting
silently and sadly enough together, Miriam came in,
apparently in high good-humor, and lingered a moment on
her way to her own apartments upstairs. -
“Eh P. At supper? And nothing but lentils and water-
melons, when the flesh-pots of Egypt have been famous
any time these two thousand years? Ah but times are
changed since then . . . You have worn out the old
Hebrew hints, you miserable Gentiles you, and got a
Caesar instead of a Joseph! Hist, you hussies!” cried she
to the girls upstairs, clapping her hands loudly “Here!
bring us down one of those roast chickens, and a bottle of
the wine of wines—the wine with the green seal, you care-
less daughters of Midian, with your wits running on the
men, I’ll warrant, every minute I’ve been out of the house!
Ah, you’ll Smart for it some day, you daughters of Adam's
first wife I’”
Down came, by the hands of one of the Syrian slave
girls, the fowl and the wine,
4oo Aſ VPA 7TWA.
“There, now ; we'll all sup together. Wine, that
maketh glad the heart of man! Youth, you were a monk
Once, so you have read all about that, eh? and about the
best wine which goes down sweetly, causing the lips of
them that are asleep to speak. And rare wine it was, I
warrant, which the blessed Solomon had in his little
country cellar up there in Lebanon. We'll try if this is
not a very fair substitute for it, though. Come, my little
man-monkey, drink, and forget your sorrow ! You shall
be temple-sweeper to Beelzebub yet, I promise you. Look
at it there, creaming and curding, the darling! purring like
a cat at the very thought of touching human lips! As
sweet as honey, as strong as fire, as clear as amber!
Drink, ye children of Gehenna; and make good use of the
little time that is left you between this and the unquench-
able fire!”
And tossing a cup of it down her own throat, as if it had
been water, she watched her companions with a meaning
look, as they drank. -
The little porter followed her example gallantly.
Philammon looked, and longed, and sipped blushingly and
bashfully, and tried to fancy that he did not care for it;
and sipped again, being willing enough to forget his sorrow
also for a moment ; the negress refused with fear and
trembling—“She had a vow on her.” -
“Satan possess you and your vow! Drink, you coal out
of Tophet! Do you think it is poisoned? You, the only
creature in the world that I should not enjoy ill-using,
because every one else ill-uses you already without my
help! Drink, I say, or I'll turn you pea-green from head
to foot!”
The negress put the cup to her lips, and contrived, for
her own reasons, to spill the contents unobserved.
“A very fine lecture that of the Lady Hypatia's the
other morning, on Helen's nepenthe,” quoth the little
porter, growing philosophic as the wine-fumes rose.
“Such a power of extracting the cold water of philosophy
out of the bottomless pit of Mythus, I never did hear.
Did you ever, my Philammonidion?”
“Aha! she and I were talking about that half an hour
ago,” said Miriam.
A. VPA 77.4. 4OI
“What ; have you seen her?” asked Philammon, with a
flutter of the heart.
“If you mean, did she mention you—why, then, yes!”
‘‘ How—how P”
‘‘Talked of a young Phoebus Apollo—without mention-
ing names, certainly, but in the most sensible, and practi-
cal, and hopeful way—the wisest speech that I have heard
from her this twelvemonth.” -
Philammon blushed scarlet.
“And that,” thought he, “in spite of what passed this
morning ! Why, what is the matter with our host?”
“He has taken Solomon’s advice, and forgotten his
Sorrow.”
And so, indeed, he had ; for he was sleeping sweetly,
with open lacklustre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the ceil-
ing, while the negress, with her head fallen on her chest,
seemed equally unconscious of their presence.
“We'll see,” quoth Miriam ; and taking up the lamp,
she held the flame unceremoniously to the arm of each of
them ; but neither winced or stirred. -
“Surely your wine is not drugged?” said Philammon,
in trepidation.
“Why not? What has made them beasts may make us
angels. You seem none the less lively for it! Do I?”
“But drugged wine?”
. “Why not? The same who made wine made poppy-
juice. Both will make man happy. Why not use both P”
“It is poison!” -
“It is the nepenthe, as I told Hypatia, whereof she was
twaddling mysticism, this morning. Drink, child, drink!
I have no mind to put you to sleep tonight! I want to
make a man of you, or rather, to see whether you are one!”
And she drained another cup, and then went on, half
talking to herself— *
“Ay, it is poison ; and music is poison ; and woman is
poison, according to the new creed, Pagan and Christian ;
and wine will be poison, and meat will be poison, some
day; and we shall have a world full of mad Nebuchad-
nezzars, eating grass like oxen. It is poisonous, and
brutal, and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and an
eunuch, and a dry branch. You are all in the same lie,
4O2 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
Christians and philosophers, Cyril and Hypatia! Don't
interrupt me, but drink, young fool! Ay, and the only
man who keeps his manhood, the only man who is not
ashamed to be what God has made him, is your Jew.
You will find yourselves in want of him after all, some
day, you besotted Gentiles, to bring you back to common
sense and common manhood. In want of him and his
grand old books, which you despise while you make idols
of them, about Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and
David, and Solomon, whom you call saints, you miserable
hypocrites, though they did what you are too dainty to do,
and had their wives and children, and thanked God for a
beautiful woman, as Adam did before them, and their sons
do after them. Drink, I say!—and believed that God had
really made the world, and not the devil, and had given
them the lordship over it, as you will find out to your cost
some day!” -
Philammon heard, and could not answer, and on she
rambled.
“And music, too? Our priests were not afraid of sack-
but and psaltery, dulcimer and trumpet, in the house of
the Lord ; for they knew who had given them the cunning
to make them. Our prophets were not afraid of calling
for music, when they wished to prophesy, and letting it
soften and raise their souls, and Open and quicken them
till they saw into the inner harmony of things, and behéld
the future in the present ; for they knew who made the
melody and harmony, and made them the outward symbols
of the inward song which runs through sun and stars,
storm and tempest, fulfilling His word—in that these sham
philosophers, the heathen, are wiser than those Christian
monks. Try it—try it! Come with me! Leave these
sleepers here, and come to my rooms. You long to be as
wise as Solomon. Then get at wisdom as Solomon did,
and give your heart first to know folly and madness. . . .
You have read the Book of the Preacher?”
Poor Philammon He was no longer master of himself.
The arguments—the wine—the terrible spell of the old
woman's voice and eye, and the strong overpowering will
which showed out through them, dragged him along in spite
of himself. As if in a dream, he followed her up the stairs,
Aſ VPA 7TWA. - 4O3
• ‘There, throw away that stupid, ugly, shapeless philoso-
pher's cloak. So! you have on the white tunic I gave
you? And now look as a human being should. And you
have been to the baths today? Well—you have the com-
fort of feeling now like other people, and having that
alabaster skin as white as it was created, instead of being
tanned like a brute's hide. Drink, I say! Ay—what was
that face, that figure made for? Bring a mirror here,
hussy! There, look in that, and judge for yourself?
Were those lips rounded for nothing? Why were those
eyes set in your head and made to sparkle bright as jewels,
sweet as mountain honey? Why were those curls laid
ready for soft fingers to twine themselves among them,
and look all the whiter among the glossy black knots?
Judge for yourself!”
Alas! poor Philammon
“And after all,” thought he, “is it not true, as well as
pleasant?” . -
“Sing to the poor boy, girls! sing to him and teach
him for the first time in his little ignorant life, the old
road to inspiration l’’
One of the slave girls sat down on the divan, and took
up a double flute; while the other rose, and accompanying
the plaintive, dreamy air with a slow dance, and the deli-
cate twinklings of her silver armlets and anklets, and the
sistrum which she held aloft, she floated gracefully round
and round the floor, and sang—
“Why were we born, but for bliss?
Why are we ripe, but to fall?
Tream not that duty can bar thee from beauty,
Ilike water and Sunshine, the heirloom of all.
“Lips were made only to kiss;
Hands were made only to toy;
Eyes were made only to lure on the lonely,
The longing, the loving, and drown them in joy!”
Alas, for poor Philammon | And yet no! The very
poison brought with it its own antidote ; and, shaking off
by One strong effort of will the spell of the music and the
wine, he sprang to his feet. . . .
“Never! If love means no more than that—if it is to
4O4 A. VPA 7TWA.
be a mere delicate self-indulgence, worse than the brute's,
because it requires the prostration of nobler faculties, and
a selfishness the more huge in proportion to the greatness
of the soul which is crushed inward by it—then I will have
none of it! I have had my dream—yes! but it was of one
who should be at once my teacher and my pupil, my debtor
and my queen—who should lean on me, and yet support
me—supply my defects, although with lesser light, as the
old moon fills up the circle of the new—labor with me
side by side in some great work—rising with me forever as
I rose : and this is the base substitute! Never!”
Whether or not this was unconsciously forced into words
by the vehemence of his passion, or whether the old Jewess
heard, or pretended to hear, a footstep coming up the
stairs, she at all events sprang instantly to her feet.
“Hist! Silence, girls! I hear a visitor. What mad
maiden has come to beg a love charm of the poor old
witch at this time of night? Or have the Christian blood-
hounds tracked the old lioness of Judah to her den at last?
We’ll see!”
And she drew a dagger from her girdle, and stepped
boldly to the door. . . .
As she went out she turned—
“So! my brave young Apollo! You do not admire
simple woman? You must have something more learned,
and intellectual, and spiritual, and so forth. I wonder
whether Eve, when she came to Adam in the garden,
brought with her a certificate of proficiency in the seven
sciences? Well, well—like must after like. Perhaps we
shall be able to suit you, after all. Vanish, daughters of
Midian l’’
The girls vanished accordingly, whispering and laugh-
ing ; and Philammon found himself alone. Although he
was somewhat soothed by the old woman’s last speech, yet
a sense of terror, of danger, of coming temptation, kept
him standing sternly on his feet, looking warily round the
chamber, lest a fresh siren should emerge from behind
some curtain or heap of pillows.
On one side of the room he perceived a doorway, filled
by a curtain of gauze, from behind which came the sound
of whispering voices. His fear, growing with the general
A/VA’A 7TWA. - 405
excitement of his mind, rose into anger as he began to sus-
pect some snare ; and he faced round toward the curtain
and stood like a wild beast at bay, ready, with uplifted
arm, for all evil spirits, male or female.
“And he will show himself. How shall I accost him P”
whispered a well-known voice—could it be Hypatia's P
And then the guttural Hebrew accent of the old woman
answered : “As you spoke of him this morning—”
“Oh! I will tell him all, and he must—he must have
mercy! But he so awful, so glorious!”—
What the answer was he could not hear; but the next
moment a sweet heavy scent, as of narcotic gums, filled the
room—mutterings of incantations—and then a blaze of
light, in which the curtain vanished, and disclosed to his
astonished eyes, enveloped in a glory of luminous smoke,
the hag standing by a tripod, and kneeling by her Hypatia
herself, robed in pure white, glittering with diamonds and
gold, her lips parted, her head thrown back, her arms
stretched out in an agony of expectation.
In an instant, before he had time to stir, she had sprung
through the blaze, and was kneeling at his feet. “Phoebus!
beautiful, glorious, ever young ! Hear me! only a moment!
only this once!”
Her drapery had caught fire from the tripod, but she did
not heed it. Philammon instinctively clasped her in his
arms, and crushed it out, as she cried—
“Have mercy on me! Tell me the secret! I will obey
thee! I have no self—I am thy slave! Kill me if thou
wilt; but speak!”
The blaze sank into a soft, warm, mellow gleam, and
beyond it what appeared?
The old negro woman, with one finger upon her lips, as
with an imploring, all but despairing look, she held out to
him her little crucifix. -
He saw it. What thoughts flashed through him, like
the lightning bolt, at that blessed sign of infinite self-
sacrifice, I say not ; let those who know it judge for them-
selves. But in another instant he had spurned from him
the poor deluded maiden, whose idolatrous ecstasies he saw
instantly were not meant for himself, and rushed desperately
across the room, looking for an outlet.
4O6 - Aſ VPA 7/4.
He found a door in the darkness—a room—a window—
and in another moment he had leapt twenty feet into the
street, rolled over, bruised and bleeding, rose again like an
Antaeus, with new strength, and darted off toward the
archbishop's house. -
And poor Hypatia lay half senseless on the floor,
with the Jewess watching her bitter tears—not merely
of disappointment, but of utter shame. For as Philam-
mon fled she had recognized those well-known features ;
and the veil was lifted from her eyes, and the hope and the
self-respect of Theon's daughter were gone forever.
Her righteous wrath was too deep for upbraidings.
Slowly she rose ; returned into the inner room ; wrapped
her cloak deliberately around her ; and went silently away,
with one look at the Jewess of solemn scorn and defiance.
“Ah! I can afford a few sulky looks tonight!” said the
old woman to herself, with a smile, as she picked up from
the floor the prize for which she had been plotting so long
—Raphael's half of the black agate.
“I wonder whether she will miss it! Perhaps she will
have no fancy for its company any longer, now that she has
discovered what over-palpable archangels appear when she
rubs it. But if she does try to recover it . . . why—let
her try her strength with mine—or, rather, with a Christian
mob.”
And then, drawing from her bosom the other half of the
talisman, she fitted the two pieces together again and
again, fingering them over, and poring upon them with
tear-brimming eyes, till she had satisfied herself that the
fracture still fitted exactly ; while she murmured to her-
self from time to time—“Oh, that he were here! Oh,
that he would return now—now! It may be too late
tomorrow! Stay—I will go and consult the teraph ; it.
may know where he is.”
And she departed to her incantations; while Hypatia
threw herself upon her bed at home, and filled the chamber
with a long, low wailing, as of a child in pain, till the
dreary dawn broke on her shame and her despair. And
then she rose, and rousing herself for one great effort,
calmly prepared an oration, in which she intended to bid
farewell forever to Alexandria and to the schools. -
Aſ VPA 7/4. 4O7
Philammon meanwhile was striding desperately up the
main street which led toward the Serapeium. But he was
not destined to arrive there as soon as he hoped to do.
For ere he had gone half a mile, behold a crowd advancing
toward him, blocking up the whole street.
The mass seemed endless. Thousands of torches flared
above their heads, and from the heart of the procession
rose a solemn chant, in which Philammon soon recognized
the well-known Catholic hymn. He was half minded to
turn up some by-street, and escape meeting them. But on
attempting to do so, he found every avenue which he tried
similarly blocked up by a tributary stream of people ; and
almost ere he was aware, was entangled in the vanguard of
the great column. :
“Let me pass!” cried he, in a voice of entreaty.
“Pass, thou heathen ſ” -
In vain he protested his Christianity.
“Origenist, Donatist, heretic! Whither should a good
Catholic be going tonight, save to the Caesareum ?”
“My friends, my friends, I have no business at the
Caesareum !” cried he, in utter despair. “I am on my way
to seek a private interview with the patriarch, on matters of
importance.”
“O liar! who pretends to be known to the patriarch, and
yet is ignorant that this night he visits at the Caesareum
the most sacred corpse of the martyr Ammonius.”
“What! Is Cyril with you?”
“He and all his clergy.”
“Better so ; better in public,” said Philammon to him-
self, and, turning, he joined the crowd.
Onward, with chant and dirge, they swept out through
the Sun-gate, upon the harbor esplanade, and wheeled to
the right along the quay, while the torchlight bathed in a
red glare the great front of the Caesareum, and the tall
obelisks before it, and the masts of the thousand ships
which lay in the harbor on their left ; and last but not
least, before the huge dim mass of the palace which
bounded the esplanade in front, a long line of glittering
helmets and cuirasses, behind a barrier of cables which
stretched from the shore to the corner of the Museum.
There was a sudden halt; a low ominous growl; and
408 A/VPA 774.
then the mob, pressed onward from behind, surged up
almost to the barrier. The soldiers dropped the points of
their lances, and stood firm. Again the mob recoiled ;
again surged forward. Fierce cries arose ; some of the
boldest stooped to pick up stones: but, luckily, the pave-
ment was too firm for them. . . . Another moment, and
the whole soldiery of Alexandria would have been fighting
for life and death against fifty thousand Christians. . . .
But Cyril had not forgotten his generalship. Reckless
as that night's events proved him to be about arousing the
passions of his subjects, he was yet far too wary to risk the
odium and the danger of a night attack, which even if
successful, would have cost the lives of hundreds. He
knew well enough the numbers and the courage of the
enemy, and the certainty that, in case of a collision, no
quarter would be given or accepted on either side. . .
Besides if a battle must take place—and that, of course,
must happen sooner or later—it must not happen in his
presence and under his sanction. He was in the right
now, and Orestes in the wrong ; and in the right he would
keep—at least till his express to Byzantium should have
returned, and Orestes was either proscribed or superseded.
So looking forward to some such chance as this, the wary
prelate had schooled his aides-de-camp, the deacons of the
city, and went on his way up the steps of the Caesareum,
knowing that they could be trusted to keep the peace out-
side.
And they did their work well. Before a blow had been
struck, or even an insult passed on either side, they had
burst through the front rank of the mob, and by stout
threats of excommunication, enjoined not only peace, but
absolute silence until the sacred ceremony which was
about to take place should be completed ; and enforced
their commands by marching up and down like sentries
between the hostile ranks for the next weary two hours,
till the very soldiers broke out into expressions of admira-
tion, and the tribune of the cohort, who had no great
objection, but also no great wish to fight, paid them a high-
flown compliment on their laudable endeavors to maintain
public order, and received the somewhat ambiguous reply,
that the “weapons of their warfare were not carnal, that
Zł VPA 7/4 - 4O9
they wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers” . . . an answer which the
tribune, being now somewhat sleepy, thought it best to
leave unexplained.
In the meanwhile, there had passed up the steps of the
temple a gorgeous line of priests, among whom glittered,
more gorgeous than all, the stately figure of the pontiff.
They were followed close by thousands of monks, not only
from Alexandria and Nitria, but from all the adjoining
towns and monasteries. And as Philammon, unable for
some half hour more to force his way into the church,
watched their endless stream, he could well believe the
boast which he had so often heard in Alexandria, that one-
half of the population of Egypt was at that moment in
“religious orders.”
After the monks the laity began to enter; but even then
so vast was the crowd, and so dense the crush upon the
steps, that before he could force his way into the church,
Cyril's sermon had begun.
>k >k >}< >k >k >k >k
“What went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft
raiment? Nay, such are in kings' palaces, and in the
palaces of prefects who would needs be emperors, and
cast away the Lord’s bonds from them, of whom it is
written, that He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth them
to scorn, and taketh the wicked in their own snare, and
maketh the devices of princes of none effect. Ay, in kings'
palaces, and in theatres too, where the rich of this world,
poor in faith, deny their covenant, and defile their bap-
tismal robes that they may do honor to the devourers of
the earth. Woe to them who think that they may
partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.
Woe to them who will praise with the same mouth Aphrodite
the fiend, and her of whom it is written that He was born
of a pure Virgin. Let such be excommunicated from the
Cup of the Lord, and from the congregation of the Lord, till
they have purged away their sins by penance and by alms-
giving. But for you, ye poor of this world, rich in faith—
you whom the rich despise, hale before the judgment seats,
and blaspheme that holy name whereby ye are called—
what went ye out into the wilderness to see? A prophet?
4IO Aſ VPA 774.
Ay, and more than a prophet—a martyr? More than
a prophet, more than a king, more than a prefect ;
whose theatre was the sands of the desert, whose
throne was the cross, whose crown was bestowed, not by
heathen philosophers and daughters of Satan deceiving
men with the works of their fathers, but by angels and
archangels ; a crown of glory, the victor’s laurel, which
grows forever in the paradise of the highest heaven. Call
him no more Ammonius, call him Thaumasius, wonderful!
Wonderful in his poverty, wonderful in his zeal, wonderful
in his faith, wonderful in his fortitude, wonderful in
his death, most wonderful in the manner of that
death. Oh, thrice blessed, who has merited the
honor of the cross itself! What can follow, but that
One so honored in the flesh, should also be honored
in the life which he now lives, and that from the
virtue of these thrice holy limbs the leper should be
cleansed, the dumb should speak, the very dead be raised?
Yes; it were impiety to doubt it. Consecrated by the
cross, this flesh shall not only rest in hope, but work in
power. Approach and be healed! Approach and see the
glory of the saints, the glory of the poor. Approach and
learn that that which man despises, God hath highly
esteemed ; that that which man rejects, God accepts ; that
that which man punishes, God rewards. Approach, and
see how God hath chosen the foolish things of this world
to confound the wise, and the weak things of this world to
confound the strong. Man abhors the cross : the Son of
God condescended to endure it! Man tramples on the
poor : the Son of God hath not where to lay his head.
Man passes by the sick as useless : the Son of God choose
them to be partakers of His sufferings, that the glory of
God may be made manifest in them. Man curses the
publican, while he employs him to fill his coffers with the
plunder of the poor : the Son of God calls him from the
receipt of customs to be an apostle, higher than the kings
of the earth. Man casts away the harlot like a faded
flower, when he has tempted her to become the slave of
sin for a season : and the Son of God calls her the defiled,
the despised, the forsaken, to Himself, accepts her tears,
blesses her offering, and declares that her sins are for-
Aſ VPA 7/4. 4II
given, for she hath loved much : while to whom little is
forgiven the same loveth little.” . .
Philammon heard no more With the passionate and
impulsive nature of a Greek fanatic, he burst forward
through the crowd, toward the steps which led to the choir,
and above which, in front of the altar, stood the Corpse of
Ammonius, inclosed in a coffin of glass, beneath a gor-
geous canopy; and never stopping till he found himself in
front of Cyril's pulpit, he threw himself upon his face upon
the pavement, spread out his arms in the form of a cross,
and lay silent and motionless before the feet of the
multitude. - -
There was a sudden whisper and rustle in the congrega-
tion : but Cyril, after a moment's pause, went on—
“Man, in his pride and self-sufficiency, despises humilia-
tion, and penance, and the broken and the contrite heart,
and tells thee that only as long as thou doest well unto
thyself will he speak well of thee : the Son of God says
that he that humbleth himself, even as this our penitent
brother, he it is who shall be exalted. He it is of whom it
is written that his father saw him afar off, and ran to meet
him, and bade put the best robe on him, and a ring on his
hand, and shoes on his feet, and make merry and be glad
with the choir of angels who rejoice over one sinner that
repenteth. Arise, my son, whosoever thou art, and go in
peace for this night, remembering that he who said “My
belly cleaveth unto the pavement,” hath also said, ‘Rejoice
not against me, Satan, mine enemy, for when I fall I shall
arise!’”
A thunderclap of applause, surely as pardonable as any an
Alexandrian church ever heard, followed this dexterous,
and yet most righteous, turn of the patriarch's oratory ;
but Philammon raised himself slowly and fearfully to his
knees, and blushing scarlet, endured the gaze of ten
thousand eyes.
Suddenly, from beside the pulpit, an old man sprang
forward and clasped him round the neck. It was Arsenius.
“My son! my son l’’ sobbed he, almost aloud.
“Slave, as well as son, if you will!” whispered Philam-
mon ; ‘‘ one boon from the Patriarch, and then home to the
Laura forever!”
4I2 A/YAA 7TWA.
“Oh, twice-blessed night,” rolled on above the deep,
rich voice of Cyril, ‘‘ which beholds at once the coronation
of a martyr, and the conversion of a sinner; which
increases at the same time the ranks of the church
triumphant, and of the church militant ; and pierces
celestial essences with a twofold rapture of thanksgiving,
as they welcome on high a victorious, and on earth a
repentant brother!”
And at a sign from Cyril, Peter the Reader stepped for-
ward and led away, gently enough, the two weepers, who
were welcomed as they passed by the blessings, and
prayers, and tears even of those fierce fanatics of Nitria.
Nay, Peter himself, as he turned to leave them together in
the sacristy, held out his hand to Philammon. -
‘‘I ask your forgiveness,” said the poor boy, who
plunged eagerly and with a sort of delight into any and
every self-abasement.
“And I accord it,” quoth Peter ; and returned to the
church looking, and probably feeling, in a far more pleas-
ant mood than usual.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN.
ABOUT ten o’clock the next morning, as Hypatia, worn
out with sleepless sorrow, was trying to arrange her
thoughts for the farewell lecture, her favorite maid
announced that a messenger from Synesius waited below.
A letter from Synesius P A gleam of hope flashed across
her mind. From him, surely, might come something of
comfort, of advice. Ah! if he only knew how sorely she
was bestead!
“Let him send up his letter.”
“He refuses to deliver it to anyone but yourself. And
I think ’’—added the damsel, who had, to tell the truth, at
that moment in her purse a substantial reason for so think-
ing—“I think it might be worth your ladyship's while to
see him.”
Hypatia shook her head impatiently.
“He seems to know you well, madam, though he
refuses to tell his name : but he bade me put you in mind
of a black agate—I cannot tell what he meant—of a black
agate, and a spirit which was to appear when you rubbed it.”
Hypatia turned pale as death. Was it Philammon
again? She felt for the talisman—it was gone! She must
have lost it last night in Miriam's chamber. Now she saw
the true purpose of the old hag's plot— . . . deceived,
tricked, doubly tricked! And what new plot was this?
“Tell him to leave the letter, and begone. . . . My
father? What? Who is this? Whom are you bringing
to me at such a moment?” -
And as she spoke, Theon ushered into the chamber n
other than Raphael Aben-Ezra, and then retired. -
He advanced slowly toward her, and falling on one knee,
placed in her hand Synesius's letter.
Hypatia trembled from head to foot at the unexpected
apparition. . . . Well; at least he could know nothing of
413
4I4 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
last night and its disgrace. But not daring to look him in
the face, she took the letter and opened it. . . . If she
had hoped for comfort from it, her hope was not realized.
“Symesius Žo the Philosopher :
“Even if fortune cannot take from me all things, yet,
what she can take she will. And yet of two things, at
least, she shall not rob me—to prefer that which is best,
and to succor the oppressed. Heaven forbid that she
should overpower my judgment, as well as the rest of me!
Therefore I do hate injustice ; for that I can do ; and my
will is to stop it; but the power to do so is among the
things of which she has bereaved me—before, too, she
bereaved me of my children. . . .
‘ Once, in old times, Milesian men were strong.”
5 5 g
And there was a time when I, too, was a comfort to my
friends, and when you used to call me a blessing to every
one except myself, as I squandered for the benefit of others
the favor with which the great regarded me. . . . My
hands they were—then. . . . But now I am left desolate
of all ; unless you have any power. For you and virtue I
count among those good things, of which none can deprive
me. But you always have power, and will have it, surely,
now—using it as nobly as you do.
“As for Nicaeus and Philolaus, two noble youths, and
kinsmen of my own, let it be the business of all private
men and magistrates, to see that they return possessors of
their just rights.”
“Of all who honor me!” said she, with a bitter sigh ; and
then looked up quickly at Raphael, as if fearful of having
betrayed herself. She turned deadly pale. In his eyes
was a look of solemn pity, which told her that he knew—
not all?—surely not all? -
“Have you seen the—Miriam P” gasped she, rushing
desperately at that which she most dreaded.
“Not yet. I arrived one hour ago; and Hypatia's wel-
fare is still more important to me than my own.”
“My welfare? It is gone!”
*An authentic letter of Synesius to Hypatia,
A/YA-A 7T/4. 4I 5
“So much the better. I never found mine till I lost it.”
“What do you mean?”
Raphael lingered, yet without withdrawing his gaze, as
if he had something of importance to say, which he longed
and yet feared to utter. At last—
“At least, you will confess that I am better dressed than
when we met last. I have returned, you see, like a certain
demoniac of Gadara, about whom we used to argue,
clothed—and perhaps also in my right mind. . . . God
knows!”
“Raphael! are you come here to mock me? You know
—you cannot have been here an hour without knowing—
that but yesterday I dreamed of being ”—and she drooped
her eyes—“an empress; that today I am ruined ; tomorrow
perhaps proscribed. Have you no speech for me but your
old sarcasms and ambiguities?”
Raphael stood silent and motionless. s
“Why do you not speak? What is the meaning of this
sad, earnest look, so different from your former self? . . .
You have something strange to tell me!”
‘‘I have,” said he, speaking very slowly. “What—
what would Hypatia answer if, after all, Aben-Ezra said,
like the dying Julian, ‘The Galilean has conquered?’”
“Julian never said it! It is a monkish calumny.”
“But I say it.”
“Impossible!”
“I say it!” .
“As your dying speech? The true Raphael Aben-Ezra,
then, lives no more!”
“But he may be born again.”
“And die to philosophy, that he may be born again into
barbaric superstition? Oh, worthy metempsychosis!
Farewell, sir!”
And she rose to go.
“Hear me! hear me patiently this once, noble, beloved
Hypatia! One more sneer of yours, and I may become
again the same case-hardened fiend which you knew me of
old—to all, at least, but you. Oh, do not think me
ungrateful, forgetful! What do I owe to you, whose pure
and lofty words alone kept smouldering in me the dim
remembrance that there was a Right, a Truth, an unseen
4I6 A/YA-4 7/4.
world of spirits, after whose pattern man should aspire to
live P”
She paused, and listened in wonder. What faith had
she of her own P. She would at least hear what he had
found. . . .
“Hypatia, I am older than you—wiser than you, if
wisdom be the fruit of the tree of knowledge. You know
but one side of the medal, Hypatia, and the fairer; I have
seen its reverse as well as its obverse. Through every
form of human thought, of human action, of human sin
and folly, have I been wandering for years, and found no
rest—as little in wisdom as in folly, in spiritual dreams as
in sensual brutality. I could not rest in your Platonism—
I will tell you why hereafter. I went on to Stoicism,
Epicurism, Cynicism, Skepticism, and in that lowest deep
I found a lower depth, when I became skeptical of skepti-
cism itself.” - .
“There is a lower deep still,” thought Hypatia to her-
self, as she recollected last night’s magic ; but she did not
speak. - *
“Then in utter abasement I confessed myself lower
than the brutes, who had a law, and obeyed it, while I was
my own lawless God, devil, harpy, whirlwind. . . . I
needed even my own dog to awaken in me the brute con-
sciousness of my own existence, or of anything without
myself. I took her, the dog, for my teacher, and obeyed
her, for she was wiser than I. And she led me back—the
poor dumb beast—like a God-sent and God-obeying
angel, to human nature, to mercy, to self-sacrifice, to
belief, to worship—to pure and wedded love.”
Hypatia started. . . . And in the struggle to hide her
own bewilderment answered almost without knowing it—
“Wedded love? . . . Wedded love? Is that, then, the
paltry bait by which Raphael Aben-Ezra has been tempted
to desert philosophy?” -
“Thank Heaven!” said Raphael to himself. “She
does not care for me, then | If she had, pride would have
kept her from that sneer. Yes, my dear lady,” answered
he, aloud, “to desert philosophy, to search after wisdom ;
because wisdom itself had sought for me, and found me.
But, indeed, I had hoped that you would have approved of
A. YAA 7TWA. 4I7
my following your example for once in my life, and
resolving, like you, to enter into the estate of wedlock.”
“Do not sneer at me!” cried she, in her turn, looking up
at him with shame and horror, which made him repent of
uttering the words. “If you do not know—you will soon,
too soon! Never mention that hateful dream to me, if you
wish to have speech of me more!”
A pang of remorse shot through Raphael's heart. Who
but he himself had plotted that evil marriage? But she
gave him no opportunity of answering her, and went on
hurriedly—
“Speak to me rather about yourself. What is this
strange and sudden betrothal? What has it to do with
Christianity? I had thought that it was rather by the
glories of celibacy—gross and superstitious as their
notions of it are, that the Galilaeans tempted their con-
verts.”
“So had I, my dearest lady,” answered he, as, glad to
turn the subject for a moment, and perhaps a little nettled
by her contemptuous tone, he resumed something of his old
arch and careless manner. “But—there is no accounting
for man’s agreeable inconsistencies—One morning I found
myself, to my astonishment, seized by two bishops, and
betrothed, whether I chose or not, to a young lady who
but a few days before had been destined for a nunnery.”
“Two bishops?”
“I speak simple truth. The one was Synesius, of
course—that most incoherent and most benevolent of busy-
bodies chose to betray me behind my back; but I will not
trouble you with that part of my story. The real wonder
is, that the other episcopal match-maker was Augustine of
Hippo, himself!”
“Anything to bribe a convert,” said Hypatia, con-
temptuously.
‘‘I assure you, no. He informed me, and her also,
openly and uncivilly enough, that he thought us very much
to be pitied for so great a fall. . . . But as we neither of
us seemed to have any call for the higher life of celibacy,
he could not press it on us. . . . We should have trouble
in the flesh. But if we married we had not sinned. To
which I answered that my humility was quite content to
418 A/VA’A 7TWA.
sit in the very lowest ranks, with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. . . . He replied by an encomium on virginity, in
which I seemed to hear again the voice of Hypatia herself.”
“And sneered at it inwardly, as you used to sneer at
me.”
“Really, I was in no sneering mood at that moment;
and whatsoever I may have felt inclined to reply, he was
kind enough to say for me and himself the next minute.”
“What do you mean?”
“He went on, to my utter astonishment, by such a
eulogium on wedlock as I never heard from Jew to heathen,
and ended by advice to young married folks so thoroughly
excellent and to the point, that I could not help telling
him, when he stopped, what a pity I thought it that he
had not himself married, and made some good woman
happy by putting his own recipes into practice . . . and
at that, Hypatia, I saw an expression on his face which
made me wish for the moment that I had bitten out this
impudent tongue of mine, before I so rashly touched some
deep old wound. . . . That man has wept bitter tears ere
now, be sure of it. . . . But he turned the conversation
instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as he is, by saying,
with the sweetest smile, that though he had made it a
solemn rule never to be a party to making up any mar-
riage, yet in our case Heaven had so plainly pointed us out
for each other, etc., etc., that he could not refuse himself
the pleasure . . . and ended by a blessing as kindly as
ever came from the lips of man.”
“You seem wonderfully taken with the sophist of
Hippo,” said Hypatia, impatiently ; “and forget, perhaps,
that his opinions, especially when, as you confess, they
are utterly inconsistent with themselves, are not quite as
important to me as they seem to have become to you.”
“Whether he be consistent or not about marriage,”
said Raphael, somewhat proudly, “I care little. I went
to him to tell me, not about the relation of the sexes, on
which point I am probably as good a judge as he—but.
about God ; and on that subject he told me enough to
bring me back to Alexandria, that I might undo, if possible,
somewhat of the wrong which I have done to Hypatia.”
“What wrong have you done me? . . . You are silent?
HYPATIA. 4. I9
Be sure, at least, that whatsoever it may be, you will not
wipe it out by trying to make a proselyte of me.”
“Be not too sure of that. I have found too great a
treasure not to wish to share it with Theon's daughter.”
“A treasure!” said she, half scornfully.
“Yes, indeed. You recollect my last words, when we
parted there below a few months ago?”
Hypatia was silent. One terrible possibility at which he
had hinted flashed across her memory for the first time
since, . . . but she spurned proudly from her the heaven-
sent warning.
‘‘I told you that, like Diogenes, I went forth to seek a
man. Did I not promise you, that when I had found one
you should be the first to hear of him P. And I have found
a man.”
Hypatia waved her beautiful hand. “I know whom you
would say . . . that crucified one. Be it so. I want not
a man, but a god.”
“What sort of a god, Hypatia? A god made up of our
own intellectual notions, or rather of negations of them—
of infinity, and eternity, and invisibility, and impassi-
bility and why not of immortality, too, Hypatia? For I
recollect we used to agree that it was a carnal degrading
of the Supreme One to predicate of Him so merely human
a thing as virtue.”
Hypatia was silent.
“Now I have always had a sort of fancy that what we
wanted, as the first predicate of our Absolute One, was
that he was to be not merely an infinite God—what-
ever that meant, which I suspect we did not always
see quite clearly—or an eternal one—or an omnipotent
one—or even merely a one God at all ; none of which predi-
cates, I fear, did we understand more clearly than the
first ; but that He must be a righteous God :—or rather,
as we used sometimes to say, that He was to have no
predicate—Righteousness itself. And all along I could
not help remembering that my old sacred Hebrew books
told me of such a one ; and feeling that they might have
something to tell me which—”
“Which I did not tell you! And this, then, caused your
air of reserve, and of sly superiority over the woman whom
42O HyPA 774.
you mocked by calling her your pupil' I little suspected
you of so truly Jewish a jealousy why, oh, why, did you
not tell me this?”
“Because I was a beast, Hypatia ; and had all but for-
gotten what this righteousness was like ; and was afraid to
find out lest it should condemn me. Because I was a
devil, Hypatia ; and hated righteousness, and neither
wished to see you righteous, or God righteous either,
because then you would both have been unlike myself.
God be merciful to me a sinner!”
She looked up in his face. The man was changed as if
by a miracle—and yet not changed. There was the same
gallant consciousness of power, the same subtle and
humorous twinkle in those strong, ripe, Jewish features
and those glittering eyes: and yet every line in his face
was softened, sweetened ; the mask of sneering fained mee
was gone—imploring tenderness and earnestness beamed
from his whole countenance. The chrysalis case had
fallen off, and disclosed the butterfly within. She sat
looking at him, and passed her hand across her eyes, as if
to try whether the apparition would not vanish. He, the
subtle! he, the mocker! he, the Lucian of Alexandria! he,
whose depth and power had awed her, even in his most
polluted days. . . . And this was the end of him. . . .
“It is a freak of cowardly superstition. . . . Those
Christians have been frightening him about his sins and
their Tartarus.”
She looked again into his bright, clear, fearless face, and
was ashamed of her own calumny. And this was the
end of him—of Synesius—of Augustine—of learned and
unlearned, Goth and Roman. . . . The great flood would
have its way, then. . . . Could she alone fight against it?
She could ! Would she submit? She? Her will should
Stand firm, her reason free, to the last—to the death if need
be. . . . And yet last night! last night!
At last she spoke, without looking up.
“And what if you have found a man in that crucified
one? Have you found in him a God also?”
“Does Hypatia recollect Glaucon's definition of the
perfectly righteous man? . . . How, without being guilty
of one unrighteous act, he must labor his life long under
A. VPA 774. 42f
the imputation of being utterly unrighteous, in order that
his disinterestedness may be thoroughly tested, and by
proceeding, in such a course, arrive inevitably, as Glaucon
says, not only in Athens of old, or in Judea of old, but, as
you yourself will agree, in Christian Alexandria at this
moment, at—do you remember, Hypatia?——bonds, and the
scourge, and lastly, at the cross itself. . . . If Plato's idea
of the righteous man be a crucified one, why may not mine
also? If as we both—and old Bishop Clemens, too—as
good a Platonist as we, remember—and Augustine him-
self would agree, Plato in speaking those strange words,
spoke not of himself but by the Spirit of God, why should
not others have spoken by the same Spirit when they spoke
the same words?” -
“A crucified man. . . . Yes. But a crucified God,
Raphael! I shudder at the blasphemy.”
“So do my poor dear fellow-countrymen. Are they the
more righteous in their daily doings, Hypatia, on account
of their fancied reverence for the glory of One who prob-
ably knows best how to preserve and manifest His own
glory? But you assent to the definition? Take care!”
said he, with one of his arch smiles, “I have been fighting
with Augustine, and have become of late a terrible dialec-
tician. Do you assent to it?”
“Of course—it is Plato’s.”
“But do you assent merely because it is written in the
book called Plato's, or because your reason tells you
that it is true? . . . You will not tell me. Tell me this,
then, at least. Is not the perfectly righteous man the
highest specimen of man?”
“Surely,” said she, half carelessly; but not unwilling,
like a philosopher and a Greek, as a matter of course, to
embark in anything like a word-battle, and to shut out
sadder thoughts for a moment.
“Then must not the Autanthropos, the archetypal and
ideal man, who is more perfect than any individual speci-
men, be perfectly righteous also?”
* * Yes.”
“Suppose, then, for the sake of one of those pleasant
old games of Ours, an argument, that he wished to mani-
fest his righteousness to the world. . . . The only method
422 Aſ YAA 7/A,
for him, according to Plato, would be Glaucon's, of
calumny and persecution, the scourge and the cross?”
“What words are these, Raphael? Material scourges
and crosses for an eternal and spiritual idea?” -
“Did you ever yet, Hypatia, consider at leisure what
the archetype of man might be like?”
Hypatia started, as at a new thought, and confessed—as
every Neo-Platonist would have done—that she had never
done so. . -
“And yet our master, Plato, bade us believe that there
was a substantial archetype of each thing, from a flower to
a nation, eternal in the heavens. Perhaps we have not
been faithful Platonists enough heretofore, my dearest
tutor. Perhaps, being philosophers, and somewhat of
Pharisees to boot, we began all our lucubrations as we did
our prayers, by thanking God that we were not as other
men were ; and so misread another passage in the Repub-
lic, which we used in pleasant old days to be fond of quot-
ing.” -
“What was that?” asked Hypatia, who became more
and more interested every moment.
“That philosophers were men.”
“Are you mocking me? Plato defines the philosopher
as the man who seeks after the objects of knowledge,
while others seek after those of opinion.”
“And most truly. But what if, in our eagerness to
assert that wherein the philosopher differed from other
men, we had overlooked that in which he resembled other
men ; and so forget that, after all, man was a genus
whereof the philosopher was only a species?”
Hypatia sighed.
“Do you not think, then, that as the greater contains
the less, and the archetype of the genus that of the
species, we should have been wiser if we had speculated a
little more on the archetype of man as man, before we
meddled with a part of that archetype—the archetype of
the philosopher? . . . Certainly it would have been the
easier course, for there are more men than philosophers,
Hypatia ; and every man is a real man, and a fair subject
for examination, while every philosopher is not a real
philosopher—Our friends the Academics, for instance, and
A VA’4774. 423
even a Neo-Platonist or two whom we know. You seem
impatient! Shall I cease?”
“You mistook the cause of my impatience,” answered
she, looking up at him with her great sad eyes.
‘‘ Go on.” r - -
“Now—for I am going to be terribly scholastic—is it
not the very definition of man, that he is, alone of all
known things, a spirit temporarily united to an animal
body?”
‘‘Enchanted in it, as in a dungeon, rather,” said she,
sighing. - -
“Be it so if you will. But—must we not say that the
archetype—the very man—that if he is the archetype, he
too will be, or must have been, once at least, temporarily
enchanted into an animal body? . . . You are silent. I
will not press you. . . . Only ask you to consider at your
leisure whether Plato may not justify somewhat from the
charge of absurdity the fisherman of Galilee, where he said
that He in whose image man is made was made flesh, and
dwelt with him bodily there by the lake-side at Tiberias,
and that he beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-
begotten of the Father.”
“That last question is a very different one. God made
flesh! My reason revolts at it.”
“Old Homer’s reason did not.”
Hypatia started, for she recollected her yesterday's
cravings after those old, palpable, and human deities.
And—“Go on,” she cried eagerly.
“Tell me, then—this archetype of man, if it exists any-
where, it must exist eternally in the mind of God? At
least, Plato would have so said?”
• * Yes.”
“And derive its existence immediately from him?”
* * Yes. ’’
“But a man is one willing person, unlike to all others.”
< * Yes.” . -
“Then his archetype must be such.”
“I suppose so.” .
“But possessing the faculties and properties of all men
in their highest perfection.”
“Of course.”
424 A/VA24 7/4
“How sweetly and obediently my late teacher becomes
my pupill”
Hypatia looked at him with her eyes full of tears.
‘‘I never taught you anything, Raphael.”
“You taught me most, beloved lady, when you least
thought of it. But tell me one thing more. Is it not the
property of every man to be a son? For you can conceive
of a man as not being a father, but not as not being a son.”
* * Be it so.”
“Then this archetype must be a son also.”
“Whose son, Raphael?”
“Why not of Zeus, father of gods and men?” For we
agreed that it—we will call it he, now, having agreed that
it is a person—could owe its existence to none but God
himself.”
“And what then?” said Hypatia, fixing those glorious
eyes full on his face, in an agony of doubt, but
yet, as Raphael declared to his dying day, of hope and
of joy. 4, -
“Well, Hypatia, and must not a son be of the same
species as his father? “Eagles,’ says the poet, “do not
beget doves.’ Is the word son anything but an empty and
false metaphor, unless the son be the perfect and equal
likeness of his father?”
“Heroes beget sons worse than themselves, says the
poet.”
“We are not talking now of men as they are, whom
Homer’s Zeus calls the most wretched of all the beasts of
the field ; we are talking—are we not?——of a perfect and
archetypal Son, and a perfect and archetypal Father, in a
perfect and eternal world, wherein is neither growth,
decay, nor change ; and of a perfect and archetypal genera-
tion, of which the only definition can be, that like begets
its perfect like? . . . You are silent. Be so, Hypatia.
. . We have gone too far into the abysses.” . . .
And so they both were silent for a while. And Raphael
thought solemn thoughts about Victoria, and about ancient
signs of Isaiah’s which were to him none the less
prophecies concerning The Man whom he had found,
because he prayed and trusted that the same signs might
be repeated to himself, and a child given to him also, as a
Aſ YAA 774. - 425
token that, in spite of all his baseness, “God was with
him.”
But he was a Jew, and a man : Hypatia was a Greek,
and a woman—and for that matter, so were the men of her
school. To her, the relations and duties of common
humanity shone with none of the awful and divine meaning
which they did in the eyes of the converted Jew, wakened
for the first time in his life to know the meaning of his
own scriptures, and become an Israelite indeed. And
Raphael's dialectic, too, though it might silence her, could
not convince her. Her creed, like those of her fellow-
philosophers, was one of the fancy and the religious senti-
ment, rather than of the reason and the moral sense. All
the brilliant cloud-world in which she had revelled for
years—cosmogonies, emanations, affinities, symbolisms,
hierarchies, abysses, eternities, and the rest of it—though
she could not rest in them, not even believe in them—
though they had vanished into thin air at her most utter
need—yet they were too pretty to be lost sight of forever;
and, struggling against the growing conviction of her
reason, she answered at last— -
“And you would have me give up, as you seem to have
done, the sublime, the beautiful, the heavenly, for a dry
and barren chain of dialectic—in which, for aught I know
—for after all, Raphael, I cannot cope with you—I am a
woman—a weak woman!”
And she covered her face with her hands. -
“For aught you know what?” asked Raphael gently.
“You may have made the worse appear the better
reason.”
“So said Aristophanes of Socrates. But hear me once
more, beloved Hypatia. You refuse to give up the beauti-
ful, the sublime, the heavenly P What if Raphael Aben-
Ezra, at least, had never found them till now P Recollect
what I said just now—what if our Beautiful, and Sublime,
and Heavenly, had been the sheerest materialism, notions
spun by our own brains out of the impressions of pleasant
things, and high things, and low things, and awful things,
which we had seen with our bodily eyes? What if I had
discovered that the spiritual is not the intellectual, but the
moral ; and that the spiritual world is not, as we used to
426 - Areazza.
make it, a world of our own intellectual abstractions, or of
Our Own physical emotions, religious or other, but a world of
righteous or unrighteous persons? What if I had dis-
Covered that one law of the spiritual world, in which others
were contained, was righteousness, and that disharmony
with that law, which we called unspirituality, was not
being vulgar, or clumsy, or ill-taught, or unimaginative, or
dull, but simply being unrighteous? What if I had dis-
Covered that righteousness, and it alone, was the beautiful,
righteousness the sublime, the heavenly, the God-like—
ay, God himself? And, what if it had dawned on me, as
by a great sunrise what that righteousness was like? What
if I had seen a human being, a woman too, a young,
weak girl, showing forth the glory and the beauty of
God? Showing me that the beautiful was to mingle
unshrinking, for duty’s sake, with all that is most foul and
loathsome : that the sublime was to stoop to the most menial
offices, the most outwardly degrading self-denials ; that
to be heavenly, was to know that the commonest relations,
the most vulgar duties of earth were God’s commands,
and only to be performed aright by the help of the same
spirit by which He rules the Universe ; that righteous-
ness was to love, to suffer for—if need be, to die for—
those who, in themselves, seem fitted to arouse no feel-
ings except indignation and disgust? What if, for the
first time, I trust not for the last time, in my life I
saw this vision ; and at the sight of it my eyes were
opened and I knew it for the likeness and the glory of
God! What if I, a Platonist, like John of Galilee, and
Paul of Tarsus, yet, like them, a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
had confessed to myself: If the creature can love thus,
how much more its archetype? If weak woman can endure
thus, how much more a Son of God? If for the good of
Others, man has strength to sacrifice himself in part, God
will have strength to sacrifice Himself utterly. If He has
not done it, He will do it or He will be less beautiful, less
sublime, less heavenly, less righteous than my poor Con-
ception of Him, ay, than this weak, playful girl! Why
should I not believe those who tell me that He has
done it already? What if their evidence be, after all,
only probability? I do not want mathematical demonstra-
A. VPA 7/A. 427
tion to prove to me that when a child was in danger
its father saved him—neither do I here. My reason,
my heart, every faculty of me, except this stupid
sensuous experience, which I find deceiving you every
moment, which cannot even prove to me my own existence,
accepts that story of Calvary as the most natural, most
probable, most necessary of earthly events, assuming only
that God is a righteous Person, and not some dream of an
all-pervading necessary spirit—nonsense which, in its very
terms, confesses its own materialism.”
Hypatia answered, with a forced smile :
“‘ Raphael Aben-Ezra has deserted the method of the
severe dialectician for that of the eloquent lover.”
“Not altogether,” said he, smiling in return, “for Sup-
pose I had said to myself, We Platonists agree that the
sight of God is the highest good.”
Hypatia once more shuddered at last night's recollection.
“And if He be righteous, and righteousness be—as I know
it to be—identical with love, then He will desire that high-
est good for men far more than they can desire it for
themselves. . . . Then He will desire to show Himself
and His own righteousness to them. . . . Will you make
answer dearest Hypatia, or shall I? . . . or does your
silence give consent? At least let me go on to say this,
that if God do desire to show His righteousness to men,
His only perfect method, according to Plato, will be that
of calumny, persecution, the scourge, and the cross, that
so he, like Glaucon's righteous man, may remain forever
free from any suspicion of selfish interest, or weakness of
endurance. . . . Am I deserting the dialectic method now,
Hypatia? . . . You are still silent? You will not hear
me, I see. . . . At some future day, the philosopher may
condescend to lend a kinder ear to the words of her
greatest debtor. . . . Or, rather, she may condescend to
hear, in her own heart, the voice of that Archetypal Man,
who has been loving her, guiding her, heaping her with
every perfection of body and of mind, inspiring her with
all pure and noble longing, and only asks of her to listen
to her own reason, her own philosophy, when they pro-
claim Him as the giver of them, and to impart them freely
and humbly, as He has imparted them to her, to the poor,
428 Aſ VPA 77A.
and the brutish, and the sinful, whom He loves as well as
He loves her. . . . Farewell!” .
“Stay!” said she, springing up ; “whither are you
going?”
“To do a little good before I die, having done much
evil. To farm, plant, and build, and rescue a little corner
of Ormuzd's earth, as the Persians would say, out of the
dominion of Ahrimon. To fight Ausurian robbers, feed
Thracian mercenaries, save a few widows from starvation,
and a few orphans from slavery. . . . Perhaps to leave
behind me a son of David’s line, who will be a better
Jew, because a better Christian, than his father. . . . We shall
have trouble in the flesh, Augustine tells us. . . . But, as
I answered him, I really have had so little thereof yet, that
my fair share may probably be rather a useful education,
than otherwise. Farewell!” re
“Stay!” said she. “Come again! again! And her. . . .
Bring her. . . . I must see her! She must be noble,
indeed, to be worthy of you.”
“She is many a hundred miles away.”
“Ah! Perhaps she might have taught something to me
—me, the philosopher! You need not have feared me. I
have no heart to make converts now. . . . O Raphael
Aben-Ezra, why break the bruised reed P My plans are
scattered to the wind, my pupils worthless, my fair name
tarnished, my conscience heavy with the thought of my
own cruelty. . . . If you do not know all, you will know
it but too soon. . . . My last hope, Synesius, in plores for
himself the hope which I need from him. . . . And, over
and above it all . . . You! . . . Et tu, Brute! Why not
fold my mantle round me, like Julius of old, and die!”
Raphael stood looking sadly at her, as her whole face
sank into utter prostration.
>}< >k >k >k >{< >}: >k
“Yes—come. . . . The Galilaean. . . . If he conquers
strong men, can the weak maid resist him? Come soon.
. . . This afternoon. . . . My heart is breaking fast.”
“At the eighth hour this afternoon P”
“Yes. . . . At noon I lecture . . . take my farewell,
rather, forever of the schools. . . . Gods! What have I to
say? . . . And tell me about Him of Nazareth. Farewell!”
Aſ YAA 7TWA. 429
“Farewell, beloved lady! At the ninth hour, you shall
hear of Him of Nazareth.”
Why did his own words sound to him strangely pregnant,
all but ominous? He almost fancied that not he, but some
third person had spoken them. He kissed Hypatia's
hand. It was as cold as ice ; and his heart, too, in
spite of all his bliss, felt cold and heavy, as he left the
1 O C Iſl. -
As he went down the steps into the street, a young man
sprang from behind one of the pillars, and seized his arm.
“Aha! my young Coryphaeus of pious plunderers! What
do you want with me?” -
Philammon, for it was he, looked at him an instant, and
recognized him.
“Save her! for the love of God, save her!”
* < Whom P”
“Hypatia!'
“How long has her salvation been important to you, my
good friend?”
“For God's sake,” said Philammon, “go back and
warn her! She will hear you—you are rich—you used to
be her friend—I know you—I have heard of you. . . .
Oh, if you ever cared for her—if you ever felt for her a
thousandth part of what I feel—go in and warn her not to
stir from home!”
“I must hear more of this,” said Raphael, who saw that
the boy was in earnest. “Come in with me, and speak to
her father.”
“No! not in that house! Never in that house again!
Do not ask me why : but go yourself. She will not hear
me. Did you—did you prevent her from listening?”
“What do you mean?”
“I have been here—ages! I sent a note in by her maid,
and she returned no answer.”
Raphael recollected then, for the first time, a note which
he had seen brought to her during the conversation.
“I saw her receive a note. She tossed it away. Tell
me your story. If there is reason in it, I will bear your
message myself. Of what is she to be warned?”
“Of a plot—I know that there is a plot—against her
among the monks and parabolani. As I lay in bed
43O A. Y.A.4 7/4.
this morning in Arsenius's room—they thought I was
asleep—” .
“Arsenius? Has that venerable fanatic, then, gone the
way of all monastic flesh, and turned persecutor?”
“God forbid! I heard him beseeching Peter the Reader
to refrain from something, I cannot tell what ; but I caught
her name. . . . I heard Peter say, ‘She that hindereth,
will hinder till she be taken out of the way.' And when
he went out into the passage I heard him say to another,
‘That thou doest, do quickly!’”
“These are slender grounds, my friend.”
“Ah, you do not know of what those men are capable!”
“Do I not? Where did you and I meet last?”
Philammon blushed and burst forth again. “That was
enough for me. I know the hatred which they bear her,
the crimes which they attribute to her. Her house would
have been attacked last night had it not been for Cyril.
. And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too gently and
softly not to mean something devilish. I watched all the
morning for an opportunity of escape, and here I am!
Will you take my message, or see her—”
* * What?”
“God only knows, and the devil whom they worship
instead of God.” -
Raphael hurried back into the house—“Could he see
Hypatia?” She had shut herself up in her private room,
strictly commanding that no visitor should be admitted.
. . . “Where was Theon, then?” He had gone out by
the canal gate half an hour before, with a bundle of
mathematical papers under his arm, no one knew
whither. . . .
“Imbecile old idiot!” and he hastily wrote on his
tablet—
“Do not despise the young monk's warning. I believe
him to speak the truth. As you love yourself and your
father, Hypatia, stir not out today.”
He bribed a maid to take the message upstairs ; and
passed his time in the hall in warning the servants. But
they would not believe him. It was true the shops were
shut in some quarters, and the Museum gardens empty;
people were a little frightened after yesterday. But Cyril,
Aſ VAA 7TWA. 431
they had heard for certain, had threatened excommunication
only last night to any Christian who broke the peace; and
there had not been a monk to be seen in the streets the
whole morning. And as for any harm happening to their
mistress—impossible! “The very wild beasts would not
tear her,” said the huge negro porter, “if she were thrown
into the amphitheatre.”
Whereat a maid boxed his ears for talking of such a
thing ; and then, by way of mending it, declared that she
knew for certain, that her mistress could turn aside the
lightning, and call legions of spirits to fight for her with a
nod. . . . What was to be done with such idolaters? And
yet who could help liking them the better for it.
At last the answer came down, in the old graceful,
studied, self-conscious handwriting.
“It is a strange way of persuading me to your new
faith, to bid me beware, on the very first day of your
preaching, of the wickedness of those who believe it. I
thank you ; but your affection for me makes you timorous.
I dread nothing. They will not dare. Did they dare now,
they would have dared long ago. As for that youth—to
obey or to believe his word, even to seem aware of his
existence, were shame to me henceforth. Because he is
insolent enough to warn me, therefore I will go. Fear
not for me. You would not wish me, for the first time in
my life, to fear for myself. I must follow my destiny. I
must speak the words which I have to speak. Above all,
I must let no Christian say, that the philosopher dared less
than the fanatic. If my gods are gods, then will they pro-
tect me : and if not, let your God prove His rule as seems
to Him good.”
Raphael tore the letter to fragments. . . . The guards,
at least, were not gone mad like the rest of the world. It
wanted half an hour of the time of her lecture. In the
interval he might summon force enough to crush all
Alexandria. And turning suddenly, he darted out of the
room and out of the house. -
“Quem Deus vu/# perdere—!” cried he to Philammon,
with a gesture of grief. “Stay here and stop her! make
a last appeal. Drag the horses’ heads down, if you can
I will be back in ten minutes.” -
4.32 Aſ VPA 7TWA.
And he ran off for the nearest gate of the Museum
gardens. -
On the other side of the gardens lay the courtyard of
the palace. There were gates in plenty communicating
between them. If he could but see Orestes, even alarm
the guard in time! . . . . -
And he hurried through the walks and alcoves, now
deserted by the fearful citizens, to the nearest gate. It
was fast, and barricaded firmly on the outside. -
Terrified, he ran on to the next ; it was barred also.
He saw the reason in a moment, and maddened as he saw
it. The guards, careless about the Museum, or reasonably
fearing no danger from the Alexandrian populace to the
glory and wonder of their city, or perhaps wishing wisely
enough to concentrate their forces in the narrowest space,
had contented themselves with cutting off all communica-
tion with the gardens, and so converting the lofty partition
wall into the outer enceinte of their marble citadel. At all
events, the doors leading from the Museum itself might be
open. He knew them every one, every hall, passage,
statue, picture, almost every book in that vast treasure-
house of ancient civilization. He found an entrance ;
hurried through well-known corridors to a postern through
which he and Orestes had lounged a hundred times, their
lips full of bad words, their hearts of worse thoughts,
gathered in those records of their fair wickedness of
old. . . . It was fast. He beat upon it ; but no one
answered. He rushed on and tried another. No one
answered there. Another—still silence and despair! . . .
He rushed upstairs, hoping that from the windows above
he might be able to call the guard. The prudent soldiers
had locked and barricaded the entrances to the upper
floors of the whole right wing, lest the palace court should
be commanded from thence. Whither now? Back—and
whither then? Back, round endless galleries, vaulted halls,
staircases, doorways, some fast, some Open, up and down,
trying this way and that, losing himself at whiles in that
enormous silent labyrinth. And his breath failed him, his
throat was parched, his face burned as with the simoom
wind, his legs were trembling under him. His presence
of mind, usually so perfect, failed him utterly. He was
Aſ VPA 7TWA 4.33
baffled, hetted ; there was a spell upon him. Was it a
dream? Was it all one of those hideous nightmares of
endless pillars beyond pillars, stairs above stairs, rooms
within rooms, changing, shifting, lengthening out forever
and forever before the dreamer, narrowing, closing in on
him, choking him P Was it a dream P Was he doomed to
walk forever and forever in some place of the dead, to
expatiate the sin he had learnt and done therein P His
brain, for the first time in his life, began to reel. He
could recollect nothing but that something dreadful was
to happen—and that he had to prevent it, and could
not. . . . Where was he now? In a little by-chamber.
. He had talked with her there a hundred times, look-
ing out over the Pharos and the blue Mediterranean. . . .
What was that roar below P . . . A sea of weltering yelling
heads, thousands on thousands, down into the very beach ;
and from their innumerable throats one mighty war-cry—
“God, and the Mother of God!” Cyril's hounds were
loose. . . . He reeled from the window, and darted
frantically away again . . . whither, he knew not, and
never knew until his dying day.
And Philammon P . . . Sufficient for the chapter, as for
the day, is the evil thereof.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
WOMAN’s LOVE.
PELAGIA had passed that night alone in sleepless sorrow,
which was not diminished by her finding herself the next
morning palpably a prisoner in her own house. Her girls
told her that they had orders—they would not say from
whom—to prevent her leaving her own apartments. And
though some of them made the announcement with sighs
and tears of condolence, yet more than one, she could see,
was well inclined to make her feel that her power was
Over, and that there were others besides herself who might
aspire to the honor of reigning favorite.
What matter to her? Whispers, sneers, saucy answers
fell on her ear unheeded. She had one idol, and she had
lost it; one power, and it had failed her. In the heaven
above, and in the earth beneath, was neither peace, nor
help, nor hope ; nothing but black, blank, stupid terror
and despair. The little weak infant soul, which had just
awakened in her, had been crushed and stunned in its
very birth-hour; and instinctively she crept away to the
roof of the tower where her apartments were, to sit and
weep alone. -
. There she sat, hour after hour, beneath the shade of the
large wind-sail, which served in all Alexandrian houses the
double purpose of a shelter from the sun and a ventilator
for the rooms below ; and her eye roved carelessly over
that endless sea of roofs and towers, and masts, and glit-
tering canals, and gliding boats ; but she saw none of them
—nothing but one beloved face, lost, lost forever.
At last a low whistle roused her from her dream. She
looked up. Across the narrow lane, from one of the
embrasures of the opposite house parapet, bright eyes were
peering at her. She moved angrily to escape them.
* The whistle was repeated, and a head rose cautiously
above the parapet. . . . It was Miriam's. Casting a care-
tº 434
Aſ YA"A 7TWA. 435
ful look around, Palagia went forward. What could the
old woman want with her?
Miriam made interrogative signs, which Pelagia under-
stood as asking her whether she was alone ; and the
moment that an answer in the negative was returned,
Miriam rose, tossed over to her feet a letter weighted with
a pebble, and then vanished again. -
‘‘I have watched here all day. They refused me admit-
tance below. Beware of Wulf, of everyone. Do not stir
from your chamber. There is a plot to carry you off
tonight, and give you up to your brother the monk ; you
are betrayed ; be brave!”
Pelagia read it with blanching cheek and staring eyes;
and took, at least, the last part of Miriam’s advice. For
walking down the stair, she passed proudly through her
own rooms, and commanding back the girls who would
have stayed her, with a voice and gesture at which they
quailed, went straight down, the letter in her hand, to the
apartment where the Amal usually spent his midday hours.
As she approached the door, she heard loud voices
within. . . . His yes; but Wulf's also. Her heart failed
her, and she stopped a moment to listen. . . . She heard
Hypatia's name ; and mad with curiosity, crouched down
at the lock, and hearkened to every word.
“She will not accept me, Wulf.” -
“If she will not, she shall go farther and fare worse.
Besides, I tell you, she is hard run. It is her last chance,
and she will jump at it. The Christians are mad with her;
if a storm blows up, her life is not worth—that!”
“It is pity that we have not brought her hither already.”
“It is ; but we could not. We must not break with
Orestes till the palace is in our hands.”
“And will it ever be in our hands, friends?”
“Certain. We were round at every picket last night,
and the very notion of an Amal’s heading them made them
so eager, that we had to bribe them to be quiet rather than
to rise.” -
‘‘ Odin' I wish I were among them now!”
“Wait till the city rises. If the day pass over without
a riot, I know nothing. The treasure is all on board, is it
not?” - -
436 Aſ YA-A ZZA.
“Yes, and the galleys ready. I have been working like
a horse at them all the morning, as you would let me do
nothing else. And Goderic will not be back from the
palace, you say, till nightfall!”
“If we are attacked first, we are to throw up a fire-
signal to him, and he is to come off hither with what Goths
he can muster. If the palace is attacked first, he is to give
us the signal, and we are to pack up and row round thither.
And in the meanwhile, he is to make that hound of a
Greek prefect as drunk as he can.”
“The Greek will see him under the table! He has
drugs, I know, as all these Roman rascals have, to sober
him when he likes ; and then he sets to work and drinks
again. Send off old Smid, and let him beat the armorer,
if he can.” -
“A very good thought!” said Wulf, and came out
instantly for the purpose of putting it in practice.
Pelagia had just time to retreat into an adjoining door-
way ; but she had heard enough ; and as Wulf passed, she
sprang to him and caught him by the arm.
“‘Oh, come in hither! Speak to me one moment ; for
mercy's sake speak to me!” and she drew him, half
against his will, into the chamber, and throwing herself at
his feet, broke out into a child-like wail. -
Wulf stood silent, utterly discomfited by this unexpected
submission, where he had expected petulant and artful
resistance. He almost felt guilty and ashamed, as he
looked down into that beautiful imploring face, convulsed
with simple sorrow, as of a child for a broken toy. . . .
At last she spoke.
“Oh, what have I done—what have I done? Why
must you take him from me? What have I done but love
him, honor him, worship him? I know you love him ;
and I love you for it. I do indeed! But you—what
is your love to mine? Oh, I would die for him—be torn
in pieces for him—now, this moment!” . . .
Wulf was silent. -
“What have I done but love him P. What could I wish
but to make him happy? I was rich enough, praised, and
petted ; . . . and then he came . . . glorious as he is,
like a god among men—among apes rather—and I
Aſ VA’A 7TWA. - 437
worshipped him : was I wrong in that? I gave up all for
him : was I wrong in that? I gave him myself: what could
I do more? He condescended to like me—he, the hero!
Could I help submitting? I loved him : could I help
loving him P Did I wrong him in that? Cruel, cruel
Wulf I’’
Wulf was forced to be stern, or he would have melted at
O 1) Cé.
“And what was your love worth to him? What has it
done for him P. It has made him a sot, an idler, a laughing
stock to these Greek dogs, when he might have been their
conqueror, their king. Foolish woman, who cannot see
that your love has been his bane, his ruin! He, who
ought by now to have been sitting upon the throne of the
Ptolemies, the lord of all south of the Mediterranean—as
he shall be still!”
Pelagia looked at him wide-eyed, as if her mind was
taking in slowly some vast new thought, under the weight
of which it reeled already. Then she arose slowly.
“And he might be emperor of Africa.”
“And he shall be ; but not—”
“Not with me!” she almost shrieked. “No! not with
wretched, ignorant, polluted me! I see—O God, I see it
all! And this is why you want him to marry her—her—”
She could not utter the dreaded name.
Wulf could not trust himself to speak ; but he bowed his
head in acquiescence.
>k >k >k >k >k >k >k
“Yes—I will go—up into the desert—with Philammon
—and you shall never hear of me again. And I will be a
nun, and pray for him, that he may be a great king, and
conquer all the world. You will tell him why I went away,
will you not? Yes, I will go—now, at once } )
She turned away hurriedly, as if to act upon her promise,
and then she sprang again to Wulf with a sudden shudder.
‘‘I cannot, Wulf! I cannot leave him " I shall go mad
if I do! Do not be angry ;-I will promise anything—take
any oath you like, if you will only let me stay here. Only
as a slave—as anything—-if I may but look at him some-
times. No–not even that—but to be under the same roof
with him, only. Oh, let me be but a slave in the kitchen!
438 Aſ YPA ZZA.
I will make over all I have to him—to you—to anyone!
And you shall tell him that I am gone—dead, if you will.
Only let me stay! And I will wear rags, and grind in the
mill. . . . Even that will be delicious, to know that he is
eating the bread which I have madel And if I ever dare
speak to him—even to come near him—let the steward
hang me up by the wrists, and whip me, like the slave
which I deserve to be! . . . And then shall I soon grow
old and ugly with grief, and there will be no more danger
then, dear Wulf, will there, from this accursed face of
mine! Only promise me that, and There! he is calling
you! Don’t let him come in and see me! I cannot bear
it! Go to him, quick, and tell him all. No, don’t tell
him yet.” - r .
And she sank down again on the floor, as Wulf went
out, murmuring to himself—
“Poor child!” poor child! well for thee this day if thou
wert dead, and at the bottom of Hela!” -
And Pelagia heard what he said.
Gradually, amid sobs and tears, and stormy confusion
of impossible hopes and projects, those words took root in
her mind, and spread till they filled her whole heart and
brain.
‘‘Well for me if I were dead?”
And she rose slowly.
“Well for me if I were dead? And why not? Then it
would indeed be all settled. There would be no more
danger from poor little Pelagia then.” . . . -
She went slowly, firmly, proudly, into the well-known
chamber. . . . She threw herself upon the bed, and
covered the pillow with kisses. Her eye fell on the Amal’s
sword, which hung across the bed's head, after the custom
of Gothic warriors. She seized it, and took it down,
shuddering.
“Yes! . . . Let it be with this, if it must be. And it
must be. I cannot bear it! Anything but shame! TO
have fancied all my life—vain fool that I was! that every
one loved and admired me, and to find that they were
despising me, hating me all along! Those students at the
lecture-room door told me I was despised. The old monk
told me so. Fool that I was I forgot it next day! For
Aſ VPA TIA. 439
he—he loved me still! Ah—how could I believe them, till
his own lips had said it? . . . Intolerable! . . . And yet
women as bad as I am have been honored—when they
were dead. What was that song which I used to sing
about Epicharis, who hung herself in the litter, and
Leaina, who bit out her tongue, lest the torture should
drive them to betray their lovers? There used to be a
statue of Leaina, they say, at Athens—a lioness without a
tongue. . . . And whenever I sang the song, the theatre
used to rise, and shout, and call them ‘noble and blessed.
. I never could tell why then ; but I know now! I
know now! Perhaps they may call me noble, after all.
At least, they may say “She was but a-a-—but she dare
die for the man she loved!' . . . Ay, but God despises me
too, and hates me. He will send me to eternal fire.
Philanmon said so—though he was my brother. The old
monk said so—though he wept as he said it. . . . The
flames of hell forever! Oh, not forever! Great, dreadful
God! not forever! Indeed, I did not know ! No one
taught me about right and wrong, and I never knew that I
had been baptized–-indeed, I never knew And it was so
pleasant—so pleasant to be happy, and praised, and loved,
and to see happy faces round me. How could I help it?
The birds there who are singing in the darling, beloved
court—they do what they like, and thou art not angry with
them for being happy? And thou wilt not be more cruel
to me than to them, great God—for what did I know more
than they? Thou hast made the beautiful sunshine, and
the pleasant, pleasant world, and the flowers, and the birds
—Thou wilt not send me to burn forever and ever? Will
not a hundred years be punishment enough—or a thousand?
O God! is not this punishment enough already—to have to
leave him, just as-—just as I am beginning to long to be
good, and to be worthy of him? . . . Oh, have mercy—
mercy—mercy—and let me go after I have been punished
enough! Why may I not turn into a bird, or even a worm,
and come back again out of that horrible place, to see the
sun shine, and the flowers grow once more? Oh, am I not
punishing myself already? Will not this help to atone?
. Yes—I will die! and perhaps so God may pity
me!” -
440 HyPATIA.
And with trembling hands she drew the sword from its
sheath and covered the blade with kisses.
“Yes——on this sword—with which he won his battles.
That is right—his to the last! How keen and cold it looks!
Will it be very painful? . . . No–I will not try the point.
or my heart might fail me. I will fall on it at once ; let it
hurt me as it may, it will be too late to draw back then.
And after all it is his sword. It will not have the heart to
torture me much. And yet he struck me himself this
morning !”
And at that thought, a long wild cry of misery broke
from her lips, and rang through the house. Hurriedly she
fastened the sword upright to the foot of the bed, and tore
open her tunic. . . . “Here, under this widowed bosom,
where his head will never lie again! There are footsteps
in the passage! Quick, Pelagia! Now—”
And she threw up her arms wildly, in act to fall. . . .
“It is his step! And he will find me, and never know
that it is for him I die!” - -
The Amal tried the door. It was fast. With a single
blow he burst it open, and demanded— -
“What was that shriek? What is the meaning of this?
Pelagia!”
Pelagia, like a child caught playing with a forbidden
toy, hid her face in her hands and cowered down.
“What is it?” cried he, lifting her.
But she burst from his arms
“No, no! nevermore! I am not worthy of you! Let me
die, wretch that I am! I can only drag you down. You
must be a king. You must marry her—the wise woman!”
“Hypatia! She is dead!”
“Dead?” shrieked Pelagia.
“Murdered, an hour ago, by those Christian devils.” .
Pelagia put her hands over her eyes, and burst into tears.
Were they of pity or of joy? . . . She did not ask herself;
and we will not ask her.
“Where is my sword? Soul of Odin' why is it fast-
ened here?” -
“I was going to—do not be angry! . . . They told me
that I had better die, and ??'
The Amal stood thunderstruck for a moment.
ATVA’A 774. 44I
“Oh, do not strike me again! Send me to the mill.
Kill me now with your own hand! Anything but another
blow !”
“A blow?—noble woman!” cried the Amal, clasping
her in his arms.
The storm was past ; and Pelagia had been nestling to
that beloved heart, cooing like a happy dove, for many a
minute before the Amal aroused himself and her. . . .
“Now! quick! We have not a moment to lose. Up to
the tower, where you will be safe ; and then to show these
curs what comes of snarling round the wild wolves' den.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
NEMESIS.
AND was the Amal’s news true, then P
Philammon saw Raphael rush across the street into the
Museum gardens. His last words had been a command
to stay where he was and the boy obeyed him. The black
porter who let Raphael out told him, somewhat insolently,
that his mistress would see no one and receive no mes-
sages: but he had made up his mind : connplained of the
Sun, quietly ensconced himself behind a buttress, and sat
coiled up on the pavement ready for a desperate spring.
The slave stared at him ; but he was accustomed to the
vagaries of philosophers; and thanking the gods that he
was not born in that station of life, retired to his porter's
cell and forgot the whole matter.
There Philammon waited a full half-hour. It seemed to
him hours, days, years. And yet Raphael did not return ;
and yet no guards appeared. Was the strange Jew a
traitor? Impossible! his face had shown a desperate
earnestness of terror as intense as Philammon's own. . . .
Yet why did he not return?
Perhaps he had found out that the streets were clear—
their mutual fears groundless. . . . What meant that
black knot of men some two hundred yards off, hanging
about the mouth of the side street, just opposite the door
which led to her lecture-room? He moved to watch them :
they had vanished. He lay down again and waited. e
There they were again. It was a suspicious post. That
street ran along the back of the Caesareum, a favorite
haunt of monks, communicating by innumerable entries
and back buildings with the great church itself. . . . And
yet, why should there not be a knot of monks there?
What more common in every street of Alexandria? He
tried to laugh away his own fears. And yet they ripened,
by the very intensity of thinking on them, into certainty.
442
Aſ VA’A 7/4. 443
He knew that something terrible was at hand. More than
once he looked out from his hiding place—the knot of men
were still there ; . . . it seemed to have increased, to
draw nearer. If they found him, what would they not
suspect? What did he care? He would die for her if it
came to that—not that it would conne to that : but still he
must speak to her—he must warn her. Passenger after
passenger, carriage after carriage passed along the street :
student after student entered the lecture-room ; but he
never saw them, not though they passed him close. The
sun rose higher and higher, and turned his whole
blaze upon the corner where Philammon crouched,
till the pavement scorched like hot iron, and his eyes were
dazzled by the blinding glare : but he never heeded it.
His whole heart, and sense, and sight were riveted upon
that well-known door, expecting it to open. . . .
At last, a curricle, glittering with silver, rattled round
the corner and stopped opposite him. She must be coming
now. The crowd had vanished. Perhaps it was, after all,
a fancy of his own. No ; there they were peeping round
the corner, close to the lecture-room—the hell-hounds! A
slave brought out an embroidered cushion—and then
Hypatia herself came forth, looking more giorious than
ever ; her lips set in a sad firm smile ; her eyes uplifted,
inquiring, eager, and yet gentle, dimmed by some great
inward awe, as if her soul was far away aloft, and face to
face with God.
In a moment he sprang up to her, caught her robe
convulsively, threw himself on his knees before her—
“Stop! Stay! You are going to destruction l’”
Calmly she looked down upon him.
“Accomplice of witches! Would you make of Theon's
daughter a traitor like yourself?”
He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied with
shame and despair. . . .
She believed him guilty, then . . . It was the will of
God!
The plumes of the horses were waving far down the
street before he recovered himself, and rushed after her
shouting he knew not what.
It was too late! A dark wave of men rushed from the
444 A VA-4 7/4.
annbuscade, surged up round the car . . . swept forward
. . . she had disappeared ! and as Philammon followed
breathless, the horses galloped madly past him homeward
with the empty carriage.
Whither were they dragging her? To the Caesareum,
the Church of God himself? Impossible! Why thither
of all places of the earth? Why did the mob, increasing
momentarily by hundreds, pour down upon the beach, and
return brandishing flints, shells, fragments of pottery?
She was upon the church steps before he caught them
up, invisible among the crowd ; but he could track her by
the fragments of her dress.
Where were her gay pupils now? Alas! they had barri-
caded themselves shamefully in the Museum, at the first
rush which swept her from the door of the lecture-room.
Cowards! he would save her!
And he struggled in vain to pierce the dense mass of
parabolani and monks, who, mingled with the fish-wives
and dock-workers, leaped and yelled around their victim.
But what he could not do another and a weaker did—even
the little porter. Furiously—no one knew how or whence—
he burst up, as if from the ground in the thickest of the
crowd, with knife, teeth, and nails, like a venomous wild-
cat, tearing his way toward his idol. Alas! he was torn
down himself, rolled over the steps, and lay there half dead
in an agony of weeping, as Philammon sprang up past
him into the church.
Yes. On into the church itself! Into the cool dim
shadow, with its fretted pillars, and lowering domes, and
candles, and incense, and blazing altar, and great pictures
looking from the walls athwart the gorgeous gloom. And
right in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ, watch-
ing unmoved from off the wall, his right hand raised to
give a blessing—or a Curse?
On, up the nave, fresh shreds of her dress strewing the
holy pavement—up the chancel steps themselves—up to
the altar—right underneath the great still Christ : and
there even those hell-hounds paused. . . .
She shook herself free from her tormentors, and spring-
ing back, rose for one moment to her full height, naked,
snow-white against the dusky mass around—shame and
Aſ PA4 7/4. 445
indignation in those wide clear eyes, but not a stain of
fear. With one hand she clasped her golden locks around
her, the other long white arm was stretched upward toward
the great still Christ appealing—and who dare say, in
vain?—from man to God. Her lips were opened to speak;
but the words that should have come from them reached
God’s ear alone; for in an instant Peter struck her down, the
dark mass closed over her again . . . and then wail on
wail, long, wild, ear-piercing, rang along the vaulted roofs,
and thrilled like the trumpet of avenging angels through
Philammon's ears. *
Crushed against a pillar, unable to move in the dense
mass, he pressed his hand over his ears. He could not
shut out those shrieks! When would they end? What in
the name of the God of mercy were they doing? Tearing
her piecemeal? Yes, and worse than that. And still the
shrieks rang on, and still the great Christ looked down on
Philammon with that calm, intolerable eye, and would not
turn away. And over his head was written in the rainbow,
“I am the same, yesterday, today, and forever!” The
same as he was in Judaea of old, Philammon? Then what
are these, and in whose temple? And he covered his face
with his hands, and longed to die.
It was over. The shrieks had died away into moans;
the moans to silence. How long had he been there? An
hour, or an eternity? Thank God it was over! For her
sake—but for theirs? But they thought not of that as a
new cry rose through the dome.
“To the Cinaron! Burn the bones to ashes! Scatter
them into the sea!” . . . And the mob poured past him
again. . . .
He turned to flee : but, once outside the church, he sank
exhausted, and lay upon the steps, watching with stupid
horror and glaring of the fire, and the mob who leaped and
yelled like demons round their Moloch sacrifice.
A hand grasped his arm ; he looked up ; it was the
porter.
“And this, young butcher, is the Catholic and Apostolic
Church P” §
“NO! Eudaemon, it is the church of the devils of hell!”
And gathering himself up, he sat upon the steps and buried
446 Aſ YAA 7TWA.
his head within his hands. He would have given life itself
for the power of weeping ; but his eyes and brain were
hot and dry as the desert. - .
Eudaemon looked at him awhile. The shock had sobered
the poor fop for once. . .
“I did what I could to die with her,” said he.
“I did what I could to save her,” answered Philammon.
“I know it. Forgive the words which I just spoke.
Did we not both love her?” * *
And the little wretch sat down by Philammon's side,
and as the blood dripped from his wounds upon the
pavement, broke out into a bitter agony of human
tears. -
There are times when the very intensity of our misery is
a boon, and kindly stuns us till we are unable to torture
ourselves by thought. And so it was with Philammon
then. He sat there, he knew not how long.
“She is with the gods,” said Eudaemon at last.
“She is with the God of gods,” answered Philammon ;
and they both were silent again.
Suddenly a commanding voice aroused them. They
looked up and saw before them Raphael Aben-Ezra.
He was pale as death, but calm as death. One look
into his face told them that he knew all. -
“Young monk,” he said, between his closed teeth,
“you seem to have loved her.”
Philammon looked up, but could not speak.
“Then arise, and flee for your life into the farthest
corner of the desert, ere the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah
fall upon this accursed city. Have you father, mother,
brother, sister—ay, cat, dog, or bird for which you care,
within its walls?”
Philammon started ; for he recollected Pelagia. . . .
That evening, so Cyril had promised, twenty trusty monks
were to have gone with him to seize her.
“You have? Then take them with you, and escape,
and remember Lot's wife. Eudaemon, come with me.
You must lead me to your house, to the lodging of Miriam
the Jewess. Do not deny! I know that she is there.
For the sake of her who is gone I will hold you harmless,
ay, reward you richly, if you prove faithful. Rise!”
A VA’A 7TWA. - 447
Eudaemon, who knew Raphael's face well, rose and led
the way trembling ; and Philammon was left alone.
They never met again. But Philammon knew that he
had been in the presence of a stronger man than himself,
and of one who hated even more bitterly than he himself
that deed at which the very sun, it seemed, ought to have
veiled his face. And his words, “Arise, and flee for thy
life,” uttered as they were with the stern self-command and
writhing lip of compressed agony, rang through his ears.
like the trump of doom. Yes, he would flee. He had
gone forth to see the world, and he had seen it. Arsenius
was in the right after all. Home to the desert! But first
he would go himself, alone, to Pelagia, and implore her
once more to flee with him. Beast, fool, that he had been,
to try to win her by force—by the help of such as these!
God’s kingdom was not a kingdom of fanatics yelling for a
doctrine, but of willing, loving, obedient hearts. If he
could not win her heart, her will, he would go alone, and
die praying for her. -
He sprang from the steps of the Caesareum, and turned
up the street of the Museum. Alas! it was one roaring sea
of heads! They were sacking Theon’s house—the house
of so many memories! Perhaps the poor old man, too,
had perished! Still—his sister! He must save her and
flee. And he turned up a side street and tried to make
his way onward.
Alas, again! the whole of the dock-quarter was up and
out. Every street poured its tide of furious fanatics into
the main river : and ere he could reach Pelagia’s house the
sun was set, and close behind him, echoed by ten thousand
voices, was the cry of “ Down with all heathens! Root
out all Arian Goths! Down with idolatrous wantons!
Down with Pelagia Aphrodite!” -
He hurried down the alley, to the tower door, where
Wulf had promised to meet him. It was half open, and in
the dusk he could see a figure standing in the doorway.
He sprang up the steps and found, not Wulf, but Miriam.
“Let me pass!”
* * Wherefore ?”
He made no answer, and tried to push past her. -
“Fool, fool, fool!” whispered the hag, holding the door
448 HyP4774.
against him with all her strength. “Where are your
fellow-kidnappers? Where are your band of monks?”
Philammon started back. How had she discovered his
plan? -- -
“Ay—where are they? Besotted boy! Have you not
seen enough of mockery this afternoon, that you must try
still to make that poor girl even such a one as yourselves?
Ay, you may root out your own human natures if you will,
and make yourselves devils in trying to become angels ;
but woman she is, and woman she shall live or die!”
“Let me pass!” cried Philammon, furiously.
“Raise your voice—and I raise mine: and then your life
is not worth a moment's purchase. Fool, do you think I
speak as a Jewess? I speak as a woman—as a nun I
was a nun once, madman—the iron entered into my soul!
God do so to me, and more also, if it ever enter into
another soul while I can prevent it! You shall not have
her! I will strangle her with my own hands first!” And
turning from him she darted up the winding stair.
He followed but the intense passion of the old hag
hurled her onward with the strength and speed of a young
Maenad. Once Philammon was near passing her. But he
recollected that he did not know his way, and contented
himself with keeping close behind, and making the fugitive
his guide.
Stair after stair, he fled upward, till she turned suddenly
into a chamber door! Philammon paused. A few feet
above him the open sky showed at the stair-head. They
were close, then, to the roof! One moment more, and the
hag darted out of the room again and turned to flee upward
still. Philammon caught her by the arm, hurled her back
into the empty chamber, shut the door upon her, and with
a few bounds gained the roof and met Pelagia face to
face.
“Come!” gasped he breathlessly. “Now is the
moment! Come, while they are all below !” and he seized
her hand.
But Pelagia only recoiled.
“No, no,” whispered she in answer, “I cannot, can-
not—he has forgiven me all, all! and I am his forever!
And now, just a he is in danger, when he may be wounded
ATVA’.4 7/4. . 449
—ah, heaven! would you have me do anything so base as
to desert him P”
“Pelagia, Pelagia, darling sister!” cried Philammon,
in an agonized voice, “think of the doom of sin! Think
of the pains of hell!” -
‘‘I have thought of them this day; and I do not
believe you! No-I do not! God is not so cruel as you
say. And if He were :—to lose my love, that is hell!
Let me burn hereafter, if I do but keep him now!”
Philammon stood stupefied and shuddering. All his
own early doubts flashed across him like a thunderbolt,
when in the temple cave he had seen those painted ladies
at their revels, and shuddered, and asked himself, were
they burning forever and ever? -
“Come!” gasped he once again ; and throwing himself
on his knees before her, covered her hands with kisses,
wildly entreating ; but in vain. - -
“What is this?” thundered a voice ; not Miriam’s but
the Amal’s. He was unarmed : but he rushed straight
upon Philammon. -
“Do not harm him!” shrieked Pelagia ; “he is my
brother—my brother of whom I told you!” -
“What does he here?” cried the Amal, who instantly
divined the truth. - -
Pelagia was silent. -
‘‘I wish to deliver my sister, a Christian, from the sin-
ful embraces of an Arian heretic ; and deliver her I will or
die!” - -
“An Arian?” laughed the Amal. “Say a heathen at
once, and tell the truth, young fool! Will you go with
him, Pelagia, and turn nun in the sand-heaps?”
Pelagia sprang toward her lover ; Philammon caught
her by the arm for one last despairing appeal: and in a
moment, neither knew how, the Goth and the Greek were
locked in deadly struggle, while Pelagia stood in silent
horror, knowing that a call for help would bring instant
death to her brother.
It was over in a few seconds. The Goth lifted Philam-
mon like a baby in his arms, and bearing him to the
parapet attempted to hurl him into the canal below. But
the active Greek had wound himself like a snake around
450 HYPAT/A.
him, and held him by the throat with the strength of
despair. Twice they rolled and tottered on the parapet;
and twice recoiled. A third fearful lunge—the earthen
wall gave way ; and down to the dark depths, locked in
each other's arms, fell Goth and Greek. -
Pelagia rushed to the brink, and gazed downward into
the gloom, dumb and dry-eyed with horror. Twice they
turned over together in mid-air. . . . The foot of the
tower, as was usual in Egypt, sloped outward toward the
water. They must strike upon that—and then! . . . It
seemed an eternity ere they touched the masonry. . . .
The Amal was undermost. . . . She saw his fair floating
locks dash against the cruel stone. His grasp suddenly
loosened. His limbs collapsed : two distinct plunges
broke the dark, sullen water; and then all was still but
the awakened ripple, lapping angrily against the wall.
Pelagia gazed down one moment more, and then, with a
shriek which rang along roof and river, she turned and fled
down the stairs and out into the night.
Five minutes afterward, Philammon, dripping, bruised,
and bleeding, was crawling up the water-steps at the lower
end of the lane. A woman rushed from the postern door,
and stood On the quay edge, gazing with clasped hands
into the canal. The moon fell full on her face. It was
Pelagia. She saw him, knew him, and recoiled.
“Sister! my sister! Forgive me!” -
“Murderer!” she shrieked, and dashing aside his out-
spread hands, fled wildly up the passage.
The way was blocked with bales of merchandise : but
the dancer bounded over them like a deer ; while Philam-
mon, half stunned by his fall and blinded by his dripping
locks, stumbled, fell, and lay, unable to rise. She held
on for a few yards toward the torch-lit mob, which was
surging and roaring in the main street above, then turned
suddenly into a side alley, and vanished ; while Philam-
mon lay groaning upon the pavement, without a purpose
or a hope upon earth.
Five minutes more, and Wulf was gazing over the
broken parapet, at the head of twenty terrified spectators,
male and female, whom Pelagia’s shriek had summoned.
He alone suspected that Philammon had been there ;
ATVA’A 7TWA. - 45I
and shuddering at the thought of what might have hap-
pened, he kept his secret.
But all knew that Pelagia had been on the tower ; all
had seen Amal go up thither. Where were they now?
And why was the little postern gate, found open, and shut
only just in time to prevent the entrance of the mob P
Wulf stood, revolving in a brain but too well practised
in such cases, all possible contingencies of death and
horror. At last— g
“A rope and a light, Smid,” he almost whispered.
They were brought, and Wulf, resisting all the entreaties
of the younger men to allow them to go on the perilous
search, lowered himself through the breach.
He was about two-thirds down, when he shook the rope,
and called in a stifled voice to those above—
“Haul up. I have seen enough.”
Breathless with curiosity and fear, they hauled him up.
He stood among them for a few moments, silent, as if
stunned by the weight of some enormous woe.
‘‘Is he dead?” -
“Odin has taken his son home, wolves of the Goths!”
And he held out his right hand to the awestruck ring, and
burst into an agony of weeping. . . . A clotted tress of
long fair hair lay on his palm.
It was snatched ; handed from man to man. . . . One
after another recognized the beloved golden locks. And
then, to the utter astonishment of the girls who stood
around, the great simple hearts, too brave to be ashamed
of tears, broke out, and wailed like children. . . . Their
Amal! Their heavenly man! Odin's own son, their joy,
and pride, and glory ! Their “Kingdom of heaven,” as
his name declared him, who was all that each wished to
be, and more, and yet belonged to them, bone of their
bone, flesh of their flesh! Ah, it is bitter to all true human
hearts to be robbed of their ideal even though that ideal be
that of a mere wild bull, and soulless gladiator. . . .
At last Smid spoke—
“Heroes, this is Odin's doom ; and the All-father is
just. Had we listened to Prince Wulf four months ago,
this had never been. We have been cowards and slug-
gards, and Odin is angry with his children. Let us swear
452 Aſ VAZA 7TWA.
to be Prince Wulf's men, and follow him tomorrow where
he will l’’ - -
Wulf grasped his outstretched hand lovingly—
“No, Smid, son of Troll! These words are not yours
to speak. Agilmund son of Cniva, Goderic son of Ermen-
ric, you are Balts, and to you the succession appertains.
Draw lots here, which of you shall be our chieftain.”
‘‘No! no! Wulf!” cried both the youths at once. “You
are the hero! you are the Sagaman! We are not worthy :
we have been cowards and sluggards, like the rest.
Wolves of the Goths, follow the Wolf, even though he
lead you to the land of the giants!”
A roar of applause followed. -
“Lift him on the shield,” cried Goderic, tearing off his
buckler. “Lift him on the shield ! Hail, Wulf king!
Wulf, king of Egypt!”
And the rest of the Goths, attracted by the noise, rushed
up the tower stairs in time to join in the mighty shout of
“Wulf, king of Egypt!” as careless of the vast multitude
which yelled and surged without, as boys are of the snow
against the window-pane.
‘‘No,” said Wulf, solemnly, as he stood on the uplifted
shield. “If I be indeed your king, and ye my men,
wolves of the Goths, tomorrow we will go forth of this
place, hated of Odin, rank with the innocent blood of the
Iruna maid. Back to Adolf ; back to our own people!
will you go?”
“Back to Adolf!” shouted the men.
“You will not leave us to be murdered?” cried
one of the girls. “The mob are breaking the gates
already!”
“Silence, silly one! Men—we have one thing to do.
The Amal must not go to the Valhalla without fair
attendance.” -
“Not the poor girls?” said Agilmund, who took for
granted that Wulf would wish to celebrate the Amal’s
funeral in true Gothic fashion by a slaughter of slaves.
“No. . . . One of them I saw behave this very after-
noon worthy of a Vala. And yet, too—they may make
heroes' wives after all, yet. . . . Women are better than I
fancied, even the worst of them. No. Go down, heroes,
Aſ WAATIA, 453
and throw the gates open —and call in the Greek hounds
to the funeral supper of a son of Odin.”
“Throw the gates open?”
“Yes. Goderic, take a dozen men, and be ready in the
east hall. Agilmund, go with a dozen to the west side of
the court—there in the kitchen, and wait till you hear my
war-cry. Smid and the rest of you, come with me through
the stables close to the gates—as silent as Hela.”
And they went down—to meet, full on the stairs below,
old Miriam. -
Breathless and exhausted by her exertion, she had fallen
heavily before Philammon's strong arm ; and lying half
stunned for awhile, recovered just in time to meet her
doom.
She knew that it was come, and faced it like herself.
“Take the witch!” said Wulf, slowly—‘‘ Take the
corruptor of heroes—the cause of all our sorrows!”
Miriam looked at him with a quiet smile.
“The witch is accustomed long ago to hear fools lay on
her the consequences of their own lust and laziness.”
“Hew her down, Smid, son of Troll, that she may pass
the Amal’s soul and gladden it on her way to Niflheim.”
Smid did it : but so terrible were the eyes which glared
upon him from those sunken sockets, that his sight was
dazzled. The axe turned aside, and struck her shoulder.
She reeled, but did not fall.
“It is enough,” she said quietly. e
“The accursed Grendel's daughter numbed my arm!” said
Smid. “Let her go! No man shall say that I struck a
woman twice.”
“Nidhogg waits for her, soon or late,” answered Wulf.
And Miriam, coolly folding her shawl around her, turned
and walked steadily down the stair ; while all men breathed
more freely, as if delivered from some accursed and super-
natural spell.
“And now,” said Wulf, “to your posts and vengeance!”
The mob had weltered and howled ineffectually around
the house for some half-hour. But the lofty walls, open-
ing on the street only by a few narrow windows in the
higher stories, rendered it an impregnable fortress. Sud-
denly, the iron gates were drawn back, disclosing to the
454 . . Aſ VPA 7/4.
front rank the court, glaring empty and silent and ghastly
in the moonlight. For an instant they recoiled, with a
vague horror and dread of treachery : but the mass behind
pressed them onward, and in swept the murderers of
Hypatia, till the court was full of choking wretches surging
against the walls and pillars in aimless fury. And then
from under the archway on each side, rushed a body of
tall armed men, driving back all incomers more ; the gates
slid together again upon their grooves; and the wild
beasts of Alexandria were trapped at last. -
And then began a murder grim and great. From three
different doors issued a line of Goths, whose helmets and
mail-shirts made them invulnerable to the clumsy weapons
of the mob, and began hewing their way right through the
living mass, helpless from their close-packed array. True,
they were but as one to ten ; but what are ten curs before
one lion? . . . And the moon rose higher and higher,
staring down ghastly and unmoved upon the doomed court
of the furies, and still the bills and swords hewed on and
on, and the Goths drew the corpses, as they found room,
toward a dark pile in the midst, where old Wulf sat upon
a heap of slain, singing the praises of the Amal and the
glories of Valhalla, while the shrieks of his lute rose shrill
over the shrieks of the flying and the wounded, and its
wild waltz-time danced and rollicked on, swifter and
Swifter, as the old singer maddened, in awful mockery of
the terror and agony around. -
And so, by men and purposes which recked not of her,
as is the wont of Providence, was the blood of Hypatia
avenged in part that night.
In part only. For Peter the Reader, and his especial
associates, were safe in sanctuary at the Caesareum, cling-
ing to the altar. Terrified at the storm which they had
raised, and fearing the consequence of an attack upon the
palace, they had left the mob to run riot at its will ; and
escaped the swords of the Goths, to be reserved for the
more awful punishment of impunity.
CHAPTER XXX.
Every MAN to His OWN PLACE.
It was near midnight. Raphael had been sitting some
three hours in Miriam’s inner chamber, waiting in vain for
her return. To recover, if possible, his ancestral wealth ;
to convey it, without a day’s delay, to Cyrene; and if
possible, to persuade the poor old Jewess to accompany
him, there to soothe, to guide, perhaps to convert her, was
his next purpose :—at all events, with or without his
wealth, to flee from that accursed city. And he counted
impatiently the slow hours and minutes which detained
him in an atmosphere which seemed reeking with innocent
blood, black with the lowering curse of an avenging God.
More than once, unable to bear the thought, he rose to
depart and leave his wealth behind ; but he was checked
again by the thought of his own past life. How had he
added his own sin to the great heap of Alexandrian
wickedness? How had he tempted others, pampered
others in evil? Good God! how had he not only done
evil with all his might, but had pleasure in those who did
the same? And now, now he was reaping the fruit of his
own devices. For years past, merely to please his lust of
power, his misanthropic scorn, he had been making that
wicked Orestes wickeder than he was even by his own
base will and nature ; and his puppet had avenged itself
upon him He had prompted him to ask Hypatia's hand.
He had laid, half in sport, half in envy of her excellence,
that foul plot against the only human being whom he
loved . . . and he had destroyed her. He, and not Petec,
was the murderer of Hypatia. True, he had never meant
her death. . . . No ; but had he not meant for her worse
than death? He had never foreseen. . . . No ; but only
because he did not choose to foresee. He had chosen to
be a god ; to kill and to make alive by his own will and
law : and behold, he had become a devil by that very act.
e 455
456 Aſ VPA 77.4.
Who can—and who dare, even if he could—withdraw the
sacred veil from those bitter agonies of inward shame and
self-reproach, made all the more intense by his clear and
undoubting knowledge that he was forgiven? What dread
of punishment, what blank despair, could have pierced
that great heart so deeply as did the thought that the God
whom he had hated and defied had returned him good for
evil, and rewarded him not according to his iniquities?
That discovery, as Ezekiel of old had warned his fore-
fathers, filled up the cup of his self-loathing. . . . To have
found at last the hated and dreaded name of God ; and
found that it was Love! . . . To possess Victoria, a living,
human likeness, however imperfect, of that God ; and to
possess in her a home, a duty, a purpose, a fresh clear life
of righteous labor, perhaps of final victory. . . . That was
his punishment; that was the brand of Cain upon his fore-
head : and he felt it greater than he could bear.
But at least there was one thing to be done. Where he
had sinned, there he must make amends; not as a propiti-
ation, not even as a restitution : but simply as a confession
of the truth which he had found. And as his purpose
shaped itself, he longed and prayed that Miriam might
return, and make it possible.
And Miriam did return. He heard her pass slowly
through the Outer room, learn from the girls who was
within, order them out of the apartments, close the outer
door upon them : at last she entered, and said quietly—
“Welcome! I have expected you. You could not
surprise old Miriam. The teraph told me last night that
you would be here.” . . .
Did she see the smile of incredulity upon Raphael’s
face, or was it some sudden pang of conscience which
made her cry out—
“ . . . No! I did not! I never expected you! I am
a liar, a miserable old liar, who cannot speak the truth,
even if I try ! Only look kind! Smile at me, Raphael!
Raphael come back at last to his poor, miserable, villainous
old mother! Smile on me but once, my beautiful, my son!
my son l’’ s?
And springing to him, she clasped him in her arms.
* * Your son P” g
A/VPA 7TWA. 457
“Yes, my son Safe at last! Mine at last! I can
prove it now! The son of my womb, though not the son
of my vows!” and she laughed hysterically. “My child,
my heir, for whom I have toiled and hoarded for three-and
thirty years! Quick! here are my keys. In that cabinet
are all my papers—all I have is yours. Your jewels are
safe—buried with mine. The negro-woman, Eudaemon’s
wife, knows where, I made her swear secrecy upon her little
wooden idol, and, Christian as she is, she has been honest.
Make her rich for life. She hid your poor old mother,
and kept her safe to see her boy come home. But give
nothing to her little husband : he is a bad fellow, and
beats her. Go, quick! take your riches, and away! . . . .
No : stay one moment—just one little moment—that the
poor old wretch may feast her eyes with the sight of her
darling once more before she dies!”
“Before you die? Your son P God of my fathers, what
is the meaning of all this, Mirian P. This morning I was
the son of Ezra, the merchant of Antioch!” -
“His son and heir, his son and heir He knew all at
1ast. We told him on his death-bed! I swear that we told
him, and he adopted you!”
We! Who?”
“His wife and I. He craved for a child, the old miser,
and we gave him one—a better one than ever came of his
family. But he loved you, accepted you, though he did
know all. He was afraid of being laughed at after he was
dead—afraid of having it known that he was childless, the
old dotard! No—he was right—true Jew in that after all !”
“Who was my father then?” interrupted Raphael, in
utter bewilderment. e
The old woman laughed a laugh so long and wild, that
Raphael shuddered.
“Sit down at your mother's feet. Sit down . . . just
to please the poor old thing! Even if you do not believe
her, just play at being her child, her darling, for a
minute before she dies; and she will tell you all . . . per-
haps there is time yet!” - g
And he sat down. . . . “What if this incarnation of
all wickedness were really my mother? . . . And yet—
why should I shrink thus proudly from the notion? Am I
458 # VPA 774
so pure myself as to deserve a purer source?” . . . And
the old woman laid her hand fondly on his head, and her
skinny fingers played with his soft locks, as she spoke
hurriedly and thick.
“Of the house of Jesse, of the seed of Solomon; not a
rabbi from Babylon to Rome dare deny that! A king’s
daughter I am, and a king’s heart I had, and have, like
Solomon’s own, my son . . . A kingly heart. . . . It
made me dread and scorn to be a slave, a plaything,
a soulless doll, such as Jewish women are condemned
to be by their tyrants, the men. I craved for
wisdom, renown, power—power—power! and my nation
refused them to me; because, forsooth, I was a
woman | So I left them | I went to the Christian
priests. . . . They gave me what I asked. . . . They
gave me more. . . . They pampered my woman's vanity,
my pride, my self-will, my scorn of wedded bondage, and
bade me be a saint, the judge of angels and archangels,
the bride of God! Liars! liars! And so—if you laugh,
you kill me, Raphael—and so Miriam, the daughter of
Jonathan—Miriam, of the house of David—Miriam, the
descendant of Ruth and Rachab, of Rachel and Sara,
became a Christian nun, and shut herself up to see visions,
and dream dreams, and fattened her own self-conceit upon
the impious fancy that she was the spouse of the Nazarene,
Joshua Bar Joseph, whom she called Jehovah Ishi—
Silence! If you stop me a moment, it may be too late. I
hear them calling me already, and I made them promise
not to take me before I had told all to my son—the son of
my shame!”
“Who calls you?” asked Raphael ; but after one strong
shudder she ran on, unheeding——
“But they lied, lied, lied I found them out that day.
. Do not look up at me, and I will tell you all. There
was a riot—a fight between the Christian devils and
the heathen devils—and the convent was sacked, Raphael,
my son—sacked! . . . Then I found out their blasphemy.
O God! I shrieked to Him, Raphael! I called on Him to
rend His heavens and come down—to pour out His
thunderbolts upon them—to cleave the earth and devour
them—to save the wretched helpless girl who adored
Aºazza. 459
Him, who had given up father, mother, kinsfolk, wealth,
the light of heaven, womanhood itself for Him—who
worshipped, meditated over Him, dreamed of Him night
and day. . . . And, Raphael, he did not hear me. . . .
He did not hear me . . . did not hear me! . . . And then I
knew it all for a lie! a lie!”
“And you know it for what it is!” cried Raphael through
his sobs, as he thought of Victoria, and felt every vein
burning with righteous wrath.
“There was no mistaking that test, was there? For
nine months I was mad. And then your voice, my baby,
my joy, my pride—that brought me to myself once more!
And I shook off the dust of my feet against those Galilean
priests, and went back to my own nation, where God had
set me from the beginning. I made them—the rabbis, my
father, my kin—I made them all receive me. They could
not stand before my eye. I can make people do what I
will, Raphael! I could—I could make you emperor now,
if I had but time left! I went back. I palmed you off on
Ezra as his son, I and his wife, and made him believe that
you had been born to him while he was in Byzantium.
And then to live for you! And I did live for you. For
you I traveled from India to Britain, seeking wealth. For
you I toiled, hoarded, lied, intrigued, won money by every
means, no matter how base—for was it not for you? And
I have conquered You are the richest Jew south of the
Mediterranean—you, my son | And you deserve your
wealth. You have your mother's soul in you, my boy! I
watched you, gloried in you—in your Cunning, your daring,
your learning, your contempt for these Gentile hounds.
You felt the royal blood of Solomon within you! You felt
that you were a young lion of Judah, and they the jackals,
who followed to feed upon your leavings! And now, now!
Your only danger is past. The cunning woman is gone—
the sorceress who tried to take my young lion in her pit- .
fall, and has fallen into the midst of it herself; and he is
safe, and returned to take the nations for a prey, and grind
their bones to powder, as it is written, “he crouched like a
lion, he lay down like a lioness's whelp, and who dare
rouse him up!”
“Stop!” said Raphael. “I must speak! Mother! I must!
460 HyPA 774.
As you love me, as you expect me to love you, answer! Had
you a hand in her death? Speak!”
“Did I not tell you that I was no more a Christian?
Had I remained one—who can tell what I might not have
done? All I, the Jewess, dare do was—fool that I am—I
have forgotten all this time the proof–the proof–”
‘‘I need no proof, mother. Your words are enough,”
said Raphael, as he clasped her hand between his own,
and pressed it to his burning forehead. But the old
woman hurried on—“See! See the black agate which you
gave her in your madness!”
“How did you obtain that?”
“I stole it, stole it, my son ; as thieves steal, and are
crucified for stealing. What was the chance of the cross
to a mother yearning for her child?—to a mother who put
round her baby's neck, three and thirty black years ago,
that broken agate, and kept the other half next her own
heart by day and night! See! See how they fit! Look,
and believe your poor old sinful mother! Look, I say!”
and she thrust the talisman into his hands.
“Now, let me die! I vowed never to tell this secret but
to you : never to tell it to you, until the night I died.
Farewell, my son. Kiss me but once—once, my child,
my joy! Oh, this makes up for all! Makes up even for
that day, the last on which I ever dreamed myself the
bride of the Nazarene !” - -
Raphael felt that he must speak, now or never. Though
it cost him the loss of all his wealth, and a mother’s curse,
he must speak. And not daring to look up, he said
gently—
“Men have lied to you about Him, mother : but has He
ever lied to you about Himself? He did not lie to me
when He sent me out into the world to find a man, and
sent me back again to you with the good news that The
Man is born into the world.”
But to his astonishment, instead of the burst of bigoted
indignation which he had expected, Miriam answered in a
low, confused, abstracted voice—
“And did He send you hither? Well—that was more
like what I used to fancy Him. . . . A grand thought it is
after all—a Jew, the king of heaven and earth! . . . Well
gets
A YPA 7TWA. 461
—I shall know soon. . . . I loved Him once, . . . and
perhaps . . . perhaps. . . . .”
Why did her head drop heavily upon his shoulder? He
turned—a dark stream of blood was flowing from her lips!
He sprang to his feet. The girls rushed in. They tore
open her shawl and saw the ghastly wound, which she had
hidden with such iron resolution to the last. But it was
too late. Miriam the daughter of Solomon was gone to
her own place. •
>k >k >k >k >{< >k >k
Early next morning, Raphael was standing in Cyril's
anteroom, awaiting an audience. There were loud voices
within ; and after awhile a tribune, whom he knew well,
hurried out, muttering curses— -
“What brings you here, friend?” said Raphael.
“The scoundrel will not give them up,” answered he,
in an undertone. -
“Give up whom?” .
“The murderers. They are in sanctuary now at the
Caesareum. Orestes sent me to demand them ; and this
fellow defies him openly!” And the tribune hurried out.
Raphael, sickened with disgust, half turned to follow
him, but his better angel conquered, and he obeyed the
summons of the deacon who ushered him in.
Cyril was walking up and down, according to his
custom, with great strides. When he saw who was his
visitor, he stopped short with a look of fierce inquiry.
Raphael entered on business, at once, with a cold calm
voice. “You know me, doubtless ; and you know what I
was. I am now a Christian catechumen. I come to
make such restitution as I can for certain past ill-deeds
done in this city. You will find among these papers the
trust-deeds for such a yearly sum of money as will enable
you to hire a house of refuge for a hundred fallen women,
and give such dowries to thirty of them yearly as will
enable them to find suitable husbands. I have set down
every detail of my plan. On its exact fulfillment depends
the continuance of my gift.”
Cyril took the document eagerly, and was breaking out
with some commonplace about pious benevolence, when
the Jew stopped him.
462 - HyPAZZA.
“Your holiness's compliments are unnecessary. It is to
your office, not to yourself, that this business relates.”
Cyril, whose conscience was ill enough at ease that
morning, felt abashed before Raphael's dry and quiet
manner, which bespoke, as he well knew, reproof more
severe than all open upbraidings. So looking down, not
without something like a blush, he ran his eyes hastily
over the paper; and then said, in his blandest tone—
“My brother will forgive me for remarking, that while I
acknowledge his perfect right to dispose of his charities
as he will, it is somewhat startling to me, as Metropolitan
of Egypt, to find, not only the Abbot Isidore of Pelusium,
but the secular Defender of the Plebs, a civil officer, impli-
cated, too, in the late conspiracy, associated with me as
co-trustee.”
“I have taken the advice of more than one Christian
bishop on the matter. I acknowledge your authority by
my presence here. If the Scriptures say rightly, the civil
magistrates are as much God’s ministers as you ; and I am
therefore bound to acknowledge their authority also. I
should have preferred associating the prefect with you in
the trust : but as your dissensions with the present occu-
pant of that post might have crippled my scheme, I have
named the Defender of the Plebs, and have already put
into his hands a copy of this document. Another copy
has been sent to Isidore, who is empowered to receive all
moneys from my Jewish bankers in Pelusium.”
“You doubt, then, either my ability or my honesty?”
said Cyril, who was becoming somewhat nettled.
“If your holiness dislikes my offer, it is easy to omit
your name in the deed. One word more. If you deliver
up to justice the murderers of my friend, Hypatia, I double
my bequest on the spot.” -
Cyril burst out instantly—
“Thy money perish with thee! Do you presume to
bribe me into delivering up my children to the tyrant?”
‘‘I offer to give you the means of showing more mercy,
provided that you will first do simple justice.”
“Justice?” cried Cyril. “Justice? If it be just that
Peter should die, sir, see first whether it was not just that
Hypatia should die. Not that I compassed it. As I live,
A. VPA 77.4. 463
I would have given my own right hand that this had not
happened! But now that it is done—let those who talk of
justice look first in which scale of the balance it lies! Do
you fancy, sir, that the people do not know their enemies
from their friends? Do you fancy that they are to sit with
folded hands, while a pedant makes common cause with a
profligate, to drag them back again into the very black gulf
of outer darkness, ignorance, brutal lust, grinding slavery,
from which the Son of God died to free them, from which
they are painfully and slowly struggling upward to the
light of day? You, sir, if you be a Christian catechumen,
should know for yourself what would have been the fate of
Alexandria had the devil's plot of two days since suc-
ceeded. What if the people struck too fiercely? They
struck in the right place. What if they had given the
reins to passions fit only for heathens? Recollect the
centuries of heathendom which bred those passions in
them, and blame not my teaching, but the teaching of
their forefathers. That very Peter. . . . What if he have
for once given place to the devil, and avenged where he
should have forgiven P Has he no memories which may
excuse him for fancying, in a just paroxysm of dread, that
idolatry and falsehood must be crushed at any risk? He
who counts back for now three hundred years, in persecu-
tion after persecution, martyrs, sir! martyrs—if you know
what that word implies—of his own blood and kin ; who,
when he was but a seven years' boy, saw his own father
made a sightless cripple to this day, and his elder sister, a
consecrated nun, devoured alive by swine in the open
streets, at the hands of those who supported the very
philosophy, the very gods, which Hypatia attempted
yesterday to restore. God shall judge such a man ; not I,
nor you!” -
“Let God judge him, then, by delivering him to God’s
minister.” -
“God’s minister? That heathen and apostate prefect?
When he has expiated his apostasy by penance, and
returned publicly to the bosom of the church, it will be time
enough to obey him : till then he is the minister of none but
the devil. And no ecclesiastic shall suffer at the tribunal
of an infidel. Holy Writ forbids us to go to law before the
464 A. VPATIA.
unjust. Let the world say of me what it will. I defy it
and its rulers. I have to establish a kingdom of God in
this city, and do it I will, knowing that other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ.”
“Wherefore you proceed to lay it afresh. A curious
method of proving that it is laid already.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cyril, angrily.
“Simply that God’s kingdom, if it exists at all, must be
a sort of kingdom, considering Who is the King of it,
which would have established itself without your help
some time since : probably, indeed, if the Scriptures of
my Jewish forefathers are to be believed, before the
foundation of the world : and that your business was to
believe that God was King of Alexandria, and had put the
Roman law there to crucify all murderers, ecclesiastics
included, and that crucified they must be accordingly, as
high as Haman himself.”
‘‘I will hear no more of this, sir! I am responsible to
God alone, and not to you ; let it be enough that by virtue
of the authority committed to me I shall cut off these men
from the church of God, by solemn excommunication, for
three years to come.”
“They are not cut off then, it seems, as yet?”
‘‘I tell you, sir, that I shall cut them off. Do you come
here to doubt my word?”
“Not in the least, most august sir. But I should have
fancied that, according to my carnal notions of God’s
Kingdom and the Church, they had cut off themselves
most effectually already, from the moment when they cast
away the Spirit of God, and took to themselves the spirit
of murder and cruelty; and that all which your most just
and laudable excommunication could effect, would be to
inform the public of that fact. However, farewell! My
money shall be forthcoming in due time ; and that is the
most important matter between us at this moment. As for
your client, Peter, and his fellows, perhaps the most fearful
punishment which can befall them, is to go on as they
have begun. I only hope that you will not follow in the
same direction.” -
“I?” cried Cyril, trembling with rage.
“Really, I wish your holiness well when I say so. If
Arºazza. 465
my notions seem to you somewhat secular, yours—forgive
me—seem to me somewhat atheistic ; and I advise you
honestly to take care lest while you are busy trying to
establish God’s Kingdom, you forget what it is like, by
shutting your eyes to those of its laws which are estab-
lished already. I have no doubt that with your holiness’s
great powers you will succeed in establishing something.
My only dread is, that when it is established you should
discover to your horror that it is the devil's kingdom and
not God’s.”
And without waiting for an answer, Raphael bowed
himself out of the august presence, and sailing for Berenice
that very day, with Eudaemon and his negro wife, went to
his own place ; there to labor and to succor, a sad and
stern, and yet a loving and a much-loved man, for many a
year to come. -
And now we will leave Alexandria also, and taking a
forward leap of some twenty years, see how all other
persons mentioned in this history went, likewise, each to
his own place.
>k >k >k >{< >k >k :k
A little more than twenty years after, the wisest and
holiest man in the East was writing of Cyril just deceased—
“His death made those who survived him joyful; but it
grieved most probably the dead ; and there is cause to fear,
lest, finding his presence too troublesome, they should
send him back to us. . . . May it come to pass by your
prayers, that he may obtain mercy and forgiveness, that
the immeasurable grace of God may prevail over his
wickedness!” . . .
So wrote Theodoret in days when men had not yet inter-
calated into Holy Writ that line of an obscure modern
hymn, which proclaims to man the good news that “ There .
is no repentance in the grave.” Let that be as it may,
Cyril has gone to his own place. What that place is in
history is but too well known. What it is in the sight of
Him unto whom all live forever, is no concern of ours.
May He whose mercy is over all His works, have mercy
upon all, whether orthodox or unorthodox, Papist or
Protestant, who, like Cyril, begin by lying for the cause
of truth ; and setting off upon that evil road, arrive surely,
466 .." Aſ VPA 7/4.
with the Scribes and Pharisees of old, sooner or later, at
their own place. -
True, he and his monks had conquered ; but Hypatia
did not die unavenged. In the hour of that unrighteous
victory, the Church of Alexandria received a deadly wound.
It had admitted and sanctioned those habits of doing evil
that good may come, of pious intrigue, and at last of open
persecution, which are certain to creep in wheresoever men
attempt to set up a merely religious empire, independent
of human relationships and civil laws ; to “establish,” in
short, a “theocracy,” and by that very act confess a secret
disbelief that God is ruling already. And the Egyptian
Church grew, year by year, more lawless and inhuman.
Freed from enemies without, and from the union which
fear compels, it turned its ferocity inward, to prey on its
own vitals, and to tear itself in pieces by a voluntary
suicide, with mutual anathem as and exclusions, till it
ended as a mere chaos of idolatrous sects, persecuting each
other for metaphysical propositions, which, true or false,
were equally heretical in their mouths, because they used
them only as watchwords of division. Orthodox or
unorthodox, they knew not God, for they knew neither
righteousness, nor love, nor peace. . . . They “hated
their brethren, and walked on still in darkness, not know-
ing whither they were going,” . . . till Amrou and his
Mahommedans appeared : and whether they discovered
the fact or not, they went to their own place. . . .
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small :
Though He stands and waits with patience, with exactness grinds He all—
And so found, in due time, the philosophers as well as
the ecclesiastics of Alexandria. -
Twenty years after Hypatia's death, philosophy was
flickering down to the very socket. Hypatia's murder was
its deathblow. In language tremendous and unmistak-
able, philosophers had been informed that mankind had
done with them ; that they had been weighed in the
balances, and found wanting ; that if they had no better
Gospel than that to preach, they must make way for those
who had. And they did make way. We hear little or
nothing of them or their wisdom henceforth, except at
Aſ VA 4 7TWA. 467
Athens, where Proclus, Marinus, Isidore, and others kept
up “the golden chain of the Platonic succession,” and
descended deeper and deeper, one after the other, into the
realms of confusion—confusion of the material with the
spiritual, of the subject with the object, the moral, with
the intellectual ; self-consistent in one thing only—namely,
in their exclusive Pharisaism ; utterly unable to proclaim
any good news for man to man, or even to conceive of the
possibility of such, and gradually looking with more and more
complacency on all superstitions which did not involve that
one idea, which alone they hated—namely, the incarna-
tion ; craving after signs and wonders, dabbling in magic, .
astrology, and barbarian fetichisms; bemoaning the fallen
age, and barking querulously at every form of human
thought except their own ; writing pompous biographies,
full of bad Greek, worse taste, and still worse miracles. . . .
That last drear mood
Of envious sloth, and proud decrepitude;
No faith, no art, no king, no priest, no God ;
While round the freezing founts of life in snarling ring,
Crouched on the bare worn sod,
Babbling about the unreturning spring,
And whining for dead gods, who cannot save,
The toothless systems shiver to their grave.
The last scene of their tragedy was not without a touch of
pathos. . . . In the year 529, Justinian finally closed, by
imperial edict, the schools of Athens. They had nothing
more to tell the world, but what the world had yawned
over a thousand times before : why should they break the
blessed silence by any more such noises? The philoso-
phers felt so themselves. They had no mind to be
martyrs, for they had nothing for which to testify. They
had no message for mankind, and mankind no interest for
them. All that was left for them was to take care of their
own souls ; and fancying that they saw something like
Plato's ideal republic in the pure monotheism of the
Guebres, their philosophic emperor the Khozroo, and his
holy caste of magi, seven of them set off to Persia, to forget
the hateful existence of Christianity in that realized ideal.
Alas for the facts! The purest monotheism they discov-
ered, was perfectly compatible with bigotry and ferocity,
468 - A YPA 774.
luxury and tyranny, serails and bowstrings, incestuous
marriages, and corpses exposed to the beasts of the fields
and the fowls of the air ; and in reasonable fear for their
own necks, the last seven Sages of Greece returned home
weary-hearted, into the Christian Empire from which they
had fled, fully contented with the permission, which the
Khozroo had obtained for them from Justinian, to hold
their peace and die among decent people. So among
decent people they died, leaving behind them, as their
last legacy to mankind, Simplicius's Commentaries on
Epictetus's Enchiridion, an essay on the art of egotism, by
obeying which, whosoever list may become as perfect a
Pharisee as ever darkened the earth of God. Peace be to
their ashes! . . . They are gone to their own place.
>k >k >k >k >k
Wulf, too, had gone to his own place, wheresoever that
may be. He died in Spain, full of years and honors, at
the court of Adolf and Placidia, having resigned his
sovereignty into the hands of his lawful chieftain and
having lived long enough to see Goderic and his younger
companions in arms settled with their Alexandria brides
upon the sunny slopes from which they had expelled the
Vandals and Suevi, to be the ancestors of “bluest blood”
Castilian nobles. Wulf died, as he had lived, a heathen.
Placidia, who loved him well, as she loved all right-
eous and noble souls, had succeeded once in persuad-
ing him to accept baptism. Adolf himself acted as one of
his sponsors; and the old warrior was in the act of stepping
into the font, when he turned suddenly to the bishop, and
asked where were the souls of his heathen ancestors! “In
hell,” replied the worthy prelate. Wulf drew back from
the font, and drew his bearskin cloak around him. . . .
“He would prefer, if Adolf had no objections, to go to his
own people.” ” And so he died unbaptized, and went to
his own place. -
Victoria was still alive and busy : but Augustine's
warning had come true—she had found trouble in the flesh.
The day of the Lord had come and Vandal tyrants were
now the masters of the fair cornlands of Africa. Her
* A Fact,
Aſ VPA 7'/4. 469
father and brother were lying by the side of Raphael Aben-
Ezra, beneath the ruined walls of Hippo, slain, long years
before in the vain attempt to deliver their country from
the invading swarms. But they had died the death of
heroes ; and Victoria was content. And it was whispered,
among the down-trodden Catholics, who clung to her as an
angel of mercy, that she, too, had endured strange misery
and disgrace ; that her delicate limbs bore the scars of
fearful tortures ; that a room in her house, into which
none ever entered but herself, contained a young boy’s
grave, and that she passed long nights of prayer upon the
spot, where lay her only child, martyred by the hands of
Arian persecutors. Nay, some of the few, who, having
dared to face that fearful storm, had survived its fury,
asserted that she herself, amid her own shame and agony,
had cheered the shrinking boy on to his glorious death.
But though she had found trouble in the flesh, her spirit
knew none. Clear-eyed and joyful as when she walked
by her father's side on the field of Ostia, she went to and
fro among the victims of Vandal rapine and persecution,
spending upon the maimed, the sick, the ruined, the small
remnants of her former wealth, and winning, by her
purity and her piety, the reverence and favor even of the
barbarian conquerers. She had her work to do, and
she did it, and was content ; and, in good time, she also
went to her own place -
Abbot Pambo, as well as Arsenius, had been dead
several years; the abbot’s place was filled, by his own
dying command, by a hermit from the neighboring deserts,
who had made himself famous for many miles round, by
his extraordinary austerities, his ceaseless prayers, his
loving wisdom, and, it was rumored, by various cures .
which could only be attributed to miraculous powers.
While still in the prime of his manhood, he was dragged,
against his own entreaties, from a lofty cranny of the cliffs
to preside over the Laura of Scetis, and ordained a deacon
at the advice of Pambo, by the bishop of the diocese, who,
three years afterward, took on himself to command him to
enter the priesthood. The elder monks considered it an
indignity to be ruled by so young a man ; but the mon-
astery throve and grew rapidly under his government.
470 A VA-4 7/A.
His sweetness, patience, and humility, and above all, his
marvellous understanding of the doubts and temptations
of his own generation, soon drew around him all whose
sensitiveness or waywardness had made them unmanage-
able in the neighboring monasteries. As to David in the
mountains, so to him, every one who was discontented,
and every one who was oppressed, gathered themselves.
The neighboring abbots were at first inclined to shrink
from him, as one who ate and drank with publicans and
sinners ; but they held their peace when they saw those
whom they had driven out as reprobates laboring peace-
fully and cheerfully under Philammon. The elder genera-
tion of Scetis, too, saw, with some horror, the new influx
of sinners; but their abbot had but one answer to their
remonstrances, “Those who are whole need not a physi-
cian, but those who are sick.”
Never was the young abbot heard to speak harshly of
any human being. “When thou hast tried in vain for
seven years,” he used to say, “to convert a sinner, then
only wilt thou have a right to suspect him of being a worse
man than thyself.” That there is a seed of good in all
men, a divine Word and Spirit striving with all men, a
gospel and good news which would turn the hearts of all
men, if abbots and priests could but preach it aright, was
his favorite doctrine, and one which he used to defend,
when, at rare intervals, he allowed himself to discuss any
subject, from the writings of his favorite theologian,
Clement of Alexandria. Above all, he stopped, by stern
rebuke, any attempt to revile either heretics or heathens.
“On the Catholic Church alone,” he used to say, “lies
the blame of all heresy and unbelief : for if she were but
for one day that which she ought to be, the world would
be converted before nightfall.” To one class of sins,
indeed, he was inexorable—all but ferocious ; to the sins,
namely, of religious persons. In proportion to any man’s
reputation for orthodzoy and sanctity, Philammon's judg-
ment of him was stern and pitiless. More than once
events proved him to have been unjust : when he saw him-
self to be so, none could confess his mistake more frankly
or humiliate himself for it more bitterly ; but from his rule
he never swerved ; and the Pharisees of the Nile dreaded
A VA24 ZZA. 47 I
and avoided him, as much as the publicans and sinners
loved and followed him. -
One thing only in his conduct gave some handle for
scandal among the just persons who needed no repentance.
It was well known that in his most solemn devotions, on
those long nights of unceasing prayer and self-discipline,
which won him a reputation for superhuman sanctity,
there mingled always with his prayers the names of two
women. And, when some worthy elder, taking courage
from his years, dared to hint kindly to him that such con-
duct caused some scandal to the weaker brethren, “It is
true,” answered he ; “tell my brethren that I pray nightly
for two women : both of them young ; both of them beauti-
ful ; both of them beloved by me more than I love my own
soul; and tell them, moreover, that One of the two was a
harlot, and the other a heathen.” The old monk laid his
hand on his mouth, and retired.
The remainder of his history it seems better to extract
from an unpublished fragment of the Hagiologia Nilotica
of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, the greater part of
which valuable work was destroyed at the taking of
Alexandria under Amrou, A. D. 64O.
“Now, when the said abbot had ruled the monastery
of Scetis seven years with uncommon prudence, resplen-
dent in virtue and in miracles, it befell that one
morning he was late for the divine office. Whereon a
certain ancient brother, who was also a deacon, being
sent to ascertain the cause of so unwonted a defection,
found the holy man extended upon the floor of his cell,
like Balaam in the flesh, though far different from
him in spirit, having fallen into a trance, but hav-
ing his eyes open. Who, not daring to arouse him, sat
by him until the hour of noon, judging rightly that
something from heaven had befallen him. And at
that hour, the saint, arising without astonishment,
said, ‘Brother, make ready for me the divine elements,
that I may consecrate them.’ And he asking the rea-
son wherefore, the saint replied, ‘That I may partake
thereof with all my brethren, ere I depart hence.
For I know assuredly that, within the seventh day, I
shall migrate to the celestial mansions. For this night
stood by me in a dream, those two women, whom I love,
and for whom I pray ; the one clothed in a white,
the other in a ruby-colored garment, and holding each
other by the hand ; who said to me, ‘That life after
death is not such a one as you fancy : come, therefore,
and behold with us what it is like.' Troubled at which
words, the deacon went forth : yet on account not only of holy
obedience, but also of the sanctity of the blessed abbot,
did not hesitate to prepare according to his command the
divine elements ; which the abbot, having consecrated,
distributed among his brethren, reserving only a portion of
the most holy bread and wine ; and then, having bestowed
On them all the kiss of peace, he took the paten and
chalice in his hands, and went forth from the monastery
toward the desert; whom the whole fraternity followed
weeping, as knowing that they should see his face no
more. But he, having arrived at the foot of a certain
mountain, stopped, and blessing them, commanded them
that they should follow him no farther, and dismissed
them with these words: “As ye have been loved, so love.
As ye have been judged, so judge. As ye have been for-
given, so forgive.’ And so ascending, was taken away
from their eyes. Now they, returning astonished, watched
three days with prayer and fasting : but at last the eldest
brother, being ashamed, like Elisha before the entreaties
of Elijah's disciples, sent two of the young men to seek
their master. ſº
“To whom befell a thing noteworthy and full of
miracles. For ascending the same mountain where they
had left the abbot, they met with a certain Moorish people,
not averse to the Christian verity, who declared that
certain days before a priest had passed by them, bearing a
paten and chalice, and blessing them in silence, proceeded
across the desert in the direction of the cave of the holy
Amma. •
“And they inquiring who this Amma might be, the
Moors answered that some twenty years ago there
had arrived in those mountains a woman more beauti-
ful than had ever before been seen in that region,
dressed in rich garments ; who, after a short sojourn among
their tribe, having distributed among them the iewels
A/YA-4 7/4. 473
which she wore, had embraced the eremitic life, and
sojourned upon the highest peak of a neighboring moun-
tain ; till, her garments failing her, she became invisible to
mankind, saving to a few women of the tribe, who went
up from time to time to carry her offerings of fruit and
meal, and ask the blessing of her prayers. To whom she
rarely appeared, veiled down to her feet in black hair of
exceeding length and splendor.
“Hearing these things, the two brethren doubted for
awhile : but at last, determining to proceed, arrived at
Sunset upon the summit of the said mountain.
“Where, behold, a great miracle. For above an open
grave, freshly dug in the sand, a cloud of vultures and
obscene birds hovered, whom two lions, fiercely contend-
ing, drove away with their talons as if from some sacred
deposit therein enshrined. Toward whom the two breth-
ren, fortifying themselves with the sign of the holy cross,
ascended. Whereupon the lions, as having fulfilled the
term of their guardianship, retired ; and left to the breth-
ren a sight which they beheld with astonishment, and not
without tears.
“For in the open grave lay the body of Philammon the
abbot ; and by his side, wrapped in his cloak, the corpse
of a woman of exceeding beauty, such as the Moors had
described. Whom embracing straitly, as a brother a
sister, and joining his lips to hers, he had rendered up his
soul to God ; not without bestowing on her, as it seemed,
the most holy sacrament ; for by the grave-side stood the
paten and the chalice emptied of their divine contents.
“Having beheld which things awhile in silence, they
considered that the right understanding of such matters
pertained to the judgment seat above, and was unnecessary
to be comprehended by men consecrated to God. Whereon,
filling in the grave with all haste, they returned weeping
to the Laura, and declared to them the strange things
which they had beheld, and whereof I, the writer, having
collected these facts from sacrasanct and most trustworthy
mouths, can only say that wisdom is justified of all her
children. -
“Now, before they returned, one of the brethren, search-
ing the cave wherein the holy woman dwelt, found there
474. - A/YA-4 ZZA.
neither food, furniture nor other matters, saving one brace-
let of gold, of large size and strange workmanship, engraven
with foreign characters, which no one could decipher.
The which bracelet, being taken home to the Laura of
Scetis, and there dedicated in the chapel to the memory of
the holy Amma, proved beyond all doubt the sanctity of its
former possessor, by the miracles which its virtue worked ;
the fame whereof spreading abroad throughout the
whole Thebaid, drew innumerable crowds of suppliants
to that holy relic. But it came to pass after the Vandalic
persecution wherewith Huneric and Genseric the king
devastated Africa, and enriched the Catholic Church with
innumerable martyrs, that certain wandering barbarians of
the Vandalic race, imbued with the Arian pravity, and
made insolent by success, boiled over from the parts of
Mauritania into the Thebaid region, who, plundering and
burning all monasteries, and insulting the consecrated
virgins, at last arrived even at the monastery of Scetis, where
they not only, according to their impious system, defiled
the altar, and carried off the sacred vessels, but also bore
away that most holy relic, the chief glory of the Laura,
namely, the bracelet of the holy Amma, impiously pretend-
ing that it had belonged to a warrior of their tribe, and
thus expounding the writing thereon engraved—
For Amalric Amal’s Son Smid Tricoll’s Son Made Me.
Wherein, whether they spoke truth or not, yet their
sacrilege did not remain unpunished ; for attempting to
return homeward toward the sea by way of the Nile, they
were set upon while weighed down with wine and sleep,
by the country people, and to a man miserably destroyed.
But the pious folk, restoring the holy gold to its pristine
sanctuary, were not unrewarded ; for since that day it grew
glorious with ever fresh miracles—as of blind restored to
sight, paralytics to strength, demoniacs to sanity—to the
honor of the orthodox Catholic Church, and its ever blessed
saints.”
>k >k >k :}; >k :: >}:
So be it. Pelagia and Philammon, like the rest, went to
their own place ; to the only place where such in such days
A/YAA 7TWA. 475
could find rest ; to the desert and the hermit’s cell ; and
then forward into that fairy land of legend and miracle,
wherein all saintly lives were destined to be enveloped for
many a century thenceforth.
And now, readers, farewell. I have shown you New
Foes under an Old Face—your own likeness in toga and
tunic, instead of coat and bonnet. One word before we
part. The same devil who tempted these old Egyptians
tempts you. The same God who would have saved these
old Egyptians if they had willed, will save you, if you will.
Their sins are yours, their errors yours, their doom yours,
their deliverance yours. There is nothing new under the
sun. The thing which has been, it is that which shall be.
Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone,
whether at Hypatia or Pelagia, Miriam or Raphael, Cyril
or Philammon.
THE END,
- - - - - -º- - - - - -
Lili
r 3 901
S
TY OF MIC
iſſil
5 O6393 1:250












¿?ț#ffff;$$$
###ģğ]\ſ*}}|}}};{};*** ！！!,，,
§§####*
§§§§§§§§
§§§§§§§
###################}}
ķ
$$$$$$$$$$$-
ķ
:::::
**:::: *****. -
#ſ;
} && &
#
$$$$$$
*::::::::
s.stº- tº
wº- **:
Š}} ! ±§§|*}##§§**.{
º:
º:#;
*-i-º-º:
#2.
:*
*S*;
$º:
-->
* *
#############################################################################$$$$$$$$$$################}}#############$$$$$$$$$$$
x
· ^ ！§;ae-§§###
§§§§§§§§§§§§Äğ######ģțšķț¢;$$$$$$$$$$$$#########?!${};&#ff;$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$（'######%№ſ;;?
§;&#########################################################################################
*** · ·{&##§§|-*****）Řſºț¢;-i.ſ.ſ.š.-^{- **};*ș ț¢, $$?-&& &&-*** 5 ***ſú# r.º.！ ±;“№ſſº.·‘，*: ºſſ?*§ſą
į±§§§·ķºs，****:ſſý§§ĶĶ· -și**$-·،---- |-£ € ¥;- ·--**,##{----
ſſſ
*: • *
º::...? Fº
'}&&\;{{！!
?-? : ;§§§
«.
*（ 33%, º į ſºº·# №ſſºſ:
！}}{{{##4%,Rºſt r \}.}{}
§§§§##};{{###
$º
ſſſſſſſ· = x.y- • … ~~-y gae§$.ſı§§$%};-ºſae，}####, ， ， , ，Å;***$/, '$!）|r:•
¿??¿? »:ºi;!$， $*$· **** É.#\%\&&&};$$$$$- - --§§###ſ
#*
+§§§±
**
*
*:
į
*a *:
ķ;;;;;;
**
#ș.aeºrș,ę
~~ ~#{{！!}:
;$$£§§§§§
ș§-
,4+3
*** *
rº
aſ assº
*
º:
*:::::::::
º
- s
sºº-ºº::
:* *
§s;
** -stº-
*º-ºº:
·{$ $ $ $. №
-•--*¿.*
Fiż#####šº，
·§§§§§). №;
ģș;####
§§§§§§§§§§§:
żș ș#;$， štº, ºſºși）;-
¿#ffff;&######
#
;}′{{{3|{{{ſ{{！r.###########
ț¢
sº
*g
$
#
Rº:
- *
* -> *
##
{{:};
ſº ſº
&
º:*
::::::: .
*:
§ 2-s
[ºgº ºf
*:::::
&
k
~ri -
*** **- : ******
;:ºx:
**
*:::
***
#:
iº
###}}
a rºs. A
**
#. 7-8
- +t
****
3.
*
sº.
º
;:
Arr; .4±º.
3.
####
* *
*::::::::
§:
º$º:
**
:
§§§§§ſaeſ， §§;ſ.-º.ſ.: ， *}#{{!?
}};{{{5}\!########$$$$$$$$$}{*$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
ķ#######################
***）:
####
#########
****
rº-- **, *.x.
*-i-º-º:
3,
º:
+-
****
.*.* ºr--s 4-trº ***
#.
**
: º -
* 2: x-ex ºr ºf 2.
gºvºrºº:
ºrrºr
- ## *******
:
º
º
º:
#:
#
ºr º:
**.
-ºše
* .
§:
* *
*****
*:
*…º.
*
*
º
s.r.º.
$:
rº-ºº:
:
x+.i.
***
- *-**
ºrs, rº
‘ºwº irs tº
#º:
; :：：-**5: r
ºr
**Laeī£ : * 3.
*kae ， .
$$$$$$
**, * ¿
:º）*{&#####
***-
x} ∈
§
**
*...*.*.*.*.*.
*** *
#:
*
#
º
§§
{:
§*;
$
########
####
*. *
*
***-iº,
*:::::
º -
.##! º
ººzºº.
#:
.#
*
q.
• *.*.*.*.
* *
** --
**}
:*
*
º:
# ****
#
º
§
*{{
sº
ºr
#;
-4 -
}:
º
vº. f*
}}
#
**
º: wº
..s.º.º.º.
ſ.º.）-
* »）， º-
§§§§
s +
$$$$$$$$############§!}ſººſ: };&#%$§?:.*;ſī£§! ¡ ¿ $3;&#::
·șº|-* … º.ſ.º. º...” ， * 4.* …， … … ... * * *-w * *
*** *
*...* →
...:
& -
*
***.
s:
*::::::::::
º
º;
<ºr
***
- :
*::::::º
•º
łºś
#:
§º:
*º-g
& sº
º
**
#::::::::
§§§
§
:
º -
- ׺
• §
:::::::
****
§
•; º;
º
ºf...,
º:
rºº
-**, ºr
* x:
$º $3.3 :
** ***. # º
3: * *
:*:
g -*.*
£º:
§
*
º
*::::::::
.*.*, **-*.
: ºr * >
º
****
*
At
**
&:;
}·ș}$:';::：- - ---- -:'', §. 7.# ！|* ģ§§ §§º £3$';|-* * * * *
§§§§§§§}′{{{#########%$§$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$;';
################################
*
;:
- *.
**
:*