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diff --git a/old/10095-0.txt b/old/10095-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4572b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10095-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9981 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales, by Richard Garnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales + +Author: Richard Garnett + +Release Date: November 16, 2003 [eBook #10095] +[Most recently updated: October 1, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE TWILIGHT +OF THE GODS: +AND OTHER TALES + +by Richard Garnett + +MDCCCCIII + + + + +TO +HORACE HOWARD FURNESS +AND +GEORG BRANDES. +DABO DUOBUS TESTIBUS MEIS + + + + +CONTENTS + + The Twilight of the Gods + The Potion of Lao-Tsze + Abdallah the Adite + Ananda the Miracle Worker + The City of Philosophers + The Demon Pope + The Cupbearer + The Wisdom of the Indians + The Dumb Oracle + Duke Virgil + The Claw + Alexander the Ratcatcher + The Rewards of Industry + Madam Lucifer + The Talismans + The Elixir of Life + The Poet of Panopolis + The Purple Head + The Firefly + Pan’s Wand + A Page from the Book of Folly + The Bell of Saint Euschemon + Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo + The Philosopher and the Butterflies + Truth and Her Companions + The Three Palaces + New Readings in Biography + The Poison Maid + NOTES + + + + +THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS + + +Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear +The longest date do melt like frosty rime. + +I + +The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high +above the summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent eagle +came sailing on broad fans into the blue, and his shadow skimmed the +glittering snow as it had done day by day for thousands of years. A +human figure—or it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed more than +mortal—lifted from the crag, to which he hung suspended by massy gyves +and rivets, eyes mournful with the presentiment of pain. The eagle’s +screech clanged on the wind, as with outstretched neck he stooped +earthward in ever narrowing circles; his huge quills already creaked in +his victim’s ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and involuntary +convulsions agitated his hands and feet. Then happened what all these +millenniums had never witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from +that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman had approached the +inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped +lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable abyss below. At the +same moment the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and, projected by +an impetus which kept him clear of the perpendicular precipice, he +alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked greensward amid young +ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and motion. + +The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through the +leaves, stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which remained +prostrate and unconscious still. But as sunlight was born anew in the +East a thrill passed over the slumberer, and he became conscious, first +of an indescribably delicious feeling of restful ease, then of a +gnawing pang, acute as the beak of the eagle for which he at first +mistook it. But his wrists, though still encumbered with bonds and +trailing fetters, were otherwise at liberty, and eagle there was none. +Marvelling at his inward and invisible foe, he struggled to his feet, +and found himself contending with a faintness and dizziness heretofore +utterly unknown to him. He dimly felt himself in the midst of things +grown wonderful by estrangement and distance. No grass, no flower, no +leaf had met his eye for thousands of years, nothing but the +impenetrable azure, the transient cloud, sun, moon, and star, the +lightning flash, the glittering peaks of ice, and the solitary eagle. +There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass than in all these things, +but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed his utmost effort +to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly growing more +distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort he steadied +himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished so much when a +tall dark maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an antelope, wildly +beautiful as a Dryad, but liker a Maenad with her aspect of mingled +disdain and dismay, and step hasty as of one pursuing or pursued, +suddenly checked her speed on perceiving him. + +“Who art thou?” he exclaimed. + +“Gods! Thou speakest Greek!” + +“What else should I speak?” + +“What else? From whom save thee, since I closed my father’s eyes, have +I heard the tongue of Homer and Plato?” + +“Who is Homer? Who is Plato?” + +The maiden regarded him with a look of the deepest astonishment. + +“Surely,” she said, “thy gift has been bestowed upon thee to little +purpose. Say not, at least, that thou usest the speech of the Gods to +blaspheme them. Thou art surely yet a votary of Zeus?” + +“I a votary of Zeus!” exclaimed the stranger. “By these fetters, no!” +And, weak as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful laughter. + +“Farewell,” said the maiden, as with dilating form and kindling eye she +gathered up her robes. “I parley with thee no more. Thou art tenfold +more detestable than the howling mob down yonder, intent on rapine and +destruction. They know no better, and can no other. But thou, apt in +speaking the sacred tongue yet brutally ignorant of its treasures, +knowing the father of the Gods only to revile him! Let me pass.” + +The stranger, if willing to hinder her, seemed little able. His eyes +closed, his limbs relaxed, and without a cry he sank senseless on the +sward. + +In an instant the maiden was kneeling by his side. Hastily undoing a +basket she carried on her arm, she drew forth a leather flask, and, +supporting the sunken head with one hand, poured a stream of wine +through the lips with the other. As the gurgling purple coursed down +his throat the sufferer opened his eyes, and thanked her silently with +a smile of exquisite sweetness. Removing the large leaves which shaded +the contents of the basket, she disclosed ripe figs and pomegranates, +honeycomb and snow-white curd, lying close to each other in tempting +array. The stranger took of each alternately, and the basket was +well-nigh emptied ere his appetite seemed assuaged. + +The observant maiden, meanwhile, felt her mood strangely altered. + +“So have I imaged Ulysses to myself,” she thought as she gazed on the +stranger’s goodly form, full of vigour, though not without traces of +age, the massive brow, the kindly mouth, the expression of far-seeing +wisdom. “Such a man ignorant of letters, and a contemner of Zeus!” + +The stranger’s eloquent thanks roused her from a reverie. The Greek +tongue fell upon her ear like the sweetest music, and she grieved when +its flow was interrupted by a question addressed directly to herself. + +“Can a God feel hunger and thirst?” + +“Surely no,” she rejoined. + +“I should have said the same yesterday,” returned the stranger. + +“Wherefore not to-day?” + +“Dear maiden,” responded he, with winning voice and manner, “we must +know each other better ere my tale can gain credence with thee. Do thou +rather unfold what thine own speech has left dark to me. Why the +language of the Gods, as should seem, is here understood by thee and me +alone; what foes Zeus has here other than myself; what is the profane +crowd of which thou didst speak; and why, alone and defenceless, thou +ascendest this mountain. Think of me, if thou wilt, as one fallen from +the clouds.” + +“Strange man,” returned the maiden, “who knowest Homer’s speech and not +Homer’s self, who renouncest Zeus and resemblest him, hear my tale ere +I require thine. Yesterday I should have called myself the last +priestess of Apollo in this fallen land, to-day I have neither shrine +nor altar. Moved by I know not what madness, my countrymen have long +ago forsaken the worship of the Gods. The temples crumbled into ruin, +prayer was no longer offered or sacrifice made as of old, the priestly +revenues were plundered; the sacred vessels carried away; the voice of +oracles became dumb; the divine tongue of Greece was forgotten, its +scrolls of wisdom mouldered unread, and the deluded people turned to +human mechanics and fishermen. One faithful servant of Apollo remained, +my father; but ’tis seven days since he closed his eyes for ever. It +was time, for yesternoon the heralds proclaimed by order of the King +that Zeus and the Olympians should be named no more in Caucasia.” + +“Ha!” interrupted the stranger, “I see it all. Said I not so?” he +shouted, gazing into the sky as if his eye could pierce and his voice +reach beyond the drifting clouds. “But to thy own tale,” he added, +turning with a gesture of command to the astonished Elenko. + +“It is soon told,” she said. “I knew that it was death to serve the +Gods any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon +Apollo’s altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware +of a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, +but not at their hands. I caught up this basket, and escaped up the +mountain. On its inaccessible summit, it is reported, hangs Prometheus, +whom Zeus (let me bow in awe before his inscrutable counsels) doomed +for his benevolence to mankind. To him, as Aeschylus sings, Io of old +found her way, and from him received monition and knowledge of what +should come to pass. I will try if courage and some favouring God will +guide me to him; if not, I will die as near Heaven as I may attain. +Tell me on thy part what thou wilt, and let me depart. If thou art +indeed Zeus’s enemy, thou wilt find enough on thy side down yonder.” + +“I have been Zeus’s enemy,” returned the stranger, mildly and gravely, +“I am so no longer. Immortal hate befits not the mortal I feel myself +to have become. Nor needest thou ascend the peak further. Maiden, I am +Prometheus!” + +II + +It is a prerogative of the Gods that, when they do speak sooth, mortals +must needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity at the +revelation of Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than the bonds +and broken links of chain at his wrists and ankles. + +“Now,” he cried, or rather shouted, “is the prophecy fulfilled with +which of old I admonished the Gods in the halls of Olympus. I told them +that Zeus should beget a child mightier than himself, who should send +him and them the way he had sent his father. I knew not that this child +was already begotten, and that his name was Man. It has taken Man ages +to assert himself, nor has he yet, as it would seem, done more than +enthrone a new idol in the place of the old. But for the old, behold +the last traces of its authority in these fetters, of which the first +smith will rid me. Expect no thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will come: +nor shall I regain the immortality of which I feel myself bereaved +since yesterday.” + +“Is this no sorrow to thee?” asked Elenko. + +“Has not my immortality been one of pain?” answered Prometheus. “Now I +feel no pain, and dread one only.” + +“And that is?” + +“The pain of missing a certain fellow-mortal,” answered Prometheus, +with a look so expressive that the hitherto unawed maiden cast her eyes +to the ground. Hastening away from the conversation to which, +nevertheless, she inly purposed to return. + +“Is Man, then, the maker of Deity?” she asked. + +“Can the source of his being originate in himself?” asked Prometheus. +“To assert this were self-contradiction, and pride inflated to madness. +But of the more exalted beings who have like him emanated from the +common principle of all existence, Man, since his advent on the earth, +though not the creator, is the preserver or the destroyer. He looks up +to them, and they are; he out-grows them, and they are not. For the +barbarian and Triballian gods there is no return; but the Olympians, if +dead as deities, survive as impersonations of Man’s highest conceptions +of the beautiful. Languid and spectral indeed must be their existence +in this barbarian age; but better days are in store for them.” + +“And for thee, Prometheus?” + +“There is now no place,” replied he, “for an impeacher of the Gods. My +cause is won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of man by +myself becoming human. When I shall have proved myself also mortal I +may haply traverse realms which Zeus never knew, with, I would hope, +Elenko by my side.” + +Elenko’s countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany +Prometheus as far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he might +please to conduct her. A thought soon troubled her delicious reverie, +and she inquired: + +“Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer and +better than that which I have professed?” + +“If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye,” answered Prometheus, +“but of this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy tale to have +begun but ill. Yet Saturn mutilated his father, and his reign was the +Golden Age.” + +While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling +aimlessly down the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path, they +suddenly found themselves in presence of an assembly of early +Christians. + +These confessors were making the most of Elenko’s dilapidated temple, +whose smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The +effigies of Apollo and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being +diligently broken up with mallets and hammers. Others of the +sacrilegious throng were rending scrolls, or dividing vestments, or +firing the grove of laurel that environed the shrine, or pelting the +affrighted birds as they flew forth. The sacred vessels, however, at +least those of gold and silver, appeared safe in the guardianship of an +episcopal personage of shrewd and jovial aspect, under whose inspection +they were being piled up by a troop of sturdy young ecclesiastics, the +only weapon-bearers among the rabble. Elenko stood riveted to the +ground. Prometheus, to her amazement, rushed forward to one of the +groups with a loud “By all the Gods and Goddesses!” Following his +movements, she saw that the object of his interest was an enormous dead +eagle carried by one of the mob. The multitude, startled by his cry and +his emotion, gazed eagerly at the strangers, and instantly a shout went +up: + +“The heathen woman!” + +“With a heathen man!” + +And clubs began to be brandished, and stones to be picked up from the +ground. + +Prometheus, to whom the shouts were unintelligible, looked wistfully at +Elenko. As their eyes met, Elenko’s countenance, which had hitherto +been all disdain and defiance, assumed an expression of irresolution. A +stone struck Prometheus on the temple, drawing blood; a hundred hands +went up, each weighted with a missile. + +“Do as I,” cried Elenko to him, and crossed herself. + +Prometheus imitated her, not unsuccessfully for a novice. + +The uplifted arms were stayed, some even sank down. + +By this time the Bishop had bustled to the front, and addressed a +torrent of questions to Prometheus, who merely shook his head, and +turned to inspect the eagle. + +“Brethren,” said the Bishop, “I smell a miracle!” And, turning to +Elenko, he rapidly proceeded to cross-examine her. + +“Thou wert the priestess of this temple?” + +“I was.” + +“Thou didst leave it this morning a heathen?” + +“I did.” + +“Thou returnest a Christian?” + +Elenko blushed fire, her throat swelled, her heart beat violently. All +her soul seemed concentrated in the gaze she fastened on the pale and +bleeding Prometheus. She remained silent—but she crossed herself. + +“Who then has persuaded thee to renounce Apollo?” + +Elenko pointed to Prometheus. + +“An enemy of Zeus, then?” + +“Zeus has not such another enemy in the world.” + +“I knew it, I was sure of it,” exclaimed the Bishop. “I can always tell +a Christian when I see him. Wherefore speaks he not?” + +“He is ancient, for all his vigorous mien. His martyrdom began ere our +present speech was, nor could he learn this in his captivity.” + +“Martyrdom! Captivity!” exclaimed the prelate gleefully, “I thought we +were coming thither. An early martyr, doubtless?” + +“A very early martyr.” + +“Fettered and manacled?” + +“Behold his wrists and ankles.” + +“Tortured, of course?” + +“Incredibly.” + +“Miraculously kept alive to this day?” + +“In an entirely supernatural manner.” + +“Now,” said the Bishop, “I would wager my mitre and ring that his life +was prolonged by the daily ministrations of yonder fowl that he +caresses with such singular affection?” + +“Never,” replied Elenko, “for one day did that most punctual bird omit +to visit him.” + +“Hurrah!” shouted the Bishop. “And now, its mission accomplished, the +blessed creature, as I am informed, is found dead at the foot of the +mountain. Saints and angels! this is glorious! On your knees, ye +infidels!” + +And down they all went, the Bishop setting the example. As their heads +were bowed to the earth, Elenko made a sign to Prometheus, and when the +multitude looked up, it beheld him in the act of imparting the +episcopal blessing. + +“Tell him that we are all his brethren,” said the Bishop, which +announcement became in Elenko’s mouth, “Do as I do, and cleave to thy +eagle.” + +A procession was formed. The new saint, his convert, and the eagle, +rode in a car at the head of it. The Bishop, surrounded by his +bodyguard, followed with the sacred vessels of Apollo, to which he had +never ceased to direct a vigilant eye throughout the whole proceedings. +The multitude swarmed along singing hymns, or contending for the stray +feathers of the eagle. The representatives of seven monasteries put in +their claims for the links of Prometheus’s fetters, but the Bishop +scouted them all. He found time to whisper to Elenko: + +“You seem a sensible young person. Just hint to our friend that we +don’t want to hear anything about his theology, and the less he talks +about the primitive Church the better. No doubt he is a most +intelligent man, but he cannot possibly be up to all the recent +improvements.” + +Elenko promised most fervently that Prometheus’ theological sentiments +should remain a mystery to the public. She then began to reflect very +seriously on the subject of her own morals. “This day,” she said to +herself, “I have renounced all the Gods, and told lies enough to last +me my life, and for no other reason than that I am in love. If this is +a sufficient reason, lovers must have a different code of morality from +the rest of the world, and indeed it would appear that they have. Will +you die for me? Yes. Admirable. Will you lie for me? No. Then you don’t +love me. Βαλλ εισ κορακασ εισ Ταιναρον εισ Όγγ Κογγ.” + +III + +Elenko soon found that there was no pausing upon the path to which she +had committed herself. As the sole medium of communication between +Prometheus and the religious public, her time was half spent in +instructing Prometheus in the creed in which he was supposed to have +instructed her, and half in framing the edifying sentences which passed +for the interpretation of discourses for the most part far more +interesting to herself than if they had been what they professed to be. +The rapt and impassioned attention which she was observed to bestow on +his utterances on such occasions all but gained her the reputation of a +saint, and was accepted as a sufficient set-off against the unhallowed +affection which she could not help manifesting for the memory of her +father. The judicious reluctance of the Caucasian ecclesiastics to +inquire over-anxiously into the creeds and customs of the primitive +Church was a great help to her; and another difficulty was removed by +the Bishop, who, having no idea of encouraging a rival thaumaturgist, +took an early opportunity of signifying that it was rather in the line +of Desmotes (for by this name the new saint passed) to be the subject +than the instrument of miracles, and that, at all events, no more were +to be looked for from him at his time of life. The warmth with which +Elenko espoused this view raised her greatly in his good opinion, and +he was always ready to come to her aid when she became entangled in +chronological or historical difficulties, or seasoned her versions of +Desmotes’ speeches with reminiscences of Plato or Marcus Aurelius, or +when her invention failed altogether. On such occasions, if objectors +grew troublesome, the Bishop would thunder, “Brethren, I smell a +heresy!” and no more was said. One minor trouble both to Prometheus and +Elenko was the affection they were naturally expected to manifest +towards the carcase of the wretched eagle, which many identified with +the eagle of the Evangelist John. Prometheus was of a forgiving +disposition, but Elenko wished nothing more ardently than that the +whole aquiline race might have but one neck, and that she might wring +it. It somewhat comforted her to observe that the eagle’s plumage was +growing thin, while the eagle’s custodian was growing fat. + +But she had worse troubles to endure than any that eagles could +occasion. The youth of those who resorted to her and Prometheus +attracted remark from the graver members of the community. Young ladies +found the precepts of the handsome and dignified saint indispensable to +their spiritual health; young men were charmed with their purity as +they came filtered through the lips of Elenko. Is man more conceited +than woman, or more confiding? Elenko should certainly have been at +ease; no temptress, however enterprising, could well be spreading her +nets for an Antony three hundred years old. Prometheus, on the +contrary, might have found cause for jealousy in many a noble youth’s +unconcealed admiration of Elenko. Yet he seemed magnificently +unconscious of any cause for apprehension, while Elenko’s heart swelled +till it was like to burst. She had the further satisfaction of knowing +herself the best hated woman in Caucasia, between the enmity of those +of whose admirers she had made an involuntary conquest, and of those +who found her standing between them and Prometheus. Her monopoly of +Greek, she felt sure, was her only security. Two constant attendants at +Prometheus’s receptions particularly alarmed her, the Princess Miriam, +niece of the Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed to have things as she +wished them; and a tall veiled woman who seemed unknown to all, but +whose unseen eyes, she instinctively knew, were never averted from the +unconscious Prometheus. + +It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons to +the private apartment of the Princess Miriam. + +“Dear friend,” the Princess began, “thou knowest the singular affection +which I have invariably entertained for thee.” + +“Right well do I know it,” responded Elenko. (“The thirty-first lie +to-day,” she added wearily to herself.) + +“It is this affection, dear friend,” continued the Princess, “which +induces me on the present occasion to transgress the limits of +conventional propriety, and make a communication distressing to thee, +but infinitely more so to myself.” + +Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause of +friendship, but the great lady was resolute. + +“People say,” she continued— + +“What say they?” + +“That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet. That it is equivocal. +That it is offensive. That it is sacrilegious. That, in a word, it is +improper.” + +Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would allow. + +“Dear friend,” said the Princess, “thou dost not imagine that I have +part or lot in these odious imputations? Even could I deem them true, +should I not think charitably of thee, but yesterday a heathen, and +educated in impiety by a foul sorcerer? My poor lamb! But tongues must +be stopped, and I have now to advise thee how this may be +accomplished.” + +“Say on.” + +“People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of +communication with the holy man. Some deem him less ignorant of our +speech than he seems, but concerning this I inquire not: for, in +society, what seems, is. Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to +scandal. There is but one remedy. Thou must yield thy place to another. +It is meet that thou forthwith instruct in that barbarous dialect some +matron of unblemished repute and devout aspirations; no mere ignorant +devotee, however, but a woman of the world, whose prudence and +experience may preserve the holy man from the pitfalls set for him by +the unprincipled. Manifestly she must be a married person, else nought +were gained, yet must she not be chargeable with forsaking her duties +towards her husband and children. It follows that she must be a widow. +It were also well that she should be of kin to some influential +personage, to whose counsel she might have recourse in times of +difficulty, and whose authority might protect her against the +slanderous and evil disposed. I have not been able to meet any one +endowed with all these qualifications, excepting myself. I therefore +propose to thee that thou shouldst instruct me in the speech of +Desmotes, and when I am qualified to take thy place my uncle shall +elevate thee to the dignity of Abbess, or bestow thee upon some young +clergyman of extraordinary desert.” + +Elenko intimated, perhaps with more warmth than necessary, her aversion +to both propositions, and the extreme improbability of the Princess +ever acquiring any knowledge of Greek by her instrumentality. + +“If this is the case,” said the Princess, with perfect calmness, “I +must have recourse to my other method, which is infallible.” + +Elenko inquired what it might be. + +“I shall represent to my uncle, what indeed he very well knows, that a +saint is, properly speaking, of no value till he is dead. Not until his +decease are his relics available, or pilgrimages to his shrine +feasible. It is solely in anticipation of this event that my uncle is +keeping Desmotes at all; and the sooner it comes to pass, the sooner +will my revered relative come by his own. Only think of the capital +locked up in the new church, now so nearly completed, on the spot where +they picked up the eagle! How shall it be dedicated to Desmotes in +Desmotes’ lifetime? Were it not a most blissful and appropriate +coincidence if the day of the consecration were that of the saint’s +migration to a better world? I shall submit this view of the case to my +uncle: he is accustomed to hear reason from me, of whom, between +ourselves, he is not a little afraid. Thou mayest rely upon it that +about the time of the consecration Desmotes will ascend to heaven; +while thou, it is gravely to be feared, wilt proceed in the opposite +direction. Would’st thou avert this unpleasantness, think well of my +first proposal. I give thee credit for loving Desmotes, and suppose, +therefore, that thou wilt make some sacrifice for his sake. I am a +Kettle, thou art a Pot. Take heed how thou knockest against me!” + +Elenko sped back to bear tidings of the threatened collision to +Prometheus. As she approached his chamber she heard with astonishment +two voices in eager conversation, and discovered with still greater +amazement that their dialogue was carried on in Greek. The second +speaker, moreover, was evidently a female. A jealous pang shot through +Elenko’s breast; she looked cautiously in, and discerned the same +mysterious veiled woman whose demeanour had already been an enigma to +her. But the veil was thrown back, and the countenance went far to +allay Elenko’s disquiet. It bore indeed traces of past beauty, but was +altogether that of one who had known better days; worn and faded, weary +and repining. Elenko’s jealousy vanished, though her surprise +redoubled, when she heard Prometheus address the stranger as “Sister.” + +“A pretty brother I have got,” rejoined the lady, in high sharp tones: +“to leave me in want! Never once to inquire after me!” + +“Nay, sister, or sister-in-law,” responded Prometheus, “if it comes to +that, where were you while I was on Caucasus? The Oceanides ministered +to me, Hermes came now and then, even Hercules left a card; but I never +saw Pandora.” + +“How could I compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?” demanded Pandora. +“Besides, my attendant Hope was always telling me that all would come +right, without any meddling of mine.” + +“Let her tell you so now,” retorted Prometheus. + +“Tell me now! Do you pretend not to know that the hussey forsook +Olympus ten years ago, and has turned Christian?” + +“I am sure I am very sorry to hear it. Somehow, she never forsook _me_. +I can’t imagine how you Gods get on without her.” + +“Get on! We are getting off. Except Eros and Plutus, who seem as usual, +and the old Fates, who go on spinning as if nothing had happened, none +of us expects to last for another ten years. The sacrifices have +dwindled down to nothing. Zeus has put down his eagle. Hera has eaten +her peacocks. Apollo’s lyre is never heard—pawned, no doubt. Bacchus +drinks water, and Venus—well, you can imagine how she gets on without +him and Ceres. And here you are, sleek and comfortable, and never +troubling yourself about your family. But you had better, or I swear I +will tell Zeus; and we shall see whether these Christians will keep you +with your ante-chamber full of starving gods. Take a day to think of +what I have been saying!” + +And away she flounced, not noticing Elenko. Long and earnestly did the +pair discuss the perils that menaced them, and at the end of their +deliberations Elenko sought the Bishop, and briefly imparted the +Princess Miriam’s ultimatum. + +“It is painful to a spiritual man,” replied the prelate, “to be +accessory to a murder. It is also repugnant to his feelings to deny a +beloved niece anything on which she has set her heart. To avoid such +grievous dilemma, I judge it well that ye both ascend to heaven without +further ceremony.” + +That night the ascent of Prometheus and Elenko was witnessed by divers +credible persons. The new church was consecrated shortly afterwards. It +was amply stored with relics from the wardrobe of Prometheus and what +remained of the eagle. The damsels of the capital regained their +admirers, and those who had become enamoured of Prometheus mostly +transferred their affections to the Bishop. Everybody was satisfied +except the Princess Miriam, who never ceased to deplore her indulgence +in giving Elenko the chance of first speech with her uncle. + +“If I had been five minutes beforehand with the minx!” she said. + +IV + +The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated in +a sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into the +glen, which was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds, who +still observed the rites of the ancient faith; and sometimes, deeming +but to show kindness to a mortal, refreshed or sheltered a forlorn and +hungry Deity. Saving at the entrance the vale was walled round by steep +cliffs, for the most part waving with trees, but here and there +revealing the naked crag. It was traversed by a silvery stream, in its +windings enclosing Prometheus’s and Elenko’s cottage, almost as in an +island. The cot, buried in laurel and myrtle, had a garden where fig +and mulberry, grape and almond, ripened in their season. A few goats +browsed on the long grass, and yielded their milk to the household. +Bread and wine, and flesh when needed, were easily procured from the +neighbours. Beyond necessary furniture, the cottage contained little +but precious scrolls, obtained by Elenko from Athens and the newly +founded city of Constantine. In these, under her guidance, Prometheus +read of matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, entered the +imagination of any God. + +It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures wholly +their own, which they may yet make fully the possession of the other. +These treasures are of divers kinds, beauty, affection, memory, hope. +But never were such treasures of knowledge shared between lovers as +between Prometheus and Elenko. Each possessed immeasurable stores, +hitherto inaccessible to the other. How trifling seemed the mythical +lore which Elenko had gleaned as the minister of Phœbus to that now +imparted by Prometheus! The Titan had seen all, and been a part of all +that he had seen. He had bowed beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he had +witnessed his fall, and marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He +remembered hoary Saturn a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the +throne of Heaven, and devouring in a trice the stone that now resists +his fangs for millenniums. He had heard the shields of the Corybantes +clash around the infant Zeus; he described to Elenko how one day the +sea had frothed and boiled, and undraped Aphrodite had ascended from it +in the presence of the gazing and applauding amphitheatre of +cloud-cushioned gods. He could depict the personal appearance of +Cybele, and sketch the character of Enceladus. He had instructed Zeus, +as Chiron had instructed Achilles; he remembered Poseidon afraid of the +water, and Pluto of the dark. He called to mind and expounded ancient +oracles heretofore unintelligible: he had himself been told, and had +disbelieved, that the happiest day of his own life would be that on +which he should feel himself divested of immortality. Of the younger +gods and their doings he knew but little; he inquired with interest +whether Bacchus had returned in safety from his Indian expedition, and +whether Proserpine had a family of divine imps. + +Much more, nevertheless, had Elenko to teach Prometheus than she could +learn from him. How trivial seemed the history of the gods to what he +now heard of the history of men! Were these indeed the beings he had +known “like ants in the sunless recesses of caves, dwelling +deep-burrowing in the earth, ignorant of the signs of the seasons,” to +whom he had given fire and whom he had taught memory and number, for +whom he had “brought the horse under the chariot, and invented the +sea-beaten, flaxen-winged chariot of the sailor?” And now, how poorly +showed the gods beside this once wretched brood! What Deity could die +for Olympus, as Leonidas had for Greece? Which of them could, like +Iphigenia, dwell for years beside the melancholy sea, keeping a true +heart for an absent brother? Which of them could raise his fellows +nearer to the source of all Deity, as Socrates and Plato had raised +men? Who could portray himself as Phidias had portrayed Athene? Could +the Muses speak with their own voices as they had spoken by Sappho’s? +He was especially pleased to see his own moral superiority to Zeus so +eloquently enforced by Æschylus, and delighted in criticising the +sentiments which the other poets had put into the mouths of the gods. +Homer, he thought, must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes +not seldom. When he read in the Cyclops of Euripides, “Stranger, I +laugh to scorn Zeus’s thunderbolts,” he grew for a moment thoughtful. +“Am I,” he questioned, “ending where Polyphemus began?” But when he +read a little further on: + +The wise man’s only Jupiter is this, +To eat and drink during his little day, +And give himself no care— + + +“No,” he said, “the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than this +Zeus. But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put another in +their place; or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung away his +religion. Heaven has not departed with Zeus.” And, taking his lyre, he +sang: + +What floods of lavish splendour + The lofty sun doth pour! +What else can Heaven render? + What room hath she for more? + +Yet shall his course be shortly done, + And after his declining +The skies that held a single Sun +With thousands shall be shining. + +V + +It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to Prometheus’s +earthly paradise, and who came once came again. The first was +Epimetheus, who had probably suffered least of all from the general +upset, having in truth little to lose since his ill-starred union with +Pandora. He had indeed reason for thankfulness in his practical divorce +from his spouse, who had settled in Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to +the Princess Miriam. Would Prometheus lend him half a talent? a +quarter? a tenth? a hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus might rely +upon it that his residence should not be divulged on any account. +Notwithstanding which assurance, the cottage was visited next day by +eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and +was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their +functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for +a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and took +back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on most +intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal, +and marine. + +Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm, +looking up to something it feels or deems above itself. Beautiful, too, +as autumn sunshine is maturity looking down with gentleness on the +ideal it has surpassed, and reverencing it still for old ideas and +associations. The thought of beholding a Deity would once have thrilled +Elenko with rapture, if this had not been checked by awe at her own +presumption. The idea that a Deity, other than some disgraced offender +like Prometheus, could be the object of her compassion, would never +have entered her mind. And now she pitied the whole Olympian cohort +most sincerely, not so much for having fallen as for having deserved to +fall. She could not conceal from herself how grievously they were one +and all behind the age. It was impossible to make Zeus comprehend how +an idea could be a match for a thunderbolt. Apollo spoke handsomely of +Homer, yet evidently esteemed the Iliad and Odyssey but lightly in +comparison with the blind bard’s hymn to himself. Ceres candidly +admitted that her mind was a complete blank on the subject of the +Eleusinian mysteries. Aphrodite’s dress was admirable for summer, but +in winter seemed obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make +herself a fright with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer +frightened anybody? Where Elenko would fain have adored she found +herself tolerating, excusing, condescending. How many Elenkos are even +now tenderly nursing ancient creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue of +their professors! + +One autumn night all the principal gods were assembled under +Prometheus’s roof, doing justice to the figs and mulberries, and wine +cooled with Taygetan snow. The guests were more than usually +despondent. Prometheus was moody and abstracted, his breast seemed +labouring with thought. “So looked my Pythoness,” whispered Apollo to +his neighbour, “when about to deliver an oracle.” + +And the oracle came—in lyric verse, not to infringe any patent of +Apollo’s— + +When o’er the towers of Constantine +An Orient Moon begins to shine, +Waning nor waxing aught, and bright +In daytide as in deep of night: +Then, though the fane be brought + To wreck, the God shall find, +Enthroned in human thought, + A temple in the mind. + + +“And what becomes of us while this prodigious moonshine is concocting?” +demanded Zeus, who had become the most sceptical of any of the gods. + +“Go to Elysium,” suggested Prometheus. + +“There’s an idea!” cried Zeus and Pallas together. + +“To Elysium! to Elysium!” exclaimed the other gods, and all rose +tumultuously, saving two. + +“I go not,” said Eros, “for where Love is, there is Elysium. And yonder +rising moon tells me that my hour is come.” And he flitted forth. + +“Neither go I,” said an old blind god, “for where Plutus is, Elysium is +not. Moreover, mankind would follow after me. But I too must away. +Strange that I should have abode so long under the roof of a pair of +perfect virtue.” And he tottered out. + +But the other gods swept forth into the moonlight, and were seen no +more. And Prometheus picked up the forsaken sandals of Hermes, and +bound them on his own feet, and grasped Elenko, and they rose up by a +dizzy flight to empty heaven. All was silent in those immense courts, +vacant of everything save here and there some rusty thunderbolt or +mouldering crumb of ambrosia. Above, around, below, beyond sight, +beyond thought, stretched the still deeps of æther, blazing with +innumerable worlds. Eye could rove nowhither without beholding a star, +nor could star be beheld from which the Gods’ hall, with all its +vastness, would not have been utterly invisible. Elenko leaned over the +battlements, and watched the racing meteors. Prometheus stood by her, +and pointed out in the immeasurable distance the little speck of +shining dust from which they had flown. + +“There? or here?” he asked. + +“There!” said Elenko. + + + + +THE POTION OF LAO-TSZE + + +And there the body lay, age after age, + Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, +Like one asleep in a green hermitage, + With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, +And living in its dreams beyond the rage + Of death or life; while they were still arraying +In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, +And fleeting generations of mankind. + + +In the days of the Tang dynasty China was long happy under the sceptre +of a good Emperor, named Sin-Woo. He had overcome the enemies of the +land, confirmed the friendship of its allies, augmented the wealth of +the rich, and mitigated the wretchedness of the poor. But most +especially was he admired and beloved for his persecution of the +impious sect of Lao-tsze, which he had well-nigh exterminated. + +It was but natural that such an Emperor should congratulate himself +upon his goodness and worth; yet, as no human bliss is perfect, sorrow +could not fail to enter his mind. + +“It is grievous to reflect,” said he to his courtiers, “that if, as ye +all affirm, there hath not been any Emperor of equal merit with myself +before my time, neither will any such arise after me, my subjects must +inevitably be sufferers by my death.” + +To which the courtiers unanimously responded, “O Emperor, live for +ever!” + +“Happy thought!” exclaimed the Emperor; “but wherewithal shall it be +executed?” + +The Prime Minister looked at the Chancellor, the Chancellor looked at +the Treasurer, the Treasurer looked at the Chamberlain, the Chamberlain +looked at the Principal Bonze, the Principal Bonze looked at the Second +Bonze, who, to his great surprise, looked at him in return. + +“When the turn comes to me,” murmured the inferior functionary, “I +would say somewhat.” + +“Speak!” commanded the Emperor. + +“O Uncle of the stars,” said the Bonze, “there are those in your +Majesty’s dominions who possess the power of lengthening life, who +have, in fact, discovered the Elixir of Immortality.” + +“Let them be immediately brought hither,” commanded the Emperor. + +“Unhappily,” returned the Bonze, “these persons, without exception, +belong to the abominable sect of Lao-tsze, whose members your Majesty +long ago commanded to cease from existence, with which august order +they have for the most part complied. In my own diocese, where for some +years after your Majesty’s happy accession we were accustomed to impale +twenty thousand annually, it is now difficult to find twenty, with the +utmost diligence on the part of the executioners.” + +“It has of late sometimes appeared to me,” said the Emperor, “that +there may be more good in that sect than I have been led to believe by +my counsellors.” + +“I have always thought,” said the Prime Minister, “that they were +rather misguided than wilfully wicked.” + +“They are a kind of harmless lunatics,” said the Chancellor; “they +should, I think, be made wards in Chancery.” + +“Their money does not appear different from other men’s,” said the +Treasurer. + +“I,” said the Chamberlain, “have known an old woman who had known +another old woman who belonged to this sect, and who assured her that +she had been very good when she was a little girl.” + +“If,” said the Emperor, “it appears that his Grace the Principal Bonze +hath in any respect misled us, his property will necessarily be +confiscated to the Imperial Treasury, and the Second Bonze will succeed +to his office. It is needful, however, to ascertain before all things +whether this sect does really possess the Elixir of Immortality, for on +that the entire question of its deserts obviously depends. Our +Counsellor the Second Bonze having, next to myself, the greatest +interest in the matter, I desire him to make due inquiries and report +to us at the next council, when I shall be prepared to state what fine +will be imposed upon him, should he not have succeeded.” + +That night all the members of the Lao-tsze sect inhabiting prisons +under the jurisdiction of the Principal Bonze were decapitated, and the +P.B. laid his own head upon his pillow with some approach to peace of +mind, trusting that the knowledge of the Elixir of Immortality had +perished with them. + +The Second Bonze, having a different object to attain, proceeded in a +different manner. He sent for his captives, and discoursed to them +touching the evil arts of unprincipled courtiers, and the facility with +which they mislead even the best intentioned princes. For years had he, +the Second Bonze, pleaded the cause of toleration at court; and had at +length succeeded in enlightening his Majesty to such an extent that +there was every prospect of an edict of indulgence being shortly +promulgated, provided always that the Elixir of Life was previously +forthcoming. + +The unfortunate heretics would have been only too thankful to prolong +the Emperor’s life indefinitely in consideration of securing peace for +their own, but they could only inform the Bonze of the general +tradition of their sect. This was that the knowledge of Lao-tsze’s +secret was confined to certain adepts, most of whom were plunged into +so deep a trance that any communication with them was impossible. For +the administration of the miraculous draught, it appeared, was attended +with this inconvenience, that it threw the partaker into a deep sleep, +lasting any time between ten years and eternity, according to the depth +of his potation. During its continuance the ordinary operations of +nature were suspended, and the patient awoke with precisely the same +bodily constitution, old or young, as he had possessed on falling into +his lethargy; and though still liable to wounds and accidents, he or +she continued to enjoy undiminished health and vigour for a period +equal to the duration of the trance, after which he sank back into the +ranks of mortality, unless he could repeat the potion. All the adepts +who had come to life under his present Majesty’s most clement reign had +immediately emigrated: the only persons, therefore, capable of giving +information were now buried in slumber, and of course would only speak +when they should awake. They were mostly concealed in the recesses of +caverns, those inhabited by wild beasts being usually preferred for the +sake of better security, as no tiger or bear would harm a follower of +Lao-tsze. The witnesses, therefore, advised the Bonze to ascertain the +residences of the most ferocious tigers in his diocese, and to wait +upon them personally, in the hope of thus discovering what he sought. + +This suggestion was exceedingly unpalatable to the Bonze, who felt +almost equally unwilling to venture himself into a wild beast’s den or +to give any other person the chance of making the discovery. While he +hesitated in unspeakable perplexity he was informed that an old man, +about to expire at the age of an hundred and twenty years, desired to +have speech with him. Thinking so venerable a personage likely to have +at least a glimmering of the great secret, the Bonze hurried to his +bedside. + +“Our master, Lao-tsze,” began the old man, “forbids us to leave this +world with anything undisclosed which may contribute to the advantage +of our fellow-creatures. Whether he deemed the knowledge of the cup of +immortality conducive to this end I cannot say, but the question doth +not arise, for I do not possess it. Hear my tale, nevertheless. Ninety +years ago, being a hunter, it was my hap to fall into the jaws of an +enormous tiger, who bore me off to his cavern. I there found myself in +the presence of two ladies, one youthful and of surpassing loveliness, +the other haggard and wrinkled. The younger lady expostulated with the +tiger, and he forthwith released me. My gratitude won the women’s +confidence, and I learned that they were disciples of Lao-tsze who had +repaired to the cavern to partake of the miraculous draught, which they +were just about to do. They were, it appeared, mother and daughter, and +I distinctly remember that the composition of the beverage was known to +the daughter only. This impressed me, for I should naturally have +expected the contrary. The tiger escorted me home. I forswore hunting, +and became, and have secretly continued, a disciple of Lao-tsze. I will +now indicate the position of the cavern to thee: whether the ladies +will still be found in it is beyond my power to say.” + +And having pointed out the direction of the cavern, he expired. + +The thing had to be done. The Bonze dressed himself up as much like a +votary of Lao-tsze as possible, provided himself with a body-guard of +_bona fide_ disciples, and, accompanied by a small army of huntsmen and +warriors as well, marched in quest of the den of the tiger. It was +discovered about nightfall, and having tethered a small boy near the +entrance, that his screams when being devoured might give notice of the +tiger’s issue from or return to his habitation, the Bonze and his +myrmidons took up a flank position and awaited the dawn. The distant +howls of roaming beasts of prey entirely deprived the holy man of his +rest, but nothing worse befell him, and when in the morning the small +boy, instead of providing the tiger with a breakfast, was heard crying +for his own, the besiegers mustered up courage to enter the cavern. The +glare of their torches revealed no tiger: but, to the Bonze’s +inexpressible delight, two females lay on the floor of the cave, +corresponding in all respects to the description of the old man. Their +costume was that of the preceding century. One was wrinkled and hoary; +the inexpressible loveliness of the other, who might have seen +seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a universal cry of admiration, +followed by a hush of enraptured silence. Warm, flexible, fresh in +colour, breathing naturally as in slumber, the figures lay, the younger +woman’s arm underneath the elder woman’s neck, and her chin nestling on +the other’s shoulder. The countenance of each seemed to indicate happy +dreams. + +“Can this indeed be but a trance?” simultaneously questioned several of +the Bonze’s followers. + +“_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!_” exclaimed the Bonze; and he +thrust his long hunting spear into the elder woman’s bosom. Blood +poured forth freely, but there was no change in the expression of the +countenance. No struggle announced dissolution; not until the body grew +chill and the limbs stiff could they be sure the old woman was indeed +dead. + +“Carry the young woman like porcelain,” ordered the priest, and like +the most fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from +the cavern smiling in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the +corpse of her aged companion was abandoned to the hyænas. So often did +the bearers pause to look on her beauty that it was found necessary to +drape the countenance entirely, until reaching the closed sedan in +which, vigilantly watched by the Bonze, she was transported to the +Imperial palace. + +And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was +laid on a couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful +was the contrast between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose, +and the old haggard Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love +of life. + +“O Majesty,” said his wisest counsellor, “is there any sect in thy +dominions that possesses the secret of perpetual youth?” + +And the Emperor made proclamation, but no such sect could be found. And +he mourned exceedingly, and caused strong perfumes to be burned around +the sleeper, and conches to be blown and gongs beaten in her ears, +hoping that she would awake ere he was dead or wholly decrepit. But she +stirred not. And he shut himself up with her and passed his time +praying to Fo for her awakening. + +But one day the door of the chamber was beaten down, and his old wife +came in passionately upbraiding him. + +“Sin-Woo,” she cried, “thou hast not the heart of a man! Thou wouldest +be deathless, leaving me to die! I shall be laid in the grave, and thou +wilt reign with another! Wherefore have I been true to thee, if not +that our ashes might mingle at the last? Thou hoary sensualist!” + +“Su-Ti,” said the Emperor, with feeling, “thou dost grievously misjudge +me. I am no heartless sensualist, no butterfly sipper at the lips of +beauty. Is not my soul entirely possessed by this divine creature, whom +I love with an affection infinitely exceeding that which I have +entertained for thee at any period? And how knowest thou,” added he, +striving to soothe her, “that I will not give thee to drink of the +miraculous potion?” + +“And keep my grey hairs and wrinkles through all time! Nay, Sin-Woo, I +am no fool like thee, and were I so, I am not in love with any youth. +And know I not that even if I would accept the boon, thou would’st +never give it?” + +And she rushed away in fury and hanged herself by her Imperial girdle. +Whereupon all the other wives and concubines of the Emperor did +likewise, as custom and reason prescribe. All the palace was filled +with lamentation and funerals. But the Emperor lamented not, nor turned +his gaze from the sleeper, nor did the sleeper awaken. + +And his son came to him angry with exceeding wrath. + +“Thou hast murdered my mother. Thou would’st rob me of the crown that +is rightfully mine. I, born to be an Emperor, shall die a subject! Nay, +but I will save thee from thyself. I will pierce thy leman with the +sword, or burn her with fire.” + +And the Emperor, fearing he would do as he threatened, commanded him to +be slain, as also his brothers and sisters. And he paid no heed to the +affairs of State, but gave all into the hand of the Second, now the +Principal Bonze. And the laws ceased to be observed, and rebellions +broke out in the provinces, and enemies invaded the country, and there +was famine in the land. + +And now the Emperor was well-nigh ten years nearer to the gates of +death than when the Sleeping Beauty had been brought to his court. The +love of beauty was nearly quenched in him, but the longing for life +grew more intense. He became angry with the sleeper, that she awakened +not, and with his little remaining strength smote her fiercely on the +cheeks, but she gave no sign of reviving. Remembering that if he gained +the potion of immortality he would himself be plunged into a trance, he +made all preparations for the interregnum. He decreed that he was to be +seated erect on his throne, with all his imperial insignia, and it was +to be death to any one who should presume to remove any of them. His +slumbering figure was to preside at all councils, and to be consulted +in every act of state, and all ministers and officers were to do homage +daily. The revived Sleeping Beauty was to partake of the draught anew, +at the same time and in the same manner as himself, that she might +awake with him, and that he might find her charms unimpaired. All the +ministers swore solemnly to observe these regulations; firmly purposing +to burn the sleeper, if sleep he ever did, at the very first +opportunity, and scatter his ashes to the winds. Then they would fight +for the Empire among themselves; each, meanwhile, was mainly occupied +in striving to gain the rebels over to his interest, insomuch that the +people grew more miserable day by day. + +And as the aged Emperor waxed more and more feeble, he began to see +visions. Legions of little black imps surrounded him crying, “We are +thy sins, and would be punished—would’st thou by living for ever +deprive us of our due?” And fair female forms came veiled with drooping +heads, and murmured, “We are thy virtues, and would be +rewarded—would’st thou cheat us?” And other figures came, dark but +lovely, and whispered, “We are thy dead friends who have long waited +for thee—would’st thou take to thyself new friends, and forget us?” And +others said, “We are thy memories—wilt thou live on till we are all +withered in thy heart?” And others said, “We are thy strength and thy +beauty, thy memory and thy wit—canst thou live, knowing thou wilt never +see us more?” And at last came two warders, officers of the King of +Death, and one of them was laughing. And the other asked why he +laughed, and he replied: + +“I laugh at the Emperor, who thinks to escape our master, not knowing +that the moment of his decease was engraved with a pen of iron upon a +rock of adamant a million million years or ever this world was.” + +“And when comes it?” asked the other. + +“In ten minutes,” said the first. + +When the Emperor heard this he was wild with terror, and tottered to +the couch on which the Sleeping Beauty lay. “Oh, awake!” he cried, +“awake and save me ere it is too late!” And, oh wonder! the sleeper +stirred, and opened her eyes. + +If she had been so beautiful while sleeping, what was she when awake! +But the love of life had overcome the love of beauty in the Emperor’s +bosom, and he saw not the eyes like stars, and the bloom as of peaches +and lilies, or the aspect grand and smiling as daybreak. He could only +cry, “Give me the potion, lest I die, give me the potion!” + +“That cannot I,” she said. “The secret was known only to my daughter.” + +“Who is thy daughter?” + +“The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern.” + +“That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so +fresh? + +“Even so,” she said, “I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy +years. When I awoke she was withered and decrepit: I youthful as when I +closed my eyes. But she had learned the secret, which I never knew.” + +“The Bonze shall be crucified!” yelled the Emperor. + +“It is too late,” said she; “he is torn in pieces already.” + +“By whom?” + +“By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee.” + +And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people, +headed by the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal +Bonze), who plunged a sword into the Emperor’s breast, exclaiming: + +“He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose +the life which he has.” Words, saith the historian Li, which have been +thought worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of +Confucius. + +And the people were crying, “Kill the sorceress!” But she looked upon +them, and they cried, “Be our Empress!” + +“Remember,” said she, “that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred +years!” + +“Would,” said they, “that it might be a hundred thousand!” + +So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously. Among her good acts is +enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze. Since, however, +they have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild +beasts have lost their ancient respect for them, and devour them with +no less appetite than the members of other sects and denominations. + + + + +ABDALLAH THE ADITE + + +An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting +himself to the pursuit of religion and alchemy. Of his creed it could +only be said that it was so much better than that of his neighbours as +to cause him to be commonly esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper. But +the better informed deemed him a Nestorian monk, who had retired into +the wilderness on account of differences with his brethren, who sought +to poison him. + +The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain +inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light +concerning the nature of demons. But he found that Sergius could give +him no information on that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so +wisely and beautifully on holy things, that his pupil’s intellect was +enlightened, and his enthusiasm was inflamed, and he longed to go forth +and instruct the ignorant people around him; the Saracens, and the +Sabaeans, and the Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, and the +Baphometites, and the Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient +Manichees. + +“Nay, good youth,” said Sergius, “I have renounced the sending forth of +missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the +Prophet Abdallah.” + +“What!” exclaimed the youth, “was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?” + +“Even so,” said Sergius. “Hearken to his history. + +“Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he +was first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most +simple-minded and well-intentioned of youths. I always called him son, +a title I have never bestowed on another. Like thee, he had compassion +on the darkness around him, and craved my leave to go forth and dispel +it. + +“‘My son,’ said I, ‘I will not restrain thee: thou art no longer a +child. Thou hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and +knowest that poison was administered to me personally on account of my +inability to perceive the supernatural light emanating from the navel +of Brother Gregory. Thou art aware that thou wilt be beaten with rods +and pricked with goads, chained and starved in a dungeon, very probably +blinded, very possibly burned with fire?’ + +“‘All these things I am prepared to undergo,’ said Abdallah; and he +embraced me and bid me farewell. + +“After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his +bones protruded through his skin. + +“‘Whence are these weals and scars?’ asked I, ‘and what signifies this +protrusion of thy bones?’ + +“‘The weals and the scars,’ answered he, ‘proceed from the floggings +inflicted upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by +reason of the omission of his officers to furnish me with either food +or drink in the dungeon wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.’ + +“‘O my son,’ exclaimed I, ‘in the eyes of faith and right reason these +scars are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones +is like the beholding of hidden treasure!’ + +“And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he +entirely fail therein. And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and +sent him forth a second time into the world. + +“And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and +bruises, but comely and somewhat fat. + +“‘Whence this sleekness of body, my son?’ I asked. + +“‘Through the charity of the Caliph’s wives,’ he answered, ‘who have +fed me secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good +work each of them in the world to come would have seven husbands.’ + +“‘How knewest thou this, my son?’ I inquired. + +“‘In truth, father,’ he said, ‘I did not know it; but I thought it +probable.’ + +“‘O my son! my son!’ exclaimed I, ‘thou art on a dangerous road. To win +over weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a +future life, whereof thou knowest no more than they do! Knowest thou +not that the inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and +spiritual nature? Did I ever promise any disciple any recompense for +his enlightenment and good deeds, save flogging, starvation, and +burning?’ + +“‘Never, father,” said he, ‘and therefore thou hast had no follower of +thy law save one, and he hath broken it.’ + +“He left me after a shorter stay than before, and again went forth to +preach. After a long time he returned in good condition of body, yet +manifestly having something upon his mind. + +“‘Father,’ he said, ‘thy son hath preached with faithfulness and +acceptance, and turned thousands unto righteousness. But a sorcerer +hath arisen, saying, “Why follow ye Abdallah, seeing that he breathes +not fire out of his mouth and nostrils?” And the people give ear unto +the words that come from this man’s lips, when they behold the flame +that cometh from his nose. And unless thou teachest me to do as he doth +I shall assuredly perish.’ + +“And I told Abdallah that it was better to perish for the truth’s sake +than to prolong life by lies and deceit. But he wept and lamented +exceeding sore, and in the end he prevailed with me; and I taught him +to breathe flame and smoke out of a hollow nut filled with combustible +powder. And I took a certain substance called soap, but little known in +this country, and anointed his feet therewith. And when he and the +sorcerer met, both breathing flame, the people knew not which to +follow; but when Abdallah walked over nine hot ploughshares, and the +sorcerer could not touch one of them, they beat his brains out, and +became Abdallah’s disciples. + +“A long time afterward Abdallah came to me again, this time with a +joyful, and yet with somewhat of a troubled look, carrying a camel-hair +blanket, which he undid, and lo! it was full of bones. + +“‘O father,’ he said, ‘I bring thee happy tidings. We have found the +bones of the camel of the prophet Ad, upon which his revelation was +engraved by him.’ + +“‘If this be so,’ said I, ‘thou art acquainted with the precepts of the +prophet, and hast no need of mine.’ + +“‘Nay, but father,’ said he, ‘although the revelation was without +question originally engraved by the prophet on these very bones, it +hath come to pass by the injury of time that not one letter of his +writing can be distinguished. I have therefore come to ask thee to +write it over again.’ + +“‘What!’ I exclaimed, ‘I forge a revelation in the name of the prophet +Ad! Get thee behind me!’ + +“‘Thou knowest, father,’ he rejoined, ‘that if we had the original +words of the prophet Ad here they would profit us nought, as by reason +of their antiquity none would understand them. Seeing therefore that I +myself cannot write, it is meet that thou shouldst set down in his name +those things which he would have desired to deliver had he been now +among us; but if thou wilt not, I shall ask Brother Gregory.’ + +“And when I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and +impostor my spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad +myself. And I was heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable +precepts, and more especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a +certain inclination thereunto in my disciple. + +“After many days he came again, and this time he was in violent terror +and agitation, and hair was wanting to the lower part of his +countenance. + +“‘O Abdallah,’ I inquired, ‘where is thy beard?’ + +“‘In the hands of my ninth wife,’ said he. + +“‘Apostate!’ I exclaimed, ‘hast thou dared to espouse more wives than +one? Rememberest thou not what is written in the Book of the prophet +Ad?’ + +“‘O father,’ he said, ‘the revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so +exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath +been supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of +Gregory, as I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my +dictation, an accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O +Sergius. In this gloss it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth +part of the soul of man, the prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now +call ourselves) to take but one wife, doth instruct us to take nine; to +espouse a tenth would, I grant, be damnable. It ensues, therefore, that +having become enamoured of a most charming young virgin, I am +constrained to repudiate one of the wives whom I have taken already. To +this, each thinking that it may be her turn speedily, if not now, they +will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me as thou seest, and the +dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of peace, compared to my +seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to disclose to the people +the fact, of which they have unhappily become aware, that the +revelation of the blessed Ad is not written upon the bones of a camel +at all, but of a cow, and will therefore be accounted spurious, +inasmuch as the prophet is not recorded to have ridden upon this +quadruped. And seeing that thou didst inscribe the characters, O +father, I cannot but fear that the fury of the people will extend unto +thee, and that thou wilt be even in danger of thy life from them.’ + +“This argument of Abdallah’s had much weight with me, and I the more +readily consented to his request as he did not on this occasion require +any imposture at my hands, but merely the restitution of his domestic +peace. And I went with him to his wives, and discoursed with them, and +they agreed to abide by my sentence. And, willing to please him, I +directed that he should marry the beautiful virgin, and put away one of +his wives who was old and ugly, and endowed with the dispositions of +Sheitan. + +“‘O father,’ said Abdallah, ‘thou hast brought me from death unto life! +And thou, Zarah,’ he continued, ‘wilt lose nought, but gain +exceedingly, in becoming the spouse of the wise and virtuous Sergius.’ + +“‘I marry Zarah!’ I exclaimed, ‘I! a monk!’ + +“‘Surely,’ said he, ‘thou would’st not take away her husband without +giving her another in his stead?’ + +“‘If he does I will throttle him,’ cried Zarah. + +“And I wept sore, and made great intercession. And it was agreed that +there should be a delay of forty days, in which space if any one else +would marry Zarah, I should be free of her. And I promised all my +substance to any one who would do this, and no one was found. And she +was offered to thirteen criminals doomed to suffer death, and they all +chose death. And at the last I was constrained to marry her. And truly +I have now the comfort of thinking that if I have offended by +encouraging Abdallah’s deceits, or otherwise, the debt is paid, and +Eternal Justice hath now nothing against me; for verily I was an inmate +of Gehenna until it came to pass that she was herself translated +thither. And respecting the manner of her translation, inquire not thou +too curiously. It was doubtless a token of the displeasure of Heaven at +her enormities that the water of the well of Kefayat, which had been +known as the Diamond of the Desert, became about this time undrinkable, +and pernicious to man and beast. + +“As I sat in my dwelling administering to the estate of my deceased +wife, which consisted principally of wines and strong liquors, Abdallah +again appeared before me. + +“‘Hast thou come,’ said I, ‘to solicit me to abet thee in any new +imposture? Know, once for all, that I will not.’ + +“‘On the contrary,’ said he, ‘I am come to set thee at ease by proving +to thee that I shall not again require thy assistance. Follow me.’ + +“And I followed him to a great plain, where was a host of armed +horsemen and footmen, more than I could number. And they bore banners +on which the name of Abdallah was embroidered in letters of gold. And +in the midst was an ark of gold, with the bones of Ad’s camel, or cow. +And by this was a great pile of the heads of men, and warriors were +continually casting more and more upon the heap. + +“‘How many?’ asked Abdallah. + +“‘Twelve thousand, O Apostle of God,’ answered they, ‘but there are +more to come.’ + +“‘Thou monster!’ said I to Abdallah. + +“‘Nay, father,’ said he, ‘there will not be more than sixteen thousand +in all, and these men were unbelievers. Moreover we have spared such of +their women as were young and handsome, and have taken them for our +concubines, as is ordained in the eleventh supplement to the Book of +Ad, just promulgated by my authority. But come, I have other things to +manifest unto thee.’ + +“And he led me where a stake was driven into the earth, and a man was +chained unto it, and fuel was heaped all around him, and many stood by +with lighted torches in their hands. + +“‘O Abdallah,’ I exclaimed, ‘wherefore this atrocity?’ + +“‘This man,’ he replied, ‘is a blasphemer, who hath said that the Book +of Ad is written on the bones of a cow.’ + +“‘But it is written on the bones of a cow! ‘I cried. + +“‘Even so,’ said he, ‘and therefore is his heresy the more damnable, +and his punishment the more exemplary. Had it been indeed written on +the bones of a camel, he might have affirmed what pleased him.’ + +“And I shook off the dust from my feet, and hastened to my dwelling. +The rest of Abdallah’s acts thou knowest, and how he fell warring with +the Carmathians. And now I ask thee, art thou yet minded to go forth as +a missionary of the truth?” + +“O Sergius,” said the young man, “I perceive that the temptations are +greater, and the difficulties far surpassing what I had thought. Yet +will I go, and I trust by Heaven’s grace not to fail utterly.” + +“Then go,” said Sergius, “and Heaven’s blessing go with thee! Come back +in ten years, should I be living, and if thou canst declare that thou +hast forged no scriptures, and worked no miracles, and persecuted no +unbelievers, and flattered no potentate, and bribed no one with the +promise of aught in heaven or earth, I will give thee the philosopher’s +stone.” + + + + +ANANDA THE MIRACLE WORKER + + +The holy Buddha, Sakhya Muni, on dispatching his apostles to proclaim +his religion throughout the peninsula of India, failed not to provide +them with salutary precepts for their guidance. He exhorted them to +meekness, to compassion, to abstemiousness, to zeal in the promulgation +of his doctrine, and added an injunction never before or since +prescribed by the founder of any religion—namely, on no account to +perform any miracle. + +It is further related, that whereas the apostles experienced +considerable difficulty in complying with the other instructions of +their master, and sometimes actually failed therein, the prohibition to +work miracles was never once transgressed by any of them, save only the +pious Ananda, the history of whose first year’s apostolate is recorded +as follows. + +Ananda repaired to the kingdom of Magadha, and instructed the +inhabitants diligently in the law of Buddha. His doctrine being +acceptable, and his speech persuasive, the people hearkened to him +willingly, and began to forsake the Brahmins whom they had previously +revered as spiritual guides. Perceiving this, Ananda became elated in +spirit, and one day he exclaimed: + +“How blessed is the apostle who propagates truth by the efficacy of +reason and virtuous example, combined with eloquence, rather than error +by imposture and devil-mongering, like those miserable Brahmins!” + +As he uttered this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was +diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from +him, insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first +mocked, then hooted, and finally pelted him. + +When matters had reached this pass, Ananda lifted his eyes and +discerned a number of Brahmins of the lower sort, busy about a boy who +lay in a fit upon the ground. They had long been applying exorcisms and +other approved methods with scant success, when the most sagacious +among them suggested: + +“Let us render the body of this patient an uncomfortable residence for +the demon; peradventure he will then cease to abide therein.” + +They were accordingly engaged in branding the sufferer with hot irons, +filling his nostrils with smoke, and otherwise to the best of their +ability disquieting the intrusive devil. Ananda’s first thought was, +“The lad is in a fit;” the second, “It were a pious deed to deliver him +from his tormentors;” the third, “By good management this may extricate +me from my present uncomfortable predicament, and redound to the glory +of the most holy Buddha.” + +Yielding to this temptation, he strode forward, chased away the +Brahmins with an air of authority, and, uplifting his countenance to +heaven, recited the appellations of seven devils. No effect ensuing, he +repeated seven more, and so continued until, the fit having passed off +in the course of nature, the patient’s paroxysms ceased, he opened his +eyes, and Ananda restored him to his relatives. But the people cried +loudly, “A miracle! a miracle!” and when Ananda resumed his +instructions, they gave heed to him, and numbers embraced the religion +of Buddha. Whereupon Ananda exulted, and applauded himself for his +dexterity and presence of mind, and said to himself: + +“Surely the end sanctifies the means,” + +As he propounded this heresy, the eminence of his merits was reduced to +the dimensions of a mole-hill, and he ceased to be of account in the +eyes of any of the saints, save only of Buddha, whose compassion is +inexhaustible. + +The fame of his achievement, nevertheless, was bruited about the whole +country, and soon reached the ears of the king, who sent for him, and +inquired if he had actually expelled the demon. + +Ananda replied in the affirmative. + +“I am indeed rejoiced,” returned the king, “as thou now wilt without +doubt proceed to heal _my_ son, who has lain in a trance for +twenty-nine days.” + +“Alas! dread sovereign,” modestly returned Ananda, “how should the +merits which barely suffice to effect the cure of a miserable Pariah +avail to restore the offspring of an Elephant among Kings?” + +“By what process are these merits acquired?” demanded the monarch. + +“By the exercise of penance,” responded Ananda, “in virtue of which the +austere devotee quells the winds, allays the waters, expostulates +convincingly with tigers, carries the moon in his sleeve, and otherwise +performs all acts and deeds appropriate to the character of a +peripatetic thaumaturgist.” + +“This being so,” answered the king, “thy inability to heal my son +manifestly arises from defect of merit, and defect of merit from defect +of penance. I will therefore consign thee to the charge of my Brahmins, +that they may aid thee to fill up the measure of that which is +lacking.” + +Ananda vainly strove to explain that the austerities to which he had +referred were entirely of a spiritual and contemplative character. The +Brahmins, enchanted to get a heretic into their clutches, immediately +seized upon him, and conveyed him to one of their temples. They +stripped him, and perceived with astonishment that not one single weal +or scar was visible anywhere on his person. “Horror!” they exclaimed; +“here is a man who expects to go to heaven in a whole skin!” To obviate +this breach of etiquette, they laid him upon his face, and flagellated +him until the obnoxious soundness of cuticle was entirely removed. They +then departed, promising to return next day and operate in a +corresponding manner upon the anterior part of his person, after which, +they jeeringly assured him, his merits would be in no respect less than +those of the saintly Bhagiratha, or of the regal Viswamitra himself. + +Ananda lay half dead upon the floor of the temple, when the sanctuary +was illuminated by the apparition of a resplendent Glendoveer, who thus +addressed him: + +“Well, backsliding disciple, art thou yet convinced of thy folly?” + +Ananda relished neither the imputation on his orthodoxy nor that on his +wisdom. He replied, notwithstanding, with all meekness: + +“Heaven forbid that I should repine at any variety of martyrdom that +tends to the propagation of my master’s faith.” + +“Wilt thou then first be healed, and moreover become the instrument of +converting the entire realm of Magadha?” + +“How shall this be accomplished?” demanded Ananda. + +“By perseverance in the path of deceit and disobedience,” returned the +Glendoveer. + +Ananda winced, but maintained silence in the expectation of more +explicit directions. + +“Know,” pursued the spirit, “that the king’s son will revive from his +trance at the expiration of the thirtieth day, which takes place at +noon to-morrow. Thou hast but to proceed at the fitting period to the +couch whereon he is deposited, and, placing thy hand upon his heart, to +command him to rise forthwith. His recovery will be ascribed to thy +supernatural powers, and the establishment of Buddha’s religion will +result. Before this it will be needful that I should perform an actual +cure upon thy back, which is within the compass of my capacity. I only +request thee to take notice, that thou wilt on this occasion be +transgressing the precepts of thy master with thine eyes open. It is +also meet to apprise thee that thy temporary extrication from thy +present difficulties will only involve thee in others still more +formidable.” + +“An incorporeal Glendoveer is no judge of the feelings of a flayed +apostle,” thought Ananda. “Heal me,” he replied, “if thou canst, and +reserve thy admonitions for a more convenient opportunity.” + +“So be it,” returned the Glendoveer; and as he extended his hand over +Ananda, the latter’s back was clothed anew with skin, and his previous +smart simultaneously allayed. The Glendoveer vanished at the same +moment, saying, “When thou hast need of me, pronounce but the +incantation, _Gnooh Imdap Inam Mua_, [*] and I will immediately be by +thy side.” + +*) The mystic formula of the Buddhists, read backwards. + + +The anger and amazement of the Brahmins may be conceived when, on +returning equipped with fresh implements of flagellation, they +discovered the salubrious condition of their victim. Their scourges +would probably have undergone conversion into halters, had they not +been accompanied by a royal officer, who took the really triumphant +martyr under his protection, and carried him off to the palace. He was +speedily conducted to the young prince’s couch, whither a vast crowd +attended him. The hour of noon not having yet arrived, Ananda +discreetly protracted the time by a seasonable discourse on the +impossibility of miracles, those only excepted which should be wrought +by the professors of the faith of Buddha. He then descended from his +pulpit, and precisely as the sun attained the zenith laid his hand upon +the bosom of the young prince, who instantly revived, and completed a +sentence touching the game of dice which had been interrupted by his +catalepsy. + +The people shouted, the courtiers went into ecstasies, the countenances +of the Brahmins assumed an exceedingly sheepish expression. Even the +king seemed impressed, and craved to be more particularly instructed in +the law of Buddha. In complying with this request, Ananda, who had made +marvellous progress in worldly wisdom during the last twenty-four +hours, deemed it needless to dilate on the cardinal doctrines of his +master, the misery of existence, the need of redemption, the path to +felicity, the prohibition to shed blood. He simply stated that the +priests of Buddha were bound to perpetual poverty, and that under the +new dispensation all ecclesiastical property would accrue to the +temporal authorities. + +“By the holy cow!” exclaimed the monarch, “this is something like a +religion!” + +The words were scarcely out of the royal lips ere the courtiers +professed themselves converts. The multitude followed their example. +The Brahminical church was promptly disestablished and disendowed, and +more injustice was committed in the name of the new and purified +religion in one day than the old corrupt one had occasioned in a +hundred years. + +Ananda had the satisfaction of feeling able to forgive his adversaries, +and of valuing himself accordingly; and to complete his felicity, he +was received in the palace, and entrusted with the education of the +king’s son, which he strove to conduct agreeably to the precepts of +Buddha. This was a task of some delicacy, as it involved interference +with the princely youth’s favourite amusement, which had previously +consisted in torturing small reptiles. + +After a short interval Ananda was again summoned to the monarch’s +presence. He found his majesty in the company of two most ferocious +ruffians, one of whom bore a huge axe, and the other an enormous pair +of pincers. + +“My chief executioner and my chief tormentor,” said the king. + +Ananda expressed his gratification at becoming acquainted with such +exalted functionaries. + +“Thou must know, most holy man,” resumed the king, “that need has again +arisen for the exercise of fortitude and self-denial on thy part. A +powerful enemy has invaded my dominions, and has impiously presumed to +discomfit my troops. Well might I feel dismayed, were it not for the +consolations of religion; but my trust is in thee, O spiritual father! +It is urgent that thou shouldst accumulate the largest amount of merit +with the least delay possible. I am unable to invoke the ministrations +of thy old friends the Brahmins to this end, they being, as thou +knowest, in disgrace, but I have summoned these trusty and experienced +counsellors in their room. I find them not wholly in accord. My chief +tormentor, being a man of mild temper and humane disposition, considers +that it might at first suffice to employ gentle measures, such, for +example, as suspending thee head downwards in the smoke of a wood fire, +and filling thy nostrils with red pepper. My chief executioner, taking, +peradventure, a too professional view of the subject, deems it best to +resort at once to crucifixion or impalement. I would gladly know thy +thoughts on the matter.” + +Ananda expressed, as well as his terror would suffer him, his entire +disapproval of both the courses recommended by the royal advisers. + +“Well,” said the king, with an air of resignation, “if we cannot agree +upon either, it follows that we must try both. We will meet for that +purpose to-morrow morning at the second hour. Go in peace!” + +Ananda went, but not in peace. His alarm would have well-nigh deprived +him of his faculties if he had not remembered the promise made him by +his former deliverer. On reaching a secluded spot he pronounced the +mystic formula, and immediately became aware of the presence, not of a +radiant Glendoveer, but of a holy man, whose head was strewn with +ashes, and his body anointed with cow-dung. + +“Thy occasion,” said the Fakir, “brooks no delay. Thou must immediately +accompany me, and assume the garb of a Jogi.” + +Ananda rebelled excessively in his heart, for he had imbibed from the +mild and sage Buddha a befitting contempt for these grotesque and +cadaverous fanatics. The emergency, however, left him no resource, and +he followed his guide to a charnel house, which the latter had selected +as his domicile. There, with many lamentations over the smoothness of +his hair and the brevity of his nails, the Jogi besprinkled and +besmeared Ananda agreeably to his own pattern, and scored him with +chalk and ochre until the peaceful apostle of the gentlest of creeds +resembled a Bengal tiger. He then hung a chaplet of infants’ skulls +about his neck, placed the skull of a malefactor in one of his hands +and the thigh-bone of a necromancer in the other, and at nightfall +conducted him into the adjacent cemetery, where, seating him on the +ashes of a recent funeral pile, he bade him drum upon the skull with +the thigh-bone, and repeat after himself the incantations which he +began to scream out towards the western part of the firmament. These +charms were apparently possessed of singular efficacy, for scarcely +were they commenced ere a hideous tempest arose, rain descended in +torrents, phosphoric flashes darted across the sky, wolves and hyænas +thronged howling from their dens, and gigantic goblins, arising from +the earth, extended their fleshless arms towards Ananda, and strove to +drag him from his seat. Urged by frantic terror, and the example and +exhortations of his companion, he battered, banged, and vociferated, +until on the very verge of exhaustion; when, as if by enchantment, the +tempest ceased, the spectres disappeared, and joyous shouts and a burst +of music announced the occurrence of something auspicious in the +adjoining city. + +“The hostile king is dead,” said the Jogi; “and his army has dispersed. +This will be attributed to thy incantations. They are coming in quest +of thee even now. Farewell until thou again hast need of me.” + +The Jogi disappeared, the tramp of a procession became audible, and +soon torches glared feebly through the damp, cheerless dawn. The +monarch descended from his state elephant, and, prostrating himself +before Ananda, exclaimed: + +“Inestimable man! why didst thou not disclose that thou wert a Jogi? +Never more shall I feel the least apprehension of any of my enemies, so +long as thou continuest an inmate of this cemetery.” + +A family of jackals were unceremoniously dislodged from a disused +sepulchre, which was allotted to Ananda for his future residence. The +king permitted no alteration in his costume, and took care that the +food doled out to him should have no tendency to impair his sanctity, +which speedily gave promise of attaining a very high pitch. His hair +had already become as matted and his nails as long as the Jogi could +have desired, when he received a visit from another royal messenger. +The Rajah, so ran the regal missive, had been suddenly and mysteriously +attacked by a dangerous malady, but confidently anticipated relief from +Ananda’s merits and incantations. + +Ananda resumed his thigh-bone and his skull, and ruefully began to +thump the latter with the former, in dismal expectation of the things +that were to come. But the spell seemed to have lost its potency. +Nothing more unearthly than a bat presented itself, and Ananda was +beginning to think that he might as well desist when his reflections +were diverted by the apparition of a tall and grave personage, wearing +a sad-coloured robe, and carrying a long wand, who stood by his side as +suddenly as though just risen from the earth. + +“The caldron is ready,” said the stranger. + +“What caldron?” demanded Ananda. + +“That wherein thou art about to be immersed.” + +“I immersed in a caldron! wherefore?” + +“Thy spells,” returned his interlocutor, “having hitherto failed to +afford his majesty the slightest relief, and his experience of their +efficacy on a former occasion forbidding him to suppose that they can +be inoperative, he is naturally led to ascribe to their pernicious +influence that aggravation of pain of which he has for some time past +unfortunately been sensible. I have confirmed him in this conjecture, +esteeming it for the interest of science that his anger should fall +upon an impudent impostor like thee rather than on a discreet and +learned physician like myself. He has consequently directed the +principal caldron to be kept boiling all night, intending to immerse +thee therein at daybreak, unless he should in the meantime derive some +benefit from thy conjurations.” + +“Heavens!” exclaimed Ananda, “whither shall I fly?” + +“Nowhere beyond this cemetery,” returned the physician, “inasmuch as it +is entirely surrounded by the royal forces.” + +“Wherein, then,” demanded the agonized apostle, “doth the path of +safety lie?” + +“In this phial,” answered the physician. “It contains a subtle poison. +Demand to be led before the king. Affirm that thou hast received a +sovereign medicine from the hands of benignant spirits. He will drink +it and perish, and thou wilt be richly rewarded by his successor.” + +“Ayaunt, tempter!” cried Ananda, hurling the phial indignantly away. “I +defy thee! and will have recourse to my old deliverer—_Gnooh Imdap Inam +Mua!”_ + +But the charm appeared to fail of its effect. No figure was visible to +his gaze, save that of the physician, who seemed to regard him with an +expression of pity as he gathered up his robes and melted rather than +glided into the encompassing darkness. + +Ananda remained, contending with himself. Countless times was he on the +point of calling after the physician and imploring him to return with a +potion of like properties to the one rejected, but something seemed +always to rise in his throat and impede his utterance, until, worn out +by agitation, he fell asleep and dreamed this dream. + +He thought he stood at the vast and gloomy entrance of Patala. [*] The +lugubrious spot wore a holiday appearance; everything seemed to denote +a diabolical gala. Swarms of demons of all shapes and sizes beset the +portal, contemplating what appeared to be preparations for an +illumination. Strings of coloured lamps were in course of disposition +in wreaths and festoons by legions of frolicsome imps, chattering, +laughing, and swinging by their tails like so many monkeys. The +operation was directed from below by superior fiends of great apparent +gravity and respectability. These bore wands of office, tipped with +yellow flames, wherewith they singed the tails of the imps when such +discipline appeared to them to be requisite. Ananda could not refrain +from asking the reason of these festive preparations. + +*) The Hindoo Pandemonium. + + +“They are in honour,” responded the demon interrogated, “of the pious +Ananda, one of the apostles of the Lord Buddha, whose advent is hourly +expected among us with much eagerness and satisfaction.” + +The horrified Ananda with much difficulty mustered resolution to +inquire on what account the apostle in question was necessitated to +take up his abode in the infernal regions. + +“On account of poisoning,” returned the fiend laconically. + +Ananda was about to seek further explanations, when his attention was +arrested by a violent altercation between two of the supervising +demons. + +“Kammuragha, evidently,” croaked one. + +“Damburanana, of course,” snarled the other. + +“May I,” inquired Ananda of the fiend he had before addressed, “presume +to ask the signification of Kammuragha and Damburanana?” + +“They are two hells,” replied the demon. “In Kammuragha the occupant is +plunged into melted pitch and fed with melted lead. In Damburanana he +is plunged into melted lead and fed with melted pitch. My colleagues +are debating which is the more appropriate to the demerits of our guest +Ananda.” + +Ere Ananda had had time to digest this announcement a youthful imp +descended from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, +presented himself before the disputants. + +“Venerable demons,” interposed he, “might my insignificance venture to +suggest that we cannot well testify too much honour for our visitor +Ananda, seeing that he is the only apostle of Buddha with whose company +we are likely ever to be indulged? Wherefore I would propose that +neither Kammuragha nor Damburanana be assigned for his residence, but +that the amenities of all the two hundred and forty-four thousand hells +be combined in a new one, constructed especially for his reception.” + +The imp having thus spoken, the senior demons were amazed at his +precocity, and performed a _pradakshina_, exclaiming, “Truly thou art a +highly superior young devil!” They then departed to prepare the new +infernal chamber, agreeably to his recipe. + +Ananda awoke, shuddering with terror. + +“Why,” he exclaimed, “why was I ever an apostle? O Buddha! Buddha! how +hard are the paths of saintliness! How prone to error are the +well-meaning! How huge is the absurdity of spiritual pride!” + +“Thou hast discovered that, my son?” said a gentle voice in his +vicinity. + +He turned and beheld the divine Buddha, radiant with a mild and +benignant light. A cloud seemed rolled away from his vision, and he +recognised in his master the Glendoveer, the Jogi, and the Physician. + +“O holy teacher!” exclaimed he in extreme perturbation, “whither shall +I turn? My sin forbids me to approach thee.” + +“Not on account of thy sin art thou forbidden, my son,” returned +Buddha, “but on account of the ridiculous and unsavoury plight to which +thy knavery and disobedience have reduced thee. I have now appeared to +remind thee that this day all my apostles meet on Mount Vindhya to +render an account of their mission, and to inquire whether I am to +deliver thine in thy stead, or whether thou art minded to proclaim it +thyself.” + +“I will render it with my own lips,” resolutely exclaimed Ananda. “It +is meet that I should bear the humiliation of acknowledging my folly.” + +“Thou hast said well, my son,” replied Buddha, “and in return I will +permit thee to discard the attire, if such it may be termed, of a Jogi, +and to appear in our assembly wearing the yellow robe as beseems my +disciple. Nay, I will even infringe my own rule on thy behalf, and +perform a not inconsiderable miracle by immediately transporting thee +to the summit of Vindhya, where the faithful are already beginning to +assemble. Thou wouldst otherwise incur much risk of being torn to +pieces by the multitude, who, as the shouts now approaching may +instruct thee, are beginning to extirpate my religion at the +instigation of the new king, thy hopeful pupil. The old king is dead, +poisoned by the Brahmins.” + +“O master! master!” exclaimed Ananda, weeping bitterly, “and is all the +work undone, and all by my fault and folly?” + +“That which is built on fraud and imposture can by no means endure,” +returned Buddha, “be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou +shalt proclaim my doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast +this time but a sorry account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou +mayest truly declare that thou hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if +not in the spirit, since none can assert that thou hast ever wrought +any miracle.” + + + + +THE CITY OF PHILOSOPHERS + +I + +Nature is manifold, not infinite, though the extent of the resources of +which she can dispose almost enables her to pass for such. Her cards +are so multitudinous that the pairs are easily shuffled into ages so +far asunder that their resemblance escapes remark. But sometimes her +mischievous daughter Fortune manages to thrust these duplicates into +such conspicuous places that their similarity cannot pass unobserved, +and Nature is caught plagiarising from herself. She is thus detected +dealing a king—or knave—a second time in the person of a king who has +already fallen from her pack as an emperor. Brilliant, careless, +selfish, yet good-natured _vauriens_, the Roman Emperor Gallienus and +our Charles the Second excelled in every art save the art of reigning, +and might have excelled in that also if they would have taken the +trouble. The circumstances of their reigns were in many respects as +similar as their characters. Both were the sons of grave and strict +fathers, each of whom had met with terrible misfortunes: one deprived +of his liberty by his enemies, the other of his head by his own +subjects. Each of the sons had been grievously vexed by rebels, but +Charles’s troubles from this quarter had mostly ended where those of +Gallienus began. Each saw his dominions ravaged by pestilence in a +manner beyond all former experience. The Goths destroyed the temple of +the Ephesian Diana, and the Dutch burned the English fleet at Chatham. +Charles shut up the Exchequer, and Gallienus debased the coinage. +Charles accepted a pension from Louis XIV., and Gallienus devolved the +burden of his Eastern provinces on a Syrian Emir. Their tastes and +pursuits were as similar as their histories. Charles excelled as a wit +and a critic; Gallienus as a poet and a gastronomer. Charles was +curious about chemistry, and founded the Royal Society. In the third +century the conception of the systematic investigation of nature did +not exist. Gallienus, therefore, could not patronise exact science; and +the great literary light of the age, Longinus, irradiated the court of +Palmyra. But the Emperor bestowed his favour in ample measure on the +chief contemporary philosopher, Plotinus, who strove to unite the +characters of Plato and Pythagoras, of sage and seer. Like Schelling in +time to come, he maintained the necessity of a special organ for the +apprehension of philosophy, without perceiving that he thereby +proclaimed philosophy bankrupt, and placed himself on the level of the +Oriental hierophants, with whose sublime quackeries the modest sage +could not hope to contend. So extreme was his humility, that he would +not claim to have been consciously united to the Divinity more than +four times in his life; without condemning magic and thaumaturgy, he +left their practice to more adventurous spirits, and contented himself +with the occasional visits of a familiar demon in the shape of a +serpent. He experienced, however, frequent visitations of trance or +ecstasy, sometimes lasting for a long period; and it may have been in +one of these that he was inspired by the idea of asking the Emperor for +a decayed city in Campania, there to establish a philosophic +commonwealth as nearly upon the model of Plato’s Republic as the +degeneracy of the times would allow. + +“I cannot,” said Gallienus, when the project had been explained to him, +“object in principle to aught so festive and jocose. The age is turned +upside down; its comedians are lamentable, and its sages ludicrous. It +must moreover, I apprehend, be sated with the earthquakes, famines, +pestilences, and barbarian invasions with which it hath been +exclusively regaled for so long, and must crave something enlivening, +of the nature of thy proposition. But whether, when we arrive at the +consideration of ways and means, I shall find my interview with my +treasurer enlivening, is gravely to be questioned. I have heard +homilies enough on my prodigality, which merely means that I prefer +spending my treasures on myself to saving them for my successor, whose +title will probably have been acquired by cutting my throat.” + +“I know,” said Plotinus, “that the expenses of administering an empire +must necessarily be prodigious. I am aware that the principal generals +are only kept to their allegiance by enormous bribes. I well understand +that the Empress must have pearls, and that the Roman populace must +have panthers; and that, since Egypt has revolted, the hippopotamus is +worth his weight in gold. I am further aware that the proposed colossal +statue of your Majesty in the same metal, including a staircase, with +room in the head for a child, like another Pallas in the brain of Zeus, +must alone involve very considerable outlay. But I am encouraged by +your Majesty’s wise and statesmanlike measure of debasing the currency; +since, money having become devoid of value, there can be no difficulty +in devoting any amount of it to any purpose required.” + +“Plotinus,” said Gallienus, “in this age the devil is taking the +hindmost, and we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new +earthquake in Bithynia, and three days’ darkness, also of outbreaks of +pestilence, and incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as +too disagreeable to mention. At this moment some revolted legion is +probably forcing the purple upon some reluctant general; and the +Persian king, a great equestrian, is doubtless mounting his horse by +the aid of my father’s back. If I had been an old Roman, I should by +this time have avenged my father, but I am a man of my age. Take the +money for thy city, and see that it yields me some amusement at any +rate. I assume, of course, that thou wilt exercise severe economy, and +that cresses and spring water will be the diet of thy philosophers. +Farewell, I go to Gaul to encounter Postumus. Willingly would I leave +him in peace in Gaul if he would leave me in peace in Italy; but I +foresee that if I do not attack him there he will attack me here. As if +the Empire were not large enough for us all! What an ass the fellow +must be!” + +And so Gallienus changed his silk for steel, and departed for his +Gallic campaign, where he bore himself more stoutly than his light talk +would have led those who judged him by it to expect. Plotinus, provided +with an Imperial rescript, undertook the regulation of his +philosophical commonwealth in Campania, where a brief experience of +architects and sophists threw him into an ecstasy, not of joy, which +endured an unusually long time. + +II + +On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus’s first sensation was one +of bodily hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his +philosophical Republic. In both respects it promised well to perceive +that his chamber was occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry, +though he was less gratified to observe his disciple busied, instead of +with the scrolls of the sages, with an enormous roll of accounts, which +appeared to be occasioning him much perplexity. + +“Porphyry!” cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his +couch in a moment. + +We pass over the mutual joy, the greetings, the administration of +restoratives and creature comforts, the eager interrogations of +Porphyry respecting the things his master had heard and seen in his +trance, which proved to be unspeakable. + +“And now,” said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man +of business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special +request as a trustee, “and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it +possible that the accounts connected with the installation of a few +abstemious lovers of wisdom can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk? +But indeed, why few? Peradventure all the philosophers of the earth +have flocked to my city.” + +“It has, indeed,” said Porphyry evasively, “been found necessary to +incur certain expenses not originally foreseen.” + +“For a library, perhaps?” inquired Plotinus. “I remember thinking, just +before my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them +autographic, might require some special housing.” + +“I rejoice to state,” rejoined Porphyry, “that it is not these volumes +that have involved us in our present difficulties with the +superintendent of the Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing +that they are now impignorated with him.” + +“Plato’s manuscripts pawned!” exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. “Wherefore?” + +“As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects +deemed of more importance by the majority of the philosophers.” + +“For example?” + +“Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre.” + +“Bath! Amphitheatre!” gasped Plotinus. + +“O dear master,” remonstrated Porphyry, “thou didst not deem that +philosophers could be induced to settle in a spot devoid of these +necessaries? Not a single one would have stayed if I had not yielded to +their demands, which, as regarded the bath, involved the addition of +exedrae and of a sphaeristerium.” + +“And what can they want with an amphitheatre?” groaned Plotinus. + +“They _say_ it is for lectures,” replied Porphyry; + +“I trust there is no truth in the rumour that the head of the Stoics is +three parts owner of a lion of singular ferocity.” + +“I must see to this as soon as I can get about,” said Plotinus, turning +to the accounts. “What’s this? To couch and litter for head of +Peripatetic school!” + +“Who is so enormously fat,” explained Porphyry, “that these +conveniences are really indispensable to him. The Peripatetic school is +positively at a standstill.” + +“And no great matter,” said Plotinus; “its master Aristotle was at best +a rationalist, without perception of the supersensual. What’s this? To +Maximus, for the invocation of demons.” + +“That,” said Porphyry, “is our own Platonic dirty linen, and I heartily +wish we were washing it elsewhere. Thou must know, dear master, that +during thy trance the theurgic movement has attained a singular +development, and that thou art regarded with disdain by thy younger +disciples as one wholly behind the age, unacquainted with the higher +magic, and who can produce no other outward and visible token of the +Divine favour than the occasional companionship of a serpent.” + +“I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken,” +replied Plotinus, “provided that the adept shall have purified himself +by a fast of forty months.” + +“It may be from neglect of this precaution,” said Porphyry, “that our +Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and +Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these +good spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to +convey than that virtue differs from vice, and that one’s grandmother +is a fitting object of reverence.” + +“I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean +scoffers,” remarked Plotinus. + +“O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till +thou hast regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some +oracle.” + +“What meanest thou?” exclaimed Plotinus, “I insist upon knowing.” + +Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling +portly personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus +recognised Theocles, the chief of the Stoics. + +“I rejoice, Plotinus,” he began, “that thou hast at length emerged from +that condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might +well designate as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak +no word which can offend any man. Thou wilt now be able to reprehend +the malice or obtuseness of thy deputy, and to do me right in my +contention with these impure dogs.” + +“Which be they?” asked Plotinus. + +“Do I not sufficiently indicate the followers of Epicurus?” demanded +the Stoic. + +“O master,” explained Porphyry, “in allotting and fitting up apartments +designed for the respective sects of philosophers I naturally gave heed +to what I understood to be the principles of each. To the Epicureans, +as lovers of pleasure and luxury, I assigned the most commodious +quarters, furnished the same with soft cushions and costly hangings, +and provided a liberal table. I should have deemed it insulting to have +offered any of these things to the frugal followers of Zeno, and +nothing can surpass my astonishment at the manner in which the austere +Theocles has incessantly persecuted me for choice food and wine, +stately rooms and soft couches.” + +“O Plotinus,” replied Theocles, “let me make the grounds of my conduct +clear to thee. In the first place, the honour of my school is in my +keeping. What will the vulgar think when they see the sty of Epicurus +sumptuously adorned, and the porch of Zeno shabby and bare? Will they +not deem that the Epicureans are highly respected and the Stoics made +of little account? Furthermore, how can I and my disciples manifest our +contempt for gold, dainties, wine, fine linen, and all the other +instruments of luxury, unless we have them to despise? Shall we not +appear like foxes, vilipending the grapes that we cannot reach? Not so; +offer me delicacies that I may reject them, wine that I may pour it +into the kennel, Tyrian purple that I may trample upon it, gold that I +may fling it away; if it break an Epicurean’s head, so much the +better.” + +“Plotinus,” said Hermon, the chief of the Epicureans, who had meanwhile +entered the apartment, “let this hypocrite have what he wants, and send +him away. I and my followers are perfectly willing to remove at once +into the inferior apartments, and leave ours for his occupation with +all their furniture, and the reversion of our bill of fare. Thou +should’st know that the imputations of the vulgar against our sect are +the grossest calumnies. The Epicurean places happiness in tranquil +enjoyment, not in luxury or sensual pleasures. There is not a thing I +possess which I am not perfectly willing to resign, except the society +of my female disciple.” + +“Thy female disciple!” exclaimed the horrified Plotinus. “Thou art +worse than the Stoic!” + +“Plotinus,” said the Epicurean, “consider well ere, as is the manner of +Platonists, thou committest thyself to a proposition of a transparently +foolish nature. Thou desirest to gather all sorts of philosophers +around thee, but to what end, if they are restrained from manifesting +their characteristic tenets? Thou mightest as well seek to illustrate +the habits of animals by establishing a menagerie in which panthers +should eat grass, and antelopes be dieted on rabbits. An Epicurean +without his female companion, unless by his own choice, is no more an +Epicurean than a Cynic is a Cynic without his rags and his impudence. +Wilt thou take from me my Pannychis, an object pleasing to the eye, and +leave yonder fellow his tatters and his vermin?” + +The apartment had gradually filled with philosophers, and Hermon was +pointing to a follower of Diogenes whose robe so fully bespoke his +obedience to his master’s precepts that his skin seemed almost clean in +comparison. + +“Consider also,” continued the Epicurean, “that thou art thyself by no +means exempt from scandal.” + +“What does the man mean?” demanded Plotinus, turning to Porphyry. + +“Get them away,” whispered the disciple, “and I will tell thee.” + +Plotinus hastily conceded the point raised with reference to the +interesting Pannychis, and the philosophers went off to effect their +exchange of quarters. As soon as the room was clear, he repeated: + +“What _does_ the man mean?” + +“I suppose he is thinking of Leaena,” said Porphyry. + +“The most notorious character in Rome, who, finding her charms on the +wane, has lately betaken herself to philosophy?” + +“The same.” + +“What of her?” + +“She has followed thee here. She affects the greatest devotion to thee. +She vows that nothing shall make her budge until thou hast recovered +from thy ecstasy, and admitted her as thy disciple. She has rejected +numerous overtures from the philosopher Theocles; entirely for thy +sake, she affirms. She comes three times a day to inquire respecting +thy condition, and I fear it must be acknowledged that she has once or +twice managed to get into thy chamber.” + +“O ye immortal Gods!” groaned Plotinus. + +“Here she is!” exclaimed Porphyry, as a woman of masculine stature and +bearing, with the remains of beauty not unskilfully patched, forced an +entrance into the room. + +“Plotinus,” she exclaimed, “behold the most impassioned of thy +disciples. Let us celebrate the mystic nuptials of Wisdom and Beauty. +Let the claims of my sex to philosophic distinction be vindicated in my +person.” + +“The question of the admission of women to share the studies and +society of men,” rejoined Plotinus, “is one by no means exempt from +difficulty.” + +“How so? I deemed it had been determined long ago in favour of +Aspasia?” + +“Aspasia,” said Plotinus, “was a very exceptional woman.” + +“And am not I?” + +“I hope, that is, I conceive so,” said Plotinus. “But one may be an +exceptional woman without being an Aspasia.” + +“How so? Am I inferior to Aspasia in beauty?” + +“I should hope not,” said Plotinus ambiguously. + +“Or in the irregularity of my deportment?” + +“I should think not,” said Plotinus, with more confidence. + +“Then why does the Plato of our age hesitate to welcome his Diotima?” + +“Because,” said Plotinus, “you are not Diotima, and I am not Plato.” + +“I am sure I am as much like Diotima as you are like Plato,” retorted +the lady. “But let us come to our own time. Do I not hear that that +creature Pannychis has obtained the freedom of the philosophers’ city, +and the right to study therein?” + +“She takes private lessons from Hermon, who is responsible for her.” + +“The very thing!” exclaimed Leaena triumphantly. “I take private +lessons from thee, and thou art responsible for me. Venus! what’s +that?” + +The exclamation was prompted by the sudden appearance of an enormous +serpent, which, emerging from a chink in the wall, glided swiftly +towards the couch of Plotinus. He reached forward to greet it, uttering +a cry of pleasure. + +“My guardian, my tutelary dæmon,” he exclaimed, “visible manifestation +of Æsculapius! Then I am not forsaken by the immortal gods.” + +“Take away the monster,” cried Leaena, in violent agitation, “the nasty +thing! Plotinus, how can you? Oh, I shall faint! I shall die! Take it +away, I say. You must choose between it and me.” + +“Then, Madam,” said Plotinus, civilly but firmly, “I choose _it_.” + +“Thank Æsculapius we are rid of her,” he added, as Leaena vanished from +the apartment. + +“I wish I knew that,” said Porphyry. + +And indeed after no long time a note came up from Theocles, who was +sure that Plotinus would not refuse him that privilege of instructing a +female disciple which had been already, with such manifest advantage to +philosophical research, accorded to his colleague Hermon. No objection +could well be made, especially as Plotinus did not foresee how many +chambermaids, and pages, and cooks, and perfumers, and tiring women and +bath attendants would be required, ere Leaena could feel herself +moderately comfortable. How unlike the modest Pannychis! who wanted but +half a bed, which need not be stuffed with the down of hares or the +feathers of partridges, without which sleep refused to visit Leaena’s +eyelids. + +It was natural that Plotinus should appeal to Gallienus, now returned +from the Gallic expedition, but he could extract nothing save +mysterious intimations that the Emperor had his eye upon the +philosophers, and that they might find him among them when they least +expected it. Plotinus’s spirits drooped, and Porphyry was almost glad +when he again relapsed into an ecstasy. + +III + +When Plotinus’s eyes were at length opened, they fell not this time +upon the faithful Porphyry, but upon two youthful followers of Plato +who were beguiling the tedium of their vigil at his bedside by a game +of dice, which prevented their observing his resuscitation. After a +moment’s hesitation Plotinus resolved to lie quiet in the hopes of +hearing something that might indicate what influences were in the +ascendant in the philosophical republic. He had not long to wait. + +“Dice is dull work for long,” said one of the young men, indolently +throwing himself back, and letting his caster fall upon the floor. “To +think how much better one might be employed, but for having to watch +this old fool here! I’ve a great mind to call up a slave.” + +“All the slaves are sure to have gone to the show, unless any of them +should be Christians. Besides, Porphyry would hear you, he’s only in a +cat’s sleep,” returned his companion. + +“Well, I mean to say it’s a shame. All the town will be in the theatre +by this time.” + +“How many gladiators, said you?” + +“Forty pairs, the best show Campania has seen time out of mind.” + +“How has it all come about?” + +“Oh, news comes of the death of Postumus, killed by his own soldiers, +and this passes as a great victory for want of a better, ‘We must have +a day of thanksgiving,’ says Theocles. ‘Right,’ says Leaena, ‘I am +dying to see an exhibition of gladiators.’ Theocles demurs at first, +expecting to have to find the money—but Leaena tugs at his beard, and +he gives in. Just at the nick of time the right sort of fellow pops up +nobody knows whence, a lanista with hair like curling helichryse, as +Theocritus has it, and a small army of gladiators, whom, out of +devotion to the Emperor, he offers to exhibit for nothing. Who so +pleased as Theocles now? He takes the chair as archon with Leaena by +his side, and off goes every soul in the place, except Pannychis, who +cannot bear the sight of blood, and Porphyry, who is an outrageous +humanitarian, and us poor devils left in charge of this old dreamer.” + +“Couldn’t we leave him to mind himself? He isn’t likely to awake yet.” + +“Try him with your cloak-pin.” The student detached the implement in +question, which was about the size of a small stiletto. Feeling +uncertain what part of his person was to be the subject of experiment, +Plotinus judged it advisable to manifest his recovery in an +unmistakable fashion. + +“O dear Master, what joy!” cried both the students in a breath. +“Porphyry! Porphyry!” + +The trusty scholar appeared immediately, and under pretence of fetching +food, the two neophytes eloped to the amphitheatre. + +“What means all this, Porphyry?” demanded Plotinus sternly. “The City +of Philosophers polluted by human blood! The lovers of wisdom mingling +with the dregs of the rabble!” + +Porphyry’s account, which Plotinus could only extract by consenting to +eat while his disciple talked, corresponded in all essential +particulars with that of the two young men. + +“And I see not,” added he, “what we can do in the matter. This +abomination is supposed to be in honour of the Emperor’s victories. If +we interfere with it we shall be executed as rebels, supposing that we +are not first torn to pieces as rioters.” + +“Porphyry,” replied Plotinus, “I should esteem this disgrace to +philosophy a disgrace to myself if I did not my utmost to avert it. +Remain thou here, and perform my funeral rites if it be necessary.” + +But to this Porphyry would by no means consent, and the two +philosophers proceeded to the amphitheatre together. It was so crowded +that there was no room on the seats for another person. Theocles was +enthroned in the chair of honour, his beard manifesting evident traces +of the depilatories administered by Leaena, who nevertheless sat by his +side, her voluptuous face gloating over the anticipated banquet of +agony. The philosophic part of the spectators were ranged all around, +the remaining seats were occupied by a miscellaneous public. The master +of the gladiators, a man of distinguished appearance, whose yellow +locks gave him the aspect of a barbarian prince, stood in the arena +surrounded by his myrmidons. The entry of Plotinus and Porphyry +attracted his attention: he motioned to his followers, and in an +instant the philosophers were seized, bound, and gagged without the +excited assembly being in the least conscious of their presence. + +Two men stepped out into the arena, both fine and attractive figures. +The athletic limbs, the fair complexion, the curling yellow hair of one +proclaimed the Goth; he lightly swung his huge sword in his right hand, +and looked as if his sole arm would easily put to flight the crowd of +effeminate spectators. The other’s beauty was of another sort; young, +slender, pensive, spiritual, he looked like anything rather than a +gladiator, and held his downward pointed sword with a negligent grasp. + +“Guard thyself!” cried the Goth, placing himself in an attitude of +offence. + +“I spill not the blood of a fellow-creature,” answered the other, +casting his sword away from him. + +“Coward!” yelled well-nigh every voice in the amphitheatre. + +“No,” answered the youth with a grave smile, “Christian.” + +His shield and helmet followed his sword, he stood entirely defenceless +before his adversary. + +“Throw him to my lion,” cried Theocles. + +“Or thy lioness,” suggested Hermon. + +This allusion to Leaena provoked a burst of laughter. Suddenly the Goth +aimed a mighty blow at the head of the unresisting man. A shorn curl +fell to the ground, the consummate skill of the swordsman averted all +further contact between his blade and the Christian, who remained erect +and smiling, without having moved a muscle or an eyelash. + +“Master,” said the Goth, addressing the lanista, “I had rather fight +ten armed men than this unarmed one.” + +“Good,” returned his lord, with a gesture of approval. “Retire both of +you.” + +A roar of disapprobation broke out from the spectators, which seemed +not to produce the slightest effect on the lanista. + +“Turn out the next pair,” they cried. + +“I shall not,” said he. + +“Wherefore?” + +“Because I do not choose.” + +“Rogue! Cheat! Swindler! Cast him into prison! Throw him to the lion!” +Such epithets and recommendations rained from the spectators’ seats, +accompanied by a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant +the yellow hair and common dress lay on the ground, and those who knew +him not by the features could by the Imperial ornaments recognise the +Emperor Gallienus. With no less celerity his followers, the Goth and +the Christian excepted, disencumbered themselves of their exterior +vesture, and stood forward in the character of Roman soldiers. + +“Friends,” cried Gallienus, turning to the plebeian multitude, “I am +not about to balk you of your sport.” + +At a sign from him the legionaries ascended to the seats allotted to +the philosophic portion of the audience, and a torrent of wisdom in +their persons, including that of Leaena, flung forth with the energy of +a catapult, descended abruptly and violently to the earth. They were +instantly seized and dragged into an erect attitude by the remainder of +the soldiery, who, amid the most tempestuous peals of laughter and +applause from the delighted public, thrust swords into their hands, +ranged them in opposite ranks, and summoned them to begin the fight and +quit themselves like men. It was equally ludicrous and pitiable to see +the bald, mostly grey-bearded men, their garments torn in their +expulsion and their persons bruised by the fall, confronting each other +with quaking limbs, helplessly brandishing their weapons or feebly +calling their adversaries to come on, while the soldiers prodded them +from behind with spears, and urged them into the close quarters they so +anxiously desired to avoid. Plotinus, helpless with his bonds and gag, +looked on in impotent horror. Gallienus was often cruel, but could he +intend such a revolting massacre? There must be something behind. + +The honour of developing the Emperor’s purpose was reserved for +Theocles, who, with admirable presence of mind, had ever since he found +he must fight been engaged in trying to select the weakest antagonist. +After hesitating between the unwieldy chief of the Peripatetics and the +feminine Leaena he fixed on the latter, partly moved, perhaps, by the +hope of avenging his beard. With a martial cry he sprang towards her, +and upraised his weapon for a swashing blow. But he had sadly +miscalculated. Leaena was hardly less versed in the combats of Mars +than in those of Venus, having, in fact, commenced her distinguished +career as a camp-follower of the Emperor Gordian. A tremendous stroke +caught him on the hand; his blade dropped to the earth; why did not the +fingers follow? Leaena elucidated the problem by a still more violent +blow on his face; torrents of blood gushed forth indeed, but only from +the nose. The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor edge. +Encouraged by this opportune discovery the philosophers attacked each +other with infinite spirit and valour. Infuriated by the blows given +and received, by the pokings and proddings of the military, and the +hilarious derision of the public, they cast away the shivered blades +and resorted to the weapons of Nature. They kicked, they cuffed, they +scratched, they tore the garments from each other’s shoulders, they +foamed and rolled gasping in the yellow sand of the arena. At a signal +from the Emperor the portal of the amphitheatre was thrown open, and +the whole mass of clawing and cuffing philosophy was bundled +ignominiously into the street. + +By this time Gallienus was seated on his tribunal, and Plotinus, +released from his bonds, was standing by his side. + +“O Emperor,” he murmured, deeply abashed, “what can I urge? Thou wilt +surely demolish my city!” + +“No, Plotinus,” replied Gallienus, pointing to the Goth and the +Christian, “there are the men who will destroy the City of +Philosophers. Would that were all they will destroy!” + + + + +THE DEMON POPE + + +“So you won’t sell me your soul?” said the devil. + +“Thank you,” replied the student, “I had rather keep it myself, if it’s +all the same to you.” + +“But it’s not all the same to me. I want it very particularly. Come, +I’ll be liberal. I said twenty years. You can have thirty.” + +The student shook his head. + +“Forty!” + +Another shake. + +“Fifty!” + +As before. + +“Now,” said the devil, “I know I’m going to do a foolish thing, but I +cannot bear to see a clever, spirited young man throw himself away. +I’ll make you another kind of offer. We won’t have any bargain at +present, but I will push you on in the world for the next forty years. +This day forty years I come back and ask you for a boon; not your soul, +mind, or anything not perfectly in your power to grant. If you give it, +we are quits; if not, I fly away with you. What say you to this?” + +The student reflected for some minutes. “Agreed,” he said at last. + +Scarcely had the devil disappeared, which he did instantaneously, ere a +messenger reined in his smoking steed at the gate of the University of +Cordova (the judicious reader will already have remarked that Lucifer +could never have been allowed inside a Christian seat of learning), +and, inquiring for the student Gerbert, presented him with the Emperor +Otho’s nomination to the Abbacy of Bobbio, in consideration, said the +document, of his virtue and learning, well-nigh miraculous in one so +young. Such messengers were frequent visitors during Gerbert’s +prosperous career. Abbot, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, he was +ultimately enthroned Pope on April 2, 999, and assumed the appellation +of Silvester the Second. It was then a general belief that the world +would come to an end in the following year, a catastrophe which to many +seemed the more imminent from the election of a chief pastor whose +celebrity as a theologian, though not inconsiderable, by no means +equalled his reputation as a necromancer. + +The world, notwithstanding, revolved scatheless through the dreaded +twelvemonth, and early in the first year of the eleventh century +Gerbert was sitting peacefully in his study, perusing a book of magic. +Volumes of algebra, astrology, alchemy, Aristotelian philosophy, and +other such light reading filled his bookcase; and on a table stood an +improved clock of his invention, next to his introduction of the Arabic +numerals his chief legacy to posterity. Suddenly a sound of wings was +heard, and Lucifer stood by his side. + +“It is a long time,” said the fiend, “since I have had the pleasure of +seeing you. I have now called to remind you of our little contract, +concluded this day forty years.” + +“You remember,” said Silvester, “that you are not to ask anything +exceeding my power to perform.” + +“I have no such intention,” said Lucifer. “On the contrary, I am about +to solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope, I +desire that you would make me a Cardinal. + +“In the expectation, I presume,” returned Gerbert, “of becoming Pope on +the next vacancy.” + +“An expectation,” replied Lucifer, “which I may most reasonably +entertain, considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue, +and the present condition of the Sacred College.” + +“You would doubtless,” said Gerbert, “endeavour to subvert the +foundations of the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and +licentiousness, render the Holy See odious and contemptible.” + +“On the contrary,” said the fiend, “I would extirpate heresy, and all +learning and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer +no man to read but the priest, and confine his reading to his breviary. +I would burn your books together with your bones on the first +convenient opportunity. I would observe an austere propriety of +conduct, and be especially careful not to loosen one rivet in the +tremendous yoke I was forging for the minds and consciences of +mankind.” + +“If it be so,” said Gerbert, “let’s be off!” + +“What!” exclaimed Lucifer, “you are willing to accompany me to the +infernal regions!” + +“Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and +Aristotle, and give place to the darkness against which I have been +contending all my life.” + +“Gerbert,” replied the demon, “this is arrant trifling. Know you not +that no good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing +possible, my empire would become intolerable to me, and I should be +compelled to abdicate?” + +“I do know it,” said Gerbert, “and hence I have been able to receive +your visit with composure.” + +“Gerbert,” said the devil, with tears in his eyes, “I put it to you—is +this fair, is this honest? I undertake to promote your interests in the +world; I fulfil my promise abundantly. You obtain through my +instrumentality a position to which you could never otherwise have +aspired. Often have I had a hand in the election of a Pope, but never +before have I contributed to confer the tiara on one eminent for virtue +and learning. You profit by my assistance to the full, and now take +advantage of an adventitious circumstance to deprive me of my +reasonable guerdon. It is my constant experience that the good people +are much more slippery than the sinners, and drive much harder +bargains.” + +“Lucifer,” answered Gerbert, “I have always sought to treat you as a +gentleman, hoping that you would approve yourself such in return. I +will not inquire whether it was entirely in harmony with this character +to seek to intimidate me into compliance with your demand by +threatening me with a penalty which you well knew could not be +enforced. I will overlook this little irregularity, and concede even +more than you have requested. You have asked to be a Cardinal. I will +make you Pope—” + +“Ha!” exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide, +as the light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it. + +“For twelve hours,” continued Gerbert. “At the expiration of that time +we will consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are +more anxious to divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to +assume it, I promise to bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my +power to grant, and not plainly inconsistent with religion or morals.” + +“Done!” cried the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in +a moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely +indistinguishable save by their attire, and the fact that one limped +slightly with the left foot. + +“You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard,” said Gerbert, +and, taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked +door to a secret chamber. As the door closed behind him he chuckled, +and muttered to himself, “Poor old Lucifer! Sold again!” + +If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it. He approached a large +slab of silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his +personal appearance with some dissatisfaction. + +“I certainly don’t look half so well without my horns,” he +soliloquised, “and I am sure I shall miss my tail most grievously.” + +A tiara and a train, however, made fair amends for the deficient +appendages, and Lucifer now looked every inch a Pope. He was about to +call the master of the ceremonies, and summon a consistory, when the +door was burst open, and seven cardinals, brandishing poniards, rushed +into the room. + +“Down with the sorcerer!” they cried, as they seized and gagged him. + +“Death to the Saracen!” + +“Practises algebra, and other devilish arts!” + +“Knows Greek!” + +“Talks Arabic!” + +“Reads Hebrew!” + +“Burn him!” + +“Smother him!” + +“Let him be deposed by a general council,” said a young and +inexperienced Cardinal. + +“Heaven forbid!” said an old and wary one, _sotto voce_. + +Lucifer struggled frantically, but the feeble frame he was doomed to +inhabit for the next eleven hours was speedily exhausted. Bound and +helpless, he swooned away. + +“Brethren,” said one of the senior cardinals, “it hath been delivered +by the exorcists that a sorcerer or other individual in league with the +demon doth usually bear upon his person some visible token of his +infernal compact. I propose that we forthwith institute a search for +this stigma, the discovery of which may contribute to justify our +proceedings in the eyes of the world.” + +“I heartily approve of our brother Anno’s proposition,” said another, +“the rather as we cannot possibly fail to discover such a mark, if, +indeed, we desire to find it.” + +The search was accordingly instituted, and had not proceeded far ere a +simultaneous yell from all the seven cardinals indicated that their +investigation had brought more to light than they had ventured to +expect. + +The Holy Father had a cloven foot! + +For the next five minutes the Cardinals remained utterly stunned, +silent, and stupefied with amazement. As they gradually recovered their +faculties it would have become manifest to a nice observer that the +Pope had risen very considerably in their good opinion. + +“This is an affair requiring very mature deliberation,” said one. + +“I always feared that we might be proceeding too precipitately,” said +another. + +“It is written, ‘the devils believe,’” said a third: “the Holy Father, +therefore, is not a heretic at any rate.” + +“Brethren,” said Anno, “this affair, as our brother Benno well remarks, +doth indeed call for mature deliberation. I therefore propose that, +instead of smothering his Holiness with cushions, as originally +contemplated, we immure him for the present in the dungeon adjoining +hereunto, and, after spending the night in meditation and prayer, +resume the consideration of the business tomorrow morning.” + +“Informing the officials of the palace,” said Benno, “that his Holiness +has retired for his devotions, and desires on no account to be +disturbed.” + +“A pious fraud,” said Anno, “which not one of the Fathers would for a +moment have scrupled to commit.” + +The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and bore +him carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for his +detention. Each would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery, but +each felt that the eyes of his six brethren were upon him: and all, +therefore, retired simultaneously, each taking a key of the cell. + +Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards. He had +the most confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in +his present scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were the +usual concomitants of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to his +taste, and he wished he had been made acquainted with them sooner. The +dungeon was not only perfectly dark, but horribly cold, and the poor +devil in his present form had no latent store of infernal heat to draw +upon. His teeth chattered, he shivered in every limb, and felt devoured +with hunger and thirst. There is much probability in the assertion of +some of his biographers that it was on this occasion that he invented +ardent spirits; but, even if he did, the mere conception of a glass of +brandy could only increase his sufferings. So the long January night +wore wearily on, and Lucifer seemed likely to expire from inanition, +when a key turned in the lock, and Cardinal Anno cautiously glided in, +bearing a lamp, a loaf, half a cold roast kid, and a bottle of wine. + +“I trust,” he said, bowing courteously, “that I may be excused any +slight breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from +the difficulty under which I labour of determining whether, under +present circumstances, ‘Your Holiness,’ or ‘Your Infernal Majesty’ be +the form of address most befitting me to employ.” + +“Bub-ub-bub-boo,” went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth. + +“Heavens!” exclaimed the Cardinal, “I crave your Infernal Holiness’s +forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!” + +And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the +refection, upon which the demon fell voraciously. + +“Why the devil, if I may so express myself,” pursued Anno, “did not +your Holiness inform us that you _were_ the devil? Not a hand would +then have been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my +life for the audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust +of your faithful Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously +these many years?” + +Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters. + +“I shall never forgive myself,” protested the Cardinal, “for the part I +have borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to your +Majesty’s bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart +as to express my penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to remember that +I believed myself to be acting in your Majesty’s interest by +overthrowing a magician who was accustomed to send your Majesty upon +errands, and who might at any time enclose you in a box, and cast you +into the sea. It is deplorable that your Majesty’s most devoted +servants should have been thus misled.” + +“Reasons of State,” suggested Lucifer. + +“I trust that they no longer operate,” said the Cardinal. “However, the +Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is +therefore unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject further. +I would now humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, +perhaps, your Holiness, since I am about to speak of spiritual things, +on the important and delicate point of your Holiness’s successor. I am +ignorant how long your Holiness proposes to occupy the Apostolic chair; +but of course you are aware that public opinion will not suffer you to +hold it for a term exceeding that of the pontificate of Peter. A +vacancy, therefore, must one day occur; and I am humbly to represent +that the office could not be filled by one more congenial than myself +to the present incumbent, or on whom he could more fully rely to carry +out in every respect his views and intentions.” + +And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past +life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion. He had not, +however, proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another +key in the lock, and had just time to whisper impressively, “Beware of +Benno,” ere he dived under a table. + +Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands. Warned by +the other lamp and the remains of Lucifer’s repast that some colleague +had been beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be in +the field, he came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and +preferred his claim in much the same manner as Anno. While he was +earnestly cautioning Lucifer against this Cardinal as one who could and +would cheat the very Devil himself, another key turned in the lock, and +Benno escaped under the table, where Anno immediately inserted his +finger into his right eye. The little squeal consequent upon this +occurrence Lucifer successfully smothered by a fit of coughing. + +Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the same +disgust as Benno on seeing himself forestalled. So far as his requests +transpired they were moderate, but no one knows where he would have +stopped if he had not been scared by the advent of Cardinal No. 4. Up +to this time he had only asked for an inexhaustible purse, power to +call up the Devil _ad libitum_, and a ring of invisibility to allow him +free access to his mistress, who was unfortunately a married woman. + +Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning +Cardinal No. 5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as +respected Cardinal No. 4. + +Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the +Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them +together, and of unlimited non-residence. In the course of his harangue +he made use of the phrase _non obstantibus_, of which Lucifer +immediately took a note. + +What the seventh Cardinal would have solicited is not known, for he had +hardly opened his mouth when the twelfth hour expired, and Lucifer, +regaining his vigour with his shape, sent the Prince of the Church +spinning to the other end of the room, and split the marble table with +a single stroke of his tail. The six crouched and huddling Cardinals +cowered revealed to one another, and at the same time enjoyed the +spectacle of his Holiness darting through the stone ceiling, which +yielded like a film to his passage, and closed up afterwards as if +nothing had happened. After the first shock of dismay they unanimously +rushed to the door, but found it bolted on the outside. There was no +other exit, and no means of giving an alarm. In this emergency the +demeanour of the Italian Cardinals set a bright example to their +ultramontane colleagues. “_Bisogna pazienzia_,” they said, as they +shrugged their shoulders. Nothing could exceed the mutual politeness of +Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless that of the two who had sought to +poison each other. The Frenchman was held to have gravely derogated +from good manners by alluding to this circumstance, which had reached +his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman swore so +outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians +then and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should +ever be Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to +this day. + +Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed in +all the insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he thought +his visitor had probably had enough. + +“I should think so indeed,” replied Lucifer. “But at the same time I +feel myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of +the loyalty of my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is +needless for me to devote any considerable amount of personal attention +to ecclesiastical affairs. I now claim the promised boon, which it will +be in no way inconsistent with thy functions to grant, seeing that it +is a work of mercy. I demand that the Cardinals be released, and that +their conspiracy against thee, by which I alone suffered, be buried in +oblivion.” + +“I hoped you would carry them all off,” said Gerbert, with an +expression of disappointment. + +“Thank you,” said the Devil. “It is more to my interest to leave them +where they are.” + +So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth, +sheepish and crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than +Lucifer had expected from them, the cause was their entire bewilderment +by what had passed, and their utter inability to penetrate the policy +of Gerbert, who henceforth devoted himself even with ostentation to +good works. They could never quite satisfy themselves whether they were +speaking to the Pope or to the Devil, and when under the latter +impression habitually emitted propositions which Gerbert justly +stigmatised as rash, temerarious, and scandalous. They plagued him with +allusions to certain matters mentioned in their interviews with +Lucifer, with which they naturally but erroneously supposed him to be +conversant, and worried him by continual nods and titterings as they +glanced at his nether extremities. To abolish this nuisance, and at the +same time silence sundry unpleasant rumours which had somehow got +abroad, Gerbert devised the ceremony of kissing the Pope’s feet, which, +in a grievously mutilated form, endures to this day. The stupefaction +of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy Father had lost his hoof +surpasses all description, and they went to their graves without having +obtained the least insight into the mystery. + + + + +THE CUPBEARER + + +The minister Photinius had fallen, to the joy of Constantinople. He had +taken sanctuary in the immense monastery adjoining the Golden Gate in +the twelfth region of the city, founded for a thousand monks by the +patrician Studius, in the year 463. There he occupied himself with the +concoction of poisons, the resource of fallen statesmen. When a +defeated minister of our own day is indisposed to accept his +discomfiture, he applies himself to poison the public mind, inciting +the lower orders against the higher, and blowing up every smouldering +ember of sedition he can discover, trusting that the conflagration thus +kindled, though it consume the edifice of the State, will not fail to +roast his own egg. Photinius’s conceptions of mischief were less +refined; he perfected his toxicological knowledge in the medical +laboratory of the monastery, and sought eagerly for an opportunity of +employing it; whether in an experiment upon the Emperor, or on his own +successor, or on some other personage, circumstances must determine. + +The sanctity of Studius’s convent, and the strength of its monastic +garrison, rendered it a safe refuge for disgraced courtiers, and in +this thirtieth year of the Emperor Basil the Second (reckoning from his +nominal accession) it harboured a legion of ex-prime ministers, +patriarchs, archbishops, chief secretaries, hypati, anthypati, +silentiarii, protospatharii, and even spatharo-candidati. And this +small army was nothing to the host that, maimed or blinded or tonsured +or all three, dragged out their lives in monasteries or in dungeons or +on rocky islets; and these again were few in comparison with the +spirits of the traitors or the betrayed who wailed nightly amid the +planes and cypresses of the Aretae, or stalked through the palatial +apartments of verdantique and porphyry. But of those comparatively at +liberty, but whose liberty was circumscribed by the hallowed precincts +of Studius, every soul was plotting. And never, perhaps, in the corrupt +Byzantine Court, where true friendship had been unknown since Theodora +quarrelled with Antonia, had so near an approach to it existed as in +this asylum of villains. A sort of freemasonry came to prevail in the +sanctuary: every one longed to know how his neighbour’s plot throve, +and grudged not to buy the knowledge by disclosing a little corner of +his own. Thus rendered communicative, their colloquies would travel +back into the past, and as the veterans of intrigue fought their +battles over again, the most experienced would learn things that made +them open their eyes with amazement. “Ah!” they would hear, “that is +just where you were mistaken. You had bought Eromenus, but so had I, +and old Nicephorus had outbid us both.” “You deemed the dancer Anthusa +a sure card, and knew not of her secret infirmity, of which I had been +apprised by her waiting woman.” “Did you really know nothing of that +sliding panel? And were you ignorant that whatever one says in the blue +chamber is heard in the green?” “Yes, I thought so too, and I spent a +mint of money before finding out that the dog whose slaver that brazen +impostor Panurgiades pretended to sell me was no more mad than he was.” +After such rehearsals of future dialogues by the banks of Styx, the +fallen statesmen were observed to appear exceedingly dejected, but the +stimulus had become necessary to their existence. None gossiped so +freely or disclosed so much as Photinius and his predecessor +Eustathius, whom he had himself displaced—probably because Eustathius, +believing in nothing in heaven or earth but gold, and labouring under +an absolute privation of that metal, was regarded even by himself as an +extinct volcano. + +“Well,” observed he one day, when discoursing with Photinius is an +unusually confidential mood, “I am free to say that for my own part I +don’t think over much of poison. It has its advantages, to be sure, but +to my mind the disadvantages are even more conspicuous.” + +“For example?” inquired Photinius, who had the best reason for +confiding in the efficacy of a drug administered with dexterity and +discretion. + +“Two people must be in the secret at least, if not three,” replied +Eustathius, “and cooks, as a rule, are a class of persons entirely +unfit to be employed in affairs of State.” + +“The Court physician,” suggested Photinius. + +“Is only available,” answered Eustathius, “in case his Majesty should +send for him, which is most improbable. If he ever did, poison, praised +be the Lord! would be totally unnecessary and entirely superfluous.” + +“My dear friend,” said Photinius, venturing at this favourable moment +on a question he had been dying to ask ever since he had been an inmate +of the convent, “would you mind telling me in confidence, did you ever +administer any potion of a deleterious nature to his Sacred Majesty?” + +“Never!” protested Eustathius, with fervour. “I tried once, to be sure, +but it was no use.” + +“What was the impediment?” + +“The perverse opposition of the cupbearer. It is idle attempting +anything of the kind as long as she is about the Emperor.” + +“_She_!” exclaimed Photinius. + +“Don’t you know _that_?” responded Eustathius, with an air and manner +that plainly said, “You don’t know much.” + +Humbled and ashamed, Photinius nevertheless wisely stooped to avow his +nescience, and flattering his rival on his superior penetration, led +him to divulge the State secret that the handsome cupbearer Helladius +was but the disguise of the lovely Helladia, the object of Basil’s +tenderest affection, and whose romantic attachment to his person had +already frustrated more conspiracies than the aged plotter could reckon +up. + +This intelligence made Photinius for a season exceedingly thoughtful. +He had not deemed Basil of an amorous complexion. At length he sent for +his daughter, the beautiful and virtuous Euprepia, who from time to +time visited him in the monastery. + +“Daughter,” he said, “it appears to me that the time has now arrived +when thou mayest with propriety present a petition to the Emperor on +behalf of thy unfortunate father. Here is the document. It is, I +flatter myself, composed with no ordinary address; nevertheless I will +not conceal from thee that I place my hopes rather on thy beauty of +person than on my beauty of style. Shake down thy hair and dishevel it, +so!—that is excellent. Remember to tear thy robe some little in the +poignancy of thy woe, and to lose a sandal. Tears and sobs of course +thou hast always at command, but let not the frenzy of thy grief render +thee wholly inarticulate. Here is a slight memorandum of what is most +fitting for thee to say: thy old nurse’s instructions will do the rest. +Light a candle for St. Sergius, and watch for a favourable +opportunity.” + +Euprepia was upright, candid, and loyal; but the best of women has +something of the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was +stimulated by her filial affection. Basil was for a moment fairly +carried away by the consummate fact of her performance and the genuine +feeling to her appeal; but he was himself again by the time he had +finished perusing his late minister’s long-winded and mendacious +memorial. + +“What manner of woman was thy mother?” he inquired kindly + +Euprepia was eloquent in praise of her deceased parent’s perfections of +mind and person. + +“Then I can believe thee Photinius’s daughter, which I might otherwise +have doubted,” returned Basil. “As concerns him, I can only say, if he +feels himself innocent, let him come out of sanctuary, and stand his +trial. But I will give thee a place at Court.” + +This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully +consented to his daughter’s entering the Imperial court, exulting at +having got in the thin end of the wedge. She was attached to the person +of the Emperor’s sister-in-law, the “Slayer of the Bulgarians” himself +being a most determined bachelor. + +Time wore on. Euprepia’s opportunities of visiting her father were less +frequent than formerly. At last she came, looking thoroughly miserable, +distracted, and forlorn. + +“What ails thee, child?” he inquired anxiously. + +“Oh, father, in what a frightful position do I find myself!” + +“Speak,” he said, “and rely on my counsel.” + +“When I entered the Court,” she proceeded, “I found at first but one +human creature I could love or trust, and he—let me so call him—seemed +to make up for the deficiencies of all the rest. It was the cupbearer +Helladius.” + +“I hope he is still thy friend,” interrupted Photinius. “The good +graces of an Imperial cupbearer are always important, and I would have +bought those of Helladius with a myriad of bezants.” + +“They were not to be thus obtained, father,” said she. “The purest +disinterestedness, the noblest integrity, the most unselfish devotion, +were the distinction of my friend. And such beauty! I cannot, I must +not conceal that my heart was soon entirely his. But—most strange it +seemed to me then—it was long impossible for me to tell whether +Helladius loved me or loved me not. The most perfect sympathy existed +between us: we seemed one heart and one soul: and yet, and yet, +Helladius never gave the slightest indication of the sentiments which a +young man might be supposed to entertain for a young girl. Vainly did I +try every innocent wile that a modest maiden may permit herself: he was +ever the friend, never the lover. At length, after long pining between +despairing fondness and wounded pride, I myself turned away, and +listened to one who left me in no doubt of the sincerity of his +passion.” + +“Who?” + +“The Emperor! And, to shorten the story of my shame, I became his +mistress.” + +“The saints be praised!” shouted Photinius. “O my incomparable +daughter!” + +“Father!” cried Euprepia, blushing and indignant. “But let me hurry on +with my wretched tale. In proportion as the Emperor’s affection became +more marked, Helladius, hitherto so buoyant and serene, became a +visible prey to despondency. Some scornful beauty, I deemed, was +inflicting on him the tortures he had previously inflicted upon me, +and, cured of my unhappy attachment, and entirely devoted to my +Imperial lover, I did all in my power to encourage him. He received my +comfort with gratitude, nor did it, as I had feared might happen, seem +to excite the least lover-like feeling towards me on his own part.” + +“Euprepia,” he said only two days ago, “never in this Court have I met +one like thee. Thou art the soul of honour and generosity. I can safely +trust thee with a secret which my bursting heart can no longer retain, +but which I dread to breathe even to myself. Know first I am not what I +seem, I am a woman!” And opening his vest—” + +“We know all about that already,” interrupted Photinius. “Get on!” + +“If thou knowest this already, father,” said the astonished Euprepia, +“thou wilt spare me the pain of entering further into Helladia’s +affection for Basil. Suffice that it was impassioned beyond +description, and vied with whatever history or romance records. In her +male costume she had accompanied the conqueror of the Bulgarians in his +campaigns, she had fought in his battles; a gigantic foe, in act to +strike him from behind, had fallen by her arrow; she had warded the +poison-cup from his lips, and the assassin’s dagger from his heart; she +had rejected enormous wealth offered as a bribe for treachery, and +lived only for the Emperor. ‘And now,’ she cried, ‘his love for me is +cold, and he deserts me for another. Who she is I cannot find, else on +her it were, not on him, that my vengeance should alight. Oh, Euprepia, +I would tear her eyes from her head, were they beautiful as thine! But +vengeance I must have. Basil must die. On the third day he expires by +my hand, poisoned by the cup which I alone am trusted to offer him at +the Imperial banquet where thou wilt be present. Thou shalt see his +agonies and my triumph, and rejoice that thy friend has known how to +avenge herself.’ + +“Thou seest now, father, in how frightful a difficulty I am placed. All +my entreaties and remonstrances have been in vain: at my threats +Helladia merely laughs. I love Basil with my whole heart. Shall I look +on and see him murdered? Shall I, having first unwittingly done my +friend the most grievous injury, proceed further to betray her, and +doom her to a cruel death? I might anticipate her fell purpose by +slaying her, but for that I have neither strength nor courage. Many a +time have I felt on the point of revealing everything to her, and +offering myself as her victim, but for this also I lack fortitude. I +might convey a warning to Basil, but Helladia’s vengeance is +unsleeping, and nothing but her death or mine will screen him. Oh, +father, father! what am I to do?” + +“Nothing romantic or sentimental, I trust, dear child,” replied +Photinius. + +“Torture me not, father. I came to thee for counsel.” + +“And counsel shalt thou have, but it must be the issue of mature +deliberation. Thou mayest observe,” continued he with the air of a good +man contending with adversity, “how weak and miserable is man’s estate +even in the day of good fortune, how hard it is for purblind mortals to +discern the right path, especially when two alluring routes are +simultaneously presented for their decision! The most obvious and +natural course, the one I should have adopted without hesitation +half-an-hour ago, would be simply to let Helladia alone. Should she +succeed—and Heaven forbid else!—the knot is loosed in the simplest +manner. Basil dies—” + +“Father!” + +“I am a favourite with his sister-in-law,” continued Photinius, +entirely unconscious of his daughter’s horror and agitation, “who will +govern in the name of her weak husband, and is moreover thy mistress. +She recalls me to Court, and all is peace and joy. But then, Helladia +may fail. In that case, when she has been executed—” + +“Father, father!” + +“We are exactly where we were, save for the hold thou hast established +over the Emperor, which is of course invaluable. I cannot but feel that +Heaven is good when I reflect how easily thou mightest have thrown +thyself away upon a courtier. Now there is a much bolder game to play, +which, relying on the protection of Providence, I feel half disposed to +attempt. Thou mightest betray Helladia.” + +“Deliver my friend to the tormentors!” + +“Then,” pursued Photinius, without hearing her, “thy claim on the +Emperor’s gratitude is boundless, and if he has any sense of what is +seemly—and he is what they call chivalrous—he will make thee his lawful +consort. I father-in-law of an Emperor! My brain reels to think of it. +I must be cool. I must not suffer myself to be dazzled or hurried away. +Let me consider. Thus acting, thou puttest all to the hazard of the +die. For if Helladia should deny everything, as of course she would, +and the Emperor should foolishly scruple to put her to the rack, she +might probably persuade him of her innocence, and where wouldst thou be +then? It might almost be better to be beforehand, and poison Helladia +herself, but I fear there is no time now. Thou hast no evidence but her +threats, I suppose? Thou hast not caught her tampering with poisons? +There can of course be nothing in writing. I daresay I could find +something, if I had but time. Canst thou counterfeit her signature?” + +But long ere this Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by +convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent’s discourse as +he had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her +distress: he was by no means a bad father. + +“Poor child,” he said, “thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a +terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under +the torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might +have a bad effect on the Emperor’s mind. If he put thee to the torture +too—but no! that’s impossible. I feel faint and giddy, dear child, and +unable to decide a point of such importance. Come to me at daybreak +to-morrow.” + +But Euprepia did not reappear, and Photinius spent the day in an agony +of expectation, fearing that she had compromised herself by some +imprudence. He gazed on the setting sun with uncontrollable impatience, +knowing that it would shine on the Imperial banquet, where so much was +to happen. Basil was in fact at that very moment seating himself among +a brilliant assemblage. By his side stood a choir of musicians, among +them Euprepia. Soon the cup was called for, and Helladia, in her +masculine dress, stepped forward, darting a glance of sinister triumph +at her friend. Silently, almost imperceptibly to the bulk of the +company, Euprepia glided forward, and hissed rather than whispered in +Helladia’s ear, ere she could retire from the Emperor’s side. + +“Didst thou not say that if thou couldst discover her who had wronged +thee, thou wouldst wreak thy vengeance on her, and molest Basil no +further?” + +“I did, and I meant it.” + +“See that thou keepest thy word. I am she!” And snatching the cup from +the table, she quaffed it to the last drop, and instantly expired in +convulsions. + +We pass over the dismay of the banqueters, the arrest and confession of +Helladia, the general amazement at the revelation of her sex, the +frantic grief of the Emperor. + +Basil’s sorrow was sincere and durable. On an early occasion he thus +addressed his courtiers: + +“I cannot determine which of these two women loved me best: she who +gave her life for me, or she who would have taken mine. The first made +the greater sacrifice; the second did most violence to her feelings. +What say ye?” + +The courtiers hesitated, feeling themselves incompetent judges in +problems of this nature. At length the youngest exclaimed: + +“O Emperor, how can we tell thee, unless we know what thou thinkest +thyself?” + +“What!” exclaimed Basil, “an honest man in the Court of Byzantium! Let +his mouth be filled with gold immediately!” + +This operation having been performed, and the precious metal +distributed in fees among the proper officers, Basil thus addressed the +object of his favour: + +“Manuel, thy name shall henceforth be Chrysostomus, in memory of what +has just taken place. In further token of my approbation of thy +honesty, I will confer upon thee the hand of the only other respectable +person about the Court, namely, of Helladia. Take her, my son, and +raise up a race of heroes! She shall be amply dowered out of what +remains of the property of Photinius.” + +“Gennadius,” whispered a cynical courtier to his neighbour, “I hope +thou admirest the magnanimity of our sovereign, who deems he is +performing a most generous action in presenting Manuel with his +cast-off mistress, who has tried to poison him, and with whom he has +been at his wits’ end what to do, and in dowering her at the expense of +another.” + +The snarl was just; but it is just also to acknowledge that Basil, as a +prince born in the purple, had not the least idea that he was laying +himself open to any such criticism. He actually did feel the manly glow +of self-approbation which accompanies the performance of a good action: +an emotion which no one else present, except Chrysostomus, was so much +as able to conceive. It is further to be remarked that the old courtier +who sneered at Chrysostomus was devoured by envy of his good fortune, +and would have given his right eye to have been in his place. + +“Chrysostomus,” pursued Basil, “we must now think of the hapless +Photinius. That unfortunate father is doubtless in an agony of grief +which renders the forfeiture of the remains of his possessions +indifferent to him. Thou, his successor therein, mayest be regarded as +in some sort his son-in-law. Go, therefore, and comfort him, and report +to me upon his condition.” + +Chrysostomus accordingly proceeded to the monastery, where he was +informed that Photinius had retired with his spiritual adviser, and +could on no account be disturbed. + +“It is on my head to see the Emperor’s orders obeyed,” returned +Chrysostomus, and forced the door. The bereaved parent was busily +engaged in sticking pins into a wax effigy of Basil, under the +direction of Panurgiades, already honourably mentioned in this history. + +“Wretched old man!” exclaimed Chrysostomus, “is this thy grief for thy +daughter?” + +“My grief is great,” answered Photinius, “but my time is small. If I +turn not every moment to account, I shall never be prime minister +again. But all is over now. Thou wilt denounce me, of course. I will +give thee a counsel. Say that thou didst arrive just as we were about +to place the effigy of Basil before a slow fire, and melt it into a +caldron of bubbling poison.” + +“I shall report what I have seen,” replied Chrysostomus, “neither more +nor less. But I think I can assure thee that none will suffer for this +mummery except Panurgiades, and that he will at most be whipped.” + +“Chrysostomus,” said Basil, on receiving the report, “lust of power, a +fever in youth, is a leprosy in age. The hoary statesman out of place +would sell his daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he +would part with his skin and his senses, were it possible to hold +office without them. I commiserate Photinius, whose faculties are +clearly on the decline; the day has been when he would not have wasted +his time sticking pins into a waxen figure. I will give him some shadow +of authority to amuse his old days and keep him out of mischief. The +Abbot of Catangion is just dead. Photinius shall succeed him.” + +So Photinius received the tonsure and the dignity, and made a very +tolerable Abbot. It is even recorded to his honour that he bestowed a +handsome funeral on his old enemy Eustathius. + +Helladia made Chrysostomus an excellent wife, a little over-prudish, +some thought. When, nearly two centuries afterwards, the Courts of Love +came to be established in Provence, the question at issue between her +and Euprepia was referred to those tribunals, which, finding the +decision difficult, adjourned it for seven hundred years. That period +having now expired, it is submitted to the British public. + + + + +THE WISDOM OF THE INDIANS + + +Everybody knows that in the reign of the Emperor Elagabalus Rome was +visited by an embassy from India; whose members, on their way from the +East, had held that memorable interview with the illustrious (though +heretical) Christian philosopher Bardesanes which enabled him to +formulate his doctrine of Fate, borrowed from the Indian theory of +Karma, and therefore, until lately, grievously misunderstood by his +commentators. + +It may not, however, be equally notorious that the ambassadors returned +by sea as far as Berytus, and upon landing there were hospitably +entertained by the sage Euphronius, the head of the philosophical +faculty of that University. + +Euphronius naturally inquired what circumstance in Rome had appeared to +his visitors most worthy of remark. + +“The extreme evil of the Emperor’s Karma,” said they. + +Euphronius requested further explanation. + +“Karma,” explained their interpreter, “is that congeries of +circumstances which has necessitated the birth of each individual, and +of whose good or evil he is the incarnation. Every act must needs be +attended by consequences, and as these are usually of too far-reaching +a character to be exhausted in the life of the doer of the action, they +cannot but engender another person by whom they are to be borne. This +truth is popularly expressed by the doctrine of transmigration, +according to which individuals, as the character of their deeds may +determine, are re-born as pigs or peacocks, beggars or princes. But +this is a loose and unscientific way of speaking, for in fact it is not +the individual that is re-born, but the character; which, even as the +silkworm clothes itself with silk and the caddis-worm with mud and +small shingle, creates for itself a new personality, congruous with its +own nature. We are therefore led to reflect what a prodigious multitude +of sins some one must have committed ere the Roman world could be +afflicted with such an Emperor as Elagabalus.” + +“What have ye found so exceedingly reprehensible in the Emperor’s +conduct?” demanded Euphronius. + +“To speak only,” said the Indians, “of such of his doings as may fitly +be recited to modest ears, we find him declaring war against Nature, +and delighting in nothing that is not the contrary of what Heaven meant +it to be. We see him bathing in perfumes, sailing ships in wine, +feeding horses on grapes and lions on parrots, peppering fish with +pearls, wearing gems on the soles of his feet, strewing his floor with +gold-dust, paving the public streets with precious marbles, driving +teams of stags, scorning to eat fish by the seaside, deploring his lot +that he has never yet been able to dine on a phoenix. Enormous must +have been the folly and wickedness which has incarnated itself in such +a sovereign, and should his reign be prolonged, discouraging is the +prospect for the morals of the next generation. + +“According to you, then,” said Euphronius, “the fates of men are not +spun for them by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but by their +predecessors?” + +“So it is,” said they, “always remembering that man can rid himself of +his Karma by philosophic meditation, combined with religious +austerities, and that if all walked in this path, existence with all +its evils would come to an end. Insomuch that the most bloodthirsty +conqueror that ever devastated the earth hath not destroyed one +thousandth part as many existences as the Lord Buddha.” + +“These are abstruse matters,” said Euphronius, “and I lament that your +stay in Berytus will not be long enough to instruct me adequately +therein.” + +“Accompany us to India,” said they, “and thou shalt receive instruction +at the fountain head.” + +“I am old and feeble,” apologised Euphronius, “and adjusted by long +habit to my present environment. Nevertheless I will propound the +enterprise to my pupils, only somewhat repressing their ardour, lest +the volunteers should be inconveniently numerous.” + +When, however, the proposition was made not a soul responded; though +Euphronius reproached his disciples severely, and desired them to +compare their want of spirit with his own thirst for knowledge, which, +when he was a young man, had taken him as far as Alexandria to hear a +celebrated rhetorician. In the evening, however, two disciples came to +him together, and professed their readiness to undertake the +expedition, if promised a reward commensurate with its danger and +difficulty. + +“Ye would learn the secret of my celebrated dilemma,” said he, “which +no sophist can elude? ’Tis much; ’tis immoderate; ’tis enormous; +nevertheless, bring the wisdom of India to Berytus, and the knowledge +of the stratagem shall be yours.” + +“No, Master,” they said, “it is not thy dilemma of which we are +enamoured. It is thy daughter.” + +A vehement altercation ensued, but at length the old philosopher, who +at the bottom of his heart was much readier to part with his daughter +than his dilemma, was induced to promise her to whichever of the pupils +should bring home the most satisfactory exposition of Indian +metaphysics: provided always that during their absence he should not +have been compelled to bestow her hand as the price of a quibble even +more subtle than his own: but this he believed to be impossible. + +Mnesitheus and Rufus accordingly travelled with the embassy to India, +and arrived in safety at the metropolis of Palimbothra. They had wisely +devoted themselves meanwhile to learning the language, and were now +able to converse with some fluency. + +On reaching their destination they were placed under the +superintendence of competent instructors, who were commissioned to +initiate them into the canon of Buddhist scriptures, comprising, to +mention only a few of the principal, the Lalitavistara, the Dhammapada, +the Kuddhapatha, the Palinokkha, the Uragavagga, the Kulavagga, the +Mahavagga, the Atthakavagga, and the Upasampadakammavaca. These works, +composed in dead languages, and written in strange and unknown +characters, were further provided with commentaries more voluminous and +inexplicable than the text. + +“Heavens,” exclaimed Mnesitheus and Rufus, “can the life of a man +suffice to study all this?” + +“Assuredly not,” replied the Indians. “The diligent student will resume +his investigations in a subsequent stage of existence, and, if endowed +with eminent faculties, may hope to attain the end he proposes to +himself at the fifteenth transmigration.” + +“The end we propose to ourselves,” said the Greeks, “is to marry our +master’s daughter. Will the fair Euphronia also have undergone fifteen +transmigrations, and will her charms have continued unimpaired?” + +“It is difficult to pronounce,” said they, “for should the maiden, +through the exercise of virtue, have merited to be born as a white +elephant, her transmigrations must in the order of nature be but few; +whereas should she have unfortunately become and remained a rat, a +frog, or other shortlived animal, they cannot but be exceedingly +numerous.” + +“The prospect of wedding a frog at the end of fifteen transmigrations,” +said the youths, “doth not in any respect commend itself to us. Are +there no means by which the course of study may be accelerated?” + +“Undoubtedly,” said the Indians, “by the practice of religious +austerities.” + +“Of what nature are these?” inquired the young men. + +“The intrepid disciple,” said the sages, “may chain himself to a tree, +and gaze upon the sun until he is deprived of the faculty of vision. He +may drive an iron bar through his cheeks and tongue, thus preventing +all misuse of the gift of speech. It is open to him to bury himself in +the earth up to his waist, relying for his maintenance on the alms of +pious donors. He may recline upon a couch studded with spikes, until +from the induration of his skin he shall have merited the title of a +rhinoceros among sages. As, however, these latter practices interfere +with locomotion, and thus prevent his close attendance on his spiritual +guide, it is rather recommended to him to elevate his arms above his +head, and retain them in that position until, by the withering of the +sinews, it is impossible for him to bring them down again.” + +“In that case,” cried Rufus, “farewell philosophy! farewell Euphronia!” + +There is reason to believe that Mnesitheus would have made exactly the +same observation if Rufus had not been beforehand with him. The spirit +of contradiction and the affectation of superiority, however, led him +to reproach his rival with pusillanimity, and he went so far that at +length he found himself committed to undergo the ordeal: merely +stipulating that, in consideration of his being a foreigner, he should +be permitted to elevate the right arm only. + +The king of the country most graciously came to his assistance by +causing him to be fastened to a tree, with his uplifted arm secured by +iron bands above his head, a fan being put in his other hand to protect +him against the molestations of gnats and mosquitoes. By this means, +and with the assistance of the monks who continually recited and +expounded the Buddhist scriptures in his ears, some time even before +his arm had stiffened for ever, the doctrine of the misery of existence +had become perfectly clear to him. + +Released from his captivity, he hastened back to Europe to claim the +guerdon of his sufferings. History is silent respecting his adventures +until his arrival at Berytus, where the strange wild-looking man with +the uplifted arm found himself the centre of a turbulent and +mischievous rabble. As he seemed about to suffer severe ill-usage, a +personage of dignified and portly appearance hastened up, and with his +staff showered blows to right and left upon the rioters. + +“Scoundrels,” he exclaimed, “finely have ye profited by my precepts, +thus to misuse an innocent stranger! But I will no longer dwell among +such barbarians. I will remove my school to Tarsus!” + +The mob dispersed. The victim and his deliverer stood face to face. + +“Mnesitheus!” + +“Rufus!” + +“Call me Rufinianus,” corrected the latter; “for such is the +appellation which I have felt it due to myself to assume, since the +enhancement of my dignity by becoming Euphronius’s successor and +son-in-law.” + +“Son-in-law! Am I to lose the reward of my incredible sufferings?” + +“Thou forgettest,” said Rufinianus, “that Euphronia’s hand was not +promised as the reward of any austerities, but as the meed of the most +intelligent, that is, the most acceptable, account of the Indian +philosophy, which in the opinion of the late eminent Euphronius, has +been delivered by me. But come to my chamber, and let me minister to +thy necessities.” + +These having been duly attended to, Rufinianus demanded Mnesitheus’s +history, and then proceeded to narrate his own. + +“On my journey homeward,” said he, “I reflected seriously on the +probable purpose of our master in sending us forth, and saw reason to +suspect that I had hitherto misapprehended it. For I could not remember +that he had ever admitted that he could have anything to learn from +other philosophers, or that he had ever exhibited the least interest in +philosophic dogmas, excepting his own. The system of the Indians, I +thought, must be either inferior to that of Euphronius, or superior. If +the former, he will not want it: if the latter, he will want it much +less. I therefore concluded that our mission was partly a concession to +public opinion, partly to enable him to say that his name was known, +and his teaching proclaimed on the very banks of the Ganges. I formed +my plan accordingly, and disregarding certain indications that I was +neither expected nor wanted, presented myself before Euphronius with a +gladsome countenance, slightly overcast by sorrow on account of thee, +whom I affirmed to have been devoured by a tiger. + +“‘Well,’ said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, ‘and what about this +vaunted wisdom of the Indians?’ + +“‘The wisdom of the Indians,’ I replied, ‘is entirely borrowed from +Pythagoras.’ + +“‘Did I not tell you so? ‘Euphronius appealed to his disciples. + +“‘Invariably,’ they replied. + +“‘As if a barbarian could teach a Greek!’ said he. + +“‘It is much if he is able to learn from one,’ said they. + +“‘Pythagoras, then,’ said Euphronius addressing me,’ did not resort to +India to be instructed by the Gymnosophists?’ + +“‘On the contrary,’ I answered, ‘he went there to teach them, and the +little knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived +from him. His mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the +Ramayana, wherein he is figuratively represented as allying himself +with monkeys. He is worshipped all over the country under the +appellations of Siva, Kamadeva, Kali, Gautama Buddha, and others too +numerous to mention.’ + +“When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to +Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, +called Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his +honour, his good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his +daughter’s hand without difficulty. He died a few years ago, +bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, and I am now head of his school +and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy. I am also the author of some +admired works, especially a life of Pythagoras, and a manual of Indian +philosophy and religion. I hope for thy own sake thou wilt forbear to +contradict me: for no one will believe thee. I trust also that thou +wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with respect to Euphronia. I +do most honestly and truthfully assure thee that for a one-armed man +like thee to marry her would be most inexpedient, inasmuch as the +defence of one’s beard from her, when she is in a state of excitement, +requires the full use of both hands, and of the feet also. But come +with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to her. She is always +taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal attractions, and I +promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture when she +finds thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder. Only, as I have +represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say +that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty.” + +“I have learned in the Indian schools,” said Mnesitheus, “not to lie +for the benefit of others. I will not see Euphronia; I would not +disturb her ideal of me, nor mine of her. Farewell. May the Rufinianian +sect flourish! and may thy works on Pythagoras and India instruct +posterity to the tenth generation! I return to Palimbothra, where I am +held in honour on the self-same account that here renders me +ridiculous. It shall be my study to enlighten the natives respecting +their obligations to Pythagoras, whose name I did not happen to hear +while I abode among them.” + + + + +THE DUMB ORACLE + + +Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod: +Few that be filled with the fire of the God. + +I + +In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one +of peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed +in the city of Dorylseum, in Phrygia. Contrary to usage, its +revelations were imparted through the medium of a male priest. It was +rarely left unthronged by devout questioners, whose inquiries were +resolved in writing, agreeably to the method delivered by the pious +Lucian, in his work “Concerning False Prophecy.” [*] Sometimes, on +extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently that of the deity, was +heard declaring the response from the innermost recesses of the shrine. +The treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with tripods and +goblets, in general wrought from the precious metals; its coffers were +loaded with coins and ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy suppliants and +the copious offerings in kind of the country people provided +superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the temple servitors; +while a rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its guardians, +and of the officiating priest. The latter reverend personage was no +less eminent for prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had +rewarded him with extreme obesity. At length he died, whether of excess +in meat or in drink is not agreed among historians. + +*) _Pseudomantis_, cap. 19-21. + + +The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally +desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, +elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the +humblest, purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men. +So rare a choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some +extraordinary manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which +filled the sacred authorities with dismay. The responses of the oracle +ceased suddenly and altogether. No revelation was vouchsafed to the +pontiff in his slumbers; no access of prophetic fury constrained him to +disclose the secrets of the future; no voice rang from the shrine; and +the unanswered epistles of the suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on +the great altar. As a natural consequence they speedily ceased to +arrive; the influx of offerings into the treasury terminated along with +them; the temple-courts were bare of worshippers; and the only victims +whose blood smoked within them were those slain by the priest himself, +in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of Apollo. The modest +hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he did not doubt +that he had excited the Deity’s wrath by some mysterious but heinous +pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous verdict +of all whom he approached. + +One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, +and pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred +functions, he was startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, +and, looking up, espied an ancient woman. Her appearance was rather +venerable than prepossessing. He recognised her as one of the inferior +ministers of the temple. + +“Reverend mother,” he addressed her, “doubtless thou comest to mingle +with mine thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to +indicate the cause, and the remedy of his wrath.” + +“No, son,” returned the venerable personage, “I propose to occasion no +such needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity. I hold within +mine own hand the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken +sanctuary, and for such consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce +equitable, I am minded to impart the same unto thee.” And as the +astonished priest made no answer, she continued: + +“My price is one hundred pieces of gold.” + +“Wretch!” exclaimed the priest indignantly, “thy mercenary demand alone +proves the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets +of the Gods. Depart my presence this moment!” + +The old woman retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the +incident soon passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the +following day, at the same hour, the aged woman again stood before him, +and said: + +“My price is _two_ hundred pieces of gold.” + +Again she was commanded to depart, and again obeyed without a murmur. +But the adventure now occasioned the priest much serious reflection. To +his excited fancy, the patient persistency of the crone began to assume +something of a supernatural character. He considered that the ways of +the Gods are not as our ways, and that it is rather the rule than the +exception with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous +manner, and by the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon +the history of the Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that +unseasonable obstinacy might in the end cost the temple the whole of +its revenues. The result of his cogitations was a resolution, if the +old woman should present herself on the following day, to receive her +in a different manner. + +Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, “My +price is _three_ hundred pieces of gold.” + +“Venerable ambassadress of Heaven,” said the priest, “thy boon is +granted thee. Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou +mayest.” + +The old woman’s reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in +extending her open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the +three hundred pieces of gold with as much expedition as was compatible +with the frequent interruptions necessitated by the crone’s depositing +each successive handful in a leather pouch; and the scrutiny, divided +between jealousy and affection, which she bestowed on each individual +coin. + +“And now,” said the priest, when the operation was at length completed, +“fulfil thy share of the compact.” + +“The cause of the oracle’s silence,” returned the old woman, “is the +unworthiness of the minister.” + +“Alas! ’tis even as I feared,” sighed the priest. “Declare now, wherein +consists my sin?” + +“It consists in this,” replied the old woman, “that the beard of thy +understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy +inexperience is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that +thy brains bear no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; +and in fine, lest I seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a +superfluity of epithets, that thou art an egregious nincompoop.” + +And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued: + +“Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the +very nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into +the language of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the +few wise upon the many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more +particularly the former? O silly as the crowds who hitherto have +brought their folly here, but now carry it elsewhere to the profit of +wiser men than thou! O fool! to deem that oracles were rendered by +Apollo! How should this be, seeing that there is no such person? Needs +there, peradventure, any greater miracle for the decipherment of these +epistles than a hot needle? [*] As for the supernatural voice, it doth +in truth proceed from a respectable, and in some sense a sacred +personage, being mine own when I am concealed within a certain recess +prepared for me by thy lamented predecessor, whose mistress I was in +youth, and whose coadjutor I have been in age. I am now ready to +minister to thee in the latter capacity. Be ruled by me; exchange thy +abject superstition for common sense; thy childish simplicity for +discreet policy; thy unbecoming spareness for a majestic portliness; +thy present ridiculous and uncomfortable situation for the repute of +sanctity, and the veneration of men. Thou wilt own that this is cheap +at three hundred pieces.” + +*) Lucian. + + +The young priest had hearkened to the crone’s discourse with an +expression of the most exquisite distress. When she had finished, he +arose, and disregarding his repulsive companion’s efforts to detain +him, departed hastily from the temple. + +II + +It was the young priest’s purpose, as soon as he became capable of +forming one, to place the greatest possible distance between himself +and the city of Dorylæum. The love of roaming insensibly grew upon him, +and ere long his active limbs had borne him over a considerable portion +of Asia. His simple wants were easily supplied by the wild productions +of the country, supplemented when needful by the proceeds of light +manual labour. By degrees the self-contempt which had originally stung +him to desperation took the form of an ironical compassion for the +folly of mankind, and the restlessness which had at first impelled him +to seek relief in a change of scene gave place to a spirit of curiosity +and observation. He learned to mix freely with all orders of men, save +one, and rejoiced to find the narrow mysticism which he had imbibed +from his previous education gradually yielding to contact with the +great world. From one class of men, indeed, he learned nothing—the +priests, whose society he eschewed with scrupulous vigilance, nor did +he ever enter the temples of the Gods. Diviners, augurs, all that made +any pretension whatever to a supernatural character, he held in utter +abhorrence, and his ultimate return in the direction of his native +country is attributed to his inability to persevere further in the path +he was following without danger of encountering Chaldean soothsayers, +or Persian magi, or Indian gymnosophists. + +He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was +still at a considerable distance from that region, when one night, as +he was sitting in the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a +phrase which arrested his attention. + +“As true as the oracle of Dorylæum.” The speaker was a countryman, who +appeared to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of +the company as greatly in need of confirmation. The sudden start and +stifled cry of the ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt +constrained to ask, with the most indifferent air he could assume: + +“Is the oracle of Dorylæum, then, so exceedingly renowned for +veracity?” + +“Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?” demanded the countryman, +with some disdain. “Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?” + +“Eubulides!” exclaimed the young traveller, “that is my own name!” + +“Thou mayest well rejoice, then,” observed another of the guests, “to +bear the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the +happy Gods. So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert +who have often beheld him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, +now that I scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only +that thy namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally +conspicuous in thee.” + +“Divinity!” exclaimed another. “Aye, if Phœbus himself ministered at +his own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than +Eubulides.” + +“Or predict the future more accurately,” added a priest. + +“Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse,” subjoined a poet. + +“Yet is it not marvellous,” remarked another speaker, “that for some +considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable +to deliver a single oracle?” + +“Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of +an aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple.” + +“Ha!” exclaimed Eubulides, “how was that?” + +“He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly +came to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully +appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under +the root of her tongue.” + +“The Gods be praised for that!” ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath. +“Pshaw! as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate +this vile mockery? To keep up the juggle—well, I know it must be so; +but to purloin my name! to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that +are not, I will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour.” + +He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the +city of Dorylæum. The further he progressed in this direction, the +louder became the bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic +the testimonies to the piety, prophetic endowments, and personal +attractions of the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was +the theme of continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the +roads swarming with throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part +in a great religious ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of +worship blended delightfully with the glee of the festival, and +Eubulides, who at first regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found +his moroseness insensibly yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He +could not but acknowledge that the imposture he panted to expose was at +least the source of much innocent happiness, and almost wished that the +importance of religion, considered as an engine of policy, had been +offered to his contemplation from this point of view, instead of the +sordid and revolting aspect in which it had been exhibited by the old +woman. + +In this ambiguous frame of mind he entered the temple. Before the high +altar stood the officiating priest, a young man, the image, yet not the +image, of himself. Lineament for lineament, the resemblance was exact, +but over the stranger’s whole figure was diffused an air of majesty, of +absolute serenity and infinite superiority, which excluded every idea +of deceit, and so awed the young priest that his purpose of rushing +forward to denounce the impostor and drag him from the shrine was +immediately and involuntarily relinquished. As he stood confounded and +irresolute, the melodious voice of the hierophant rang through the +temple: + +“Let the priest Eubulides stand forth.” + +This summons naturally caused the greatest astonishment in every one +but Eubulides, who emerged as swiftly as he could from the swaying and +murmuring crowd, and confronted his namesake at the altar. A cry of +amazement broke from the multitude as they beheld the pair, whose main +distinction in the eyes of most was their garb. But, as they gazed, the +form of the officiating priest assumed colossal proportions; a circle +of beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth around his head; hyacinthine +locks clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural +radiance; a quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his +hand; the majesty and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented +tenfold. Eubulides and the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, +for all recognised Apollo. + +All was silence for a space. It was at length broken by Phœbus. + +“Well, Eubulides,” inquired he, with the bland raillery of an Immortal, +“has it at length occurred to thee that I may have been long enough +away from Parnassus, filling thy place here while thou hast been +disporting thyself amid heretics and barbarians?” + +The abashed Eubulides made no response. The Deity continued: + +“Deem not that thou hast in aught excited the displeasure of the Gods. +In deserting their altars for Truth’s sake, thou didst render them the +most acceptable of sacrifices, the only one, it may be, by which they +set much store. But, Eubulides, take heed how thou again sufferest the +unworthiness of men to overcome the instincts of thine own nature. Thy +holiest sentiments should not have been at the mercy of a knave. If the +oracle of Dorylæum was an imposture, hadst thou no oracle in thine own +bosom? If the voice of Religion was no longer breathed from the tripod, +were the winds and waters silent, or had aught quenched the everlasting +stars? If there was no power to impose its mandates from without, +couldst thou be unconscious of a power within? If thou hadst nothing to +reveal unto men, mightest thou not have found somewhat to propound unto +them? Know this, that thou hast never experienced a more truly +religious emotion than that which led thee to form the design of +overthrowing this my temple, the abode, as thou didst deem it, of fraud +and superstition.” + +“But now, Phœbus,” Eubulides ventured to reply, “shall I not return to +the shrine purified by thy presence, and again officiate as thy +unworthy minister?” + +“No, Eubulides,” returned Phœbus, with a smile; “silver is good, but +not for ploughshares. Thy strange experience, thy long wanderings, thy +lonely meditations, and varied intercourse with men, have spoiled thee +for a priest, while, as I would fain hope, qualifying thee for a sage. +Some worthy person may easily be found to preside over this temple; and +by the aid of such inspiration as I may from time to time see meet to +vouchsafe him, administer its affairs indifferently well. Do thou, +Eubulides, consecrate thy powers to a more august service than +Apollo’s, to one that shall endure when Delphi and Delos know _his_ no +more.” + +“To whose service, Phœbus?” inquired Eubulides. + +“To the service of Humanity, my son,” responded Apollo. + + + + +DUKE VIRGIL + +I + +The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged +the suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had +a Podestà of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a +Papal Legate, incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried +dictators, consuls, prætors, councils of ten, and other numbers odd and +even, and ere the middle of the thirteenth century were luxuriating in +the enjoyment of perfect anarchy. + +An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were +forbidden to propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything +new. + +“Why not consult Manto, the alchemist’s daughter, our prophetess, our +Sibyl?” the young Benedetto asked at last. + +“Why not?” repeated Eustachio, an elderly man. + +“Why not, indeed?” interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years. + +All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto’s lover; Eustachio her +father’s friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the +three were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before +proceeding formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain +private interviews, the two elder with Manto’s father, the youth with +Manto herself. The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the +alchemist’s influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the +friend went further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man +promised his good word to both, but when he went to confer with his +daughter he found her closeted with Benedetto, and returned without +disburdening himself of his errand. The youth had just risen from his +knees, pleading with her, and drawing glowing pictures of their +felicity when he should be Duke and she Duchess. + +She answered, “Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to +rule another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over +my native city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the +dead.” + +“And why should not Mantua have a tyrant?” demanded Benedetto. “The +freedom of the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no +liberty save that of making the base-born do his bidding. ’Tis hell to +a man of spirit to be contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my +heart’s desire on the knaves, little would I reck submitting to the +sway of the Emperor.” + +“I know that well, Benedetto,” said Manto, “and hence will take good +heed not to counsel Mantua to choose thee. No, the Duke I will give her +shall be one without passions to gratify or injuries to avenge, and +shall already be crowned with a crown to make the ducal cap as nothing +in his eyes, if eyes he had.” + +Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward +to announce that the commissioners waited. + +“My projection,” he whispered, “only wants one more piece of gold to +insure success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in +exchange for boundless riches!” + +“And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!” said Manto, +patting his cheek. + +The envoys’ commission having been unfolded, she took not a moment to +reply, “Be your Duke Virgil.” + +The deputation respectfully represented that although Virgil was no +doubt Mantua’s greatest citizen, he laboured under the disqualification +of having been dead more than twelve hundred years. Nothing further, +however, could be extorted from the prophetess, and the ambassadors +were obliged to withdraw. + +The interpretation of Manto’s oracle naturally provoked much diversity +of opinion in the council. + +“Obviously,” said a poet, “the prophetess would have us confer the +ducal dignity upon the contemporary bard who doth most nearly accede to +the vestiges of the divine Maro; and he, as I judge, is even now in the +midst of you.” + +“Virgil the poet,” said a priest, who had long laboured under the +suspicion of occult practices, “was a fool to Virgil the enchanter. The +wise woman evidently demands one competent to put the devil into a +hole—an operation which I have striven to perform all my life.” + +“Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?” inquired Eustachio. + +“Better upon an egg than upon a quack!” retorted the priest. + +But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately +conferred with Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; +Leonardo had parts, but no character. + +“I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess,” +he said. “She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in +divers respects preferable to a living one.” + +“Surely,” said Eustachio, “provided always that the servant is a man of +exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord’s +withdrawal to another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices +with impunity, but doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his +great taskmaster’s eye.” + +“Eustachio,” said Leonardo, with admiration, “it is the misery of +Mantua that she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst +talk. I would fain have further discourse with thee.” + +The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were +crying, “A Virgil! a Virgil!” + +The councillors reassembled and passed resolutions. + +“But who shall be Regent?” inquired some one when Virgil had been +elected unanimously. + +“Who but we?” asked Eustachio and Leonardo. “Are we not the heads of +the Virgilian party?” + +Thus had the enthusiastic Manto, purest of idealists, installed in +authority the two most unprincipled politicians in the republic; and +she had lost her lover besides, for Benedetto fled the city, vowing +vengeance. + +Anyhow, the dead poet was enthroned Duke of Mantua; Eustachio and +Leonardo became Regents, with the style of Consuls, and it was provided +that in doubtful cases reference should be made to the Sortes +Virgilianae. And truly, if we may believe the chronicles, the +arrangement worked for a time surprisingly well. The Mantuans, in an +irrational way, had done what it behoves all communities to do +rationally if they can. They had sought for a good and worthy citizen +to rule them; it was their misfortune that such an one could only be +found among the dead. They felt prouder of themselves for being +governed by a great man—one in comparison with whom kings and pontiffs +were the creatures of a day. They would not, if they could help it, +disgrace themselves by disgracing their hero; they would not have it +said that Mantua, which had not been too weak to bear him, had been too +weak to endure his government. The very hucksters and usurers among +them felt dimly that there was such a thing as an Ideal. A glimmering +perception dawned upon mailed, steel-fisted barons that there was such +a thing as an Idea, and they felt uneasily apprehensive, like beasts of +prey who have for the first time sniffed gunpowder. The railleries and +mockeries of Mantua’s neighbours, moreover, stimulated Mantua’s +citizens to persevere in their course, and deterred them from doing +aught to approve themselves fools. Were not Verona, Cremona, Lodi, +Pavia, Crema, cities that could never enthrone the Virgil they had +never produced, watching with undissembled expectation to see them +trip? The hollow-hearted Eustachio and the rapacious Leonardo, their +virtual rulers, might indeed be little sensible to this enthusiasm, but +they could not disregard the general drift of public opinion, which +said clearly: “Mantua is trying a great experiment. Woe to you if you +bring it to nought by your selfish quarrels!” + +The best proof that there was something in Manto’s idea was that after +a while the Emperor Frederick took alarm, and signified to the Mantuans +that they must cease their mumming and fooling and acknowledge him as +their sovereign, failing which he would besiege their city. + +II + +Mantua was girt by a zone of fire and steel. Her villas and homesteads +flamed or smoked; her orchards flared heavenward in a torrent of sparks +or stood black sapless trunks charred to their inmost pith; the promise +of her harvests lay as grey ashes over the land. But her ramparts, +though breached in places, were yet manned by her sons, and their +assailants recoiled pierced by the shafts or stunned by the catapults +of the defence. Kaiser Frederick sat in his tent, giving secret +audience to one who had stolen in disguise over from the city in the +grey of the morning. By the Emperor’s side stood a tall martial figure, +wearing a visor which he never removed. + +“Your Majesty,” Leonardo was saying, for it was he, “this madness will +soon pass away. The people will weary of sacrificing themselves for a +dead heathen.” + +“And Liberty?” asked the Emperor, “is not that a name dear to those +misguided creatures?” + +“So dear, please your Majesty, that if they have but the name they will +perfectly dispense with the thing. I do not advise that your imperial +yoke should be too palpably adjusted to their stiff necks. Leave them +in appearance the choice of their magistrate, but insure its falling +upon one of approved fidelity, certain to execute obsequiously all your +Majesty’s mandates; such an one, in short, as your faithful vassal +Leonardo. It would only be necessary to decapitate that dangerous +revolutionist, Eustachio.” + +“And the citizens are really ready for this?” + +“All the respectable citizens. All of whom your Majesty need take +account. All men of standing and substance.” + +“I rejoice to hear it,” said the Emperor, “and do the more readily +credit thee inasmuch as a most virtuous and honourable citizen hath +already been beforehand with thee, assuring me of the same thing, and +affirming that but one traitor, whose name, methinks, sounded like +thine, stands between me and the subjugation of Mantua.” + +And, withdrawing a curtain, he disclosed the figure of Eustachio. + +“I thought he was asleep,” muttered Eustachio. + +“That noodle to have been beforehand with me!” murmured Leonardo. + +“What perplexes me,” continued Frederick, after enjoying the confusion +of the pair for a few moments, “is that our masked friend here will +have it that he is the man for the Dukedom, and offers to open the +gates to me by a method of his own.” + +“By fair fighting, an’ please my liege,” observed the visored +personage, “not by these dastardly treacheries.” + +“How inhuman!” sighed Eustachio. + +“How old-fashioned!” sneered Leonardo. + +“The truth is,” continued Frederick, “he gravely doubts whether either +of you possesses the influence which you allege, and has devised a +method of putting this to the proof, which I trust will commend itself +to you.” + +Leonardo and Eustachio expressed their readiness to submit their credit +with their fellow-citizens to any reasonable trial. + +“He proposes, then,” pursued the Emperor, “that ye, disarmed and bound, +should be placed at the head of the storming column, and in that +situation should, as questionless ye would, exert your entire moral +influence with your fellow-citizens to dissuade them from shooting you. +If the column, thus shielded, enters the city without resistance, ye +will both have earned the Dukedom, and the question who shall have it +may be decided by single combat between yourselves. But should the +people, rather than submit to our clemency, impiously slay their +elected magistrates, it will be apparent that the methods of our +martial friend are the only ones corresponding to the exigency of the +case. Is the storming column ready?” + +“All but the first file, please your Majesty,” responded the man in the +visor. + +“Let it be equipped,” returned Frederick, and in half-an-hour Eustachio +and Leonardo, their hands tied behind them, were stumbling up the +breach, impelled by pikes in the rear, and confronting the catapults, +_chevaux de frise_, hidden pitfalls, Greek fire, and boiling water +provided by their own direction, and certified to them the preceding +evening as all that could be desired. They had, however, the full use +of their voices, and this they turned to the best account. Never had +Leonardo been so cogent, or Eustachio so pathetic. The Mantuans, +already disorganised by the unaccountable disappearance of the +Executive, were entirely irresolute what to do. As they hesitated the +visored chief incited his followers. All seemed lost, when a tall +female figure appeared among the defenders. It was Manto. + +“Fools and cowards!” she exclaimed, “must ye learn your duty from a +woman?” + +And, seizing a catapult, she discharged a stone which laid the masked +warrior stunned and senseless on the ground. The next instant Eustachio +and Leonardo fell dead, pierced by showers of arrows. The Mantuans +sallied forth. The dismayed Imperialists fled to their camp. The bodies +of the fallen magistrates and of the unconscious chieftain in the mask +were brought into the city. Manto herself undid the fallen man’s visor, +and uttered a fearful shriek as she recognised Benedetto. + +“What shall be done with him, mistress?” they asked. + +Manto long stood silent, torn by conflicting emotions. At length she +said, in a strange, unnatural voice: + +“Put him into the Square Tower.” + +“And now, mistress, what further? How to choose the new consuls?” + +“Ask me no more,” she said. “I shall never prophesy again. Virtue has +gone away from me.” + +The leaders departed, to intrigue for the vacant posts, and devise +tortures for Benedetto. Manto sat on the rampart, still and silent as +its stones. Anon she rose, and roved about as if distraught, reciting +verses from Virgil. + +Night had fallen. Benedetto lay wakeful in his cell. A female figure +stood before him bearing a lamp. It was Manto. + +“Benedetto,” she said, “I am a wretch, faithless to my country and to +my master. I did but even now open his sacred volume at hazard, and on +what did my eye first fall? + Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. But I can no other. + I am a woman. May Mantua never entrust her fortunes to the like of me + again! Come with me, I will release thee.” + +She unlocked his chains; she guided him through the secret passage +under the moat; they stood at the exit, in the open air. + +“Fly,” she said, “and never again draw sword against thy mother. I will +return to my house, and do that to myself which it behoved me to have +done ere I released thee.” + +“Manto,” exclaimed Benedetto “a truce to this folly! Forsake thy dead +Duke, and that cheat of Liberty more crazy and fantastic still. Wed a +living Duke in me!” + +“Never!” exclaimed Manto. “I love thee more than any man living on +earth, and I would not espouse thee if the earth held no other.” + +“Thou canst not help thyself,” he rejoined; “thou hast revealed to me +the secret of this passage. I hasten to the camp. I return in an hour +with an army, and wilt thou, wilt thou not, to-morrow’s sun shall +behold thee the partner of my throne!” + +Manto wore a poniard. She struck Benedetto to the heart, and he fell +dead. She drew the corpse back into the passage, and hurried to her +home. Opening her master’s volume again, she read: + +Tædet coeli convexa tueri. + + +A few minutes afterwards her father entered the chamber to tell her he +had at last found the philosopher’s stone, but, perceiving his daughter +hanging by her girdle, he forbore to intrude upon her, and returned to +his laboratory. + +It was time. A sentinel of the besiegers had marked Benedetto’s fall, +and the disappearance of the body into the earth. A pool of blood +revealed the entrance to the passage. Ere sunrise Mantua was full of +Frederick’s soldiers, full also of burning houses, rifled sanctuaries, +violated damsels, children playing with their dead mothers’ breasts, +especially full of citizens protesting that they had ever longed for +the restoration of the Emperor, and that this was the happiest day of +their lives. Frederick waited till everybody was killed, then entered +the city and proclaimed an amnesty. Virgil’s bust was broken, and his +writings burned with Manto’s body. The flames glowed on the dead face, +which gleamed as it were with pleasure. The old alchemist had been +slain among his crucibles; his scrolls were preserved with jealous +care. + +But Manto found another father. She sat at Virgil’s feet in Elysium; +and as he stroked the fair head, now golden with perpetual youth, +listened to his mild reproofs and his cheerful oracles. By her side +stood a bowl filled with the untasted waters of Lethe. + +“Woe,” said Virgil—but his manner contradicted his speech—“woe to the +idealist and enthusiast! Woe to them who live in the world to come! Woe +to them who live only for a hope whose fulfilment they will not behold +on earth! Drink not, therefore, of that cup, dear child, lest Duke +Virgil’s day should come, and thou shouldst not know it. For come it +will, and all the sooner for thy tragedy and thy comedy.” + + + + +THE CLAW + + +The balm and stillness of a summer’s night enveloped a spacious piazza +in the city of Shylock and Desdemona. The sky teemed with light +drifting clouds through which the beaming of the full moon broke at +intervals upon some lamp-lit palace, thronged and musical, for it was a +night of festivity, or silvered the dull creeping waters. Ever and anon +some richly attired young patrician descended the steps of one or other +of these mansions, and hurried across the wide area to the canal +stairs, where his gondola awaited him. Whoever did this could not but +observe a tall female figure, which, cloaked and masked, walked +backwards and forwards across the piazza, regarding no one, yet with an +air that seemed to invite a companion. + +More than one of the young nobles approached the presumably fair +peripatetic, and, with courtesy commonly in inverse ratio to the amount +of wine he was carrying home, proffered his escort to his gondola. +Whenever this happened the figure removed her mask and unclasped her +robe, and revealed a sight which for one moment rooted the young man to +the earth and in the next sent him scampering to his bark. For the +countenance was a death’s head, and the breast was that of a mouldering +skeleton. + +At last, however, a youth presented himself who, more courageous or +more tipsy than his fellows, or more helplessly paralysed with horror +than they, did not decline the proffered caress, and suffered himself +to be drawn within the goblin’s accursed embrace. Valiant or +pot-valiant, great was his relief at finding himself clasped, instead +of by a loathsome spectre, by a silver-haired man of noble presence, +yet with a countenance indescribably haggard and anxious. + +“Come, my son,” he cried, “hasten whither the rewards of thy +intrepidity await thee. Impouch the purse of Fortunatus! Indue the +signet of Solomon!” + +The young man hesitated. “Is there nought else?” he cautiously +demanded. “Needs it not that I should renounce my baptism? Must I not +subscribe an infernal compact?” + +“In thy own blood, my son,” cheerfully responded the old gentleman. + +“Peradventure,” hesitatingly interrogated the youth, “peradventure you +are _he_?” + +“Not so, my son, upon honour,” returned the mysterious personage. “I am +but a distressed magician, at this present in fearful straits, from +which I look to be delivered by thee.” + +The youth gazed some moments at his companion’s head, and then still +more earnestly at his feet. He then yielded his own hand to him, and +the pair crossed the piazza, almost at a run, the magician ever +ejaculating, “Speed! speed!” + +They paused at the foot of a lofty tower, doorless and windowless, with +no visible access of any kind. But the magician signed with his hand, +pronounced some cabalistical words, and instantly stone and lime fell +asunder and revealed an entrance through which they passed, and which +immediately closed behind them. The youth quaked at finding himself +alone in utter darkness with he knew not what, but the wizard whistled, +and a severed hand appeared in air bearing a lamp which illuminated a +long winding staircase. The old man motioned to the youth to precede +him, nor dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would have given +the world for the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint. The +distorted shadows of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the +wavering lamp-shine, seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and +he glanced back ever and anon weening to see himself dogged by some +frightful monster, but he saw only the silver hair and sable velvet of +the dignified old man. + +After the ascent of many steps a door opened before them, and they +found themselves in a spacious chamber, brightly, yet from its size +imperfectly illumined by a single large lamp. It was wainscoted with +ebony, and the furniture was of the same. A long table was covered with +scrolls, skulls, crucibles, crystals, star-charts, geomantic figures, +and other appurtenances of a magician’s calling. Tomes of necromantic +lore lined the walls, which were yet principally occupied with crystal +vessels, in which foul beings seemed dimly and confusedly to agitate +themselves. + +The magician signed to his visitor to be seated, sat down himself and +began: + +“Brave youth, ere entering upon the boundless power and riches that +await thee, learn who I am and why I have brought thee here. Behold in +me no vulgar wizard, no mere astrologer or alchemist, but a compeer of +Merlin and Michael Scott, with whose name it may be the nurse of thy +infancy hath oft-times quelled thy froward humours. I am Peter of +Abano, falsely believed to have lain two centuries buried in the +semblance of a dog under a heap of stones hurled by the furious +populace, but in truth walking earth to this day, in virtue of the +compact now to be revealed to thee. Hearken, my son! Vain must be the +machinations of my enemies, vain the onslaughts of the rabble, so long +as I fulfil a certain contract registered in hell’s chancery, as I have +now done these three hundred years. And the condition is this, that +every year I present unto the Demon one who hath at my persuasion +assigned his soul to him in exchange for power, riches, knowledge, +magical gifts, or whatever else his heart chiefly desireth; nor until +this present year have I perilled the fulfilment of my obligation. +Seest thou these scrolls? They are the assignments of which I have +spoken. It would amaze thee to scan the subscriptions, and perceive in +these the signatures of men exemplary in the eyes of their fellows, +clothed with high dignities in Church and State—nay sometimes redolent +of the very odour of sanctity. Never hath my sagacity deceived me until +this year, when, smitten with the fair promise of a youth of singular +impishness, I omitted to take due note of his consumptive habit, and +have but this afternoon encountered his funeral. This is the last day +of my year, and should my engagement be unredeemed when the sun attains +the cusp of that nethermost house of heaven which he is even now +traversing, I must become an inmate of the infernal kingdom. No time +has remained for nice investigation. I have therefore proved the +courage of the Venetian youth in the manner thou knowest, and thou +alone hast sustained the ordeal. Fail not at my bidding, or thou +quittest not this chamber alive. For when the Demon comes to bear me +away, he will assuredly rend thee in pieces for being found in my +company. Thou hast, therefore, everything to gain and nothing to lose +by joining the goodly fellowship of my mates and partners. Delay not, +time urges, night deepens, they that would drink thy blood are abroad. +Hearest thou not the moaning and pelting of the rising storm, and the +muttering and scraping of my imprisoned goblins? Save us, I entreat, I +command, save us both!” + +Screaming with agitation the aged sorcerer laid a scroll engrossed with +fairly written characters before the youth, stabbed the latter’s arm +with a stylus that at once evoked and collected the crimson stream, +thrust this into his hand and strove to guide it to the parchment, +chanting at the same time litanies to the infernal powers. The crystal +flagons rang like one great harmonica with shrill but spirit-stirring +music; volumes of vaporous perfumes diffused themselves through the +apartment, and an endless procession of treasure-laden figures defiled +before the bewildered youth. He seemed buried in the opulence of the +world, as he sat up to his waist in gold and jewels; all the earth’s +beauty gazed at him through eyes brilliant and countless as the stars +of heaven; courtiers beckoned him to thrones; battle-steeds neighed and +pawed for his mounting; laden tables allured every appetite; vassals +bent in homage; slaves fell prostrate at his feet. Now he seemed to +collect or disperse legions of spirits with the waving of a wand; anon, +as he pronounced a spell, golden dragons glided away from boughs laden +with golden fruits. Well for him, doubtless, that in him Nature had +kneaded from ordinary clay as unimaginative a youth as could be found +in Venice: yet even so, dazzled with glamour, intoxicated with +illusion, less and less able to resist the cunningly mingled caresses, +entreaties, and menaces of Abano, he could not refrain from tracing a +few characters with the stylus, when, catching reflected in a mirror +the old magician’s expression of wolfish glee, he dropped the +instrument from his grasp, and cast his eye upwards as if appealing to +Heaven. But every drop of blood seemed frozen in his frame as he beheld +an enormous claw thrust through the roof, member as it seemed of some +being too gigantic to be contained in the chamber or the tower itself. +Cold, poignant, glittering as steel, it rested upon a socket of the +repulsive hue of jaundiced ivory, with no vestige of a foot or anything +to relieve its naked horror as, rigid and lifeless, yet plainly with a +mighty force behind it, it pointed at the magician’s heart. As Abano, +following the youth’s eye, caught sight of the portent, his visage +assumed an expression of frantic horror, his spells died upon his lips, +and the gorgeous figures became grinning apes or blotchy toads: madly +he seized the young man’s hand, and strove to force him to complete his +signature. The robust youth felt as an infant in his grasp, but ere the +stylus could be again thrust upon him the first stroke of the midnight +hour rang through the chamber, and instantly the gigantic talon pierced +Abano from breast to back, projecting far beyond his shoulders, and +swept him upwards to the roof, through which both disappeared without +leaving a trace of their passage. + +Horror and thankfulness rushed together into the young man’s mind, and +there contended for some brief instants: but as the last stroke sounded +all the crystal vials shivered with a stunning crash, and their hellish +inmates, rejoicing in their deliverance, swarmed into the chamber. All +made for the youth, who, tugged, clawed, fondled, bitten, beslimed, +blinded, deafened, beset in every way by creatures of indescribable +loathsomeness, grasped frantically as his sole weapon, the stylus; but +it had become a writhing serpent. This was too much, sense forsook him +on the spot. + +On recovering consciousness he found himself stretched on a pallet in +the dungeons of the Inquisition. The Inquisitors sat on their +tribunals; black-robed familiars flitted about, or waited attentive +upon their orders; one expert in ecclesiastical jurisprudence proved +the edge of an axe, and another heated pincers in a chafing-dish; +dismal groans pierced the massy walls; two sturdy fellows, stripped to +the waist, adjusted the rollers of a rack. A surgeon approached the +bedside, bearing a phial and a lancet. The youth screamed and again +became insensible. + +But his affright was groundless. The Inquisitors had already taken +cognisance of Abano’s scrolls, and found that, touching these at least, +he had spoken sooth. Besides kings, princes, ministers, magistrates, +and other secular persons who had owed their success in life to +dealings with the devil under his mediation, the infernal bondsmen +included so many pillars of the Church and champions of the Faith; +prelates plenty, abbots in abundance, cardinals not a few, a (some +whispered _the_) Pope; above all, so many of the Inquisitors +themselves, that further inquiry could evidently nowise conduce to +edification. The surgeon, therefore, infused an opiate into the veins +of the unconscious youth, and he came to himself upon a galley speeding +him to the holy war in Cyprus, where he fell fighting the Turk. + + + + +ALEXANDER THE RATCATCHER + + +“Alexander Octavus mures, qui Urbem supra modum vexabant, anathemate +perculit.”—_Palatius. Fasti Cardinalium_, tom. v.p. 46. + +I + +“Rome and her rats are at the point of battle!” + +This metaphor of Menenius Agrippa’s became, history records, matter of +fact in 1689, when rats pervaded the Eternal City from garret to +cellar, and Pope Alexander the Eighth seriously apprehended the fate of +Bishop Hatto. The situation worried him sorely; he had but lately +attained the tiara at an advanced age—the twenty-fourth hour, as he +himself remarked in extenuation of his haste to enrich his nephews. The +time vouchsafed for worthier deeds was brief, and he dreaded descending +to posterity as the Rat Pope. Witty and genial, his sense of humour +teased him with a full perception of the absurdity of his position. +Peter and Pasquin concurred in forbidding him to desert his post; and +he derived but small comfort from the ingenuity of his flatterers, who +compared him to St. Paul contending with beasts at Ephesus. + +It wanted three half-hours to midnight, as Alexander sat amid traps and +ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican, under the protection of two +enormous cats and a British terrier. A silver bell stood ready to his +hand, should the aid of the attendant chamberlains be requisite. The +walls had been divested of their tapestries, and the floor gleamed with +pounded glass. A tome of legendary lore lay open at the history of the +Piper of Hamelin. All was silence, save for the sniffing and scratching +of the dog and a sound of subterranean scraping and gnawing. + +“Why tarries Cardinal Barbadico thus?” the Pope at last asked himself +aloud. The inquiry was answered by a wild burst of squeaking and +clattering and scurrying to and fro, as who should say, “We’ve eaten +him! We’ve eaten him!” + +But this exultation was at least premature, for just as the terrified +Pope clutched his bell, the door opened to the narrowest extent +compatible with the admission of an ecclesiastical personage of +dignified presence, and Cardinal Barbadico hastily squeezed himself +through. + +“I shall hardly trust myself upon these stairs again,” he remarked, +“unless under the escort of your Holiness’s terrier.” + +“Take him, my son, and a cruse of holy water to boot,” the Pope +responded. “Now, how go things in the city?” + +“As ill as may be, your Holiness. Not a saint stirs a finger to help +us. The country-folk shun the city, the citizens seek the country. The +multitude of enemies increases hour by hour. They set at defiance the +anathemas fulminated by your Holiness, the spiritual censures placarded +in the churches, and the citation to appear before the ecclesiastical +courts, although assured that their cause shall be pleaded by the +ablest advocates in Rome. The cats, amphibious with alarm, are taking +to the Tiber. Vainly the city reeks with toasted cheese, and the +Commissary-General reports himself short of arsenic.” + +“And how are the people taking it?” demanded Alexander. “To what cause +do they attribute the public calamity?” + +“Generally speaking, to the sins of your Holiness,” replied the +Cardinal. + +“Cardinal!” exclaimed Alexander indignantly. + +“I crave pardon for my temerity,” returned Barbadico. “It is with +difficulty that I force myself to speak, but I am bound to lay the +ungrateful truth before your Holiness. The late Pope, as all men know, +was a personage of singular sanctity.” + +“Far too upright for this fallen world,” observed Alexander with +unction. + +“I will not dispute,” responded the Cardinal, “that the head of +Innocent the Eleventh might have been more fitly graced by a halo than +by a tiara. But the vulgar are incapable of placing themselves at this +point of view. They know that the rats hardly squeaked under Innocent, +and that they swarm under Alexander. What wonder if they suspect your +Holiness of familiarity with Beelzebub, the patron of vermin, and +earnestly desire that he would take you to himself? Vainly have I +represented to them the unreasonableness of imposing upon him a trouble +he may well deem superfluous, considering your Holiness’s infirm health +and advanced age. Vainly, too, have I pointed out that your anathema +has actually produced all the effect that could have been reasonably +anticipated from any similar manifesto on your predecessor’s part. They +won’t see it. And, in fact, might I humbly advise, it does appear +impolitic to hurl anathemas unless your Holiness knows that some one +will be hit. It might be opportune, for example, to excommunicate +Father Molinos, now fast in the dungeons of St. Angelo, unless, indeed, +the rats have devoured him there. But I question the expediency of +going much further.” + +“Cardinal,” said the Pope, “you think yourself prodigiously clever, but +you ought to know that the state of public opinion allowed us no +alternative. Moreover, I will give you a wrinkle, in case you should +ever come to be Pope yourself. It is unwise to allow ancient +prerogatives to fall entirely into desuetude. Far-seeing men +prognosticate a great revival of sacerdotalism in the nineteenth +century, and what is impotent in an age of sense may be formidable in +an age of nonsense. Further, we know not from one day to another +whether we may not be absolutely necessitated to excommunicate that +fautor of Gallicanism, Louis the Fourteenth, and before launching our +bolt at a king, we may think well to test its efficacy upon a rat. +_Fiat experimentum._ And now to return to our rats, from which we have +ratted. Is there indeed no hope?” + +“_Lateat scintillula forsan_,” said the Cardinal mysteriously. + +“Ha! How so?” eagerly demanded Alexander. + +“Our hopes,” answered the Cardinal, “are associated with the recent +advent to this city of an extraordinary personage.” + +“Explain,” urged the Pope. + +“I speak,” resumed the Cardinal, “of an aged man of no plebeian mien or +bearing, albeit most shabbily attired in the skins, now fabulously +cheap, of the vermin that torment us; who, professing to practise as an +herbalist, some little time ago established himself in an obscure +street of no good repute. A tortoise hangs in his needy shop, nor are +stuffed alligators lacking. Understanding that he was resorted to by +such as have need of philters and love-potions, or are incommoded by +the longevity of parents and uncles, I was about to have him arrested, +when I received a report which gave me pause. This concerned the +singular intimacy which appeared to subsist between him and our +enemies. When he left home, it was averred, he was attended by troops +of them obedient to his beck and call, and spies had observed him +banqueting them at his counter, the rats sitting erect and comporting +themselves with perfect decorum. I resolved to investigate the matter +for myself. Looking into his house through an unshuttered window, I +perceived him in truth surrounded by feasting and gambolling rats; but +when the door was opened in obedience to my attendants’ summons, he +appeared to be entirely alone. Laying down a pestle and mortar, he +greeted me by name with an easy familiarity which for the moment quite +disconcerted me, and inquired what had procured him the honour of my +visit. Recovering myself, and wishing to intimidate him: + +“‘I desire in the first place,’ I said, ‘to point out to you your grave +transgression of municipal regulations in omitting to paint your name +over your shop.’ + +“‘Call me Rattila,’ he rejoined with unconcern, ‘and state your further +business.’ + +“I felt myself on the wrong tack, and hastened to interrogate him +respecting his relations with our adversaries. He frankly admitted his +acquaintance with rattery in all its branches, and his ability to +deliver the city from this scourge, but his attitude towards your +Holiness was so deficient in respect that I question whether I ought to +report it.” + +“Proceed, son,” said the Pope; “we will not be deterred from providing +for the public weal by the ribaldry of a ratcatcher.” + +“He scoffed at what he termed your Holiness’s absurd position, and +affirmed that the world had seldom beheld, or would soon behold again, +so ridiculous a spectacle as a Pope besieged by rats. ‘I can help your +master,’ he continued, ‘and am willing; but my honour, like his, is +aspersed in the eyes of the multitude, and he must come to my aid, if I +am to come to his.’ + +“I prayed him to be more explicit, and offered to be the bearer of any +communication to your Holiness. + +“‘I will unfold myself to no one but the Pope himself,’ he replied, +‘and the interview must take place when and where I please to appoint. +Let him meet me this very midnight, and alone, in the fifth chamber of +the Appartamento Borgia.’ + +“‘The Appartamento Borgia!’ I exclaimed in consternation. ‘The saloons +which the wicked Pope Alexander the Sixth nocturnally perambulates, +mingling poisons that have long lost their potency for Cardinals who +have long lost their lives!’ + +“‘Have a care!’ he exclaimed sharply. ‘You speak to his late Holiness’s +most intimate friend.’ + +“‘Then,’ I answered, ‘you must obviously be the Devil, and I am not at +present empowered to negotiate with your Infernal Majesty. Consider, +however, the peril and inconvenience of visiting at dead of night rooms +closed for generations. Think of the chills and cobwebs. Weigh the +probability of his Holiness being devoured by rats.’ + +“‘I guarantee his Holiness absolute immunity from cold,’ he replied, +‘and that none of my subjects shall molest him either going or +returning.’ + +“‘But,’ I objected, ‘granting that you are not the Devil, how the +devil, let me ask, do you expect to gain admittance at midnight to the +Appartamento Borgia?’ + +“‘Think you I cannot pass through a stone wall?’ answered he, and +vanished in an instant. A tremendous scampering of rats immediately +ensued, then all was silence. + +“On recovering in some measure from my astounded condition, I caused +strict search to be made throughout the shop. Nothing came to light but +herbalists’ stuff and ordinary medicines. And now, Holy Father, your +Holiness’s resolution? Reflect well. This Rattila may be the King of +the Rats, or he may be Beelzebub in person.” + +Alexander the Eighth was principally considered by his contemporaries +in the light of a venerable fox, but the lion had by no means been +omitted from his composition. + +“All powers of good forbid,” he exclaimed, “that a Pope and a Prince +should shrink from peril which the safety of the State summons him to +encounter! I will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of +his own appointing, under his late intimate friend’s very nose. I am a +man of many transgressions, but something assures me that Heaven will +not deem this a fit occasion for calling them to remembrance. Time +presses; I lead on; follow, Cardinal Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let +us not forget temporal and spiritual armouries.” + +And hastily providing himself with a lamp, a petronel, a bunch of keys, +a crucifix, a vial of holy water, and a manual of exorcisms, the Pope +passed through a secret door in a corner of his chamber, followed by +the Cardinal bearing another lamp and a naked sword, and preceded by +the dog and the two cats, all ardent and undaunted as champions bound +to the Holy Land for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. + +II + +The wizard had kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the +pilgrimage, which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the +number of passages to be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length +the companions stood before the portal of the Appartamento Borgia. + +“Your Holiness must enter alone,” Cardinal Barbadico admonished, with +manifest reluctance. + +“Await my return,” enjoined the Pontiff, in a tone of more confidence +than he could actually feel, as, after much grinding and grating, the +massive door swung heavily back, and he passed on into the dim, +unexplored space beyond. The outer air, streaming in as though eager to +indemnify itself for years of exile, smote and swayed the flame of the +Pope’s lamp, whose feeble ray flitted from floor to ceiling as the +decrepit man, weary with the way he had traversed and the load he was +bearing, tottered and stumbled painfully along, ever and anon arrested +by a closed door, which he unlocked with prodigious difficulty. The +cats cowered close to the Cardinal; the dog at first accompanied the +Pope, but whined so grievously, as though he beheld a spirit, that +Alexander bade him back. + +Supreme is the spell of the _genius loci_. The chambers traversed by +the Pope were in fact adorned with fair examples of the painter’s art, +mostly scriptural in subject, but some inspired with the devout +Pantheism in which all creeds are reconciled. All were alike invisible +to the Pontiff, who, with the dim flicker of his lamp, could no more +discern Judaea wed with Egypt on the frescoed ceiling than, with the +human limitation of his faculties, he could foresee that the +ill-reputed rooms would one day harbour a portion of the Vatican +Library, so greatly enriched by himself. Nothing but sinister memories +and vague alarms presented themselves to his imagination. The +atmosphere, heavy and brooding from the long exclusion of the outer +air, seemed to weigh upon him with the density of matter, and to afford +the stuff out of which phantasmal bodies perpetually took shape and, as +he half persuaded himself, substance. Creeping and tottering between +bowl and cord, shielding himself with lamp and crucifix from +Michelotto’s spectral poniard and more fearful contact with fleshless +Vanozzas and mouldering Giulias, the Pope urged, or seemed to urge, his +course amid phantom princes and cardinals, priests and courtesans, +soldiers and serving-men, dancers, drinkers, dicers, Bacchic and +Cotyttian workers of whatsoever least beseemed the inmates of a +Pontifical household, until, arrived in the fifth chamber, close by +the, to him, invisible picture of the Resurrection, he sank exhausted +into a spacious chair that seemed placed for his reception, and for a +moment closed his eyes. Opening them immediately afterwards, he saw +with relief that the phantoms had vanished, and that he confronted what +at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient ratcatcher, habited +precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for all his mean +apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the potentates of +the earth on other subjects than the extermination of rats. + +“This is noble of your Holiness—really,” he said, bowing with mock +reverence. “A second Leo the Great!” + +“I tell you what, my man,” responded Alexander, feeling it very +necessary to assert his dignity while any of it remained, “you are not +to imagine that, because I have humoured you so far as to grant you an +audience at an unusual place and time, I am going to stand any amount +of your nonsense and impertinence. You can catch our rats, can you? +Catch them then, and you need not fear that we shall treat you like the +Pied Piper of Hamelin. You have committed sundry rascalities, no doubt? +A pardon shall be made out for you. You want a patent or a privilege +for your ratsbane? You shall have it. So to work, in the name of St. +Muscipulus! and you may keep the tails and skins.” + +“Alexander,” said the ratcatcher composedly, “I would not commend or +dispraise you unduly, but this I may say, that of all the Popes I have +known you are the most exuberant in hypocrisy and the most deficient in +penetration. The most hypocritical, because you well know, and know +that I know that you know, that you are not conversing with an ordinary +ratcatcher: had you deemed me such, you would never have condescended +to meet me at this hour and place. The least penetrating, because you +apparently have not yet discovered to whom you are speaking. Do you +really mean to say that you do not know me?” + +“I believe I have seen your face before,” said Alexander, “and all the +more likely as I was inspector of prisons when I was Cardinal.” + +“Then look yonder,” enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the +frescoed wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers. +Phosphoric sparks hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue +lambent flame, which concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose +precise attitude the ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees. +The Pope shrieked with amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical +vestments had become ragged fur, in every other respect the kneeling +figure was the counterpart of the painted one, and the painted one was +Pinturicchio’s portrait of Pope Alexander the Sixth kneeling as a +witness of the Resurrection. + +Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor’s +attitude, but terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his +patron St. Mark which struggled towards his lips never arrived there. +The book of exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of +holy water lay in shivers upon the floor. Ere he could collect himself, +the dead Pope had seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the +grave, and, fondling a ferret-skin, proceeded to enter into +conversation. + +“What fear you?” he asked. “Why should I harm you? None can say that I +ever injured any one for any cause but my own advantage, and to injure +your Holiness now would be to obstruct a design which I have +particularly at heart.” + +“I crave your Holiness’s forgiveness,” rejoined the Eighth Alexander, +“but you must be aware that you left the world with a reputation which +disqualifies you for the society of any Pope in the least careful of +his character. It positively compromises me to have so much as the +ghost of a person so universally decried as your Holiness under my +roof, and you would infinitely oblige me by forthwith repairing to your +own place, which I take to be about four thousand miles below where you +are sitting. I could materially facilitate and accelerate your +Holiness’s transit thither if you would be so kind as to hand me that +little book of exorcisms.” + +“How is the fine gold become dim!” exclaimed Alexander the Sixth. +“Popes in bondage to moralists! Popes nervous about public opinion! Is +there another judge of morals than the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_, as +I always did? Is the Church to frame herself after the prescriptions of +heathen philosophers and profane jurists? How, then, shall she be +terrible as an army with banners? Did I concern myself with such +pedantry when the Kings of Spain and Portugal came to me like cats +suing for morsels, and I gave them the West and the East?” + +“It is true,” Alexander the Eighth allowed, “that the lustre of the +Church hath of late been obfuscated by the prevalence of heresy.” + +“It isn’t the heretics,” Borgia insisted. “It is the degeneracy of the +Popes. A shabby lot! You, Alexander, are about the best of them; but +the least Cardinal about my Court would have thought himself bigger +than you.” + +Alexander’s spirit rose. “I would suggest,” he said, “that this haughty +style is little in keeping with the sordid garb wherein your Holiness, +consistent after death as in your life, masquerades to the scandal and +distress of the faithful.” + +“How can I other? Has your Holiness forgotten your Rabelais?” + +“The works of that eminent Doctor and Divine,” answered Alexander the +Eighth, “are seldom long absent from my hands, yet I fail to remember +in what manner they elucidate the present topic.” + +“Let me refresh your memory,” rejoined Borgia, and, producing a volume +of the Sage of Meudon, he turned to the chapter descriptive of the +employments of various eminent inhabitants of the nether world, and +pointed to the sentence: + +“LE PAPE ALEXANDRE ESTOYT PRENEUR DE RATZ.” [*] + +*) _Pantagruel_, Book XI. ch. 30. + + +“Is this indeed sooth?” demanded his successor. + +“How else should François Rabelais have affirmed it?” responded Borgia. +“When I arrived in the subterranean kingdom, I found it in the same +condition as your Holiness’s dominions at the present moment, eaten up +by rats. The attention which, during my earthly pilgrimage, I had +devoted to the science of toxicology indicated me as a person qualified +to abate the nuisance, which commission I executed with such success, +that I received the appointment of Ratcatcher to his Infernal Majesty, +and so discharged its duties as to merit a continuance of the good +opinion which had always been entertained of me in that exalted +quarter. After a while, however, interest began to be made for me in +even more elevated spheres. I had not been able to cram Heaven with +Spaniards, as I had crammed the Sacred College—on the contrary. Truth +to speak, my nation has not largely contributed to the population of +the regions above. But some of us are people of consequence. My +great-grandson, the General of the Jesuits, who, as such, had the ear +of St. Ignatius Loyola, represented that had I adhered strictly to my +vows, he could never have come into existence, and that the Society +would thus have wanted one of its brightest ornaments. This argument +naturally had great weight with St. Ignatius, the rather as he, too, +was my countryman. Much also was said of the charity I had shown to the +exiled Jews, which St. Dominic was pleased to say made him feel ashamed +of himself when he came to think of it; for my having fed my people in +time of dearth, instead of contriving famines to enrich myself, as so +many Popes’ nephews have done since; and of the splendid order in which +I kept the College of Cardinals. Columbus said a good word for me, and +Savonarola did not oppose. Finally I was allowed to come upstairs, and +exercise my profession on earth. But mark what pitfalls line the good +man’s path! I never could resist tampering with drugs of a deleterious +nature, and was constantly betrayed by the thirst for scientific +experiment into practices incompatible with the public health. The good +nature which my detractors have not denied me was a veritable snare. I +felt for youth debarred from its enjoyments by the unnatural vitality +of age, and sympathised with the blooming damsel whose parent alone +stood between her and her lover. I thus lived in constant apprehension +of being ordered back to the Netherlands, and yearned for the wings of +a dove, that I might flee away and be out of mischief. At last I +discovered that my promotion to a higher sphere depended upon my +obtaining a testimonial from the reigning Pope. Let a solemn procession +be held in my honour, and intercession be publicly made for me, and I +should ascend forthwith. I have consequently represented my case to +many of your predecessors: but, O Alexander, you seventeenth-century +Popes are a miserable breed! No fellow-feeling, no _esprit de corps. +Heu pietas! heu prisca fides_! No one was so rude as your ascetic +antecessor. The more of a saint, the less of a gentleman. Personally +offensive, I assure you! But the others were nearly as bad. The haughty +Paul, the fanatic Gregory, the worldly Urban, the austere Innocent the +Tenth, the affable Alexander the Seventh, all concurred in assuring me +that it was deeply to be regretted that I should ever have been +emancipated from the restraints of the Stygian realm, to which I should +do well to return with all possible celerity; that it would much +conduce to the interests of the Church if my name could be forgotten; +and that as for doing anything to revive its memory, they would just as +soon think of canonising Judas Iscariot.” + +“And therefore your Holiness has brought these rats upon us, enlisted, +I nothing doubt, in the infernal regions?” + +“Precisely so: Plutonic, necyomantic, Lemurian rats, kindly lent by the +Prince of Darkness for the occasion, and come dripping from Styx to +squeak and gibber in the Capitol. But I note your Holiness’s admission +that they belong to a region exempt from your jurisdiction, and that, +therefore, your measures against them, except as regards their status +as belligerents, are for the most part illegitimate and _ultra vires_.” + +“I would argue that point,” replied Alexander the Eighth, “if my lungs +were as tough as when I pleaded before the Rota in Pope Urban’s time. +For the present I confine myself to formally protesting against your +Holiness’s unprecedented and parricidal conduct in invading your +country at the head of an army of loathsome vermin.” + +“Unprecedented!” exclaimed Borgia. “Am I not the modern Coriolanus? Did +Narses experience blacker ingratitude than I? Where would the temporal +power be but for me? Who smote the Colonna? Who squashed the Orsini? +Who gave the Popes to dwell quietly in their own house? Monsters of +unthankfulness!” + +“I am sure,” said Alexander the Eighth soothingly, “that my +predecessors’ inability to comply with your Holiness’s request must +have cost them many inward tears, not the less genuine because entirely +invisible and completely inaudible. A wise Pope will, before all +things, consider the spirit of his age. The force of public opinion, +which your Holiness lately appeared to disparage, was, in fact, as +operative upon yourself as upon any of your successors. If you achieved +great things in your lifetime, it was because the world was with you. +Did you pursue the same methods now, you would soon discover that you +had become an offensive anachronism. It will not have escaped your +Holiness’s penetration that what moralists will persist in terming the +elevation of the standard of the Church, is the result of the so-called +improvement of the world.” + +“There is a measure of truth in this,” admitted Alexander the Sixth, +“and the spirit of this age is a very poor spirit. It was my felicity +to be a Pope of the Renaissance. Blest dispensation! when men’s view of +life was large and liberal; when the fair humanities flourished; when +the earth yielded up her hoards of chiselled marble and breathing +bronze, and new-found agate urns as fresh as day; when painters and +sculptors vied with antiquity, and poets and historians followed in +their path; when every benign deity was worshipped save Diana and +Vesta; when the arts of courtship and cosmetics were expounded by +archbishops; when the beauteous Imperia was of more account than the +eleven thousand virgins; when obnoxious persons glided imperceptibly +from the world; and no one marvelled if he met the Pope arm in arm with +the Devil. How miserable, in comparison, is the present sapless age, +with its prudery and its pedantry, and its periwigs and its painted +coaches, and its urban Arcadias and the florid impotence and +ostentatious inanity of what it calls its art! Pope Alexander! I see in +the spirit the sepulchre destined for _you_, and I swear to you that my +soul shivers in my ratskins! Come, now! I do not expect you to emulate +the Popes of my time, but show that your virtues are your own, and your +faults those of your epoch. Pluck up a spirit! Take bulls by the horns! +Look facts in the face! Think upon the images of Brutus and Cassius! +Recognise that you cannot get rid of me, and that the only safe course +is to rehabilitate me. I am not a candidate for canonisation just now; +but repair past neglect and appease my injured shade in the way you wot +of. If this is done, I pledge my word that every rat shall forthwith +evacuate Rome. Is it a bargain? I see it is; you are one of the good +old sort, though fallen on evil days.” + +Renaissance or Rats, Alexander the Eighth yielded. + +“I promise,” he declared. + +“Your hand upon it!” + +Subduing his repugnance and apprehension by a strong effort, Alexander +laid his hand within the spectre’s clammy paw. An icy thrill ran +through his veins, and he sank back senseless into his chair. + +III + +When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with +slight symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal +Barbadico, and confer with him respecting the surprising adventures +which had recently befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal’s mind +seemed an entire blank on the subject. He admitted having made his +customary report to his Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing +of any supernatural ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous +at the Appartamento Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his +nescience; no vestige of the man of rats or of his shop could be +discovered; and the Borgian apartments, opened and carefully searched +through, revealed no trace of having been visited for many years. The +Pope’s book of exorcisms was in its proper place, his vial of holy +water stood unbroken upon his table; and his chamberlains deposed that +they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual hour. His illusion was +at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly vivid dream; but when +he declared his intention of actually holding a service and conducting +a procession for the weal of his namesake and predecessor, the +conviction became universal that the rats had effected a lodgement in +his Holiness’s upper storeys. + +Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that +on the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of +Rome. As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and +monasteries in the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst, +marched, carrying candles, intoning chants, and, with many a secret +shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven for the repose of Alexander the +Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by another procession +precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, but more +grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and pageants +of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat and +lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and +galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in +single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the +rising to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber, +which they would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there +a huge rift opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated +themselves. Their descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as +Vulcan occupied in falling from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last +tail was over the brink, the gulf closed as effectually as the gulf in +the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius, not leaving the slightest +inequality by which any could detect it. + +Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth +from his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who +appeared desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were +exchanged, and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, +swarthy, corpulent, elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features +of Alexander the Sixth, accoutred with the official habiliments and +insignia of a Pope, who rose slowly into the air as though he had been +inflated with hydrogen. + +“To your prayers!” cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. +The priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their +knees. Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was +rising rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and +Cruelty, contending which should receive the Holy Father into her +bosom. [*] Borgia struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be +keeping them at bay, when a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of +men. Thunder roared, lightning glared, the rush of waters blended with +the ejaculations of the people and the yet more tempestuous rushing of +the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is not probable that Alexander +passed, like Dante’s sigh, “beyond the sphere that doth all spheres +enfold”; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it is not doubted +that he attained at least as far as the moon. + +*) Per aver riposo +Portato fu fra l’anime beate +Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso; +Del qual seguiro le sante pedate +Tre sue familiari e care ancelle, +Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate. +—MACHIAVELLI, _Decennale Primo_. + + + + +THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY + + +In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the +Christian era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had +three sons, Fu-su, Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men +of active minds, always labouring to find out something new and useful. +Wang-li was clever too, but only in games of skill, in which he +attained great proficiency. + +Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful +inventions they would make when they arrived at man’s estate, and of +the wealth and renown they promised themselves thereby. Their +conversation seldom reached the ears of Wang-li, for he rarely lifted +his eyes from the chess-board on which he solved his problems. But +their father was more attentive, and one day he said: + +“I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you +must have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you +would have learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means +which you have proposed to yourselves.” + +“How so, father?” asked they. + +“It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors,” said the old man, “that +the reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, +by reason of our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not +but become impaired if their posterity were suffered to eclipse their +fame by new discoveries, or presumptuously amend what might appear +imperfect in their productions. It is therefore, by an edict of the +Emperor Suen, forbidden to invent anything; and by a statute of the +Emperor Wu-chi it is further provided that nothing hitherto invented +shall be improved. My predecessor in the small office I hold was +deprived of it for saying that in his judgment money ought to be made +round instead of square, and I have myself run risk of my life for +seeking to combine a small file with a pair of tweezers.” + +“If this is the case,” said the young men, “our fatherland is not the +place for us.” And they embraced their father, and departed. Of their +brother Wang-li they took no farewell, inasmuch as he was absorbed in a +chess problem. Before separating, they agreed to meet on the same spot +after thirty years, with the treasure which they doubted not to have +acquired by the exercise of their inventive faculties in foreign lands. +They further covenanted that if either had missed his reward the other +should share his possessions with him. + +Fu-su repaired to the artists who cut out characters in blocks of hard +wood, to the end that books may be printed from the same. When he had +fathomed their mystery he betook himself to a brass-founder, and +learned how to cast in metal. He then sought a learned man who had +travelled much, and made himself acquainted with the Greek, Persian, +and Arabic languages. Then he cast a number of Greek characters in +type, and putting them into a bag and providing himself with some +wooden letter-tablets of his own carving, he departed to seek his +fortune. After innumerable hardships and perils he arrived in the land +of Persia, and inquired for the great king. + +“The great king is dead,” they told him, “and his head is entirely +separated from his body. There is now no king in Persia, great or +small,” + +“Where shall I find another great king?” demanded he. + +“In the city of Alexandria,” replied they, “where the Commander of the +Faithful is busy introducing the religion of the Prophet.” + +Fu-su passed to Alexandria, carrying his types and tablets. + +As he entered the gates he remarked an enormous cloud of smoke, which +seemed to darken the whole city. Before he could inquire the reason, +the guard arrested him as a stranger, and conducted him to the presence +of the Caliph Omar. + +“Know, O Caliph,” said Fu-su, “that my countrymen are at once the +wisest of mankind and the stupidest. They have invented an art for the +preservation of letters and the diffusion of knowledge, which the sages +of Greece and India never knew, but they have not learned to take, and +they refuse to be taught how to take, the one little step further +necessary to render it generally profitable to mankind.” + +And producing his tablets and types, he explained to the Caliph the +entire mystery of the art of printing. + +“Thou seemest to be ignorant,” said Omar, “that we have but yesterday +condemned and excommunicated all books, and banished the same from the +face of the earth, seeing that they contain either that which is +contrary to the Koran, in which case they are impious, or that which is +agreeable to the Koran, in which case they are superfluous. Thou art +further unaware, as it would seem, that the smoke which shrouds the +city proceeds from the library of the unbelievers, consumed by our +orders. It will be meet to burn thee along with it.” + +“O Commander of the Faithful,” said an officer, “of a surety the last +scroll of the accursed ceased to flame even as this infidel entered the +city.” + +“If it be so,” said Omar, “we will not burn him, seeing that we have +taken away from him the occasion to sin. Yet shall he swallow these +little brass amulets of his, at the rate of one a day, and then be +banished from the country.” + +The sentence was executed, and Fu-su was happy that the Court physician +condescended to accept his little property in exchange for emetics. + +He begged his way slowly and painfully back to China, and arrived at +the covenanted spot at the expiration of the thirtieth year. His +father’s modest dwelling had disappeared, and in its place stood a +magnificent mansion, around which stretched a park with pavilions, +canals, willow-trees, golden pheasants, and little bridges. + +“Tu-sin has surely made his fortune,” thought he, “and he will not +refuse to share it with me agreeably to our covenant.” + +As he thus reflected he heard a voice at his elbow, and turning round +perceived that one in a more wretched plight than himself was asking +alms of him. It was Tu-sin. + +The brothers embraced with many tears, and after Tu-sin had learned +Fu-su’s history, he proceeded to recount his own. + +“I repaired,” said he, “to those who know the secret of the grains +termed fire-dust, which Suen has not been able to prevent us from +inventing, but of which Wu-chi has taken care that we shall make no +use, save only for fireworks. Having learned their mystery I deposited +a certain portion of this fire-dust in hollow tubes which I had +constructed of iron and brass, and upon it I further laid leaden balls +of a size corresponding to the hollow of the tubes. I then found that +by applying a light to the fire-dust at one end of the tube I could +send the ball out at the other with such force that it penetrated the +cuirasses of three warriors at once. I filled a barrel with the dust, +and concealing it and the tubes under carpets which I laid upon the +backs of oxen, I set out to the city of Constantinople. I will not at +present relate my adventures on the journey. Suffice it that I arrived +at last half dead from fatigue and hardship, and destitute of +everything except my merchandise. By bribing an officer with my carpets +I was admitted to have speech with the Emperor. I found him busily +studying a problem in chess. + +“I told him that I had discovered a secret which would make him the +master of the world, and in particular would help him to drive away the +Saracens, who threatened his empire with destruction. + +“‘Thou must perceive,’ he said, ‘that I cannot possibly attend to thee +until I have solved this problem. Yet, lest any should say that the +Emperor neglects his duties, absorbed in idle amusement, I will refer +thy invention to the chief armourers of my capital. And he gave me a +letter to the armourers, and returned to his problem. And as I quitted +the palace bearing the missive, I came upon a great procession. +Horsemen and running footmen, musicians, heralds, and banner-bearers +surrounded a Chinaman who sat in the attitude of Fo under a golden +umbrella upon a richly caparisoned elephant, his pigtail plaited with +yellow roses. And the musicians blew and clashed, and the +standard-bearers waved their ensigns, and the heralds proclaimed, ‘Thus +shall it be done to the man whom the Emperor delights to honour.’ And +unless I was very greatly mistaken, the face of the Chinaman was the +face of our brother Wang-li. + +“At another time I would have striven to find what this might mean, but +my impatience was great, as also my need and hunger. I sought the chief +armourers, and with great trouble brought them all together to give me +audience, I produced my tube and fire-dust, and sent my balls with ease +through the best armour they could set before me. + +“‘Who will want breast-plates now?’ cried the chief breast-plate maker. + +“‘Or helmets?’ exclaimed one who made armour for the head. + +“‘I would not have taken fifty bezants for that shield, and what good +is it now?’ said the head of the shield trade. + +“‘My swords will be of less account,’ said a swordsmith. + +“‘My arrows of none,’ lamented an arrow-maker. + +“‘’Tis villainy,’ cried one. + +“‘’Tis magic,’ shouted another. + +“‘’Tis illusion, as I’m an honest tradesman,’ roared a third, and put +his integrity to the proof by thrusting a hot iron bar into my barrel. +All present rose up in company with the roof of the building, and all +perished, except myself, who escaped with the loss of my hair and skin. +A fire broke out on the spot, and consumed one-third of the city of +Constantinople. + +“I was lying on a prison-bed some time afterwards, partly recovered of +my hurts, dolefully listening to a dispute between two of my guards as +to whether I ought to be burned or buried alive, when the Imperial +order for my disposal came down. The gaolers received it with humility, +and read ‘Kick him out of the city.’ Marvelling at the mildness of the +punishment, they nevertheless executed it with so much zeal that I flew +into the middle of the Bosphorus, where I was picked up by a fishing +vessel, and landed on the Asiatic coast, whence I have begged my way +home. I now propose that we appeal to the pity of the owner of this +splendid mansion, who may compassionate us on hearing that we were +reared in the Cottage which has been pulled down to make room for his +palace.” + +They entered the gates, walked timidly up to the house, and prepared to +fall at the feet of the master, but did not, for ere they could do so +they recognised their brother Wang-li. + +It took Wang-li some time to recognise them, but when at length he knew +them he hastened to provide for their every want. When they had well +eaten and drunk, and had been clad in robes of honour, they imparted +their histories, and asked for his. + +“My brothers,” said Wang-li, “the noble game of chess, which was +happily invented long before the time of the Emperor Suen, was followed +by me solely for its pleasure, and I dreamed not of acquiring wealth by +its pursuit until I casually heard one day that it was entirely unknown +to the people of the West. Even then I thought not of gaining money, +but conceived so deep a compassion for those forlorn barbarians that I +felt I could know no rest until I should have enlightened them. I +accordingly proceeded to the city of Constantinople, and was received +as a messenger from Heaven. To such effect did I labour that ere long +the Emperor and his officers of state thought of nothing else but +playing chess all day and night, and the empire fell into entire +confusion, and the Saracens mightily prevailed. In consideration of +these services the Emperor was pleased to bestow those distinguished +honours upon me which thou didst witness at his palace gate, dear +brother. + +“After, however, the fire which was occasioned through thy +instrumentality, though in no respect by thy fault, the people +murmured, and taxed the Emperor with seeking to destroy his capital in +league with a foreign sorcerer, meaning thee. Ere long the chief +officers conspired and entered the Emperor’s apartment, purposing to +dethrone him, but he declared that he would in nowise abdicate until he +had finished the game of chess he was then playing with me. They looked +on, grew interested, began to dispute with one another respecting the +moves, and while they wrangled loyal officers entered and made them all +captive. This greatly augmented my credit with the Emperor, which was +even increased when shortly afterwards I played with the Saracen +admiral blockading the Hellespont, and won of him forty corn-ships, +which turned the dearth of the city into plenty. + +“The Emperor bade me choose any favour I would, but I said his +liberality had left me nothing to ask for except the life of a poor +countryman of mine who I had heard was in prison for burning the city. +The Emperor bade me write his sentence with my own hand. Had I known +that it was thou, Tu-sin, believe me I had shown more consideration for +thy person. At length I departed for my native land, loaded with +wealth, and travelling most comfortably by relays of swift dromedaries. +I returned hither, bought our father’s cottage, and on its site erected +this palace, where I dwell meditating on the problems of chessplayers +and the precepts of the sages, and persuaded that a little thing which +the world is willing to receive is better than a great thing which it +hath not yet learned to value aright. For the world is a big child, and +chooses amusement before instruction.” + +“Call you chess an amusement?” asked his brothers. + + + + +MADAM LUCIFER + + +Lucifer sat playing chess with Man for his soul. + +The game was evidently going ill for Man. He had but pawns left, few +and straggling. Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops. + +It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no +great hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient. + +“It is a pity,” said he at last, “that we did not fix some period +within which the player must move, or resign.” + +“Oh, Lucifer,” returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, “it is +not the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of +my betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that +paragon of terrestrial loveliness!” Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer +was touched. + +“Is the Lady Adeliza’s loveliness in sooth so transcendent?” he +inquired. + +“She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!” + +“If that is the case,” rejoined Lucifer, “thou mayest reassure thyself. +The Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy +shape and woo her in thy stead.” + +The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this +promise which Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In +an instant the Devil checkmated him, and he disappeared. + +“Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I +don’t think I should have gone in for it,” soliloquised the Devil, as, +wearing his captive’s semblance and installed in his apartments, he +surveyed the effects to which he now had to administer. They included +coats, shirts, collars, neckties, foils, cigars, and the like _ad +libitum_; and very little else except three challenges, ten writs, and +seventy-four unpaid bills, elegantly disposed around the looking-glass. +To the poor youth’s praise be it said, there were no billets-doux, +except from the Lady Adeliza herself. + +Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and +nothing but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made +him take the back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs +lurking on the principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped +a perfumer and a bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady +Adeliza’s feet. + +The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such +correctness of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a +love-sick fiend. Not Merlin’s mother had produced half the impression +upon him; and Adeliza on her part had never found her lover +one-hundredth part so interesting as he seemed that morning. + +Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape +for the occasion, he negotiated a loan without the smallest difficulty. +All debts were promptly discharged, and Adeliza was astonished at the +splendour and variety of the presents she was constantly receiving. + +Lucifer had all but brought her to name the day, when he was informed +that a gentleman of clerical appearance desired to wait upon him. + +“Wants money for a new church or mission, I suppose,” said he. “Show +him up.” + +But when the visitor was ushered in, Lucifer found with discomposure +that he was no earthly clergyman, but a celestial saint; a saint, too, +with whom Lucifer had never been able to get on. He had served in the +army while on earth, and his address was curt, precise, and peremptory. + +“I have called,” he said, “to notify to you my appointment as Inspector +of Devils.” + +“What!” exclaimed Lucifer, in consternation. “To the post of my old +friend Michael!” + +“Too old,” said the Saint laconically. “Millions of years older than +the world. About your age, I think?” + +Lucifer winced, remembering the particular business he was then about. +The Saint continued: + +“I am a new broom, and am expected to sweep clean. I warn you that I +mean to be strict, and there is one little matter which I must set +right immediately. You are going to marry that poor young fellow’s +betrothed, are you? Now you know you cannot take his wife, unless you +give him yours.” + +“Oh, my dear friend,” exclaimed Lucifer, “what an inexpressibly +blissful prospect you do open unto me!” + +“I don’t know that,” said the Saint. “I must remind you that the +dominion of the infernal regions is unalterably attached to the person +of the present Queen thereof. If you part with her you immediately lose +all your authority and possessions. I don’t care a brass button which +you do, but you must understand that you cannot eat your cake and have +it too. Good morning!” + +Who shall describe the conflict in Lucifer’s bosom? If any stronger +passion existed therein at that moment than attachment to Adeliza, it +was aversion to his consort, and the two combined were well-nigh +irresistible. But to disenthrone himself, to descend to the condition +of a poor devil! + +Feeling himself incapable of coming to a decision, he sent for Belial, +unfolded the matter, and requested his advice. + +“What a shame that our new inspector will not let you marry Adeliza!” +lamented his counsellor. “If you did, my private opinion is that +forty-eight hours afterwards you would care just as much for her as you +do now for Madam Lucifer, neither more nor less. Are your intentions +really honourable?” + +“Yes,” replied Lucifer, “it is to be a Lucifer match.” + +“The more fool you,” rejoined Belial. “If you tempted her to commit a +sin, she would be yours without any conditions at all.” + +“Oh, Belial,” said Lucifer, “I cannot bring myself to be a tempter of +so much innocence and loveliness.” + +And he meant what he said. + +“Well then, let me try,” proposed Belial. + +“You?” replied Lucifer contemptuously; “do you imagine that Adeliza +would look at _you_?” + +“Why not?” asked Belial, surveying himself complacently in the glass. + +He was humpbacked, squinting, and lame, and his horns stood up under +his wig. + +The discussion ended in a wager after which there was no retreat for +Lucifer. + +The infernal Iachimo was introduced to Adeliza as a distinguished +foreigner, and was soon prosecuting his suit with all the success which +Lucifer had predicted. One thing protected while it baffled him—the +entire inability of Adeliza to understand what he meant. At length he +was constrained to make the matter clear by producing an enormous +treasure, which he offered Adeliza in exchange for the abandonment of +her lover. + +The tempest of indignation which ensued would have swept away any +ordinary demon, but Belial listened unmoved. When Adeliza had exhausted +herself he smilingly rallied her upon her affection for an unworthy +lover, of whose infidelity he undertook to give her proof. Frantic with +jealousy, Adeliza consented, and in a trice found herself in the +infernal regions. + +Adeliza’s arrival in Pandemonium, as Belial had planned, occurred +immediately after the receipt of a message from Lucifer, in whose bosom +love had finally gained the victory, and who had telegraphed his +abdication and resignation of Madam Lucifer to Adeliza’s betrothed. The +poor young man had just been hauled up from the lower depths, and was +beset by legions of demons obsequiously pressing all manner of +treasures upon his acceptance. He stared, helpless and bewildered, +unable to realise his position in the smallest degree. In the +background grave and serious demons, the princes of the infernal realm, +discussed the new departure, and consulted especially how to break it +to Madam Lucifer—a commission of which no one seemed ambitious. + +“Stay where you are,” whispered Belial to Adeliza; “stir not; you shall +put his constancy to the proof within five minutes.” + +Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under +ordinary circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover’s side: but +what is all hell to jealousy? + +In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by +Madam Lucifer. This lady’s black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted +agreeably with her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair +was compensated by the exceptional length of her nails; she was a +thousand million years old, and, but for her remarkable muscular +vigour, looked every one of them. The rage into which Belial’s +communication had thrown her was something indescribable; but, as her +eye fell on the handsome youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to +take possession of her mind. + +“Let the monster go!” she exclaimed; “who cares? Come, my love, ascend +the throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond +Luciferetta.” + +“If you don’t, back you go,” interjected Belial. + +What might have been the young man’s decision if Madam Lucifer had +borne more resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent +to inquire, for the question never arose. + +“Take me away!” he screamed, “take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of +her reach! Oh, Adeliza!” + +With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant +glance at the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression +changed, and she screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike +in every lineament and every detail of costume, utterly +indistinguishable, even by the eye of Love. + +Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza’s feet and pray +her to defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings +of her elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his +dominions along with his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions +with such expedition that he had had no time to change his costume. +Hence the equivocation which confounded Adeliza, but at the same time +preserved her from being torn to pieces by the no less mystified Madam +Lucifer. + +Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling +resumed his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer’s talons were +immediately inserted into his whiskers. + +“My dear! my love!” he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, “is +this the way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?” + +“Who is that person?” demanded Madam Lucifer. + +“I don’t know her,” screamed the wretched Lucifer. “I never saw her +before. Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!” + +“Not if I know it,” sharply replied Madam Lucifer, “You can’t bear to +part with her, can’t you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, +would you? Take that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them +both out!” + +“Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly,” responded Lucifer. + +“Oh, Sire,” cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, “for Heaven’s sake let +your Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector——” + +“Bother the Inspector!” screeched Lucifer. “D’ye think I’m not a +thousand times more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in +the calendar? There,” addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, “be off! +You’ll find all debts paid, and a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!” + +They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus +stood wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down +which they scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it +was long ere they ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer. + + + + +THE TALISMANS + + +What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us +perform, which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem +incredible! + +By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, +who was prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of +which, to judge by the little value he appeared to set on the subject +of his discourse, he must himself have been fully persuaded? Without +exciting his suspicions in the smallest degree, the student stole away +to a region inconceivably remote, and presented himself at the portal +of a magnificent palace, guarded by goblins, imps, lions, serpents, and +monsters whose uncouthness forbids description. + +A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the +professor’s class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully +respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance, +brandishing a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal +goblins, by whom he was successively interrogated. + +“Hast thou undergone the seven probations?” + +“Yes,” said the student. + +“Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?” + +“Ninety-nine times each,” said the student. + +“Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?” + +“I have,” said the student. + +“Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?” + +“I am,” said the student. + +“Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?” + +“Of course,” said the student, + +“Hast thou attestations of all these circumstances under the hands and +seals of a thousand and one demons?” + +The student displayed his parchments. + +“Thou hast undergone every trial,” pronounced the seventh goblin; “thou +hast won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all +things, and to choose from it any one talisman at thy liking.” + +The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank +hissing away, the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him +upon his back to the treasurer’s presence, + +The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair, +received the adventurer with civility. + +“I have come,” said the student, “for the talismans in thy keeping, to +the choice among which I have entitled myself.” + +“Thou hast fairly earned them,” replied the old man, “and I may not say +thee nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape +which it has received at my hands during the long period for which +these have remained in my custody.” + +“I must submit to the condition,” said the student. + +“Behold, then, Aladdin’s lamp,” said the ancient personage, tendering a +tiny vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a +coarse, rusty powder. + +“Aladdin’s lamp!” cried the student. + +“All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve,” replied the +old man. “Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to +apprise thee that the virtues of the talisman having necessarily +dwindled with its bulk, it is at present incompetent to evoke any +Genie, and can at most summon an imp, of whose company thou wilt never +be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as the least friction will inevitably +destroy what little of the talisman remains.” + +“Confusion!” cried the young man, “Show me, then, Aladdin’s ring.” + +“Here,” replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop, + +“This, at least,” asked the student, “is not devoid of virtue?” + +“Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its +magic properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, +which I have gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any +other use than that of a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to +admiration.” + +“Produce another talisman,” commanded the youth, + +“These,” said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of +leather, “are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them +out.” + +“This, at least, is bright and weighty,” exclaimed the student, as the +old man displayed the sword of sharpness. + +“In truth a doughty weapon,” returned the treasurer, “if wielded by a +stronger arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite +off heads of its own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to +the new hilt.” + +After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a +fragment of the original setting of Solomon’s seal, the youth’s eye +lighted upon a volume full of mysterious characters. + +“Whose book is this?” he inquired. “Heavens, it is Michael Scott’s!” + +“Even so,” returned the venerable man, “and its spells have lost +nothing of their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula +for dismissing spirits after they have been summoned from the nether +world, hath been removed by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath +caused several most respectable magicians to be torn in pieces, and +hath notably increased the number of demons at large.” + +“Thou old villain!” shouted the exasperated youth, “is this the way in +which the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou +that I will brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, +but I will deprive thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair.” + +“O good youth,” supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, +“bereave me not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the +consequences!” + +“I will not think,” roared the youth. “Deliver it to me, or I’ll rend +it from thy head with my own hands.” + +With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to +the youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters. + +Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding +streets until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large +public square. It was crowded with people, gazing intently at the +afternoon sky, and the air was rife with a confused murmur of +altercations and exclamations. + +“It is.” “No, I tell you, it is impossible.” “It cannot be.” “I see it +move.” “No, it’s only my eyes are dazzled.” “Who could have believed +it?” “Whatever will happen next?” + +Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object +of their attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could +discover nothing unusual. + +“No,” a man by him was saying, “it positively has not moved for an +hour. I have my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken.” + +“It ought to have been behind the houses long ago,” said another. + +“What’s o’clock?” asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes +towards the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The +hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously +drew them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so +intense, in turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could +have heard a single tick, but there was none to hear. + +“Time is no more,” proclaimed a leader among the people. + +“I am a ruined man,” lamented a watchmaker. + +“And I,” ejaculated a maker of almanacks. + +“What of quarter-day?” inquired a landlord and a tenant simultaneously. + +“We shall never see the moon again,” sobbed a pair of lovers. + +“It is well this did not happen at night,” observed an optimist. + +“Indeed?” questioned the director of a gas company. + +“I told you the Last Day would come in our time,” said a preacher. + +It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time +had paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation +depending on her silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not +come to life. The sick could not die. The human frame could not waste. +Every one in the enjoyment of health and strength felt assured of the +perpetual possession of these blessings, unless he should meet with +accident or violent death. But all growth ceased, and all dissolution +was stayed. Mothers looked with despair on infants who could never be +weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs gazed with dismay on immortal +fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties, the fashionable boxers and +opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor did the intellectual +less rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired faculties, and +vowing to extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The poor and +the outcast, the sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the dying +made, indeed, a dismal outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by +some persons. + +As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to +a young lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been +attached in former days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that +it would be everlasting, revived his passion. To convince her of the +perpetuity of her charms, and establish a claim upon her gratitude, he +cautiously revealed to her that he was the author of this blissful +state of things, and that Time’s hair was actually in his possession. + +“Oh, you dear good man!” she exclaimed, “how vastly I am obliged to +you! Ferdinand will never forsake me now.” + +“Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for _me_.” + +“Oh!” she said, “you young men of science are so conceited!” + +The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer’s +palace. It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the +city ere he mixed again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was +addressing energetically. + +“I ask you one thing,” he was saying. “Will it ever rain again?” + +“Certainly not,” replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. +“Rain being an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be +no place for it under the present dispensation.” + +“Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they +not withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea +itself? Who will feed your cattle? And who will feed _you_?” + +“This concerns us,” said the butchers and bakers. + +“Us also,” added the fishmongers. + +“I always thought,” said a philosopher, “that this phenomenon must be +the work of some malignant wizard.” + +“Show us the wizard that we may slay him,” roared the mob. + +Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately +identified by twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and +was held up in sight of the multitude. + +“Kill him!” + +“Burn him!” + +“Crucify him!” + +“It moves! it moves!” cried another division of the crowd. All eyes +were bent on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving—no, it +wasn’t; yes, it certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows +were actually lengthening? Was the sun’s rim really drawing nigh yonder +great edifice? That muffled sound from the vast, silent multitude was, +doubtless, the quick beating of innumerable hearts; but that sharper +note? Could it be the ticking of watches? Suddenly all the public +clocks clanged the first stroke of an hour—an absurdly wrong hour, but +it was an hour. No mortal heard the second stroke, drowned in universal +shouts of joy and gratitude. The student mingled with the mass, no man +regarding him. + +When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to +disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could +get beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a +very humble citizen, a barber. + +“Why,” he said, “the old gentleman’s hair has grown again!” + +And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying +gave up the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told +the professor his dream. + + + + +THE ELIXIR OF LIFE + + +The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of +Balkh, where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the +occult sciences. No one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet +Aboniel did not wholly shun intercourse with mankind, but, on the +contrary, had seven pupils, towardly youths belonging to the noblest +families of the city, whom he instructed at stated times in philosophy +and all lawful knowledge, reserving the forbidden lore of magic and +alchemy for himself. + +But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious +apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing +save the sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven +crystal phials, filled with a clear liquid resembling water. + +“Ye know, my sons,” he began, “with what ardour I am reputed to have +striven to penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the +problems which have allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this +rumour doth not err: such hath ever been my object; but, until +yesterday, my fortune hath been like unto theirs who have preceded me. +The little I could accomplish seemed as nothing in comparison with what +I was compelled to leave unachieved. Even now my success is but +partial. I have not learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is +not mine; nor can I recall the principle of life to the dead, or infuse +it into inanimate matter. But if I cannot create, I can preserve. I +have found the Elixir of Life.” + +The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them +he read extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their +teacher, and the dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves +might become participators in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. +Addressing himself to the latter sentiment—“I am willing,” he +continued, “to communicate this secret to you, if such be your desire.” + +An unanimous exclamation assured him that there need be no uncertainty +on this point. + +“But remember,” he resumed, “that this knowledge, like all knowledge, +has its disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when +ye come to learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. +Understand that the stipulations I am about to propound are not of my +imposing; the secret was imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent +order, and under conditions with which I am constrained strictly to +comply. Understand also that I am not minded to employ this knowledge +on my own behalf. My fourscore years’ acquaintance with life has +rendered me more solicitous for methods of abbreviating existence, than +of prolonging it. It may be well for you if your twenty years’ +experience has led you to the same conclusion.” + +There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, +and indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general +unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of +their venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have +convinced him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf +between theory and practice, and the feebleness of intellectual +persuasion in presence of innate instinct. With one voice they +protested their readiness to brave any conceivable peril, and undergo +any test which might be imposed as a condition of participation in +their master’s marvellous secret. + +“So be it,” returned the sage, “and now hearken to the conditions. + +“Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these +seven phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far +different are the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly +poisons which the utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to +prepare, and science knows no antidote to any of them. The first +scorches up the entrails as with fire; the second slays by freezing +every vein, and benumbing every nerve; the third by frantic +convulsions. Happy in comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks +dead upon the ground immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. +Nor do I overmuch commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for +slumber descends upon him forthwith, and he passes away in painless +oblivion. But wretched he who chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from +his head, whose skin peels from his body, and who lingers long in +excruciating agonies, a living death. The seventh phial contains the +object of your desire. Stretch forth your hands, therefore, +simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly grasp and +intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the +quality of his fortune attested by the result.” + +The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold +blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their +preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his +venerable features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most +imperturbable solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression +of irony lurked beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to +see. Lastly, they scanned the phials, trusting that some infinitesimal +distinction might serve to discriminate the elixir from the poisons. +But no, the vessels were indistinguishable in external appearance, and +the contents of each were equally colourless and transparent. + +“Well,” demanded Aboniel at length, with real or assumed surprise, +“wherefore tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you +in the agonies of death!” + +This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the +boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but +perceiving that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some +confusion. + +“Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this +worthless existence,” said one of their number at last, breaking the +embarrassing silence, “but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound +up with mine.” + +“I,” said the second, “have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet +that I should provide.” + +“I,” said the third, “have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose +cause I may in nowise forsake.” + +“And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged,” said the fourth. + +“My life,” said the fifth, “is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent +to lay it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?” + +“Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?” inquired the +sixth. + +“I,” said the seventh, “have neither mother nor sister, friends nor +enemies, neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But +I have all the greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is +exceedingly precious in my sight.” + +“The conclusion of the whole matter, then,” summed up the sage, “is +that not one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?” + +The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the +justice of their master’s taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for +some middle path, which did not readily present itself. + +“May we not,” said one at last, “may we not cast lots, and each take a +phial in succession, as destiny may appoint?” + +“I have nothing against this,” replied Aboniel, “only remember that the +least endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of +any one of you, will ensure the discomfiture of all.” + +The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and +proceeded to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in +the hand of the holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his +mother. + +He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced +half the distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of +the second quill; the man with the sister, he said abruptly: + +“The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and +intimate than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not +therefore fitting that thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my +stead?” + +“The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son,” responded +the youth addressed, in a sententious tone, “albeit most holy, cannot +in the nature of things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be +dissolved by death. Whereas the relationship between brother and sister +may endure for many years, if such be the will of Allah. It is +therefore proper that thou shouldst first venture the experiment.” + +“Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!” +exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. “The maternal +relationship—” + +“A truce to this trifling,” cried the other six; “fulfil the +conditions, or abandon the task.” + +Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized +one of the phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied +that he detected something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which +distinguished it, in his imagination, from the innocent transparency of +the rest. He hastily replaced it, and laid hold of the next. At that +moment a blaze of light burst forth upon them, and, thunderstruck, the +seven scholars were stretched senseless on the ground. + +On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of +Aboniel’s dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part +they had played. They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned +to their homes. + +The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be +expected to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven +days, known to more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The +last of these to become acquainted with it was the Sultan, who +immediately despatched his guards to apprehend the sage, and confiscate +the Elixir. Failing to obtain admission at Aboniel’s portal, they broke +it open, and, on entering his chamber, found him in a condition which +more eloquently than any profession bespoke his disdain for the +life-bestowing draught. He was dead in his chair. Before him, on the +table, stood the seven phials, six full as previously, the seventh +empty. In his hand was a scroll inscribed as follows; + +“Six times twice six years have I striven after knowledge, and I now +bequeath to the world the fruit of my toil, being six poisons. One more +deadly I might have added, but I have refrained, + +“Write upon my tomb, that here he lies who forbore to perpetuate human +affliction, and bestowed a fatal boon where alone it could be +innoxious.” + +The intruders looked at each other, striving to penetrate the sense of +Aboniel’s last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a +loud crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a +large monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, +and preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, +under an inspiration of supreme irony, had administered to the creature +every drop of the Elixir of Life. + + + + +THE POET OF PANOPOLIS + +I + +Although in a manner retired from the world during the fifth and sixth +Christian centuries, the banished Gods did not neglect to keep an eye +on human affairs, interesting themselves in any movement which might +seem to afford them a chance of regaining their lost supremacy, or in +any person whose conduct evinced regret at their dethronement. They +deeply sympathised with the efforts of their votary Pamprepius to turn +the revolt of Illus to their advantage, and excused the low magical +arts to which he stooped as a necessary concession to the spirit of a +barbarous age. They ministered invisibly to Damascius and his +companions on their flight into Persia, alleviating the hardships under +which the frames of the veteran philosophers might otherwise have sunk. +It was not, indeed, until the burning of the Alexandrian library that +they lost all heart and lapsed into the chrysalis-like condition in +which they remained until tempted forth by the young sunshine of the +Renaissance. + +Such a phenomenon for the fifth century as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of +Panopolis could not fail to excite their most lively interest. +Forty-eight books of verse on the exploits of Bacchus in the age of +pugnacious prelates and filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and +rampant robbers, of the threatened dissolution of every tie, legal, +social, or political; an age of earthquake, war, and famine! Bacchus, +who is known from Aristophanes not to have excelled in criticism, +protested that his laureate was greater than Homer; and, though Homer +could not go quite so far as this, he graciously conceded that if he +had himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with a faint +glimmering of the poetical art, and encumbered with more learning than +he knew how to use, he might have written almost as badly as his modern +representative. More impartial critics judged Nonnus’s achievement more +favourably, and all agreed that his steadfastness in the faith deserved +some special mark of distinction. The Muses under Pallas’s direction +(being themselves a little awkward in female accomplishments) +embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus forged a +plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy. +Whether from distrust of Hermes’ integrity, or wishing to make the +personal acquaintance of his follower, Phœbus volunteered to convey the +testimonial in person, and accordingly took his departure for the +Egyptian Thebaid. + +As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the +blazing sun of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a +vast crowd of strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like +bees clustering at the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he +identified them as a posse of demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot +describe the enormous variety of whatever the universe holds of most +heterogeneous. Naked women of surpassing loveliness displayed their +charms to the anchorite’s gaze, sturdy porters bent beneath loads of +gold which they heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien from +humanity allured his appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or +smote at him with swords, or made feints at his eyes with spears, or +burned sulphur under his nose, or displayed before him scrolls of +poetry or learning, or shrieked blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed +him from a little distance with glances of leering affection; while a +motley crowd of goblins, wearing the heads of boars or lions, or +whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or hoofed, or scaled, or +feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and wrangled with each +other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting and grinning, +snapping, snarling, constantly running away and returning like gnats +dancing over a marsh. The holy man sat doggedly at the entrance of his +cavern, with an expression of fathomless stupidity, which seemed to +defy all the fiends of the Thebaid to get an idea into his head, or +make him vary his attitude by a single inch. + +“These people did not exist in our time,” said Apollo aloud, “or at +least they knew their place, and behaved themselves.” + +“Sir,” said a comparatively grave and respectable demon, addressing the +stranger, “I should wish your peregrinity to understand that these imps +are mere schoolboys—my pupils, in fact. When their education has made +further progress they will be more mannerly, and will comprehend the +folly of pestering an unintellectual old gentleman like this worthy +Pachymius with beauty for which he has no eyes, and gold for which he +has no use, and dainties for which he has no palate, and learning for +which he has no head. But _I’ll_ wake him up!” And waving his pupils +away, the paedagogic fiend placed himself at the anchorite’s ear, and +shouted into it— + +“Nonnus is to be Bishop of Panopolis!” + +The hermit’s features were instantly animated by an expression of envy +and hatred. + +“Nonnus!” he exclaimed, “the heathen poet, to have the see of +Panopolis, of which _I_ was promised the reversion!” + +“My dear sir,” suggested Apollo, “it is all very well to enliven the +reverend eremite; but don’t you think it is rather a liberty to make +such jokes at the expense of my good friend Nonnus?” + +“There is no liberty,” said the demon, “for there is no joke. Recanted +on Monday. Baptized yesterday. Ordained to-day. To be consecrated +to-morrow.” + +The anchorite poured forth a torrent of the choicest ecclesiastical +curses, until he became speechless from exhaustion, and Apollo, +profiting by the opportunity, addressed the demon: + +“Would it be an unpardonable breach of politeness, respected sir, if I +ventured to hint that the illusions your pupils have been trying to +impose upon this venerable man have in some small measure impaired the +confidence with which I was originally inspired by your advantageous +personal appearance?” + +“Not in the least,” replied the demon, “especially as I can easily make +my words good. If you and Pachymius will mount my back I will transport +you to Panopolis, where you can verify my assertion for yourselves.” + +The Deity and the anchorite promptly consented, and seated themselves +on the demon’s shoulders. The shadow of the fiend’s expanded wings fell +black and vast on the fiery sand, but diminished and became invisible +as he soared to a prodigious height, to escape observation from below. +By-and-by the sun’s glowing ball touched earth at the extremity of the +horizon; it disappeared, the fires of sunset burned low in the west, +and the figures of the demon and his freight showed like a black dot +against a lake of green sky, growing larger as he cautiously stooped to +earth. Grazing temples, skimming pyramids, the party came to ground in +the precincts of Panopolis, just in time to avoid the rising moon that +would have betrayed them. The demon immediately disappeared. Apollo +hastened off to demand an explanation from Nonnus, while Pachymius +repaired to a neighbouring convent, peopled, as he knew, by a legion of +sturdy monks, ever ready to smite and be smitten in the cause of +orthodoxy. + +II + +Nonnus sat in his study, wrinkling his brow as he polished his verses +by the light of a small lamp. A large scroll lay open on his knees, the +contents of which seemed to afford him little satisfaction. Forty-eight +more scrolls, resplendent with silver knobs and coquettishly tied with +purple cord, reposed in an adjoining book-case; the forty-eight books, +manifestly, of the Panopolitan bard’s Dionysiaca. Homer, Euripides, and +other poets lay on the floor, having apparently been hurriedly +dislodged to make room for divers liturgies and lives of the saints. A +set of episcopal robes depended from a hook, and on a side table stood +half-a-dozen mitres, which, to all appearance, the designated prelate +had been trying on. + +“Nonnus,” said Phœbus, passing noiselessly through the unresisting +wall, “the tale of thy apostasy is then true?” + +It would be difficult to determine whether surprise, delight, or dismay +preponderated in Nonnus’s expression as he lifted up his eyes and +recognised the God of Poetry. He had just presence of mind to shuffle +his scroll under an enormous dictionary ere he fell at Apollo’s feet. + +“O Phœbus,” he exclaimed, “hadst thou come a week ago!” + +“It is true, then?” said Apollo. “Thou forsakest me and the Muses. Thou +sidest with them who have broken our statues, unroofed our temples, +desecrated our altars, and banished us from among mankind. Thou +rejectest the glory of standing alone in a barbarous age as the last +witness to culture and civilisation. Thou despisest the gifts of the +Gods and the Muses, of which I am even now the bearer. Thou preferrest +the mitre to the laurel chaplet, and the hymns of Gregory to the epics +of Homer?” + +“O Phœbus,” replied Nonnus, “were it any God but thou, I should bend +before him in silence, having nought to reply. But thou art a poet, and +thou understandest the temper of a poet. Thou knowest how beyond other +men he is devoured by the craving for sympathy. This and not vulgar +vanity is his motive of action; his shaft is launched in vain unless he +can deem it embedded in the heart of a friend. Thou mayest well judge +what scoffings and revilings my Dionysiac epic has brought upon me in +this evil age; yet, had this been all, peradventure I might have borne +it. But it was not all. The gentle, the good, the affectionate, they +who in happier times would have been my audience, came about me, +saying, Nonnus, why sing the strains against which we must shut our +ears? Sing what we may listen to, and we will love and honour thee. I +could not bear the thought of going to my grave without having awakened +an echo of sympathy, and weakly but not basely I have yielded, given +them what they craved, and suffered them, since the Muses’ garland is +not theirs to bestow, to reward me with a mitre.” + +“And what demanded they?” asked Apollo. + +“Oh, a mere romance! Something entirely fabulous.” + +“I must see it,” persisted Apollo; and Nonnus reluctantly disinterred +his scroll from under the big dictionary, and handed it up, trembling +like a schoolboy who anticipates a castigation for a bad exercise. + +“What trash have we here?” cried Phœbus— + +“Αχρονος ην, ακιχητος, εν αρρητω Λογος αρχη, +’Ισοφυης Γενετηρος όμηλικος Τιος αμητωρ, +Και Λογος αυτοφυτοιο Θεου, φως, εκ φαεος φως. + + +“If it isn’t the beginning of the Gospel of John! Thy impiety is worse +than thy poetry!” + +Apollo cast the scroll indignantly to the ground. His countenance wore +an expression so similar to that with which he is represented in act to +smite the Python, that Nonnus judged it prudent to catch up his +manuscript and hold it shield-wise before his face. + +“Thou doest well,” said Apollo, laughing bitterly; “that rampart is +indeed impenetrable to my arrows.” + +Nonnus seemed about to fall prostrate, when a sharp rap came to the +door. + +“That is the Governor’s knock,” he exclaimed. “Do not forsake me +utterly, O Phœbus!” But as he turned to open the door, Apollo vanished. +The Governor entered, a sagacious, good-humoured-looking man in middle +life. + +“Who was with thee just now?” he asked. “Methought I heard voices.” + +“Merely the Muse,” explained Nonnus, “with whom I am wont to hold +nocturnal communings.” + +“Indeed!” replied the Governor. “Then the Muse has done well to take +herself off, and will do even better not to return. Bishops must have +no flirtations with Muses, heavenly or earthly—not that I am now +altogether certain that thou _wilt_ be a bishop.” + +“How so?” asked Nonnus, not without a feeling of relief. + +“Imagine, my dear friend,” returned the Governor, “who should turn up +this evening but that sordid anchorite Pachymius, to whom the see was +promised indeed, but who was reported to have been devoured by vermin +in the desert. The rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be +feared that sufficient pains were not taken to verify it—cannot have +been, in fact; for, as I said, here he comes, having been brought, as +he affirms, through the air by an angel. Little would it have signified +if he had come by himself, but he is accompanied by three hundred monks +carrying cudgels, who threaten an insurrection if he is not consecrated +on the spot. My friend the Archbishop and I are at our wits’ end: we +have set our hearts on having a gentleman over the diocese, but we +cannot afford to have tumults reported at Constantinople. At last, +mainly through the mediation of a sable personage whom no one seems to +know, but who approves himself most intelligent and obliging, the +matter is put off till to-morrow, when them and Pachymius are to +compete for the bishopric in public on conditions not yet settled, but +which our swarthy friend undertakes to arrange to every one’s +satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don’t run away in any case. +I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety for thee +but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if +thou art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius.” + +With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the +poor poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing +alone somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of +the Gods lay on the table in their place, whence he concluded that a +friendly power might yet be watching over him. + +III + +Next morning all Panopolis was in an uproar. It was generally known +that the pretensions of the candidates for the episcopate would be +decided by public competition, and it was rumoured that this would +partake of the nature of an ordeal by fire and water. Nothing further +had transpired except that the arrangements had been settled by the +Governor and Archbishop in concert with two strangers, a dingy Libyan +and a handsome young Greek, neither of whom was known in the city, but +in both of whom the authorities seemed to repose entire confidence. At +the appointed time the people flocked into the theatre, and found the +stage already occupied by the parties chiefly concerned. The Governor +and the Archbishop sat in the centre on their tribunals: the +competitors stood on each side, Pachymius backed by the demon, Nonnus +by Apollo; both these supporters, of course, appearing to the assembly +in the light of ordinary mortals. Nonnus recognised Apollo perfectly, +but Pachymius’s limited powers of intelligence seemed entirely +engrossed by the discomfort visibly occasioned him by the proximity of +an enormous brass vessel of water, close to which burned a bright fire. +Nonnus was also ill at ease, and continually directed his attention to +a large package, of the contents of which he seemed instinctively +cognisant. + +All being ready, the Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, +with the sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of +determining between the claims of two such highly qualified competitors +had been delegated to two gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full +confidence, who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective +candidates. Should one fail and the other succeed, the victor would of +course be instituted; should both undergo the probation successfully, +new criterions of merit would be devised; should both fall short, both +would be set aside, and the disputed mitre would be conferred +elsewhere. He would first summon Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and +now their fellow-Christian, to submit himself to the test proposed. + +Apollo now rose, and proclaimed in an audible voice, “By virtue of the +authority committed to me I call upon Nonnus of Panopolis, candidate +for the bishopric of his native city, to demonstrate his fitness for +the same by consigning to the flames with his own hands the forty-eight +execrable books of heathen poetry composed by him in the days of his +darkness and blindness, but now without doubt as detestable to him as +to the universal body of the faithful.” So saying, he made a sign to an +attendant, the wrapping of the package fell away, and the forty-eight +scrolls of the Dionysiaca, silver knobs, purple cords, and all, came to +view. + +“Burn my poem!” exclaimed Nonnus. “Destroy the labours of twenty-four +years! Bereave Egypt of its Homer! Erase the name of Nonnus from the +tablet of Time!” + +“How so, while thou hast the Paraphrase of St. John?” demanded Apollo +maliciously. + +“Indeed, good youth,” said the Governor, who wished to favour Nonnus, +“methinks the condition is somewhat exorbitant. A single book might +suffice, surely!” + +“I am quite content,” replied Apollo. “If he consents to burn any of +his books he is no poet, and I wash my hands of him.” + +“Come, Nonnus,” cried the Governor, “make haste; one book will do as +well as another. Hand them up here.” + +“It must be with his own hands, please your Excellency,” said Apollo. + +“Then,” cried the Governor, pitching to the poet the first scroll +brought to him, “the thirteenth book. Who cares about the thirteenth +book? Pop it in!” + +“The thirteenth book!” exclaimed Nonnus, “containing the contest +between wine and honey, without which my epic becomes totally and +entirely unintelligible!” + +“This, then,” said the Governor, picking out another, which chanced to +be the seventeenth, + +“In my seventeenth book,” objected Nonnus, “Bacchus plants vines in +India, and the superiority of wine to milk is convincingly +demonstrated.” + +“Well,” rejoined the Governor, “what say you to the twenty-second?” + +“With my Hamadryad! I can never give up my Hamadryad!” + +“Then,” said the Governor, contemptuously hurling the whole set in the +direction of Nonnus, “burn which you will, only burn!” + +The wretched poet sat among his scrolls looking for a victim. All his +forty-eight children were equally dear to his parental heart. The cries +of applause and derision from the spectators, and the formidable +bellowings of the exasperated monks who surrounded Pachymius, did not +tend to steady his nerves, or render the task of critical +discrimination the easier, + +“I won’t! I won’t!” he exclaimed at last, starting up defiantly. “Let +the bishopric go to the devil! Any one of my similes is worth all the +bishoprics in Egypt!” + +“Out on the vanity of these poets!” exclaimed the disappointed +Governor. + +“It is not vanity,” said Apollo, “it is paternal affection; and being +myself a sufferer from the same infirmity, I rejoice to find him my +true son after all.” + +“Well,” said the Governor, turning to the demon: “it is thy man’s turn +now. Trot him out!” + +“Brethren,” said the demon to the assembly, “it is meet that he who +aspires to the office of bishop should be prepared to give evidence of +extraordinary self-denial. Ye have seen even our weak brother Nonnus +adoring what he hath burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he +hath adored. How much more may be reasonably expected of our brother +Pachymius, so eminent for sanctity! I therefore call upon him to +demonstrate his humility and self-renunciation, and effectually mortify +the natural man, by washing himself in this ample vessel provided for +the purpose” + +“Wash myself!” exclaimed Pacyhmius, with a vivacity of which he had +previously shown no token. “Destroy at one splash the sanctity of +fifty-seven years! Avaunt! thou subtle enemy of my salvation! I know +thee who thou art, the demon who brought me hither on his back +yesterday.” + +“I thought it had been an angel,” said the Governor. + +“A demon in the disguise of an angel of light,” said Pachymius. + +A tumultuous discussion arose among Pachymius’s supporters, some +extolling his fortitude, others blaming his wrongheadedness. + +“What!” said he to the latter, “would ye rob me of my reputation? Shall +it be written of me, The holy Pachymius abode in the precepts of the +eremites so long as he dwelt in the desert where no water was, but as +soon as he came within sight of a bath, he stumbled and fell?” + +“Oh, father,” urged they, “savoureth not this of vaingloriousness? The +demon in the guise of an angel of light, as thou so well saidest even +now. Be strong. Quit thyself valiantly. Think of the sufferings of the +primitive confessors.” + +“St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil,” said one. + +“St. Apocryphus was actually drowned,” said another. + +“I have reason to believe,” said a third, “that the loathsomeness of +ablution hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics.” + +“I know it has,” said another. “I _have_ washed myself once, though ye +might not think it, and can assert that it is by no means as +disagreeable as one supposes.” + +“That is just what I dread,” said Pachymius. “Little by little, one +might positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of +evil.” + +All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the +anchorite, and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the +vessel, purposing at a convenient season to throw him in. He was now +near enough to catch a glimpse of the limpid element. Recoiling in +horror, he collected all his energies, and with head depressed towards +his chest, and hands thrust forth as if to ward off pollution—butting, +kicking, biting the air—he rushed forwards, and with a preternatural +force deserving to be enumerated among his miracles, fairly overthrew +the enormous vase, the contents streaming on the crowd in front of the +stage. + +“Take me to my hermitage!” he screamed. “I renounce the bishopric. Take +me to my hermitage!” + +“Amen,” responded the demon, and, assuming his proper shape, he took +Pachymius upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the +multitude. + +Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he +received the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to +congratulate him on the constancy with which he had sustained his +fiery, or rather watery trial. He spent most of his remaining days in +the society of the devil, on which account he was canonised at his +death. + +“O Phœbus,” said Nonnus, when they were alone, “impose upon me any +penance thou wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the +Muses. But before all things let me destroy my paraphrase.” + +“Thou shalt not destroy it,” said Phœbus, “Thou shalt publish it. That +shall be thy penance.” + +And so it is that the epic on the exploits of Bacchus and the +paraphrase of St. John’s Gospel have alike come down to us as the work +of Nonnus, whose authorship of both learned men have never been able to +deny, having regard to the similarity of style, but never could explain +until the facts above narrated came to light in one of the Fayoum +papyri recently acquired by the Archduke Rainer. + + + + +THE PURPLE HEAD + + +Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel +That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel. + +I + +In the heyday of the Emperor Aurelian’s greatness, when his strong +right arm propped Rome up, and hewed Palmyra down, when he surrounded +his capital with walls fifty miles in circuit, and led Tetricus and +Zenobia in triumph through its streets, and distributed elephants among +the senators, and laid Etruria out in vineyards, and contemplated in +leisure moments the suppression of Christianity as a subordinate detail +of administration, a mere ripple on the broad ocean of his policy—at +this period Bahram the First, King of Persia, naturally became +disquieted in his mind. + +“This upstart soldier of fortune,” reflected he, “has an unseemly habit +of overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing +Divine right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor +Valerian, curried and stuffed with straw, hangs to this hour in the +temple at Ctesiphon, a pleasing spectacle to the immortal gods. How +would my own skin appear in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus? This +must not be. I will send an embassy to him, and impress him with my +greatness. But how?” + +He accordingly convoked his counsellors; the viziers, the warriors, the +magi, the philosophers; and addressed them thus: + +“The king deigns to consult ye touching a difficult matter. I would +flatter the pride of Rome, without lowering the pride of Persia. I +would propitiate Aurelian, and at the same time humble him. How shall +this be accomplished?” + +The viziers, the warriors, and the magi answered not a word. Unbroken +silence reigned in the assembly, until the turn came to the sage +Marcobad, who, prostrating himself, said, “O king, live for ever! In +ancient times, as hath been delivered by our ancestors, Persians were +instructed in three accomplishments—to ride, to draw the bow, and to +speak the truth. Persia still rides and shoots; truth-speaking (praised +be Ormuzd!) she hath discontinued as unbefitting an enlightened nation. +Thou needest not, therefore, scruple to circumvent Aurelian. Offer him +that which thou knowest will not be found in his treasury, seeing that +it is unique in thine own; giving him, at the same time, to understand +that it is the ordinary produce of thy dominions. So, while rejoicing +at the gift, shall he be abashed at his inferiority. I refer to the +purple robe of her majesty the queen, the like of which is not to be +found in the whole earth, neither do any know where the dye that tinges +it is produced, save that it proceeds from the uttermost parts of +India.” + +“I approve thy advice,” replied Bahram, “and in return will save thy +life by banishing thee from my dominions. When my august consort shall +learn that thou hast been the means of depriving her of her robe, she +will undoubtedly request that thou mayest be flayed, and thou knowest +that I can deny her nothing. I therefore counsel thee to depart with +all possible swiftness. Repair to the regions where the purple is +produced, and if thou returnest with an adequate supply, I undertake +that my royal sceptre shall be graciously extended to thee.” + +The philosopher forsook the royal presence with celerity, and his +office of chief examiner of court spikenard was bestowed upon another; +as also his house and his garden, his gold and his silver, his wives +and his concubines, his camels and his asses, which were numerous. + +While the solitary adventurer wended his way eastward, a gorgeous +embassy travelled westward in the direction of Rome. + +Arrived in the presence of Aurelian, and at the conclusion of his +complimentary harangue, the chief envoy produced a cedar casket, from +which he drew a purple robe of such surpassing refulgence, that, in the +words of the historian who has recorded the transaction, the purple of +the emperor and of the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison. It was +accompanied by a letter thus conceived: + +“Bahram to Aurelian: health! Receive such purple as we have in Persia.” + +“Persia, forsooth!” exclaimed Sorianus, a young philosopher versed in +natural science, “this purple never was in Persia, except as a rarity. +Oh, the mendacity and vanity of these Orientals!” + +The ambassador was beginning an angry reply, when Aurelian quelled the +dispute with a look, and with some awkwardness delivered himself of a +brief oration in acknowledgment of the gift. He took no more notice of +the matter until nightfall, when he sent for Sorianus, and inquired +where the purple actually was produced. + +“In the uttermost parts of India,” returned the philosopher. + +“Well,” rejoined Aurelian, summing up the matter with his accustomed +rapidity and clearness of head, “either thou or the Persian king has +lied to me, it is plain, and, by the favour of the Gods, it is +immaterial which, seeing that my ground for going to war with him is +equally good in either case. If he has sought to deceive me, I am right +in punishing him; if he possesses what I lack, I am justified in taking +it away. It would, however, be convenient to know which of these +grounds to inscribe in my manifesto; moreover, I am not ready for +hostilities at present; having first to extirpate the Blemmyes, Carpi, +and other barbarian vermin. I will therefore despatch thee to India to +ascertain by personal examination the truth about the purple. Do not +return without it, or I shall cut off thy head. My treasury will charge +itself with the administration of thy property during thy absence. The +robe shall meanwhile be deposited in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. +May he have it and thee in his holy keeping!” + +Thus, in that age of darkness, were two most eminent philosophers +reduced to beggary, and constrained to wander in remote and +insalubrious regions; the one for advising a king, the other for +instructing an emperor. But the matter did not rest here. For Aurelian, +having continued the visible deity of half the world for one hundred +and fifty days after the departure of Sorianus, was slain by his own +generals. To him succeeded Tacitus, who sank oppressed by the weight of +rule; to him Probus, who perished in a military tumult; to him Carus, +who was killed by lightning; to him Carinus, who was assassinated by +one whom he had wronged; to him Diocletian, who, having maintained +himself for twenty years, wisely forbore to tempt Nemesis further, and +retired to plant cabbages at Salona. All these sovereigns, differing +from each other in every other respect, agreed in a common desire to +possess the purple dye, and when the philosopher returned not, +successively despatched new emissaries in quest of it. Strange was the +diversity of fate which befell these envoys. Some fell into the jaws of +lions, some were crushed by monstrous serpents, some trampled by +elephants at the command of native princes, some perished of hunger, +and some of thirst; some, encountering smooth-browed and dark-tressed +girls wreathing their hair with the champak blossom or bathing by +moonlight in lotus-mantled tanks, forsook their quest, and led +thenceforth idyllic lives in groves of banian and of palm. Some became +enamoured of the principles of the Gymnosophists, some couched +themselves for uneasy slumber upon beds of spikes, weening to wake in +the twenty-second heaven. All which romantic variety of fortune was the +work of a diminutive insect that crawled or clung heedless of the +purple it was weaving into the many-coloured web of human life. + +II + +Some thirty years after the departure of the Persian embassy to +Aurelian, two travellers met at the bottom of a dell in trans-Gangetic +India, having descended the hill-brow by opposite paths. It was early +morning; the sun had not yet surmounted the timbered and tangled sides +of the little valley, so that the bottom still lay steeped in shadow, +and glittering with large pearls of limpid dew, while the oval space of +sky circumscribed by the summit glowed with the delicate splendour of +the purest sapphire. Songs of birds resounded through the brake, and +the water lilies which veiled the rivulet trickling through the depths +of the retreat were unexpanded still. One of the wayfarers was aged, +the other a man of the latest period of middle life. Their raiment was +scanty and soiled; their frames and countenances alike bespoke fatigue +and hardship; but while the elder one moved with moderate alacrity, the +other shuffled painfully along by the help of a staff, shrinking every +time that he placed either of his feet on the ground. + +They exchanged looks and greetings as they encountered, and the more +active of the two, whose face was set in an easterly direction, +ventured a compassionate allusion to the other’s apparent distress. + +‘I but suffer from the usual effects of crucifixion,’ returned the +other; and removing his sandals, displayed two wounds, completely +penetrating each foot. + +The Cross had not yet announced victory to Constantine, and was as yet +no passport to respectable society. The first traveller drew back +hastily, and regarded his companion with surprise and suspicion. + +“I see what is passing in thy mind,” resumed the latter, with a smile; +“but be under no apprehension. I have not undergone the censure of any +judicial tribunal. My crucifixion was merely a painful but necessary +incident in my laudable enterprise of obtaining the marvellous purple +dye, to which end I was despatched unto these regions by the Emperor +Aurelian.” + +“The purple dye!” exclaimed the Persian, for it was he. “Thou hast +obtained it?” + +“I have. It is the product of insects found only in a certain valley +eastward from hence, to obtain access to which it is before all things +needful to elude the vigilance of seven dragons.” + +“Thou didst elude them? and afterwards?” inquired Marcobad, with +eagerness. + +“Afterwards,” repeated Sorianus, “I made my way into the valley, where +I descried the remains of my immediate predecessor prefixed to a +cross.” + +“Thy predecessor?” + +“He who had last made the attempt before me. Upon any one’s penetrating +the Valley of Purple, as it is termed, with the design I have +indicated, the inhabitants, observant of the precepts of their +ancestors, append him to a cross by the feet only, confining his arms +by ropes at the shoulders, and setting vessels of cooling drink within +his grasp. If, overcome with thirst, he partakes of the beverage, they +leave him to expire at leisure; if he endures for three days, he is +permitted to depart with the object of his quest. My predecessor, +belonging, as I conjecture, to the Epicurean persuasion, and +consequently unable to resist the allurements of sense, had perished in +the manner aforesaid. I, a Stoic, refrained and attained.” + +“Thou didst bear away the tincture? thou hast it now?” impetuously +interrogated the Persian. + +“Behold it!” replied the Greek, exhibiting a small flask filled with +the most gorgeous purple liquid. “What seest thou here?” demanded he +triumphantly, holding it up to the light. “To me this vial displays the +University of Athens, and throngs of fair youths hearkening to the +discourse of one who resembles myself.” + +“To my vision,” responded the Persian, peering at the vial, “it rather +reveals a palace, and a dress of honour. But suffer me to contemplate +it more closely, for my eyes have waxed dim by over application to +study.” + +So saying, he snatched the flask from Sorianus, and immediately turned +to fly. The Greek sprang after his treasure, and failing to grasp +Marcobad’s wrist, seized his beard, plucking the hair out by handfuls. +The infuriated Persian smote him on the head with the crystal flagon. +It burst into shivers, and the priceless contents gushed forth in a +torrent over the uncovered head and uplifted visage of Sorianus, +bathing every hair and feature with the most vivid purple. + +The aghast and thunderstricken philosophers remained gazing at each +other for a moment. + +“It is indelible!” cried Sorianus in distraction, rushing down, +however, to the brink of the little stream, and plunging his head +beneath the waters. They carried away a cloud of purple, but left the +purple head stained as before. + +The philosopher, as he upraised his glowing and dripping countenance +from the brook, resembled Silenus emerging from one of the rivers which +Bacchus metamorphosed into wine during his campaign in India. He +resorted to attrition and contrition, to maceration and laceration; he +tried friction with leaves, with grass, with sedge, with his garments; +he regarded himself in one crystal pool after another, a grotesque +anti-Narcissus. At last he flung himself on the earth, and gave free +course to his anguish. + +The grace of repentance is rarely denied us when our misdeeds have +proved unprofitable. Marcobad awkwardly approached. + +“Brother,” he whispered, “I will restore the tincture of which I have +deprived thee, and add thereto an antidote, if such may be found. Await +my return under this camphor tree.” + +So saying, he hastened up the path by which Sorianus had descended, and +was speedily out of sight. + +III + +Sorianus tarried long under the camphor tree, but at last, becoming +weary, resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he +entered the dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary +appearance speedily attracted the attention of the royal officers, by +whom he was apprehended and brought before his majesty. + +“It is evident,” pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention +on the case, “that thou art in possession of an object too rare and +precious for a private individual, of which thou must accordingly be +deprived. I lament the inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had +been thy hand or thy foot.” + +Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the +indefeasible right of property which he conceived himself to have +acquired in his own head. + +“In respect,” responded the royal logician, “that thy head is conjoined +to thy shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is +mine, purple being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy, +mine on jurisprudence. Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine, +the most uncertain of sciences, override law, the perfection of human +reason? It is but to the vulgar observation that thou appearest to have +a head at all; in the eye of the law thou art acephalous.” + +“I would submit,” urged the philosopher, “that the corporal connection +of my head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a +fortuitous accident.” + +“Thou mightest as well contend,” returned the king, “that the law is +bound to regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is +disabled from taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of +smuggler—rebel, I might say, seeing that thou hast assumed the purple.” + +“But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty’s +proceedings?” + +“There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be, +it must be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my +despoiling thee of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest +mine. I will labour to render this even clearer to thy apprehension. +Thou art found, as thou must needs admit, in possession of a contraband +article forfeit to the crown by operation of law. What then? Shall the +intention of the legislature be frustrated because thou hast +insidiously rendered the possession of _my_ property inseparable from +the possession of _thine_? Shall I, an innocent proprietor, be mulcted +of my right by thy fraud and covin? Justice howls, righteousness weeps, +integrity stands aghast at the bare notion. No, friend, thy head has +not a leg to stand on. Wouldst thou retain it, it behoves thee to show +that it will be more serviceable to the owner, namely, myself, upon thy +shoulders than elsewhere. This may well be. Hast thou peradventure any +subtleties in perfumery? any secrets in confectionery? any skill in the +preparation of soup?” + +“I have condescended to none of these frivolities, O king. My study +hath ever consisted in divine philosophy, whereby men are rendered +equal to the gods.” + +“And yet long most of all for purple!” retorted the monarch, “as I +conclude from perceiving thou hast after all preferred the latter. Thy +head must indeed be worth the taking.” + +“Thy taunt is merited, O king! I will importune thee no longer. Thou +wilt indeed render me a service in depriving me of this wretched head, +hideous without, and I must fear, empty within, seeing that it hath not +prevented me from wasting my life in the service of vanity and luxury. +Woe to the sage who trusts his infirm wisdom and frail integrity within +the precincts of a court! Yet can I foretell a time when philosophers +shall no longer run on the futile and selfish errands of kings, and +when kings shall be suffered to rule only so far as they obey the +bidding of philosophers. Peace, Knowledge, Liberty—” + +The King of Ayodhya possessed, beyond all princes of his age, the art +of gracefully interrupting an unseasonable discourse. He slightly +signed to a courtier in attendance, a scimitar flashed for a moment +from its scabbard, and the head of Sorianus rolled on the pavement; the +lips murmuring as though still striving to dwell with inarticulate +fondness upon the last word of hope for mankind. + +It soon appeared that the principle of life was essential to the +resplendence of the Purple Head. Within a few minutes it had assumed so +ghastly a hue that the Rajah himself was intimidated, and directed that +it should be consumed with the body. + +The same full-moon that watched the white-robed throng busied with the +rites of incremation in a grove of palms, beheld also the seven dragons +contending for the body of Marcobad. But, for many a year, the maids +and matrons of Rome were not weary of regarding, extolling, and +coveting the priceless purple tissue that glowed in the fane of Jupiter +Capitolinus. + + + + +THE FIREFLY + + +A certain Magician had retired for the sake of study to a cottage in a +forest. It was summer in a hot country. In the trees near the cottage +dwelt a most beautiful Firefly. The light she bore with her was +dazzling, yet soft and palpitating, as the evening star, and she seemed +a single flash of fire as she shot in and out suddenly from under the +screen of foliage, or like a lamp as she perched panting upon some +leaf, or hung glowing from some bough; or like a wandering meteor as +she eddied gleaming over the summits of the loftiest trees; as she +often did, for she was an ambitious Firefly. She learned to know the +Magician, and would sometimes alight and sit shining in his hair, or +trail her lustre across his book as she crept over the pages. The +Magician admired her above all things: + +“What eyes she would have if she were a woman!” thought he. + +Once he said aloud; + +“How happy you must be, you rare, beautiful, brilliant creature!” + +“I am not happy,” rejoined the Firefly; “what am I, after all, but a +flying beetle with a candle in my tail? I wish I were a star.” + +“Very well,” said the Magician, and touched her with his wand, when she +became a beautiful star in the twelfth degree of the sign Pisces. + +After some nights the Magician asked her if she was content. + +“I am not,” replied she. “When I was a Firefly I could fly whither I +would, and come and go as I pleased. Now I must rise and set at certain +times, and shine just so long and no longer. I cannot fly at all, and +only creep slowly across the sky. In the day I cannot shine, or if I do +no one sees me. I am often darkened by rain, and mist, and cloud. Even +when I shine my brightest I am less admired than when I was a Firefly, +there are so many others like me. I see, indeed, people looking up from +the earth by night towards me, but how do I know that they are looking +at me?” + +“The laws of nature will have it so,” returned the Magician. + +“Don’t talk to me of the laws of Nature,” rejoined the Firefly. “I did +not make them, and I don’t see why I should be compelled to obey them. +Make me something else.” + +“What would you be?” demanded the accommodating Magician. + +“As I creep along here,” replied the Star, “I see such a soft pure +track of light. It proceeds from the lamp in your study. It flows out +of your window like a river of molten silver, both cool and warm. Let +me be such a lamp.” + +“Be it so,” answered the Magician: and the star became a lovely +alabaster lamp, set in an alcove in his study. Her chaste radiance was +shed over his page as long as he continued to read. At a certain hour +he extinguished her and retired to rest. + +Next morning the Lamp was in a terrible humour. + +“I don’t choose to be blown out,” she said. + +“You would have gone out of your own accord else,” returned the +Magician. + +“What!” exclaimed the Lamp, “am I not shining by my own light?” + +“Certainly not: you are not now a Firefly or a Star. You must now +depend upon others. You would be dark for ever if I did not rekindle +you by the help of this oil.” + +“What!” cried the Lamp, “not shine of my own accord! Never! Make me an +everlasting lamp, or I will not be one at all.” + +“Alas, poor friend,” returned the Magician sadly, “there is but one +place where aught is everlasting. I can make thee a lamp of the +sepulchre.” + +“Content,” responded the Lamp. And the Magician made her one of those +strange occult lamps which men find ever and anon when they unseal the +tombs of ancient kings and wizards, sustaining without nutriment a +perpetual flame. And he bore her to a sepulchre where a great king was +lying embalmed and perfect in his golden raiment, and set her at the +head of the corpse. And whether the poor fitful Firefly found at last +rest in the grave, we may know when we come thither ourselves. But the +Magician closed the gates of the sepulchre behind him, and walked +thoughtfully home. And as he approached his cottage, behold another +Firefly darting and flashing in and out among the trees, as brilliantly +as ever the first had done. She was a wise Firefly, well satisfied with +the world and everything in it, more particularly her own tail. And if +the Magician would have made a pet of her no doubt she would have abode +with him. But he never looked at her. + + + + +PAN’S WAND + + +Iridion had broken her lily. A misfortune for any rustic nymph, but +especially for her, since her life depended upon it. + +From her birth the fate of Iridion had been associated with that of a +flower of unusual loveliness—a stately, candid lily, endowed with a +charmed life, like its possessor. The seasons came and went without +leaving a trace upon it; innocence and beauty seemed as enduring with +it, as evanescent with the children of men. In equal though dissimilar +loveliness its frolicsome young mistress nourished by its side. One +thing alone, the oracle had declared, could prejudice either, and this +was an accident to the flower. From such disaster it had long been +shielded by the most delicate care; yet in the inscrutable counsels of +the Gods, the dreaded calamity had at length come to pass. Broken +through the upper part of the stem, the listless flower drooped its +petals towards the earth, and seemed to mourn their chastity, already +sullied by the wan flaccidity of decay. Not one had fallen as yet, and +Iridion felt no pain or any symptom of approaching dissolution, except, +it may be, the unwonted seriousness with which, having exhausted all +her simple skill on behalf of the languishing plant, she sat down to +consider its fate in the light of its bearing upon her own. + +Meditation upon an utterly vague subject, whether of apprehension or of +hope, speedily lapses into reverie. To Iridion, Death was as +indefinable an object of thought as the twin omnipotent controller of +human destiny, Love. Love, like the immature fruit on the bough, hung +unsoliciting and unsolicited as yet, but slowly ripening to the +maiden’s hand. Death, a vague film in an illimitable sky, tempered +without obscuring the sunshine of her life. Confronted with it +suddenly, she found it, in truth, an impalpable cloud, and herself as +little competent as the gravest philosopher to answer the +self-suggested inquiry, “What shall I be when I am no longer Iridion?” +Superstition might have helped her to some definite conceptions, but +superstition did not exist in her time. Judge, reader, of its +remoteness. + +The maiden’s reverie might have terminated only with her existence, but +for the salutary law which prohibits a young girl, not in love or at +school, from sitting still more than ten minutes. As she shifted her +seat at the expiration of something like this period, she perceived +that she had been sitting on a goatskin, and with a natural association +of ideas— + +“I will ask Pan,” she exclaimed. + +Pan at that time inhabited a cavern hard by the maiden’s dwelling, +which the judicious reader will have divined could only have been +situated in Arcadia. The honest god was on excellent terms with the +simple people; his goats browsed freely along with theirs, and the most +melodious of the rustic minstrels attributed their proficiency to his +instructions. The maidens were on a more reserved footing of +intimacy—at least so they wished it to be understood, and so it was +understood, of course. Iridion, however, decided that the occasion +would warrant her incurring the risk even of a kiss, and lost no time +in setting forth upon her errand, carrying her poor broken flower in +its earthen vase. It was the time of day when the god might be supposed +to be arousing himself from his afternoon’s siesta. She did not fear +that his door would be closed against her, for he had no door. + +The sylvan deity stood, in fact, at the entrance of his cavern, about +to proceed in quest of his goats. The appearance of Iridion operated a +change in his intention, and he courteously escorted her to a seat of +turf erected for the special accommodation of his fair visitors, while +he placed for himself one of stone. + +“Pan,” she began, “I have broken my lily.” + +“That is a sad pity, child. If it had been a reed, now, you could have +made a flute of it.” + +“I should not have time, Pan,” and she recounted her story. A godlike +nature cannot confound truth with falsehood, though it may mistake +falsehood for truth. Pan therefore never doubted Iridion’s strange +narrative, and, having heard it to the end, observed, “You will find +plenty more lilies in Elysium.” + +“Common lilies, Pan; not like mine.” + +“You are wrong. The lilies of Elysium—asphodels as they call them +there—are as immortal as the Elysians themselves. I have seen them in +Proserpine’s hair at Jupiter’s entertainment; they were as fresh as she +was. There is no doubt you might gather them by handfuls—at least if +you had any hands—and wear them to your heart’s content, if you had but +a heart.” + +“That’s just what perplexes me, Pan. It is not the dying I mind, it’s +the living. How am I to live without anything alive about me? If you +take away my hands, and my heart, and my brains, and my eyes, and my +ears, and above all my tongue, what is left me to live in Elysium?” + +As the maiden spake a petal detached itself from the emaciated lily, +and she pressed her hand to her brow with a responsive cry of pain. + +“Poor child!” said Pan compassionately, “you will feel no more pain +by-and-by.” + +“I suppose not, Pan, since you say so. But if I can feel no pain, how +can I feel any pleasure? + +“In an incomprehensible manner,” said Pan. + +“How can I feel, if I have no feeling? and what am I to do without it?” + +“You can think!” replied Pan. “Thinking (not that I am greatly given to +it myself) is a much finer thing than feeling; no right-minded person +doubts that. Feeling, as I have heard Minerva say, is a property of +matter, and matter, except, of course, that appertaining to myself and +the other happy gods, is vile and perishable—quite immaterial, in fact. +Thought alone is transcendent, incorruptible, and undying!” + +“But, Pan, how can any one think thoughts without something to think +them with? I never thought of anything that I have not seen, or +touched, or smelt, or tasted, or heard about from some one else. If I +think with nothing, and about nothing, is that thinking, do you think?” + +“I think,” answered Pan evasively, “that you are a sensationalist, a +materialist, a sceptic, a revolutionist; and if you had not sought the +assistance of a god, I should have said not much better than an +atheist. I also think it is time I thought about some physic for you +instead of metaphysics, which are bad for my head, and for your soul.” +Saying this, Pan, with rough tenderness, deposited the almost fainting +maiden upon a couch of fern, and, having supported her head with a +bundle of herbs, leaned his own upon his hand, and reflected with all +his might. The declining sun was now nearly opposite the cavern’s +mouth, and his rays, straggling through the creepers that wove their +intricacies over the entrance, chequered with lustrous patches the +forms of the dying girl and the meditating god. Ever and anon, a petal +would drop from the flower; this was always succeeded by a shuddering +tremor throughout Iridion’s frame and a more forlorn expression on her +pallid countenance: while Pan’s jovial features assumed an expression +of deeper concern as he pressed his knotty hand more resolutely against +his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter horn with a more determined +grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by the tail. + +“Aha!” he suddenly exclaimed, “I have it!” + +“What have you, Pan?” faintly lisped the expiring Iridion. + +Instead of replying, Pan grasped a wand that leaned against the wall of +his grot, and with it touched the maiden and the flower. O strange +metamorphosis! Where the latter had been pining in its vase, a lovely +girl, the image of Iridion, lay along the ground with dishevelled hair, +clammy brow, and features slightly distorted by the last struggles of +death. On the ferny couch stood an earthen vase, from which rose a +magnificent lily, stately, with unfractured stem, and with no stain or +wrinkle on its numerous petals. + +“Aha!” repeated Pan; “I think we are ready for him now.” Then, having +lifted the inanimate body to the couch, and placed the vase, with its +contents, on the floor of his cavern, he stepped to the entrance, and +shading his eyes with his hand, seemed to gaze abroad in quest of some +anticipated visitor. + +The boughs at the foot of the steep path to the cave divided, and a +figure appeared at the foot of the rock. The stranger’s mien was +majestic, but the fitness of his proportions diminished his really +colossal stature to something more nearly the measure of mortality. His +form was enveloped in a sweeping sad-coloured robe; a light, thin veil +resting on his countenance, mitigated, without concealing, the not +ungentle austerity of his marble features. His gait was remarkable; +nothing could be more remote from every indication of haste, yet such +was the actual celerity of his progression, that Pan had scarcely +beheld him ere he started to find him already at his side. + +The stranger, without disturbing his veil, seemed to comprehend the +whole interior of the grotto with a glance; then, with the slightest +gesture of recognition to Pan, he glided to the couch on which lay the +metamorphosed lily, upraised the fictitious Iridion in his arms with +indescribable gentleness, and disappeared with her as swiftly and +silently as he had come. The discreet Pan struggled with suppressed +merriment until the stranger was fairly out of hearing, then threw +himself back upon his seat and laughed till the cave rang. + +“And now,” he said, “to finish the business.” He lifted the transformed +maiden into the vase, and caressed her beauty with an exulting but +careful hand. There was a glory and a splendour in the flower such as +had never until then been beheld in any earthly lily. The stem +vibrated, the leaves shook in unison, the petals panted and suspired, +and seemed blanched with a whiteness intense as the core of sunlight, +as they throbbed in anticipation of the richer existence awaiting them. + +Impatient to complete his task, Pan was about to grasp his wand when +the motion was arrested as the sinking beam of the sun was intercepted +by a gigantic shadow, and the stranger again stood by his side. The +unbidden guest uttered no word, but his manner was sufficiently +expressive of wrath as he disdainfully cast on the ground a broken, +withered lily, the relic of what had bloomed with such loveliness in +the morning, and had since for a brief space been arrayed in the +vesture of humanity. He pointed imperiously to the gorgeous tenant of +the vase, and seemed to expect Pan to deliver it forthwith. + +“Look here,” said Pan, with more decision than dignity, “I am a poor +country god, but I know the law. If you can find on this plant one +speck, one stain, one token that you have anything to do with her, take +her, and welcome. If you cannot, take yourself off instead.” + +“Be it so,” returned the stranger, haughtily declining the proffered +inspection. “You will find it is ill joking with Death.” + +So saying, he quitted the cavern. + +Pan sat down chuckling, yet not wholly at ease, for if the charity of +Death is beautiful even to a mortal, his anger is terrible, even to a +god. Anxious to terminate the adventure, he reached towards the charmed +wand by whose wonderful instrumentality the dying maiden had already +become a living flower, and was now to undergo a yet more delightful +metamorphosis. + +Wondrous wand! But where was it? For Death, the great transfigurer of +all below this lunar sphere, had given Pan a characteristic proof of +his superior cunning. Where the wand had reposed writhed a ghastly +worm, which, as Pan’s glance fell upon it, glided towards him, +uplifting its head with an aspect of defiance. Pan’s immortal nature +sickened at the emblem of corruption; he could not for all Olympus have +touched his metamorphosed treasure. As he shrank back the creature +pursued its way towards the vase; but a marvellous change befell it as +it came under the shadow of the flower. The writhing body divided, end +from end, the sordid scales sank indiscernibly into the dust, and an +exquisite butterfly, arising from the ground, alighted on the lily, and +remained for a moment fanning its wings in the last sunbeam, ere it +unclosed them to the evening breeze. Pan, looking eagerly after the +Psyche in its flight, did not perceive what was taking place in the +cavern; but the magic wand, now for ever lost to its possessor, must +have cancelled its own spell, for when his gaze reverted from the +ineffectual pursuit, the living lily had disappeared, and Iridion lay a +corpse upon the ground, the faded flower of her destiny reposing upon +her breast. + +Death now stood for a third time upon Pan’s threshold, but Pan heeded +him not. + + + + +A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF FOLLY + + +“That owned the virtuous ring and glass.” +—_Il Penseroso_. + +I + +“Aurelia!” + +“Otto!” + +“Must we then part?” + +They were folded in each other’s arms. There never was such kissing. + +“How shall we henceforth exchange the sweet tokens of our undying +affection, my Otto?” + +“Alas, my Aurelia, I know not! Thy Otto blushes to acquaint thee that +he cannot write.” + +“Blush not, my Otto, thou needest not reproach thyself. Even couldest +thou write, thy Aurelia could not read. Oh these dark ages!” + +They remained some minutes gazing on each other with an expression of +fond perplexity. Suddenly the damsel’s features assumed the aspect of +one who experiences the visitation of a happy thought. Gently yet +decidedly she pronounced: + +“We will exchange rings.” + +They drew off their rings simultaneously. “This, Aurelia, was my +grandfather’s.” + +“This, Otto, was my grandmother’s, which she charged me with her dying +breath never to part with save to him whom alone I loved.” + +“Mine is a brilliant, more radiant than aught save the eyes of my +Aurelia.” + +And, in fact, Aurelia’s eyes hardly sustained the comparison. A finer +stone could not easily be found. + +“Mine is a sapphire, azure as the everlasting heavens, and type of a +constancy enduring as they.” + +In truth, it was of a tint seldom to be met with in sapphires. + +The exchange made, the lady seemed less anxious to detain her lover. + +“Beware, Otto!” she cried, as he slid down the cord, which yielded him +an oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted +knee-deep in mud. “Beware!—if my brother should be gazing from his +chamber on the resplendent moon!” + +But that ferocious young baron was accustomed to spend his time in a +less romantic manner; and so it came to pass that Otto encountered him +not. + +II + +Days, weeks, months had passed by, and Otto, a wanderer in a foreign +land, had heard no tidings of his Aurelia. Ye who have loved may well +conceive how her ring was all in all to him. He divided his time pretty +equally between gazing into its cerulean depths, as though her lovely +image were mirrored therein, and pressing its chilly surface to his +lips, little as it recalled the warmth and balminess of hers. + +The burnished glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and +sparkle of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he +one evening perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a +jeweller’s shop. The grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench +within, sedulously polishing a streaked pebble by the light of a small +lamp. A sudden thought struck Otto; he entered the shop, and, +presenting the ring to the jeweller, inquired in a tone of suppressed +exultation: + +“What hold you for the worth of this inestimable ring?” + +The jeweller, with no expression of surprise or curiosity, received the +ring from Otto, held it to the light, glanced slightly at the stone, +somewhat more carefully at the setting, laid the ring for a moment in a +pair of light scales, and, handing it back to Otto, remarked with a +tone and manner of the most entire indifference: + +“The worth of this inestimable ring is one shilling and sixpence.” + +“Caitiff of a huckster!” exclaimed Otto, bringing down his fist on the +bench with such vigour that the pebbles leaped up and fell rattling +down: “Sayest thou this of a gem framed by genii in the bowels of the +earth?” + +“Nay, friend,” returned the jeweller with the same imperturbable air, +“that thy gem was framed of earth I in nowise question, seeing that it +doth principally consist of sand. But when thou speakest of genii and +the bowels of the earth, thou wilt not, I hope, take it amiss if I +crave better proof than thy word that the devil has taken to +glass-making. For glass, and nothing else, credit me, thy jewel is.” + +“And the gold?” gasped Otto. + +“There is just as much gold in thy ring as sufficeth to gild handsomely +a like superficies of brass, which is not saying much.” + +And, applying a sponge dipped in some liquid to a small part of the +hoop, the jeweller disclosed the dull hue of the baser metal so +evidently that Otto could hardly doubt longer. He doubted no more when +the lapidary laid his ring in the scales against another of the same +size and make, and pointed to the inequality of the balance. + +“Thou seest,” he continued, “that in our craft a very little gold goes +a very great way. It is far otherwise in the world, as thou, albeit in +no sort eminent for sapience, hast doubtless ere this ascertained for +thyself. Thou art evidently a prodigious fool!” + +This latter disparaging observation could be safely ventured upon, as +Otto had rushed from the shop, speechless with rage. + +Was Aurelia deceiver or deceived? Should he execrate her, or her +venerable grandmother, or some unknown person? The point was too knotty +to be solved in the agitated state of his feelings. He decided it +provisionally by execrating the entire human race, not forgetting +himself. + +In a mood like Otto’s a trifling circumstance is sufficient to +determine the quality of action. The ancient city of which he was at +the time an inhabitant was traversed by a large river spanned by a +quaint and many-arched bridge, to which his frantic and aimless +wanderings had conducted him. Spires and gables and lengthy façades +were reflected in the water, blended with the shadows of boats, and +interspersed with the mirrored flames of innumerable windows on land, +or of lanterns suspended from the masts or sterns of the vessels. The +dancing ripples bickered and flickered, and seemed to say, “Come hither +to us,” while the dark reaches of still water in the shadow of the +piers promised that whatever might be entrusted to them should be +faithfully retained. Swayed by a sudden impulse, Otto drew his ring +from his finger. It gleamed an instant aloft in air; in another the +relaxation of his grasp would have consigned it to the stream. + +“Forbear!” + +Otto turned, and perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger +was tall and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially +concealed a flame-coloured jerkin. A cock’s feather peaked up in his +cap; his eyes were piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the +expression of his features sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more +observant, or less preoccupied, he might have noticed that the +stranger’s left shoe was of a peculiar form, and that he limped some +little with the corresponding foot. + +“Forbear, I say; thou knowest not what thou doest.” + +“And what skills what I do with a piece of common glass?” + +“Thou errest, friend; thy ring is not common glass. Had thy mistress +surmised its mystic virtues, she would have thought oftener than twice +ere exchanging it for thy diamond.” + +“What may these virtues be?” eagerly demanded Otto. + +“In the first place, it will show thee when thy mistress may chance to +think of thee, as it will then prick thy finger.” + +“Now I know thee for a lying knave,” exclaimed the youth indignantly. +“Learn, to thy confusion, that it hath not pricked me once since I +parted from Aurelia.” + +“Which proves that she has never once thought of thee.” + +“Villain!” shouted Otto, “say that again, and I will transfix thee.” + +“Thou mayest if thou canst,” rejoined the stranger, with an expression +of such cutting scorn that Otto’s spirit quailed, and he felt a secret +but overpowering conviction of his interlocutor’s veracity. Rallying, +however, in some measure, he exclaimed: + +“Aurelia is true! I will wager my soul upon it!” + +“Done!” screamed the stranger in a strident voice of triumph, while a +burst of diabolical laughter seemed to proceed from every cranny of the +eaves and piers of the old bridge, and to be taken up by goblin echoes +from the summits of the adjacent towers and steeples. + +Otto’s blood ran chill, but he mustered sufficient courage to inquire +hoarsely: + +“What of its further virtues?” + +“When it shall have pricked thee,” returned the mysterious personage, +“on turning it once completely round thy finger thou wilt see thy +mistress wherever she may be. If thou turnest it the second time, thou +wilt know what her thought of thee is; and, if the third time, thou +wilt find thyself in her presence. But I give thee fair warning that by +doing this thou wilt place thyself in a more disastrous plight than any +thou hast experienced hitherto. And now farewell.” + +The speaker disappeared. Otto stood alone upon the bridge. He saw +nothing around him but the stream, with its shadows and lights, as he +slowly and thoughtfully turned round to walk to his lodgings. + +III + +Ye who have loved, et cetera, as aforesaid, will comprehend the anxiety +with which Otto henceforth consulted his ring. He was continually +adjusting it to his finger in a manner, as he fancied, to render the +anticipated puncture more perceptible when it should come at last. He +would have worn it on all his fingers in succession had the +conformation of his robust hand admitted of its being placed on any but +the slenderest. Thousands of times he could have sworn that he felt the +admonitory sting; thousands of times he turned the trinket round and +round with desperate impatience; but Aurelia’s form remained as +invisible, her thoughts as inscrutable, as before. His great dread was +that he might be pricked in his sleep, on which account he would sit up +watching far into the morn. For, as he reasoned, not without +plausibility, when could he more rationally hope for a place in +Aurelia’s thoughts than at that witching and suggestive period? She +might surely think of him when she had nothing else to do! Had she +really nothing else to do? And Otto grew sick and livid with jealousy. +It of course frequently occurred to him to doubt and deride the virtues +of the ring, and he was several times upon the point of flinging it +away. But the more he pondered upon the appearance and manner of the +stranger, the less able he felt to resist the conviction of his +truthfulness. + +At last a most unmistakable puncture! the distinct, though slight, pang +of a miniature wound. A crimson bead of blood rose on Otto’s finger, +swelled to its due proportion, and became a trickling blot. + +“She is thinking of me!” cried he rapturously, as if this were an +instance of the most signal and unforeseen condescension. All the weary +expectancy of the last six months was forgotten. He would have railed +at himself had the bliss of the moment allowed him to remember that he +had ever railed at her. + +Otto turned his ring once, and Aurelia became visible in an instant. +She was standing before the mercer’s booth in the chief street of the +little town which adjoined her father’s castle. Her gaze was riveted on +a silk mantle, trimmed with costly furs, which depended from a hook +inside the doorway. Her lovely features wore an expression of extreme +dissatisfaction. She was replacing a purse, apparently by no means +weighty, in her embroidered girdle. + +Otto turned the ring the second time, and Aurelia’s silvery accents +immediately became audible to the following effect: + +“If that fool Otto were here, he would buy it for me.” + +She turned away, and walked down the street. Otto uttered a cry like +the shriek of an uprooted mandrake. His hand was upon the ring to turn +it for the third time; but the stranger’s warning occurred to him, and +for a moment he forbore. In that moment the entire vision vanished from +before his eyes. + +What boots it to describe Otto’s feelings upon this revelation of +Aurelia’s sentiments? For lovers, description would be needless; to +wiser people, incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, that as his lady +deemed him a fool he appeared bent on proving that she did not deem +amiss. + +A long space of time elapsed without any further admonition from the +ring. Perhaps Aurelia had no further occasion for his purse; perhaps +she had found another pursebearer. The latter view of the case appeared +the more plausible to Otto, and it hugely aggravated his torments. + +At last the moment came. It was the hour of midnight. Again Otto felt +the sharp puncture, again the ruby drop started from his finger, again +he turned the ring, and again beheld Aurelia. She was in her chamber, +but not alone. Her companion was a youth of Otto’s age. She was in the +act of placing Otto’s brilliant upon his finger. Otto turned his own +ring, and heard her utter, with singular distinctness: + +“This ring was given me by the greatest fool I ever knew. Little did he +imagine that it would one day be the means of procuring me liberty, and +bliss in the arms of my Arnold. My venerable grandmother—” + +The voice expired upon her lips, for Otto stood before her. + +Arnold precipitated himself from the window, carrying the ring with +him. Otto, glaring at his faithless mistress, stood in the middle of +the apartment with his sword unsheathed. Was he about to use it? None +can say; for at this moment the young Baron burst into the room, and, +without the slightest apology for the liberty he was taking, passed his +sword through Otto’s body. + +Otto groaned, and fell upon his face. He was dead. The young Baron +ungently reversed the position of the corpse, and scanned its features +with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. + +“It is not Arnold, after all!” he muttered. “Who would have thought +it?” + +“Thou seest, brother, how unjust were thy suspicions,” observed +Aurelia, with an air of injured but not implacable virtue. “As for this +abominable ravisher——” Her feelings forbade her to proceed. + +The brother looked mystified. There was something beyond his +comprehension in the affair; yet he could not but acknowledge that Otto +was the person who had rushed by him as he lay in wait upon the stairs. +He finally determined that it was best to say nothing about the matter: +a resolution the easier of performance as he was not wont to be lavish +of his words at any time. He wiped his sword on his sister’s curtains, +and was about to withdraw, when Aurelia again spoke: + +“Ere thou departest, brother, have the goodness to ring the bell, and +desire the menials to remove this carrion from my apartment.” + +The young Baron sulkily complied, and retreated growling to his +chamber. + +The attendants carried Otto’s body forth. To the honour of her sex be +it recorded, that before this was done Aurelia vouchsafed one glance to +the corpse of her old lover. Her eye fell on the brazen ring. “And he +has actually worn it all this time!” thought she. + +“Would have outraged my daughter, would he?” said the old Baron, when +the transaction was reported to him. “Let him be buried in a +concatenation accordingly.” + +“What the guy dickens be a concatrenation, Geoffrey?” interrogated +Giles. + +“Methinks it is Latin for a ditch,” responded Geoffrey. + +This interpretation commending itself to the general judgment of the +retainers, Otto was interred in the shelving bank of the old moat, just +under Aurelia’s window. A rough stone was laid upon the grave. The +magic ring, which no one thought worth appropriating, remained upon the +corpse’s finger. Thou mayest probably find it there, reader, if thou +searchest long enough. + +The first visitor to Otto’s humble sepulchre was, after all, Aurelia +herself, who alighted thereon on the following night after letting +herself down from her casement to fly with Arnold. Their escape was +successfully achieved upon a pair of excellent horses, the proceeds of +Otto’s diamond, which had become the property of a Jew. + +On the third night an aged monk stood by Otto’s grave, and wept +plentifully. He carried a lantern, a mallet, and a chisel. “He was my +pupil,” sobbed the good old man. “It were meet to contribute what in me +lies to the befitting perpetuation of his memory.” + +Setting down the lantern, he commenced work, and with pious toil +engraved on the stone in the Latin of the period: + +“HAC MAGNUS STULTUS JACET IN FOSSA SEPULTUS. +MULIER CUI CREDIDIT MORTUUM ILLUM REDDIDIT.” + + +Here he paused, at the end of his strength and of his Latin. + +“Beshrew my old arms and brains!” he sighed. + +“Hem!” coughed a deep voice in his vicinity. + +The monk looked up. The personage in the dusky cloak and flame-coloured +jerkin was standing over him. + +“Good monk,” said the fiend, “what dost thou here?” + +“Good fiend,” said the monk, “I am inscribing an epitaph to the memory +of a departed friend. Thou mightest kindly aid me to complete it.” + +“Truly,” rejoined the demon, “it would become me to do so, seeing that +I have his soul here in my pocket. Thou wilt not expect me to employ +the language of the Church. Nathless, I see not wherefore the +vernacular may not serve as well.” + +And, taking the mallet and chisel, he completed the monk’s inscription +with the supplementary legend: + +“SERVED HIM RIGHT.” + + + + +THE BELL OF SAINT EUSCHEMON + + +The town of Epinal, in Lorraine, possessed in the Middle Ages a peal of +three bells, respectively dedicated to St. Eulogius, St. Eucherius, and +St. Euschemon, whose tintinnabulation was found to be an effectual +safeguard against all thunderstorms. Let the heavens be ever so murky, +it was merely requisite to set the bells ringing, and no lightning +flashed and no thunder peal broke over the town, nor was the +neighbouring country within hearing of them ravaged by hail or flood. + +One day the three saints, Eulogius, Eucherius, and Euschemon, were +sitting together, exceedingly well content with themselves and +everything around them, as indeed they had every right to be, supposing +that they were in Paradise. We say supposing, not being for our own +part entirely able to reconcile this locality with the presence of +certain cans and flagons, which had been fuller than they were. + +“What a happy reflection for a Saint,” said Eulogius, who was rapidly +passing from the mellow stage of good fellowship to the maudlin, “that +even after his celestial assumption he is permitted to continue a +source of blessing and benefit to his fellow-creatures as yet dwelling +in the shade of mortality! The thought of the services of my bell, in +averting lightning and inundation from the good people of Epinal, fills +me with indescribable beatitude.” + +“_Your_ bell!” interposed Eucherius, whose path had lain through the +mellow to the quarrelsome. “_Your_ bell, quotha! You had as good clink +this cannakin” (suiting the action to the word) “as your bell. It’s my +bell that does the business.” + +“I think you might put in a word for _my_ bell,” interposed Euschemon, +a little squinting saint, very merry and friendly when not put out, as +on the present occasion. + +“Your bell!” retorted the big saints, with incredible disdain; and, +forgetting their own altercation, they fell so fiercely on their little +brother that he ran away, stopping his ears with his hands, and vowing +vengeance. + +A short time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance +presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and +bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance +was far from disagreeable, and he obtained the appointment without +difficulty. His deportment in it was in all respects edifying; or if he +evinced some little remissness in the service of Saints Eulogius and +Eucherius, this was more than compensated by his devotion to the +hitherto somewhat slighted Saint Euschemon. It was indeed observed that +candles, garlands, and other offerings made at the shrines of the two +senior saints were found to be transferred in an unaccountable and +mystical manner to the junior, which induced experienced persons to +remark that a miracle was certainly brewing. Nothing, however, occurred +until, one hot summer afternoon, the indications of a storm became so +threatening that the sacristan was directed to ring the bells. Scarcely +had he begun than the sky became clear, but instead of the usual rich +volume of sound the townsmen heard with astonishment a solitary tinkle, +sounding quite ridiculous and unsatisfactory in comparison. St. +Euschemon’s bell was ringing by itself. + +In a trice priests and laymen swarmed to the belfry, and indignantly +demanded of the sacristan what he meant. + +“To enlighten you,” he responded. “To teach you to give honour where +honour is due. To unmask those canonised impostors.” + +And he called their attention to the fact that the clappers of the +bells of Eulogius and Eucherius were so fastened up that they could not +emit a sound, while that of Euschemon vibrated freely. + +“Ye see,” he continued, “that these sound not at all, yet is the +tempest stayed. Is it not thence manifest that the virtue resides +solely in the bell of the blessed Euschemon?” + +The argument seemed conclusive to the majority, but those of the clergy +who ministered at the altars of Eulogius and Eucherius stoutly +resisted, maintaining that no just decision could be arrived at until +Euschemon’s bell was subjected to the same treatment as the others. +Their view eventually prevailed, to the great dismay of Euschemon, who, +although firmly convinced of the virtue of his own bell, did not in his +heart disbelieve in the bells of his brethren. Imagine his relief and +amazed joy when, upon his bell being silenced, the storm, for the first +time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, broke with full fury over +Epinal, and, for all the frantic pealing of the other two bells, raged +with unspeakable fierceness until his own was brought into requisition, +when, as if by enchantment, the rain ceased, the thunder-clouds +dispersed, and the sun broke out gloriously from the blue sky. + +“Carry him in procession!” shouted the crowd. + +“Amen, brethren; here I am,” rejoined Euschemon, stepping briskly into +the midst of the troop. + +“And why in the name of Zernebock should we carry _you?_” demanded +some, while others ran off to lug forth the image, the object of their +devotion. + +“Why, verily,” Euschemon began, and stopped short. How indeed was he to +prove to them that he _was_ Euschemon? His personal resemblance to his +effigy, the work of a sculptor of the idealistic school, was in no +respect remarkable; and he felt, alas! that he could no more work a +miracle than you or I. In the sight of the multitude he was only an +elderly sexton with a cast in his eye, with nothing but his office to +keep him out of the workhouse. A further and more awkward question +arose, how on earth was he to get back to Paradise? The ordinary method +was not available, for he had already been dead for several centuries; +and no other presented itself to his imagination. + +Muttering apologies, and glad to be overlooked, Euschemon shrank into a +corner, but slightly comforted by the honours his image was receiving +at the hands of the good people of Epinal. As time wore on he became +pensive and restless, and nothing pleased him so well as to ascend to +the belfry on moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells +of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and +caressing his own, which now did duty for all three. With alarm he +noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened to become a +serious flaw. + +“If this goes on,” said a voice behind him, “I shall get a holiday.” + +Euschemon turned round, and with indescribable dismay perceived a +gigantic demon, negligently resting his hand on the top of the bell, +and looking as if it would cost him nothing to pitch it and Euschemon +together to the other side of the town. + +“Avaunt, fiend,” he stammered, with as much dignity as he could muster, +“or at least remove thy unhallowed paw from my bell.” + +“Come, Eusky,” replied the fiend, with profane familiarity, “don’t be a +fool. You are not really such an ass as to imagine that your virtue has +anything to do with the virtue of this bell?” + +“Whose virtue then?” demanded Euschemon. + +“Why truly,” said the demon, “mine! When this bell was cast I was +imprisoned in it by a potent enchanter, and so long as I am in it no +storm can come within sound of its ringing. I am not allowed to quit it +except by night, and then no further than an arm’s length: this, +however, I take the liberty of measuring by my own arm, which happens +to be a long one. This must continue, as I learn, until I receive a +kiss from some bishop of distinguished sanctity. Thou hast done some +bishoping in thy time, peradventure?” + +Euschemon energetically protested that he had been on earth but a +simple laic, which was indeed the fact, and was also the reason why +Eulogius and Eucherius despised him, but which, though he did not think +it needful to tell the demon, he found a singular relief under present +circumstances. + +“Well,” continued the fiend, “I wish he may turn up shortly, for I am +half deaf already with the banging and booming of this infernal +clapper, which seems to have grown much worse of late; and the +blessings and the crossings and the aspersions which I have to go +through are most repugnant to my tastes, and unsuitable to my position +in society. Bye-bye, Eusky; come up to-morrow night.” And the fiend +slipped back into the bell, and instantly became invisible. + +The humiliation of poor Euschemon on learning that he was indebted for +his credit to the devil is easier to imagine than to describe. He did +not, however, fail at the rendezvous next night, and found the demon +sitting outside the bell in a most affable frame of mind. It did not +take long for the devil and the saint to become very good friends, both +wanting company, and the former being apparently as much amused by the +latter’s simplicity as the latter was charmed by the former’s +knowingness. Euschemon learned numbers of things of which he had not +had the faintest notion. The demon taught him how to play cards (just +invented by the Saracens), and initiated him into divers “arts, though +unimagined, yet to be,” such as smoking tobacco, making a book on the +Derby, and inditing queer stories for Society journals. He drew the +most profane but irresistibly funny caricatures of Eulogius and +Eucherius, and the rest of the host of heaven. He had been one of the +demons who tempted St. Anthony, and retailed anecdotes of that eremite +which Euschemon had never heard mentioned in Paradise. He was versed in +all scandal respecting saints in general, and Euschemon found with +astonishment how much about his own order was known downstairs. On the +whole he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life; he became +proficient in all manner of minor devilries, and was ceasing to trouble +himself about his bell or his ecclesiastical duties, when an untoward +incident interrupted his felicity. + +It chanced that the Bishop of Metz, in whose diocese Epinal was +situated, finding himself during a visitation journey within a short +distance of the town, determined to put, up there for the night. He did +not arrive until nightfall, but word of his intention having been sent +forward by a messenger the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, were +ready to receive him. When, escorted in state, he had arrived at the +house prepared for his reception, the Mayor ventured to express a hope +that everything had been satisfactory to his Lordship. + +“Everything,” said the bishop emphatically. “I did indeed seem to +remark one little omission, which no doubt may be easily accounted +for.” + +“What was that, my Lord?” + +“It hath,” said the bishop, “usually been the practice to receive a +bishop with the ringing of bells. It is a laudable custom, conducive to +the purification of the air and the discomfiture of the prince of the +powers thereof. I caught no sound of chimes on the present occasion, +yet I am sensible that my hearing is not what it was.” + +The civil and ecclesiastical authorities looked at each other. “That +graceless knave of a sacristan!” said the Mayor. + +“He hath indeed of late strangely neglected his charge,” said a priest. + +“Poor man, I doubt his wits are touched,” charitably added another. + +“What!” exclaimed the bishop, who was very active, very fussy, and a +great stickler for discipline. “This important church, so renowned for +its three miraculous bells, confided to the tender mercies of an +imbecile rogue who may burn it down any night! I will look to it myself +without losing a minute.” + +And in spite of all remonstrances, off he started. The keys were +brought, the doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly +examined, but neither in nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest +trace of the sacristan be found. + +“Perhaps he is in the belfry,” suggested a chorister. + +“We’ll see,” responded the bishop, and bustling nimbly up the ladder, +he emerged into the open belfry in full moonlight. + +Heavens! what a sight met his eye! The sacristan and the devil sitting +_vis-a-vis_ close by the miraculous bell, with a smoking can of hot +spiced wine between them, finishing a close game of cribbage. + +“Seven,” declared Euschemon. + +“And eight are fifteen,” retorted the demon, marking two. + +“Twenty-three and pair,” cried Euschemon, marking in his turn. + +“And seven is thirty.” + +“Ace, thirty-one, and I’m up.” + +“It _is_ up with you, my friend,” shouted the bishop, bringing his +crook down smartly on Euschemon’s shoulders. + +“Deuce!” said the devil, and vanished into his bell. + +When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very +long, the bishop briefly addressed the assembly. He said that the +accounts of the bell which had reached his ears had already excited his +apprehensions. He had greatly feared that all could not be right, and +now his anxieties were but too well justified. He trusted there was not +a man before him who would not suffer his flocks and his crops to be +destroyed by tempest fifty times over rather than purchase their safety +by unhallowed means. What had been done had doubtless been done in +ignorance, and could be made good by a mulct to the episcopal treasury. +The amount of this he would carefully consider, and the people of +Epinal might rest assured that it should not be too light to entitle +them to the benefit of a full absolution. The bell must go to his +cathedral city, there to be examined and reported on by the exorcists +and inquisitors. Meanwhile he would himself institute a slight +preliminary scrutiny. + +The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the +combined beams of the moonlight and torchlight. Very slight examination +served to place the soundness of the bishop’s opinion beyond dispute. +On the lip of the bell were engraven characters unknown to every one +else, but which seemed to affect the prelate with singular +consternation. + +“I hope,” he exclaimed, “that none of you know anything about these +characters! I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them. +If I thought anybody could I would burn him as soon as look at him!” + +The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the +slightest conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never +been observed before. + +“I rejoice to hear it,” said the bishop. “It will be an evil day for +the church when these letters are understood.” + +And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible +fiend inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and +the luckless Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness, +the inmate of a dismal dungeon. + +It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of +any partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats. At +length, however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear. + +“Who art thou?” he exclaimed. + +“An unfortunate prisoner,” was the answer. + +“What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?” + +“Oh, a mere trifle. A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to +Beelzebub. One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur +in our profession.” + +“_Our_ profession!” exclaimed Euschemon. + +“Art thou not a sorcerer?” demanded the voice. + +“No,” replied Euschemon, “I am a saint.” + +The warlock received Euschemon’s statement with much incredulity, but +becoming eventually convinced of its truth— + +“I congratulate thee,” he said. “The devil has manifestly taken a fancy +to thee, and he never forgets his own. It is true that the bishop is a +great favourite with him also. But we will hope for the best. Thou hast +never practised riding a broomstick? No? ’Tis pity; thou mayest have to +mount one at a moment’s notice.” + +This consolation had scarcely been administered ere the bolts flew +back, the hinges grated, the door opened, and gaolers bearing torches +informed the sorcerer that the bishop desired his presence. + +He found the bishop in his study, which was nearly choked up by +Euschemon’s bell. The prelate received him with the greatest +affability, and expressed a sincere hope that the very particular +arrangements he had enjoined for the comfort of his distinguished +prisoner had been faithfully carried out by his subordinates. The +sorcerer, as much a man of the world as the bishop, thanked his +Lordship, and protested that he had been perfectly comfortable. + +“I have need of thy art,” said the bishop, coming to business. “I am +exceedingly bothered—flabbergasted were not too strong an expression—by +this confounded bell. All my best exorcists have been trying all they +know with it, to no purpose. They might as well have tried to exorcise +my mitre from my head by any other charm than the offer of a better +one. Magic is plainly the only remedy, and if thou canst disenchant it, +I will give thee thy freedom.” + +“It will be a tough business,” observed the sorcerer, surveying the +bell with the eye of a connoisseur. “It will require fumigations.” + +“Yes,” said the bishop, “and suffumigations.” + +“Aloes and mastic,” advised the sorcerer. + +“Aye,” assented the bishop, “and red sanders.” + +“We must call in Primeumaton,” said the warlock. + +“Clearly,” said the bishop, “and Amioram.” + +“Triangles,” said the sorcerer. + +“Pentacles,” said the bishop. + +“In the hour of Methon,” said the sorcerer. + +“I should have thought Tafrac,” suggested the bishop, “but I defer to +your better judgment.” + +“I can have the blood of a goat?” queried the wizard. + +“Yes,” said the bishop, “and of a monkey also.” + +“Does your Lordship think that one might venture to go so far as a +little unweaned child?” + +“If absolutely necessary,” said the bishop. + +“I am delighted to find such liberality of sentiment on your Lordship’s +part,” said the sorcerer. “Your Lordship is evidently of the +profession.” + +“These are things which stuck by me when I was an inquisitor,” +explained the bishop, with some little embarrassment. + +Ere long all arrangements were made. It would be impossible to +enumerate half the crosses, circles, pentagrams, naked swords, +cross-bones, chafing-dishes, and vials of incense which the sorcerer +found to be necessary. The child was fortunately deemed superfluous. +Euschemon was brought up from his dungeon, and, his teeth chattering +with fright and cold, set beside his bell to hold a candle to the +devil. The incantations commenced, and speedily gave evidence of their +efficacy. The bell trembled, swayed, split open, and a female figure of +transcendent loveliness attired in the costume of Eve stepped forth and +extended her lips towards the bishop. What could the bishop do but +salute them? With a roar of triumph the demon resumed his proper shape. +The bishop swooned. The apartment was filled with the fumes of sulphur. +The devil soared majestically out of the window, carrying the sorcerer +under one arm and Euschemon under the other. + +It is commonly believed that the devil good-naturedly dropped Euschemon +back again into Paradise, or wheresoever he might have come from. It is +even added that he fell between Eulogius and Eucherius, who had been +arguing all the time respecting the merits of their bells, and resumed +his share in the discussion as if nothing had happened. Some maintain, +indeed, that the devil, chancing to be in want of a chaplain, offered +the situation to Euschemon, by whom it was accepted. But how to +reconcile this assertion with the undoubted fact that the duties of the +post in question are at present ably discharged by the Bishop of Metz, +in truth we see not. One thing is certain: thou wilt not find +Euschemon’s name in the calendar, courteous reader. + +The mulct to be imposed upon the parish of Epinal was never exacted. +The bell, ruptured beyond repair by the demon’s violent exit, was taken +back and deposited in the museum of the town. The bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius were rung freely on occasion; but Epinal has not since +enjoyed any greater immunity from storms than the contiguous districts. +One day an aged traveller, who had spent many years in Heathenesse and +in whom some discerned a remarkable resemblance to the sorcerer, +noticed the bell, and asked permission to examine it. He soon +discovered the inscription, recognised the mysterious characters as +Greek, read them without the least difficulty— + +“Μη κινει Καμαριναν ακινητος γαρ αμεινων—” + +and favoured the townsmen with this free but substantially accurate +translation:— + +“CANp’T YOU LET WELL ALONE?” + + + + +BISHOP ADDO AND BISHOP GADDO + + +Midday, midsummer, middle of the dark ages. Fine healthy weather at the +city of Biserta in Barbary. Wind blowing strong from the sea, +roughening the dark blue waters, and fretting their indigo with foam, +as though the ocean’s coursers champed an invisible curb. On land tawny +sand whirling, green palm-fans swaying and whistling, men abroad in the +noonday blaze rejoicing in the unwonted freshness. + +“She is standing in,” they cried, “and, by the Prophet, she seemeth not +a ship of the true believers.” + +She was not, but she bore a flag of truce. Pitching and rearing, the +little bark bounded in, and soon was fast in harbour. Ere long +messengers of peace had landed, bearing presents and a letter from the +Bishop of Amalfi to the Emir of Biserta. The presents consisted of +fifty casks of Lacrima Christi, and of a captive, a tall, noble-looking +man, in soiled ecclesiastical costume, and disfigured by the loss of +his left eye, which seemed to have been violently plucked out. + +“Health to the Emir!” ran the letter. “I send thee my captive, Gaddo, +sometime Bishop of Amalfi, now an ejected intruder. For what saith the +Scripture? ‘When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are +in peace; but if one stronger than he cometh, he divideth the spoils.’ +Moreover it is written: ‘His bishopric let another take.’ Having +solemnly sworn that I would not kill or blind or maim my enemy, or +imprison him in a monastery, and the price of absolution from an oath +in this corrupt age exceeding all reason and Christian moderation, I +knew not how to take vengeance on him, until a sagacious counsellor +represented that a man cannot be said to be blinded so long as he is +deprived of only one eye. This I accordingly eradicated, and now, being +restrained from imprisoning him, and fearing to release him, I send him +to thee, to retain in captivity on my behalf; in return for which +service, receive fifty casks of the choicest Lacrima Christi, which +shall not fail to be sent thee yearly, so long as Gaddo continues in +thy custody. + +“+ Addo, by Divine permission Bishop of Amalfi.” + +“First,” said the Emir, “I would be certified whether this vintage is +indeed of such excellence as to prevail upon a faithful Mussulman to +jeopard Paradise, the same being forbidden by his law.” + +Experiments were instituted forthwith, and the problem was resolved in +the affirmative. + +“This being so,” declared the Emir, “honour and good faith towards +Bishop Addo require that Bishop Gaddo be kept captive with all possible +strictness. Yet bolts may be burst, fetters may be filed, walls may be +scaled, doors may be broken through. Better to enchain the captive’s +soul, binding him with invisible bonds, and searing out of him the very +wish to escape. Embrace the faith of the Prophet,” continued he, +addressing Gaddo; “become a Mollah.” + +“No,” said the deposed Bishop, “my inclination hath ever been towards a +military life. At present, mutilated and banished as I am, I rather +affect the crown of martyrdom.” + +“Thou shalt receive it by instalments,” said the Emir. “Thou shalt work +at the new pavilion in my garden.” + +Unceasing toil under the blazing sun, combined with the discipline of +the overseers, speedily wore down Gaddo’s strength, already impaired by +captivity and ill-treatment. Unable to drag himself away after his +fellow-workmen had ceased from their labours, he lay one evening, faint +and almost senseless, among the stones and rubbish of the unfinished +edifice. The Emir’s daughter passed by. Gaddo was handsome and +wretched, the Princess was beautiful and compassionate. Conveyed by her +fair hands, a cup of Bishop Addo’s wine saved Bishop Gaddo’s life. + +The next evening Gaddo again lingered behind, and the Princess spoke to +him out of her balcony. The third evening they encountered in an +arbour. The next meeting took place in her chamber, where her father +discovered them. + +“I will tear thee to pieces with pincers,” shouted he to Gaddo. + +“Your Highness will not be guilty of that black action,” responded +Gaddo resolutely. + +“No?” roared the Emir. “No? and what shall hinder me?” + +“The Lacrima Christi will hinder your Highness,” returned the +far-seeing Gaddo. “Deems your Highness that Bishop Addo will send +another cupful, once he is assured of my death?” + +“Thou sayest well,” rejoined the Emir. “I may not slay thee. But my +daughter is manifestly most inflammable, wherefore I will burn her.” + +“Were it not better to circumcise me?” suggested Gaddo. + +Many difficulties were raised, but Ayesha’s mother siding with Gaddo, +and promising a more amicable deportment for the future towards the +other lights of the harem, the matter was arranged, and Gaddo recited +the Mahometan profession of faith, and became the Emir’s son-in-law. +The execrable social system under which he had hitherto lived thus +vanished like a nightmare from an awakened sleeper. Wedded to one who +had saved his life by her compassion, and whose life he had in turn +saved by his change of creed, adoring her and adored by her, with the +hope of children, and active contact with multitudes of other interests +from which he had hitherto been estranged, he forgot the ecclesiastic +in the man; his intellect expanded, his ideas multiplied, he cleared +his mind of cant, and became an eminent philosopher. + +“Dear son,” said the Emir to him one day, “the Lacrima is spent, we +thirst, and the tribute of that Christian dog, the Bishop of Amalfi, +tarries to arrive. We will presently fit out certain vessels, and thou +shalt hold a visitation of thine ancient diocese.” + +“Methinks I see a ship even now,” said Gaddo; and he was right. She +anchored, the ambassadors landed and addressed the Emir: + +“Prince, we bring thee the stipulated tribute, yet not without a +trifling deduction.” + +“Deduction!” exclaimed the Emir, bending his brows ominously. + +“Highness,” they represented, “by reason of the deficiency of last +year’s vintage it hath not been possible to provide more than +forty-nine casks, which we crave to offer thee accordingly.” + +“Then,” pronounced the Emir sententiously, “the compact is broken, the +ship is confiscated, and war is declared.” + +“Not so, Highness,” said they, “for the fiftieth cask is worth all the +rest.” + +“Let it be opened,” commanded the Emir. + +It was accordingly hoisted out, deposited on the quay, and prized open; +and from its capacious interior, in a deplorable plight from hunger, +cramp, and sea-sickness, was extracted—Bishop Addo. + +“We have,” explained the deputation, “wearied of our shepherd, who, +shearing his flock somewhat too closely, hath brought the wolf to +light. We therefore desire thee to receive him at our hands in exchange +for our good Bishop Gaddo, promising one hundred casks of Lacrima +Christi as yearly tribute for the future.” + +“He stands before you,” answered the Emir; “take him, an ye can prevail +upon him to return with you.” + +The eyes of the envoys wandered hopelessly from one whiskered, +turbaned, caftaned, and yataghaned figure to another. They could not +discover that any of the Paynim present looked more or less like a +bishop than his fellows. + +“Brethren,” said Gaddo, taking compassion on their bewilderment, +“behold me! I thank you for your kindly thought of me, but how to +profit by it I see not. I have become a Saracen. I have pronounced the +Mahometan confession. I am circumcised. I am known by the name of +Mustapha.” + +“We acknowledge the weight of your Lordship’s objections,” they said, +“and do but venture to hint remotely that the times are hard, and that +the Holy Father is grievously in want of money.” + +“I have also taken a wife,” said Gaddo. + +“A wife!” exclaimed they with one consent. “If it had been a concubine! +Let us return instantly.” + +They gathered up their garments and spat upon the ground. + +“A bishop, then,” inquired Gaddo, “may be guilty of any enormity sooner +than wedlock, which money itself cannot expiate?” + +“Such,” they answered, “is the law and the prophets.” + +“Unless,” added one of benignant aspect, “he sew the abomination up in +a sack and cast her into the sea, then peradventure he may yet find +place for repentance.” + +“Miserable blasphemers!” exclaimed Gaddo. “But why,” continued he, +checking himself, “do I talk of what none will understand for five +hundred years, which to understand myself I was obliged to become a +Saracen? Addo,” he pursued, addressing his dejected competitor, “bad as +thou art, thou art good enough for the world as it is. I spare thy +life, restore thy dignity, and, to prove that the precepts of Christ +may be practised under the garb of Mahomet, will not even exact eye for +eye. Yet, as a wholesome admonition to thee that treachery and cruelty +escape not punishment even in this life, I will that thou do presently +surrender to me thy left ear. Restore my eye and I will return it +immediately. And ye,” addressing the envoys, “will for the future pay +one hundred casks tribute, unless ye would see my father-in-law’s +galleys on your coasts.” + +So Addo returned to his bishopric, leaving his ear in Gaddo’s keeping. +The Lacrima was punctually remitted, and as punctually absorbed by the +Emir and his son-in-law, with some little help from Ayesha. Gaddo’s eye +never came back, and Addo never regained his ear until, after the +ex-prelate’s death in years and honour, he ransomed it from his +representatives. It became a relic, and is shown in Addo’s cathedral to +this day in proof of his inveterate enmity to the misbelievers, and of +the sufferings he underwent at their hands. But Gaddo trumped him, the +entry after his name in the episcopal register, “Fled to the Saracens,” +having been altered into “Flayed by the Saracens” by a later bishop, +jealous of the honour of the diocese. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE BUTTERFLIES + + +The scene was in a garden on a fine summer morning, brilliant with +slants of sunshine, yet chequered with clouds significant of more than +a remote possibility of rain. All the animal world was astir. Birds +flitted or hopped from spray to spray; butterflies eddied around +flowers within or upon which bees were bustling; ants and earwigs ran +nimbly about on the mould; a member of the Universal Knowledge Society +perambulated the gravel path. + +The Universal Knowledge Society, be it understood, exists for the +dissemination and not for the acquisition of knowledge. Our +philosopher, therefore, did not occupy himself with considering whether +in that miniature world, with its countless varieties of animal and +vegetable being, something might not be found with which he was himself +unacquainted; but, like the honey-freighted bee, rather sought an +opportunity of disburdening himself of his stores of information than +of adding to them. But who was to profit by his communicativeness? The +noisy birds could not hear themselves speak, much less him; he shrewdly +distrusted his ability to command the attention of the busy bees; and +even a member of the Universal Knowledge Society may well be at a loss +for a suitable address to an earwig. At length he determined to accost +a Butterfly who, after sipping the juice of a flower, remained perched +indolently upon it, apparently undecided whither to direct his flight. + +“It seems likely to rain,” he said, “have you an umbrella?” + +The Butterfly looked curiously at him, but returned no answer. + +“I do not ask,” resumed the Philosopher, “as one who should imply that +the probability of even a complete saturation ought to appal a +ratiocinative being, endowed with wisdom and virtue. I rather designed +to direct your attention to the inquiry whether these attributes are, +in fact, rightly predicable of Butterflies.” + +Still no answer. + +“An impression obtains among our own species,” continued the +Philosopher, “that you Butterflies are deficient in foresight and +providence to a remarkable, I might almost say a culpable degree. +Pardon me if I add that this suspicion is to some extent confirmed by +my finding you destitute of protection against imbriferous inclemency +under atmospheric conditions whose contingent humidity should be +obvious to a being endowed with the most ordinary allotment of +meteorological prevision.” + +The Butterfly still left all the talk to the Philosopher. This was just +what the latter desired. + +“I greatly fear,” he continued, “that the omission to which I have +reluctantly adverted is to a certain extent typically characteristic of +the entire political and social economy of the lepidopterous order. It +has even been stated, though the circumstance appears scarcely +credible, that your system of life does not include the accumulation of +adequate resources against the inevitable exigencies of winter.” + +“What is winter?” asked the Butterfly, and flew off without awaiting an +answer. + +The Philosopher remained for a moment speechless, whether from +amazement at the Butterfly’s nescience or disgust at his ill-breeding. +Recovering himself immediately, he shouted after the fugitive: + +“Frivolous animal!” “It is this levity,” continued he, addressing a +group of butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted +by the conversation, “it is this fatal levity that constrains me to +despair wholly of the future of you insects. That you should +persistently remain at your present depressed level! That you should +not immediately enter upon a process of self-development! Look at the +Bee! How did she acquire her sting, think you? Why cannot you store up +honey, as she does?” + +“We cannot build cells,” suggested a Butterfly. + +“And how did the Bee learn, do you suppose, unless by imbuing her mind +with the elementary principles of mathematics? Know that time has been +when the Bee was as incapable of architectural construction as +yourselves, when you and she alike were indiscriminable particles of +primary protoplasm. (I suppose you know what that is.) One has in +process of time exalted itself to the cognition of mathematical truth, +while the other—Pshaw! Now, really, my friends, I must beg you to take +my observations in good part. I do not imply, of course, that any +endeavours of yours in the direction I have indicated could benefit any +of you personally, or any of your posterity for numberless generations. +But I really do consider that after a while its effects would be very +observable—that in twenty millions of years or so, provided no +geological cataclysm supervened, you Butterflies, with your innate +genius for mimicry, might be conformed in all respects to the +hymenopterous model, or perhaps carry out the principle of development +into novel and unheard-of directions. You should derive much +encouragement from the beginning you have made already.” + +“How a beginning?” inquired a Butterfly. + +“I am alluding to your larval constitution as Caterpillars,” returned +the Philosopher. “Your advance upon that humiliating condition is, I +admit, remarkable. I only wonder that it should not have proceeded much +further. With such capacity for development, it is incomprehensible +that you should so long have remained stationary. You ought to be all +toads by this time, at the very least.” + +“I beg your pardon,” civilly interposed the Butterfly. “To what +condition were you pleased to allude?” + +“To that of a Caterpillar,” rejoined the Philosopher. + +“Caterpillar!” echoed the Butterfly, and “Caterpillar!” tittered all +his volatile companions, till the air seemed broken into little silvery +waves of fairy laughter. “Caterpillar! he positively thinks we were +once Caterpillars! He! he! he!” + +“Do you actually mean to say you don’t know that?” responded the +Philosopher, scandalised at the irreverence of the insects, but +inwardly rejoicing at the prospect of a controversy in which he could +not be worsted. + +“We know nothing of the sort,” rejoined a Butterfly. + +“Can you possibly be plunged into such utter oblivion of your embryonic +antecedents?” + +“We do not understand you. All we know is that we have always been +Butterflies.” + +“Sir,” said a large, dull-looking Butterfly with one wing in tatters, +crawling from under a cabbage, and limping by reason of the deficiency +of several legs, “let me entreat you not to deduce our scientific +status from the inconsiderate assertions of the unthinking vulgar. I am +proud to assure you that our race comprises many philosophical +reasoners—mostly indeed such as have been disabled by accidental +injuries from joining in the amusements of the rest. The Origin of our +Species has always occupied a distinguished place in their +investigations. It has on several occasions engaged the attention of +our profoundest thinkers for not less than two consecutive minutes. +There is hardly a quadruped on the land, a bird in the air, or a fish +in the water to which it has not been ascribed by some one at some +time; but never, I am rejoiced to say, has any Butterfly ever dreamed +of attributing it to the obnoxious thing to which you have +unaccountably made reference.” + +“We should rather think not,” chorussed all the Butterflies. + +“Look here,” said the Philosopher, picking up and exhibiting a large +hairy Caterpillar of very unprepossessing appearance. “Look here, what +do you call this?” + +“An abnormal organisation,” said the scientific Butterfly. + +“A nasty beast,” said the others. + +“Heavens,” exclaimed the Philosopher, “the obtuseness and arrogance of +these creatures! No, my poor friend,” continued he, addressing the +Caterpillar, “disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect +certainly is at present, the time is at hand when you will prank it +with the gayest of them all.” + +“I cry your mercy,” rejoined the Caterpillar somewhat crossly, “but I +was digesting a gooseberry leaf when you lifted me in that abrupt +manner, and I did not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you +to mention my name in connection with those flutterers?” + +“I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they.” + +“I,” exclaimed the Caterpillar, “I retrograde to the level of a +Butterfly! Is not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?” + +“I was not aware of that,” replied the Philosopher, “although,” he +added in a conciliatory tone, “far be it from me to deny you the +possession of many interesting qualities.” + +“You probably refer to my agility,” suggested the Caterpillar; “or +perhaps to my abstemiousness?” + +“I was not referring to either,” returned the Philosopher. + +“To my utility to mankind?” + +“Not by any manner of means.” + +“To what then?” + +“Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be +the prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly.” + +The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at +the Philosopher. The Philosopher’s countenance fell. A thrush, darting +from an adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore +the latter away in his bill. At the same moment the shower +prognosticated by the Sage burst forth, scattering the Butterflies in +all directions, drenching the Philosopher, whose foresight had not +assumed the shape of an umbrella, and spoiling his new hat. But he had +ample consolation in the superiority of his head. And the Caterpillar +was right too, for after all he never did become a Butterfly. + + + + +TRUTH AND HER COMPANIONS + + +_Jupiter._ Daughter Truth, is this a befitting manner of presenting +yourself before your divine father? You are positively dripping; the +floor of my celestial mansion would be a swamp but for your +praiseworthy economy in wearing apparel. Whence, in the name of the +Naiads, do you come? + +_Truth._ From the bottom of a well, father. + +_Jupiter._ I thought, my daughter, that you had descended upon earth in +the capacity of a benefactress of men rather than of frogs. + +_Truth._ Such, indeed, was my purpose, father, and I accordingly +repaired to the great city. + +_Jupiter._ The city of the Emperor Apollyon? + +_Truth._ The same; and I there obtained an audience of the monarch. + +_Jupiter._ What passed? + +_Truth._ I took the liberty of observing to him, father, that, having +obtained his throne by perjury, and cemented it by blood, and +maintained it by hypocrisy, he could entertain no hope of preserving it +unless the collective baseness of his subjects should be found to +exceed his own, which was not probable. + +_Jupiter._ What reply did he vouchsafe to these admonitions? + +_Truth_. He threatened to cut out my tongue. Perceiving that this would +interfere with my utility to mankind, I retired somewhat precipitately +from the Imperial presence, marvelling that I should ever have been +admitted, and resolved never to be found there for the future. I then +proceeded to the Nobles. + +_Jupiter_. What said you to them? + +_Truth_. I represented to them that they were, as a class, both +arrogant and luxurious, and would, indeed, have long ago become +insupportable, only that the fabric which their rapacity was for ever +striving to erect, their extravagance as perpetually undermined. I +further commented upon the insecurity of any institution dependent +solely upon prescription. Finding these suggestions unpalatable, I next +addressed myself to the priesthood. + +_Jupiter_. Those holy men, my daughter, must have rejoiced at the +opportunity of learning from you which portion of their traditions was +impure or fabricated, and which authentic and sublime. + + +_Truth_. The value they placed upon my instructions was such that they +wished to reserve them exclusively for themselves, and proposed that +they should be delivered within the precincts of a certain subterranean +apartment termed a dungeon, the key of which should be kept by one of +their order. Whereupon I betook myself to the philosophers. + +_Jupiter_. Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, my +daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected. + +_Truth_. It was all that could be expected, my father, from learned and +virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the universe +without consulting me. + +_Jupiter._ You probably next addressed yourself to the middling orders +of society? + +_Truth._ I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had much +to remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and +their greed, and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the +rottenness of most of their beliefs, and the thousand ways in which +they spoiled lives that might have been beautiful and harmonious, I +soon discovered that they were so absolutely swayed by the example of +the higher orders that it was useless to expostulate with them until I +should have persuaded the latter. + +_Jupiter._ You returned, then, to the latter with this design? + +_Truth._ On the contrary, I hastened to the poor and needy, whom I +fully acquainted with the various wrongs and oppressions which they +underwent at the hands of the powerful and the rich. And here, for the +first time, I found myself welcome. All listened with gratitude and +assent, and none made any endeavour to stone me or imprison me, as +those other unprincipled persons had done. + +_Jupiter._ That was indeed satisfactory, daughter. But when you +proceeded to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery +arose from their own idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and +abasement before those higher in station, and jealousy of the best +among themselves—what said they to that? + +_Truth._ They expressed themselves desirous of killing me, and indeed +would have done so if my capital enemies, the priests, had not been +beforehand with them. + +_Jupiter_. What did they? + +_Truth_. Burned me. + +_Jupiter_. Burned you? + +_Truth_. Burned me in the market-place. And, but for my peculiar +property of reviving from my ashes, I should not be here now. Upon +reconsolidating myself, I felt in such a heat that I was fain to repair +to the bottom of the nearest well. Finding myself more comfortable +there than I had ever yet been on earth, I have come to ask permission +to remain. + +_Jupiter_. It does not appear to me, daughter, that the mission you +have undertaken on behalf of mankind can be efficiently discharged at +the bottom of a well. + +_Truth_. No, father, nor in the middle of a fire either. + +_Jupiter_. I fear that you are too plain and downright in your dealings +with men, and deter where you ought to allure. + +_Truth_. I were not Truth, else, but Flattery. My nature is a +mirror’s—to exhibit reality with plainness and faithfulness. + +_Jupiter_. It is no less the nature of man to shatter every mirror that +does not exhibit to him what he wishes to behold. + +_Truth_. Let me, therefore, return to my well, and let him who wishes +to behold me, if such there be, repair to the brink and look down. + +_Jupiter_. No, daughter, you shall not return to your well. I have +already perceived that you are not of yourself sufficient for the +office I have assigned to you, and I am about to provide you with two +auxiliaries. You are Truth. Tell me how this one appears to you. + +_Truth_. Oh, father, the beautiful nymph! how mature, and yet how +comely! how good-humoured, yet how gentle and grave! Her robe is +closely zoned; her upraised finger approaches her lip; her foot falls +soft as snow. What is her name? + +_Jupiter_. Discretion. And this other? + +_Truth_. Oh, father! the cordial look, the blooming cheek, the bright +smile that is almost a laugh, the buoyant step, and the expansive +bosom! What name bears she? + +_Jupiter_. Good Nature. Return, my daughter, to earth; continue to +enlighten man’s ignorance and to reprove his folly; but let Discretion +suggest the occasion, and Good Nature inspire the wording of your +admonitions. I cannot engage that you may not, even with these +precautions, sometimes pay a visit to the stake; and if, when an +adventure of this sort appears imminent, Discretion should counsel a +temporary retirement to your well, I am sure Good Nature will urge +nothing to the contrary. + + + + +THE THREE PALACES + + +Three pairs of young people, each a youth with his bride, came together +along a road to the point where it divided to the right and left. On +one side was inscribed, “To the Palace of Truth,” and on the other, “To +the Palace of Illusion.” + +“This way, my beauty!” cried one of the youths, drawing his companion +in the direction of the Palace of Truth. “To the place where and where +alone thy perfections may be beheld as they are!” + +“And my imperfections!” whispered the young spouse, but her tone was +airy and confident. + +“Well,” said the second youth, “does the choice beseem you upon whom +the moon of your nuptials is beaming still. My beloved and I are riper +in Hymen’s lore by not less, I ween, than one fortnight. Prudence +impels us towards the Palace of Illusion.” + +“Thy will is mine, Alonso,” said his lady. + +“I,” said the third youth, “will seek neither; for I would not be wise +over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured. +Happy am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer +contiguity to my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit +it leapt not from her mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for +a red mouse and nothing worse; had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion +haply I had deemed it a rat. And, it being a red mouse as it +indubitably was, to what end fancy it a tawny-throated nightingale?” + +While, therefore, the other pairs proceeded on the paths they had +respectively chosen, this sage youth and his bride settled themselves +at the parting of the ways, built their cot, tended their garden, +tilled their field and raised fruits around them, including children. + +The preparation of a cheerful repast was one day well advanced, when, +lifting up their eyes, the pair beheld a haggard and emaciated couple +tottering along the road that led from the Palace of Illusion. + +“Heavens!” exclaimed they simultaneously, “no! yes! ’tis surely they!” +O friends! whence this forlorn semblance? whence this osseous +condition?” + +“Of them anon,” replied the attenuated youth, “but, before all things, +dinner!” + +The restorative was speedily administered, and the pilgrim commenced +his narration. + +“Guarded,” he said, “though the Palace of Illusion was by every species +of hippogriffic chimaera, my bride and I experienced no difficulty in +penetrating inside its precincts. The giants lifted us in their arms, +the dragons carried us on their backs, fairy bridges spanned the moats, +golden ladders inclined against the ramparts, we scaled the towers and +trod the courts securely, though constructed to all seeming of +dissolving cloud. Delicate fare loaded every dish; smiling companions +invited to every festivity; perfumes caressed our nostrils; music +enwrapped our ears. + +“But while all else charmed and allured, one fact intruded of which we +could not pretend unconsciousness, the intensity of our aversion for +each other. Never could I behold my Imogene without marvelling whatever +could have induced me to wed her, and she has acknowledged that she +laboured under the like perplexity. On the other hand, our good opinion +of ourselves had grown prodigiously. The other’s dislike appeared to +each an insane delusion, and we seriously questioned whether it could +be right to mate longer with a being so destitute of true aesthetic +feeling. We confided these scruples to each other, with the result of a +most tempestuous altercation. + +“As this was attaining its climax, one of the inmates of the Palace, a +pert forward boy, resembling a page out of livery, passed by, and +ironically, as I thought, congratulated us on the strength of our +mutual attachment. ‘Never,’ exclaimed he, ‘have I beheld the like here +before, and I am the oldest inhabitant.’ + +“As this felicitation was proffered at the precise moment when I was +engaged in staunching a rent in my cheek with a handful of my wife’s +hair, I was constrained to regard it as unseasonable, and expressed +myself to that effect. + +“‘What!’ exclaimed he, with equal surprise, ‘know ye not that this is +the Palace of Illusion, where everything is inverted and appears the +reverse of itself? Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus +drive you to fisticuffs! Had I beheld you billing and cooing, truly I +had counselled a judicial separation!’ + +“My wife and I looked at each other, and by a common impulse made at +our utmost speed for the gate of the Palace of Illusion. + +“Alas! it is one thing to enter and another to quit that domain of +enchantment. The golden clouds enwrapt us still, cates and dainties +tempted us as of old, the most bewitching strains detained us +spellbound. The giant and dragon warders, indeed, offered no violent +resistance, they simply turned into open portals which appeared to +yield us egress, but proved entrances to interminable labyrinthine +mazes. At last we escaped by resolutely, following the exact opposite +track to that which we observed to be taken by a poet, who was chasing +a phantom of Fame with a scroll of unintelligible and inharmonious +verse. + +“The moment that we emerged from the enchanted castle we knew ourselves +and each other for what we were, and fell weeping into each other’s +arms. So feeble were we that we could hardly move, nevertheless we have +made a shift to crawl hither, trusting to your hospitality to recruit +us from the sawdust and ditch-water which we vehemently suspect to have +been our diet during the whole of our residence.” + +“Eat and drink without stint and without ceremony,” rejoined their +host, “provided only that somewhat remain for the guests whom I see +approaching.” + +And in a few moments the fugitives from the Palace of Illusion were +reinforced by travellers from the Palace of Truth, whose backs were +most determinately turned to that august edifice. + +“My friends,” said the youth last arrived, when the first greetings +were over, “Truth’s Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not +the inmates necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, +and did not all innocent embellishments of her majestic person become +entirely inefficient and absolutely nugatory. For example, the number +of my wife’s grey hairs speedily confounded me; and how should it be +otherwise, when the excellent dye she had brought with her had +completely lost its virtues? She on her part found herself continually +obliged to acquaint me with the manifold defects she was daily +discovering in my mind and person, which I was unable to deny, +frequently as I opened my mouth for that purpose. It is true that I had +the satisfaction of pointing out equal defects in herself; but this +could not be considered a great satisfaction, seeing that every such +discovery impugned my taste and judgment, and impaired the worth of my +most cherished possession. At length we resolved that Truth and we were +not made for each other, and, having verified the accuracy of this +conclusion by uttering it unrebuked in Truth’s own palace, quitted the +unblest spot with all possible expedition. No sooner were we outside +than our tenderness revived, and, the rites of reconciliation duly +performed, my wife found nothing more urgent than to try whether her +dye had recovered its natural properties, which, as ye may perceive, +proved to be the case. We are now bound for the Palace of Illusion.” + +“Nay,” said he who had escaped thence, “if my experience suffices not +to deter you, learn that they who have known Truth can never taste of +Illusion. Illusion is for life’s golden prime, its fanes and pavilions +may be reared but by the magic wand of Youth. The maturity that would +recreate them builds not for Illusion but for Deceit. Yet, lest +mortality should despair, there exists, as I have learned, yet another +palace, founded midway between that of Illusion and that of Truth, open +to those who are too soft for the one and too hard for the other. +Thither, indeed, the majority of mankind in this age resort, and there +appear to find themselves comfortable.” + +“And this palace is?” inquired Truth’s runaways simultaneously. + +“The Palace of Convention,” replied the youth. + + + + +NEW READINGS IN BIOGRAPHY + +I.—TIMON OF ATHENS + +No, it was not true that Timon was dead, and buried on the sea-shore. +So the first party discovered that hastened to his cave at the tidings, +thinking to seize his treasure, and had their heads broken for their +pains. But the second party fared better; for these were robbers, +captained by Alcibiades, who had taken to the road, as many a man of +spirit, has done before and since. They took Timon’s gold, and left him +bound in his chair. But on the way home the lesser thieves mysteriously +disappeared, and the gold became the sole property of Alcibiades. As it +is written, “The tools to him that can handle them.” + +Timon sat many hours in an uncomfortable position, and though, in a +general way, he abhorred the face of man, he was not displeased when a +gentleman of bland appearance entered the cavern, and made him a low +obeisance. And perceiving that Timon was bound, the bland man exclaimed +with horror, and severed his bonds, ere one could say Themistocles. And +in an instant the cavern was filled with Athenian senators. + +“Hail,” they cried, “to Timon the munificent! Hail to Timon the +compassionate! Hail to Timon the lover of his kind!” + +“I am none of these things,” said Timon. “I am Timon the misanthrope.” + +“This must be my Lord’s wit and playfulness,” said the bland man, “for +how else should the Senate and the people have passed a decree, indited +by myself, ordering an altar to be raised to Timon the Benefactor, and +appointing him chief archon? But come, hand over thy treasure, that thy +installation may take effect with due observance.” + +“I have been deprived of my treasure,” said Timon. + +But the ambassadors gave him no credit until they had searched every +chink and crevice in the cavern, and dug up all the earth round the +entrance. They then regarded each other with blank consternation. + +“Let us leave him as we found him,” said one. + +“Let us hang him up,” said another. + +“Let us sell him into captivity,” said a third. + +“Nay, friends,” said the bland gentleman, “such confession of error +would impeach our credit as statesmen. Moreover, should the people +learn that Timon has lost his money, they will naturally conclude that +we have taken it. Let us, therefore, keep this misfortune from their +knowledge, and trust for relief to the chapter of accidents, as usual +in State affairs.” + +They therefore robed Timon in a dress of honour, and conducted him to +Athens, where half the inhabitants were awaiting him. Two triumphal +arches spanned the principal street, and on one was inscribed “Timon +the Benefactor,” and on the other “Timon the Friend of Humanity.” And +all along, far as the eye could reach, stood those whom his bounty, as +was stated, had rescued from perdition, the poor he had relieved, the +sick he had medicined, the orphans he had fathered, the poets and +painters he had patronised, all lauding and thanking him, and +soliciting a continuance of his liberality. And the rabble cried +“Largesse, largesse!” and horsemen galloped forth, casting among them +nuts enveloped in silver-leaf and apples and comfits and trinkets and +brass farthings in incredible quantities. At which the people murmured +somewhat, and spoke amiss respecting Timon and the senators who +escorted him, and the bland gentleman strove to keep Timon between +himself and the populace. While Timon was pondering what the end of +these things should be, his mob encountered another cheering for +Alcibiades, and playing pitch and toss with drachmas and didrachmas and +tetradrachmas, yea, even with staters and darics. + +“Long live Alcibiades,” cried Timon’s followers, as they attacked +Alcibiades’s supporters to get their share. + +“Long live Timon,” cried Alcibiades’s party, as they defended +themselves. + +Timon and Alcibiades extricated themselves from the scuffle, and walked +away arm in arm. + +“My dear friend,” said Timon, “how inexpressibly beholden I am to you +for taking the burden of my wealth upon yourself! There is nothing I +would not do to evince my gratitude.” + +“Nothing?” queried Alcibiades. + +“Nothing,” persisted Timon. + +“Then,” said Alcibiades, “I will thank thee to relieve me of Timandra, +who is as tired of me as I am of her.” + +Timon winced horribly, but his word was his bond, and Timandra +accompanied him to his cavern, where at first she suffered much +inconvenience from the roughness of the accommodation. But Timon, +though a misanthrope, was not a brute; and when in process of time +Timandra’s health required special care, rugs and pillows were provided +for her, and also for Timon; for he saw that he could no longer pass +for a churl if he made his wife more comfortable than himself. And, +though he counted gold as dross, yet was he not dissatisfied that +Timandra had saved the gold he had given her formerly against a rainy +day. And when a child was born, Timon was at his wits’ end, and blessed +the old woman who came to nurse it. And she admonished him of his duty +to the Gods, which meant sacrifice, which meant merry-making. And the +child grew, and craved food and drink, and Timon possessed himself of +three acres and a cow. And not being able to doubt his child’s +affection for him, he came to believe in Timandra’s also. And when the +tax-gatherer oppressed his neighbours, he pleaded their cause, which +was also his own, in the courts of Athens, and gained it by the +interest of Alcibiades. And his neighbours made him demarch, and he +feasted them. And Apemantus came to deride him, and Timon bore with +him; but he was impertinent to Timandra, and Timon beat him. + +And in fine, Timon became very like any other Attic country gentleman, +save that he always maintained that a young man did well to be a +misanthrope until he got a loving and sensible wife, which, as he +observed, could but seldom happen. And the Gods looked down upon him +with complacency, and deferred the ruin of Athens until he should be no +more. + +II.—NAPOLEON’S SANGAREE + +Napoleon Buonaparte sat in his garden at St. Helena, in the shadow of a +fig-tree. Before him stood a little table, and upon the table stood a +glass of sangaree. The day was hot and drowsy; the sea boomed +monotonously on the rocks; the broad fig-leaves stirred not; great +flies buzzed heavily in the sultry air. Napoleon wore a loose linen +coat and a broad brimmed planter’s hat, and looked as red as the +sangaree, but nowise as comfortable. + +“To think,” he said aloud, “that I should end my life here, with +nothing to sweeten my destiny but this lump of sugar!” + +And he dropped it into the sangaree, and little ripples and beads broke +out on the surface of the liquid. + +“Thou should’st have followed me,” said a voice. + +“Me,” said another. + +And a steam from the sangaree rose high over Napoleon’s head, and from +it shaped themselves two beautiful female figures. One was fair and +very youthful, with a Phrygian cap on her head, and eager eyes beneath +it, and a slender spear in her hand. The other was somewhat older, and +graver, and darker, with serious eyes; and she carried a sword, and +wore a helmet, from underneath which her rich brown tresses escaped +over her vesture of light steel armour. + +“I am Liberty,” said the first. + +“I am Loyalty,” said the second. + +And Napoleon laid his hand in that of the first spirit, and instantly +saw himself as he had been in the days of his youthful victories, only +beset with a multitude of people who were offering him a crown, and +cheering loudly. But he thrust it aside, and they cheered ten times +more, and fell into each other’s arms, and wept and kissed each other. +And troops of young maidens robed in white danced before him, strewing +his way with flowers. And the debts of the debtor were paid, and the +prisoners were released from captivity. And the forty Academicians came +bringing Napoleon the prize of virtue. And the Abbé Sieyès stood up, +and offered Napoleon his choice of seventeen constitutions; and +Napoleon chose the worst. And he came to sit with five hundred other +men, mostly advocates. And when he said “Yea,” they said “Nay”; and +when he said “white,” they said “black.” And they suffered him to do +neither good nor evil, and when he went to war they commanded his army +for him, until he was smitten with a great slaughter. And the enemy +entered the country, and bread was scarce and wine dear; and the people +cursed Napoleon, and Liberty vanished from before him. But he roamed +on, ever looking for her, and at length he found her lying dead in the +public way, all gashed and bleeding, and trampled with the feet of men +and horses, and the wheel of a tumbril was over her neck. And Napoleon, +under compulsion of the mob, ascended the tumbril; and Abbé Sieyès and +Bishop Talleyrand rode at his side, administering spiritual +consolation. Thus they came within sight of the guillotine, whereon +stood M. de Robespierre in his sky-blue coat, and his jaw bound up in a +bloody cloth, bowing and smiling, nevertheless, and beckoning Napoleon +to ascend to him. Napoleon had never feared the face of man; but when +he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell upon him, and he leapt out of +the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the people as it were mid +withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood awaiting him. + +She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people +proffering him a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all +wore his hair in a queue with powder. + +“See,” said the little old man, “that thou takest not what doth not +belong to thee.” + +“To whom belongeth it then?” asked Napoleon, “for I am a plain soldier, +and have no skill in politics.” + +“To Louis the Disesteemed,” said the little old man, “for he is a +great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors +reigned here at the flood.” + +“Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?” asked Napoleon. + +“In England,” said the little old man. + +Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the +Disesteemed. But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to +seek in the obscurest places. And one day, as he was passing through a +mean street, he heard a voice of lamentation, and perceived a man whose +coat and shirt were rent and dirty; but not so his pantaloons, for he +had none. + +“Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?” asked he, “and wherefore makest +thou this lamentation?” + +“I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre,” replied the +distrousered personage, “and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have +been enforced to pawn, inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing +upon my coat or my shirt.” + +And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether +garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those +who stood about. + +“Thou hast done wickedly,” said the king when he heard who Napoleon +was, “in that thou hast presumed to fight battles and win victories +without any commission from me. Go, nevertheless, and lose an arm, a +leg, and an eye in my service, then shall thy offence be forgiven +thee.” + +And Napoleon raised a great army, and gained a great battle for the +king, and lost an arm. And he gained another greater battle, and lost a +leg. And he gained the greatest battle of all; and the king sat on the +throne of his ancestors, and was called Louis the Victorious: but +Napoleon had lost an eye. And he came into the king’s presence, bearing +his eye, his arm, and his leg. + +“Thou art pardoned,” said the king, “and I will even confer a singular +honour upon thee. Thou shalt defray the expense of my coronation, which +shall be the most splendid ever seen in France.” + +So Napoleon lost all his substance, and no man pitied him. But after +certain days the keeper of the royal wardrobe rushed into the king’s +presence, crying “Treason! treason! O Majesty, whence these republican +and revolutionary pantaloons?” + +“They are those I deigned to receive from the rebel Buonaparte,” said +the king. “It were meet to return them. Where abides he now?” + +“Saving your Majesty’s presence,” they said, “he lieth upon a certain +dunghill.” + +“If this be so,” said the king, “life can be no gratification to him, +and it were humane to relieve him of it. Moreover, he is a dangerous +man. Go, therefore, and strangle him with his own pantaloons. Yet, let +a monument be raised to him, and engrave upon it, ‘Here lies Napoleon +Buonaparte, whom Louis the Victorious raised from the dunghill.’” + +They went accordingly; but behold! Napoleon already lay dead upon the +dunghill. And this was told unto the king. + +“He hath ever been envious of my glory,” said the king, “let him +therefore be buried underneath.” + +And it was so. And after no long space the king also died, and slept +with his fathers. But when there was again a revolution in France, the +people cast his bones out of the royal sepulchre, and laid Napoleon’s +there instead. And the dunghill complained grievously that it should be +disturbed for so slight a cause. + +And Napoleon withdrew his hand from the hand of Loyalty, saying, +“Pish!” And his eyes opened, and he heard the booming of the sea, and +the buzzing of the flies, and felt the heat of the sun, and saw that +the sugar he had dropped into his sangaree had not yet reached the +bottom of the tumbler. + +III.—CONCERNING DANIEL DEFOE + +Daniel Defoe, at the invitation of the judge, came forth from the +garret wherein he abode, and rode in a cart unto the Royal Exchange, +wherein he ascended the pillory, to the end that his ears might be +nailed thereunto. And much people stood before him, some few pelting, +some mocking, but the most part cheering or weeping, for they knew him +for a friend to the poor, and especially those men who were called +Dissenters. And a certain person in black stood by him, invisible to +the people, but well seen of Daniel, who knew him for one whose life he +had himself written. And the man in black reasoned with Daniel, and +said, “Thou seest this multitude of people, but which of them shall +deliver thee out of my hand? Nay, but let thy white be black, and thy +black white, and I myself will deliver thee, and make thee rich, and +heal thy hurts, save the holes in thy ears, that I may know thee for +mine own.” But Daniel gave no heed to him. So the Devil departed, +having great wrath, and entered into a certain smug-faced man standing +by. + +And now the crowd before Daniel was greatly diminished, and consisted +mainly of his enemies, for his friends had gone away to drown their +sorrow. And the smug-faced man into whom Satan had entered came forth +from among them, and said unto him, “O Daniel, inasmuch as I am a +Dissenter I am greatly beholden to thee; but inasmuch as I am an honest +tradesman I have somewhat against thee, for thou hast written +concerning short weights and measures. And a man’s shop is more to him +than his country or his religion. Wherefore I must needs be avenged of +thee. Yet shalt thou own that the tender mercies of the good man are +piteous, and that even in his wrath he thinketh upon compassion.” + +And he picked up a great stone from the ground, and wrapped it in a +piece of paper, saying, “Lest peradventure it hurt him overmuch.” And +the stone was very rough and sharp, and the paper was very thin. And he +hurled it with all his might at the middle of Daniel’s forehead, and +the blood spouted forth. And Daniel cried aloud, and called upon the +name of the Devil. And in an instant the pillory and the people were +gone, and he found himself in the Prime Minister’s cabinet, healed of +all his hurts, except the holes in his ears. And the Minister was so +like the Devil that you could not tell the difference. And he said, +“Against what wilt thou write first, Daniel?” + +“Dissenters,” said Daniel. + +And he wrote a pamphlet, and such as read it took firebrands, and +visited the Dissenters in their habitations. And many Dissenters were +put into prison, and others fined and spoiled of their goods. And he +wrote other pamphlets, and each was cleverer and wickeder than the +last. And whatsoever Daniel had of old declared to be white, lo! it was +black; and what he had said was black, behold! it was white. And he +throve and prospered exceedingly, and became a commissioner for +public-houses and hackney-coaches and the imposing of oaths and the +levying of custom, and all other such things as one does by deputy. And +he mended the holes in his ears. + +But the time came when Daniel must be judged, and he went before the +Lord. And all the court was full of Dissenters, and the Devil was there +also. And the Dissenters testified many and grievous things against +Daniel. + +“Daniel,” said the Lord, “what answerest thou?” + +“Nothing, Lord,” said Daniel. “Only I would that the Dissenter who +threw that stone at me should receive due and condign punishment, +adequate to his misdeed.” + +“That,” said the Devil, “is impossible.” + +“Thou sayest well, Satan,” said the Lord, “and therefore shall Daniel +go free. For if anything can excuse the apostasy of the noble, it is +the ingratitude of the base.” + +So the Devil went to his own place, looking very small. And Daniel +found himself in the same garret whence he had gone forth to the +pillory; and before him were bread and cheese, and a pen and ink and +paper. And he dipped the pen into the ink, and wrote _Robinson Crusoe_. + +IV.—CORNELIUS THE FERRYMAN + +Fourscore years ago there was a good ferryman named Cornelius, who +rowed people between New York and Brooklyn. He had neither wife nor +child, nor any one to think of except himself. It was, therefore, his +custom, when he had earned enough in a day for his own wants, to put +the rest aside, and bestow it upon sick or blind or maimed persons, +lest they should come to the workhouse. And the sick and the blind and +the maimed gathered around him, and waited by the water’s edge, until +Cornelius’s day’s work should be over. + +This went on until one of the little sooty imps who are always in +mischief came to hear of it, and told the principal devil in charge of +the United States, whose name is Politicianus. + +“Dear me,” said the Devil, “this will never do. I will see to it +immediately.” + +And he went off to Cornelius, and caught him in the act of giving two +dimes to a blind beggar. + +“How foolish you are!” he said; “what waste of money is this! If you +saved it up, you would by-and-by be able to build an hospital for all +the beggars in New York.” + +“It would be a long time before there was enough,” objected Cornelius. + +“Not at all,” said the Devil, “if you let me invest your money for +you.” And he showed Cornelius the plan of a most splendid hospital, and +across the front of it was inscribed in letters of gold, _Cornelius +Diabolodorus_. And Cornelius was persuaded, and that evening he gave +nothing to the poor. And the poor had come to think that Cornelius’s +money was their own, and abused him as though he had robbed them. And +Cornelius drove them away: and his heart was hardened against them from +that day forth. + +But the Devil kept his promise to Cornelius, and put him up to all the +good things in Wall Street, and he soon had enough to build ten +hospitals. But the more he had to build with, the less he wanted to +build. And by-and-by the Devil called upon him, and found him +contemplating two pictures. One of them showed the finest hospital you +can imagine, full of neat, clean rooms, in one of which sat Cornelius +himself, wearing a dress with a number and badge, and sipping +arrowroot. The other showed fine houses, and opera-boxes, and +fast-trotting horses, and dry champagne, and ladies who dance in +ballets, and paintings by the great masters. Cornelius thrust the +pictures away, and the Devil did not ask to see them, nor was it +needful that he should, for he had painted them himself. + +“O dear Mr. Devil,” said Cornelius, “I am so glad that you have called, +for I wanted to speak to you. It strikes me that there is a great +defect in the plan which you have been so good as to draw for me.” + +“What is that?” asked the Devil. + +“There is no place for black men,” said Cornelius. “And you know white +men will never let them come into the same hospital.” + +And the Devil, to do him justice, talked very reasonably to Cornelius, +and represented to him that there were very few black men in New York, +and that these had very vigorous constitutions. But Cornelius was +inflamed with enthusiasm, and frantic with philanthropy, and he vowed +that he would not give a cent to an hospital that had not a wing for +black men as big as all the rest of the building. And the Devil had to +take his plan back, and come again in a year and a day. And when he did +come back, Cornelius asked him if he did not think it would be a most +excellent thing if all the Irishmen in New York could be shut up in an +hospital or elsewhere; and he could not deny it. So he had to take his +plan back again. And next year it was the turn of the Chinese, and then +of the Red Indians, and then of the dogs and cats. And then Cornelius +thought that he ought to provide room for all the people who had been +ruined by his speculations, and the Devil thought so too, but doubted +whether Cornelius would be able to afford it. And at last Cornelius +said: + +“Methinks I have been very foolish in wishing to build an hospital at +all while I am living. Surely it would be better that I should enjoy my +money myself during my life, and leave the residue for the lawyers to +divide after my death.” + +“You are quite right,” said the Devil; “that is exactly what I should +do if I were you.” + +So Cornelius put the plans behind a shelf in his counting-house, and +the mice ate them. And he went on prospering and growing rich, until +the Devil became envious of him, and insisted on changing places with +him. So Cornelius went below, and the Devil came and dwelt in New York, +where he still is. + + + + +THE POISON MAID + + + O not for him +Blooms my dark nightshade, nor doth hemlock brew +Murder for cups within her cavernous root. + +I + +Grievous is the lot of the child, more especially of the female child, +who is doomed from the tenderest infancy to lack the blessing of a +mother’s care. + +Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of +the lovely Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an +extraordinary manner? That enormous serpents infested her cradle, +licking her face and twining around her limbs? That her tiny fingers +patted scorpions? and tied knots in the tails of vipers? That her +father, the magician Locuste, ever sedulous and affectionate, fed her +with spoonsful of the honeyed froth that gathers under the tongues of +asps? That as she grew older and craved a more nutritious diet, she +partook, at first in infinitesimal doses, but in ever increasing +quantities, of arsenic, strychnine, opium, and prussic acid? That at +last having attained the flower of youth, she drank habitually from +vessels of gold, for her favourite beverages were so corrosive that no +other substance could resist their solvent properties? + +Gradually accustomed to this strange regimen, she had thriven on it +marvellously, and was without a peer for beauty, sense, and goodness. +Her father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed +her in all lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no +other human being had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that +her bringing up had differed in so material a respect from that of +other young people. + +“Father,” said she one day, bringing him a book she had been perusing, +“what strange follies learned men will pen with gravity! or is it +rather that none can set bounds to the licence of romancers? These dear +serpents, my friends and playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the +nourishment of my health and vigour—that any one should write of these +as pernicious, deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or +malignity? or but the wanton freak of an idle imagination?” + +“My child,” answered the magician, “it is fit that thou shouldst now +learn what hath hitherto been concealed from thee, and with this object +I left this treatise in thy way. It speaks truth. Thou hast been +nurtured from thy infancy on substances endowed with lethal properties, +commonly called poisons. Thy entire frame is impregnated thereby, and, +although thou thyself art in the fullest enjoyment of health, thy kiss +would be fatal to any one not, like thy father, fortified by a course +of antidotes. Now hear the reason. I bear a deadly grudge to the king +of this land. He indeed hath not injured me; but his father slew my +father, wherefore it is meet that I should slay that ancestor’s son’s +son. I have therefore nurtured thee from thy infancy on the deadliest +poisons, until thou art a walking vial of pestilence. The young prince +shall unseal thee, to his destruction and thy unspeakable advantage. Go +to the great city; thou art beautiful as the day; he is young, +handsome, and amorous; he will infallibly fall in love with thee. Do +thou submit to his caresses, he will perish miserably; thou (such is +the charm) ransomed by the kiss of love, wilt become wholesome and +innocuous as thy fellows, preserving only thy knowledge of poisons, +always useful, in the present state of society invaluable. Thou wilt +therefore next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing +recommendatory letters from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily +reigning.” + +“Father,” said Mithridata, “either I shall love this young prince, or I +shall not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to +caress me. If I do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of +his death.” + +“Not even in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to thee by +this event?” + +“Not even for that consideration.” + +“O these daughters!” exclaimed the old man. “We bring them up tenderly, +we exhaust all our science for the improvement of their minds and +bodies, we set our choicest hopes upon them, and entrust them with the +fulfilment of our most cherished aspirations; and when all is done, +they will not so much as commit a murder to please us! Miserable +ingrate, receive the just requital of thy selfish disobedience!” + +“O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!” + +“I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors.” + +And he did. + +II + +Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a +particle of the philosopher’s stone—a slender outfit for a magician’s +daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she +do now? The great object of her life must henceforth be to avoid +committing murder, especially murdering any handsome young man. It +would have seemed most natural to retire into a convent, but, not to +speak of her lack of vocation, she felt that her father would justly +consider that she had disgraced her family, and she still looked +forward to reconciliation with him. She might have taken a hermitage, +but her instinct told her that a fair solitary can only keep young men +off by strong measures; and she disliked the character of a hermitess +with a bull-dog. She therefore went straight to the great city, took a +house, and surrounded herself with attendants. In the choice of these +she was particularly careful to select those only whose personal +appearance was such as to discourage any approach to familiarity or +endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty surrounded by +such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked pages, and +stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she loved +beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel it +right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for +strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course +at first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious +illness, but youth and a sound constitution pulled her through. + +Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by +love for thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by +word nor deed? To pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume +with vain yearnings for usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled +by thy fellows for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If +so, thou wilt pity poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, +expansive, and affectionate, but who, from the necessity under which +she laboured of avoiding as much as possible all contact with human +beings, saw herself condemned to a life of solitude, and knew that she +was regarded as a monster of pride and exclusiveness. She dared bestow +no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any one, lest this small +beginning should lead to the manifestation of her fatal power. Her own +servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as their bodies, hated +her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty disdain of +them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without tenderness +receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her own sex +secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a providential +set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced her as +a—well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody +else’s lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata’s +severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths +that flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold +water thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep +them from her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets +doux; they stood before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran +beside her litter when she was carried abroad, they assembled at night +to serenade her, fighting desperately among themselves. They sought to +gain admission as tradesmen, as errand boys, even as scullions male and +female. To such lengths did they proceed, that a particularly audacious +youth actually attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have +succeeded but for the interposition of another, who flew at him with a +drawn sword, and after a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the +ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course. What was her horror on +reviving to find herself in the arms of a young man of exquisite beauty +and princely mien, sucking death from her lips with extraordinary +relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made any unfeminine use of +her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology. The youth +reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in silent +misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated her +bosom also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake to dismiss +the young man as it did to see him move away, slowly and languidly +staggering to his doom. + +For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to +a youth dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually. +She steadily refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she +wrung her hands, she called for death and execrated her nurture. With +that strange appetite for self-torment which almost seems to diminish +the pangs of the wretched, she collected books on poisons, studied all +the symptoms described, and fancied her hapless lover undergoing them +all in turn. At length a message came which admitted of no evasion. The +King commanded her presence. Admonished by past experience, she +provided herself with a veil and mask, and repaired to the palace. + +The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier +circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her +with austerity, yet with kindness. + +“Maiden,” he began, “thy unaccountable cruelty to my son——” + +“Thy son!” she exclaimed, “The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for +my disobedience!” + +“Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate +monsters. Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he +has risked his life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy +cruelty, and when a smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou +wilt not bestow it.” + +“Alas! great King,” she replied, “I know too well what your Majesty’s +opinion of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight +of me could effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son.” + +“Of that I shall judge,” said the King, “when thou hast divested +thyself of that veil and mask.” + +Mithridata reluctantly complied. + +“By Heaven!” exclaimed the King, “such a sight might recall the +departing soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not +yet too late.” + +“O King,” urged Mithridata, “how could this countenance do thy son any +good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?” + +“I am not aware of that,” said the King. + +“Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state +of deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he +not tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?” + +“Not to my knowledge,” said the King. “The symptoms, as I understand, +are not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a +milder form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and +incessantly calls upon thee.” + +“This is most incomprehensible,” said Mithridata. “There was no drug in +my father’s laboratory that could have produced such an effect.” + +“The sum of the matter is,” continued the King, “that either thou wilt +repair forthwith to my son’s chamber, and subsequently to church; or +else unto the scaffold.” + +“If it must be so, I choose the scaffold,” said Mithridata resolutely. +“Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son’s chamber would but +destroy whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond +everything on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my +soul.” + +“Chamberlain,” cried the monarch, “bring me a strait waistcoat.” + +Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King’s feet, +taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her +wretched history. + +The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. “À bon chat bon +rat!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. “So thou art +the daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his +craft, and, as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon +antidotes. Never did any child in the world take an equal quantity of +physic: but there is now no poison on earth can harm him. Ye are +clearly made for each other; haste to his bedside, and, as the spell +requires, rid thyself of thy venefic properties in his arms as +expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be bidden to the wedding, +and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught us that the kiss +of Love is the remedy for every poison.” + + + + +NOTES + + +The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained +sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. +Many originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in +the annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has +rendered it desirable to append, and which further provide an +opportunity of tendering thanks to many friends for their assent to +republication. + +P. 5. _The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,_—Hereby we may detect +the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with +Armenia. “Hellenic letters,” says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the +fourth century, “were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the +slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens” (“University Life in +Ancient Athens,” p. 73). + +P. 28. _Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality._—The belief in +this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and +many emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the +groundwork of Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Der Unsterblichkeitstrank,” +which has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of “The +Potion of Lao-Tsze.” + +P. 38. _So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously._—In A.D. 683, +the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband’s death, caused her son +to be set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In +our day we have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns. + +P. 50. _Ananda the Miracle Worker._—This story was originally published +in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation appeared in +the _Revue Britannique_ for November, 1872. Buddha’s prohibition to +work miracles rests, so far as the present writer’s knowledge extends, +on the authority of Professor Max Müller (“Lectures on the Science of +Religion”). It should be needless to observe that Ananda, “the St. John +of the Buddhist group,” is not recorded to have contravened this or any +other of his master’s precepts. + +P. 66. _The City of Philosophers._—This story has been translated into +French by M. Sarrazin. + +P. 68. _There to establish a philosophic commonwealth._—The petition +was actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the +disordered condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to +save a sinking state, possessed the accomplishments which would have +adorned an age of peace and culture. + +P. 82. _The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor edge._—Gallienus +was fond of such practical jocularity. “Quum quidam gemmas vitreas pro +veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re prodita, vindicari vellet, +surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. Deinde e cavea caponem +emittit, mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, per curionem dici +jussit, ‘Imposturam fecit et passus est’: deinde negotiatorem dimisit” +(Trebellius in Gallieno, cap. xii.). + +P. 100. _Hypati, anthypati, &c._—_Hypati_ and _anthypati_ denote +consuls and proconsuls, dignities of course merely titular at the court +of Constantinople. _Silentiarii_ were properly officers charged with +maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was perhaps performed +by deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to persons of +distinction. The _protospatharius_ was the chief of the Imperial +body-guard, of which the _spatharocandidati_ constituted the _élite_. + +P. 114. _The Wisdom of the Indians._—Appeared in 1890 in _The Universal +Review_. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. Bastian’s travels +in Burma. + +P. 124. _The Dumb Oracle._—Appeared in the _University Magazine_ for +June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval myth here +transferred to classical times, is also the groundwork of Browning’s +ballad, “The Boy and the Angel.” + +P. 136. _Duke Virgil._—The subject of this story is derived from +Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Die Sibylle von Mantua,” though there is but +little resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt +as his authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as +their duke in the thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely +founded upon the interpretation of the insignia accompanying a mediæval +statue of the poet. + +P. 138. _To put the devil into a hole_.—“Then sayd Virgilius, ‘Shulde +ye well passe in to the hole that ye cam out of?’ ‘Yea, I shall well,’ +sayd the devyl. ‘I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall not +do it.’ ‘Well,’ sayd the devyll, ‘thereto I consent.’ And then the +devyll wrange himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. +Virgilius kyvered the hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the +devyll begyled, and myght nat there come out agen, but abideth shutte +still therein” (“Romance of Virgilius”). + +_Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?_—“Than he thought in +his mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with great +landes belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it +Napells. And the foundacyon of it was of eggs” (“Romance of +Virgilius”). + +P. 148. _The Claw_.—Originally published in _The English Illustrated +Magazine_. + +P. 151. _Peter of Abano_.—Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his +birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with +Dante, whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused +of magic. It is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the +Inquisition or stoned by the populace; but after his death he was +burned in effigy, his remains having been secretly removed by his +friends. Honours were afterwards paid to his memory; and there seems no +doubt that he was a man of great attainments, including a knowledge of +Greek, and of unblemished character, if he had not sometimes sold his +skill at too high a rate. For his authentic history, see the article in +the _Biographie Universelle_ by Ginguené; for the legendary, Tieck’s +romantic tale, “Pietro von Abano” (1825), which has been translated +into English. + +P. 156. _Alexander the Rat-catcher_.—This story, to whose ground-work +History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published in +vol. xii. of _The Yellow Book_, January, 1897. + +P. 157. _Cardinal Barbadico_.—This cardinal was actually entrusted by +Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an +occasion upon which the “sardonic grin” imputed to the Pope by a +detractor may be conjectured to have been particularly apparent. +Barbadico was a remarkable instance of a man “kicked upstairs.” As +Archbishop of Corfu he had had a violent dispute with the Venetian +governor, and Innocent XI., equally unwilling to disown the +representative of Papal authority or offend the Republic, recalled him +to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there. + +P. 177. _The Rewards of Industry._—Appeared originally in _Atalanta for +August_, 1888. + +P. 194. _The Talismans._—First published in _Atalanta_ for September, +1890. + +P. 202. _The Elixir of Life._—Published July, 1881, in the third number +of a magazine entitled _Our Times_, which blasted the elixir’s +character by expiring immediately afterwards. + +P. 226. _The Purple Head._—Appeared originally in _Fraser’s Magazine_ +for August, 1877. + +P. 228. _The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey +in comparison._ “Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini +comparatione fulgoris” (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.). + +P. 230. _All these sovereigns._—“Diligentissime et Aurelianus et Probus +et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus +requisiverunt tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt” +(Vopiscus, _loc. cit._). + +P. 241. _Pan’s Wand._—Published originally in a Christmas number of The +_Illustrated London News_. + +P. 249. _A Page from the Book of Folly._—Appeared in _Temple Bar_ for +1871. + +P. 282. _The Philosopher and the Butterflies._—One of the contributions +by various writers to “The New Amphion,” a little book prepared for +sale at the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of +Edinburgh in 1886. + +P. 294. _The Three Palaces._—Published originally on a similar occasion +to the last story, in “A Volunteer Haversack,” an extensive repertory +of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at +Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902. + +P. 300. _New Readings in Biography._—Originally published in _The Scots +Observer_ in 1889. + +P. 315. _The Poison Maid._—The author wrote this tale in entire +forgetfulness of Hawthorne’s “Rapaccinip’s Daughter,” which +nevertheless he had certainly read. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Richard Garnett</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 16, 2003 [eBook #10095]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 1, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>THE TWILIGHT<br/> +OF THE GODS:<br/> +AND OTHER TALES</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Richard Garnett</h2> + +<h3>MDCCCCIII</h3> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +TO<br/> +HORACE HOWARD FURNESS<br/> +AND<br/> +GEORG BRANDES.<br/> +DABO DUOBUS TESTIBUS MEIS +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">The Twilight of the Gods</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">The Potion of Lao-Tsze</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">Abdallah the Adite</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">Ananda the Miracle Worker</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">The City of Philosophers</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">The Demon Pope</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">The Cupbearer</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">The Wisdom of the Indians</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">The Dumb Oracle</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">Duke Virgil</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">The Claw</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">Alexander the Ratcatcher</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">The Rewards of Industry</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">Madam Lucifer</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">The Talismans</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">The Elixir of Life</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">The Poet of Panopolis</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">The Purple Head</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">The Firefly</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">Pan’s Wand</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">A Page from the Book of Folly</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">The Bell of Saint Euschemon</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">The Philosopher and the Butterflies</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">Truth and Her Companions</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">The Three Palaces</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">New Readings in Biography</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">The Poison Maid</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">NOTES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear<br/> +The longest date do melt like frosty rime. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high above the +summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent eagle came sailing on +broad fans into the blue, and his shadow skimmed the glittering snow as it had +done day by day for thousands of years. A human figure—or it might be +superhuman, for his mien seemed more than mortal—lifted from the crag, to +which he hung suspended by massy gyves and rivets, eyes mournful with the +presentiment of pain. The eagle’s screech clanged on the wind, as with +outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing circles; his huge +quills already creaked in his victim’s ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and +involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. Then happened what all +these millenniums had never witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from +that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman had approached the inaccessible spot; +yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down +into the unfathomable abyss below. At the same moment the bonds of the captive +snapped asunder, and, projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the +perpendicular precipice, he alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked +greensward amid young ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and +motion. +</p> + +<p> +The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through the leaves, +stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which remained prostrate and +unconscious still. But as sunlight was born anew in the East a thrill passed +over the slumberer, and he became conscious, first of an indescribably +delicious feeling of restful ease, then of a gnawing pang, acute as the beak of +the eagle for which he at first mistook it. But his wrists, though still +encumbered with bonds and trailing fetters, were otherwise at liberty, and +eagle there was none. Marvelling at his inward and invisible foe, he struggled +to his feet, and found himself contending with a faintness and dizziness +heretofore utterly unknown to him. He dimly felt himself in the midst of things +grown wonderful by estrangement and distance. No grass, no flower, no leaf had +met his eye for thousands of years, nothing but the impenetrable azure, the +transient cloud, sun, moon, and star, the lightning flash, the glittering peaks +of ice, and the solitary eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass +than in all these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed +his utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly growing +more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort he steadied himself +by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished so much when a tall dark +maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an antelope, wildly beautiful as a Dryad, +but liker a Maenad with her aspect of mingled disdain and dismay, and step +hasty as of one pursuing or pursued, suddenly checked her speed on perceiving +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Who art thou?” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Gods! Thou speakest Greek!” +</p> + +<p> +“What else should I speak?” +</p> + +<p> +“What else? From whom save thee, since I closed my father’s eyes, have I heard +the tongue of Homer and Plato?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Homer? Who is Plato?” +</p> + +<p> +The maiden regarded him with a look of the deepest astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” she said, “thy gift has been bestowed upon thee to little purpose. +Say not, at least, that thou usest the speech of the Gods to blaspheme them. +Thou art surely yet a votary of Zeus?” +</p> + +<p> +“I a votary of Zeus!” exclaimed the stranger. “By these fetters, no!” And, weak +as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Farewell,” said the maiden, as with dilating form and kindling eye she +gathered up her robes. “I parley with thee no more. Thou art tenfold more +detestable than the howling mob down yonder, intent on rapine and destruction. +They know no better, and can no other. But thou, apt in speaking the sacred +tongue yet brutally ignorant of its treasures, knowing the father of the Gods +only to revile him! Let me pass.” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger, if willing to hinder her, seemed little able. His eyes closed, +his limbs relaxed, and without a cry he sank senseless on the sward. +</p> + +<p> +In an instant the maiden was kneeling by his side. Hastily undoing a basket she +carried on her arm, she drew forth a leather flask, and, supporting the sunken +head with one hand, poured a stream of wine through the lips with the other. As +the gurgling purple coursed down his throat the sufferer opened his eyes, and +thanked her silently with a smile of exquisite sweetness. Removing the large +leaves which shaded the contents of the basket, she disclosed ripe figs and +pomegranates, honeycomb and snow-white curd, lying close to each other in +tempting array. The stranger took of each alternately, and the basket was +well-nigh emptied ere his appetite seemed assuaged. +</p> + +<p> +The observant maiden, meanwhile, felt her mood strangely altered. +</p> + +<p> +“So have I imaged Ulysses to myself,” she thought as she gazed on the +stranger’s goodly form, full of vigour, though not without traces of age, the +massive brow, the kindly mouth, the expression of far-seeing wisdom. “Such a +man ignorant of letters, and a contemner of Zeus!” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger’s eloquent thanks roused her from a reverie. The Greek tongue fell +upon her ear like the sweetest music, and she grieved when its flow was +interrupted by a question addressed directly to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Can a God feel hunger and thirst?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely no,” she rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have said the same yesterday,” returned the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Wherefore not to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear maiden,” responded he, with winning voice and manner, “we must know each +other better ere my tale can gain credence with thee. Do thou rather unfold +what thine own speech has left dark to me. Why the language of the Gods, as +should seem, is here understood by thee and me alone; what foes Zeus has here +other than myself; what is the profane crowd of which thou didst speak; and +why, alone and defenceless, thou ascendest this mountain. Think of me, if thou +wilt, as one fallen from the clouds.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strange man,” returned the maiden, “who knowest Homer’s speech and not Homer’s +self, who renouncest Zeus and resemblest him, hear my tale ere I require thine. +Yesterday I should have called myself the last priestess of Apollo in this +fallen land, to-day I have neither shrine nor altar. Moved by I know not what +madness, my countrymen have long ago forsaken the worship of the Gods. The +temples crumbled into ruin, prayer was no longer offered or sacrifice made as +of old, the priestly revenues were plundered; the sacred vessels carried away; +the voice of oracles became dumb; the divine tongue of Greece was forgotten, +its scrolls of wisdom mouldered unread, and the deluded people turned to human +mechanics and fishermen. One faithful servant of Apollo remained, my father; +but ’tis seven days since he closed his eyes for ever. It was time, for +yesternoon the heralds proclaimed by order of the King that Zeus and the +Olympians should be named no more in Caucasia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” interrupted the stranger, “I see it all. Said I not so?” he shouted, +gazing into the sky as if his eye could pierce and his voice reach beyond the +drifting clouds. “But to thy own tale,” he added, turning with a gesture of +command to the astonished Elenko. +</p> + +<p> +“It is soon told,” she said. “I knew that it was death to serve the Gods any +more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon Apollo’s altar +this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware of a ruffianly mob +thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, but not at their hands. I +caught up this basket, and escaped up the mountain. On its inaccessible summit, +it is reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let me bow in awe before his +inscrutable counsels) doomed for his benevolence to mankind. To him, as +Aeschylus sings, Io of old found her way, and from him received monition and +knowledge of what should come to pass. I will try if courage and some favouring +God will guide me to him; if not, I will die as near Heaven as I may attain. +Tell me on thy part what thou wilt, and let me depart. If thou art indeed +Zeus’s enemy, thou wilt find enough on thy side down yonder.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been Zeus’s enemy,” returned the stranger, mildly and gravely, “I am so +no longer. Immortal hate befits not the mortal I feel myself to have become. +Nor needest thou ascend the peak further. Maiden, I am Prometheus!” +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +It is a prerogative of the Gods that, when they do speak sooth, mortals must +needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity at the revelation of +Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than the bonds and broken links of +chain at his wrists and ankles. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” he cried, or rather shouted, “is the prophecy fulfilled with which of +old I admonished the Gods in the halls of Olympus. I told them that Zeus should +beget a child mightier than himself, who should send him and them the way he +had sent his father. I knew not that this child was already begotten, and that +his name was Man. It has taken Man ages to assert himself, nor has he yet, as +it would seem, done more than enthrone a new idol in the place of the old. But +for the old, behold the last traces of its authority in these fetters, of which +the first smith will rid me. Expect no thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will +come: nor shall I regain the immortality of which I feel myself bereaved since +yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this no sorrow to thee?” asked Elenko. +</p> + +<p> +“Has not my immortality been one of pain?” answered Prometheus. “Now I feel no +pain, and dread one only.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that is?” +</p> + +<p> +“The pain of missing a certain fellow-mortal,” answered Prometheus, with a look +so expressive that the hitherto unawed maiden cast her eyes to the ground. +Hastening away from the conversation to which, nevertheless, she inly purposed +to return. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Man, then, the maker of Deity?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Can the source of his being originate in himself?” asked Prometheus. “To +assert this were self-contradiction, and pride inflated to madness. But of the +more exalted beings who have like him emanated from the common principle of all +existence, Man, since his advent on the earth, though not the creator, is the +preserver or the destroyer. He looks up to them, and they are; he out-grows +them, and they are not. For the barbarian and Triballian gods there is no +return; but the Olympians, if dead as deities, survive as impersonations of +Man’s highest conceptions of the beautiful. Languid and spectral indeed must be +their existence in this barbarian age; but better days are in store for them.” +</p> + +<p> +“And for thee, Prometheus?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is now no place,” replied he, “for an impeacher of the Gods. My cause is +won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of man by myself becoming +human. When I shall have proved myself also mortal I may haply traverse realms +which Zeus never knew, with, I would hope, Elenko by my side.” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko’s countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany Prometheus as +far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he might please to conduct +her. A thought soon troubled her delicious reverie, and she inquired: +</p> + +<p> +“Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer and better +than that which I have professed?” +</p> + +<p> +“If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye,” answered Prometheus, “but of +this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy tale to have begun but ill. Yet +Saturn mutilated his father, and his reign was the Golden Age.” +</p> + +<p> +While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling aimlessly down +the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path, they suddenly found +themselves in presence of an assembly of early Christians. +</p> + +<p> +These confessors were making the most of Elenko’s dilapidated temple, whose +smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The effigies of Apollo +and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being diligently broken up with +mallets and hammers. Others of the sacrilegious throng were rending scrolls, or +dividing vestments, or firing the grove of laurel that environed the shrine, or +pelting the affrighted birds as they flew forth. The sacred vessels, however, +at least those of gold and silver, appeared safe in the guardianship of an +episcopal personage of shrewd and jovial aspect, under whose inspection they +were being piled up by a troop of sturdy young ecclesiastics, the only +weapon-bearers among the rabble. Elenko stood riveted to the ground. +Prometheus, to her amazement, rushed forward to one of the groups with a loud +“By all the Gods and Goddesses!” Following his movements, she saw that the +object of his interest was an enormous dead eagle carried by one of the mob. +The multitude, startled by his cry and his emotion, gazed eagerly at the +strangers, and instantly a shout went up: +</p> + +<p> +“The heathen woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“With a heathen man!” +</p> + +<p> +And clubs began to be brandished, and stones to be picked up from the ground. +</p> + +<p> +Prometheus, to whom the shouts were unintelligible, looked wistfully at Elenko. +As their eyes met, Elenko’s countenance, which had hitherto been all disdain +and defiance, assumed an expression of irresolution. A stone struck Prometheus +on the temple, drawing blood; a hundred hands went up, each weighted with a +missile. +</p> + +<p> +“Do as I,” cried Elenko to him, and crossed herself. +</p> + +<p> +Prometheus imitated her, not unsuccessfully for a novice. +</p> + +<p> +The uplifted arms were stayed, some even sank down. +</p> + +<p> +By this time the Bishop had bustled to the front, and addressed a torrent of +questions to Prometheus, who merely shook his head, and turned to inspect the +eagle. +</p> + +<p> +“Brethren,” said the Bishop, “I smell a miracle!” And, turning to Elenko, he +rapidly proceeded to cross-examine her. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou wert the priestess of this temple?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou didst leave it this morning a heathen?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou returnest a Christian?” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko blushed fire, her throat swelled, her heart beat violently. All her soul +seemed concentrated in the gaze she fastened on the pale and bleeding +Prometheus. She remained silent—but she crossed herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Who then has persuaded thee to renounce Apollo?” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko pointed to Prometheus. +</p> + +<p> +“An enemy of Zeus, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Zeus has not such another enemy in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it, I was sure of it,” exclaimed the Bishop. “I can always tell a +Christian when I see him. Wherefore speaks he not?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is ancient, for all his vigorous mien. His martyrdom began ere our present +speech was, nor could he learn this in his captivity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Martyrdom! Captivity!” exclaimed the prelate gleefully, “I thought we were +coming thither. An early martyr, doubtless?” +</p> + +<p> +“A very early martyr.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fettered and manacled?” +</p> + +<p> +“Behold his wrists and ankles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tortured, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“Incredibly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miraculously kept alive to this day?” +</p> + +<p> +“In an entirely supernatural manner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the Bishop, “I would wager my mitre and ring that his life was +prolonged by the daily ministrations of yonder fowl that he caresses with such +singular affection?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” replied Elenko, “for one day did that most punctual bird omit to visit +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurrah!” shouted the Bishop. “And now, its mission accomplished, the blessed +creature, as I am informed, is found dead at the foot of the mountain. Saints +and angels! this is glorious! On your knees, ye infidels!” +</p> + +<p> +And down they all went, the Bishop setting the example. As their heads were +bowed to the earth, Elenko made a sign to Prometheus, and when the multitude +looked up, it beheld him in the act of imparting the episcopal blessing. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him that we are all his brethren,” said the Bishop, which announcement +became in Elenko’s mouth, “Do as I do, and cleave to thy eagle.” +</p> + +<p> +A procession was formed. The new saint, his convert, and the eagle, rode in a +car at the head of it. The Bishop, surrounded by his bodyguard, followed with +the sacred vessels of Apollo, to which he had never ceased to direct a vigilant +eye throughout the whole proceedings. The multitude swarmed along singing +hymns, or contending for the stray feathers of the eagle. The representatives +of seven monasteries put in their claims for the links of Prometheus’s fetters, +but the Bishop scouted them all. He found time to whisper to Elenko: +</p> + +<p> +“You seem a sensible young person. Just hint to our friend that we don’t want +to hear anything about his theology, and the less he talks about the primitive +Church the better. No doubt he is a most intelligent man, but he cannot +possibly be up to all the recent improvements.” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko promised most fervently that Prometheus’ theological sentiments should +remain a mystery to the public. She then began to reflect very seriously on the +subject of her own morals. “This day,” she said to herself, “I have renounced +all the Gods, and told lies enough to last me my life, and for no other reason +than that I am in love. If this is a sufficient reason, lovers must have a +different code of morality from the rest of the world, and indeed it would +appear that they have. Will you die for me? Yes. Admirable. Will you lie for +me? No. Then you don’t love me. Βαλλ +εισ κορακασ +εισ Ταιναρον +εισ Όγγ Κογγ.” +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Elenko soon found that there was no pausing upon the path to which she had +committed herself. As the sole medium of communication between Prometheus and +the religious public, her time was half spent in instructing Prometheus in the +creed in which he was supposed to have instructed her, and half in framing the +edifying sentences which passed for the interpretation of discourses for the +most part far more interesting to herself than if they had been what they +professed to be. The rapt and impassioned attention which she was observed to +bestow on his utterances on such occasions all but gained her the reputation of +a saint, and was accepted as a sufficient set-off against the unhallowed +affection which she could not help manifesting for the memory of her father. +The judicious reluctance of the Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire +over-anxiously into the creeds and customs of the primitive Church was a great +help to her; and another difficulty was removed by the Bishop, who, having no +idea of encouraging a rival thaumaturgist, took an early opportunity of +signifying that it was rather in the line of Desmotes (for by this name the new +saint passed) to be the subject than the instrument of miracles, and that, at +all events, no more were to be looked for from him at his time of life. The +warmth with which Elenko espoused this view raised her greatly in his good +opinion, and he was always ready to come to her aid when she became entangled +in chronological or historical difficulties, or seasoned her versions of +Desmotes’ speeches with reminiscences of Plato or Marcus Aurelius, or when her +invention failed altogether. On such occasions, if objectors grew troublesome, +the Bishop would thunder, “Brethren, I smell a heresy!” and no more was said. +One minor trouble both to Prometheus and Elenko was the affection they were +naturally expected to manifest towards the carcase of the wretched eagle, which +many identified with the eagle of the Evangelist John. Prometheus was of a +forgiving disposition, but Elenko wished nothing more ardently than that the +whole aquiline race might have but one neck, and that she might wring it. It +somewhat comforted her to observe that the eagle’s plumage was growing thin, +while the eagle’s custodian was growing fat. +</p> + +<p> +But she had worse troubles to endure than any that eagles could occasion. The +youth of those who resorted to her and Prometheus attracted remark from the +graver members of the community. Young ladies found the precepts of the +handsome and dignified saint indispensable to their spiritual health; young men +were charmed with their purity as they came filtered through the lips of +Elenko. Is man more conceited than woman, or more confiding? Elenko should +certainly have been at ease; no temptress, however enterprising, could well be +spreading her nets for an Antony three hundred years old. Prometheus, on the +contrary, might have found cause for jealousy in many a noble youth’s +unconcealed admiration of Elenko. Yet he seemed magnificently unconscious of +any cause for apprehension, while Elenko’s heart swelled till it was like to +burst. She had the further satisfaction of knowing herself the best hated woman +in Caucasia, between the enmity of those of whose admirers she had made an +involuntary conquest, and of those who found her standing between them and +Prometheus. Her monopoly of Greek, she felt sure, was her only security. Two +constant attendants at Prometheus’s receptions particularly alarmed her, the +Princess Miriam, niece of the Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed to have +things as she wished them; and a tall veiled woman who seemed unknown to all, +but whose unseen eyes, she instinctively knew, were never averted from the +unconscious Prometheus. +</p> + +<p> +It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons to the +private apartment of the Princess Miriam. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear friend,” the Princess began, “thou knowest the singular affection which I +have invariably entertained for thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right well do I know it,” responded Elenko. (“The thirty-first lie to-day,” +she added wearily to herself.) +</p> + +<p> +“It is this affection, dear friend,” continued the Princess, “which induces me +on the present occasion to transgress the limits of conventional propriety, and +make a communication distressing to thee, but infinitely more so to myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause of +friendship, but the great lady was resolute. +</p> + +<p> +“People say,” she continued— +</p> + +<p> +“What say they?” +</p> + +<p> +“That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet. That it is equivocal. That it is +offensive. That it is sacrilegious. That, in a word, it is improper.” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would allow. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear friend,” said the Princess, “thou dost not imagine that I have part or +lot in these odious imputations? Even could I deem them true, should I not +think charitably of thee, but yesterday a heathen, and educated in impiety by a +foul sorcerer? My poor lamb! But tongues must be stopped, and I have now to +advise thee how this may be accomplished.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say on.” +</p> + +<p> +“People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of communication +with the holy man. Some deem him less ignorant of our speech than he seems, but +concerning this I inquire not: for, in society, what seems, is. Enough that thy +colloquies expose thee to scandal. There is but one remedy. Thou must yield thy +place to another. It is meet that thou forthwith instruct in that barbarous +dialect some matron of unblemished repute and devout aspirations; no mere +ignorant devotee, however, but a woman of the world, whose prudence and +experience may preserve the holy man from the pitfalls set for him by the +unprincipled. Manifestly she must be a married person, else nought were gained, +yet must she not be chargeable with forsaking her duties towards her husband +and children. It follows that she must be a widow. It were also well that she +should be of kin to some influential personage, to whose counsel she might have +recourse in times of difficulty, and whose authority might protect her against +the slanderous and evil disposed. I have not been able to meet any one endowed +with all these qualifications, excepting myself. I therefore propose to thee +that thou shouldst instruct me in the speech of Desmotes, and when I am +qualified to take thy place my uncle shall elevate thee to the dignity of +Abbess, or bestow thee upon some young clergyman of extraordinary desert.” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko intimated, perhaps with more warmth than necessary, her aversion to both +propositions, and the extreme improbability of the Princess ever acquiring any +knowledge of Greek by her instrumentality. +</p> + +<p> +“If this is the case,” said the Princess, with perfect calmness, “I must have +recourse to my other method, which is infallible.” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko inquired what it might be. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall represent to my uncle, what indeed he very well knows, that a saint +is, properly speaking, of no value till he is dead. Not until his decease are +his relics available, or pilgrimages to his shrine feasible. It is solely in +anticipation of this event that my uncle is keeping Desmotes at all; and the +sooner it comes to pass, the sooner will my revered relative come by his own. +Only think of the capital locked up in the new church, now so nearly completed, +on the spot where they picked up the eagle! How shall it be dedicated to +Desmotes in Desmotes’ lifetime? Were it not a most blissful and appropriate +coincidence if the day of the consecration were that of the saint’s migration +to a better world? I shall submit this view of the case to my uncle: he is +accustomed to hear reason from me, of whom, between ourselves, he is not a +little afraid. Thou mayest rely upon it that about the time of the consecration +Desmotes will ascend to heaven; while thou, it is gravely to be feared, wilt +proceed in the opposite direction. Would’st thou avert this unpleasantness, +think well of my first proposal. I give thee credit for loving Desmotes, and +suppose, therefore, that thou wilt make some sacrifice for his sake. I am a +Kettle, thou art a Pot. Take heed how thou knockest against me!” +</p> + +<p> +Elenko sped back to bear tidings of the threatened collision to Prometheus. As +she approached his chamber she heard with astonishment two voices in eager +conversation, and discovered with still greater amazement that their dialogue +was carried on in Greek. The second speaker, moreover, was evidently a female. +A jealous pang shot through Elenko’s breast; she looked cautiously in, and +discerned the same mysterious veiled woman whose demeanour had already been an +enigma to her. But the veil was thrown back, and the countenance went far to +allay Elenko’s disquiet. It bore indeed traces of past beauty, but was +altogether that of one who had known better days; worn and faded, weary and +repining. Elenko’s jealousy vanished, though her surprise redoubled, when she +heard Prometheus address the stranger as “Sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty brother I have got,” rejoined the lady, in high sharp tones: “to +leave me in want! Never once to inquire after me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sister, or sister-in-law,” responded Prometheus, “if it comes to that, +where were you while I was on Caucasus? The Oceanides ministered to me, Hermes +came now and then, even Hercules left a card; but I never saw Pandora.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could I compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?” demanded Pandora. “Besides, my +attendant Hope was always telling me that all would come right, without any +meddling of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let her tell you so now,” retorted Prometheus. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me now! Do you pretend not to know that the hussey forsook Olympus ten +years ago, and has turned Christian?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure I am very sorry to hear it. Somehow, she never forsook <i>me</i>. I +can’t imagine how you Gods get on without her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get on! We are getting off. Except Eros and Plutus, who seem as usual, and the +old Fates, who go on spinning as if nothing had happened, none of us expects to +last for another ten years. The sacrifices have dwindled down to nothing. Zeus +has put down his eagle. Hera has eaten her peacocks. Apollo’s lyre is never +heard—pawned, no doubt. Bacchus drinks water, and Venus—well, you +can imagine how she gets on without him and Ceres. And here you are, sleek and +comfortable, and never troubling yourself about your family. But you had +better, or I swear I will tell Zeus; and we shall see whether these Christians +will keep you with your ante-chamber full of starving gods. Take a day to think +of what I have been saying!” +</p> + +<p> +And away she flounced, not noticing Elenko. Long and earnestly did the pair +discuss the perils that menaced them, and at the end of their deliberations +Elenko sought the Bishop, and briefly imparted the Princess Miriam’s ultimatum. +</p> + +<p> +“It is painful to a spiritual man,” replied the prelate, “to be accessory to a +murder. It is also repugnant to his feelings to deny a beloved niece anything +on which she has set her heart. To avoid such grievous dilemma, I judge it well +that ye both ascend to heaven without further ceremony.” +</p> + +<p> +That night the ascent of Prometheus and Elenko was witnessed by divers credible +persons. The new church was consecrated shortly afterwards. It was amply stored +with relics from the wardrobe of Prometheus and what remained of the eagle. The +damsels of the capital regained their admirers, and those who had become +enamoured of Prometheus mostly transferred their affections to the Bishop. +Everybody was satisfied except the Princess Miriam, who never ceased to deplore +her indulgence in giving Elenko the chance of first speech with her uncle. +</p> + +<p> +“If I had been five minutes beforehand with the minx!” she said. +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p> +The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated in a +sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into the glen, which +was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds, who still observed the rites +of the ancient faith; and sometimes, deeming but to show kindness to a mortal, +refreshed or sheltered a forlorn and hungry Deity. Saving at the entrance the +vale was walled round by steep cliffs, for the most part waving with trees, but +here and there revealing the naked crag. It was traversed by a silvery stream, +in its windings enclosing Prometheus’s and Elenko’s cottage, almost as in an +island. The cot, buried in laurel and myrtle, had a garden where fig and +mulberry, grape and almond, ripened in their season. A few goats browsed on the +long grass, and yielded their milk to the household. Bread and wine, and flesh +when needed, were easily procured from the neighbours. Beyond necessary +furniture, the cottage contained little but precious scrolls, obtained by +Elenko from Athens and the newly founded city of Constantine. In these, under +her guidance, Prometheus read of matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, +entered the imagination of any God. +</p> + +<p> +It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures wholly their +own, which they may yet make fully the possession of the other. These treasures +are of divers kinds, beauty, affection, memory, hope. But never were such +treasures of knowledge shared between lovers as between Prometheus and Elenko. +Each possessed immeasurable stores, hitherto inaccessible to the other. How +trifling seemed the mythical lore which Elenko had gleaned as the minister of +Phœbus to that now imparted by Prometheus! The Titan had seen all, and been a +part of all that he had seen. He had bowed beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he +had witnessed his fall, and marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He +remembered hoary Saturn a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the throne of +Heaven, and devouring in a trice the stone that now resists his fangs for +millenniums. He had heard the shields of the Corybantes clash around the infant +Zeus; he described to Elenko how one day the sea had frothed and boiled, and +undraped Aphrodite had ascended from it in the presence of the gazing and +applauding amphitheatre of cloud-cushioned gods. He could depict the personal +appearance of Cybele, and sketch the character of Enceladus. He had instructed +Zeus, as Chiron had instructed Achilles; he remembered Poseidon afraid of the +water, and Pluto of the dark. He called to mind and expounded ancient oracles +heretofore unintelligible: he had himself been told, and had disbelieved, that +the happiest day of his own life would be that on which he should feel himself +divested of immortality. Of the younger gods and their doings he knew but +little; he inquired with interest whether Bacchus had returned in safety from +his Indian expedition, and whether Proserpine had a family of divine imps. +</p> + +<p> +Much more, nevertheless, had Elenko to teach Prometheus than she could learn +from him. How trivial seemed the history of the gods to what he now heard of +the history of men! Were these indeed the beings he had known “like ants in the +sunless recesses of caves, dwelling deep-burrowing in the earth, ignorant of +the signs of the seasons,” to whom he had given fire and whom he had taught +memory and number, for whom he had “brought the horse under the chariot, and +invented the sea-beaten, flaxen-winged chariot of the sailor?” And now, how +poorly showed the gods beside this once wretched brood! What Deity could die +for Olympus, as Leonidas had for Greece? Which of them could, like Iphigenia, +dwell for years beside the melancholy sea, keeping a true heart for an absent +brother? Which of them could raise his fellows nearer to the source of all +Deity, as Socrates and Plato had raised men? Who could portray himself as +Phidias had portrayed Athene? Could the Muses speak with their own voices as +they had spoken by Sappho’s? He was especially pleased to see his own moral +superiority to Zeus so eloquently enforced by Æschylus, and delighted in +criticising the sentiments which the other poets had put into the mouths of the +gods. Homer, he thought, must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes not +seldom. When he read in the Cyclops of Euripides, “Stranger, I laugh to scorn +Zeus’s thunderbolts,” he grew for a moment thoughtful. “Am I,” he questioned, +“ending where Polyphemus began?” But when he read a little further on: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The wise man’s only Jupiter is this,<br/> +To eat and drink during his little day,<br/> +And give himself no care— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“No,” he said, “the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than this Zeus. +But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put another in their place; +or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung away his religion. Heaven has not +departed with Zeus.” And, taking his lyre, he sang: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What floods of lavish splendour<br/> + The lofty sun doth pour!<br/> +What else can Heaven render?<br/> + What room hath she for more?<br/> +<br/> +Yet shall his course be shortly done,<br/> + And after his declining<br/> +The skies that held a single Sun<br/> +With thousands shall be shining. +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p> +It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to Prometheus’s earthly +paradise, and who came once came again. The first was Epimetheus, who had +probably suffered least of all from the general upset, having in truth little +to lose since his ill-starred union with Pandora. He had indeed reason for +thankfulness in his practical divorce from his spouse, who had settled in +Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to the Princess Miriam. Would Prometheus lend +him half a talent? a quarter? a tenth? a hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus +might rely upon it that his residence should not be divulged on any account. +Notwithstanding which assurance, the cottage was visited next day by eleven +gods and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and was really +alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their functions to the +Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for a chat, bringing +Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and took back a message from +Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on most intimate terms with all the +dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal, and marine. +</p> + +<p> +Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm, looking up to +something it feels or deems above itself. Beautiful, too, as autumn sunshine is +maturity looking down with gentleness on the ideal it has surpassed, and +reverencing it still for old ideas and associations. The thought of beholding a +Deity would once have thrilled Elenko with rapture, if this had not been +checked by awe at her own presumption. The idea that a Deity, other than some +disgraced offender like Prometheus, could be the object of her compassion, +would never have entered her mind. And now she pitied the whole Olympian cohort +most sincerely, not so much for having fallen as for having deserved to fall. +She could not conceal from herself how grievously they were one and all behind +the age. It was impossible to make Zeus comprehend how an idea could be a match +for a thunderbolt. Apollo spoke handsomely of Homer, yet evidently esteemed the +Iliad and Odyssey but lightly in comparison with the blind bard’s hymn to +himself. Ceres candidly admitted that her mind was a complete blank on the +subject of the Eleusinian mysteries. Aphrodite’s dress was admirable for +summer, but in winter seemed obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make +herself a fright with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer frightened +anybody? Where Elenko would fain have adored she found herself tolerating, +excusing, condescending. How many Elenkos are even now tenderly nursing ancient +creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue of their professors! +</p> + +<p> +One autumn night all the principal gods were assembled under Prometheus’s roof, +doing justice to the figs and mulberries, and wine cooled with Taygetan snow. +The guests were more than usually despondent. Prometheus was moody and +abstracted, his breast seemed labouring with thought. “So looked my Pythoness,” +whispered Apollo to his neighbour, “when about to deliver an oracle.” +</p> + +<p> +And the oracle came—in lyric verse, not to infringe any patent of +Apollo’s— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +When o’er the towers of Constantine<br/> +An Orient Moon begins to shine,<br/> +Waning nor waxing aught, and bright<br/> +In daytide as in deep of night:<br/> +Then, though the fane be brought<br/> + To wreck, the God shall find,<br/> +Enthroned in human thought,<br/> + A temple in the mind. +</p> + +<p> +“And what becomes of us while this prodigious moonshine is concocting?” +demanded Zeus, who had become the most sceptical of any of the gods. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to Elysium,” suggested Prometheus. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s an idea!” cried Zeus and Pallas together. +</p> + +<p> +“To Elysium! to Elysium!” exclaimed the other gods, and all rose tumultuously, +saving two. +</p> + +<p> +“I go not,” said Eros, “for where Love is, there is Elysium. And yonder rising +moon tells me that my hour is come.” And he flitted forth. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither go I,” said an old blind god, “for where Plutus is, Elysium is not. +Moreover, mankind would follow after me. But I too must away. Strange that I +should have abode so long under the roof of a pair of perfect virtue.” And he +tottered out. +</p> + +<p> +But the other gods swept forth into the moonlight, and were seen no more. And +Prometheus picked up the forsaken sandals of Hermes, and bound them on his own +feet, and grasped Elenko, and they rose up by a dizzy flight to empty heaven. +All was silent in those immense courts, vacant of everything save here and +there some rusty thunderbolt or mouldering crumb of ambrosia. Above, around, +below, beyond sight, beyond thought, stretched the still deeps of æther, +blazing with innumerable worlds. Eye could rove nowhither without beholding a +star, nor could star be beheld from which the Gods’ hall, with all its +vastness, would not have been utterly invisible. Elenko leaned over the +battlements, and watched the racing meteors. Prometheus stood by her, and +pointed out in the immeasurable distance the little speck of shining dust from +which they had flown. +</p> + +<p> +“There? or here?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Elenko. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE POTION OF LAO-TSZE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +And there the body lay, age after age,<br/> + Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,<br/> +Like one asleep in a green hermitage,<br/> + With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing,<br/> +And living in its dreams beyond the rage<br/> + Of death or life; while they were still arraying<br/> +In liveries ever new the rapid, blind,<br/> +And fleeting generations of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +In the days of the Tang dynasty China was long happy under the sceptre of a +good Emperor, named Sin-Woo. He had overcome the enemies of the land, confirmed +the friendship of its allies, augmented the wealth of the rich, and mitigated +the wretchedness of the poor. But most especially was he admired and beloved +for his persecution of the impious sect of Lao-tsze, which he had well-nigh +exterminated. +</p> + +<p> +It was but natural that such an Emperor should congratulate himself upon his +goodness and worth; yet, as no human bliss is perfect, sorrow could not fail to +enter his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“It is grievous to reflect,” said he to his courtiers, “that if, as ye all +affirm, there hath not been any Emperor of equal merit with myself before my +time, neither will any such arise after me, my subjects must inevitably be +sufferers by my death.” +</p> + +<p> +To which the courtiers unanimously responded, “O Emperor, live for ever!” +</p> + +<p> +“Happy thought!” exclaimed the Emperor; “but wherewithal shall it be executed?” +</p> + +<p> +The Prime Minister looked at the Chancellor, the Chancellor looked at the +Treasurer, the Treasurer looked at the Chamberlain, the Chamberlain looked at +the Principal Bonze, the Principal Bonze looked at the Second Bonze, who, to +his great surprise, looked at him in return. +</p> + +<p> +“When the turn comes to me,” murmured the inferior functionary, “I would say +somewhat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak!” commanded the Emperor. +</p> + +<p> +“O Uncle of the stars,” said the Bonze, “there are those in your Majesty’s +dominions who possess the power of lengthening life, who have, in fact, +discovered the Elixir of Immortality.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let them be immediately brought hither,” commanded the Emperor. +</p> + +<p> +“Unhappily,” returned the Bonze, “these persons, without exception, belong to +the abominable sect of Lao-tsze, whose members your Majesty long ago commanded +to cease from existence, with which august order they have for the most part +complied. In my own diocese, where for some years after your Majesty’s happy +accession we were accustomed to impale twenty thousand annually, it is now +difficult to find twenty, with the utmost diligence on the part of the +executioners.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has of late sometimes appeared to me,” said the Emperor, “that there may be +more good in that sect than I have been led to believe by my counsellors.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have always thought,” said the Prime Minister, “that they were rather +misguided than wilfully wicked.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are a kind of harmless lunatics,” said the Chancellor; “they should, I +think, be made wards in Chancery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Their money does not appear different from other men’s,” said the Treasurer. +</p> + +<p> +“I,” said the Chamberlain, “have known an old woman who had known another old +woman who belonged to this sect, and who assured her that she had been very +good when she was a little girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“If,” said the Emperor, “it appears that his Grace the Principal Bonze hath in +any respect misled us, his property will necessarily be confiscated to the +Imperial Treasury, and the Second Bonze will succeed to his office. It is +needful, however, to ascertain before all things whether this sect does really +possess the Elixir of Immortality, for on that the entire question of its +deserts obviously depends. Our Counsellor the Second Bonze having, next to +myself, the greatest interest in the matter, I desire him to make due inquiries +and report to us at the next council, when I shall be prepared to state what +fine will be imposed upon him, should he not have succeeded.” +</p> + +<p> +That night all the members of the Lao-tsze sect inhabiting prisons under the +jurisdiction of the Principal Bonze were decapitated, and the P.B. laid his own +head upon his pillow with some approach to peace of mind, trusting that the +knowledge of the Elixir of Immortality had perished with them. +</p> + +<p> +The Second Bonze, having a different object to attain, proceeded in a different +manner. He sent for his captives, and discoursed to them touching the evil arts +of unprincipled courtiers, and the facility with which they mislead even the +best intentioned princes. For years had he, the Second Bonze, pleaded the cause +of toleration at court; and had at length succeeded in enlightening his Majesty +to such an extent that there was every prospect of an edict of indulgence being +shortly promulgated, provided always that the Elixir of Life was previously +forthcoming. +</p> + +<p> +The unfortunate heretics would have been only too thankful to prolong the +Emperor’s life indefinitely in consideration of securing peace for their own, +but they could only inform the Bonze of the general tradition of their sect. +This was that the knowledge of Lao-tsze’s secret was confined to certain +adepts, most of whom were plunged into so deep a trance that any communication +with them was impossible. For the administration of the miraculous draught, it +appeared, was attended with this inconvenience, that it threw the partaker into +a deep sleep, lasting any time between ten years and eternity, according to the +depth of his potation. During its continuance the ordinary operations of nature +were suspended, and the patient awoke with precisely the same bodily +constitution, old or young, as he had possessed on falling into his lethargy; +and though still liable to wounds and accidents, he or she continued to enjoy +undiminished health and vigour for a period equal to the duration of the +trance, after which he sank back into the ranks of mortality, unless he could +repeat the potion. All the adepts who had come to life under his present +Majesty’s most clement reign had immediately emigrated: the only persons, +therefore, capable of giving information were now buried in slumber, and of +course would only speak when they should awake. They were mostly concealed in +the recesses of caverns, those inhabited by wild beasts being usually preferred +for the sake of better security, as no tiger or bear would harm a follower of +Lao-tsze. The witnesses, therefore, advised the Bonze to ascertain the +residences of the most ferocious tigers in his diocese, and to wait upon them +personally, in the hope of thus discovering what he sought. +</p> + +<p> +This suggestion was exceedingly unpalatable to the Bonze, who felt almost +equally unwilling to venture himself into a wild beast’s den or to give any +other person the chance of making the discovery. While he hesitated in +unspeakable perplexity he was informed that an old man, about to expire at the +age of an hundred and twenty years, desired to have speech with him. Thinking +so venerable a personage likely to have at least a glimmering of the great +secret, the Bonze hurried to his bedside. +</p> + +<p> +“Our master, Lao-tsze,” began the old man, “forbids us to leave this world with +anything undisclosed which may contribute to the advantage of our +fellow-creatures. Whether he deemed the knowledge of the cup of immortality +conducive to this end I cannot say, but the question doth not arise, for I do +not possess it. Hear my tale, nevertheless. Ninety years ago, being a hunter, +it was my hap to fall into the jaws of an enormous tiger, who bore me off to +his cavern. I there found myself in the presence of two ladies, one youthful +and of surpassing loveliness, the other haggard and wrinkled. The younger lady +expostulated with the tiger, and he forthwith released me. My gratitude won the +women’s confidence, and I learned that they were disciples of Lao-tsze who had +repaired to the cavern to partake of the miraculous draught, which they were +just about to do. They were, it appeared, mother and daughter, and I distinctly +remember that the composition of the beverage was known to the daughter only. +This impressed me, for I should naturally have expected the contrary. The tiger +escorted me home. I forswore hunting, and became, and have secretly continued, +a disciple of Lao-tsze. I will now indicate the position of the cavern to thee: +whether the ladies will still be found in it is beyond my power to say.” +</p> + +<p> +And having pointed out the direction of the cavern, he expired. +</p> + +<p> +The thing had to be done. The Bonze dressed himself up as much like a votary of +Lao-tsze as possible, provided himself with a body-guard of <i>bona fide</i> +disciples, and, accompanied by a small army of huntsmen and warriors as well, +marched in quest of the den of the tiger. It was discovered about nightfall, +and having tethered a small boy near the entrance, that his screams when being +devoured might give notice of the tiger’s issue from or return to his +habitation, the Bonze and his myrmidons took up a flank position and awaited +the dawn. The distant howls of roaming beasts of prey entirely deprived the +holy man of his rest, but nothing worse befell him, and when in the morning the +small boy, instead of providing the tiger with a breakfast, was heard crying +for his own, the besiegers mustered up courage to enter the cavern. The glare +of their torches revealed no tiger: but, to the Bonze’s inexpressible delight, +two females lay on the floor of the cave, corresponding in all respects to the +description of the old man. Their costume was that of the preceding century. +One was wrinkled and hoary; the inexpressible loveliness of the other, who +might have seen seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a universal cry of +admiration, followed by a hush of enraptured silence. Warm, flexible, fresh in +colour, breathing naturally as in slumber, the figures lay, the younger woman’s +arm underneath the elder woman’s neck, and her chin nestling on the other’s +shoulder. The countenance of each seemed to indicate happy dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“Can this indeed be but a trance?” simultaneously questioned several of the +Bonze’s followers. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!</i>” exclaimed the Bonze; and he thrust +his long hunting spear into the elder woman’s bosom. Blood poured forth freely, +but there was no change in the expression of the countenance. No struggle +announced dissolution; not until the body grew chill and the limbs stiff could +they be sure the old woman was indeed dead. +</p> + +<p> +“Carry the young woman like porcelain,” ordered the priest, and like the most +fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from the cavern smiling +in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the corpse of her aged companion +was abandoned to the hyænas. So often did the bearers pause to look on her +beauty that it was found necessary to drape the countenance entirely, until +reaching the closed sedan in which, vigilantly watched by the Bonze, she was +transported to the Imperial palace. +</p> + +<p> +And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was laid on a +couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful was the contrast +between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose, and the old haggard +Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love of life. +</p> + +<p> +“O Majesty,” said his wisest counsellor, “is there any sect in thy dominions +that possesses the secret of perpetual youth?” +</p> + +<p> +And the Emperor made proclamation, but no such sect could be found. And he +mourned exceedingly, and caused strong perfumes to be burned around the +sleeper, and conches to be blown and gongs beaten in her ears, hoping that she +would awake ere he was dead or wholly decrepit. But she stirred not. And he +shut himself up with her and passed his time praying to Fo for her awakening. +</p> + +<p> +But one day the door of the chamber was beaten down, and his old wife came in +passionately upbraiding him. +</p> + +<p> +“Sin-Woo,” she cried, “thou hast not the heart of a man! Thou wouldest be +deathless, leaving me to die! I shall be laid in the grave, and thou wilt reign +with another! Wherefore have I been true to thee, if not that our ashes might +mingle at the last? Thou hoary sensualist!” +</p> + +<p> +“Su-Ti,” said the Emperor, with feeling, “thou dost grievously misjudge me. I +am no heartless sensualist, no butterfly sipper at the lips of beauty. Is not +my soul entirely possessed by this divine creature, whom I love with an +affection infinitely exceeding that which I have entertained for thee at any +period? And how knowest thou,” added he, striving to soothe her, “that I will +not give thee to drink of the miraculous potion?” +</p> + +<p> +“And keep my grey hairs and wrinkles through all time! Nay, Sin-Woo, I am no +fool like thee, and were I so, I am not in love with any youth. And know I not +that even if I would accept the boon, thou would’st never give it?” +</p> + +<p> +And she rushed away in fury and hanged herself by her Imperial girdle. +Whereupon all the other wives and concubines of the Emperor did likewise, as +custom and reason prescribe. All the palace was filled with lamentation and +funerals. But the Emperor lamented not, nor turned his gaze from the sleeper, +nor did the sleeper awaken. +</p> + +<p> +And his son came to him angry with exceeding wrath. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast murdered my mother. Thou would’st rob me of the crown that is +rightfully mine. I, born to be an Emperor, shall die a subject! Nay, but I will +save thee from thyself. I will pierce thy leman with the sword, or burn her +with fire.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Emperor, fearing he would do as he threatened, commanded him to be +slain, as also his brothers and sisters. And he paid no heed to the affairs of +State, but gave all into the hand of the Second, now the Principal Bonze. And +the laws ceased to be observed, and rebellions broke out in the provinces, and +enemies invaded the country, and there was famine in the land. +</p> + +<p> +And now the Emperor was well-nigh ten years nearer to the gates of death than +when the Sleeping Beauty had been brought to his court. The love of beauty was +nearly quenched in him, but the longing for life grew more intense. He became +angry with the sleeper, that she awakened not, and with his little remaining +strength smote her fiercely on the cheeks, but she gave no sign of reviving. +Remembering that if he gained the potion of immortality he would himself be +plunged into a trance, he made all preparations for the interregnum. He decreed +that he was to be seated erect on his throne, with all his imperial insignia, +and it was to be death to any one who should presume to remove any of them. His +slumbering figure was to preside at all councils, and to be consulted in every +act of state, and all ministers and officers were to do homage daily. The +revived Sleeping Beauty was to partake of the draught anew, at the same time +and in the same manner as himself, that she might awake with him, and that he +might find her charms unimpaired. All the ministers swore solemnly to observe +these regulations; firmly purposing to burn the sleeper, if sleep he ever did, +at the very first opportunity, and scatter his ashes to the winds. Then they +would fight for the Empire among themselves; each, meanwhile, was mainly +occupied in striving to gain the rebels over to his interest, insomuch that the +people grew more miserable day by day. +</p> + +<p> +And as the aged Emperor waxed more and more feeble, he began to see visions. +Legions of little black imps surrounded him crying, “We are thy sins, and would +be punished—would’st thou by living for ever deprive us of our due?” And +fair female forms came veiled with drooping heads, and murmured, “We are thy +virtues, and would be rewarded—would’st thou cheat us?” And other figures +came, dark but lovely, and whispered, “We are thy dead friends who have long +waited for thee—would’st thou take to thyself new friends, and forget +us?” And others said, “We are thy memories—wilt thou live on till we are +all withered in thy heart?” And others said, “We are thy strength and thy +beauty, thy memory and thy wit—canst thou live, knowing thou wilt never +see us more?” And at last came two warders, officers of the King of Death, and +one of them was laughing. And the other asked why he laughed, and he replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I laugh at the Emperor, who thinks to escape our master, not knowing that the +moment of his decease was engraved with a pen of iron upon a rock of adamant a +million million years or ever this world was.” +</p> + +<p> +“And when comes it?” asked the other. +</p> + +<p> +“In ten minutes,” said the first. +</p> + +<p> +When the Emperor heard this he was wild with terror, and tottered to the couch +on which the Sleeping Beauty lay. “Oh, awake!” he cried, “awake and save me ere +it is too late!” And, oh wonder! the sleeper stirred, and opened her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +If she had been so beautiful while sleeping, what was she when awake! But the +love of life had overcome the love of beauty in the Emperor’s bosom, and he saw +not the eyes like stars, and the bloom as of peaches and lilies, or the aspect +grand and smiling as daybreak. He could only cry, “Give me the potion, lest I +die, give me the potion!” +</p> + +<p> +“That cannot I,” she said. “The secret was known only to my daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is thy daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern.” +</p> + +<p> +“That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so fresh? +</p> + +<p> +“Even so,” she said, “I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy years. +When I awoke she was withered and decrepit: I youthful as when I closed my +eyes. But she had learned the secret, which I never knew.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Bonze shall be crucified!” yelled the Emperor. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too late,” said she; “he is torn in pieces already.” +</p> + +<p> +“By whom?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee.” +</p> + +<p> +And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people, headed by +the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal Bonze), who +plunged a sword into the Emperor’s breast, exclaiming: +</p> + +<p> +“He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose the life +which he has.” Words, saith the historian Li, which have been thought worthy to +be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of Confucius. +</p> + +<p> +And the people were crying, “Kill the sorceress!” But she looked upon them, and +they cried, “Be our Empress!” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember,” said she, “that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred years!” +</p> + +<p> +“Would,” said they, “that it might be a hundred thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously. Among her good acts is +enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze. Since, however, they +have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild beasts have lost +their ancient respect for them, and devour them with no less appetite than the +members of other sects and denominations. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>ABDALLAH THE ADITE</h2> + +<p> +An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting himself to +the pursuit of religion and alchemy. Of his creed it could only be said that it +was so much better than that of his neighbours as to cause him to be commonly +esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper. But the better informed deemed him a +Nestorian monk, who had retired into the wilderness on account of differences +with his brethren, who sought to poison him. +</p> + +<p> +The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain +inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light concerning the +nature of demons. But he found that Sergius could give him no information on +that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so wisely and beautifully on +holy things, that his pupil’s intellect was enlightened, and his enthusiasm was +inflamed, and he longed to go forth and instruct the ignorant people around +him; the Saracens, and the Sabaeans, and the Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, +and the Baphometites, and the Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient +Manichees. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, good youth,” said Sergius, “I have renounced the sending forth of +missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the Prophet +Abdallah.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed the youth, “was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?” +</p> + +<p> +“Even so,” said Sergius. “Hearken to his history. +</p> + +<p> +“Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he was +first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most simple-minded and +well-intentioned of youths. I always called him son, a title I have never +bestowed on another. Like thee, he had compassion on the darkness around him, +and craved my leave to go forth and dispel it. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My son,’ said I, ‘I will not restrain thee: thou art no longer a child. Thou +hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and knowest that poison +was administered to me personally on account of my inability to perceive the +supernatural light emanating from the navel of Brother Gregory. Thou art aware +that thou wilt be beaten with rods and pricked with goads, chained and starved +in a dungeon, very probably blinded, very possibly burned with fire?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘All these things I am prepared to undergo,’ said Abdallah; and he embraced me +and bid me farewell. +</p> + +<p> +“After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his bones +protruded through his skin. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Whence are these weals and scars?’ asked I, ‘and what signifies this +protrusion of thy bones?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The weals and the scars,’ answered he, ‘proceed from the floggings inflicted +upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by reason of the +omission of his officers to furnish me with either food or drink in the dungeon +wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘O my son,’ exclaimed I, ‘in the eyes of faith and right reason these scars +are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones is like the +beholding of hidden treasure!’ +</p> + +<p> +“And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he entirely fail +therein. And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and sent him forth a +second time into the world. +</p> + +<p> +“And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and bruises, but +comely and somewhat fat. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Whence this sleekness of body, my son?’ I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Through the charity of the Caliph’s wives,’ he answered, ‘who have fed me +secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good work each of +them in the world to come would have seven husbands.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘How knewest thou this, my son?’ I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“‘In truth, father,’ he said, ‘I did not know it; but I thought it probable.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘O my son! my son!’ exclaimed I, ‘thou art on a dangerous road. To win over +weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a future life, +whereof thou knowest no more than they do! Knowest thou not that the +inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and spiritual nature? Did I +ever promise any disciple any recompense for his enlightenment and good deeds, +save flogging, starvation, and burning?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Never, father,” said he, ‘and therefore thou hast had no follower of thy law +save one, and he hath broken it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He left me after a shorter stay than before, and again went forth to preach. +After a long time he returned in good condition of body, yet manifestly having +something upon his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Father,’ he said, ‘thy son hath preached with faithfulness and acceptance, +and turned thousands unto righteousness. But a sorcerer hath arisen, saying, +“Why follow ye Abdallah, seeing that he breathes not fire out of his mouth and +nostrils?” And the people give ear unto the words that come from this man’s +lips, when they behold the flame that cometh from his nose. And unless thou +teachest me to do as he doth I shall assuredly perish.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And I told Abdallah that it was better to perish for the truth’s sake than to +prolong life by lies and deceit. But he wept and lamented exceeding sore, and +in the end he prevailed with me; and I taught him to breathe flame and smoke +out of a hollow nut filled with combustible powder. And I took a certain +substance called soap, but little known in this country, and anointed his feet +therewith. And when he and the sorcerer met, both breathing flame, the people +knew not which to follow; but when Abdallah walked over nine hot ploughshares, +and the sorcerer could not touch one of them, they beat his brains out, and +became Abdallah’s disciples. +</p> + +<p> +“A long time afterward Abdallah came to me again, this time with a joyful, and +yet with somewhat of a troubled look, carrying a camel-hair blanket, which he +undid, and lo! it was full of bones. +</p> + +<p> +“‘O father,’ he said, ‘I bring thee happy tidings. We have found the bones of +the camel of the prophet Ad, upon which his revelation was engraved by him.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘If this be so,’ said I, ‘thou art acquainted with the precepts of the +prophet, and hast no need of mine.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Nay, but father,’ said he, ‘although the revelation was without question +originally engraved by the prophet on these very bones, it hath come to pass by +the injury of time that not one letter of his writing can be distinguished. I +have therefore come to ask thee to write it over again.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘What!’ I exclaimed, ‘I forge a revelation in the name of the prophet Ad! Get +thee behind me!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thou knowest, father,’ he rejoined, ‘that if we had the original words of the +prophet Ad here they would profit us nought, as by reason of their antiquity +none would understand them. Seeing therefore that I myself cannot write, it is +meet that thou shouldst set down in his name those things which he would have +desired to deliver had he been now among us; but if thou wilt not, I shall ask +Brother Gregory.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And when I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and impostor my +spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad myself. And I was +heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable precepts, and more +especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a certain inclination +thereunto in my disciple. +</p> + +<p> +“After many days he came again, and this time he was in violent terror and +agitation, and hair was wanting to the lower part of his countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“‘O Abdallah,’ I inquired, ‘where is thy beard?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘In the hands of my ninth wife,’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Apostate!’ I exclaimed, ‘hast thou dared to espouse more wives than one? +Rememberest thou not what is written in the Book of the prophet Ad?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘O father,’ he said, ‘the revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so +exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath been +supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of Gregory, as +I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my dictation, an +accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O Sergius. In this gloss +it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth part of the soul of man, the +prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now call ourselves) to take but one +wife, doth instruct us to take nine; to espouse a tenth would, I grant, be +damnable. It ensues, therefore, that having become enamoured of a most charming +young virgin, I am constrained to repudiate one of the wives whom I have taken +already. To this, each thinking that it may be her turn speedily, if not now, +they will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me as thou seest, and the +dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of peace, compared to my +seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to disclose to the people the fact, +of which they have unhappily become aware, that the revelation of the blessed +Ad is not written upon the bones of a camel at all, but of a cow, and will +therefore be accounted spurious, inasmuch as the prophet is not recorded to +have ridden upon this quadruped. And seeing that thou didst inscribe the +characters, O father, I cannot but fear that the fury of the people will extend +unto thee, and that thou wilt be even in danger of thy life from them.’ +</p> + +<p> +“This argument of Abdallah’s had much weight with me, and I the more readily +consented to his request as he did not on this occasion require any imposture +at my hands, but merely the restitution of his domestic peace. And I went with +him to his wives, and discoursed with them, and they agreed to abide by my +sentence. And, willing to please him, I directed that he should marry the +beautiful virgin, and put away one of his wives who was old and ugly, and +endowed with the dispositions of Sheitan. +</p> + +<p> +“‘O father,’ said Abdallah, ‘thou hast brought me from death unto life! And +thou, Zarah,’ he continued, ‘wilt lose nought, but gain exceedingly, in +becoming the spouse of the wise and virtuous Sergius.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I marry Zarah!’ I exclaimed, ‘I! a monk!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Surely,’ said he, ‘thou would’st not take away her husband without giving her +another in his stead?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘If he does I will throttle him,’ cried Zarah. +</p> + +<p> +“And I wept sore, and made great intercession. And it was agreed that there +should be a delay of forty days, in which space if any one else would marry +Zarah, I should be free of her. And I promised all my substance to any one who +would do this, and no one was found. And she was offered to thirteen criminals +doomed to suffer death, and they all chose death. And at the last I was +constrained to marry her. And truly I have now the comfort of thinking that if +I have offended by encouraging Abdallah’s deceits, or otherwise, the debt is +paid, and Eternal Justice hath now nothing against me; for verily I was an +inmate of Gehenna until it came to pass that she was herself translated +thither. And respecting the manner of her translation, inquire not thou too +curiously. It was doubtless a token of the displeasure of Heaven at her +enormities that the water of the well of Kefayat, which had been known as the +Diamond of the Desert, became about this time undrinkable, and pernicious to +man and beast. +</p> + +<p> +“As I sat in my dwelling administering to the estate of my deceased wife, which +consisted principally of wines and strong liquors, Abdallah again appeared +before me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Hast thou come,’ said I, ‘to solicit me to abet thee in any new imposture? +Know, once for all, that I will not.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘On the contrary,’ said he, ‘I am come to set thee at ease by proving to thee +that I shall not again require thy assistance. Follow me.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And I followed him to a great plain, where was a host of armed horsemen and +footmen, more than I could number. And they bore banners on which the name of +Abdallah was embroidered in letters of gold. And in the midst was an ark of +gold, with the bones of Ad’s camel, or cow. And by this was a great pile of the +heads of men, and warriors were continually casting more and more upon the +heap. +</p> + +<p> +“‘How many?’ asked Abdallah. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Twelve thousand, O Apostle of God,’ answered they, ‘but there are more to +come.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thou monster!’ said I to Abdallah. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Nay, father,’ said he, ‘there will not be more than sixteen thousand in all, +and these men were unbelievers. Moreover we have spared such of their women as +were young and handsome, and have taken them for our concubines, as is ordained +in the eleventh supplement to the Book of Ad, just promulgated by my authority. +But come, I have other things to manifest unto thee.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And he led me where a stake was driven into the earth, and a man was chained +unto it, and fuel was heaped all around him, and many stood by with lighted +torches in their hands. +</p> + +<p> +“‘O Abdallah,’ I exclaimed, ‘wherefore this atrocity?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘This man,’ he replied, ‘is a blasphemer, who hath said that the Book of Ad is +written on the bones of a cow.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘But it is written on the bones of a cow! ‘I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Even so,’ said he, ‘and therefore is his heresy the more damnable, and his +punishment the more exemplary. Had it been indeed written on the bones of a +camel, he might have affirmed what pleased him.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And I shook off the dust from my feet, and hastened to my dwelling. The rest +of Abdallah’s acts thou knowest, and how he fell warring with the Carmathians. +And now I ask thee, art thou yet minded to go forth as a missionary of the +truth?” +</p> + +<p> +“O Sergius,” said the young man, “I perceive that the temptations are greater, +and the difficulties far surpassing what I had thought. Yet will I go, and I +trust by Heaven’s grace not to fail utterly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then go,” said Sergius, “and Heaven’s blessing go with thee! Come back in ten +years, should I be living, and if thou canst declare that thou hast forged no +scriptures, and worked no miracles, and persecuted no unbelievers, and +flattered no potentate, and bribed no one with the promise of aught in heaven +or earth, I will give thee the philosopher’s stone.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>ANANDA THE MIRACLE WORKER</h2> + +<p> +The holy Buddha, Sakhya Muni, on dispatching his apostles to proclaim his +religion throughout the peninsula of India, failed not to provide them with +salutary precepts for their guidance. He exhorted them to meekness, to +compassion, to abstemiousness, to zeal in the promulgation of his doctrine, and +added an injunction never before or since prescribed by the founder of any +religion—namely, on no account to perform any miracle. +</p> + +<p> +It is further related, that whereas the apostles experienced considerable +difficulty in complying with the other instructions of their master, and +sometimes actually failed therein, the prohibition to work miracles was never +once transgressed by any of them, save only the pious Ananda, the history of +whose first year’s apostolate is recorded as follows. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda repaired to the kingdom of Magadha, and instructed the inhabitants +diligently in the law of Buddha. His doctrine being acceptable, and his speech +persuasive, the people hearkened to him willingly, and began to forsake the +Brahmins whom they had previously revered as spiritual guides. Perceiving this, +Ananda became elated in spirit, and one day he exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“How blessed is the apostle who propagates truth by the efficacy of reason and +virtuous example, combined with eloquence, rather than error by imposture and +devil-mongering, like those miserable Brahmins!” +</p> + +<p> +As he uttered this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was +diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from him, +insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first mocked, then +hooted, and finally pelted him. +</p> + +<p> +When matters had reached this pass, Ananda lifted his eyes and discerned a +number of Brahmins of the lower sort, busy about a boy who lay in a fit upon +the ground. They had long been applying exorcisms and other approved methods +with scant success, when the most sagacious among them suggested: +</p> + +<p> +“Let us render the body of this patient an uncomfortable residence for the +demon; peradventure he will then cease to abide therein.” +</p> + +<p> +They were accordingly engaged in branding the sufferer with hot irons, filling +his nostrils with smoke, and otherwise to the best of their ability disquieting +the intrusive devil. Ananda’s first thought was, “The lad is in a fit;” the +second, “It were a pious deed to deliver him from his tormentors;” the third, +“By good management this may extricate me from my present uncomfortable +predicament, and redound to the glory of the most holy Buddha.” +</p> + +<p> +Yielding to this temptation, he strode forward, chased away the Brahmins with +an air of authority, and, uplifting his countenance to heaven, recited the +appellations of seven devils. No effect ensuing, he repeated seven more, and so +continued until, the fit having passed off in the course of nature, the +patient’s paroxysms ceased, he opened his eyes, and Ananda restored him to his +relatives. But the people cried loudly, “A miracle! a miracle!” and when Ananda +resumed his instructions, they gave heed to him, and numbers embraced the +religion of Buddha. Whereupon Ananda exulted, and applauded himself for his +dexterity and presence of mind, and said to himself: +</p> + +<p> +“Surely the end sanctifies the means,” +</p> + +<p> +As he propounded this heresy, the eminence of his merits was reduced to the +dimensions of a mole-hill, and he ceased to be of account in the eyes of any of +the saints, save only of Buddha, whose compassion is inexhaustible. +</p> + +<p> +The fame of his achievement, nevertheless, was bruited about the whole country, +and soon reached the ears of the king, who sent for him, and inquired if he had +actually expelled the demon. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda replied in the affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +“I am indeed rejoiced,” returned the king, “as thou now wilt without doubt +proceed to heal <i>my</i> son, who has lain in a trance for twenty-nine days.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! dread sovereign,” modestly returned Ananda, “how should the merits which +barely suffice to effect the cure of a miserable Pariah avail to restore the +offspring of an Elephant among Kings?” +</p> + +<p> +“By what process are these merits acquired?” demanded the monarch. +</p> + +<p> +“By the exercise of penance,” responded Ananda, “in virtue of which the austere +devotee quells the winds, allays the waters, expostulates convincingly with +tigers, carries the moon in his sleeve, and otherwise performs all acts and +deeds appropriate to the character of a peripatetic thaumaturgist.” +</p> + +<p> +“This being so,” answered the king, “thy inability to heal my son manifestly +arises from defect of merit, and defect of merit from defect of penance. I will +therefore consign thee to the charge of my Brahmins, that they may aid thee to +fill up the measure of that which is lacking.” +</p> + +<p> +Ananda vainly strove to explain that the austerities to which he had referred +were entirely of a spiritual and contemplative character. The Brahmins, +enchanted to get a heretic into their clutches, immediately seized upon him, +and conveyed him to one of their temples. They stripped him, and perceived with +astonishment that not one single weal or scar was visible anywhere on his +person. “Horror!” they exclaimed; “here is a man who expects to go to heaven in +a whole skin!” To obviate this breach of etiquette, they laid him upon his +face, and flagellated him until the obnoxious soundness of cuticle was entirely +removed. They then departed, promising to return next day and operate in a +corresponding manner upon the anterior part of his person, after which, they +jeeringly assured him, his merits would be in no respect less than those of the +saintly Bhagiratha, or of the regal Viswamitra himself. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda lay half dead upon the floor of the temple, when the sanctuary was +illuminated by the apparition of a resplendent Glendoveer, who thus addressed +him: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, backsliding disciple, art thou yet convinced of thy folly?” +</p> + +<p> +Ananda relished neither the imputation on his orthodoxy nor that on his wisdom. +He replied, notwithstanding, with all meekness: +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid that I should repine at any variety of martyrdom that tends to +the propagation of my master’s faith.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wilt thou then first be healed, and moreover become the instrument of +converting the entire realm of Magadha?” +</p> + +<p> +“How shall this be accomplished?” demanded Ananda. +</p> + +<p> +“By perseverance in the path of deceit and disobedience,” returned the +Glendoveer. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda winced, but maintained silence in the expectation of more explicit +directions. +</p> + +<p> +“Know,” pursued the spirit, “that the king’s son will revive from his trance at +the expiration of the thirtieth day, which takes place at noon to-morrow. Thou +hast but to proceed at the fitting period to the couch whereon he is deposited, +and, placing thy hand upon his heart, to command him to rise forthwith. His +recovery will be ascribed to thy supernatural powers, and the establishment of +Buddha’s religion will result. Before this it will be needful that I should +perform an actual cure upon thy back, which is within the compass of my +capacity. I only request thee to take notice, that thou wilt on this occasion +be transgressing the precepts of thy master with thine eyes open. It is also +meet to apprise thee that thy temporary extrication from thy present +difficulties will only involve thee in others still more formidable.” +</p> + +<p> +“An incorporeal Glendoveer is no judge of the feelings of a flayed apostle,” +thought Ananda. “Heal me,” he replied, “if thou canst, and reserve thy +admonitions for a more convenient opportunity.” +</p> + +<p> +“So be it,” returned the Glendoveer; and as he extended his hand over Ananda, +the latter’s back was clothed anew with skin, and his previous smart +simultaneously allayed. The Glendoveer vanished at the same moment, saying, +“When thou hast need of me, pronounce but the incantation, <i>Gnooh Imdap Inam +Mua</i>, [*] and I will immediately be by thy side.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +*) The mystic formula of the Buddhists, read backwards. +</p> + +<p> +The anger and amazement of the Brahmins may be conceived when, on returning +equipped with fresh implements of flagellation, they discovered the salubrious +condition of their victim. Their scourges would probably have undergone +conversion into halters, had they not been accompanied by a royal officer, who +took the really triumphant martyr under his protection, and carried him off to +the palace. He was speedily conducted to the young prince’s couch, whither a +vast crowd attended him. The hour of noon not having yet arrived, Ananda +discreetly protracted the time by a seasonable discourse on the impossibility +of miracles, those only excepted which should be wrought by the professors of +the faith of Buddha. He then descended from his pulpit, and precisely as the +sun attained the zenith laid his hand upon the bosom of the young prince, who +instantly revived, and completed a sentence touching the game of dice which had +been interrupted by his catalepsy. +</p> + +<p> +The people shouted, the courtiers went into ecstasies, the countenances of the +Brahmins assumed an exceedingly sheepish expression. Even the king seemed +impressed, and craved to be more particularly instructed in the law of Buddha. +In complying with this request, Ananda, who had made marvellous progress in +worldly wisdom during the last twenty-four hours, deemed it needless to dilate +on the cardinal doctrines of his master, the misery of existence, the need of +redemption, the path to felicity, the prohibition to shed blood. He simply +stated that the priests of Buddha were bound to perpetual poverty, and that +under the new dispensation all ecclesiastical property would accrue to the +temporal authorities. +</p> + +<p> +“By the holy cow!” exclaimed the monarch, “this is something like a religion!” +</p> + +<p> +The words were scarcely out of the royal lips ere the courtiers professed +themselves converts. The multitude followed their example. The Brahminical +church was promptly disestablished and disendowed, and more injustice was +committed in the name of the new and purified religion in one day than the old +corrupt one had occasioned in a hundred years. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda had the satisfaction of feeling able to forgive his adversaries, and of +valuing himself accordingly; and to complete his felicity, he was received in +the palace, and entrusted with the education of the king’s son, which he strove +to conduct agreeably to the precepts of Buddha. This was a task of some +delicacy, as it involved interference with the princely youth’s favourite +amusement, which had previously consisted in torturing small reptiles. +</p> + +<p> +After a short interval Ananda was again summoned to the monarch’s presence. He +found his majesty in the company of two most ferocious ruffians, one of whom +bore a huge axe, and the other an enormous pair of pincers. +</p> + +<p> +“My chief executioner and my chief tormentor,” said the king. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda expressed his gratification at becoming acquainted with such exalted +functionaries. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou must know, most holy man,” resumed the king, “that need has again arisen +for the exercise of fortitude and self-denial on thy part. A powerful enemy has +invaded my dominions, and has impiously presumed to discomfit my troops. Well +might I feel dismayed, were it not for the consolations of religion; but my +trust is in thee, O spiritual father! It is urgent that thou shouldst +accumulate the largest amount of merit with the least delay possible. I am +unable to invoke the ministrations of thy old friends the Brahmins to this end, +they being, as thou knowest, in disgrace, but I have summoned these trusty and +experienced counsellors in their room. I find them not wholly in accord. My +chief tormentor, being a man of mild temper and humane disposition, considers +that it might at first suffice to employ gentle measures, such, for example, as +suspending thee head downwards in the smoke of a wood fire, and filling thy +nostrils with red pepper. My chief executioner, taking, peradventure, a too +professional view of the subject, deems it best to resort at once to +crucifixion or impalement. I would gladly know thy thoughts on the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +Ananda expressed, as well as his terror would suffer him, his entire +disapproval of both the courses recommended by the royal advisers. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the king, with an air of resignation, “if we cannot agree upon +either, it follows that we must try both. We will meet for that purpose +to-morrow morning at the second hour. Go in peace!” +</p> + +<p> +Ananda went, but not in peace. His alarm would have well-nigh deprived him of +his faculties if he had not remembered the promise made him by his former +deliverer. On reaching a secluded spot he pronounced the mystic formula, and +immediately became aware of the presence, not of a radiant Glendoveer, but of a +holy man, whose head was strewn with ashes, and his body anointed with +cow-dung. +</p> + +<p> +“Thy occasion,” said the Fakir, “brooks no delay. Thou must immediately +accompany me, and assume the garb of a Jogi.” +</p> + +<p> +Ananda rebelled excessively in his heart, for he had imbibed from the mild and +sage Buddha a befitting contempt for these grotesque and cadaverous fanatics. +The emergency, however, left him no resource, and he followed his guide to a +charnel house, which the latter had selected as his domicile. There, with many +lamentations over the smoothness of his hair and the brevity of his nails, the +Jogi besprinkled and besmeared Ananda agreeably to his own pattern, and scored +him with chalk and ochre until the peaceful apostle of the gentlest of creeds +resembled a Bengal tiger. He then hung a chaplet of infants’ skulls about his +neck, placed the skull of a malefactor in one of his hands and the thigh-bone +of a necromancer in the other, and at nightfall conducted him into the adjacent +cemetery, where, seating him on the ashes of a recent funeral pile, he bade him +drum upon the skull with the thigh-bone, and repeat after himself the +incantations which he began to scream out towards the western part of the +firmament. These charms were apparently possessed of singular efficacy, for +scarcely were they commenced ere a hideous tempest arose, rain descended in +torrents, phosphoric flashes darted across the sky, wolves and hyænas thronged +howling from their dens, and gigantic goblins, arising from the earth, extended +their fleshless arms towards Ananda, and strove to drag him from his seat. +Urged by frantic terror, and the example and exhortations of his companion, he +battered, banged, and vociferated, until on the very verge of exhaustion; when, +as if by enchantment, the tempest ceased, the spectres disappeared, and joyous +shouts and a burst of music announced the occurrence of something auspicious in +the adjoining city. +</p> + +<p> +“The hostile king is dead,” said the Jogi; “and his army has dispersed. This +will be attributed to thy incantations. They are coming in quest of thee even +now. Farewell until thou again hast need of me.” +</p> + +<p> +The Jogi disappeared, the tramp of a procession became audible, and soon +torches glared feebly through the damp, cheerless dawn. The monarch descended +from his state elephant, and, prostrating himself before Ananda, exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Inestimable man! why didst thou not disclose that thou wert a Jogi? Never more +shall I feel the least apprehension of any of my enemies, so long as thou +continuest an inmate of this cemetery.” +</p> + +<p> +A family of jackals were unceremoniously dislodged from a disused sepulchre, +which was allotted to Ananda for his future residence. The king permitted no +alteration in his costume, and took care that the food doled out to him should +have no tendency to impair his sanctity, which speedily gave promise of +attaining a very high pitch. His hair had already become as matted and his +nails as long as the Jogi could have desired, when he received a visit from +another royal messenger. The Rajah, so ran the regal missive, had been suddenly +and mysteriously attacked by a dangerous malady, but confidently anticipated +relief from Ananda’s merits and incantations. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda resumed his thigh-bone and his skull, and ruefully began to thump the +latter with the former, in dismal expectation of the things that were to come. +But the spell seemed to have lost its potency. Nothing more unearthly than a +bat presented itself, and Ananda was beginning to think that he might as well +desist when his reflections were diverted by the apparition of a tall and grave +personage, wearing a sad-coloured robe, and carrying a long wand, who stood by +his side as suddenly as though just risen from the earth. +</p> + +<p> +“The caldron is ready,” said the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“What caldron?” demanded Ananda. +</p> + +<p> +“That wherein thou art about to be immersed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I immersed in a caldron! wherefore?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy spells,” returned his interlocutor, “having hitherto failed to afford his +majesty the slightest relief, and his experience of their efficacy on a former +occasion forbidding him to suppose that they can be inoperative, he is +naturally led to ascribe to their pernicious influence that aggravation of pain +of which he has for some time past unfortunately been sensible. I have +confirmed him in this conjecture, esteeming it for the interest of science that +his anger should fall upon an impudent impostor like thee rather than on a +discreet and learned physician like myself. He has consequently directed the +principal caldron to be kept boiling all night, intending to immerse thee +therein at daybreak, unless he should in the meantime derive some benefit from +thy conjurations.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens!” exclaimed Ananda, “whither shall I fly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nowhere beyond this cemetery,” returned the physician, “inasmuch as it is +entirely surrounded by the royal forces.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wherein, then,” demanded the agonized apostle, “doth the path of safety lie?” +</p> + +<p> +“In this phial,” answered the physician. “It contains a subtle poison. Demand +to be led before the king. Affirm that thou hast received a sovereign medicine +from the hands of benignant spirits. He will drink it and perish, and thou wilt +be richly rewarded by his successor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ayaunt, tempter!” cried Ananda, hurling the phial indignantly away. “I defy +thee! and will have recourse to my old deliverer—<i>Gnooh Imdap Inam +Mua!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +But the charm appeared to fail of its effect. No figure was visible to his +gaze, save that of the physician, who seemed to regard him with an expression +of pity as he gathered up his robes and melted rather than glided into the +encompassing darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda remained, contending with himself. Countless times was he on the point +of calling after the physician and imploring him to return with a potion of +like properties to the one rejected, but something seemed always to rise in his +throat and impede his utterance, until, worn out by agitation, he fell asleep +and dreamed this dream. +</p> + +<p> +He thought he stood at the vast and gloomy entrance of Patala. [*] The +lugubrious spot wore a holiday appearance; everything seemed to denote a +diabolical gala. Swarms of demons of all shapes and sizes beset the portal, +contemplating what appeared to be preparations for an illumination. Strings of +coloured lamps were in course of disposition in wreaths and festoons by legions +of frolicsome imps, chattering, laughing, and swinging by their tails like so +many monkeys. The operation was directed from below by superior fiends of great +apparent gravity and respectability. These bore wands of office, tipped with +yellow flames, wherewith they singed the tails of the imps when such discipline +appeared to them to be requisite. Ananda could not refrain from asking the +reason of these festive preparations. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +*) The Hindoo Pandemonium. +</p> + +<p> +“They are in honour,” responded the demon interrogated, “of the pious Ananda, +one of the apostles of the Lord Buddha, whose advent is hourly expected among +us with much eagerness and satisfaction.” +</p> + +<p> +The horrified Ananda with much difficulty mustered resolution to inquire on +what account the apostle in question was necessitated to take up his abode in +the infernal regions. +</p> + +<p> +“On account of poisoning,” returned the fiend laconically. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda was about to seek further explanations, when his attention was arrested +by a violent altercation between two of the supervising demons. +</p> + +<p> +“Kammuragha, evidently,” croaked one. +</p> + +<p> +“Damburanana, of course,” snarled the other. +</p> + +<p> +“May I,” inquired Ananda of the fiend he had before addressed, “presume to ask +the signification of Kammuragha and Damburanana?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are two hells,” replied the demon. “In Kammuragha the occupant is plunged +into melted pitch and fed with melted lead. In Damburanana he is plunged into +melted lead and fed with melted pitch. My colleagues are debating which is the +more appropriate to the demerits of our guest Ananda.” +</p> + +<p> +Ere Ananda had had time to digest this announcement a youthful imp descended +from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, presented himself +before the disputants. +</p> + +<p> +“Venerable demons,” interposed he, “might my insignificance venture to suggest +that we cannot well testify too much honour for our visitor Ananda, seeing that +he is the only apostle of Buddha with whose company we are likely ever to be +indulged? Wherefore I would propose that neither Kammuragha nor Damburanana be +assigned for his residence, but that the amenities of all the two hundred and +forty-four thousand hells be combined in a new one, constructed especially for +his reception.” +</p> + +<p> +The imp having thus spoken, the senior demons were amazed at his precocity, and +performed a <i>pradakshina</i>, exclaiming, “Truly thou art a highly superior +young devil!” They then departed to prepare the new infernal chamber, agreeably +to his recipe. +</p> + +<p> +Ananda awoke, shuddering with terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” he exclaimed, “why was I ever an apostle? O Buddha! Buddha! how hard are +the paths of saintliness! How prone to error are the well-meaning! How huge is +the absurdity of spiritual pride!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast discovered that, my son?” said a gentle voice in his vicinity. +</p> + +<p> +He turned and beheld the divine Buddha, radiant with a mild and benignant +light. A cloud seemed rolled away from his vision, and he recognised in his +master the Glendoveer, the Jogi, and the Physician. +</p> + +<p> +“O holy teacher!” exclaimed he in extreme perturbation, “whither shall I turn? +My sin forbids me to approach thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not on account of thy sin art thou forbidden, my son,” returned Buddha, “but +on account of the ridiculous and unsavoury plight to which thy knavery and +disobedience have reduced thee. I have now appeared to remind thee that this +day all my apostles meet on Mount Vindhya to render an account of their +mission, and to inquire whether I am to deliver thine in thy stead, or whether +thou art minded to proclaim it thyself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will render it with my own lips,” resolutely exclaimed Ananda. “It is meet +that I should bear the humiliation of acknowledging my folly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast said well, my son,” replied Buddha, “and in return I will permit +thee to discard the attire, if such it may be termed, of a Jogi, and to appear +in our assembly wearing the yellow robe as beseems my disciple. Nay, I will +even infringe my own rule on thy behalf, and perform a not inconsiderable +miracle by immediately transporting thee to the summit of Vindhya, where the +faithful are already beginning to assemble. Thou wouldst otherwise incur much +risk of being torn to pieces by the multitude, who, as the shouts now +approaching may instruct thee, are beginning to extirpate my religion at the +instigation of the new king, thy hopeful pupil. The old king is dead, poisoned +by the Brahmins.” +</p> + +<p> +“O master! master!” exclaimed Ananda, weeping bitterly, “and is all the work +undone, and all by my fault and folly?” +</p> + +<p> +“That which is built on fraud and imposture can by no means endure,” returned +Buddha, “be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou shalt proclaim my +doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast this time but a sorry +account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou mayest truly declare that thou +hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if not in the spirit, since none can +assert that thou hast ever wrought any miracle.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>THE CITY OF PHILOSOPHERS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +Nature is manifold, not infinite, though the extent of the resources of which +she can dispose almost enables her to pass for such. Her cards are so +multitudinous that the pairs are easily shuffled into ages so far asunder that +their resemblance escapes remark. But sometimes her mischievous daughter +Fortune manages to thrust these duplicates into such conspicuous places that +their similarity cannot pass unobserved, and Nature is caught plagiarising from +herself. She is thus detected dealing a king—or knave—a second time +in the person of a king who has already fallen from her pack as an emperor. +Brilliant, careless, selfish, yet good-natured <i>vauriens</i>, the Roman +Emperor Gallienus and our Charles the Second excelled in every art save the art +of reigning, and might have excelled in that also if they would have taken the +trouble. The circumstances of their reigns were in many respects as similar as +their characters. Both were the sons of grave and strict fathers, each of whom +had met with terrible misfortunes: one deprived of his liberty by his enemies, +the other of his head by his own subjects. Each of the sons had been grievously +vexed by rebels, but Charles’s troubles from this quarter had mostly ended +where those of Gallienus began. Each saw his dominions ravaged by pestilence in +a manner beyond all former experience. The Goths destroyed the temple of the +Ephesian Diana, and the Dutch burned the English fleet at Chatham. Charles shut +up the Exchequer, and Gallienus debased the coinage. Charles accepted a pension +from Louis XIV., and Gallienus devolved the burden of his Eastern provinces on +a Syrian Emir. Their tastes and pursuits were as similar as their histories. +Charles excelled as a wit and a critic; Gallienus as a poet and a gastronomer. +Charles was curious about chemistry, and founded the Royal Society. In the +third century the conception of the systematic investigation of nature did not +exist. Gallienus, therefore, could not patronise exact science; and the great +literary light of the age, Longinus, irradiated the court of Palmyra. But the +Emperor bestowed his favour in ample measure on the chief contemporary +philosopher, Plotinus, who strove to unite the characters of Plato and +Pythagoras, of sage and seer. Like Schelling in time to come, he maintained the +necessity of a special organ for the apprehension of philosophy, without +perceiving that he thereby proclaimed philosophy bankrupt, and placed himself +on the level of the Oriental hierophants, with whose sublime quackeries the +modest sage could not hope to contend. So extreme was his humility, that he +would not claim to have been consciously united to the Divinity more than four +times in his life; without condemning magic and thaumaturgy, he left their +practice to more adventurous spirits, and contented himself with the occasional +visits of a familiar demon in the shape of a serpent. He experienced, however, +frequent visitations of trance or ecstasy, sometimes lasting for a long period; +and it may have been in one of these that he was inspired by the idea of asking +the Emperor for a decayed city in Campania, there to establish a philosophic +commonwealth as nearly upon the model of Plato’s Republic as the degeneracy of +the times would allow. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot,” said Gallienus, when the project had been explained to him, “object +in principle to aught so festive and jocose. The age is turned upside down; its +comedians are lamentable, and its sages ludicrous. It must moreover, I +apprehend, be sated with the earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and barbarian +invasions with which it hath been exclusively regaled for so long, and must +crave something enlivening, of the nature of thy proposition. But whether, when +we arrive at the consideration of ways and means, I shall find my interview +with my treasurer enlivening, is gravely to be questioned. I have heard +homilies enough on my prodigality, which merely means that I prefer spending my +treasures on myself to saving them for my successor, whose title will probably +have been acquired by cutting my throat.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Plotinus, “that the expenses of administering an empire must +necessarily be prodigious. I am aware that the principal generals are only kept +to their allegiance by enormous bribes. I well understand that the Empress must +have pearls, and that the Roman populace must have panthers; and that, since +Egypt has revolted, the hippopotamus is worth his weight in gold. I am further +aware that the proposed colossal statue of your Majesty in the same metal, +including a staircase, with room in the head for a child, like another Pallas +in the brain of Zeus, must alone involve very considerable outlay. But I am +encouraged by your Majesty’s wise and statesmanlike measure of debasing the +currency; since, money having become devoid of value, there can be no +difficulty in devoting any amount of it to any purpose required.” +</p> + +<p> +“Plotinus,” said Gallienus, “in this age the devil is taking the hindmost, and +we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in Bithynia, +and three days’ darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and incursions of +the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to mention. At this +moment some revolted legion is probably forcing the purple upon some reluctant +general; and the Persian king, a great equestrian, is doubtless mounting his +horse by the aid of my father’s back. If I had been an old Roman, I should by +this time have avenged my father, but I am a man of my age. Take the money for +thy city, and see that it yields me some amusement at any rate. I assume, of +course, that thou wilt exercise severe economy, and that cresses and spring +water will be the diet of thy philosophers. Farewell, I go to Gaul to encounter +Postumus. Willingly would I leave him in peace in Gaul if he would leave me in +peace in Italy; but I foresee that if I do not attack him there he will attack +me here. As if the Empire were not large enough for us all! What an ass the +fellow must be!” +</p> + +<p> +And so Gallienus changed his silk for steel, and departed for his Gallic +campaign, where he bore himself more stoutly than his light talk would have led +those who judged him by it to expect. Plotinus, provided with an Imperial +rescript, undertook the regulation of his philosophical commonwealth in +Campania, where a brief experience of architects and sophists threw him into an +ecstasy, not of joy, which endured an unusually long time. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus’s first sensation was one of bodily +hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his philosophical +Republic. In both respects it promised well to perceive that his chamber was +occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry, though he was less gratified to +observe his disciple busied, instead of with the scrolls of the sages, with an +enormous roll of accounts, which appeared to be occasioning him much +perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +“Porphyry!” cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his couch in a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +We pass over the mutual joy, the greetings, the administration of restoratives +and creature comforts, the eager interrogations of Porphyry respecting the +things his master had heard and seen in his trance, which proved to be +unspeakable. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man of +business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special request as a +trustee, “and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it possible that the +accounts connected with the installation of a few abstemious lovers of wisdom +can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk? But indeed, why few? Peradventure +all the philosophers of the earth have flocked to my city.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has, indeed,” said Porphyry evasively, “been found necessary to incur +certain expenses not originally foreseen.” +</p> + +<p> +“For a library, perhaps?” inquired Plotinus. “I remember thinking, just before +my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them autographic, +might require some special housing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I rejoice to state,” rejoined Porphyry, “that it is not these volumes that +have involved us in our present difficulties with the superintendent of the +Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing that they are now impignorated +with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Plato’s manuscripts pawned!” exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. “Wherefore?” +</p> + +<p> +“As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects deemed +of more importance by the majority of the philosophers.” +</p> + +<p> +“For example?” +</p> + +<p> +“Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bath! Amphitheatre!” gasped Plotinus. +</p> + +<p> +“O dear master,” remonstrated Porphyry, “thou didst not deem that philosophers +could be induced to settle in a spot devoid of these necessaries? Not a single +one would have stayed if I had not yielded to their demands, which, as regarded +the bath, involved the addition of exedrae and of a sphaeristerium.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what can they want with an amphitheatre?” groaned Plotinus. +</p> + +<p> +“They <i>say</i> it is for lectures,” replied Porphyry; +</p> + +<p> +“I trust there is no truth in the rumour that the head of the Stoics is three +parts owner of a lion of singular ferocity.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must see to this as soon as I can get about,” said Plotinus, turning to the +accounts. “What’s this? To couch and litter for head of Peripatetic school!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is so enormously fat,” explained Porphyry, “that these conveniences are +really indispensable to him. The Peripatetic school is positively at a +standstill.” +</p> + +<p> +“And no great matter,” said Plotinus; “its master Aristotle was at best a +rationalist, without perception of the supersensual. What’s this? To Maximus, +for the invocation of demons.” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said Porphyry, “is our own Platonic dirty linen, and I heartily wish we +were washing it elsewhere. Thou must know, dear master, that during thy trance +the theurgic movement has attained a singular development, and that thou art +regarded with disdain by thy younger disciples as one wholly behind the age, +unacquainted with the higher magic, and who can produce no other outward and +visible token of the Divine favour than the occasional companionship of a +serpent.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken,” replied +Plotinus, “provided that the adept shall have purified himself by a fast of +forty months.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may be from neglect of this precaution,” said Porphyry, “that our Maximus +finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and Caracalla than +those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good spirits, when they +do come, have no more recondite information to convey than that virtue differs +from vice, and that one’s grandmother is a fitting object of reverence.” +</p> + +<p> +“I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean scoffers,” +remarked Plotinus. +</p> + +<p> +“O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till thou hast +regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some oracle.” +</p> + +<p> +“What meanest thou?” exclaimed Plotinus, “I insist upon knowing.” +</p> + +<p> +Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling portly +personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus recognised +Theocles, the chief of the Stoics. +</p> + +<p> +“I rejoice, Plotinus,” he began, “that thou hast at length emerged from that +condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might well designate +as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak no word which can +offend any man. Thou wilt now be able to reprehend the malice or obtuseness of +thy deputy, and to do me right in my contention with these impure dogs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which be they?” asked Plotinus. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I not sufficiently indicate the followers of Epicurus?” demanded the Stoic. +</p> + +<p> +“O master,” explained Porphyry, “in allotting and fitting up apartments +designed for the respective sects of philosophers I naturally gave heed to what +I understood to be the principles of each. To the Epicureans, as lovers of +pleasure and luxury, I assigned the most commodious quarters, furnished the +same with soft cushions and costly hangings, and provided a liberal table. I +should have deemed it insulting to have offered any of these things to the +frugal followers of Zeno, and nothing can surpass my astonishment at the manner +in which the austere Theocles has incessantly persecuted me for choice food and +wine, stately rooms and soft couches.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Plotinus,” replied Theocles, “let me make the grounds of my conduct clear to +thee. In the first place, the honour of my school is in my keeping. What will +the vulgar think when they see the sty of Epicurus sumptuously adorned, and the +porch of Zeno shabby and bare? Will they not deem that the Epicureans are +highly respected and the Stoics made of little account? Furthermore, how can I +and my disciples manifest our contempt for gold, dainties, wine, fine linen, +and all the other instruments of luxury, unless we have them to despise? Shall +we not appear like foxes, vilipending the grapes that we cannot reach? Not so; +offer me delicacies that I may reject them, wine that I may pour it into the +kennel, Tyrian purple that I may trample upon it, gold that I may fling it +away; if it break an Epicurean’s head, so much the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Plotinus,” said Hermon, the chief of the Epicureans, who had meanwhile entered +the apartment, “let this hypocrite have what he wants, and send him away. I and +my followers are perfectly willing to remove at once into the inferior +apartments, and leave ours for his occupation with all their furniture, and the +reversion of our bill of fare. Thou should’st know that the imputations of the +vulgar against our sect are the grossest calumnies. The Epicurean places +happiness in tranquil enjoyment, not in luxury or sensual pleasures. There is +not a thing I possess which I am not perfectly willing to resign, except the +society of my female disciple.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy female disciple!” exclaimed the horrified Plotinus. “Thou art worse than +the Stoic!” +</p> + +<p> +“Plotinus,” said the Epicurean, “consider well ere, as is the manner of +Platonists, thou committest thyself to a proposition of a transparently foolish +nature. Thou desirest to gather all sorts of philosophers around thee, but to +what end, if they are restrained from manifesting their characteristic tenets? +Thou mightest as well seek to illustrate the habits of animals by establishing +a menagerie in which panthers should eat grass, and antelopes be dieted on +rabbits. An Epicurean without his female companion, unless by his own choice, +is no more an Epicurean than a Cynic is a Cynic without his rags and his +impudence. Wilt thou take from me my Pannychis, an object pleasing to the eye, +and leave yonder fellow his tatters and his vermin?” +</p> + +<p> +The apartment had gradually filled with philosophers, and Hermon was pointing +to a follower of Diogenes whose robe so fully bespoke his obedience to his +master’s precepts that his skin seemed almost clean in comparison. +</p> + +<p> +“Consider also,” continued the Epicurean, “that thou art thyself by no means +exempt from scandal.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does the man mean?” demanded Plotinus, turning to Porphyry. +</p> + +<p> +“Get them away,” whispered the disciple, “and I will tell thee.” +</p> + +<p> +Plotinus hastily conceded the point raised with reference to the interesting +Pannychis, and the philosophers went off to effect their exchange of quarters. +As soon as the room was clear, he repeated: +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>does</i> the man mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he is thinking of Leaena,” said Porphyry. +</p> + +<p> +“The most notorious character in Rome, who, finding her charms on the wane, has +lately betaken herself to philosophy?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same.” +</p> + +<p> +“What of her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has followed thee here. She affects the greatest devotion to thee. She +vows that nothing shall make her budge until thou hast recovered from thy +ecstasy, and admitted her as thy disciple. She has rejected numerous overtures +from the philosopher Theocles; entirely for thy sake, she affirms. She comes +three times a day to inquire respecting thy condition, and I fear it must be +acknowledged that she has once or twice managed to get into thy chamber.” +</p> + +<p> +“O ye immortal Gods!” groaned Plotinus. +</p> + +<p> +“Here she is!” exclaimed Porphyry, as a woman of masculine stature and bearing, +with the remains of beauty not unskilfully patched, forced an entrance into the +room. +</p> + +<p> +“Plotinus,” she exclaimed, “behold the most impassioned of thy disciples. Let +us celebrate the mystic nuptials of Wisdom and Beauty. Let the claims of my sex +to philosophic distinction be vindicated in my person.” +</p> + +<p> +“The question of the admission of women to share the studies and society of +men,” rejoined Plotinus, “is one by no means exempt from difficulty.” +</p> + +<p> +“How so? I deemed it had been determined long ago in favour of Aspasia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aspasia,” said Plotinus, “was a very exceptional woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“And am not I?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope, that is, I conceive so,” said Plotinus. “But one may be an exceptional +woman without being an Aspasia.” +</p> + +<p> +“How so? Am I inferior to Aspasia in beauty?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hope not,” said Plotinus ambiguously. +</p> + +<p> +“Or in the irregularity of my deportment?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think not,” said Plotinus, with more confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why does the Plato of our age hesitate to welcome his Diotima?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” said Plotinus, “you are not Diotima, and I am not Plato.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure I am as much like Diotima as you are like Plato,” retorted the lady. +“But let us come to our own time. Do I not hear that that creature Pannychis +has obtained the freedom of the philosophers’ city, and the right to study +therein?” +</p> + +<p> +“She takes private lessons from Hermon, who is responsible for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“The very thing!” exclaimed Leaena triumphantly. “I take private lessons from +thee, and thou art responsible for me. Venus! what’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +The exclamation was prompted by the sudden appearance of an enormous serpent, +which, emerging from a chink in the wall, glided swiftly towards the couch of +Plotinus. He reached forward to greet it, uttering a cry of pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“My guardian, my tutelary dæmon,” he exclaimed, “visible manifestation of +Æsculapius! Then I am not forsaken by the immortal gods.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take away the monster,” cried Leaena, in violent agitation, “the nasty thing! +Plotinus, how can you? Oh, I shall faint! I shall die! Take it away, I say. You +must choose between it and me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, Madam,” said Plotinus, civilly but firmly, “I choose <i>it</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Æsculapius we are rid of her,” he added, as Leaena vanished from the +apartment. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I knew that,” said Porphyry. +</p> + +<p> +And indeed after no long time a note came up from Theocles, who was sure that +Plotinus would not refuse him that privilege of instructing a female disciple +which had been already, with such manifest advantage to philosophical research, +accorded to his colleague Hermon. No objection could well be made, especially +as Plotinus did not foresee how many chambermaids, and pages, and cooks, and +perfumers, and tiring women and bath attendants would be required, ere Leaena +could feel herself moderately comfortable. How unlike the modest Pannychis! who +wanted but half a bed, which need not be stuffed with the down of hares or the +feathers of partridges, without which sleep refused to visit Leaena’s eyelids. +</p> + +<p> +It was natural that Plotinus should appeal to Gallienus, now returned from the +Gallic expedition, but he could extract nothing save mysterious intimations +that the Emperor had his eye upon the philosophers, and that they might find +him among them when they least expected it. Plotinus’s spirits drooped, and +Porphyry was almost glad when he again relapsed into an ecstasy. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +When Plotinus’s eyes were at length opened, they fell not this time upon the +faithful Porphyry, but upon two youthful followers of Plato who were beguiling +the tedium of their vigil at his bedside by a game of dice, which prevented +their observing his resuscitation. After a moment’s hesitation Plotinus +resolved to lie quiet in the hopes of hearing something that might indicate +what influences were in the ascendant in the philosophical republic. He had not +long to wait. +</p> + +<p> +“Dice is dull work for long,” said one of the young men, indolently throwing +himself back, and letting his caster fall upon the floor. “To think how much +better one might be employed, but for having to watch this old fool here! I’ve +a great mind to call up a slave.” +</p> + +<p> +“All the slaves are sure to have gone to the show, unless any of them should be +Christians. Besides, Porphyry would hear you, he’s only in a cat’s sleep,” +returned his companion. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I mean to say it’s a shame. All the town will be in the theatre by this +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“How many gladiators, said you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forty pairs, the best show Campania has seen time out of mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“How has it all come about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, news comes of the death of Postumus, killed by his own soldiers, and this +passes as a great victory for want of a better, ‘We must have a day of +thanksgiving,’ says Theocles. ‘Right,’ says Leaena, ‘I am dying to see an +exhibition of gladiators.’ Theocles demurs at first, expecting to have to find +the money—but Leaena tugs at his beard, and he gives in. Just at the nick +of time the right sort of fellow pops up nobody knows whence, a lanista with +hair like curling helichryse, as Theocritus has it, and a small army of +gladiators, whom, out of devotion to the Emperor, he offers to exhibit for +nothing. Who so pleased as Theocles now? He takes the chair as archon with +Leaena by his side, and off goes every soul in the place, except Pannychis, who +cannot bear the sight of blood, and Porphyry, who is an outrageous +humanitarian, and us poor devils left in charge of this old dreamer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t we leave him to mind himself? He isn’t likely to awake yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try him with your cloak-pin.” The student detached the implement in question, +which was about the size of a small stiletto. Feeling uncertain what part of +his person was to be the subject of experiment, Plotinus judged it advisable to +manifest his recovery in an unmistakable fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“O dear Master, what joy!” cried both the students in a breath. “Porphyry! +Porphyry!” +</p> + +<p> +The trusty scholar appeared immediately, and under pretence of fetching food, +the two neophytes eloped to the amphitheatre. +</p> + +<p> +“What means all this, Porphyry?” demanded Plotinus sternly. “The City of +Philosophers polluted by human blood! The lovers of wisdom mingling with the +dregs of the rabble!” +</p> + +<p> +Porphyry’s account, which Plotinus could only extract by consenting to eat +while his disciple talked, corresponded in all essential particulars with that +of the two young men. +</p> + +<p> +“And I see not,” added he, “what we can do in the matter. This abomination is +supposed to be in honour of the Emperor’s victories. If we interfere with it we +shall be executed as rebels, supposing that we are not first torn to pieces as +rioters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Porphyry,” replied Plotinus, “I should esteem this disgrace to philosophy a +disgrace to myself if I did not my utmost to avert it. Remain thou here, and +perform my funeral rites if it be necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +But to this Porphyry would by no means consent, and the two philosophers +proceeded to the amphitheatre together. It was so crowded that there was no +room on the seats for another person. Theocles was enthroned in the chair of +honour, his beard manifesting evident traces of the depilatories administered +by Leaena, who nevertheless sat by his side, her voluptuous face gloating over +the anticipated banquet of agony. The philosophic part of the spectators were +ranged all around, the remaining seats were occupied by a miscellaneous public. +The master of the gladiators, a man of distinguished appearance, whose yellow +locks gave him the aspect of a barbarian prince, stood in the arena surrounded +by his myrmidons. The entry of Plotinus and Porphyry attracted his attention: +he motioned to his followers, and in an instant the philosophers were seized, +bound, and gagged without the excited assembly being in the least conscious of +their presence. +</p> + +<p> +Two men stepped out into the arena, both fine and attractive figures. The +athletic limbs, the fair complexion, the curling yellow hair of one proclaimed +the Goth; he lightly swung his huge sword in his right hand, and looked as if +his sole arm would easily put to flight the crowd of effeminate spectators. The +other’s beauty was of another sort; young, slender, pensive, spiritual, he +looked like anything rather than a gladiator, and held his downward pointed +sword with a negligent grasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Guard thyself!” cried the Goth, placing himself in an attitude of offence. +</p> + +<p> +“I spill not the blood of a fellow-creature,” answered the other, casting his +sword away from him. +</p> + +<p> +“Coward!” yelled well-nigh every voice in the amphitheatre. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” answered the youth with a grave smile, “Christian.” +</p> + +<p> +His shield and helmet followed his sword, he stood entirely defenceless before +his adversary. +</p> + +<p> +“Throw him to my lion,” cried Theocles. +</p> + +<p> +“Or thy lioness,” suggested Hermon. +</p> + +<p> +This allusion to Leaena provoked a burst of laughter. Suddenly the Goth aimed a +mighty blow at the head of the unresisting man. A shorn curl fell to the +ground, the consummate skill of the swordsman averted all further contact +between his blade and the Christian, who remained erect and smiling, without +having moved a muscle or an eyelash. +</p> + +<p> +“Master,” said the Goth, addressing the lanista, “I had rather fight ten armed +men than this unarmed one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good,” returned his lord, with a gesture of approval. “Retire both of you.” +</p> + +<p> +A roar of disapprobation broke out from the spectators, which seemed not to +produce the slightest effect on the lanista. +</p> + +<p> +“Turn out the next pair,” they cried. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Wherefore?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I do not choose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rogue! Cheat! Swindler! Cast him into prison! Throw him to the lion!” Such +epithets and recommendations rained from the spectators’ seats, accompanied by +a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant the yellow hair and +common dress lay on the ground, and those who knew him not by the features +could by the Imperial ornaments recognise the Emperor Gallienus. With no less +celerity his followers, the Goth and the Christian excepted, disencumbered +themselves of their exterior vesture, and stood forward in the character of +Roman soldiers. +</p> + +<p> +“Friends,” cried Gallienus, turning to the plebeian multitude, “I am not about +to balk you of your sport.” +</p> + +<p> +At a sign from him the legionaries ascended to the seats allotted to the +philosophic portion of the audience, and a torrent of wisdom in their persons, +including that of Leaena, flung forth with the energy of a catapult, descended +abruptly and violently to the earth. They were instantly seized and dragged +into an erect attitude by the remainder of the soldiery, who, amid the most +tempestuous peals of laughter and applause from the delighted public, thrust +swords into their hands, ranged them in opposite ranks, and summoned them to +begin the fight and quit themselves like men. It was equally ludicrous and +pitiable to see the bald, mostly grey-bearded men, their garments torn in their +expulsion and their persons bruised by the fall, confronting each other with +quaking limbs, helplessly brandishing their weapons or feebly calling their +adversaries to come on, while the soldiers prodded them from behind with +spears, and urged them into the close quarters they so anxiously desired to +avoid. Plotinus, helpless with his bonds and gag, looked on in impotent horror. +Gallienus was often cruel, but could he intend such a revolting massacre? There +must be something behind. +</p> + +<p> +The honour of developing the Emperor’s purpose was reserved for Theocles, who, +with admirable presence of mind, had ever since he found he must fight been +engaged in trying to select the weakest antagonist. After hesitating between +the unwieldy chief of the Peripatetics and the feminine Leaena he fixed on the +latter, partly moved, perhaps, by the hope of avenging his beard. With a +martial cry he sprang towards her, and upraised his weapon for a swashing blow. +But he had sadly miscalculated. Leaena was hardly less versed in the combats of +Mars than in those of Venus, having, in fact, commenced her distinguished +career as a camp-follower of the Emperor Gordian. A tremendous stroke caught +him on the hand; his blade dropped to the earth; why did not the fingers +follow? Leaena elucidated the problem by a still more violent blow on his face; +torrents of blood gushed forth indeed, but only from the nose. The sword +doubled up; it had neither point nor edge. Encouraged by this opportune +discovery the philosophers attacked each other with infinite spirit and valour. +Infuriated by the blows given and received, by the pokings and proddings of the +military, and the hilarious derision of the public, they cast away the shivered +blades and resorted to the weapons of Nature. They kicked, they cuffed, they +scratched, they tore the garments from each other’s shoulders, they foamed and +rolled gasping in the yellow sand of the arena. At a signal from the Emperor +the portal of the amphitheatre was thrown open, and the whole mass of clawing +and cuffing philosophy was bundled ignominiously into the street. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Gallienus was seated on his tribunal, and Plotinus, released from +his bonds, was standing by his side. +</p> + +<p> +“O Emperor,” he murmured, deeply abashed, “what can I urge? Thou wilt surely +demolish my city!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Plotinus,” replied Gallienus, pointing to the Goth and the Christian, +“there are the men who will destroy the City of Philosophers. Would that were +all they will destroy!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>THE DEMON POPE</h2> + +<p> +“So you won’t sell me your soul?” said the devil. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” replied the student, “I had rather keep it myself, if it’s all the +same to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s not all the same to me. I want it very particularly. Come, I’ll be +liberal. I said twenty years. You can have thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +The student shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Forty!” +</p> + +<p> +Another shake. +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty!” +</p> + +<p> +As before. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the devil, “I know I’m going to do a foolish thing, but I cannot +bear to see a clever, spirited young man throw himself away. I’ll make you +another kind of offer. We won’t have any bargain at present, but I will push +you on in the world for the next forty years. This day forty years I come back +and ask you for a boon; not your soul, mind, or anything not perfectly in your +power to grant. If you give it, we are quits; if not, I fly away with you. What +say you to this?” +</p> + +<p> +The student reflected for some minutes. “Agreed,” he said at last. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had the devil disappeared, which he did instantaneously, ere a +messenger reined in his smoking steed at the gate of the University of Cordova +(the judicious reader will already have remarked that Lucifer could never have +been allowed inside a Christian seat of learning), and, inquiring for the +student Gerbert, presented him with the Emperor Otho’s nomination to the Abbacy +of Bobbio, in consideration, said the document, of his virtue and learning, +well-nigh miraculous in one so young. Such messengers were frequent visitors +during Gerbert’s prosperous career. Abbot, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, he was +ultimately enthroned Pope on April 2, 999, and assumed the appellation of +Silvester the Second. It was then a general belief that the world would come to +an end in the following year, a catastrophe which to many seemed the more +imminent from the election of a chief pastor whose celebrity as a theologian, +though not inconsiderable, by no means equalled his reputation as a +necromancer. +</p> + +<p> +The world, notwithstanding, revolved scatheless through the dreaded +twelvemonth, and early in the first year of the eleventh century Gerbert was +sitting peacefully in his study, perusing a book of magic. Volumes of algebra, +astrology, alchemy, Aristotelian philosophy, and other such light reading +filled his bookcase; and on a table stood an improved clock of his invention, +next to his introduction of the Arabic numerals his chief legacy to posterity. +Suddenly a sound of wings was heard, and Lucifer stood by his side. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a long time,” said the fiend, “since I have had the pleasure of seeing +you. I have now called to remind you of our little contract, concluded this day +forty years.” +</p> + +<p> +“You remember,” said Silvester, “that you are not to ask anything exceeding my +power to perform.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no such intention,” said Lucifer. “On the contrary, I am about to +solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope, I desire +that you would make me a Cardinal. +</p> + +<p> +“In the expectation, I presume,” returned Gerbert, “of becoming Pope on the +next vacancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“An expectation,” replied Lucifer, “which I may most reasonably entertain, +considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue, and the present +condition of the Sacred College.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would doubtless,” said Gerbert, “endeavour to subvert the foundations of +the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and licentiousness, render the Holy +See odious and contemptible.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” said the fiend, “I would extirpate heresy, and all learning +and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer no man to read +but the priest, and confine his reading to his breviary. I would burn your +books together with your bones on the first convenient opportunity. I would +observe an austere propriety of conduct, and be especially careful not to +loosen one rivet in the tremendous yoke I was forging for the minds and +consciences of mankind.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it be so,” said Gerbert, “let’s be off!” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed Lucifer, “you are willing to accompany me to the infernal +regions!” +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and Aristotle, and +give place to the darkness against which I have been contending all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gerbert,” replied the demon, “this is arrant trifling. Know you not that no +good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing possible, my empire +would become intolerable to me, and I should be compelled to abdicate?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do know it,” said Gerbert, “and hence I have been able to receive your visit +with composure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gerbert,” said the devil, with tears in his eyes, “I put it to you—is +this fair, is this honest? I undertake to promote your interests in the world; +I fulfil my promise abundantly. You obtain through my instrumentality a +position to which you could never otherwise have aspired. Often have I had a +hand in the election of a Pope, but never before have I contributed to confer +the tiara on one eminent for virtue and learning. You profit by my assistance +to the full, and now take advantage of an adventitious circumstance to deprive +me of my reasonable guerdon. It is my constant experience that the good people +are much more slippery than the sinners, and drive much harder bargains.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucifer,” answered Gerbert, “I have always sought to treat you as a gentleman, +hoping that you would approve yourself such in return. I will not inquire +whether it was entirely in harmony with this character to seek to intimidate me +into compliance with your demand by threatening me with a penalty which you +well knew could not be enforced. I will overlook this little irregularity, and +concede even more than you have requested. You have asked to be a Cardinal. I +will make you Pope—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide, as the +light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“For twelve hours,” continued Gerbert. “At the expiration of that time we will +consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are more anxious to +divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to assume it, I promise to +bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my power to grant, and not plainly +inconsistent with religion or morals.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done!” cried the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in a moment +the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely indistinguishable save by +their attire, and the fact that one limped slightly with the left foot. +</p> + +<p> +“You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard,” said Gerbert, and, +taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked door to a +secret chamber. As the door closed behind him he chuckled, and muttered to +himself, “Poor old Lucifer! Sold again!” +</p> + +<p> +If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it. He approached a large slab of +silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his personal appearance +with some dissatisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly don’t look half so well without my horns,” he soliloquised, “and I +am sure I shall miss my tail most grievously.” +</p> + +<p> +A tiara and a train, however, made fair amends for the deficient appendages, +and Lucifer now looked every inch a Pope. He was about to call the master of +the ceremonies, and summon a consistory, when the door was burst open, and +seven cardinals, brandishing poniards, rushed into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Down with the sorcerer!” they cried, as they seized and gagged him. +</p> + +<p> +“Death to the Saracen!” +</p> + +<p> +“Practises algebra, and other devilish arts!” +</p> + +<p> +“Knows Greek!” +</p> + +<p> +“Talks Arabic!” +</p> + +<p> +“Reads Hebrew!” +</p> + +<p> +“Burn him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Smother him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him be deposed by a general council,” said a young and inexperienced +Cardinal. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid!” said an old and wary one, <i>sotto voce</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer struggled frantically, but the feeble frame he was doomed to inhabit +for the next eleven hours was speedily exhausted. Bound and helpless, he +swooned away. +</p> + +<p> +“Brethren,” said one of the senior cardinals, “it hath been delivered by the +exorcists that a sorcerer or other individual in league with the demon doth +usually bear upon his person some visible token of his infernal compact. I +propose that we forthwith institute a search for this stigma, the discovery of +which may contribute to justify our proceedings in the eyes of the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“I heartily approve of our brother Anno’s proposition,” said another, “the +rather as we cannot possibly fail to discover such a mark, if, indeed, we +desire to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +The search was accordingly instituted, and had not proceeded far ere a +simultaneous yell from all the seven cardinals indicated that their +investigation had brought more to light than they had ventured to expect. +</p> + +<p> +The Holy Father had a cloven foot! +</p> + +<p> +For the next five minutes the Cardinals remained utterly stunned, silent, and +stupefied with amazement. As they gradually recovered their faculties it would +have become manifest to a nice observer that the Pope had risen very +considerably in their good opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“This is an affair requiring very mature deliberation,” said one. +</p> + +<p> +“I always feared that we might be proceeding too precipitately,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +“It is written, ‘the devils believe,’” said a third: “the Holy Father, +therefore, is not a heretic at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brethren,” said Anno, “this affair, as our brother Benno well remarks, doth +indeed call for mature deliberation. I therefore propose that, instead of +smothering his Holiness with cushions, as originally contemplated, we immure +him for the present in the dungeon adjoining hereunto, and, after spending the +night in meditation and prayer, resume the consideration of the business +tomorrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Informing the officials of the palace,” said Benno, “that his Holiness has +retired for his devotions, and desires on no account to be disturbed.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pious fraud,” said Anno, “which not one of the Fathers would for a moment +have scrupled to commit.” +</p> + +<p> +The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and bore him +carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for his detention. Each +would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery, but each felt that the eyes +of his six brethren were upon him: and all, therefore, retired simultaneously, +each taking a key of the cell. +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards. He had the most +confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in his present +scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were the usual concomitants +of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to his taste, and he wished he had +been made acquainted with them sooner. The dungeon was not only perfectly dark, +but horribly cold, and the poor devil in his present form had no latent store +of infernal heat to draw upon. His teeth chattered, he shivered in every limb, +and felt devoured with hunger and thirst. There is much probability in the +assertion of some of his biographers that it was on this occasion that he +invented ardent spirits; but, even if he did, the mere conception of a glass of +brandy could only increase his sufferings. So the long January night wore +wearily on, and Lucifer seemed likely to expire from inanition, when a key +turned in the lock, and Cardinal Anno cautiously glided in, bearing a lamp, a +loaf, half a cold roast kid, and a bottle of wine. +</p> + +<p> +“I trust,” he said, bowing courteously, “that I may be excused any slight +breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from the difficulty +under which I labour of determining whether, under present circumstances, ‘Your +Holiness,’ or ‘Your Infernal Majesty’ be the form of address most befitting me +to employ.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bub-ub-bub-boo,” went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens!” exclaimed the Cardinal, “I crave your Infernal Holiness’s +forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!” +</p> + +<p> +And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the refection, upon +which the demon fell voraciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Why the devil, if I may so express myself,” pursued Anno, “did not your +Holiness inform us that you <i>were</i> the devil? Not a hand would then have +been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my life for the +audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust of your faithful Anno, +who has served you so loyally and zealously these many years?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never forgive myself,” protested the Cardinal, “for the part I have +borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to your Majesty’s +bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart as to express my +penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to remember that I believed myself to be +acting in your Majesty’s interest by overthrowing a magician who was accustomed +to send your Majesty upon errands, and who might at any time enclose you in a +box, and cast you into the sea. It is deplorable that your Majesty’s most +devoted servants should have been thus misled.” +</p> + +<p> +“Reasons of State,” suggested Lucifer. +</p> + +<p> +“I trust that they no longer operate,” said the Cardinal. “However, the Sacred +College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is therefore unnecessary +to pursue this department of the subject further. I would now humbly crave +leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, perhaps, your Holiness, since I +am about to speak of spiritual things, on the important and delicate point of +your Holiness’s successor. I am ignorant how long your Holiness proposes to +occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are aware that public opinion +will not suffer you to hold it for a term exceeding that of the pontificate of +Peter. A vacancy, therefore, must one day occur; and I am humbly to represent +that the office could not be filled by one more congenial than myself to the +present incumbent, or on whom he could more fully rely to carry out in every +respect his views and intentions.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past life, +which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion. He had not, however, +proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another key in the lock, +and had just time to whisper impressively, “Beware of Benno,” ere he dived +under a table. +</p> + +<p> +Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands. Warned by the other +lamp and the remains of Lucifer’s repast that some colleague had been +beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be in the field, he +came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and preferred his claim in +much the same manner as Anno. While he was earnestly cautioning Lucifer against +this Cardinal as one who could and would cheat the very Devil himself, another +key turned in the lock, and Benno escaped under the table, where Anno +immediately inserted his finger into his right eye. The little squeal +consequent upon this occurrence Lucifer successfully smothered by a fit of +coughing. +</p> + +<p> +Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the same disgust +as Benno on seeing himself forestalled. So far as his requests transpired they +were moderate, but no one knows where he would have stopped if he had not been +scared by the advent of Cardinal No. 4. Up to this time he had only asked for +an inexhaustible purse, power to call up the Devil <i>ad libitum</i>, and a +ring of invisibility to allow him free access to his mistress, who was +unfortunately a married woman. +</p> + +<p> +Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning Cardinal No. +5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as respected Cardinal No. 4. +</p> + +<p> +Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the Archbishoprics of +Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them together, and of +unlimited non-residence. In the course of his harangue he made use of the +phrase <i>non obstantibus</i>, of which Lucifer immediately took a note. +</p> + +<p> +What the seventh Cardinal would have solicited is not known, for he had hardly +opened his mouth when the twelfth hour expired, and Lucifer, regaining his +vigour with his shape, sent the Prince of the Church spinning to the other end +of the room, and split the marble table with a single stroke of his tail. The +six crouched and huddling Cardinals cowered revealed to one another, and at the +same time enjoyed the spectacle of his Holiness darting through the stone +ceiling, which yielded like a film to his passage, and closed up afterwards as +if nothing had happened. After the first shock of dismay they unanimously +rushed to the door, but found it bolted on the outside. There was no other +exit, and no means of giving an alarm. In this emergency the demeanour of the +Italian Cardinals set a bright example to their ultramontane colleagues. +“<i>Bisogna pazienzia</i>,” they said, as they shrugged their shoulders. +Nothing could exceed the mutual politeness of Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless +that of the two who had sought to poison each other. The Frenchman was held to +have gravely derogated from good manners by alluding to this circumstance, +which had reached his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman +swore so outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians +then and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should ever be +Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to this day. +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed in all the +insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he thought his visitor had +probably had enough. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so indeed,” replied Lucifer. “But at the same time I feel +myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of the loyalty of +my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is needless for me to +devote any considerable amount of personal attention to ecclesiastical affairs. +I now claim the promised boon, which it will be in no way inconsistent with thy +functions to grant, seeing that it is a work of mercy. I demand that the +Cardinals be released, and that their conspiracy against thee, by which I alone +suffered, be buried in oblivion.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hoped you would carry them all off,” said Gerbert, with an expression of +disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said the Devil. “It is more to my interest to leave them where +they are.” +</p> + +<p> +So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth, sheepish and +crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than Lucifer had expected +from them, the cause was their entire bewilderment by what had passed, and +their utter inability to penetrate the policy of Gerbert, who henceforth +devoted himself even with ostentation to good works. They could never quite +satisfy themselves whether they were speaking to the Pope or to the Devil, and +when under the latter impression habitually emitted propositions which Gerbert +justly stigmatised as rash, temerarious, and scandalous. They plagued him with +allusions to certain matters mentioned in their interviews with Lucifer, with +which they naturally but erroneously supposed him to be conversant, and worried +him by continual nods and titterings as they glanced at his nether extremities. +To abolish this nuisance, and at the same time silence sundry unpleasant +rumours which had somehow got abroad, Gerbert devised the ceremony of kissing +the Pope’s feet, which, in a grievously mutilated form, endures to this day. +The stupefaction of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy Father had lost +his hoof surpasses all description, and they went to their graves without +having obtained the least insight into the mystery. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>THE CUPBEARER</h2> + +<p> +The minister Photinius had fallen, to the joy of Constantinople. He had taken +sanctuary in the immense monastery adjoining the Golden Gate in the twelfth +region of the city, founded for a thousand monks by the patrician Studius, in +the year 463. There he occupied himself with the concoction of poisons, the +resource of fallen statesmen. When a defeated minister of our own day is +indisposed to accept his discomfiture, he applies himself to poison the public +mind, inciting the lower orders against the higher, and blowing up every +smouldering ember of sedition he can discover, trusting that the conflagration +thus kindled, though it consume the edifice of the State, will not fail to +roast his own egg. Photinius’s conceptions of mischief were less refined; he +perfected his toxicological knowledge in the medical laboratory of the +monastery, and sought eagerly for an opportunity of employing it; whether in an +experiment upon the Emperor, or on his own successor, or on some other +personage, circumstances must determine. +</p> + +<p> +The sanctity of Studius’s convent, and the strength of its monastic garrison, +rendered it a safe refuge for disgraced courtiers, and in this thirtieth year +of the Emperor Basil the Second (reckoning from his nominal accession) it +harboured a legion of ex-prime ministers, patriarchs, archbishops, chief +secretaries, hypati, anthypati, silentiarii, protospatharii, and even +spatharo-candidati. And this small army was nothing to the host that, maimed or +blinded or tonsured or all three, dragged out their lives in monasteries or in +dungeons or on rocky islets; and these again were few in comparison with the +spirits of the traitors or the betrayed who wailed nightly amid the planes and +cypresses of the Aretae, or stalked through the palatial apartments of +verdantique and porphyry. But of those comparatively at liberty, but whose +liberty was circumscribed by the hallowed precincts of Studius, every soul was +plotting. And never, perhaps, in the corrupt Byzantine Court, where true +friendship had been unknown since Theodora quarrelled with Antonia, had so near +an approach to it existed as in this asylum of villains. A sort of freemasonry +came to prevail in the sanctuary: every one longed to know how his neighbour’s +plot throve, and grudged not to buy the knowledge by disclosing a little corner +of his own. Thus rendered communicative, their colloquies would travel back +into the past, and as the veterans of intrigue fought their battles over again, +the most experienced would learn things that made them open their eyes with +amazement. “Ah!” they would hear, “that is just where you were mistaken. You +had bought Eromenus, but so had I, and old Nicephorus had outbid us both.” “You +deemed the dancer Anthusa a sure card, and knew not of her secret infirmity, of +which I had been apprised by her waiting woman.” “Did you really know nothing +of that sliding panel? And were you ignorant that whatever one says in the blue +chamber is heard in the green?” “Yes, I thought so too, and I spent a mint of +money before finding out that the dog whose slaver that brazen impostor +Panurgiades pretended to sell me was no more mad than he was.” After such +rehearsals of future dialogues by the banks of Styx, the fallen statesmen were +observed to appear exceedingly dejected, but the stimulus had become necessary +to their existence. None gossiped so freely or disclosed so much as Photinius +and his predecessor Eustathius, whom he had himself displaced—probably +because Eustathius, believing in nothing in heaven or earth but gold, and +labouring under an absolute privation of that metal, was regarded even by +himself as an extinct volcano. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” observed he one day, when discoursing with Photinius is an unusually +confidential mood, “I am free to say that for my own part I don’t think over +much of poison. It has its advantages, to be sure, but to my mind the +disadvantages are even more conspicuous.” +</p> + +<p> +“For example?” inquired Photinius, who had the best reason for confiding in the +efficacy of a drug administered with dexterity and discretion. +</p> + +<p> +“Two people must be in the secret at least, if not three,” replied Eustathius, +“and cooks, as a rule, are a class of persons entirely unfit to be employed in +affairs of State.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Court physician,” suggested Photinius. +</p> + +<p> +“Is only available,” answered Eustathius, “in case his Majesty should send for +him, which is most improbable. If he ever did, poison, praised be the Lord! +would be totally unnecessary and entirely superfluous.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear friend,” said Photinius, venturing at this favourable moment on a +question he had been dying to ask ever since he had been an inmate of the +convent, “would you mind telling me in confidence, did you ever administer any +potion of a deleterious nature to his Sacred Majesty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” protested Eustathius, with fervour. “I tried once, to be sure, but it +was no use.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the impediment?” +</p> + +<p> +“The perverse opposition of the cupbearer. It is idle attempting anything of +the kind as long as she is about the Emperor.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>She</i>!” exclaimed Photinius. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know <i>that</i>?” responded Eustathius, with an air and manner that +plainly said, “You don’t know much.” +</p> + +<p> +Humbled and ashamed, Photinius nevertheless wisely stooped to avow his +nescience, and flattering his rival on his superior penetration, led him to +divulge the State secret that the handsome cupbearer Helladius was but the +disguise of the lovely Helladia, the object of Basil’s tenderest affection, and +whose romantic attachment to his person had already frustrated more +conspiracies than the aged plotter could reckon up. +</p> + +<p> +This intelligence made Photinius for a season exceedingly thoughtful. He had +not deemed Basil of an amorous complexion. At length he sent for his daughter, +the beautiful and virtuous Euprepia, who from time to time visited him in the +monastery. +</p> + +<p> +“Daughter,” he said, “it appears to me that the time has now arrived when thou +mayest with propriety present a petition to the Emperor on behalf of thy +unfortunate father. Here is the document. It is, I flatter myself, composed +with no ordinary address; nevertheless I will not conceal from thee that I +place my hopes rather on thy beauty of person than on my beauty of style. Shake +down thy hair and dishevel it, so!—that is excellent. Remember to tear +thy robe some little in the poignancy of thy woe, and to lose a sandal. Tears +and sobs of course thou hast always at command, but let not the frenzy of thy +grief render thee wholly inarticulate. Here is a slight memorandum of what is +most fitting for thee to say: thy old nurse’s instructions will do the rest. +Light a candle for St. Sergius, and watch for a favourable opportunity.” +</p> + +<p> +Euprepia was upright, candid, and loyal; but the best of women has something of +the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was stimulated by her +filial affection. Basil was for a moment fairly carried away by the consummate +fact of her performance and the genuine feeling to her appeal; but he was +himself again by the time he had finished perusing his late minister’s +long-winded and mendacious memorial. +</p> + +<p> +“What manner of woman was thy mother?” he inquired kindly +</p> + +<p> +Euprepia was eloquent in praise of her deceased parent’s perfections of mind +and person. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I can believe thee Photinius’s daughter, which I might otherwise have +doubted,” returned Basil. “As concerns him, I can only say, if he feels himself +innocent, let him come out of sanctuary, and stand his trial. But I will give +thee a place at Court.” +</p> + +<p> +This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully consented to +his daughter’s entering the Imperial court, exulting at having got in the thin +end of the wedge. She was attached to the person of the Emperor’s +sister-in-law, the “Slayer of the Bulgarians” himself being a most determined +bachelor. +</p> + +<p> +Time wore on. Euprepia’s opportunities of visiting her father were less +frequent than formerly. At last she came, looking thoroughly miserable, +distracted, and forlorn. +</p> + +<p> +“What ails thee, child?” he inquired anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father, in what a frightful position do I find myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak,” he said, “and rely on my counsel.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I entered the Court,” she proceeded, “I found at first but one human +creature I could love or trust, and he—let me so call him—seemed to +make up for the deficiencies of all the rest. It was the cupbearer Helladius.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope he is still thy friend,” interrupted Photinius. “The good graces of an +Imperial cupbearer are always important, and I would have bought those of +Helladius with a myriad of bezants.” +</p> + +<p> +“They were not to be thus obtained, father,” said she. “The purest +disinterestedness, the noblest integrity, the most unselfish devotion, were the +distinction of my friend. And such beauty! I cannot, I must not conceal that my +heart was soon entirely his. But—most strange it seemed to me +then—it was long impossible for me to tell whether Helladius loved me or +loved me not. The most perfect sympathy existed between us: we seemed one heart +and one soul: and yet, and yet, Helladius never gave the slightest indication +of the sentiments which a young man might be supposed to entertain for a young +girl. Vainly did I try every innocent wile that a modest maiden may permit +herself: he was ever the friend, never the lover. At length, after long pining +between despairing fondness and wounded pride, I myself turned away, and +listened to one who left me in no doubt of the sincerity of his passion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Emperor! And, to shorten the story of my shame, I became his mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +“The saints be praised!” shouted Photinius. “O my incomparable daughter!” +</p> + +<p> +“Father!” cried Euprepia, blushing and indignant. “But let me hurry on with my +wretched tale. In proportion as the Emperor’s affection became more marked, +Helladius, hitherto so buoyant and serene, became a visible prey to +despondency. Some scornful beauty, I deemed, was inflicting on him the tortures +he had previously inflicted upon me, and, cured of my unhappy attachment, and +entirely devoted to my Imperial lover, I did all in my power to encourage him. +He received my comfort with gratitude, nor did it, as I had feared might +happen, seem to excite the least lover-like feeling towards me on his own +part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Euprepia,” he said only two days ago, “never in this Court have I met one like +thee. Thou art the soul of honour and generosity. I can safely trust thee with +a secret which my bursting heart can no longer retain, but which I dread to +breathe even to myself. Know first I am not what I seem, I am a woman!” And +opening his vest—” +</p> + +<p> +“We know all about that already,” interrupted Photinius. “Get on!” +</p> + +<p> +“If thou knowest this already, father,” said the astonished Euprepia, “thou +wilt spare me the pain of entering further into Helladia’s affection for Basil. +Suffice that it was impassioned beyond description, and vied with whatever +history or romance records. In her male costume she had accompanied the +conqueror of the Bulgarians in his campaigns, she had fought in his battles; a +gigantic foe, in act to strike him from behind, had fallen by her arrow; she +had warded the poison-cup from his lips, and the assassin’s dagger from his +heart; she had rejected enormous wealth offered as a bribe for treachery, and +lived only for the Emperor. ‘And now,’ she cried, ‘his love for me is cold, and +he deserts me for another. Who she is I cannot find, else on her it were, not +on him, that my vengeance should alight. Oh, Euprepia, I would tear her eyes +from her head, were they beautiful as thine! But vengeance I must have. Basil +must die. On the third day he expires by my hand, poisoned by the cup which I +alone am trusted to offer him at the Imperial banquet where thou wilt be +present. Thou shalt see his agonies and my triumph, and rejoice that thy friend +has known how to avenge herself.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Thou seest now, father, in how frightful a difficulty I am placed. All my +entreaties and remonstrances have been in vain: at my threats Helladia merely +laughs. I love Basil with my whole heart. Shall I look on and see him murdered? +Shall I, having first unwittingly done my friend the most grievous injury, +proceed further to betray her, and doom her to a cruel death? I might +anticipate her fell purpose by slaying her, but for that I have neither +strength nor courage. Many a time have I felt on the point of revealing +everything to her, and offering myself as her victim, but for this also I lack +fortitude. I might convey a warning to Basil, but Helladia’s vengeance is +unsleeping, and nothing but her death or mine will screen him. Oh, father, +father! what am I to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing romantic or sentimental, I trust, dear child,” replied Photinius. +</p> + +<p> +“Torture me not, father. I came to thee for counsel.” +</p> + +<p> +“And counsel shalt thou have, but it must be the issue of mature deliberation. +Thou mayest observe,” continued he with the air of a good man contending with +adversity, “how weak and miserable is man’s estate even in the day of good +fortune, how hard it is for purblind mortals to discern the right path, +especially when two alluring routes are simultaneously presented for their +decision! The most obvious and natural course, the one I should have adopted +without hesitation half-an-hour ago, would be simply to let Helladia alone. +Should she succeed—and Heaven forbid else!—the knot is loosed in +the simplest manner. Basil dies—” +</p> + +<p> +“Father!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a favourite with his sister-in-law,” continued Photinius, entirely +unconscious of his daughter’s horror and agitation, “who will govern in the +name of her weak husband, and is moreover thy mistress. She recalls me to +Court, and all is peace and joy. But then, Helladia may fail. In that case, +when she has been executed—” +</p> + +<p> +“Father, father!” +</p> + +<p> +“We are exactly where we were, save for the hold thou hast established over the +Emperor, which is of course invaluable. I cannot but feel that Heaven is good +when I reflect how easily thou mightest have thrown thyself away upon a +courtier. Now there is a much bolder game to play, which, relying on the +protection of Providence, I feel half disposed to attempt. Thou mightest betray +Helladia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Deliver my friend to the tormentors!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” pursued Photinius, without hearing her, “thy claim on the Emperor’s +gratitude is boundless, and if he has any sense of what is seemly—and he +is what they call chivalrous—he will make thee his lawful consort. I +father-in-law of an Emperor! My brain reels to think of it. I must be cool. I +must not suffer myself to be dazzled or hurried away. Let me consider. Thus +acting, thou puttest all to the hazard of the die. For if Helladia should deny +everything, as of course she would, and the Emperor should foolishly scruple to +put her to the rack, she might probably persuade him of her innocence, and +where wouldst thou be then? It might almost be better to be beforehand, and +poison Helladia herself, but I fear there is no time now. Thou hast no evidence +but her threats, I suppose? Thou hast not caught her tampering with poisons? +There can of course be nothing in writing. I daresay I could find something, if +I had but time. Canst thou counterfeit her signature?” +</p> + +<p> +But long ere this Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by convulsive +sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent’s discourse as he had been to her +interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he was by no means a +bad father. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child,” he said, “thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a +terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under the +torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might have a bad +effect on the Emperor’s mind. If he put thee to the torture too—but no! +that’s impossible. I feel faint and giddy, dear child, and unable to decide a +point of such importance. Come to me at daybreak to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +But Euprepia did not reappear, and Photinius spent the day in an agony of +expectation, fearing that she had compromised herself by some imprudence. He +gazed on the setting sun with uncontrollable impatience, knowing that it would +shine on the Imperial banquet, where so much was to happen. Basil was in fact +at that very moment seating himself among a brilliant assemblage. By his side +stood a choir of musicians, among them Euprepia. Soon the cup was called for, +and Helladia, in her masculine dress, stepped forward, darting a glance of +sinister triumph at her friend. Silently, almost imperceptibly to the bulk of +the company, Euprepia glided forward, and hissed rather than whispered in +Helladia’s ear, ere she could retire from the Emperor’s side. +</p> + +<p> +“Didst thou not say that if thou couldst discover her who had wronged thee, +thou wouldst wreak thy vengeance on her, and molest Basil no further?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did, and I meant it.” +</p> + +<p> +“See that thou keepest thy word. I am she!” And snatching the cup from the +table, she quaffed it to the last drop, and instantly expired in convulsions. +</p> + +<p> +We pass over the dismay of the banqueters, the arrest and confession of +Helladia, the general amazement at the revelation of her sex, the frantic grief +of the Emperor. +</p> + +<p> +Basil’s sorrow was sincere and durable. On an early occasion he thus addressed +his courtiers: +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot determine which of these two women loved me best: she who gave her +life for me, or she who would have taken mine. The first made the greater +sacrifice; the second did most violence to her feelings. What say ye?” +</p> + +<p> +The courtiers hesitated, feeling themselves incompetent judges in problems of +this nature. At length the youngest exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“O Emperor, how can we tell thee, unless we know what thou thinkest thyself?” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed Basil, “an honest man in the Court of Byzantium! Let his +mouth be filled with gold immediately!” +</p> + +<p> +This operation having been performed, and the precious metal distributed in +fees among the proper officers, Basil thus addressed the object of his favour: +</p> + +<p> +“Manuel, thy name shall henceforth be Chrysostomus, in memory of what has just +taken place. In further token of my approbation of thy honesty, I will confer +upon thee the hand of the only other respectable person about the Court, +namely, of Helladia. Take her, my son, and raise up a race of heroes! She shall +be amply dowered out of what remains of the property of Photinius.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gennadius,” whispered a cynical courtier to his neighbour, “I hope thou +admirest the magnanimity of our sovereign, who deems he is performing a most +generous action in presenting Manuel with his cast-off mistress, who has tried +to poison him, and with whom he has been at his wits’ end what to do, and in +dowering her at the expense of another.” +</p> + +<p> +The snarl was just; but it is just also to acknowledge that Basil, as a prince +born in the purple, had not the least idea that he was laying himself open to +any such criticism. He actually did feel the manly glow of self-approbation +which accompanies the performance of a good action: an emotion which no one +else present, except Chrysostomus, was so much as able to conceive. It is +further to be remarked that the old courtier who sneered at Chrysostomus was +devoured by envy of his good fortune, and would have given his right eye to +have been in his place. +</p> + +<p> +“Chrysostomus,” pursued Basil, “we must now think of the hapless Photinius. +That unfortunate father is doubtless in an agony of grief which renders the +forfeiture of the remains of his possessions indifferent to him. Thou, his +successor therein, mayest be regarded as in some sort his son-in-law. Go, +therefore, and comfort him, and report to me upon his condition.” +</p> + +<p> +Chrysostomus accordingly proceeded to the monastery, where he was informed that +Photinius had retired with his spiritual adviser, and could on no account be +disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“It is on my head to see the Emperor’s orders obeyed,” returned Chrysostomus, +and forced the door. The bereaved parent was busily engaged in sticking pins +into a wax effigy of Basil, under the direction of Panurgiades, already +honourably mentioned in this history. +</p> + +<p> +“Wretched old man!” exclaimed Chrysostomus, “is this thy grief for thy +daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“My grief is great,” answered Photinius, “but my time is small. If I turn not +every moment to account, I shall never be prime minister again. But all is over +now. Thou wilt denounce me, of course. I will give thee a counsel. Say that +thou didst arrive just as we were about to place the effigy of Basil before a +slow fire, and melt it into a caldron of bubbling poison.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall report what I have seen,” replied Chrysostomus, “neither more nor +less. But I think I can assure thee that none will suffer for this mummery +except Panurgiades, and that he will at most be whipped.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chrysostomus,” said Basil, on receiving the report, “lust of power, a fever in +youth, is a leprosy in age. The hoary statesman out of place would sell his +daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he would part with his skin +and his senses, were it possible to hold office without them. I commiserate +Photinius, whose faculties are clearly on the decline; the day has been when he +would not have wasted his time sticking pins into a waxen figure. I will give +him some shadow of authority to amuse his old days and keep him out of +mischief. The Abbot of Catangion is just dead. Photinius shall succeed him.” +</p> + +<p> +So Photinius received the tonsure and the dignity, and made a very tolerable +Abbot. It is even recorded to his honour that he bestowed a handsome funeral on +his old enemy Eustathius. +</p> + +<p> +Helladia made Chrysostomus an excellent wife, a little over-prudish, some +thought. When, nearly two centuries afterwards, the Courts of Love came to be +established in Provence, the question at issue between her and Euprepia was +referred to those tribunals, which, finding the decision difficult, adjourned +it for seven hundred years. That period having now expired, it is submitted to +the British public. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>THE WISDOM OF THE INDIANS</h2> + +<p> +Everybody knows that in the reign of the Emperor Elagabalus Rome was visited by +an embassy from India; whose members, on their way from the East, had held that +memorable interview with the illustrious (though heretical) Christian +philosopher Bardesanes which enabled him to formulate his doctrine of Fate, +borrowed from the Indian theory of Karma, and therefore, until lately, +grievously misunderstood by his commentators. +</p> + +<p> +It may not, however, be equally notorious that the ambassadors returned by sea +as far as Berytus, and upon landing there were hospitably entertained by the +sage Euphronius, the head of the philosophical faculty of that University. +</p> + +<p> +Euphronius naturally inquired what circumstance in Rome had appeared to his +visitors most worthy of remark. +</p> + +<p> +“The extreme evil of the Emperor’s Karma,” said they. +</p> + +<p> +Euphronius requested further explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“Karma,” explained their interpreter, “is that congeries of circumstances which +has necessitated the birth of each individual, and of whose good or evil he is +the incarnation. Every act must needs be attended by consequences, and as these +are usually of too far-reaching a character to be exhausted in the life of the +doer of the action, they cannot but engender another person by whom they are to +be borne. This truth is popularly expressed by the doctrine of transmigration, +according to which individuals, as the character of their deeds may determine, +are re-born as pigs or peacocks, beggars or princes. But this is a loose and +unscientific way of speaking, for in fact it is not the individual that is +re-born, but the character; which, even as the silkworm clothes itself with +silk and the caddis-worm with mud and small shingle, creates for itself a new +personality, congruous with its own nature. We are therefore led to reflect +what a prodigious multitude of sins some one must have committed ere the Roman +world could be afflicted with such an Emperor as Elagabalus.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have ye found so exceedingly reprehensible in the Emperor’s conduct?” +demanded Euphronius. +</p> + +<p> +“To speak only,” said the Indians, “of such of his doings as may fitly be +recited to modest ears, we find him declaring war against Nature, and +delighting in nothing that is not the contrary of what Heaven meant it to be. +We see him bathing in perfumes, sailing ships in wine, feeding horses on grapes +and lions on parrots, peppering fish with pearls, wearing gems on the soles of +his feet, strewing his floor with gold-dust, paving the public streets with +precious marbles, driving teams of stags, scorning to eat fish by the seaside, +deploring his lot that he has never yet been able to dine on a phoenix. +Enormous must have been the folly and wickedness which has incarnated itself in +such a sovereign, and should his reign be prolonged, discouraging is the +prospect for the morals of the next generation. +</p> + +<p> +“According to you, then,” said Euphronius, “the fates of men are not spun for +them by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but by their predecessors?” +</p> + +<p> +“So it is,” said they, “always remembering that man can rid himself of his +Karma by philosophic meditation, combined with religious austerities, and that +if all walked in this path, existence with all its evils would come to an end. +Insomuch that the most bloodthirsty conqueror that ever devastated the earth +hath not destroyed one thousandth part as many existences as the Lord Buddha.” +</p> + +<p> +“These are abstruse matters,” said Euphronius, “and I lament that your stay in +Berytus will not be long enough to instruct me adequately therein.” +</p> + +<p> +“Accompany us to India,” said they, “and thou shalt receive instruction at the +fountain head.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am old and feeble,” apologised Euphronius, “and adjusted by long habit to my +present environment. Nevertheless I will propound the enterprise to my pupils, +only somewhat repressing their ardour, lest the volunteers should be +inconveniently numerous.” +</p> + +<p> +When, however, the proposition was made not a soul responded; though Euphronius +reproached his disciples severely, and desired them to compare their want of +spirit with his own thirst for knowledge, which, when he was a young man, had +taken him as far as Alexandria to hear a celebrated rhetorician. In the +evening, however, two disciples came to him together, and professed their +readiness to undertake the expedition, if promised a reward commensurate with +its danger and difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye would learn the secret of my celebrated dilemma,” said he, “which no +sophist can elude? ’Tis much; ’tis immoderate; ’tis enormous; nevertheless, +bring the wisdom of India to Berytus, and the knowledge of the stratagem shall +be yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Master,” they said, “it is not thy dilemma of which we are enamoured. It +is thy daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +A vehement altercation ensued, but at length the old philosopher, who at the +bottom of his heart was much readier to part with his daughter than his +dilemma, was induced to promise her to whichever of the pupils should bring +home the most satisfactory exposition of Indian metaphysics: provided always +that during their absence he should not have been compelled to bestow her hand +as the price of a quibble even more subtle than his own: but this he believed +to be impossible. +</p> + +<p> +Mnesitheus and Rufus accordingly travelled with the embassy to India, and +arrived in safety at the metropolis of Palimbothra. They had wisely devoted +themselves meanwhile to learning the language, and were now able to converse +with some fluency. +</p> + +<p> +On reaching their destination they were placed under the superintendence of +competent instructors, who were commissioned to initiate them into the canon of +Buddhist scriptures, comprising, to mention only a few of the principal, the +Lalitavistara, the Dhammapada, the Kuddhapatha, the Palinokkha, the Uragavagga, +the Kulavagga, the Mahavagga, the Atthakavagga, and the Upasampadakammavaca. +These works, composed in dead languages, and written in strange and unknown +characters, were further provided with commentaries more voluminous and +inexplicable than the text. +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens,” exclaimed Mnesitheus and Rufus, “can the life of a man suffice to +study all this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly not,” replied the Indians. “The diligent student will resume his +investigations in a subsequent stage of existence, and, if endowed with eminent +faculties, may hope to attain the end he proposes to himself at the fifteenth +transmigration.” +</p> + +<p> +“The end we propose to ourselves,” said the Greeks, “is to marry our master’s +daughter. Will the fair Euphronia also have undergone fifteen transmigrations, +and will her charms have continued unimpaired?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is difficult to pronounce,” said they, “for should the maiden, through the +exercise of virtue, have merited to be born as a white elephant, her +transmigrations must in the order of nature be but few; whereas should she have +unfortunately become and remained a rat, a frog, or other shortlived animal, +they cannot but be exceedingly numerous.” +</p> + +<p> +“The prospect of wedding a frog at the end of fifteen transmigrations,” said +the youths, “doth not in any respect commend itself to us. Are there no means +by which the course of study may be accelerated?” +</p> + +<p> +“Undoubtedly,” said the Indians, “by the practice of religious austerities.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of what nature are these?” inquired the young men. +</p> + +<p> +“The intrepid disciple,” said the sages, “may chain himself to a tree, and gaze +upon the sun until he is deprived of the faculty of vision. He may drive an +iron bar through his cheeks and tongue, thus preventing all misuse of the gift +of speech. It is open to him to bury himself in the earth up to his waist, +relying for his maintenance on the alms of pious donors. He may recline upon a +couch studded with spikes, until from the induration of his skin he shall have +merited the title of a rhinoceros among sages. As, however, these latter +practices interfere with locomotion, and thus prevent his close attendance on +his spiritual guide, it is rather recommended to him to elevate his arms above +his head, and retain them in that position until, by the withering of the +sinews, it is impossible for him to bring them down again.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case,” cried Rufus, “farewell philosophy! farewell Euphronia!” +</p> + +<p> +There is reason to believe that Mnesitheus would have made exactly the same +observation if Rufus had not been beforehand with him. The spirit of +contradiction and the affectation of superiority, however, led him to reproach +his rival with pusillanimity, and he went so far that at length he found +himself committed to undergo the ordeal: merely stipulating that, in +consideration of his being a foreigner, he should be permitted to elevate the +right arm only. +</p> + +<p> +The king of the country most graciously came to his assistance by causing him +to be fastened to a tree, with his uplifted arm secured by iron bands above his +head, a fan being put in his other hand to protect him against the molestations +of gnats and mosquitoes. By this means, and with the assistance of the monks +who continually recited and expounded the Buddhist scriptures in his ears, some +time even before his arm had stiffened for ever, the doctrine of the misery of +existence had become perfectly clear to him. +</p> + +<p> +Released from his captivity, he hastened back to Europe to claim the guerdon of +his sufferings. History is silent respecting his adventures until his arrival +at Berytus, where the strange wild-looking man with the uplifted arm found +himself the centre of a turbulent and mischievous rabble. As he seemed about to +suffer severe ill-usage, a personage of dignified and portly appearance +hastened up, and with his staff showered blows to right and left upon the +rioters. +</p> + +<p> +“Scoundrels,” he exclaimed, “finely have ye profited by my precepts, thus to +misuse an innocent stranger! But I will no longer dwell among such barbarians. +I will remove my school to Tarsus!” +</p> + +<p> +The mob dispersed. The victim and his deliverer stood face to face. +</p> + +<p> +“Mnesitheus!” +</p> + +<p> +“Rufus!” +</p> + +<p> +“Call me Rufinianus,” corrected the latter; “for such is the appellation which +I have felt it due to myself to assume, since the enhancement of my dignity by +becoming Euphronius’s successor and son-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +“Son-in-law! Am I to lose the reward of my incredible sufferings?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou forgettest,” said Rufinianus, “that Euphronia’s hand was not promised as +the reward of any austerities, but as the meed of the most intelligent, that +is, the most acceptable, account of the Indian philosophy, which in the opinion +of the late eminent Euphronius, has been delivered by me. But come to my +chamber, and let me minister to thy necessities.” +</p> + +<p> +These having been duly attended to, Rufinianus demanded Mnesitheus’s history, +and then proceeded to narrate his own. +</p> + +<p> +“On my journey homeward,” said he, “I reflected seriously on the probable +purpose of our master in sending us forth, and saw reason to suspect that I had +hitherto misapprehended it. For I could not remember that he had ever admitted +that he could have anything to learn from other philosophers, or that he had +ever exhibited the least interest in philosophic dogmas, excepting his own. The +system of the Indians, I thought, must be either inferior to that of +Euphronius, or superior. If the former, he will not want it: if the latter, he +will want it much less. I therefore concluded that our mission was partly a +concession to public opinion, partly to enable him to say that his name was +known, and his teaching proclaimed on the very banks of the Ganges. I formed my +plan accordingly, and disregarding certain indications that I was neither +expected nor wanted, presented myself before Euphronius with a gladsome +countenance, slightly overcast by sorrow on account of thee, whom I affirmed to +have been devoured by a tiger. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Well,’ said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, ‘and what about this vaunted +wisdom of the Indians?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The wisdom of the Indians,’ I replied, ‘is entirely borrowed from +Pythagoras.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Did I not tell you so? ‘Euphronius appealed to his disciples. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Invariably,’ they replied. +</p> + +<p> +“‘As if a barbarian could teach a Greek!’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It is much if he is able to learn from one,’ said they. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Pythagoras, then,’ said Euphronius addressing me,’ did not resort to India to +be instructed by the Gymnosophists?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘On the contrary,’ I answered, ‘he went there to teach them, and the little +knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived from him. His +mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the Ramayana, wherein he is +figuratively represented as allying himself with monkeys. He is worshipped all +over the country under the appellations of Siva, Kamadeva, Kali, Gautama +Buddha, and others too numerous to mention.’ +</p> + +<p> +“When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to +Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called +Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his +good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter’s hand without +difficulty. He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, and +I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy. I am +also the author of some admired works, especially a life of Pythagoras, and a +manual of Indian philosophy and religion. I hope for thy own sake thou wilt +forbear to contradict me: for no one will believe thee. I trust also that thou +wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with respect to Euphronia. I do most +honestly and truthfully assure thee that for a one-armed man like thee to marry +her would be most inexpedient, inasmuch as the defence of one’s beard from her, +when she is in a state of excitement, requires the full use of both hands, and +of the feet also. But come with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to +her. She is always taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal +attractions, and I promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture +when she finds thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder. Only, as I +have represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say +that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have learned in the Indian schools,” said Mnesitheus, “not to lie for the +benefit of others. I will not see Euphronia; I would not disturb her ideal of +me, nor mine of her. Farewell. May the Rufinianian sect flourish! and may thy +works on Pythagoras and India instruct posterity to the tenth generation! I +return to Palimbothra, where I am held in honour on the self-same account that +here renders me ridiculous. It shall be my study to enlighten the natives +respecting their obligations to Pythagoras, whose name I did not happen to hear +while I abode among them.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>THE DUMB ORACLE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod:<br/> +Few that be filled with the fire of the God. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one of +peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed in the city +of Dorylseum, in Phrygia. Contrary to usage, its revelations were imparted +through the medium of a male priest. It was rarely left unthronged by devout +questioners, whose inquiries were resolved in writing, agreeably to the method +delivered by the pious Lucian, in his work “Concerning False Prophecy.” [*] +Sometimes, on extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently that of the deity, +was heard declaring the response from the innermost recesses of the shrine. The +treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with tripods and goblets, in general +wrought from the precious metals; its coffers were loaded with coins and +ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy suppliants and the copious offerings in kind +of the country people provided superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the +temple servitors; while a rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its +guardians, and of the officiating priest. The latter reverend personage was no +less eminent for prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had +rewarded him with extreme obesity. At length he died, whether of excess in meat +or in drink is not agreed among historians. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +*) <i>Pseudomantis</i>, cap. 19-21. +</p> + +<p> +The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally desirous +that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, elected a young +priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest, purest, most fervent, +and most ingenuous of the sons of men. So rare a choice might well be expected +to be accompanied by some extraordinary manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy +took place which filled the sacred authorities with dismay. The responses of +the oracle ceased suddenly and altogether. No revelation was vouchsafed to the +pontiff in his slumbers; no access of prophetic fury constrained him to +disclose the secrets of the future; no voice rang from the shrine; and the +unanswered epistles of the suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on the great +altar. As a natural consequence they speedily ceased to arrive; the influx of +offerings into the treasury terminated along with them; the temple-courts were +bare of worshippers; and the only victims whose blood smoked within them were +those slain by the priest himself, in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of +Apollo. The modest hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he did +not doubt that he had excited the Deity’s wrath by some mysterious but heinous +pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous verdict of all +whom he approached. +</p> + +<p> +One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, and +pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he was +startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, espied an +ancient woman. Her appearance was rather venerable than prepossessing. He +recognised her as one of the inferior ministers of the temple. +</p> + +<p> +“Reverend mother,” he addressed her, “doubtless thou comest to mingle with mine +thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to indicate the cause, +and the remedy of his wrath.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, son,” returned the venerable personage, “I propose to occasion no such +needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity. I hold within mine own hand +the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken sanctuary, and for such +consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce equitable, I am minded to impart +the same unto thee.” And as the astonished priest made no answer, she +continued: +</p> + +<p> +“My price is one hundred pieces of gold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wretch!” exclaimed the priest indignantly, “thy mercenary demand alone proves +the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets of the Gods. +Depart my presence this moment!” +</p> + +<p> +The old woman retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the incident soon +passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the following day, at the +same hour, the aged woman again stood before him, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“My price is <i>two</i> hundred pieces of gold.” +</p> + +<p> +Again she was commanded to depart, and again obeyed without a murmur. But the +adventure now occasioned the priest much serious reflection. To his excited +fancy, the patient persistency of the crone began to assume something of a +supernatural character. He considered that the ways of the Gods are not as our +ways, and that it is rather the rule than the exception with them to accomplish +their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by the most unlikely +instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the Sibyl and her books, and +shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy might in the end cost the temple +the whole of its revenues. The result of his cogitations was a resolution, if +the old woman should present herself on the following day, to receive her in a +different manner. +</p> + +<p> +Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, “My price is +<i>three</i> hundred pieces of gold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Venerable ambassadress of Heaven,” said the priest, “thy boon is granted thee. +Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou mayest.” +</p> + +<p> +The old woman’s reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in extending her +open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the three hundred pieces of +gold with as much expedition as was compatible with the frequent interruptions +necessitated by the crone’s depositing each successive handful in a leather +pouch; and the scrutiny, divided between jealousy and affection, which she +bestowed on each individual coin. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said the priest, when the operation was at length completed, “fulfil +thy share of the compact.” +</p> + +<p> +“The cause of the oracle’s silence,” returned the old woman, “is the +unworthiness of the minister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! ’tis even as I feared,” sighed the priest. “Declare now, wherein +consists my sin?” +</p> + +<p> +“It consists in this,” replied the old woman, “that the beard of thy +understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience is +still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear no +adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I seem to +speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets, that thou +art an egregious nincompoop.” +</p> + +<p> +And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued: +</p> + +<p> +“Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the very +nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into the language +of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the few wise upon the +many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more particularly the former? O +silly as the crowds who hitherto have brought their folly here, but now carry +it elsewhere to the profit of wiser men than thou! O fool! to deem that oracles +were rendered by Apollo! How should this be, seeing that there is no such +person? Needs there, peradventure, any greater miracle for the decipherment of +these epistles than a hot needle? [*] As for the supernatural voice, it doth in +truth proceed from a respectable, and in some sense a sacred personage, being +mine own when I am concealed within a certain recess prepared for me by thy +lamented predecessor, whose mistress I was in youth, and whose coadjutor I have +been in age. I am now ready to minister to thee in the latter capacity. Be +ruled by me; exchange thy abject superstition for common sense; thy childish +simplicity for discreet policy; thy unbecoming spareness for a majestic +portliness; thy present ridiculous and uncomfortable situation for the repute +of sanctity, and the veneration of men. Thou wilt own that this is cheap at +three hundred pieces.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +*) Lucian. +</p> + +<p> +The young priest had hearkened to the crone’s discourse with an expression of +the most exquisite distress. When she had finished, he arose, and disregarding +his repulsive companion’s efforts to detain him, departed hastily from the +temple. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +It was the young priest’s purpose, as soon as he became capable of forming one, +to place the greatest possible distance between himself and the city of +Dorylæum. The love of roaming insensibly grew upon him, and ere long his active +limbs had borne him over a considerable portion of Asia. His simple wants were +easily supplied by the wild productions of the country, supplemented when +needful by the proceeds of light manual labour. By degrees the self-contempt +which had originally stung him to desperation took the form of an ironical +compassion for the folly of mankind, and the restlessness which had at first +impelled him to seek relief in a change of scene gave place to a spirit of +curiosity and observation. He learned to mix freely with all orders of men, +save one, and rejoiced to find the narrow mysticism which he had imbibed from +his previous education gradually yielding to contact with the great world. From +one class of men, indeed, he learned nothing—the priests, whose society +he eschewed with scrupulous vigilance, nor did he ever enter the temples of the +Gods. Diviners, augurs, all that made any pretension whatever to a supernatural +character, he held in utter abhorrence, and his ultimate return in the +direction of his native country is attributed to his inability to persevere +further in the path he was following without danger of encountering Chaldean +soothsayers, or Persian magi, or Indian gymnosophists. +</p> + +<p> +He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was still at a +considerable distance from that region, when one night, as he was sitting in +the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a phrase which arrested his +attention. +</p> + +<p> +“As true as the oracle of Dorylæum.” The speaker was a countryman, who appeared +to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of the company as +greatly in need of confirmation. The sudden start and stifled cry of the +ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt constrained to ask, with the most +indifferent air he could assume: +</p> + +<p> +“Is the oracle of Dorylæum, then, so exceedingly renowned for veracity?” +</p> + +<p> +“Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?” demanded the countryman, with some +disdain. “Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eubulides!” exclaimed the young traveller, “that is my own name!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou mayest well rejoice, then,” observed another of the guests, “to bear the +name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the happy Gods. So +handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who have often beheld +him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, now that I scan thee more +closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only that thy namesake bears with him a +certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous in thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Divinity!” exclaimed another. “Aye, if Phœbus himself ministered at his own +shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than Eubulides.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or predict the future more accurately,” added a priest. +</p> + +<p> +“Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse,” subjoined a poet. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet is it not marvellous,” remarked another speaker, “that for some +considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to +deliver a single oracle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of an aged +woman, one of the ministers of the temple.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” exclaimed Eubulides, “how was that?” +</p> + +<p> +“He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly came to +pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully appertaining to +herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the root of her tongue.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Gods be praised for that!” ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath. “Pshaw! +as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate this vile mockery? +To keep up the juggle—well, I know it must be so; but to purloin my name! +to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that are not, I will expose the +cheat, or perish in the endeavour.” +</p> + +<p> +He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the city of +Dorylæum. The further he progressed in this direction, the louder became the +bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic the testimonies to the +piety, prophetic endowments, and personal attractions of the priest Eubulides; +his own resemblance to whom was the theme of continual remark. On approaching +the city, he found the roads swarming with throngs hastening to the temple, +about to take part in a great religious ceremony to be held therein. The +seriousness of worship blended delightfully with the glee of the festival, and +Eubulides, who at first regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his +moroseness insensibly yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He could not +but acknowledge that the imposture he panted to expose was at least the source +of much innocent happiness, and almost wished that the importance of religion, +considered as an engine of policy, had been offered to his contemplation from +this point of view, instead of the sordid and revolting aspect in which it had +been exhibited by the old woman. +</p> + +<p> +In this ambiguous frame of mind he entered the temple. Before the high altar +stood the officiating priest, a young man, the image, yet not the image, of +himself. Lineament for lineament, the resemblance was exact, but over the +stranger’s whole figure was diffused an air of majesty, of absolute serenity +and infinite superiority, which excluded every idea of deceit, and so awed the +young priest that his purpose of rushing forward to denounce the impostor and +drag him from the shrine was immediately and involuntarily relinquished. As he +stood confounded and irresolute, the melodious voice of the hierophant rang +through the temple: +</p> + +<p> +“Let the priest Eubulides stand forth.” +</p> + +<p> +This summons naturally caused the greatest astonishment in every one but +Eubulides, who emerged as swiftly as he could from the swaying and murmuring +crowd, and confronted his namesake at the altar. A cry of amazement broke from +the multitude as they beheld the pair, whose main distinction in the eyes of +most was their garb. But, as they gazed, the form of the officiating priest +assumed colossal proportions; a circle of beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth +around his head; hyacinthine locks clustered on his shoulders, his eyes +sparkled with supernatural radiance; a quiver depended at his back; an unstrung +bow occupied his hand; the majesty and benignity of his presence alike seemed +augmented tenfold. Eubulides and the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, +for all recognised Apollo. +</p> + +<p> +All was silence for a space. It was at length broken by Phœbus. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Eubulides,” inquired he, with the bland raillery of an Immortal, “has it +at length occurred to thee that I may have been long enough away from +Parnassus, filling thy place here while thou hast been disporting thyself amid +heretics and barbarians?” +</p> + +<p> +The abashed Eubulides made no response. The Deity continued: +</p> + +<p> +“Deem not that thou hast in aught excited the displeasure of the Gods. In +deserting their altars for Truth’s sake, thou didst render them the most +acceptable of sacrifices, the only one, it may be, by which they set much +store. But, Eubulides, take heed how thou again sufferest the unworthiness of +men to overcome the instincts of thine own nature. Thy holiest sentiments +should not have been at the mercy of a knave. If the oracle of Dorylæum was an +imposture, hadst thou no oracle in thine own bosom? If the voice of Religion +was no longer breathed from the tripod, were the winds and waters silent, or +had aught quenched the everlasting stars? If there was no power to impose its +mandates from without, couldst thou be unconscious of a power within? If thou +hadst nothing to reveal unto men, mightest thou not have found somewhat to +propound unto them? Know this, that thou hast never experienced a more truly +religious emotion than that which led thee to form the design of overthrowing +this my temple, the abode, as thou didst deem it, of fraud and superstition.” +</p> + +<p> +“But now, Phœbus,” Eubulides ventured to reply, “shall I not return to the +shrine purified by thy presence, and again officiate as thy unworthy minister?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eubulides,” returned Phœbus, with a smile; “silver is good, but not for +ploughshares. Thy strange experience, thy long wanderings, thy lonely +meditations, and varied intercourse with men, have spoiled thee for a priest, +while, as I would fain hope, qualifying thee for a sage. Some worthy person may +easily be found to preside over this temple; and by the aid of such inspiration +as I may from time to time see meet to vouchsafe him, administer its affairs +indifferently well. Do thou, Eubulides, consecrate thy powers to a more august +service than Apollo’s, to one that shall endure when Delphi and Delos know +<i>his</i> no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“To whose service, Phœbus?” inquired Eubulides. +</p> + +<p> +“To the service of Humanity, my son,” responded Apollo. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>DUKE VIRGIL</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged the +suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had a Podestà +of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a Papal Legate, +incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried dictators, consuls, prætors, +councils of ten, and other numbers odd and even, and ere the middle of the +thirteenth century were luxuriating in the enjoyment of perfect anarchy. +</p> + +<p> +An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were forbidden to +propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything new. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not consult Manto, the alchemist’s daughter, our prophetess, our Sibyl?” +the young Benedetto asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” repeated Eustachio, an elderly man. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not, indeed?” interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years. +</p> + +<p> +All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto’s lover; Eustachio her +father’s friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the three +were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before proceeding +formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain private +interviews, the two elder with Manto’s father, the youth with Manto herself. +The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist’s influence with +his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went further, and vowed that +he would pay it. The old man promised his good word to both, but when he went +to confer with his daughter he found her closeted with Benedetto, and returned +without disburdening himself of his errand. The youth had just risen from his +knees, pleading with her, and drawing glowing pictures of their felicity when +he should be Duke and she Duchess. +</p> + +<p> +She answered, “Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to rule +another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over my native +city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why should not Mantua have a tyrant?” demanded Benedetto. “The freedom of +the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no liberty save that of +making the base-born do his bidding. ’Tis hell to a man of spirit to be +contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my heart’s desire on the knaves, +little would I reck submitting to the sway of the Emperor.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that well, Benedetto,” said Manto, “and hence will take good heed not +to counsel Mantua to choose thee. No, the Duke I will give her shall be one +without passions to gratify or injuries to avenge, and shall already be crowned +with a crown to make the ducal cap as nothing in his eyes, if eyes he had.” +</p> + +<p> +Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward to +announce that the commissioners waited. +</p> + +<p> +“My projection,” he whispered, “only wants one more piece of gold to insure +success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in exchange for +boundless riches!” +</p> + +<p> +“And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!” said Manto, patting his +cheek. +</p> + +<p> +The envoys’ commission having been unfolded, she took not a moment to reply, +“Be your Duke Virgil.” +</p> + +<p> +The deputation respectfully represented that although Virgil was no doubt +Mantua’s greatest citizen, he laboured under the disqualification of having +been dead more than twelve hundred years. Nothing further, however, could be +extorted from the prophetess, and the ambassadors were obliged to withdraw. +</p> + +<p> +The interpretation of Manto’s oracle naturally provoked much diversity of +opinion in the council. +</p> + +<p> +“Obviously,” said a poet, “the prophetess would have us confer the ducal +dignity upon the contemporary bard who doth most nearly accede to the vestiges +of the divine Maro; and he, as I judge, is even now in the midst of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Virgil the poet,” said a priest, who had long laboured under the suspicion of +occult practices, “was a fool to Virgil the enchanter. The wise woman evidently +demands one competent to put the devil into a hole—an operation which I +have striven to perform all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?” inquired Eustachio. +</p> + +<p> +“Better upon an egg than upon a quack!” retorted the priest. +</p> + +<p> +But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately conferred with +Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; Leonardo had parts, but no +character. +</p> + +<p> +“I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess,” he +said. “She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in divers +respects preferable to a living one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” said Eustachio, “provided always that the servant is a man of +exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord’s withdrawal to +another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices with impunity, but +doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his great taskmaster’s eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustachio,” said Leonardo, with admiration, “it is the misery of Mantua that +she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst talk. I would fain +have further discourse with thee.” +</p> + +<p> +The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were crying, +“A Virgil! a Virgil!” +</p> + +<p> +The councillors reassembled and passed resolutions. +</p> + +<p> +“But who shall be Regent?” inquired some one when Virgil had been elected +unanimously. +</p> + +<p> +“Who but we?” asked Eustachio and Leonardo. “Are we not the heads of the +Virgilian party?” +</p> + +<p> +Thus had the enthusiastic Manto, purest of idealists, installed in authority +the two most unprincipled politicians in the republic; and she had lost her +lover besides, for Benedetto fled the city, vowing vengeance. +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow, the dead poet was enthroned Duke of Mantua; Eustachio and Leonardo +became Regents, with the style of Consuls, and it was provided that in doubtful +cases reference should be made to the Sortes Virgilianae. And truly, if we may +believe the chronicles, the arrangement worked for a time surprisingly well. +The Mantuans, in an irrational way, had done what it behoves all communities to +do rationally if they can. They had sought for a good and worthy citizen to +rule them; it was their misfortune that such an one could only be found among +the dead. They felt prouder of themselves for being governed by a great +man—one in comparison with whom kings and pontiffs were the creatures of +a day. They would not, if they could help it, disgrace themselves by disgracing +their hero; they would not have it said that Mantua, which had not been too +weak to bear him, had been too weak to endure his government. The very +hucksters and usurers among them felt dimly that there was such a thing as an +Ideal. A glimmering perception dawned upon mailed, steel-fisted barons that +there was such a thing as an Idea, and they felt uneasily apprehensive, like +beasts of prey who have for the first time sniffed gunpowder. The railleries +and mockeries of Mantua’s neighbours, moreover, stimulated Mantua’s citizens to +persevere in their course, and deterred them from doing aught to approve +themselves fools. Were not Verona, Cremona, Lodi, Pavia, Crema, cities that +could never enthrone the Virgil they had never produced, watching with +undissembled expectation to see them trip? The hollow-hearted Eustachio and the +rapacious Leonardo, their virtual rulers, might indeed be little sensible to +this enthusiasm, but they could not disregard the general drift of public +opinion, which said clearly: “Mantua is trying a great experiment. Woe to you +if you bring it to nought by your selfish quarrels!” +</p> + +<p> +The best proof that there was something in Manto’s idea was that after a while +the Emperor Frederick took alarm, and signified to the Mantuans that they must +cease their mumming and fooling and acknowledge him as their sovereign, failing +which he would besiege their city. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Mantua was girt by a zone of fire and steel. Her villas and homesteads flamed +or smoked; her orchards flared heavenward in a torrent of sparks or stood black +sapless trunks charred to their inmost pith; the promise of her harvests lay as +grey ashes over the land. But her ramparts, though breached in places, were yet +manned by her sons, and their assailants recoiled pierced by the shafts or +stunned by the catapults of the defence. Kaiser Frederick sat in his tent, +giving secret audience to one who had stolen in disguise over from the city in +the grey of the morning. By the Emperor’s side stood a tall martial figure, +wearing a visor which he never removed. +</p> + +<p> +“Your Majesty,” Leonardo was saying, for it was he, “this madness will soon +pass away. The people will weary of sacrificing themselves for a dead heathen.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Liberty?” asked the Emperor, “is not that a name dear to those misguided +creatures?” +</p> + +<p> +“So dear, please your Majesty, that if they have but the name they will +perfectly dispense with the thing. I do not advise that your imperial yoke +should be too palpably adjusted to their stiff necks. Leave them in appearance +the choice of their magistrate, but insure its falling upon one of approved +fidelity, certain to execute obsequiously all your Majesty’s mandates; such an +one, in short, as your faithful vassal Leonardo. It would only be necessary to +decapitate that dangerous revolutionist, Eustachio.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the citizens are really ready for this?” +</p> + +<p> +“All the respectable citizens. All of whom your Majesty need take account. All +men of standing and substance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I rejoice to hear it,” said the Emperor, “and do the more readily credit thee +inasmuch as a most virtuous and honourable citizen hath already been beforehand +with thee, assuring me of the same thing, and affirming that but one traitor, +whose name, methinks, sounded like thine, stands between me and the subjugation +of Mantua.” +</p> + +<p> +And, withdrawing a curtain, he disclosed the figure of Eustachio. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought he was asleep,” muttered Eustachio. +</p> + +<p> +“That noodle to have been beforehand with me!” murmured Leonardo. +</p> + +<p> +“What perplexes me,” continued Frederick, after enjoying the confusion of the +pair for a few moments, “is that our masked friend here will have it that he is +the man for the Dukedom, and offers to open the gates to me by a method of his +own.” +</p> + +<p> +“By fair fighting, an’ please my liege,” observed the visored personage, “not +by these dastardly treacheries.” +</p> + +<p> +“How inhuman!” sighed Eustachio. +</p> + +<p> +“How old-fashioned!” sneered Leonardo. +</p> + +<p> +“The truth is,” continued Frederick, “he gravely doubts whether either of you +possesses the influence which you allege, and has devised a method of putting +this to the proof, which I trust will commend itself to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Leonardo and Eustachio expressed their readiness to submit their credit with +their fellow-citizens to any reasonable trial. +</p> + +<p> +“He proposes, then,” pursued the Emperor, “that ye, disarmed and bound, should +be placed at the head of the storming column, and in that situation should, as +questionless ye would, exert your entire moral influence with your +fellow-citizens to dissuade them from shooting you. If the column, thus +shielded, enters the city without resistance, ye will both have earned the +Dukedom, and the question who shall have it may be decided by single combat +between yourselves. But should the people, rather than submit to our clemency, +impiously slay their elected magistrates, it will be apparent that the methods +of our martial friend are the only ones corresponding to the exigency of the +case. Is the storming column ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“All but the first file, please your Majesty,” responded the man in the visor. +</p> + +<p> +“Let it be equipped,” returned Frederick, and in half-an-hour Eustachio and +Leonardo, their hands tied behind them, were stumbling up the breach, impelled +by pikes in the rear, and confronting the catapults, <i>chevaux de frise</i>, +hidden pitfalls, Greek fire, and boiling water provided by their own direction, +and certified to them the preceding evening as all that could be desired. They +had, however, the full use of their voices, and this they turned to the best +account. Never had Leonardo been so cogent, or Eustachio so pathetic. The +Mantuans, already disorganised by the unaccountable disappearance of the +Executive, were entirely irresolute what to do. As they hesitated the visored +chief incited his followers. All seemed lost, when a tall female figure +appeared among the defenders. It was Manto. +</p> + +<p> +“Fools and cowards!” she exclaimed, “must ye learn your duty from a woman?” +</p> + +<p> +And, seizing a catapult, she discharged a stone which laid the masked warrior +stunned and senseless on the ground. The next instant Eustachio and Leonardo +fell dead, pierced by showers of arrows. The Mantuans sallied forth. The +dismayed Imperialists fled to their camp. The bodies of the fallen magistrates +and of the unconscious chieftain in the mask were brought into the city. Manto +herself undid the fallen man’s visor, and uttered a fearful shriek as she +recognised Benedetto. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall be done with him, mistress?” they asked. +</p> + +<p> +Manto long stood silent, torn by conflicting emotions. At length she said, in a +strange, unnatural voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Put him into the Square Tower.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now, mistress, what further? How to choose the new consuls?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask me no more,” she said. “I shall never prophesy again. Virtue has gone away +from me.” +</p> + +<p> +The leaders departed, to intrigue for the vacant posts, and devise tortures for +Benedetto. Manto sat on the rampart, still and silent as its stones. Anon she +rose, and roved about as if distraught, reciting verses from Virgil. +</p> + +<p> +Night had fallen. Benedetto lay wakeful in his cell. A female figure stood +before him bearing a lamp. It was Manto. +</p> + +<p> +“Benedetto,” she said, “I am a wretch, faithless to my country and to my +master. I did but even now open his sacred volume at hazard, and on what did my +eye first fall? <br/> + Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. But I can no other. I am a +woman. May Mantua never entrust her fortunes to the like of me again! Come with +me, I will release thee.” +</p> + +<p> +She unlocked his chains; she guided him through the secret passage under the +moat; they stood at the exit, in the open air. +</p> + +<p> +“Fly,” she said, “and never again draw sword against thy mother. I will return +to my house, and do that to myself which it behoved me to have done ere I +released thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Manto,” exclaimed Benedetto “a truce to this folly! Forsake thy dead Duke, and +that cheat of Liberty more crazy and fantastic still. Wed a living Duke in me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” exclaimed Manto. “I love thee more than any man living on earth, and I +would not espouse thee if the earth held no other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou canst not help thyself,” he rejoined; “thou hast revealed to me the +secret of this passage. I hasten to the camp. I return in an hour with an army, +and wilt thou, wilt thou not, to-morrow’s sun shall behold thee the partner of +my throne!” +</p> + +<p> +Manto wore a poniard. She struck Benedetto to the heart, and he fell dead. She +drew the corpse back into the passage, and hurried to her home. Opening her +master’s volume again, she read: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Tædet coeli convexa tueri. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A few minutes afterwards her father entered the chamber to tell her he had at +last found the philosopher’s stone, but, perceiving his daughter hanging by her +girdle, he forbore to intrude upon her, and returned to his laboratory. +</p> + +<p> +It was time. A sentinel of the besiegers had marked Benedetto’s fall, and the +disappearance of the body into the earth. A pool of blood revealed the entrance +to the passage. Ere sunrise Mantua was full of Frederick’s soldiers, full also +of burning houses, rifled sanctuaries, violated damsels, children playing with +their dead mothers’ breasts, especially full of citizens protesting that they +had ever longed for the restoration of the Emperor, and that this was the +happiest day of their lives. Frederick waited till everybody was killed, then +entered the city and proclaimed an amnesty. Virgil’s bust was broken, and his +writings burned with Manto’s body. The flames glowed on the dead face, which +gleamed as it were with pleasure. The old alchemist had been slain among his +crucibles; his scrolls were preserved with jealous care. +</p> + +<p> +But Manto found another father. She sat at Virgil’s feet in Elysium; and as he +stroked the fair head, now golden with perpetual youth, listened to his mild +reproofs and his cheerful oracles. By her side stood a bowl filled with the +untasted waters of Lethe. +</p> + +<p> +“Woe,” said Virgil—but his manner contradicted his speech—“woe to +the idealist and enthusiast! Woe to them who live in the world to come! Woe to +them who live only for a hope whose fulfilment they will not behold on earth! +Drink not, therefore, of that cup, dear child, lest Duke Virgil’s day should +come, and thou shouldst not know it. For come it will, and all the sooner for +thy tragedy and thy comedy.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>THE CLAW</h2> + +<p> +The balm and stillness of a summer’s night enveloped a spacious piazza in the +city of Shylock and Desdemona. The sky teemed with light drifting clouds +through which the beaming of the full moon broke at intervals upon some +lamp-lit palace, thronged and musical, for it was a night of festivity, or +silvered the dull creeping waters. Ever and anon some richly attired young +patrician descended the steps of one or other of these mansions, and hurried +across the wide area to the canal stairs, where his gondola awaited him. +Whoever did this could not but observe a tall female figure, which, cloaked and +masked, walked backwards and forwards across the piazza, regarding no one, yet +with an air that seemed to invite a companion. +</p> + +<p> +More than one of the young nobles approached the presumably fair peripatetic, +and, with courtesy commonly in inverse ratio to the amount of wine he was +carrying home, proffered his escort to his gondola. Whenever this happened the +figure removed her mask and unclasped her robe, and revealed a sight which for +one moment rooted the young man to the earth and in the next sent him +scampering to his bark. For the countenance was a death’s head, and the breast +was that of a mouldering skeleton. +</p> + +<p> +At last, however, a youth presented himself who, more courageous or more tipsy +than his fellows, or more helplessly paralysed with horror than they, did not +decline the proffered caress, and suffered himself to be drawn within the +goblin’s accursed embrace. Valiant or pot-valiant, great was his relief at +finding himself clasped, instead of by a loathsome spectre, by a silver-haired +man of noble presence, yet with a countenance indescribably haggard and +anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, my son,” he cried, “hasten whither the rewards of thy intrepidity await +thee. Impouch the purse of Fortunatus! Indue the signet of Solomon!” +</p> + +<p> +The young man hesitated. “Is there nought else?” he cautiously demanded. “Needs +it not that I should renounce my baptism? Must I not subscribe an infernal +compact?” +</p> + +<p> +“In thy own blood, my son,” cheerfully responded the old gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Peradventure,” hesitatingly interrogated the youth, “peradventure you are +<i>he</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so, my son, upon honour,” returned the mysterious personage. “I am but a +distressed magician, at this present in fearful straits, from which I look to +be delivered by thee.” +</p> + +<p> +The youth gazed some moments at his companion’s head, and then still more +earnestly at his feet. He then yielded his own hand to him, and the pair +crossed the piazza, almost at a run, the magician ever ejaculating, “Speed! +speed!” +</p> + +<p> +They paused at the foot of a lofty tower, doorless and windowless, with no +visible access of any kind. But the magician signed with his hand, pronounced +some cabalistical words, and instantly stone and lime fell asunder and revealed +an entrance through which they passed, and which immediately closed behind +them. The youth quaked at finding himself alone in utter darkness with he knew +not what, but the wizard whistled, and a severed hand appeared in air bearing a +lamp which illuminated a long winding staircase. The old man motioned to the +youth to precede him, nor dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would +have given the world for the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint. +The distorted shadows of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the wavering +lamp-shine, seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and he glanced back +ever and anon weening to see himself dogged by some frightful monster, but he +saw only the silver hair and sable velvet of the dignified old man. +</p> + +<p> +After the ascent of many steps a door opened before them, and they found +themselves in a spacious chamber, brightly, yet from its size imperfectly +illumined by a single large lamp. It was wainscoted with ebony, and the +furniture was of the same. A long table was covered with scrolls, skulls, +crucibles, crystals, star-charts, geomantic figures, and other appurtenances of +a magician’s calling. Tomes of necromantic lore lined the walls, which were yet +principally occupied with crystal vessels, in which foul beings seemed dimly +and confusedly to agitate themselves. +</p> + +<p> +The magician signed to his visitor to be seated, sat down himself and began: +</p> + +<p> +“Brave youth, ere entering upon the boundless power and riches that await thee, +learn who I am and why I have brought thee here. Behold in me no vulgar wizard, +no mere astrologer or alchemist, but a compeer of Merlin and Michael Scott, +with whose name it may be the nurse of thy infancy hath oft-times quelled thy +froward humours. I am Peter of Abano, falsely believed to have lain two +centuries buried in the semblance of a dog under a heap of stones hurled by the +furious populace, but in truth walking earth to this day, in virtue of the +compact now to be revealed to thee. Hearken, my son! Vain must be the +machinations of my enemies, vain the onslaughts of the rabble, so long as I +fulfil a certain contract registered in hell’s chancery, as I have now done +these three hundred years. And the condition is this, that every year I present +unto the Demon one who hath at my persuasion assigned his soul to him in +exchange for power, riches, knowledge, magical gifts, or whatever else his +heart chiefly desireth; nor until this present year have I perilled the +fulfilment of my obligation. Seest thou these scrolls? They are the assignments +of which I have spoken. It would amaze thee to scan the subscriptions, and +perceive in these the signatures of men exemplary in the eyes of their fellows, +clothed with high dignities in Church and State—nay sometimes redolent of +the very odour of sanctity. Never hath my sagacity deceived me until this year, +when, smitten with the fair promise of a youth of singular impishness, I +omitted to take due note of his consumptive habit, and have but this afternoon +encountered his funeral. This is the last day of my year, and should my +engagement be unredeemed when the sun attains the cusp of that nethermost house +of heaven which he is even now traversing, I must become an inmate of the +infernal kingdom. No time has remained for nice investigation. I have therefore +proved the courage of the Venetian youth in the manner thou knowest, and thou +alone hast sustained the ordeal. Fail not at my bidding, or thou quittest not +this chamber alive. For when the Demon comes to bear me away, he will assuredly +rend thee in pieces for being found in my company. Thou hast, therefore, +everything to gain and nothing to lose by joining the goodly fellowship of my +mates and partners. Delay not, time urges, night deepens, they that would drink +thy blood are abroad. Hearest thou not the moaning and pelting of the rising +storm, and the muttering and scraping of my imprisoned goblins? Save us, I +entreat, I command, save us both!” +</p> + +<p> +Screaming with agitation the aged sorcerer laid a scroll engrossed with fairly +written characters before the youth, stabbed the latter’s arm with a stylus +that at once evoked and collected the crimson stream, thrust this into his hand +and strove to guide it to the parchment, chanting at the same time litanies to +the infernal powers. The crystal flagons rang like one great harmonica with +shrill but spirit-stirring music; volumes of vaporous perfumes diffused +themselves through the apartment, and an endless procession of treasure-laden +figures defiled before the bewildered youth. He seemed buried in the opulence +of the world, as he sat up to his waist in gold and jewels; all the earth’s +beauty gazed at him through eyes brilliant and countless as the stars of +heaven; courtiers beckoned him to thrones; battle-steeds neighed and pawed for +his mounting; laden tables allured every appetite; vassals bent in homage; +slaves fell prostrate at his feet. Now he seemed to collect or disperse legions +of spirits with the waving of a wand; anon, as he pronounced a spell, golden +dragons glided away from boughs laden with golden fruits. Well for him, +doubtless, that in him Nature had kneaded from ordinary clay as unimaginative a +youth as could be found in Venice: yet even so, dazzled with glamour, +intoxicated with illusion, less and less able to resist the cunningly mingled +caresses, entreaties, and menaces of Abano, he could not refrain from tracing a +few characters with the stylus, when, catching reflected in a mirror the old +magician’s expression of wolfish glee, he dropped the instrument from his +grasp, and cast his eye upwards as if appealing to Heaven. But every drop of +blood seemed frozen in his frame as he beheld an enormous claw thrust through +the roof, member as it seemed of some being too gigantic to be contained in the +chamber or the tower itself. Cold, poignant, glittering as steel, it rested +upon a socket of the repulsive hue of jaundiced ivory, with no vestige of a +foot or anything to relieve its naked horror as, rigid and lifeless, yet +plainly with a mighty force behind it, it pointed at the magician’s heart. As +Abano, following the youth’s eye, caught sight of the portent, his visage +assumed an expression of frantic horror, his spells died upon his lips, and the +gorgeous figures became grinning apes or blotchy toads: madly he seized the +young man’s hand, and strove to force him to complete his signature. The robust +youth felt as an infant in his grasp, but ere the stylus could be again thrust +upon him the first stroke of the midnight hour rang through the chamber, and +instantly the gigantic talon pierced Abano from breast to back, projecting far +beyond his shoulders, and swept him upwards to the roof, through which both +disappeared without leaving a trace of their passage. +</p> + +<p> +Horror and thankfulness rushed together into the young man’s mind, and there +contended for some brief instants: but as the last stroke sounded all the +crystal vials shivered with a stunning crash, and their hellish inmates, +rejoicing in their deliverance, swarmed into the chamber. All made for the +youth, who, tugged, clawed, fondled, bitten, beslimed, blinded, deafened, beset +in every way by creatures of indescribable loathsomeness, grasped frantically +as his sole weapon, the stylus; but it had become a writhing serpent. This was +too much, sense forsook him on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +On recovering consciousness he found himself stretched on a pallet in the +dungeons of the Inquisition. The Inquisitors sat on their tribunals; +black-robed familiars flitted about, or waited attentive upon their orders; one +expert in ecclesiastical jurisprudence proved the edge of an axe, and another +heated pincers in a chafing-dish; dismal groans pierced the massy walls; two +sturdy fellows, stripped to the waist, adjusted the rollers of a rack. A +surgeon approached the bedside, bearing a phial and a lancet. The youth +screamed and again became insensible. +</p> + +<p> +But his affright was groundless. The Inquisitors had already taken cognisance +of Abano’s scrolls, and found that, touching these at least, he had spoken +sooth. Besides kings, princes, ministers, magistrates, and other secular +persons who had owed their success in life to dealings with the devil under his +mediation, the infernal bondsmen included so many pillars of the Church and +champions of the Faith; prelates plenty, abbots in abundance, cardinals not a +few, a (some whispered <i>the</i>) Pope; above all, so many of the Inquisitors +themselves, that further inquiry could evidently nowise conduce to edification. +The surgeon, therefore, infused an opiate into the veins of the unconscious +youth, and he came to himself upon a galley speeding him to the holy war in +Cyprus, where he fell fighting the Turk. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>ALEXANDER THE RATCATCHER</h2> + +<p> +“Alexander Octavus mures, qui Urbem supra modum vexabant, anathemate +perculit.”—<i>Palatius. Fasti Cardinalium</i>, tom. v.p. 46. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +“Rome and her rats are at the point of battle!” +</p> + +<p> +This metaphor of Menenius Agrippa’s became, history records, matter of fact in +1689, when rats pervaded the Eternal City from garret to cellar, and Pope +Alexander the Eighth seriously apprehended the fate of Bishop Hatto. The +situation worried him sorely; he had but lately attained the tiara at an +advanced age—the twenty-fourth hour, as he himself remarked in +extenuation of his haste to enrich his nephews. The time vouchsafed for +worthier deeds was brief, and he dreaded descending to posterity as the Rat +Pope. Witty and genial, his sense of humour teased him with a full perception +of the absurdity of his position. Peter and Pasquin concurred in forbidding him +to desert his post; and he derived but small comfort from the ingenuity of his +flatterers, who compared him to St. Paul contending with beasts at Ephesus. +</p> + +<p> +It wanted three half-hours to midnight, as Alexander sat amid traps and +ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican, under the protection of two enormous +cats and a British terrier. A silver bell stood ready to his hand, should the +aid of the attendant chamberlains be requisite. The walls had been divested of +their tapestries, and the floor gleamed with pounded glass. A tome of legendary +lore lay open at the history of the Piper of Hamelin. All was silence, save for +the sniffing and scratching of the dog and a sound of subterranean scraping and +gnawing. +</p> + +<p> +“Why tarries Cardinal Barbadico thus?” the Pope at last asked himself aloud. +The inquiry was answered by a wild burst of squeaking and clattering and +scurrying to and fro, as who should say, “We’ve eaten him! We’ve eaten him!” +</p> + +<p> +But this exultation was at least premature, for just as the terrified Pope +clutched his bell, the door opened to the narrowest extent compatible with the +admission of an ecclesiastical personage of dignified presence, and Cardinal +Barbadico hastily squeezed himself through. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall hardly trust myself upon these stairs again,” he remarked, “unless +under the escort of your Holiness’s terrier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take him, my son, and a cruse of holy water to boot,” the Pope responded. +“Now, how go things in the city?” +</p> + +<p> +“As ill as may be, your Holiness. Not a saint stirs a finger to help us. The +country-folk shun the city, the citizens seek the country. The multitude of +enemies increases hour by hour. They set at defiance the anathemas fulminated +by your Holiness, the spiritual censures placarded in the churches, and the +citation to appear before the ecclesiastical courts, although assured that +their cause shall be pleaded by the ablest advocates in Rome. The cats, +amphibious with alarm, are taking to the Tiber. Vainly the city reeks with +toasted cheese, and the Commissary-General reports himself short of arsenic.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how are the people taking it?” demanded Alexander. “To what cause do they +attribute the public calamity?” +</p> + +<p> +“Generally speaking, to the sins of your Holiness,” replied the Cardinal. +</p> + +<p> +“Cardinal!” exclaimed Alexander indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“I crave pardon for my temerity,” returned Barbadico. “It is with difficulty +that I force myself to speak, but I am bound to lay the ungrateful truth before +your Holiness. The late Pope, as all men know, was a personage of singular +sanctity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Far too upright for this fallen world,” observed Alexander with unction. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not dispute,” responded the Cardinal, “that the head of Innocent the +Eleventh might have been more fitly graced by a halo than by a tiara. But the +vulgar are incapable of placing themselves at this point of view. They know +that the rats hardly squeaked under Innocent, and that they swarm under +Alexander. What wonder if they suspect your Holiness of familiarity with +Beelzebub, the patron of vermin, and earnestly desire that he would take you to +himself? Vainly have I represented to them the unreasonableness of imposing +upon him a trouble he may well deem superfluous, considering your Holiness’s +infirm health and advanced age. Vainly, too, have I pointed out that your +anathema has actually produced all the effect that could have been reasonably +anticipated from any similar manifesto on your predecessor’s part. They won’t +see it. And, in fact, might I humbly advise, it does appear impolitic to hurl +anathemas unless your Holiness knows that some one will be hit. It might be +opportune, for example, to excommunicate Father Molinos, now fast in the +dungeons of St. Angelo, unless, indeed, the rats have devoured him there. But I +question the expediency of going much further.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cardinal,” said the Pope, “you think yourself prodigiously clever, but you +ought to know that the state of public opinion allowed us no alternative. +Moreover, I will give you a wrinkle, in case you should ever come to be Pope +yourself. It is unwise to allow ancient prerogatives to fall entirely into +desuetude. Far-seeing men prognosticate a great revival of sacerdotalism in the +nineteenth century, and what is impotent in an age of sense may be formidable +in an age of nonsense. Further, we know not from one day to another whether we +may not be absolutely necessitated to excommunicate that fautor of Gallicanism, +Louis the Fourteenth, and before launching our bolt at a king, we may think +well to test its efficacy upon a rat. <i>Fiat experimentum.</i> And now to +return to our rats, from which we have ratted. Is there indeed no hope?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Lateat scintillula forsan</i>,” said the Cardinal mysteriously. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! How so?” eagerly demanded Alexander. +</p> + +<p> +“Our hopes,” answered the Cardinal, “are associated with the recent advent to +this city of an extraordinary personage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Explain,” urged the Pope. +</p> + +<p> +“I speak,” resumed the Cardinal, “of an aged man of no plebeian mien or +bearing, albeit most shabbily attired in the skins, now fabulously cheap, of +the vermin that torment us; who, professing to practise as an herbalist, some +little time ago established himself in an obscure street of no good repute. A +tortoise hangs in his needy shop, nor are stuffed alligators lacking. +Understanding that he was resorted to by such as have need of philters and +love-potions, or are incommoded by the longevity of parents and uncles, I was +about to have him arrested, when I received a report which gave me pause. This +concerned the singular intimacy which appeared to subsist between him and our +enemies. When he left home, it was averred, he was attended by troops of them +obedient to his beck and call, and spies had observed him banqueting them at +his counter, the rats sitting erect and comporting themselves with perfect +decorum. I resolved to investigate the matter for myself. Looking into his +house through an unshuttered window, I perceived him in truth surrounded by +feasting and gambolling rats; but when the door was opened in obedience to my +attendants’ summons, he appeared to be entirely alone. Laying down a pestle and +mortar, he greeted me by name with an easy familiarity which for the moment +quite disconcerted me, and inquired what had procured him the honour of my +visit. Recovering myself, and wishing to intimidate him: +</p> + +<p> +“‘I desire in the first place,’ I said, ‘to point out to you your grave +transgression of municipal regulations in omitting to paint your name over your +shop.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Call me Rattila,’ he rejoined with unconcern, ‘and state your further +business.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I felt myself on the wrong tack, and hastened to interrogate him respecting +his relations with our adversaries. He frankly admitted his acquaintance with +rattery in all its branches, and his ability to deliver the city from this +scourge, but his attitude towards your Holiness was so deficient in respect +that I question whether I ought to report it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Proceed, son,” said the Pope; “we will not be deterred from providing for the +public weal by the ribaldry of a ratcatcher.” +</p> + +<p> +“He scoffed at what he termed your Holiness’s absurd position, and affirmed +that the world had seldom beheld, or would soon behold again, so ridiculous a +spectacle as a Pope besieged by rats. ‘I can help your master,’ he continued, +‘and am willing; but my honour, like his, is aspersed in the eyes of the +multitude, and he must come to my aid, if I am to come to his.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I prayed him to be more explicit, and offered to be the bearer of any +communication to your Holiness. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I will unfold myself to no one but the Pope himself,’ he replied, ‘and the +interview must take place when and where I please to appoint. Let him meet me +this very midnight, and alone, in the fifth chamber of the Appartamento +Borgia.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Appartamento Borgia!’ I exclaimed in consternation. ‘The saloons which +the wicked Pope Alexander the Sixth nocturnally perambulates, mingling poisons +that have long lost their potency for Cardinals who have long lost their +lives!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Have a care!’ he exclaimed sharply. ‘You speak to his late Holiness’s most +intimate friend.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Then,’ I answered, ‘you must obviously be the Devil, and I am not at present +empowered to negotiate with your Infernal Majesty. Consider, however, the peril +and inconvenience of visiting at dead of night rooms closed for generations. +Think of the chills and cobwebs. Weigh the probability of his Holiness being +devoured by rats.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I guarantee his Holiness absolute immunity from cold,’ he replied, ‘and that +none of my subjects shall molest him either going or returning.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘But,’ I objected, ‘granting that you are not the Devil, how the devil, let me +ask, do you expect to gain admittance at midnight to the Appartamento Borgia?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Think you I cannot pass through a stone wall?’ answered he, and vanished in +an instant. A tremendous scampering of rats immediately ensued, then all was +silence. +</p> + +<p> +“On recovering in some measure from my astounded condition, I caused strict +search to be made throughout the shop. Nothing came to light but herbalists’ +stuff and ordinary medicines. And now, Holy Father, your Holiness’s resolution? +Reflect well. This Rattila may be the King of the Rats, or he may be Beelzebub +in person.” +</p> + +<p> +Alexander the Eighth was principally considered by his contemporaries in the +light of a venerable fox, but the lion had by no means been omitted from his +composition. +</p> + +<p> +“All powers of good forbid,” he exclaimed, “that a Pope and a Prince should +shrink from peril which the safety of the State summons him to encounter! I +will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of his own appointing, +under his late intimate friend’s very nose. I am a man of many transgressions, +but something assures me that Heaven will not deem this a fit occasion for +calling them to remembrance. Time presses; I lead on; follow, Cardinal +Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let us not forget temporal and spiritual +armouries.” +</p> + +<p> +And hastily providing himself with a lamp, a petronel, a bunch of keys, a +crucifix, a vial of holy water, and a manual of exorcisms, the Pope passed +through a secret door in a corner of his chamber, followed by the Cardinal +bearing another lamp and a naked sword, and preceded by the dog and the two +cats, all ardent and undaunted as champions bound to the Holy Land for the +recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +The wizard had kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the pilgrimage, +which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the number of passages to +be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length the companions stood before the +portal of the Appartamento Borgia. +</p> + +<p> +“Your Holiness must enter alone,” Cardinal Barbadico admonished, with manifest +reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“Await my return,” enjoined the Pontiff, in a tone of more confidence than he +could actually feel, as, after much grinding and grating, the massive door +swung heavily back, and he passed on into the dim, unexplored space beyond. The +outer air, streaming in as though eager to indemnify itself for years of exile, +smote and swayed the flame of the Pope’s lamp, whose feeble ray flitted from +floor to ceiling as the decrepit man, weary with the way he had traversed and +the load he was bearing, tottered and stumbled painfully along, ever and anon +arrested by a closed door, which he unlocked with prodigious difficulty. The +cats cowered close to the Cardinal; the dog at first accompanied the Pope, but +whined so grievously, as though he beheld a spirit, that Alexander bade him +back. +</p> + +<p> +Supreme is the spell of the <i>genius loci</i>. The chambers traversed by the +Pope were in fact adorned with fair examples of the painter’s art, mostly +scriptural in subject, but some inspired with the devout Pantheism in which all +creeds are reconciled. All were alike invisible to the Pontiff, who, with the +dim flicker of his lamp, could no more discern Judaea wed with Egypt on the +frescoed ceiling than, with the human limitation of his faculties, he could +foresee that the ill-reputed rooms would one day harbour a portion of the +Vatican Library, so greatly enriched by himself. Nothing but sinister memories +and vague alarms presented themselves to his imagination. The atmosphere, heavy +and brooding from the long exclusion of the outer air, seemed to weigh upon him +with the density of matter, and to afford the stuff out of which phantasmal +bodies perpetually took shape and, as he half persuaded himself, substance. +Creeping and tottering between bowl and cord, shielding himself with lamp and +crucifix from Michelotto’s spectral poniard and more fearful contact with +fleshless Vanozzas and mouldering Giulias, the Pope urged, or seemed to urge, +his course amid phantom princes and cardinals, priests and courtesans, soldiers +and serving-men, dancers, drinkers, dicers, Bacchic and Cotyttian workers of +whatsoever least beseemed the inmates of a Pontifical household, until, arrived +in the fifth chamber, close by the, to him, invisible picture of the +Resurrection, he sank exhausted into a spacious chair that seemed placed for +his reception, and for a moment closed his eyes. Opening them immediately +afterwards, he saw with relief that the phantoms had vanished, and that he +confronted what at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient ratcatcher, +habited precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for all his mean +apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the potentates of the earth +on other subjects than the extermination of rats. +</p> + +<p> +“This is noble of your Holiness—really,” he said, bowing with mock +reverence. “A second Leo the Great!” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you what, my man,” responded Alexander, feeling it very necessary to +assert his dignity while any of it remained, “you are not to imagine that, +because I have humoured you so far as to grant you an audience at an unusual +place and time, I am going to stand any amount of your nonsense and +impertinence. You can catch our rats, can you? Catch them then, and you need +not fear that we shall treat you like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. You have +committed sundry rascalities, no doubt? A pardon shall be made out for you. You +want a patent or a privilege for your ratsbane? You shall have it. So to work, +in the name of St. Muscipulus! and you may keep the tails and skins.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alexander,” said the ratcatcher composedly, “I would not commend or dispraise +you unduly, but this I may say, that of all the Popes I have known you are the +most exuberant in hypocrisy and the most deficient in penetration. The most +hypocritical, because you well know, and know that I know that you know, that +you are not conversing with an ordinary ratcatcher: had you deemed me such, you +would never have condescended to meet me at this hour and place. The least +penetrating, because you apparently have not yet discovered to whom you are +speaking. Do you really mean to say that you do not know me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe I have seen your face before,” said Alexander, “and all the more +likely as I was inspector of prisons when I was Cardinal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then look yonder,” enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the frescoed +wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers. Phosphoric sparks +hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue lambent flame, which +concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose precise attitude the +ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees. The Pope shrieked with +amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical vestments had become ragged +fur, in every other respect the kneeling figure was the counterpart of the +painted one, and the painted one was Pinturicchio’s portrait of Pope Alexander +the Sixth kneeling as a witness of the Resurrection. +</p> + +<p> +Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor’s attitude, but +terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his patron St. Mark which +struggled towards his lips never arrived there. The book of exorcisms fell from +his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water lay in shivers upon the floor. +Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope had seated himself beside the Pope +with one foot in the grave, and, fondling a ferret-skin, proceeded to enter +into conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“What fear you?” he asked. “Why should I harm you? None can say that I ever +injured any one for any cause but my own advantage, and to injure your Holiness +now would be to obstruct a design which I have particularly at heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“I crave your Holiness’s forgiveness,” rejoined the Eighth Alexander, “but you +must be aware that you left the world with a reputation which disqualifies you +for the society of any Pope in the least careful of his character. It +positively compromises me to have so much as the ghost of a person so +universally decried as your Holiness under my roof, and you would infinitely +oblige me by forthwith repairing to your own place, which I take to be about +four thousand miles below where you are sitting. I could materially facilitate +and accelerate your Holiness’s transit thither if you would be so kind as to +hand me that little book of exorcisms.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is the fine gold become dim!” exclaimed Alexander the Sixth. “Popes in +bondage to moralists! Popes nervous about public opinion! Is there another +judge of morals than the Pope speaking <i>ex cathedra</i>, as I always did? Is +the Church to frame herself after the prescriptions of heathen philosophers and +profane jurists? How, then, shall she be terrible as an army with banners? Did +I concern myself with such pedantry when the Kings of Spain and Portugal came +to me like cats suing for morsels, and I gave them the West and the East?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” Alexander the Eighth allowed, “that the lustre of the Church hath +of late been obfuscated by the prevalence of heresy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t the heretics,” Borgia insisted. “It is the degeneracy of the Popes. A +shabby lot! You, Alexander, are about the best of them; but the least Cardinal +about my Court would have thought himself bigger than you.” +</p> + +<p> +Alexander’s spirit rose. “I would suggest,” he said, “that this haughty style +is little in keeping with the sordid garb wherein your Holiness, consistent +after death as in your life, masquerades to the scandal and distress of the +faithful.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I other? Has your Holiness forgotten your Rabelais?” +</p> + +<p> +“The works of that eminent Doctor and Divine,” answered Alexander the Eighth, +“are seldom long absent from my hands, yet I fail to remember in what manner +they elucidate the present topic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me refresh your memory,” rejoined Borgia, and, producing a volume of the +Sage of Meudon, he turned to the chapter descriptive of the employments of +various eminent inhabitants of the nether world, and pointed to the sentence: +</p> + +<p> +“LE PAPE ALEXANDRE ESTOYT PRENEUR DE RATZ.” [*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +*) <i>Pantagruel</i>, Book XI. ch. 30. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this indeed sooth?” demanded his successor. +</p> + +<p> +“How else should François Rabelais have affirmed it?” responded Borgia. +“When I arrived in the subterranean kingdom, I found it in the same condition +as your Holiness’s dominions at the present moment, eaten up by rats. The +attention which, during my earthly pilgrimage, I had devoted to the science of +toxicology indicated me as a person qualified to abate the nuisance, which +commission I executed with such success, that I received the appointment of +Ratcatcher to his Infernal Majesty, and so discharged its duties as to merit a +continuance of the good opinion which had always been entertained of me in that +exalted quarter. After a while, however, interest began to be made for me in +even more elevated spheres. I had not been able to cram Heaven with Spaniards, +as I had crammed the Sacred College—on the contrary. Truth to speak, my +nation has not largely contributed to the population of the regions above. But +some of us are people of consequence. My great-grandson, the General of the +Jesuits, who, as such, had the ear of St. Ignatius Loyola, represented that had +I adhered strictly to my vows, he could never have come into existence, and +that the Society would thus have wanted one of its brightest ornaments. This +argument naturally had great weight with St. Ignatius, the rather as he, too, +was my countryman. Much also was said of the charity I had shown to the exiled +Jews, which St. Dominic was pleased to say made him feel ashamed of himself +when he came to think of it; for my having fed my people in time of dearth, +instead of contriving famines to enrich myself, as so many Popes’ nephews have +done since; and of the splendid order in which I kept the College of Cardinals. +Columbus said a good word for me, and Savonarola did not oppose. Finally I was +allowed to come upstairs, and exercise my profession on earth. But mark what +pitfalls line the good man’s path! I never could resist tampering with drugs of +a deleterious nature, and was constantly betrayed by the thirst for scientific +experiment into practices incompatible with the public health. The good nature +which my detractors have not denied me was a veritable snare. I felt for youth +debarred from its enjoyments by the unnatural vitality of age, and sympathised +with the blooming damsel whose parent alone stood between her and her lover. I +thus lived in constant apprehension of being ordered back to the Netherlands, +and yearned for the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be out of +mischief. At last I discovered that my promotion to a higher sphere depended +upon my obtaining a testimonial from the reigning Pope. Let a solemn procession +be held in my honour, and intercession be publicly made for me, and I should +ascend forthwith. I have consequently represented my case to many of your +predecessors: but, O Alexander, you seventeenth-century Popes are a miserable +breed! No fellow-feeling, no <i>esprit de corps. Heu pietas! heu prisca +fides</i>! No one was so rude as your ascetic antecessor. The more of a saint, +the less of a gentleman. Personally offensive, I assure you! But the others +were nearly as bad. The haughty Paul, the fanatic Gregory, the worldly Urban, +the austere Innocent the Tenth, the affable Alexander the Seventh, all +concurred in assuring me that it was deeply to be regretted that I should ever +have been emancipated from the restraints of the Stygian realm, to which I +should do well to return with all possible celerity; that it would much conduce +to the interests of the Church if my name could be forgotten; and that as for +doing anything to revive its memory, they would just as soon think of +canonising Judas Iscariot.” +</p> + +<p> +“And therefore your Holiness has brought these rats upon us, enlisted, I +nothing doubt, in the infernal regions?” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely so: Plutonic, necyomantic, Lemurian rats, kindly lent by the Prince +of Darkness for the occasion, and come dripping from Styx to squeak and gibber +in the Capitol. But I note your Holiness’s admission that they belong to a +region exempt from your jurisdiction, and that, therefore, your measures +against them, except as regards their status as belligerents, are for the most +part illegitimate and <i>ultra vires</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would argue that point,” replied Alexander the Eighth, “if my lungs were as +tough as when I pleaded before the Rota in Pope Urban’s time. For the present I +confine myself to formally protesting against your Holiness’s unprecedented and +parricidal conduct in invading your country at the head of an army of loathsome +vermin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unprecedented!” exclaimed Borgia. “Am I not the modern Coriolanus? Did Narses +experience blacker ingratitude than I? Where would the temporal power be but +for me? Who smote the Colonna? Who squashed the Orsini? Who gave the Popes to +dwell quietly in their own house? Monsters of unthankfulness!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure,” said Alexander the Eighth soothingly, “that my predecessors’ +inability to comply with your Holiness’s request must have cost them many +inward tears, not the less genuine because entirely invisible and completely +inaudible. A wise Pope will, before all things, consider the spirit of his age. +The force of public opinion, which your Holiness lately appeared to disparage, +was, in fact, as operative upon yourself as upon any of your successors. If you +achieved great things in your lifetime, it was because the world was with you. +Did you pursue the same methods now, you would soon discover that you had +become an offensive anachronism. It will not have escaped your Holiness’s +penetration that what moralists will persist in terming the elevation of the +standard of the Church, is the result of the so-called improvement of the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a measure of truth in this,” admitted Alexander the Sixth, “and the +spirit of this age is a very poor spirit. It was my felicity to be a Pope of +the Renaissance. Blest dispensation! when men’s view of life was large and +liberal; when the fair humanities flourished; when the earth yielded up her +hoards of chiselled marble and breathing bronze, and new-found agate urns as +fresh as day; when painters and sculptors vied with antiquity, and poets and +historians followed in their path; when every benign deity was worshipped save +Diana and Vesta; when the arts of courtship and cosmetics were expounded by +archbishops; when the beauteous Imperia was of more account than the eleven +thousand virgins; when obnoxious persons glided imperceptibly from the world; +and no one marvelled if he met the Pope arm in arm with the Devil. How +miserable, in comparison, is the present sapless age, with its prudery and its +pedantry, and its periwigs and its painted coaches, and its urban Arcadias and +the florid impotence and ostentatious inanity of what it calls its art! Pope +Alexander! I see in the spirit the sepulchre destined for <i>you</i>, and I +swear to you that my soul shivers in my ratskins! Come, now! I do not expect +you to emulate the Popes of my time, but show that your virtues are your own, +and your faults those of your epoch. Pluck up a spirit! Take bulls by the +horns! Look facts in the face! Think upon the images of Brutus and Cassius! +Recognise that you cannot get rid of me, and that the only safe course is to +rehabilitate me. I am not a candidate for canonisation just now; but repair +past neglect and appease my injured shade in the way you wot of. If this is +done, I pledge my word that every rat shall forthwith evacuate Rome. Is it a +bargain? I see it is; you are one of the good old sort, though fallen on evil +days.” +</p> + +<p> +Renaissance or Rats, Alexander the Eighth yielded. +</p> + +<p> +“I promise,” he declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Your hand upon it!” +</p> + +<p> +Subduing his repugnance and apprehension by a strong effort, Alexander laid his +hand within the spectre’s clammy paw. An icy thrill ran through his veins, and +he sank back senseless into his chair. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with slight +symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, and confer +with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently befallen them. +To his amazement, the Cardinal’s mind seemed an entire blank on the subject. He +admitted having made his customary report to his Holiness the preceding night, +but knew nothing of any supernatural ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight +rendezvous at the Appartamento Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his +nescience; no vestige of the man of rats or of his shop could be discovered; +and the Borgian apartments, opened and carefully searched through, revealed no +trace of having been visited for many years. The Pope’s book of exorcisms was +in its proper place, his vial of holy water stood unbroken upon his table; and +his chamberlains deposed that they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual +hour. His illusion was at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly vivid +dream; but when he declared his intention of actually holding a service and +conducting a procession for the weal of his namesake and predecessor, the +conviction became universal that the rats had effected a lodgement in his +Holiness’s upper storeys. +</p> + +<p> +Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that on the +same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of Rome. As the +assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and monasteries in the city, the +Pope in his litter in their midst, marched, carrying candles, intoning chants, +and, with many a secret shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven for the repose of +Alexander the Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by another procession +precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, but more grateful to +the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and pageants of the palmiest days +of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat and lean; old and young; strident +or silent; the whiskered legions tore and galloped along; thronging from every +part of the city, they united in single column into an endless host that +appeared to stretch from the rising to the setting of the sun. They seemed +making for the Tiber, which they would have speedily choked; but ere they could +arrive there a huge rift opened in the earth, down which they madly +precipitated themselves. Their descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as +Vulcan occupied in falling from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last tail was +over the brink, the gulf closed as effectually as the gulf in the Forum closed +over Marcus Curtius, not leaving the slightest inequality by which any could +detect it. +</p> + +<p> +Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth from his +litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who appeared desirous +of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were exchanged, and instantly +in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, corpulent, elderly man, with +the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander the Sixth, accoutred with the +official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, who rose slowly into the air as +though he had been inflated with hydrogen. +</p> + +<p> +“To your prayers!” cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. The +priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their knees. Their +orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was rising rapidly, when +suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty, contending which should +receive the Holy Father into her bosom. [*] Borgia struck at them with his +crozier, and seemed to be keeping them at bay, when a cloud wrapped the group +from the sight of men. Thunder roared, lightning glared, the rush of waters +blended with the ejaculations of the people and the yet more tempestuous +rushing of the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is not probable that Alexander +passed, like Dante’s sigh, “beyond the sphere that doth all spheres enfold”; +but, as he was never again seen on earth, it is not doubted that he attained at +least as far as the moon. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +*) Per aver riposo<br/> +Portato fu fra l’anime beate<br/> +Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso;<br/> +Del qual seguiro le sante pedate<br/> +Tre sue familiari e care ancelle,<br/> +Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate.<br/> +—M<small>ACHIAVELLI</small>, <i>Decennale Primo</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY</h2> + +<p> +In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the Christian +era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had three sons, Fu-su, +Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men of active minds, always +labouring to find out something new and useful. Wang-li was clever too, but +only in games of skill, in which he attained great proficiency. +</p> + +<p> +Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful inventions +they would make when they arrived at man’s estate, and of the wealth and renown +they promised themselves thereby. Their conversation seldom reached the ears of +Wang-li, for he rarely lifted his eyes from the chess-board on which he solved +his problems. But their father was more attentive, and one day he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you must +have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you would have +learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means which you have proposed +to yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“How so, father?” asked they. +</p> + +<p> +“It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors,” said the old man, “that the +reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, by reason of +our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not but become impaired if +their posterity were suffered to eclipse their fame by new discoveries, or +presumptuously amend what might appear imperfect in their productions. It is +therefore, by an edict of the Emperor Suen, forbidden to invent anything; and +by a statute of the Emperor Wu-chi it is further provided that nothing hitherto +invented shall be improved. My predecessor in the small office I hold was +deprived of it for saying that in his judgment money ought to be made round +instead of square, and I have myself run risk of my life for seeking to combine +a small file with a pair of tweezers.” +</p> + +<p> +“If this is the case,” said the young men, “our fatherland is not the place for +us.” And they embraced their father, and departed. Of their brother Wang-li +they took no farewell, inasmuch as he was absorbed in a chess problem. Before +separating, they agreed to meet on the same spot after thirty years, with the +treasure which they doubted not to have acquired by the exercise of their +inventive faculties in foreign lands. They further covenanted that if either +had missed his reward the other should share his possessions with him. +</p> + +<p> +Fu-su repaired to the artists who cut out characters in blocks of hard wood, to +the end that books may be printed from the same. When he had fathomed their +mystery he betook himself to a brass-founder, and learned how to cast in metal. +He then sought a learned man who had travelled much, and made himself +acquainted with the Greek, Persian, and Arabic languages. Then he cast a number +of Greek characters in type, and putting them into a bag and providing himself +with some wooden letter-tablets of his own carving, he departed to seek his +fortune. After innumerable hardships and perils he arrived in the land of +Persia, and inquired for the great king. +</p> + +<p> +“The great king is dead,” they told him, “and his head is entirely separated +from his body. There is now no king in Persia, great or small,” +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall I find another great king?” demanded he. +</p> + +<p> +“In the city of Alexandria,” replied they, “where the Commander of the Faithful +is busy introducing the religion of the Prophet.” +</p> + +<p> +Fu-su passed to Alexandria, carrying his types and tablets. +</p> + +<p> +As he entered the gates he remarked an enormous cloud of smoke, which seemed to +darken the whole city. Before he could inquire the reason, the guard arrested +him as a stranger, and conducted him to the presence of the Caliph Omar. +</p> + +<p> +“Know, O Caliph,” said Fu-su, “that my countrymen are at once the wisest of +mankind and the stupidest. They have invented an art for the preservation of +letters and the diffusion of knowledge, which the sages of Greece and India +never knew, but they have not learned to take, and they refuse to be taught how +to take, the one little step further necessary to render it generally +profitable to mankind.” +</p> + +<p> +And producing his tablets and types, he explained to the Caliph the entire +mystery of the art of printing. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou seemest to be ignorant,” said Omar, “that we have but yesterday condemned +and excommunicated all books, and banished the same from the face of the earth, +seeing that they contain either that which is contrary to the Koran, in which +case they are impious, or that which is agreeable to the Koran, in which case +they are superfluous. Thou art further unaware, as it would seem, that the +smoke which shrouds the city proceeds from the library of the unbelievers, +consumed by our orders. It will be meet to burn thee along with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Commander of the Faithful,” said an officer, “of a surety the last scroll of +the accursed ceased to flame even as this infidel entered the city.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it be so,” said Omar, “we will not burn him, seeing that we have taken away +from him the occasion to sin. Yet shall he swallow these little brass amulets +of his, at the rate of one a day, and then be banished from the country.” +</p> + +<p> +The sentence was executed, and Fu-su was happy that the Court physician +condescended to accept his little property in exchange for emetics. +</p> + +<p> +He begged his way slowly and painfully back to China, and arrived at the +covenanted spot at the expiration of the thirtieth year. His father’s modest +dwelling had disappeared, and in its place stood a magnificent mansion, around +which stretched a park with pavilions, canals, willow-trees, golden pheasants, +and little bridges. +</p> + +<p> +“Tu-sin has surely made his fortune,” thought he, “and he will not refuse to +share it with me agreeably to our covenant.” +</p> + +<p> +As he thus reflected he heard a voice at his elbow, and turning round perceived +that one in a more wretched plight than himself was asking alms of him. It was +Tu-sin. +</p> + +<p> +The brothers embraced with many tears, and after Tu-sin had learned Fu-su’s +history, he proceeded to recount his own. +</p> + +<p> +“I repaired,” said he, “to those who know the secret of the grains termed +fire-dust, which Suen has not been able to prevent us from inventing, but of +which Wu-chi has taken care that we shall make no use, save only for fireworks. +Having learned their mystery I deposited a certain portion of this fire-dust in +hollow tubes which I had constructed of iron and brass, and upon it I further +laid leaden balls of a size corresponding to the hollow of the tubes. I then +found that by applying a light to the fire-dust at one end of the tube I could +send the ball out at the other with such force that it penetrated the cuirasses +of three warriors at once. I filled a barrel with the dust, and concealing it +and the tubes under carpets which I laid upon the backs of oxen, I set out to +the city of Constantinople. I will not at present relate my adventures on the +journey. Suffice it that I arrived at last half dead from fatigue and hardship, +and destitute of everything except my merchandise. By bribing an officer with +my carpets I was admitted to have speech with the Emperor. I found him busily +studying a problem in chess. +</p> + +<p> +“I told him that I had discovered a secret which would make him the master of +the world, and in particular would help him to drive away the Saracens, who +threatened his empire with destruction. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thou must perceive,’ he said, ‘that I cannot possibly attend to thee until I +have solved this problem. Yet, lest any should say that the Emperor neglects +his duties, absorbed in idle amusement, I will refer thy invention to the chief +armourers of my capital. And he gave me a letter to the armourers, and returned +to his problem. And as I quitted the palace bearing the missive, I came upon a +great procession. Horsemen and running footmen, musicians, heralds, and +banner-bearers surrounded a Chinaman who sat in the attitude of Fo under a +golden umbrella upon a richly caparisoned elephant, his pigtail plaited with +yellow roses. And the musicians blew and clashed, and the standard-bearers +waved their ensigns, and the heralds proclaimed, ‘Thus shall it be done to the +man whom the Emperor delights to honour.’ And unless I was very greatly +mistaken, the face of the Chinaman was the face of our brother Wang-li. +</p> + +<p> +“At another time I would have striven to find what this might mean, but my +impatience was great, as also my need and hunger. I sought the chief armourers, +and with great trouble brought them all together to give me audience, I +produced my tube and fire-dust, and sent my balls with ease through the best +armour they could set before me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Who will want breast-plates now?’ cried the chief breast-plate maker. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Or helmets?’ exclaimed one who made armour for the head. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I would not have taken fifty bezants for that shield, and what good is it +now?’ said the head of the shield trade. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My swords will be of less account,’ said a swordsmith. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My arrows of none,’ lamented an arrow-maker. +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Tis villainy,’ cried one. +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Tis magic,’ shouted another. +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Tis illusion, as I’m an honest tradesman,’ roared a third, and put his +integrity to the proof by thrusting a hot iron bar into my barrel. All present +rose up in company with the roof of the building, and all perished, except +myself, who escaped with the loss of my hair and skin. A fire broke out on the +spot, and consumed one-third of the city of Constantinople. +</p> + +<p> +“I was lying on a prison-bed some time afterwards, partly recovered of my +hurts, dolefully listening to a dispute between two of my guards as to whether +I ought to be burned or buried alive, when the Imperial order for my disposal +came down. The gaolers received it with humility, and read ‘Kick him out of the +city.’ Marvelling at the mildness of the punishment, they nevertheless executed +it with so much zeal that I flew into the middle of the Bosphorus, where I was +picked up by a fishing vessel, and landed on the Asiatic coast, whence I have +begged my way home. I now propose that we appeal to the pity of the owner of +this splendid mansion, who may compassionate us on hearing that we were reared +in the Cottage which has been pulled down to make room for his palace.” +</p> + +<p> +They entered the gates, walked timidly up to the house, and prepared to fall at +the feet of the master, but did not, for ere they could do so they recognised +their brother Wang-li. +</p> + +<p> +It took Wang-li some time to recognise them, but when at length he knew them he +hastened to provide for their every want. When they had well eaten and drunk, +and had been clad in robes of honour, they imparted their histories, and asked +for his. +</p> + +<p> +“My brothers,” said Wang-li, “the noble game of chess, which was happily +invented long before the time of the Emperor Suen, was followed by me solely +for its pleasure, and I dreamed not of acquiring wealth by its pursuit until I +casually heard one day that it was entirely unknown to the people of the West. +Even then I thought not of gaining money, but conceived so deep a compassion +for those forlorn barbarians that I felt I could know no rest until I should +have enlightened them. I accordingly proceeded to the city of Constantinople, +and was received as a messenger from Heaven. To such effect did I labour that +ere long the Emperor and his officers of state thought of nothing else but +playing chess all day and night, and the empire fell into entire confusion, and +the Saracens mightily prevailed. In consideration of these services the Emperor +was pleased to bestow those distinguished honours upon me which thou didst +witness at his palace gate, dear brother. +</p> + +<p> +“After, however, the fire which was occasioned through thy instrumentality, +though in no respect by thy fault, the people murmured, and taxed the Emperor +with seeking to destroy his capital in league with a foreign sorcerer, meaning +thee. Ere long the chief officers conspired and entered the Emperor’s +apartment, purposing to dethrone him, but he declared that he would in nowise +abdicate until he had finished the game of chess he was then playing with me. +They looked on, grew interested, began to dispute with one another respecting +the moves, and while they wrangled loyal officers entered and made them all +captive. This greatly augmented my credit with the Emperor, which was even +increased when shortly afterwards I played with the Saracen admiral blockading +the Hellespont, and won of him forty corn-ships, which turned the dearth of the +city into plenty. +</p> + +<p> +“The Emperor bade me choose any favour I would, but I said his liberality had +left me nothing to ask for except the life of a poor countryman of mine who I +had heard was in prison for burning the city. The Emperor bade me write his +sentence with my own hand. Had I known that it was thou, Tu-sin, believe me I +had shown more consideration for thy person. At length I departed for my native +land, loaded with wealth, and travelling most comfortably by relays of swift +dromedaries. I returned hither, bought our father’s cottage, and on its site +erected this palace, where I dwell meditating on the problems of chessplayers +and the precepts of the sages, and persuaded that a little thing which the +world is willing to receive is better than a great thing which it hath not yet +learned to value aright. For the world is a big child, and chooses amusement +before instruction.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call you chess an amusement?” asked his brothers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>MADAM LUCIFER</h2> + +<p> +Lucifer sat playing chess with Man for his soul. +</p> + +<p> +The game was evidently going ill for Man. He had but pawns left, few and +straggling. Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops. +</p> + +<p> +It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no great +hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a pity,” said he at last, “that we did not fix some period within which +the player must move, or resign.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lucifer,” returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, “it is not the +impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my betrothed. +When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that paragon of terrestrial +loveliness!” Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was touched. +</p> + +<p> +“Is the Lady Adeliza’s loveliness in sooth so transcendent?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!” +</p> + +<p> +“If that is the case,” rejoined Lucifer, “thou mayest reassure thyself. The +Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy shape and woo +her in thy stead.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this promise which +Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In an instant the Devil +checkmated him, and he disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I don’t +think I should have gone in for it,” soliloquised the Devil, as, wearing his +captive’s semblance and installed in his apartments, he surveyed the effects to +which he now had to administer. They included coats, shirts, collars, neckties, +foils, cigars, and the like <i>ad libitum</i>; and very little else except +three challenges, ten writs, and seventy-four unpaid bills, elegantly disposed +around the looking-glass. To the poor youth’s praise be it said, there were no +billets-doux, except from the Lady Adeliza herself. +</p> + +<p> +Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and nothing but +his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him take the back +stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking on the principal +staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer and a bootmaker, and +shortly found himself at the Lady Adeliza’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such correctness +of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a love-sick fiend. Not +Merlin’s mother had produced half the impression upon him; and Adeliza on her +part had never found her lover one-hundredth part so interesting as he seemed +that morning. +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape for the +occasion, he negotiated a loan without the smallest difficulty. All debts were +promptly discharged, and Adeliza was astonished at the splendour and variety of +the presents she was constantly receiving. +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer had all but brought her to name the day, when he was informed that a +gentleman of clerical appearance desired to wait upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“Wants money for a new church or mission, I suppose,” said he. “Show him up.” +</p> + +<p> +But when the visitor was ushered in, Lucifer found with discomposure that he +was no earthly clergyman, but a celestial saint; a saint, too, with whom +Lucifer had never been able to get on. He had served in the army while on +earth, and his address was curt, precise, and peremptory. +</p> + +<p> +“I have called,” he said, “to notify to you my appointment as Inspector of +Devils.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed Lucifer, in consternation. “To the post of my old friend +Michael!” +</p> + +<p> +“Too old,” said the Saint laconically. “Millions of years older than the world. +About your age, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer winced, remembering the particular business he was then about. The +Saint continued: +</p> + +<p> +“I am a new broom, and am expected to sweep clean. I warn you that I mean to be +strict, and there is one little matter which I must set right immediately. You +are going to marry that poor young fellow’s betrothed, are you? Now you know +you cannot take his wife, unless you give him yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear friend,” exclaimed Lucifer, “what an inexpressibly blissful +prospect you do open unto me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that,” said the Saint. “I must remind you that the dominion of +the infernal regions is unalterably attached to the person of the present Queen +thereof. If you part with her you immediately lose all your authority and +possessions. I don’t care a brass button which you do, but you must understand +that you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Good morning!” +</p> + +<p> +Who shall describe the conflict in Lucifer’s bosom? If any stronger passion +existed therein at that moment than attachment to Adeliza, it was aversion to +his consort, and the two combined were well-nigh irresistible. But to +disenthrone himself, to descend to the condition of a poor devil! +</p> + +<p> +Feeling himself incapable of coming to a decision, he sent for Belial, unfolded +the matter, and requested his advice. +</p> + +<p> +“What a shame that our new inspector will not let you marry Adeliza!” lamented +his counsellor. “If you did, my private opinion is that forty-eight hours +afterwards you would care just as much for her as you do now for Madam Lucifer, +neither more nor less. Are your intentions really honourable?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied Lucifer, “it is to be a Lucifer match.” +</p> + +<p> +“The more fool you,” rejoined Belial. “If you tempted her to commit a sin, she +would be yours without any conditions at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Belial,” said Lucifer, “I cannot bring myself to be a tempter of so much +innocence and loveliness.” +</p> + +<p> +And he meant what he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, let me try,” proposed Belial. +</p> + +<p> +“You?” replied Lucifer contemptuously; “do you imagine that Adeliza would look +at <i>you</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” asked Belial, surveying himself complacently in the glass. +</p> + +<p> +He was humpbacked, squinting, and lame, and his horns stood up under his wig. +</p> + +<p> +The discussion ended in a wager after which there was no retreat for Lucifer. +</p> + +<p> +The infernal Iachimo was introduced to Adeliza as a distinguished foreigner, +and was soon prosecuting his suit with all the success which Lucifer had +predicted. One thing protected while it baffled him—the entire inability +of Adeliza to understand what he meant. At length he was constrained to make +the matter clear by producing an enormous treasure, which he offered Adeliza in +exchange for the abandonment of her lover. +</p> + +<p> +The tempest of indignation which ensued would have swept away any ordinary +demon, but Belial listened unmoved. When Adeliza had exhausted herself he +smilingly rallied her upon her affection for an unworthy lover, of whose +infidelity he undertook to give her proof. Frantic with jealousy, Adeliza +consented, and in a trice found herself in the infernal regions. +</p> + +<p> +Adeliza’s arrival in Pandemonium, as Belial had planned, occurred immediately +after the receipt of a message from Lucifer, in whose bosom love had finally +gained the victory, and who had telegraphed his abdication and resignation of +Madam Lucifer to Adeliza’s betrothed. The poor young man had just been hauled +up from the lower depths, and was beset by legions of demons obsequiously +pressing all manner of treasures upon his acceptance. He stared, helpless and +bewildered, unable to realise his position in the smallest degree. In the +background grave and serious demons, the princes of the infernal realm, +discussed the new departure, and consulted especially how to break it to Madam +Lucifer—a commission of which no one seemed ambitious. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay where you are,” whispered Belial to Adeliza; “stir not; you shall put his +constancy to the proof within five minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under ordinary +circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover’s side: but what is all hell to +jealousy? +</p> + +<p> +In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by Madam +Lucifer. This lady’s black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted agreeably with +her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair was compensated by the +exceptional length of her nails; she was a thousand million years old, and, but +for her remarkable muscular vigour, looked every one of them. The rage into +which Belial’s communication had thrown her was something indescribable; but, +as her eye fell on the handsome youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to +take possession of her mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Let the monster go!” she exclaimed; “who cares? Come, my love, ascend the +throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond +Luciferetta.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t, back you go,” interjected Belial. +</p> + +<p> +What might have been the young man’s decision if Madam Lucifer had borne more +resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent to inquire, for the +question never arose. +</p> + +<p> +“Take me away!” he screamed, “take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of her +reach! Oh, Adeliza!” +</p> + +<p> +With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant glance at +the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression changed, and she +screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike in every lineament and +every detail of costume, utterly indistinguishable, even by the eye of Love. +</p> + +<p> +Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza’s feet and pray her to +defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings of her +elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his dominions along with +his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions with such expedition that he +had had no time to change his costume. Hence the equivocation which confounded +Adeliza, but at the same time preserved her from being torn to pieces by the no +less mystified Madam Lucifer. +</p> + +<p> +Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling resumed +his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer’s talons were immediately inserted into +his whiskers. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear! my love!” he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, “is this the +way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that person?” demanded Madam Lucifer. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know her,” screamed the wretched Lucifer. “I never saw her before. +Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I know it,” sharply replied Madam Lucifer, “You can’t bear to part with +her, can’t you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, would you? Take +that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them both out!” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly,” responded Lucifer. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Sire,” cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, “for Heaven’s sake let your +Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector——” +</p> + +<p> +“Bother the Inspector!” screeched Lucifer. “D’ye think I’m not a thousand times +more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in the calendar? There,” +addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, “be off! You’ll find all debts paid, and +a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!” +</p> + +<p> +They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus stood +wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down which they +scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it was long ere they +ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>THE TALISMANS</h2> + +<p> +What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us perform, +which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem incredible! +</p> + +<p> +By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, who was +prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of which, to judge +by the little value he appeared to set on the subject of his discourse, he must +himself have been fully persuaded? Without exciting his suspicions in the +smallest degree, the student stole away to a region inconceivably remote, and +presented himself at the portal of a magnificent palace, guarded by goblins, +imps, lions, serpents, and monsters whose uncouthness forbids description. +</p> + +<p> +A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the +professor’s class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully +respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance, brandishing +a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal goblins, by whom he +was successively interrogated. +</p> + +<p> +“Hast thou undergone the seven probations?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the student. +</p> + +<p> +“Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ninety-nine times each,” said the student. +</p> + +<p> +“Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have,” said the student. +</p> + +<p> +“Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said the student. +</p> + +<p> +“Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said the student, +</p> + +<p> +“Hast thou attestations of all these circumstances under the hands and seals of +a thousand and one demons?” +</p> + +<p> +The student displayed his parchments. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast undergone every trial,” pronounced the seventh goblin; “thou hast +won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all things, and to +choose from it any one talisman at thy liking.” +</p> + +<p> +The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank hissing away, +the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him upon his back to the +treasurer’s presence, +</p> + +<p> +The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair, received +the adventurer with civility. +</p> + +<p> +“I have come,” said the student, “for the talismans in thy keeping, to the +choice among which I have entitled myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast fairly earned them,” replied the old man, “and I may not say thee +nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape which it has +received at my hands during the long period for which these have remained in my +custody.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must submit to the condition,” said the student. +</p> + +<p> +“Behold, then, Aladdin’s lamp,” said the ancient personage, tendering a tiny +vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a coarse, rusty +powder. +</p> + +<p> +“Aladdin’s lamp!” cried the student. +</p> + +<p> +“All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve,” replied the old man. +“Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to apprise thee that the +virtues of the talisman having necessarily dwindled with its bulk, it is at +present incompetent to evoke any Genie, and can at most summon an imp, of whose +company thou wilt never be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as the least friction +will inevitably destroy what little of the talisman remains.” +</p> + +<p> +“Confusion!” cried the young man, “Show me, then, Aladdin’s ring.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop, +</p> + +<p> +“This, at least,” asked the student, “is not devoid of virtue?” +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its magic +properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, which I have +gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any other use than that of +a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to admiration.” +</p> + +<p> +“Produce another talisman,” commanded the youth, +</p> + +<p> +“These,” said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of +leather, “are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them out.” +</p> + +<p> +“This, at least, is bright and weighty,” exclaimed the student, as the old man +displayed the sword of sharpness. +</p> + +<p> +“In truth a doughty weapon,” returned the treasurer, “if wielded by a stronger +arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite off heads of its +own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to the new hilt.” +</p> + +<p> +After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a fragment +of the original setting of Solomon’s seal, the youth’s eye lighted upon a +volume full of mysterious characters. +</p> + +<p> +“Whose book is this?” he inquired. “Heavens, it is Michael Scott’s!” +</p> + +<p> +“Even so,” returned the venerable man, “and its spells have lost nothing of +their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula for dismissing +spirits after they have been summoned from the nether world, hath been removed +by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath caused several most respectable +magicians to be torn in pieces, and hath notably increased the number of demons +at large.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou old villain!” shouted the exasperated youth, “is this the way in which +the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou that I will +brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, but I will deprive +thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“O good youth,” supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, “bereave me +not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the consequences!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not think,” roared the youth. “Deliver it to me, or I’ll rend it from +thy head with my own hands.” +</p> + +<p> +With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to the +youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters. +</p> + +<p> +Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding streets +until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large public square. It +was crowded with people, gazing intently at the afternoon sky, and the air was +rife with a confused murmur of altercations and exclamations. +</p> + +<p> +“It is.” “No, I tell you, it is impossible.” “It cannot be.” “I see it move.” +“No, it’s only my eyes are dazzled.” “Who could have believed it?” “Whatever +will happen next?” +</p> + +<p> +Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object of their +attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could discover nothing +unusual. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” a man by him was saying, “it positively has not moved for an hour. I have +my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“It ought to have been behind the houses long ago,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s o’clock?” asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes towards +the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The hands were +perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew them from their +pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in turn, was the hush of +the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a single tick, but there was +none to hear. +</p> + +<p> +“Time is no more,” proclaimed a leader among the people. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a ruined man,” lamented a watchmaker. +</p> + +<p> +“And I,” ejaculated a maker of almanacks. +</p> + +<p> +“What of quarter-day?” inquired a landlord and a tenant simultaneously. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall never see the moon again,” sobbed a pair of lovers. +</p> + +<p> +“It is well this did not happen at night,” observed an optimist. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed?” questioned the director of a gas company. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you the Last Day would come in our time,” said a preacher. +</p> + +<p> +It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time had +paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation depending on her +silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not come to life. The sick +could not die. The human frame could not waste. Every one in the enjoyment of +health and strength felt assured of the perpetual possession of these +blessings, unless he should meet with accident or violent death. But all growth +ceased, and all dissolution was stayed. Mothers looked with despair on infants +who could never be weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs gazed with dismay +on immortal fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties, the fashionable boxers +and opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor did the intellectual less +rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired faculties, and vowing to +extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The poor and the outcast, the +sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the dying made, indeed, a dismal +outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by some persons. +</p> + +<p> +As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to a young +lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been attached in former +days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that it would be everlasting, +revived his passion. To convince her of the perpetuity of her charms, and +establish a claim upon her gratitude, he cautiously revealed to her that he was +the author of this blissful state of things, and that Time’s hair was actually +in his possession. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you dear good man!” she exclaimed, “how vastly I am obliged to you! +Ferdinand will never forsake me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” she said, “you young men of science are so conceited!” +</p> + +<p> +The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer’s palace. +It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the city ere he mixed +again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was addressing energetically. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask you one thing,” he was saying. “Will it ever rain again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not,” replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. “Rain being +an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be no place for it +under the present dispensation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they not +withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea itself? Who +will feed your cattle? And who will feed <i>you</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“This concerns us,” said the butchers and bakers. +</p> + +<p> +“Us also,” added the fishmongers. +</p> + +<p> +“I always thought,” said a philosopher, “that this phenomenon must be the work +of some malignant wizard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Show us the wizard that we may slay him,” roared the mob. +</p> + +<p> +Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately identified by +twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and was held up in sight +of the multitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Kill him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Burn him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Crucify him!” +</p> + +<p> +“It moves! it moves!” cried another division of the crowd. All eyes were bent +on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving—no, it wasn’t; yes, it +certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows were actually lengthening? +Was the sun’s rim really drawing nigh yonder great edifice? That muffled sound +from the vast, silent multitude was, doubtless, the quick beating of +innumerable hearts; but that sharper note? Could it be the ticking of watches? +Suddenly all the public clocks clanged the first stroke of an hour—an +absurdly wrong hour, but it was an hour. No mortal heard the second stroke, +drowned in universal shouts of joy and gratitude. The student mingled with the +mass, no man regarding him. +</p> + +<p> +When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to +disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could get +beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a very humble +citizen, a barber. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” he said, “the old gentleman’s hair has grown again!” +</p> + +<p> +And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying gave up +the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told the professor +his dream. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>THE ELIXIR OF LIFE</h2> + +<p> +The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of Balkh, +where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the occult sciences. No +one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet Aboniel did not wholly shun +intercourse with mankind, but, on the contrary, had seven pupils, towardly +youths belonging to the noblest families of the city, whom he instructed at +stated times in philosophy and all lawful knowledge, reserving the forbidden +lore of magic and alchemy for himself. +</p> + +<p> +But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious +apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing save the +sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven crystal phials, filled +with a clear liquid resembling water. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye know, my sons,” he began, “with what ardour I am reputed to have striven to +penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the problems which have +allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this rumour doth not err: such +hath ever been my object; but, until yesterday, my fortune hath been like unto +theirs who have preceded me. The little I could accomplish seemed as nothing in +comparison with what I was compelled to leave unachieved. Even now my success +is but partial. I have not learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is not +mine; nor can I recall the principle of life to the dead, or infuse it into +inanimate matter. But if I cannot create, I can preserve. I have found the +Elixir of Life.” +</p> + +<p> +The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them he read +extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their teacher, and the +dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves might become participators +in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. Addressing himself to the latter +sentiment—“I am willing,” he continued, “to communicate this secret to +you, if such be your desire.” +</p> + +<p> +An unanimous exclamation assured him that there need be no uncertainty on this +point. +</p> + +<p> +“But remember,” he resumed, “that this knowledge, like all knowledge, has its +disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when ye come to +learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. Understand that the +stipulations I am about to propound are not of my imposing; the secret was +imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent order, and under conditions with +which I am constrained strictly to comply. Understand also that I am not minded +to employ this knowledge on my own behalf. My fourscore years’ acquaintance +with life has rendered me more solicitous for methods of abbreviating +existence, than of prolonging it. It may be well for you if your twenty years’ +experience has led you to the same conclusion.” +</p> + +<p> +There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, and +indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general +unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of their +venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have convinced +him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf between theory and +practice, and the feebleness of intellectual persuasion in presence of innate +instinct. With one voice they protested their readiness to brave any +conceivable peril, and undergo any test which might be imposed as a condition +of participation in their master’s marvellous secret. +</p> + +<p> +“So be it,” returned the sage, “and now hearken to the conditions. +</p> + +<p> +“Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these seven +phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far different are +the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly poisons which the +utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to prepare, and science knows no +antidote to any of them. The first scorches up the entrails as with fire; the +second slays by freezing every vein, and benumbing every nerve; the third by +frantic convulsions. Happy in comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks +dead upon the ground immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. Nor do I +overmuch commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for slumber descends +upon him forthwith, and he passes away in painless oblivion. But wretched he +who chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from his head, whose skin peels from +his body, and who lingers long in excruciating agonies, a living death. The +seventh phial contains the object of your desire. Stretch forth your hands, +therefore, simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly grasp and +intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the quality of his +fortune attested by the result.” +</p> + +<p> +The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold +blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their preceptor, +hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable features. +Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable solemnity, or, if +perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked beneath this, it was not +such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they scanned the phials, trusting +that some infinitesimal distinction might serve to discriminate the elixir from +the poisons. But no, the vessels were indistinguishable in external appearance, +and the contents of each were equally colourless and transparent. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” demanded Aboniel at length, with real or assumed surprise, “wherefore +tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you in the agonies of +death!” +</p> + +<p> +This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the +boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but perceiving +that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some confusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this worthless +existence,” said one of their number at last, breaking the embarrassing +silence, “but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound up with mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I,” said the second, “have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet that I +should provide.” +</p> + +<p> +“I,” said the third, “have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose cause I +may in nowise forsake.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged,” said the fourth. +</p> + +<p> +“My life,” said the fifth, “is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent to lay +it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?” +</p> + +<p> +“Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?” inquired the sixth. +</p> + +<p> +“I,” said the seventh, “have neither mother nor sister, friends nor enemies, +neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But I have all the +greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is exceedingly precious in my +sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“The conclusion of the whole matter, then,” summed up the sage, “is that not +one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?” +</p> + +<p> +The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the justice +of their master’s taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for some middle +path, which did not readily present itself. +</p> + +<p> +“May we not,” said one at last, “may we not cast lots, and each take a phial in +succession, as destiny may appoint?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing against this,” replied Aboniel, “only remember that the least +endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of any one of +you, will ensure the discomfiture of all.” +</p> + +<p> +The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and proceeded +to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in the hand of the +holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his mother. +</p> + +<p> +He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced half the +distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of the second quill; +the man with the sister, he said abruptly: +</p> + +<p> +“The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and intimate +than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not therefore fitting that +thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my stead?” +</p> + +<p> +“The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son,” responded the youth +addressed, in a sententious tone, “albeit most holy, cannot in the nature of +things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be dissolved by death. Whereas +the relationship between brother and sister may endure for many years, if such +be the will of Allah. It is therefore proper that thou shouldst first venture +the experiment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!” +exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. “The maternal +relationship—” +</p> + +<p> +“A truce to this trifling,” cried the other six; “fulfil the conditions, or +abandon the task.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized one of the +phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied that he detected +something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which distinguished it, in his +imagination, from the innocent transparency of the rest. He hastily replaced +it, and laid hold of the next. At that moment a blaze of light burst forth upon +them, and, thunderstruck, the seven scholars were stretched senseless on the +ground. +</p> + +<p> +On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of Aboniel’s +dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part they had played. +They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned to their homes. +</p> + +<p> +The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be expected +to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven days, known to +more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The last of these to become +acquainted with it was the Sultan, who immediately despatched his guards to +apprehend the sage, and confiscate the Elixir. Failing to obtain admission at +Aboniel’s portal, they broke it open, and, on entering his chamber, found him +in a condition which more eloquently than any profession bespoke his disdain +for the life-bestowing draught. He was dead in his chair. Before him, on the +table, stood the seven phials, six full as previously, the seventh empty. In +his hand was a scroll inscribed as follows; +</p> + +<p> +“Six times twice six years have I striven after knowledge, and I now bequeath +to the world the fruit of my toil, being six poisons. One more deadly I might +have added, but I have refrained, +</p> + +<p> +“Write upon my tomb, that here he lies who forbore to perpetuate human +affliction, and bestowed a fatal boon where alone it could be innoxious.” +</p> + +<p> +The intruders looked at each other, striving to penetrate the sense of +Aboniel’s last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud crash +from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large monkey +bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and preternatural +agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an inspiration of +supreme irony, had administered to the creature every drop of the Elixir of +Life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>THE POET OF PANOPOLIS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +Although in a manner retired from the world during the fifth and sixth +Christian centuries, the banished Gods did not neglect to keep an eye on human +affairs, interesting themselves in any movement which might seem to afford them +a chance of regaining their lost supremacy, or in any person whose conduct +evinced regret at their dethronement. They deeply sympathised with the efforts +of their votary Pamprepius to turn the revolt of Illus to their advantage, and +excused the low magical arts to which he stooped as a necessary concession to +the spirit of a barbarous age. They ministered invisibly to Damascius and his +companions on their flight into Persia, alleviating the hardships under which +the frames of the veteran philosophers might otherwise have sunk. It was not, +indeed, until the burning of the Alexandrian library that they lost all heart +and lapsed into the chrysalis-like condition in which they remained until +tempted forth by the young sunshine of the Renaissance. +</p> + +<p> +Such a phenomenon for the fifth century as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of +Panopolis could not fail to excite their most lively interest. Forty-eight +books of verse on the exploits of Bacchus in the age of pugnacious prelates and +filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and rampant robbers, of the threatened +dissolution of every tie, legal, social, or political; an age of earthquake, +war, and famine! Bacchus, who is known from Aristophanes not to have excelled +in criticism, protested that his laureate was greater than Homer; and, though +Homer could not go quite so far as this, he graciously conceded that if he had +himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with a faint glimmering of the +poetical art, and encumbered with more learning than he knew how to use, he +might have written almost as badly as his modern representative. More impartial +critics judged Nonnus’s achievement more favourably, and all agreed that his +steadfastness in the faith deserved some special mark of distinction. The Muses +under Pallas’s direction (being themselves a little awkward in female +accomplishments) embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus +forged a plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy. +Whether from distrust of Hermes’ integrity, or wishing to make the personal +acquaintance of his follower, Phœbus volunteered to convey the testimonial in +person, and accordingly took his departure for the Egyptian Thebaid. +</p> + +<p> +As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the blazing sun +of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a vast crowd of +strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like bees clustering at +the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he identified them as a posse of +demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot describe the enormous variety of +whatever the universe holds of most heterogeneous. Naked women of surpassing +loveliness displayed their charms to the anchorite’s gaze, sturdy porters bent +beneath loads of gold which they heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien +from humanity allured his appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or +smote at him with swords, or made feints at his eyes with spears, or burned +sulphur under his nose, or displayed before him scrolls of poetry or learning, +or shrieked blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed him from a little distance +with glances of leering affection; while a motley crowd of goblins, wearing the +heads of boars or lions, or whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or hoofed, +or scaled, or feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and wrangled with +each other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting and grinning, +snapping, snarling, constantly running away and returning like gnats dancing +over a marsh. The holy man sat doggedly at the entrance of his cavern, with an +expression of fathomless stupidity, which seemed to defy all the fiends of the +Thebaid to get an idea into his head, or make him vary his attitude by a single +inch. +</p> + +<p> +“These people did not exist in our time,” said Apollo aloud, “or at least they +knew their place, and behaved themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said a comparatively grave and respectable demon, addressing the +stranger, “I should wish your peregrinity to understand that these imps are +mere schoolboys—my pupils, in fact. When their education has made further +progress they will be more mannerly, and will comprehend the folly of pestering +an unintellectual old gentleman like this worthy Pachymius with beauty for +which he has no eyes, and gold for which he has no use, and dainties for which +he has no palate, and learning for which he has no head. But <i>I’ll</i> wake +him up!” And waving his pupils away, the paedagogic fiend placed himself at the +anchorite’s ear, and shouted into it— +</p> + +<p> +“Nonnus is to be Bishop of Panopolis!” +</p> + +<p> +The hermit’s features were instantly animated by an expression of envy and +hatred. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonnus!” he exclaimed, “the heathen poet, to have the see of Panopolis, of +which <i>I</i> was promised the reversion!” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” suggested Apollo, “it is all very well to enliven the reverend +eremite; but don’t you think it is rather a liberty to make such jokes at the +expense of my good friend Nonnus?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no liberty,” said the demon, “for there is no joke. Recanted on +Monday. Baptized yesterday. Ordained to-day. To be consecrated to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +The anchorite poured forth a torrent of the choicest ecclesiastical curses, +until he became speechless from exhaustion, and Apollo, profiting by the +opportunity, addressed the demon: +</p> + +<p> +“Would it be an unpardonable breach of politeness, respected sir, if I ventured +to hint that the illusions your pupils have been trying to impose upon this +venerable man have in some small measure impaired the confidence with which I +was originally inspired by your advantageous personal appearance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in the least,” replied the demon, “especially as I can easily make my +words good. If you and Pachymius will mount my back I will transport you to +Panopolis, where you can verify my assertion for yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +The Deity and the anchorite promptly consented, and seated themselves on the +demon’s shoulders. The shadow of the fiend’s expanded wings fell black and vast +on the fiery sand, but diminished and became invisible as he soared to a +prodigious height, to escape observation from below. By-and-by the sun’s +glowing ball touched earth at the extremity of the horizon; it disappeared, the +fires of sunset burned low in the west, and the figures of the demon and his +freight showed like a black dot against a lake of green sky, growing larger as +he cautiously stooped to earth. Grazing temples, skimming pyramids, the party +came to ground in the precincts of Panopolis, just in time to avoid the rising +moon that would have betrayed them. The demon immediately disappeared. Apollo +hastened off to demand an explanation from Nonnus, while Pachymius repaired to +a neighbouring convent, peopled, as he knew, by a legion of sturdy monks, ever +ready to smite and be smitten in the cause of orthodoxy. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Nonnus sat in his study, wrinkling his brow as he polished his verses by the +light of a small lamp. A large scroll lay open on his knees, the contents of +which seemed to afford him little satisfaction. Forty-eight more scrolls, +resplendent with silver knobs and coquettishly tied with purple cord, reposed +in an adjoining book-case; the forty-eight books, manifestly, of the +Panopolitan bard’s Dionysiaca. Homer, Euripides, and other poets lay on the +floor, having apparently been hurriedly dislodged to make room for divers +liturgies and lives of the saints. A set of episcopal robes depended from a +hook, and on a side table stood half-a-dozen mitres, which, to all appearance, +the designated prelate had been trying on. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonnus,” said Phœbus, passing noiselessly through the unresisting wall, “the +tale of thy apostasy is then true?” +</p> + +<p> +It would be difficult to determine whether surprise, delight, or dismay +preponderated in Nonnus’s expression as he lifted up his eyes and recognised +the God of Poetry. He had just presence of mind to shuffle his scroll under an +enormous dictionary ere he fell at Apollo’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +“O Phœbus,” he exclaimed, “hadst thou come a week ago!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true, then?” said Apollo. “Thou forsakest me and the Muses. Thou sidest +with them who have broken our statues, unroofed our temples, desecrated our +altars, and banished us from among mankind. Thou rejectest the glory of +standing alone in a barbarous age as the last witness to culture and +civilisation. Thou despisest the gifts of the Gods and the Muses, of which I am +even now the bearer. Thou preferrest the mitre to the laurel chaplet, and the +hymns of Gregory to the epics of Homer?” +</p> + +<p> +“O Phœbus,” replied Nonnus, “were it any God but thou, I should bend before him +in silence, having nought to reply. But thou art a poet, and thou understandest +the temper of a poet. Thou knowest how beyond other men he is devoured by the +craving for sympathy. This and not vulgar vanity is his motive of action; his +shaft is launched in vain unless he can deem it embedded in the heart of a +friend. Thou mayest well judge what scoffings and revilings my Dionysiac epic +has brought upon me in this evil age; yet, had this been all, peradventure I +might have borne it. But it was not all. The gentle, the good, the +affectionate, they who in happier times would have been my audience, came about +me, saying, Nonnus, why sing the strains against which we must shut our ears? +Sing what we may listen to, and we will love and honour thee. I could not bear +the thought of going to my grave without having awakened an echo of sympathy, +and weakly but not basely I have yielded, given them what they craved, and +suffered them, since the Muses’ garland is not theirs to bestow, to reward me +with a mitre.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what demanded they?” asked Apollo. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a mere romance! Something entirely fabulous.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must see it,” persisted Apollo; and Nonnus reluctantly disinterred his +scroll from under the big dictionary, and handed it up, trembling like a +schoolboy who anticipates a castigation for a bad exercise. +</p> + +<p> +“What trash have we here?” cried Phœbus— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Αχρονος ην, +ακιχητος, εν +αρρητω Λογος +αρχη,<br/> +’Ισοφυης +Γενετηρος +όμηλικος +Τιος αμητωρ,<br/> +Και Λογος +αυτοφυτοιο +Θεου, φως, εκ +φαεος φως. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“If it isn’t the beginning of the Gospel of John! Thy impiety is worse than thy +poetry!” +</p> + +<p> +Apollo cast the scroll indignantly to the ground. His countenance wore an +expression so similar to that with which he is represented in act to smite the +Python, that Nonnus judged it prudent to catch up his manuscript and hold it +shield-wise before his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou doest well,” said Apollo, laughing bitterly; “that rampart is indeed +impenetrable to my arrows.” +</p> + +<p> +Nonnus seemed about to fall prostrate, when a sharp rap came to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“That is the Governor’s knock,” he exclaimed. “Do not forsake me utterly, O +Phœbus!” But as he turned to open the door, Apollo vanished. The Governor +entered, a sagacious, good-humoured-looking man in middle life. +</p> + +<p> +“Who was with thee just now?” he asked. “Methought I heard voices.” +</p> + +<p> +“Merely the Muse,” explained Nonnus, “with whom I am wont to hold nocturnal +communings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” replied the Governor. “Then the Muse has done well to take herself +off, and will do even better not to return. Bishops must have no flirtations +with Muses, heavenly or earthly—not that I am now altogether certain that +thou <i>wilt</i> be a bishop.” +</p> + +<p> +“How so?” asked Nonnus, not without a feeling of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“Imagine, my dear friend,” returned the Governor, “who should turn up this +evening but that sordid anchorite Pachymius, to whom the see was promised +indeed, but who was reported to have been devoured by vermin in the desert. The +rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be feared that sufficient pains +were not taken to verify it—cannot have been, in fact; for, as I said, +here he comes, having been brought, as he affirms, through the air by an angel. +Little would it have signified if he had come by himself, but he is accompanied +by three hundred monks carrying cudgels, who threaten an insurrection if he is +not consecrated on the spot. My friend the Archbishop and I are at our wits’ +end: we have set our hearts on having a gentleman over the diocese, but we +cannot afford to have tumults reported at Constantinople. At last, mainly +through the mediation of a sable personage whom no one seems to know, but who +approves himself most intelligent and obliging, the matter is put off till +to-morrow, when them and Pachymius are to compete for the bishopric in public +on conditions not yet settled, but which our swarthy friend undertakes to +arrange to every one’s satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don’t run +away in any case. I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety +for thee but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if +thou art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius.” +</p> + +<p> +With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the poor poet +in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing alone somewhat +comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of the Gods lay on the +table in their place, whence he concluded that a friendly power might yet be +watching over him. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Next morning all Panopolis was in an uproar. It was generally known that the +pretensions of the candidates for the episcopate would be decided by public +competition, and it was rumoured that this would partake of the nature of an +ordeal by fire and water. Nothing further had transpired except that the +arrangements had been settled by the Governor and Archbishop in concert with +two strangers, a dingy Libyan and a handsome young Greek, neither of whom was +known in the city, but in both of whom the authorities seemed to repose entire +confidence. At the appointed time the people flocked into the theatre, and +found the stage already occupied by the parties chiefly concerned. The Governor +and the Archbishop sat in the centre on their tribunals: the competitors stood +on each side, Pachymius backed by the demon, Nonnus by Apollo; both these +supporters, of course, appearing to the assembly in the light of ordinary +mortals. Nonnus recognised Apollo perfectly, but Pachymius’s limited powers of +intelligence seemed entirely engrossed by the discomfort visibly occasioned him +by the proximity of an enormous brass vessel of water, close to which burned a +bright fire. Nonnus was also ill at ease, and continually directed his +attention to a large package, of the contents of which he seemed instinctively +cognisant. +</p> + +<p> +All being ready, the Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, with the +sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of determining between +the claims of two such highly qualified competitors had been delegated to two +gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full confidence, who would proceed to apply +fitting tests to the respective candidates. Should one fail and the other +succeed, the victor would of course be instituted; should both undergo the +probation successfully, new criterions of merit would be devised; should both +fall short, both would be set aside, and the disputed mitre would be conferred +elsewhere. He would first summon Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and now +their fellow-Christian, to submit himself to the test proposed. +</p> + +<p> +Apollo now rose, and proclaimed in an audible voice, “By virtue of the +authority committed to me I call upon Nonnus of Panopolis, candidate for the +bishopric of his native city, to demonstrate his fitness for the same by +consigning to the flames with his own hands the forty-eight execrable books of +heathen poetry composed by him in the days of his darkness and blindness, but +now without doubt as detestable to him as to the universal body of the +faithful.” So saying, he made a sign to an attendant, the wrapping of the +package fell away, and the forty-eight scrolls of the Dionysiaca, silver knobs, +purple cords, and all, came to view. +</p> + +<p> +“Burn my poem!” exclaimed Nonnus. “Destroy the labours of twenty-four years! +Bereave Egypt of its Homer! Erase the name of Nonnus from the tablet of Time!” +</p> + +<p> +“How so, while thou hast the Paraphrase of St. John?” demanded Apollo +maliciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, good youth,” said the Governor, who wished to favour Nonnus, “methinks +the condition is somewhat exorbitant. A single book might suffice, surely!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite content,” replied Apollo. “If he consents to burn any of his books +he is no poet, and I wash my hands of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Nonnus,” cried the Governor, “make haste; one book will do as well as +another. Hand them up here.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be with his own hands, please your Excellency,” said Apollo. +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” cried the Governor, pitching to the poet the first scroll brought to +him, “the thirteenth book. Who cares about the thirteenth book? Pop it in!” +</p> + +<p> +“The thirteenth book!” exclaimed Nonnus, “containing the contest between wine +and honey, without which my epic becomes totally and entirely unintelligible!” +</p> + +<p> +“This, then,” said the Governor, picking out another, which chanced to be the +seventeenth, +</p> + +<p> +“In my seventeenth book,” objected Nonnus, “Bacchus plants vines in India, and +the superiority of wine to milk is convincingly demonstrated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” rejoined the Governor, “what say you to the twenty-second?” +</p> + +<p> +“With my Hamadryad! I can never give up my Hamadryad!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said the Governor, contemptuously hurling the whole set in the +direction of Nonnus, “burn which you will, only burn!” +</p> + +<p> +The wretched poet sat among his scrolls looking for a victim. All his +forty-eight children were equally dear to his parental heart. The cries of +applause and derision from the spectators, and the formidable bellowings of the +exasperated monks who surrounded Pachymius, did not tend to steady his nerves, +or render the task of critical discrimination the easier, +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t! I won’t!” he exclaimed at last, starting up defiantly. “Let the +bishopric go to the devil! Any one of my similes is worth all the bishoprics in +Egypt!” +</p> + +<p> +“Out on the vanity of these poets!” exclaimed the disappointed Governor. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not vanity,” said Apollo, “it is paternal affection; and being myself a +sufferer from the same infirmity, I rejoice to find him my true son after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the Governor, turning to the demon: “it is thy man’s turn now. +Trot him out!” +</p> + +<p> +“Brethren,” said the demon to the assembly, “it is meet that he who aspires to +the office of bishop should be prepared to give evidence of extraordinary +self-denial. Ye have seen even our weak brother Nonnus adoring what he hath +burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he hath adored. How much more may +be reasonably expected of our brother Pachymius, so eminent for sanctity! I +therefore call upon him to demonstrate his humility and self-renunciation, and +effectually mortify the natural man, by washing himself in this ample vessel +provided for the purpose” +</p> + +<p> +“Wash myself!” exclaimed Pacyhmius, with a vivacity of which he had previously +shown no token. “Destroy at one splash the sanctity of fifty-seven years! +Avaunt! thou subtle enemy of my salvation! I know thee who thou art, the demon +who brought me hither on his back yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it had been an angel,” said the Governor. +</p> + +<p> +“A demon in the disguise of an angel of light,” said Pachymius. +</p> + +<p> +A tumultuous discussion arose among Pachymius’s supporters, some extolling his +fortitude, others blaming his wrongheadedness. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” said he to the latter, “would ye rob me of my reputation? Shall it be +written of me, The holy Pachymius abode in the precepts of the eremites so long +as he dwelt in the desert where no water was, but as soon as he came within +sight of a bath, he stumbled and fell?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father,” urged they, “savoureth not this of vaingloriousness? The demon in +the guise of an angel of light, as thou so well saidest even now. Be strong. +Quit thyself valiantly. Think of the sufferings of the primitive confessors.” +</p> + +<p> +“St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil,” said one. +</p> + +<p> +“St. Apocryphus was actually drowned,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +“I have reason to believe,” said a third, “that the loathsomeness of ablution +hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it has,” said another. “I <i>have</i> washed myself once, though ye +might not think it, and can assert that it is by no means as disagreeable as +one supposes.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is just what I dread,” said Pachymius. “Little by little, one might +positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of evil.” +</p> + +<p> +All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the anchorite, +and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the vessel, purposing at a +convenient season to throw him in. He was now near enough to catch a glimpse of +the limpid element. Recoiling in horror, he collected all his energies, and +with head depressed towards his chest, and hands thrust forth as if to ward off +pollution—butting, kicking, biting the air—he rushed forwards, and +with a preternatural force deserving to be enumerated among his miracles, +fairly overthrew the enormous vase, the contents streaming on the crowd in +front of the stage. +</p> + +<p> +“Take me to my hermitage!” he screamed. “I renounce the bishopric. Take me to +my hermitage!” +</p> + +<p> +“Amen,” responded the demon, and, assuming his proper shape, he took Pachymius +upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the multitude. +</p> + +<p> +Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he received +the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to congratulate him on the +constancy with which he had sustained his fiery, or rather watery trial. He +spent most of his remaining days in the society of the devil, on which account +he was canonised at his death. +</p> + +<p> +“O Phœbus,” said Nonnus, when they were alone, “impose upon me any penance thou +wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the Muses. But before all +things let me destroy my paraphrase.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou shalt not destroy it,” said Phœbus, “Thou shalt publish it. That shall be +thy penance.” +</p> + +<p> +And so it is that the epic on the exploits of Bacchus and the paraphrase of St. +John’s Gospel have alike come down to us as the work of Nonnus, whose +authorship of both learned men have never been able to deny, having regard to +the similarity of style, but never could explain until the facts above narrated +came to light in one of the Fayoum papyri recently acquired by the Archduke +Rainer. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>THE PURPLE HEAD</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel<br/> +That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +In the heyday of the Emperor Aurelian’s greatness, when his strong right arm +propped Rome up, and hewed Palmyra down, when he surrounded his capital with +walls fifty miles in circuit, and led Tetricus and Zenobia in triumph through +its streets, and distributed elephants among the senators, and laid Etruria out +in vineyards, and contemplated in leisure moments the suppression of +Christianity as a subordinate detail of administration, a mere ripple on the +broad ocean of his policy—at this period Bahram the First, King of +Persia, naturally became disquieted in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“This upstart soldier of fortune,” reflected he, “has an unseemly habit of +overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing Divine +right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor Valerian, curried +and stuffed with straw, hangs to this hour in the temple at Ctesiphon, a +pleasing spectacle to the immortal gods. How would my own skin appear in the +temple of Jupiter Capitolinus? This must not be. I will send an embassy to him, +and impress him with my greatness. But how?” +</p> + +<p> +He accordingly convoked his counsellors; the viziers, the warriors, the magi, +the philosophers; and addressed them thus: +</p> + +<p> +“The king deigns to consult ye touching a difficult matter. I would flatter the +pride of Rome, without lowering the pride of Persia. I would propitiate +Aurelian, and at the same time humble him. How shall this be accomplished?” +</p> + +<p> +The viziers, the warriors, and the magi answered not a word. Unbroken silence +reigned in the assembly, until the turn came to the sage Marcobad, who, +prostrating himself, said, “O king, live for ever! In ancient times, as hath +been delivered by our ancestors, Persians were instructed in three +accomplishments—to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. Persia +still rides and shoots; truth-speaking (praised be Ormuzd!) she hath +discontinued as unbefitting an enlightened nation. Thou needest not, therefore, +scruple to circumvent Aurelian. Offer him that which thou knowest will not be +found in his treasury, seeing that it is unique in thine own; giving him, at +the same time, to understand that it is the ordinary produce of thy dominions. +So, while rejoicing at the gift, shall he be abashed at his inferiority. I +refer to the purple robe of her majesty the queen, the like of which is not to +be found in the whole earth, neither do any know where the dye that tinges it +is produced, save that it proceeds from the uttermost parts of India.” +</p> + +<p> +“I approve thy advice,” replied Bahram, “and in return will save thy life by +banishing thee from my dominions. When my august consort shall learn that thou +hast been the means of depriving her of her robe, she will undoubtedly request +that thou mayest be flayed, and thou knowest that I can deny her nothing. I +therefore counsel thee to depart with all possible swiftness. Repair to the +regions where the purple is produced, and if thou returnest with an adequate +supply, I undertake that my royal sceptre shall be graciously extended to +thee.” +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher forsook the royal presence with celerity, and his office of +chief examiner of court spikenard was bestowed upon another; as also his house +and his garden, his gold and his silver, his wives and his concubines, his +camels and his asses, which were numerous. +</p> + +<p> +While the solitary adventurer wended his way eastward, a gorgeous embassy +travelled westward in the direction of Rome. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived in the presence of Aurelian, and at the conclusion of his complimentary +harangue, the chief envoy produced a cedar casket, from which he drew a purple +robe of such surpassing refulgence, that, in the words of the historian who has +recorded the transaction, the purple of the emperor and of the matrons appeared +ashy grey in comparison. It was accompanied by a letter thus conceived: +</p> + +<p> +“Bahram to Aurelian: health! Receive such purple as we have in Persia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Persia, forsooth!” exclaimed Sorianus, a young philosopher versed in natural +science, “this purple never was in Persia, except as a rarity. Oh, the +mendacity and vanity of these Orientals!” +</p> + +<p> +The ambassador was beginning an angry reply, when Aurelian quelled the dispute +with a look, and with some awkwardness delivered himself of a brief oration in +acknowledgment of the gift. He took no more notice of the matter until +nightfall, when he sent for Sorianus, and inquired where the purple actually +was produced. +</p> + +<p> +“In the uttermost parts of India,” returned the philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” rejoined Aurelian, summing up the matter with his accustomed rapidity +and clearness of head, “either thou or the Persian king has lied to me, it is +plain, and, by the favour of the Gods, it is immaterial which, seeing that my +ground for going to war with him is equally good in either case. If he has +sought to deceive me, I am right in punishing him; if he possesses what I lack, +I am justified in taking it away. It would, however, be convenient to know +which of these grounds to inscribe in my manifesto; moreover, I am not ready +for hostilities at present; having first to extirpate the Blemmyes, Carpi, and +other barbarian vermin. I will therefore despatch thee to India to ascertain by +personal examination the truth about the purple. Do not return without it, or I +shall cut off thy head. My treasury will charge itself with the administration +of thy property during thy absence. The robe shall meanwhile be deposited in +the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. May he have it and thee in his holy +keeping!” +</p> + +<p> +Thus, in that age of darkness, were two most eminent philosophers reduced to +beggary, and constrained to wander in remote and insalubrious regions; the one +for advising a king, the other for instructing an emperor. But the matter did +not rest here. For Aurelian, having continued the visible deity of half the +world for one hundred and fifty days after the departure of Sorianus, was slain +by his own generals. To him succeeded Tacitus, who sank oppressed by the weight +of rule; to him Probus, who perished in a military tumult; to him Carus, who +was killed by lightning; to him Carinus, who was assassinated by one whom he +had wronged; to him Diocletian, who, having maintained himself for twenty +years, wisely forbore to tempt Nemesis further, and retired to plant cabbages +at Salona. All these sovereigns, differing from each other in every other +respect, agreed in a common desire to possess the purple dye, and when the +philosopher returned not, successively despatched new emissaries in quest of +it. Strange was the diversity of fate which befell these envoys. Some fell into +the jaws of lions, some were crushed by monstrous serpents, some trampled by +elephants at the command of native princes, some perished of hunger, and some +of thirst; some, encountering smooth-browed and dark-tressed girls wreathing +their hair with the champak blossom or bathing by moonlight in lotus-mantled +tanks, forsook their quest, and led thenceforth idyllic lives in groves of +banian and of palm. Some became enamoured of the principles of the +Gymnosophists, some couched themselves for uneasy slumber upon beds of spikes, +weening to wake in the twenty-second heaven. All which romantic variety of +fortune was the work of a diminutive insect that crawled or clung heedless of +the purple it was weaving into the many-coloured web of human life. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Some thirty years after the departure of the Persian embassy to Aurelian, two +travellers met at the bottom of a dell in trans-Gangetic India, having +descended the hill-brow by opposite paths. It was early morning; the sun had +not yet surmounted the timbered and tangled sides of the little valley, so that +the bottom still lay steeped in shadow, and glittering with large pearls of +limpid dew, while the oval space of sky circumscribed by the summit glowed with +the delicate splendour of the purest sapphire. Songs of birds resounded through +the brake, and the water lilies which veiled the rivulet trickling through the +depths of the retreat were unexpanded still. One of the wayfarers was aged, the +other a man of the latest period of middle life. Their raiment was scanty and +soiled; their frames and countenances alike bespoke fatigue and hardship; but +while the elder one moved with moderate alacrity, the other shuffled painfully +along by the help of a staff, shrinking every time that he placed either of his +feet on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +They exchanged looks and greetings as they encountered, and the more active of +the two, whose face was set in an easterly direction, ventured a compassionate +allusion to the other’s apparent distress. +</p> + +<p> +‘I but suffer from the usual effects of crucifixion,’ returned the other; and +removing his sandals, displayed two wounds, completely penetrating each foot. +</p> + +<p> +The Cross had not yet announced victory to Constantine, and was as yet no +passport to respectable society. The first traveller drew back hastily, and +regarded his companion with surprise and suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“I see what is passing in thy mind,” resumed the latter, with a smile; “but be +under no apprehension. I have not undergone the censure of any judicial +tribunal. My crucifixion was merely a painful but necessary incident in my +laudable enterprise of obtaining the marvellous purple dye, to which end I was +despatched unto these regions by the Emperor Aurelian.” +</p> + +<p> +“The purple dye!” exclaimed the Persian, for it was he. “Thou hast obtained +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have. It is the product of insects found only in a certain valley eastward +from hence, to obtain access to which it is before all things needful to elude +the vigilance of seven dragons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou didst elude them? and afterwards?” inquired Marcobad, with eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +“Afterwards,” repeated Sorianus, “I made my way into the valley, where I +descried the remains of my immediate predecessor prefixed to a cross.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy predecessor?” +</p> + +<p> +“He who had last made the attempt before me. Upon any one’s penetrating the +Valley of Purple, as it is termed, with the design I have indicated, the +inhabitants, observant of the precepts of their ancestors, append him to a +cross by the feet only, confining his arms by ropes at the shoulders, and +setting vessels of cooling drink within his grasp. If, overcome with thirst, he +partakes of the beverage, they leave him to expire at leisure; if he endures +for three days, he is permitted to depart with the object of his quest. My +predecessor, belonging, as I conjecture, to the Epicurean persuasion, and +consequently unable to resist the allurements of sense, had perished in the +manner aforesaid. I, a Stoic, refrained and attained.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou didst bear away the tincture? thou hast it now?” impetuously interrogated +the Persian. +</p> + +<p> +“Behold it!” replied the Greek, exhibiting a small flask filled with the most +gorgeous purple liquid. “What seest thou here?” demanded he triumphantly, +holding it up to the light. “To me this vial displays the University of Athens, +and throngs of fair youths hearkening to the discourse of one who resembles +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“To my vision,” responded the Persian, peering at the vial, “it rather reveals +a palace, and a dress of honour. But suffer me to contemplate it more closely, +for my eyes have waxed dim by over application to study.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, he snatched the flask from Sorianus, and immediately turned to fly. +The Greek sprang after his treasure, and failing to grasp Marcobad’s wrist, +seized his beard, plucking the hair out by handfuls. The infuriated Persian +smote him on the head with the crystal flagon. It burst into shivers, and the +priceless contents gushed forth in a torrent over the uncovered head and +uplifted visage of Sorianus, bathing every hair and feature with the most vivid +purple. +</p> + +<p> +The aghast and thunderstricken philosophers remained gazing at each other for a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +“It is indelible!” cried Sorianus in distraction, rushing down, however, to the +brink of the little stream, and plunging his head beneath the waters. They +carried away a cloud of purple, but left the purple head stained as before. +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher, as he upraised his glowing and dripping countenance from the +brook, resembled Silenus emerging from one of the rivers which Bacchus +metamorphosed into wine during his campaign in India. He resorted to attrition +and contrition, to maceration and laceration; he tried friction with leaves, +with grass, with sedge, with his garments; he regarded himself in one crystal +pool after another, a grotesque anti-Narcissus. At last he flung himself on the +earth, and gave free course to his anguish. +</p> + +<p> +The grace of repentance is rarely denied us when our misdeeds have proved +unprofitable. Marcobad awkwardly approached. +</p> + +<p> +“Brother,” he whispered, “I will restore the tincture of which I have deprived +thee, and add thereto an antidote, if such may be found. Await my return under +this camphor tree.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, he hastened up the path by which Sorianus had descended, and was +speedily out of sight. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Sorianus tarried long under the camphor tree, but at last, becoming weary, +resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he entered the +dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary appearance speedily +attracted the attention of the royal officers, by whom he was apprehended and +brought before his majesty. +</p> + +<p> +“It is evident,” pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention on the +case, “that thou art in possession of an object too rare and precious for a +private individual, of which thou must accordingly be deprived. I lament the +inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had been thy hand or thy foot.” +</p> + +<p> +Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the indefeasible +right of property which he conceived himself to have acquired in his own head. +</p> + +<p> +“In respect,” responded the royal logician, “that thy head is conjoined to thy +shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is mine, purple +being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy, mine on jurisprudence. +Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine, the most uncertain of sciences, +override law, the perfection of human reason? It is but to the vulgar +observation that thou appearest to have a head at all; in the eye of the law +thou art acephalous.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would submit,” urged the philosopher, “that the corporal connection of my +head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a fortuitous +accident.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou mightest as well contend,” returned the king, “that the law is bound to +regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is disabled from +taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of smuggler—rebel, I might +say, seeing that thou hast assumed the purple.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty’s +proceedings?” +</p> + +<p> +“There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be, it must +be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my despoiling thee +of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest mine. I will labour to +render this even clearer to thy apprehension. Thou art found, as thou must +needs admit, in possession of a contraband article forfeit to the crown by +operation of law. What then? Shall the intention of the legislature be +frustrated because thou hast insidiously rendered the possession of <i>my</i> +property inseparable from the possession of <i>thine</i>? Shall I, an innocent +proprietor, be mulcted of my right by thy fraud and covin? Justice howls, +righteousness weeps, integrity stands aghast at the bare notion. No, friend, +thy head has not a leg to stand on. Wouldst thou retain it, it behoves thee to +show that it will be more serviceable to the owner, namely, myself, upon thy +shoulders than elsewhere. This may well be. Hast thou peradventure any +subtleties in perfumery? any secrets in confectionery? any skill in the +preparation of soup?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have condescended to none of these frivolities, O king. My study hath ever +consisted in divine philosophy, whereby men are rendered equal to the gods.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet long most of all for purple!” retorted the monarch, “as I conclude +from perceiving thou hast after all preferred the latter. Thy head must indeed +be worth the taking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy taunt is merited, O king! I will importune thee no longer. Thou wilt +indeed render me a service in depriving me of this wretched head, hideous +without, and I must fear, empty within, seeing that it hath not prevented me +from wasting my life in the service of vanity and luxury. Woe to the sage who +trusts his infirm wisdom and frail integrity within the precincts of a court! +Yet can I foretell a time when philosophers shall no longer run on the futile +and selfish errands of kings, and when kings shall be suffered to rule only so +far as they obey the bidding of philosophers. Peace, Knowledge, Liberty—” +</p> + +<p> +The King of Ayodhya possessed, beyond all princes of his age, the art of +gracefully interrupting an unseasonable discourse. He slightly signed to a +courtier in attendance, a scimitar flashed for a moment from its scabbard, and +the head of Sorianus rolled on the pavement; the lips murmuring as though still +striving to dwell with inarticulate fondness upon the last word of hope for +mankind. +</p> + +<p> +It soon appeared that the principle of life was essential to the resplendence +of the Purple Head. Within a few minutes it had assumed so ghastly a hue that +the Rajah himself was intimidated, and directed that it should be consumed with +the body. +</p> + +<p> +The same full-moon that watched the white-robed throng busied with the rites of +incremation in a grove of palms, beheld also the seven dragons contending for +the body of Marcobad. But, for many a year, the maids and matrons of Rome were +not weary of regarding, extolling, and coveting the priceless purple tissue +that glowed in the fane of Jupiter Capitolinus. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>THE FIREFLY</h2> + +<p> +A certain Magician had retired for the sake of study to a cottage in a forest. +It was summer in a hot country. In the trees near the cottage dwelt a most +beautiful Firefly. The light she bore with her was dazzling, yet soft and +palpitating, as the evening star, and she seemed a single flash of fire as she +shot in and out suddenly from under the screen of foliage, or like a lamp as +she perched panting upon some leaf, or hung glowing from some bough; or like a +wandering meteor as she eddied gleaming over the summits of the loftiest trees; +as she often did, for she was an ambitious Firefly. She learned to know the +Magician, and would sometimes alight and sit shining in his hair, or trail her +lustre across his book as she crept over the pages. The Magician admired her +above all things: +</p> + +<p> +“What eyes she would have if she were a woman!” thought he. +</p> + +<p> +Once he said aloud; +</p> + +<p> +“How happy you must be, you rare, beautiful, brilliant creature!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not happy,” rejoined the Firefly; “what am I, after all, but a flying +beetle with a candle in my tail? I wish I were a star.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said the Magician, and touched her with his wand, when she became +a beautiful star in the twelfth degree of the sign Pisces. +</p> + +<p> +After some nights the Magician asked her if she was content. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not,” replied she. “When I was a Firefly I could fly whither I would, and +come and go as I pleased. Now I must rise and set at certain times, and shine +just so long and no longer. I cannot fly at all, and only creep slowly across +the sky. In the day I cannot shine, or if I do no one sees me. I am often +darkened by rain, and mist, and cloud. Even when I shine my brightest I am less +admired than when I was a Firefly, there are so many others like me. I see, +indeed, people looking up from the earth by night towards me, but how do I know +that they are looking at me?” +</p> + +<p> +“The laws of nature will have it so,” returned the Magician. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk to me of the laws of Nature,” rejoined the Firefly. “I did not make +them, and I don’t see why I should be compelled to obey them. Make me something +else.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you be?” demanded the accommodating Magician. +</p> + +<p> +“As I creep along here,” replied the Star, “I see such a soft pure track of +light. It proceeds from the lamp in your study. It flows out of your window +like a river of molten silver, both cool and warm. Let me be such a lamp.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be it so,” answered the Magician: and the star became a lovely alabaster lamp, +set in an alcove in his study. Her chaste radiance was shed over his page as +long as he continued to read. At a certain hour he extinguished her and retired +to rest. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning the Lamp was in a terrible humour. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t choose to be blown out,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You would have gone out of your own accord else,” returned the Magician. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed the Lamp, “am I not shining by my own light?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not: you are not now a Firefly or a Star. You must now depend upon +others. You would be dark for ever if I did not rekindle you by the help of +this oil.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried the Lamp, “not shine of my own accord! Never! Make me an +everlasting lamp, or I will not be one at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, poor friend,” returned the Magician sadly, “there is but one place where +aught is everlasting. I can make thee a lamp of the sepulchre.” +</p> + +<p> +“Content,” responded the Lamp. And the Magician made her one of those strange +occult lamps which men find ever and anon when they unseal the tombs of ancient +kings and wizards, sustaining without nutriment a perpetual flame. And he bore +her to a sepulchre where a great king was lying embalmed and perfect in his +golden raiment, and set her at the head of the corpse. And whether the poor +fitful Firefly found at last rest in the grave, we may know when we come +thither ourselves. But the Magician closed the gates of the sepulchre behind +him, and walked thoughtfully home. And as he approached his cottage, behold +another Firefly darting and flashing in and out among the trees, as brilliantly +as ever the first had done. She was a wise Firefly, well satisfied with the +world and everything in it, more particularly her own tail. And if the Magician +would have made a pet of her no doubt she would have abode with him. But he +never looked at her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>PAN’S WAND</h2> + +<p> +Iridion had broken her lily. A misfortune for any rustic nymph, but especially +for her, since her life depended upon it. +</p> + +<p> +From her birth the fate of Iridion had been associated with that of a flower of +unusual loveliness—a stately, candid lily, endowed with a charmed life, +like its possessor. The seasons came and went without leaving a trace upon it; +innocence and beauty seemed as enduring with it, as evanescent with the +children of men. In equal though dissimilar loveliness its frolicsome young +mistress nourished by its side. One thing alone, the oracle had declared, could +prejudice either, and this was an accident to the flower. From such disaster it +had long been shielded by the most delicate care; yet in the inscrutable +counsels of the Gods, the dreaded calamity had at length come to pass. Broken +through the upper part of the stem, the listless flower drooped its petals +towards the earth, and seemed to mourn their chastity, already sullied by the +wan flaccidity of decay. Not one had fallen as yet, and Iridion felt no pain or +any symptom of approaching dissolution, except, it may be, the unwonted +seriousness with which, having exhausted all her simple skill on behalf of the +languishing plant, she sat down to consider its fate in the light of its +bearing upon her own. +</p> + +<p> +Meditation upon an utterly vague subject, whether of apprehension or of hope, +speedily lapses into reverie. To Iridion, Death was as indefinable an object of +thought as the twin omnipotent controller of human destiny, Love. Love, like +the immature fruit on the bough, hung unsoliciting and unsolicited as yet, but +slowly ripening to the maiden’s hand. Death, a vague film in an illimitable +sky, tempered without obscuring the sunshine of her life. Confronted with it +suddenly, she found it, in truth, an impalpable cloud, and herself as little +competent as the gravest philosopher to answer the self-suggested inquiry, +“What shall I be when I am no longer Iridion?” Superstition might have helped +her to some definite conceptions, but superstition did not exist in her time. +Judge, reader, of its remoteness. +</p> + +<p> +The maiden’s reverie might have terminated only with her existence, but for the +salutary law which prohibits a young girl, not in love or at school, from +sitting still more than ten minutes. As she shifted her seat at the expiration +of something like this period, she perceived that she had been sitting on a +goatskin, and with a natural association of ideas— +</p> + +<p> +“I will ask Pan,” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Pan at that time inhabited a cavern hard by the maiden’s dwelling, which the +judicious reader will have divined could only have been situated in Arcadia. +The honest god was on excellent terms with the simple people; his goats browsed +freely along with theirs, and the most melodious of the rustic minstrels +attributed their proficiency to his instructions. The maidens were on a more +reserved footing of intimacy—at least so they wished it to be understood, +and so it was understood, of course. Iridion, however, decided that the +occasion would warrant her incurring the risk even of a kiss, and lost no time +in setting forth upon her errand, carrying her poor broken flower in its +earthen vase. It was the time of day when the god might be supposed to be +arousing himself from his afternoon’s siesta. She did not fear that his door +would be closed against her, for he had no door. +</p> + +<p> +The sylvan deity stood, in fact, at the entrance of his cavern, about to +proceed in quest of his goats. The appearance of Iridion operated a change in +his intention, and he courteously escorted her to a seat of turf erected for +the special accommodation of his fair visitors, while he placed for himself one +of stone. +</p> + +<p> +“Pan,” she began, “I have broken my lily.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is a sad pity, child. If it had been a reed, now, you could have made a +flute of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should not have time, Pan,” and she recounted her story. A godlike nature +cannot confound truth with falsehood, though it may mistake falsehood for +truth. Pan therefore never doubted Iridion’s strange narrative, and, having +heard it to the end, observed, “You will find plenty more lilies in Elysium.” +</p> + +<p> +“Common lilies, Pan; not like mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are wrong. The lilies of Elysium—asphodels as they call them +there—are as immortal as the Elysians themselves. I have seen them in +Proserpine’s hair at Jupiter’s entertainment; they were as fresh as she was. +There is no doubt you might gather them by handfuls—at least if you had +any hands—and wear them to your heart’s content, if you had but a heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just what perplexes me, Pan. It is not the dying I mind, it’s the +living. How am I to live without anything alive about me? If you take away my +hands, and my heart, and my brains, and my eyes, and my ears, and above all my +tongue, what is left me to live in Elysium?” +</p> + +<p> +As the maiden spake a petal detached itself from the emaciated lily, and she +pressed her hand to her brow with a responsive cry of pain. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child!” said Pan compassionately, “you will feel no more pain by-and-by.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not, Pan, since you say so. But if I can feel no pain, how can I +feel any pleasure? +</p> + +<p> +“In an incomprehensible manner,” said Pan. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I feel, if I have no feeling? and what am I to do without it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can think!” replied Pan. “Thinking (not that I am greatly given to it +myself) is a much finer thing than feeling; no right-minded person doubts that. +Feeling, as I have heard Minerva say, is a property of matter, and matter, +except, of course, that appertaining to myself and the other happy gods, is +vile and perishable—quite immaterial, in fact. Thought alone is +transcendent, incorruptible, and undying!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Pan, how can any one think thoughts without something to think them with? +I never thought of anything that I have not seen, or touched, or smelt, or +tasted, or heard about from some one else. If I think with nothing, and about +nothing, is that thinking, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” answered Pan evasively, “that you are a sensationalist, a +materialist, a sceptic, a revolutionist; and if you had not sought the +assistance of a god, I should have said not much better than an atheist. I also +think it is time I thought about some physic for you instead of metaphysics, +which are bad for my head, and for your soul.” Saying this, Pan, with rough +tenderness, deposited the almost fainting maiden upon a couch of fern, and, +having supported her head with a bundle of herbs, leaned his own upon his hand, +and reflected with all his might. The declining sun was now nearly opposite the +cavern’s mouth, and his rays, straggling through the creepers that wove their +intricacies over the entrance, chequered with lustrous patches the forms of the +dying girl and the meditating god. Ever and anon, a petal would drop from the +flower; this was always succeeded by a shuddering tremor throughout Iridion’s +frame and a more forlorn expression on her pallid countenance: while Pan’s +jovial features assumed an expression of deeper concern as he pressed his +knotty hand more resolutely against his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter +horn with a more determined grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by +the tail. +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” he suddenly exclaimed, “I have it!” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you, Pan?” faintly lisped the expiring Iridion. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of replying, Pan grasped a wand that leaned against the wall of his +grot, and with it touched the maiden and the flower. O strange metamorphosis! +Where the latter had been pining in its vase, a lovely girl, the image of +Iridion, lay along the ground with dishevelled hair, clammy brow, and features +slightly distorted by the last struggles of death. On the ferny couch stood an +earthen vase, from which rose a magnificent lily, stately, with unfractured +stem, and with no stain or wrinkle on its numerous petals. +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” repeated Pan; “I think we are ready for him now.” Then, having lifted +the inanimate body to the couch, and placed the vase, with its contents, on the +floor of his cavern, he stepped to the entrance, and shading his eyes with his +hand, seemed to gaze abroad in quest of some anticipated visitor. +</p> + +<p> +The boughs at the foot of the steep path to the cave divided, and a figure +appeared at the foot of the rock. The stranger’s mien was majestic, but the +fitness of his proportions diminished his really colossal stature to something +more nearly the measure of mortality. His form was enveloped in a sweeping +sad-coloured robe; a light, thin veil resting on his countenance, mitigated, +without concealing, the not ungentle austerity of his marble features. His gait +was remarkable; nothing could be more remote from every indication of haste, +yet such was the actual celerity of his progression, that Pan had scarcely +beheld him ere he started to find him already at his side. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger, without disturbing his veil, seemed to comprehend the whole +interior of the grotto with a glance; then, with the slightest gesture of +recognition to Pan, he glided to the couch on which lay the metamorphosed lily, +upraised the fictitious Iridion in his arms with indescribable gentleness, and +disappeared with her as swiftly and silently as he had come. The discreet Pan +struggled with suppressed merriment until the stranger was fairly out of +hearing, then threw himself back upon his seat and laughed till the cave rang. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” he said, “to finish the business.” He lifted the transformed maiden +into the vase, and caressed her beauty with an exulting but careful hand. There +was a glory and a splendour in the flower such as had never until then been +beheld in any earthly lily. The stem vibrated, the leaves shook in unison, the +petals panted and suspired, and seemed blanched with a whiteness intense as the +core of sunlight, as they throbbed in anticipation of the richer existence +awaiting them. +</p> + +<p> +Impatient to complete his task, Pan was about to grasp his wand when the motion +was arrested as the sinking beam of the sun was intercepted by a gigantic +shadow, and the stranger again stood by his side. The unbidden guest uttered no +word, but his manner was sufficiently expressive of wrath as he disdainfully +cast on the ground a broken, withered lily, the relic of what had bloomed with +such loveliness in the morning, and had since for a brief space been arrayed in +the vesture of humanity. He pointed imperiously to the gorgeous tenant of the +vase, and seemed to expect Pan to deliver it forthwith. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said Pan, with more decision than dignity, “I am a poor country +god, but I know the law. If you can find on this plant one speck, one stain, +one token that you have anything to do with her, take her, and welcome. If you +cannot, take yourself off instead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be it so,” returned the stranger, haughtily declining the proffered +inspection. “You will find it is ill joking with Death.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, he quitted the cavern. +</p> + +<p> +Pan sat down chuckling, yet not wholly at ease, for if the charity of Death is +beautiful even to a mortal, his anger is terrible, even to a god. Anxious to +terminate the adventure, he reached towards the charmed wand by whose wonderful +instrumentality the dying maiden had already become a living flower, and was +now to undergo a yet more delightful metamorphosis. +</p> + +<p> +Wondrous wand! But where was it? For Death, the great transfigurer of all below +this lunar sphere, had given Pan a characteristic proof of his superior +cunning. Where the wand had reposed writhed a ghastly worm, which, as Pan’s +glance fell upon it, glided towards him, uplifting its head with an aspect of +defiance. Pan’s immortal nature sickened at the emblem of corruption; he could +not for all Olympus have touched his metamorphosed treasure. As he shrank back +the creature pursued its way towards the vase; but a marvellous change befell +it as it came under the shadow of the flower. The writhing body divided, end +from end, the sordid scales sank indiscernibly into the dust, and an exquisite +butterfly, arising from the ground, alighted on the lily, and remained for a +moment fanning its wings in the last sunbeam, ere it unclosed them to the +evening breeze. Pan, looking eagerly after the Psyche in its flight, did not +perceive what was taking place in the cavern; but the magic wand, now for ever +lost to its possessor, must have cancelled its own spell, for when his gaze +reverted from the ineffectual pursuit, the living lily had disappeared, and +Iridion lay a corpse upon the ground, the faded flower of her destiny reposing +upon her breast. +</p> + +<p> +Death now stood for a third time upon Pan’s threshold, but Pan heeded him not. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF FOLLY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“That owned the virtuous ring and glass.”<br/> +—<i>Il Penseroso</i>. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +“Aurelia!” +</p> + +<p> +“Otto!” +</p> + +<p> +“Must we then part?” +</p> + +<p> +They were folded in each other’s arms. There never was such kissing. +</p> + +<p> +“How shall we henceforth exchange the sweet tokens of our undying affection, my +Otto?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, my Aurelia, I know not! Thy Otto blushes to acquaint thee that he cannot +write.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blush not, my Otto, thou needest not reproach thyself. Even couldest thou +write, thy Aurelia could not read. Oh these dark ages!” +</p> + +<p> +They remained some minutes gazing on each other with an expression of fond +perplexity. Suddenly the damsel’s features assumed the aspect of one who +experiences the visitation of a happy thought. Gently yet decidedly she +pronounced: +</p> + +<p> +“We will exchange rings.” +</p> + +<p> +They drew off their rings simultaneously. “This, Aurelia, was my +grandfather’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“This, Otto, was my grandmother’s, which she charged me with her dying breath +never to part with save to him whom alone I loved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mine is a brilliant, more radiant than aught save the eyes of my Aurelia.” +</p> + +<p> +And, in fact, Aurelia’s eyes hardly sustained the comparison. A finer stone +could not easily be found. +</p> + +<p> +“Mine is a sapphire, azure as the everlasting heavens, and type of a constancy +enduring as they.” +</p> + +<p> +In truth, it was of a tint seldom to be met with in sapphires. +</p> + +<p> +The exchange made, the lady seemed less anxious to detain her lover. +</p> + +<p> +“Beware, Otto!” she cried, as he slid down the cord, which yielded him an +oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted knee-deep +in mud. “Beware!—if my brother should be gazing from his chamber on the +resplendent moon!” +</p> + +<p> +But that ferocious young baron was accustomed to spend his time in a less +romantic manner; and so it came to pass that Otto encountered him not. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Days, weeks, months had passed by, and Otto, a wanderer in a foreign land, had +heard no tidings of his Aurelia. Ye who have loved may well conceive how her +ring was all in all to him. He divided his time pretty equally between gazing +into its cerulean depths, as though her lovely image were mirrored therein, and +pressing its chilly surface to his lips, little as it recalled the warmth and +balminess of hers. +</p> + +<p> +The burnished glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and sparkle +of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he one evening +perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a jeweller’s shop. The +grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench within, sedulously polishing a +streaked pebble by the light of a small lamp. A sudden thought struck Otto; he +entered the shop, and, presenting the ring to the jeweller, inquired in a tone +of suppressed exultation: +</p> + +<p> +“What hold you for the worth of this inestimable ring?” +</p> + +<p> +The jeweller, with no expression of surprise or curiosity, received the ring +from Otto, held it to the light, glanced slightly at the stone, somewhat more +carefully at the setting, laid the ring for a moment in a pair of light scales, +and, handing it back to Otto, remarked with a tone and manner of the most +entire indifference: +</p> + +<p> +“The worth of this inestimable ring is one shilling and sixpence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Caitiff of a huckster!” exclaimed Otto, bringing down his fist on the bench +with such vigour that the pebbles leaped up and fell rattling down: “Sayest +thou this of a gem framed by genii in the bowels of the earth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, friend,” returned the jeweller with the same imperturbable air, “that thy +gem was framed of earth I in nowise question, seeing that it doth principally +consist of sand. But when thou speakest of genii and the bowels of the earth, +thou wilt not, I hope, take it amiss if I crave better proof than thy word that +the devil has taken to glass-making. For glass, and nothing else, credit me, +thy jewel is.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the gold?” gasped Otto. +</p> + +<p> +“There is just as much gold in thy ring as sufficeth to gild handsomely a like +superficies of brass, which is not saying much.” +</p> + +<p> +And, applying a sponge dipped in some liquid to a small part of the hoop, the +jeweller disclosed the dull hue of the baser metal so evidently that Otto could +hardly doubt longer. He doubted no more when the lapidary laid his ring in the +scales against another of the same size and make, and pointed to the inequality +of the balance. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou seest,” he continued, “that in our craft a very little gold goes a very +great way. It is far otherwise in the world, as thou, albeit in no sort eminent +for sapience, hast doubtless ere this ascertained for thyself. Thou art +evidently a prodigious fool!” +</p> + +<p> +This latter disparaging observation could be safely ventured upon, as Otto had +rushed from the shop, speechless with rage. +</p> + +<p> +Was Aurelia deceiver or deceived? Should he execrate her, or her venerable +grandmother, or some unknown person? The point was too knotty to be solved in +the agitated state of his feelings. He decided it provisionally by execrating +the entire human race, not forgetting himself. +</p> + +<p> +In a mood like Otto’s a trifling circumstance is sufficient to determine the +quality of action. The ancient city of which he was at the time an inhabitant +was traversed by a large river spanned by a quaint and many-arched bridge, to +which his frantic and aimless wanderings had conducted him. Spires and gables +and lengthy façades were reflected in the water, blended with the +shadows of boats, and interspersed with the mirrored flames of innumerable +windows on land, or of lanterns suspended from the masts or sterns of the +vessels. The dancing ripples bickered and flickered, and seemed to say, “Come +hither to us,” while the dark reaches of still water in the shadow of the piers +promised that whatever might be entrusted to them should be faithfully +retained. Swayed by a sudden impulse, Otto drew his ring from his finger. It +gleamed an instant aloft in air; in another the relaxation of his grasp would +have consigned it to the stream. +</p> + +<p> +“Forbear!” +</p> + +<p> +Otto turned, and perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger was tall +and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially concealed a +flame-coloured jerkin. A cock’s feather peaked up in his cap; his eyes were +piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the expression of his features +sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more observant, or less preoccupied, he +might have noticed that the stranger’s left shoe was of a peculiar form, and +that he limped some little with the corresponding foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Forbear, I say; thou knowest not what thou doest.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what skills what I do with a piece of common glass?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou errest, friend; thy ring is not common glass. Had thy mistress surmised +its mystic virtues, she would have thought oftener than twice ere exchanging it +for thy diamond.” +</p> + +<p> +“What may these virtues be?” eagerly demanded Otto. +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place, it will show thee when thy mistress may chance to think of +thee, as it will then prick thy finger.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now I know thee for a lying knave,” exclaimed the youth indignantly. “Learn, +to thy confusion, that it hath not pricked me once since I parted from +Aurelia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which proves that she has never once thought of thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Villain!” shouted Otto, “say that again, and I will transfix thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou mayest if thou canst,” rejoined the stranger, with an expression of such +cutting scorn that Otto’s spirit quailed, and he felt a secret but overpowering +conviction of his interlocutor’s veracity. Rallying, however, in some measure, +he exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Aurelia is true! I will wager my soul upon it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Done!” screamed the stranger in a strident voice of triumph, while a burst of +diabolical laughter seemed to proceed from every cranny of the eaves and piers +of the old bridge, and to be taken up by goblin echoes from the summits of the +adjacent towers and steeples. +</p> + +<p> +Otto’s blood ran chill, but he mustered sufficient courage to inquire hoarsely: +</p> + +<p> +“What of its further virtues?” +</p> + +<p> +“When it shall have pricked thee,” returned the mysterious personage, “on +turning it once completely round thy finger thou wilt see thy mistress wherever +she may be. If thou turnest it the second time, thou wilt know what her thought +of thee is; and, if the third time, thou wilt find thyself in her presence. But +I give thee fair warning that by doing this thou wilt place thyself in a more +disastrous plight than any thou hast experienced hitherto. And now farewell.” +</p> + +<p> +The speaker disappeared. Otto stood alone upon the bridge. He saw nothing +around him but the stream, with its shadows and lights, as he slowly and +thoughtfully turned round to walk to his lodgings. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Ye who have loved, et cetera, as aforesaid, will comprehend the anxiety with +which Otto henceforth consulted his ring. He was continually adjusting it to +his finger in a manner, as he fancied, to render the anticipated puncture more +perceptible when it should come at last. He would have worn it on all his +fingers in succession had the conformation of his robust hand admitted of its +being placed on any but the slenderest. Thousands of times he could have sworn +that he felt the admonitory sting; thousands of times he turned the trinket +round and round with desperate impatience; but Aurelia’s form remained as +invisible, her thoughts as inscrutable, as before. His great dread was that he +might be pricked in his sleep, on which account he would sit up watching far +into the morn. For, as he reasoned, not without plausibility, when could he +more rationally hope for a place in Aurelia’s thoughts than at that witching +and suggestive period? She might surely think of him when she had nothing else +to do! Had she really nothing else to do? And Otto grew sick and livid with +jealousy. It of course frequently occurred to him to doubt and deride the +virtues of the ring, and he was several times upon the point of flinging it +away. But the more he pondered upon the appearance and manner of the stranger, +the less able he felt to resist the conviction of his truthfulness. +</p> + +<p> +At last a most unmistakable puncture! the distinct, though slight, pang of a +miniature wound. A crimson bead of blood rose on Otto’s finger, swelled to its +due proportion, and became a trickling blot. +</p> + +<p> +“She is thinking of me!” cried he rapturously, as if this were an instance of +the most signal and unforeseen condescension. All the weary expectancy of the +last six months was forgotten. He would have railed at himself had the bliss of +the moment allowed him to remember that he had ever railed at her. +</p> + +<p> +Otto turned his ring once, and Aurelia became visible in an instant. She was +standing before the mercer’s booth in the chief street of the little town which +adjoined her father’s castle. Her gaze was riveted on a silk mantle, trimmed +with costly furs, which depended from a hook inside the doorway. Her lovely +features wore an expression of extreme dissatisfaction. She was replacing a +purse, apparently by no means weighty, in her embroidered girdle. +</p> + +<p> +Otto turned the ring the second time, and Aurelia’s silvery accents immediately +became audible to the following effect: +</p> + +<p> +“If that fool Otto were here, he would buy it for me.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned away, and walked down the street. Otto uttered a cry like the shriek +of an uprooted mandrake. His hand was upon the ring to turn it for the third +time; but the stranger’s warning occurred to him, and for a moment he forbore. +In that moment the entire vision vanished from before his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +What boots it to describe Otto’s feelings upon this revelation of Aurelia’s +sentiments? For lovers, description would be needless; to wiser people, +incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, that as his lady deemed him a fool he +appeared bent on proving that she did not deem amiss. +</p> + +<p> +A long space of time elapsed without any further admonition from the ring. +Perhaps Aurelia had no further occasion for his purse; perhaps she had found +another pursebearer. The latter view of the case appeared the more plausible to +Otto, and it hugely aggravated his torments. +</p> + +<p> +At last the moment came. It was the hour of midnight. Again Otto felt the sharp +puncture, again the ruby drop started from his finger, again he turned the +ring, and again beheld Aurelia. She was in her chamber, but not alone. Her +companion was a youth of Otto’s age. She was in the act of placing Otto’s +brilliant upon his finger. Otto turned his own ring, and heard her utter, with +singular distinctness: +</p> + +<p> +“This ring was given me by the greatest fool I ever knew. Little did he imagine +that it would one day be the means of procuring me liberty, and bliss in the +arms of my Arnold. My venerable grandmother—” +</p> + +<p> +The voice expired upon her lips, for Otto stood before her. +</p> + +<p> +Arnold precipitated himself from the window, carrying the ring with him. Otto, +glaring at his faithless mistress, stood in the middle of the apartment with +his sword unsheathed. Was he about to use it? None can say; for at this moment +the young Baron burst into the room, and, without the slightest apology for the +liberty he was taking, passed his sword through Otto’s body. +</p> + +<p> +Otto groaned, and fell upon his face. He was dead. The young Baron ungently +reversed the position of the corpse, and scanned its features with evident +surprise and dissatisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not Arnold, after all!” he muttered. “Who would have thought it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou seest, brother, how unjust were thy suspicions,” observed Aurelia, with +an air of injured but not implacable virtue. “As for this abominable +ravisher——” Her feelings forbade her to proceed. +</p> + +<p> +The brother looked mystified. There was something beyond his comprehension in +the affair; yet he could not but acknowledge that Otto was the person who had +rushed by him as he lay in wait upon the stairs. He finally determined that it +was best to say nothing about the matter: a resolution the easier of +performance as he was not wont to be lavish of his words at any time. He wiped +his sword on his sister’s curtains, and was about to withdraw, when Aurelia +again spoke: +</p> + +<p> +“Ere thou departest, brother, have the goodness to ring the bell, and desire +the menials to remove this carrion from my apartment.” +</p> + +<p> +The young Baron sulkily complied, and retreated growling to his chamber. +</p> + +<p> +The attendants carried Otto’s body forth. To the honour of her sex be it +recorded, that before this was done Aurelia vouchsafed one glance to the corpse +of her old lover. Her eye fell on the brazen ring. “And he has actually worn it +all this time!” thought she. +</p> + +<p> +“Would have outraged my daughter, would he?” said the old Baron, when the +transaction was reported to him. “Let him be buried in a concatenation +accordingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“What the guy dickens be a concatrenation, Geoffrey?” interrogated Giles. +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks it is Latin for a ditch,” responded Geoffrey. +</p> + +<p> +This interpretation commending itself to the general judgment of the retainers, +Otto was interred in the shelving bank of the old moat, just under Aurelia’s +window. A rough stone was laid upon the grave. The magic ring, which no one +thought worth appropriating, remained upon the corpse’s finger. Thou mayest +probably find it there, reader, if thou searchest long enough. +</p> + +<p> +The first visitor to Otto’s humble sepulchre was, after all, Aurelia herself, +who alighted thereon on the following night after letting herself down from her +casement to fly with Arnold. Their escape was successfully achieved upon a pair +of excellent horses, the proceeds of Otto’s diamond, which had become the +property of a Jew. +</p> + +<p> +On the third night an aged monk stood by Otto’s grave, and wept plentifully. He +carried a lantern, a mallet, and a chisel. “He was my pupil,” sobbed the good +old man. “It were meet to contribute what in me lies to the befitting +perpetuation of his memory.” +</p> + +<p> +Setting down the lantern, he commenced work, and with pious toil engraved on +the stone in the Latin of the period: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“HAC MAGNUS STULTUS JACET IN FOSSA SEPULTUS.<br/> +MULIER CUI CREDIDIT MORTUUM ILLUM REDDIDIT.” +</p> + +<p> +Here he paused, at the end of his strength and of his Latin. +</p> + +<p> +“Beshrew my old arms and brains!” he sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Hem!” coughed a deep voice in his vicinity. +</p> + +<p> +The monk looked up. The personage in the dusky cloak and flame-coloured jerkin +was standing over him. +</p> + +<p> +“Good monk,” said the fiend, “what dost thou here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good fiend,” said the monk, “I am inscribing an epitaph to the memory of a +departed friend. Thou mightest kindly aid me to complete it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Truly,” rejoined the demon, “it would become me to do so, seeing that I have +his soul here in my pocket. Thou wilt not expect me to employ the language of +the Church. Nathless, I see not wherefore the vernacular may not serve as +well.” +</p> + +<p> +And, taking the mallet and chisel, he completed the monk’s inscription with the +supplementary legend: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +“SERVED HIM RIGHT.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>THE BELL OF SAINT EUSCHEMON</h2> + +<p> +The town of Epinal, in Lorraine, possessed in the Middle Ages a peal of three +bells, respectively dedicated to St. Eulogius, St. Eucherius, and St. +Euschemon, whose tintinnabulation was found to be an effectual safeguard +against all thunderstorms. Let the heavens be ever so murky, it was merely +requisite to set the bells ringing, and no lightning flashed and no thunder +peal broke over the town, nor was the neighbouring country within hearing of +them ravaged by hail or flood. +</p> + +<p> +One day the three saints, Eulogius, Eucherius, and Euschemon, were sitting +together, exceedingly well content with themselves and everything around them, +as indeed they had every right to be, supposing that they were in Paradise. We +say supposing, not being for our own part entirely able to reconcile this +locality with the presence of certain cans and flagons, which had been fuller +than they were. +</p> + +<p> +“What a happy reflection for a Saint,” said Eulogius, who was rapidly passing +from the mellow stage of good fellowship to the maudlin, “that even after his +celestial assumption he is permitted to continue a source of blessing and +benefit to his fellow-creatures as yet dwelling in the shade of mortality! The +thought of the services of my bell, in averting lightning and inundation from +the good people of Epinal, fills me with indescribable beatitude.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Your</i> bell!” interposed Eucherius, whose path had lain through the +mellow to the quarrelsome. “<i>Your</i> bell, quotha! You had as good clink +this cannakin” (suiting the action to the word) “as your bell. It’s my bell +that does the business.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you might put in a word for <i>my</i> bell,” interposed Euschemon, a +little squinting saint, very merry and friendly when not put out, as on the +present occasion. +</p> + +<p> +“Your bell!” retorted the big saints, with incredible disdain; and, forgetting +their own altercation, they fell so fiercely on their little brother that he +ran away, stopping his ears with his hands, and vowing vengeance. +</p> + +<p> +A short time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance presented +himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and bell-ringer, at +that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance was far from disagreeable, +and he obtained the appointment without difficulty. His deportment in it was in +all respects edifying; or if he evinced some little remissness in the service +of Saints Eulogius and Eucherius, this was more than compensated by his +devotion to the hitherto somewhat slighted Saint Euschemon. It was indeed +observed that candles, garlands, and other offerings made at the shrines of the +two senior saints were found to be transferred in an unaccountable and mystical +manner to the junior, which induced experienced persons to remark that a +miracle was certainly brewing. Nothing, however, occurred until, one hot summer +afternoon, the indications of a storm became so threatening that the sacristan +was directed to ring the bells. Scarcely had he begun than the sky became +clear, but instead of the usual rich volume of sound the townsmen heard with +astonishment a solitary tinkle, sounding quite ridiculous and unsatisfactory in +comparison. St. Euschemon’s bell was ringing by itself. +</p> + +<p> +In a trice priests and laymen swarmed to the belfry, and indignantly demanded +of the sacristan what he meant. +</p> + +<p> +“To enlighten you,” he responded. “To teach you to give honour where honour is +due. To unmask those canonised impostors.” +</p> + +<p> +And he called their attention to the fact that the clappers of the bells of +Eulogius and Eucherius were so fastened up that they could not emit a sound, +while that of Euschemon vibrated freely. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye see,” he continued, “that these sound not at all, yet is the tempest +stayed. Is it not thence manifest that the virtue resides solely in the bell of +the blessed Euschemon?” +</p> + +<p> +The argument seemed conclusive to the majority, but those of the clergy who +ministered at the altars of Eulogius and Eucherius stoutly resisted, +maintaining that no just decision could be arrived at until Euschemon’s bell +was subjected to the same treatment as the others. Their view eventually +prevailed, to the great dismay of Euschemon, who, although firmly convinced of +the virtue of his own bell, did not in his heart disbelieve in the bells of his +brethren. Imagine his relief and amazed joy when, upon his bell being silenced, +the storm, for the first time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, broke +with full fury over Epinal, and, for all the frantic pealing of the other two +bells, raged with unspeakable fierceness until his own was brought into +requisition, when, as if by enchantment, the rain ceased, the thunder-clouds +dispersed, and the sun broke out gloriously from the blue sky. +</p> + +<p> +“Carry him in procession!” shouted the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +“Amen, brethren; here I am,” rejoined Euschemon, stepping briskly into the +midst of the troop. +</p> + +<p> +“And why in the name of Zernebock should we carry <i>you?</i>” demanded some, +while others ran off to lug forth the image, the object of their devotion. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, verily,” Euschemon began, and stopped short. How indeed was he to prove +to them that he <i>was</i> Euschemon? His personal resemblance to his effigy, +the work of a sculptor of the idealistic school, was in no respect remarkable; +and he felt, alas! that he could no more work a miracle than you or I. In the +sight of the multitude he was only an elderly sexton with a cast in his eye, +with nothing but his office to keep him out of the workhouse. A further and +more awkward question arose, how on earth was he to get back to Paradise? The +ordinary method was not available, for he had already been dead for several +centuries; and no other presented itself to his imagination. +</p> + +<p> +Muttering apologies, and glad to be overlooked, Euschemon shrank into a corner, +but slightly comforted by the honours his image was receiving at the hands of +the good people of Epinal. As time wore on he became pensive and restless, and +nothing pleased him so well as to ascend to the belfry on moonlight nights, +scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had +ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, which now did duty for +all three. With alarm he noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened +to become a serious flaw. +</p> + +<p> +“If this goes on,” said a voice behind him, “I shall get a holiday.” +</p> + +<p> +Euschemon turned round, and with indescribable dismay perceived a gigantic +demon, negligently resting his hand on the top of the bell, and looking as if +it would cost him nothing to pitch it and Euschemon together to the other side +of the town. +</p> + +<p> +“Avaunt, fiend,” he stammered, with as much dignity as he could muster, “or at +least remove thy unhallowed paw from my bell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Eusky,” replied the fiend, with profane familiarity, “don’t be a fool. +You are not really such an ass as to imagine that your virtue has anything to +do with the virtue of this bell?” +</p> + +<p> +“Whose virtue then?” demanded Euschemon. +</p> + +<p> +“Why truly,” said the demon, “mine! When this bell was cast I was imprisoned in +it by a potent enchanter, and so long as I am in it no storm can come within +sound of its ringing. I am not allowed to quit it except by night, and then no +further than an arm’s length: this, however, I take the liberty of measuring by +my own arm, which happens to be a long one. This must continue, as I learn, +until I receive a kiss from some bishop of distinguished sanctity. Thou hast +done some bishoping in thy time, peradventure?” +</p> + +<p> +Euschemon energetically protested that he had been on earth but a simple laic, +which was indeed the fact, and was also the reason why Eulogius and Eucherius +despised him, but which, though he did not think it needful to tell the demon, +he found a singular relief under present circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” continued the fiend, “I wish he may turn up shortly, for I am half deaf +already with the banging and booming of this infernal clapper, which seems to +have grown much worse of late; and the blessings and the crossings and the +aspersions which I have to go through are most repugnant to my tastes, and +unsuitable to my position in society. Bye-bye, Eusky; come up to-morrow night.” +And the fiend slipped back into the bell, and instantly became invisible. +</p> + +<p> +The humiliation of poor Euschemon on learning that he was indebted for his +credit to the devil is easier to imagine than to describe. He did not, however, +fail at the rendezvous next night, and found the demon sitting outside the bell +in a most affable frame of mind. It did not take long for the devil and the +saint to become very good friends, both wanting company, and the former being +apparently as much amused by the latter’s simplicity as the latter was charmed +by the former’s knowingness. Euschemon learned numbers of things of which he +had not had the faintest notion. The demon taught him how to play cards (just +invented by the Saracens), and initiated him into divers “arts, though +unimagined, yet to be,” such as smoking tobacco, making a book on the Derby, +and inditing queer stories for Society journals. He drew the most profane but +irresistibly funny caricatures of Eulogius and Eucherius, and the rest of the +host of heaven. He had been one of the demons who tempted St. Anthony, and +retailed anecdotes of that eremite which Euschemon had never heard mentioned in +Paradise. He was versed in all scandal respecting saints in general, and +Euschemon found with astonishment how much about his own order was known +downstairs. On the whole he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life; he +became proficient in all manner of minor devilries, and was ceasing to trouble +himself about his bell or his ecclesiastical duties, when an untoward incident +interrupted his felicity. +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that the Bishop of Metz, in whose diocese Epinal was situated, +finding himself during a visitation journey within a short distance of the +town, determined to put, up there for the night. He did not arrive until +nightfall, but word of his intention having been sent forward by a messenger +the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, were ready to receive him. When, +escorted in state, he had arrived at the house prepared for his reception, the +Mayor ventured to express a hope that everything had been satisfactory to his +Lordship. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything,” said the bishop emphatically. “I did indeed seem to remark one +little omission, which no doubt may be easily accounted for.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was that, my Lord?” +</p> + +<p> +“It hath,” said the bishop, “usually been the practice to receive a bishop with +the ringing of bells. It is a laudable custom, conducive to the purification of +the air and the discomfiture of the prince of the powers thereof. I caught no +sound of chimes on the present occasion, yet I am sensible that my hearing is +not what it was.” +</p> + +<p> +The civil and ecclesiastical authorities looked at each other. “That graceless +knave of a sacristan!” said the Mayor. +</p> + +<p> +“He hath indeed of late strangely neglected his charge,” said a priest. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor man, I doubt his wits are touched,” charitably added another. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed the bishop, who was very active, very fussy, and a great +stickler for discipline. “This important church, so renowned for its three +miraculous bells, confided to the tender mercies of an imbecile rogue who may +burn it down any night! I will look to it myself without losing a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +And in spite of all remonstrances, off he started. The keys were brought, the +doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly examined, but neither in +nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest trace of the sacristan be found. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he is in the belfry,” suggested a chorister. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll see,” responded the bishop, and bustling nimbly up the ladder, he +emerged into the open belfry in full moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +Heavens! what a sight met his eye! The sacristan and the devil sitting +<i>vis-a-vis</i> close by the miraculous bell, with a smoking can of hot spiced +wine between them, finishing a close game of cribbage. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven,” declared Euschemon. +</p> + +<p> +“And eight are fifteen,” retorted the demon, marking two. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-three and pair,” cried Euschemon, marking in his turn. +</p> + +<p> +“And seven is thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ace, thirty-one, and I’m up.” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> up with you, my friend,” shouted the bishop, bringing his crook +down smartly on Euschemon’s shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Deuce!” said the devil, and vanished into his bell. +</p> + +<p> +When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very long, +the bishop briefly addressed the assembly. He said that the accounts of the +bell which had reached his ears had already excited his apprehensions. He had +greatly feared that all could not be right, and now his anxieties were but too +well justified. He trusted there was not a man before him who would not suffer +his flocks and his crops to be destroyed by tempest fifty times over rather +than purchase their safety by unhallowed means. What had been done had +doubtless been done in ignorance, and could be made good by a mulct to the +episcopal treasury. The amount of this he would carefully consider, and the +people of Epinal might rest assured that it should not be too light to entitle +them to the benefit of a full absolution. The bell must go to his cathedral +city, there to be examined and reported on by the exorcists and inquisitors. +Meanwhile he would himself institute a slight preliminary scrutiny. +</p> + +<p> +The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the combined beams +of the moonlight and torchlight. Very slight examination served to place the +soundness of the bishop’s opinion beyond dispute. On the lip of the bell were +engraven characters unknown to every one else, but which seemed to affect the +prelate with singular consternation. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope,” he exclaimed, “that none of you know anything about these characters! +I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them. If I thought anybody +could I would burn him as soon as look at him!” +</p> + +<p> +The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the slightest +conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never been observed before. +</p> + +<p> +“I rejoice to hear it,” said the bishop. “It will be an evil day for the church +when these letters are understood.” +</p> + +<p> +And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible fiend +inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and the luckless +Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness, the inmate of a dismal +dungeon. +</p> + +<p> +It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of any +partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats. At length, +however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear. +</p> + +<p> +“Who art thou?” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“An unfortunate prisoner,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a mere trifle. A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to Beelzebub. +One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur in our +profession.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Our</i> profession!” exclaimed Euschemon. +</p> + +<p> +“Art thou not a sorcerer?” demanded the voice. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied Euschemon, “I am a saint.” +</p> + +<p> +The warlock received Euschemon’s statement with much incredulity, but becoming +eventually convinced of its truth— +</p> + +<p> +“I congratulate thee,” he said. “The devil has manifestly taken a fancy to +thee, and he never forgets his own. It is true that the bishop is a great +favourite with him also. But we will hope for the best. Thou hast never +practised riding a broomstick? No? ’Tis pity; thou mayest have to mount one at +a moment’s notice.” +</p> + +<p> +This consolation had scarcely been administered ere the bolts flew back, the +hinges grated, the door opened, and gaolers bearing torches informed the +sorcerer that the bishop desired his presence. +</p> + +<p> +He found the bishop in his study, which was nearly choked up by Euschemon’s +bell. The prelate received him with the greatest affability, and expressed a +sincere hope that the very particular arrangements he had enjoined for the +comfort of his distinguished prisoner had been faithfully carried out by his +subordinates. The sorcerer, as much a man of the world as the bishop, thanked +his Lordship, and protested that he had been perfectly comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“I have need of thy art,” said the bishop, coming to business. “I am +exceedingly bothered—flabbergasted were not too strong an +expression—by this confounded bell. All my best exorcists have been +trying all they know with it, to no purpose. They might as well have tried to +exorcise my mitre from my head by any other charm than the offer of a better +one. Magic is plainly the only remedy, and if thou canst disenchant it, I will +give thee thy freedom.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will be a tough business,” observed the sorcerer, surveying the bell with +the eye of a connoisseur. “It will require fumigations.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the bishop, “and suffumigations.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aloes and mastic,” advised the sorcerer. +</p> + +<p> +“Aye,” assented the bishop, “and red sanders.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must call in Primeumaton,” said the warlock. +</p> + +<p> +“Clearly,” said the bishop, “and Amioram.” +</p> + +<p> +“Triangles,” said the sorcerer. +</p> + +<p> +“Pentacles,” said the bishop. +</p> + +<p> +“In the hour of Methon,” said the sorcerer. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought Tafrac,” suggested the bishop, “but I defer to your +better judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can have the blood of a goat?” queried the wizard. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the bishop, “and of a monkey also.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does your Lordship think that one might venture to go so far as a little +unweaned child?” +</p> + +<p> +“If absolutely necessary,” said the bishop. +</p> + +<p> +“I am delighted to find such liberality of sentiment on your Lordship’s part,” +said the sorcerer. “Your Lordship is evidently of the profession.” +</p> + +<p> +“These are things which stuck by me when I was an inquisitor,” explained the +bishop, with some little embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +Ere long all arrangements were made. It would be impossible to enumerate half +the crosses, circles, pentagrams, naked swords, cross-bones, chafing-dishes, +and vials of incense which the sorcerer found to be necessary. The child was +fortunately deemed superfluous. Euschemon was brought up from his dungeon, and, +his teeth chattering with fright and cold, set beside his bell to hold a candle +to the devil. The incantations commenced, and speedily gave evidence of their +efficacy. The bell trembled, swayed, split open, and a female figure of +transcendent loveliness attired in the costume of Eve stepped forth and +extended her lips towards the bishop. What could the bishop do but salute them? +With a roar of triumph the demon resumed his proper shape. The bishop swooned. +The apartment was filled with the fumes of sulphur. The devil soared +majestically out of the window, carrying the sorcerer under one arm and +Euschemon under the other. +</p> + +<p> +It is commonly believed that the devil good-naturedly dropped Euschemon back +again into Paradise, or wheresoever he might have come from. It is even added +that he fell between Eulogius and Eucherius, who had been arguing all the time +respecting the merits of their bells, and resumed his share in the discussion +as if nothing had happened. Some maintain, indeed, that the devil, chancing to +be in want of a chaplain, offered the situation to Euschemon, by whom it was +accepted. But how to reconcile this assertion with the undoubted fact that the +duties of the post in question are at present ably discharged by the Bishop of +Metz, in truth we see not. One thing is certain: thou wilt not find Euschemon’s +name in the calendar, courteous reader. +</p> + +<p> +The mulct to be imposed upon the parish of Epinal was never exacted. The bell, +ruptured beyond repair by the demon’s violent exit, was taken back and +deposited in the museum of the town. The bells of Eulogius and Eucherius were +rung freely on occasion; but Epinal has not since enjoyed any greater immunity +from storms than the contiguous districts. One day an aged traveller, who had +spent many years in Heathenesse and in whom some discerned a remarkable +resemblance to the sorcerer, noticed the bell, and asked permission to examine +it. He soon discovered the inscription, recognised the mysterious characters as +Greek, read them without the least difficulty— +</p> + +<p> +“Μη κινει +Καμαριναν +ακινητος γαρ +αμεινων—” +</p> + +<p> +and favoured the townsmen with this free but substantially accurate +translation:— +</p> + +<p> +“CANp’T YOU LET WELL ALONE?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>BISHOP ADDO AND BISHOP GADDO</h2> + +<p> +Midday, midsummer, middle of the dark ages. Fine healthy weather at the city of +Biserta in Barbary. Wind blowing strong from the sea, roughening the dark blue +waters, and fretting their indigo with foam, as though the ocean’s coursers +champed an invisible curb. On land tawny sand whirling, green palm-fans swaying +and whistling, men abroad in the noonday blaze rejoicing in the unwonted +freshness. +</p> + +<p> +“She is standing in,” they cried, “and, by the Prophet, she seemeth not a ship +of the true believers.” +</p> + +<p> +She was not, but she bore a flag of truce. Pitching and rearing, the little +bark bounded in, and soon was fast in harbour. Ere long messengers of peace had +landed, bearing presents and a letter from the Bishop of Amalfi to the Emir of +Biserta. The presents consisted of fifty casks of Lacrima Christi, and of a +captive, a tall, noble-looking man, in soiled ecclesiastical costume, and +disfigured by the loss of his left eye, which seemed to have been violently +plucked out. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Health to the Emir!” ran the letter. “I send thee my captive, Gaddo, sometime +Bishop of Amalfi, now an ejected intruder. For what saith the Scripture? ‘When +a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but if one +stronger than he cometh, he divideth the spoils.’ Moreover it is written: ‘His +bishopric let another take.’ Having solemnly sworn that I would not kill or +blind or maim my enemy, or imprison him in a monastery, and the price of +absolution from an oath in this corrupt age exceeding all reason and Christian +moderation, I knew not how to take vengeance on him, until a sagacious +counsellor represented that a man cannot be said to be blinded so long as he is +deprived of only one eye. This I accordingly eradicated, and now, being +restrained from imprisoning him, and fearing to release him, I send him to +thee, to retain in captivity on my behalf; in return for which service, receive +fifty casks of the choicest Lacrima Christi, which shall not fail to be sent +thee yearly, so long as Gaddo continues in thy custody. +</p> + +<p> +“+ Addo, by Divine permission Bishop of Amalfi.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“First,” said the Emir, “I would be certified whether this vintage is indeed of +such excellence as to prevail upon a faithful Mussulman to jeopard Paradise, +the same being forbidden by his law.” +</p> + +<p> +Experiments were instituted forthwith, and the problem was resolved in the +affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +“This being so,” declared the Emir, “honour and good faith towards Bishop Addo +require that Bishop Gaddo be kept captive with all possible strictness. Yet +bolts may be burst, fetters may be filed, walls may be scaled, doors may be +broken through. Better to enchain the captive’s soul, binding him with +invisible bonds, and searing out of him the very wish to escape. Embrace the +faith of the Prophet,” continued he, addressing Gaddo; “become a Mollah.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the deposed Bishop, “my inclination hath ever been towards a +military life. At present, mutilated and banished as I am, I rather affect the +crown of martyrdom.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou shalt receive it by instalments,” said the Emir. “Thou shalt work at the +new pavilion in my garden.” +</p> + +<p> +Unceasing toil under the blazing sun, combined with the discipline of the +overseers, speedily wore down Gaddo’s strength, already impaired by captivity +and ill-treatment. Unable to drag himself away after his fellow-workmen had +ceased from their labours, he lay one evening, faint and almost senseless, +among the stones and rubbish of the unfinished edifice. The Emir’s daughter +passed by. Gaddo was handsome and wretched, the Princess was beautiful and +compassionate. Conveyed by her fair hands, a cup of Bishop Addo’s wine saved +Bishop Gaddo’s life. +</p> + +<p> +The next evening Gaddo again lingered behind, and the Princess spoke to him out +of her balcony. The third evening they encountered in an arbour. The next +meeting took place in her chamber, where her father discovered them. +</p> + +<p> +“I will tear thee to pieces with pincers,” shouted he to Gaddo. +</p> + +<p> +“Your Highness will not be guilty of that black action,” responded Gaddo +resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +“No?” roared the Emir. “No? and what shall hinder me?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lacrima Christi will hinder your Highness,” returned the far-seeing Gaddo. +“Deems your Highness that Bishop Addo will send another cupful, once he is +assured of my death?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou sayest well,” rejoined the Emir. “I may not slay thee. But my daughter is +manifestly most inflammable, wherefore I will burn her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were it not better to circumcise me?” suggested Gaddo. +</p> + +<p> +Many difficulties were raised, but Ayesha’s mother siding with Gaddo, and +promising a more amicable deportment for the future towards the other lights of +the harem, the matter was arranged, and Gaddo recited the Mahometan profession +of faith, and became the Emir’s son-in-law. The execrable social system under +which he had hitherto lived thus vanished like a nightmare from an awakened +sleeper. Wedded to one who had saved his life by her compassion, and whose life +he had in turn saved by his change of creed, adoring her and adored by her, +with the hope of children, and active contact with multitudes of other +interests from which he had hitherto been estranged, he forgot the ecclesiastic +in the man; his intellect expanded, his ideas multiplied, he cleared his mind +of cant, and became an eminent philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear son,” said the Emir to him one day, “the Lacrima is spent, we thirst, and +the tribute of that Christian dog, the Bishop of Amalfi, tarries to arrive. We +will presently fit out certain vessels, and thou shalt hold a visitation of +thine ancient diocese.” +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks I see a ship even now,” said Gaddo; and he was right. She anchored, +the ambassadors landed and addressed the Emir: +</p> + +<p> +“Prince, we bring thee the stipulated tribute, yet not without a trifling +deduction.” +</p> + +<p> +“Deduction!” exclaimed the Emir, bending his brows ominously. +</p> + +<p> +“Highness,” they represented, “by reason of the deficiency of last year’s +vintage it hath not been possible to provide more than forty-nine casks, which +we crave to offer thee accordingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” pronounced the Emir sententiously, “the compact is broken, the ship is +confiscated, and war is declared.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so, Highness,” said they, “for the fiftieth cask is worth all the rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let it be opened,” commanded the Emir. +</p> + +<p> +It was accordingly hoisted out, deposited on the quay, and prized open; and +from its capacious interior, in a deplorable plight from hunger, cramp, and +sea-sickness, was extracted—Bishop Addo. +</p> + +<p> +“We have,” explained the deputation, “wearied of our shepherd, who, shearing +his flock somewhat too closely, hath brought the wolf to light. We therefore +desire thee to receive him at our hands in exchange for our good Bishop Gaddo, +promising one hundred casks of Lacrima Christi as yearly tribute for the +future.” +</p> + +<p> +“He stands before you,” answered the Emir; “take him, an ye can prevail upon +him to return with you.” +</p> + +<p> +The eyes of the envoys wandered hopelessly from one whiskered, turbaned, +caftaned, and yataghaned figure to another. They could not discover that any of +the Paynim present looked more or less like a bishop than his fellows. +</p> + +<p> +“Brethren,” said Gaddo, taking compassion on their bewilderment, “behold me! I +thank you for your kindly thought of me, but how to profit by it I see not. I +have become a Saracen. I have pronounced the Mahometan confession. I am +circumcised. I am known by the name of Mustapha.” +</p> + +<p> +“We acknowledge the weight of your Lordship’s objections,” they said, “and do +but venture to hint remotely that the times are hard, and that the Holy Father +is grievously in want of money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have also taken a wife,” said Gaddo. +</p> + +<p> +“A wife!” exclaimed they with one consent. “If it had been a concubine! Let us +return instantly.” +</p> + +<p> +They gathered up their garments and spat upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“A bishop, then,” inquired Gaddo, “may be guilty of any enormity sooner than +wedlock, which money itself cannot expiate?” +</p> + +<p> +“Such,” they answered, “is the law and the prophets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unless,” added one of benignant aspect, “he sew the abomination up in a sack +and cast her into the sea, then peradventure he may yet find place for +repentance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miserable blasphemers!” exclaimed Gaddo. “But why,” continued he, checking +himself, “do I talk of what none will understand for five hundred years, which +to understand myself I was obliged to become a Saracen? Addo,” he pursued, +addressing his dejected competitor, “bad as thou art, thou art good enough for +the world as it is. I spare thy life, restore thy dignity, and, to prove that +the precepts of Christ may be practised under the garb of Mahomet, will not +even exact eye for eye. Yet, as a wholesome admonition to thee that treachery +and cruelty escape not punishment even in this life, I will that thou do +presently surrender to me thy left ear. Restore my eye and I will return it +immediately. And ye,” addressing the envoys, “will for the future pay one +hundred casks tribute, unless ye would see my father-in-law’s galleys on your +coasts.” +</p> + +<p> +So Addo returned to his bishopric, leaving his ear in Gaddo’s keeping. The +Lacrima was punctually remitted, and as punctually absorbed by the Emir and his +son-in-law, with some little help from Ayesha. Gaddo’s eye never came back, and +Addo never regained his ear until, after the ex-prelate’s death in years and +honour, he ransomed it from his representatives. It became a relic, and is +shown in Addo’s cathedral to this day in proof of his inveterate enmity to the +misbelievers, and of the sufferings he underwent at their hands. But Gaddo +trumped him, the entry after his name in the episcopal register, “Fled to the +Saracens,” having been altered into “Flayed by the Saracens” by a later bishop, +jealous of the honour of the diocese. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE BUTTERFLIES</h2> + +<p> +The scene was in a garden on a fine summer morning, brilliant with slants of +sunshine, yet chequered with clouds significant of more than a remote +possibility of rain. All the animal world was astir. Birds flitted or hopped +from spray to spray; butterflies eddied around flowers within or upon which +bees were bustling; ants and earwigs ran nimbly about on the mould; a member of +the Universal Knowledge Society perambulated the gravel path. +</p> + +<p> +The Universal Knowledge Society, be it understood, exists for the dissemination +and not for the acquisition of knowledge. Our philosopher, therefore, did not +occupy himself with considering whether in that miniature world, with its +countless varieties of animal and vegetable being, something might not be found +with which he was himself unacquainted; but, like the honey-freighted bee, +rather sought an opportunity of disburdening himself of his stores of +information than of adding to them. But who was to profit by his +communicativeness? The noisy birds could not hear themselves speak, much less +him; he shrewdly distrusted his ability to command the attention of the busy +bees; and even a member of the Universal Knowledge Society may well be at a +loss for a suitable address to an earwig. At length he determined to accost a +Butterfly who, after sipping the juice of a flower, remained perched indolently +upon it, apparently undecided whither to direct his flight. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems likely to rain,” he said, “have you an umbrella?” +</p> + +<p> +The Butterfly looked curiously at him, but returned no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not ask,” resumed the Philosopher, “as one who should imply that the +probability of even a complete saturation ought to appal a ratiocinative being, +endowed with wisdom and virtue. I rather designed to direct your attention to +the inquiry whether these attributes are, in fact, rightly predicable of +Butterflies.” +</p> + +<p> +Still no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“An impression obtains among our own species,” continued the Philosopher, “that +you Butterflies are deficient in foresight and providence to a remarkable, I +might almost say a culpable degree. Pardon me if I add that this suspicion is +to some extent confirmed by my finding you destitute of protection against +imbriferous inclemency under atmospheric conditions whose contingent humidity +should be obvious to a being endowed with the most ordinary allotment of +meteorological prevision.” +</p> + +<p> +The Butterfly still left all the talk to the Philosopher. This was just what +the latter desired. +</p> + +<p> +“I greatly fear,” he continued, “that the omission to which I have reluctantly +adverted is to a certain extent typically characteristic of the entire +political and social economy of the lepidopterous order. It has even been +stated, though the circumstance appears scarcely credible, that your system of +life does not include the accumulation of adequate resources against the +inevitable exigencies of winter.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is winter?” asked the Butterfly, and flew off without awaiting an answer. +</p> + +<p> +The Philosopher remained for a moment speechless, whether from amazement at the +Butterfly’s nescience or disgust at his ill-breeding. Recovering himself +immediately, he shouted after the fugitive: +</p> + +<p> +“Frivolous animal!” “It is this levity,” continued he, addressing a group of +butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted by the +conversation, “it is this fatal levity that constrains me to despair wholly of +the future of you insects. That you should persistently remain at your present +depressed level! That you should not immediately enter upon a process of +self-development! Look at the Bee! How did she acquire her sting, think you? +Why cannot you store up honey, as she does?” +</p> + +<p> +“We cannot build cells,” suggested a Butterfly. +</p> + +<p> +“And how did the Bee learn, do you suppose, unless by imbuing her mind with the +elementary principles of mathematics? Know that time has been when the Bee was +as incapable of architectural construction as yourselves, when you and she +alike were indiscriminable particles of primary protoplasm. (I suppose you know +what that is.) One has in process of time exalted itself to the cognition of +mathematical truth, while the other—Pshaw! Now, really, my friends, I +must beg you to take my observations in good part. I do not imply, of course, +that any endeavours of yours in the direction I have indicated could benefit +any of you personally, or any of your posterity for numberless generations. But +I really do consider that after a while its effects would be very +observable—that in twenty millions of years or so, provided no geological +cataclysm supervened, you Butterflies, with your innate genius for mimicry, +might be conformed in all respects to the hymenopterous model, or perhaps carry +out the principle of development into novel and unheard-of directions. You +should derive much encouragement from the beginning you have made already.” +</p> + +<p> +“How a beginning?” inquired a Butterfly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am alluding to your larval constitution as Caterpillars,” returned the +Philosopher. “Your advance upon that humiliating condition is, I admit, +remarkable. I only wonder that it should not have proceeded much further. With +such capacity for development, it is incomprehensible that you should so long +have remained stationary. You ought to be all toads by this time, at the very +least.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” civilly interposed the Butterfly. “To what condition were +you pleased to allude?” +</p> + +<p> +“To that of a Caterpillar,” rejoined the Philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +“Caterpillar!” echoed the Butterfly, and “Caterpillar!” tittered all his +volatile companions, till the air seemed broken into little silvery waves of +fairy laughter. “Caterpillar! he positively thinks we were once Caterpillars! +He! he! he!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you actually mean to say you don’t know that?” responded the Philosopher, +scandalised at the irreverence of the insects, but inwardly rejoicing at the +prospect of a controversy in which he could not be worsted. +</p> + +<p> +“We know nothing of the sort,” rejoined a Butterfly. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you possibly be plunged into such utter oblivion of your embryonic +antecedents?” +</p> + +<p> +“We do not understand you. All we know is that we have always been +Butterflies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said a large, dull-looking Butterfly with one wing in tatters, crawling +from under a cabbage, and limping by reason of the deficiency of several legs, +“let me entreat you not to deduce our scientific status from the inconsiderate +assertions of the unthinking vulgar. I am proud to assure you that our race +comprises many philosophical reasoners—mostly indeed such as have been +disabled by accidental injuries from joining in the amusements of the rest. The +Origin of our Species has always occupied a distinguished place in their +investigations. It has on several occasions engaged the attention of our +profoundest thinkers for not less than two consecutive minutes. There is hardly +a quadruped on the land, a bird in the air, or a fish in the water to which it +has not been ascribed by some one at some time; but never, I am rejoiced to +say, has any Butterfly ever dreamed of attributing it to the obnoxious thing to +which you have unaccountably made reference.” +</p> + +<p> +“We should rather think not,” chorussed all the Butterflies. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said the Philosopher, picking up and exhibiting a large hairy +Caterpillar of very unprepossessing appearance. “Look here, what do you call +this?” +</p> + +<p> +“An abnormal organisation,” said the scientific Butterfly. +</p> + +<p> +“A nasty beast,” said the others. +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens,” exclaimed the Philosopher, “the obtuseness and arrogance of these +creatures! No, my poor friend,” continued he, addressing the Caterpillar, +“disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect certainly is at +present, the time is at hand when you will prank it with the gayest of them +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cry your mercy,” rejoined the Caterpillar somewhat crossly, “but I was +digesting a gooseberry leaf when you lifted me in that abrupt manner, and I did +not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you to mention my name in +connection with those flutterers?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they.” +</p> + +<p> +“I,” exclaimed the Caterpillar, “I retrograde to the level of a Butterfly! Is +not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not aware of that,” replied the Philosopher, “although,” he added in a +conciliatory tone, “far be it from me to deny you the possession of many +interesting qualities.” +</p> + +<p> +“You probably refer to my agility,” suggested the Caterpillar; “or perhaps to +my abstemiousness?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not referring to either,” returned the Philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +“To my utility to mankind?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not by any manner of means.” +</p> + +<p> +“To what then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be the +prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly.” +</p> + +<p> +The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at the +Philosopher. The Philosopher’s countenance fell. A thrush, darting from an +adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore the latter away +in his bill. At the same moment the shower prognosticated by the Sage burst +forth, scattering the Butterflies in all directions, drenching the Philosopher, +whose foresight had not assumed the shape of an umbrella, and spoiling his new +hat. But he had ample consolation in the superiority of his head. And the +Caterpillar was right too, for after all he never did become a Butterfly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>TRUTH AND HER COMPANIONS</h2> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> Daughter Truth, is this a befitting manner of presenting +yourself before your divine father? You are positively dripping; the floor of +my celestial mansion would be a swamp but for your praiseworthy economy in +wearing apparel. Whence, in the name of the Naiads, do you come? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> From the bottom of a well, father. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> I thought, my daughter, that you had descended upon earth in +the capacity of a benefactress of men rather than of frogs. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> Such, indeed, was my purpose, father, and I accordingly repaired +to the great city. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> The city of the Emperor Apollyon? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> The same; and I there obtained an audience of the monarch. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> What passed? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> I took the liberty of observing to him, father, that, having +obtained his throne by perjury, and cemented it by blood, and maintained it by +hypocrisy, he could entertain no hope of preserving it unless the collective +baseness of his subjects should be found to exceed his own, which was not +probable. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> What reply did he vouchsafe to these admonitions? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. He threatened to cut out my tongue. Perceiving that this would +interfere with my utility to mankind, I retired somewhat precipitately from the +Imperial presence, marvelling that I should ever have been admitted, and +resolved never to be found there for the future. I then proceeded to the +Nobles. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. What said you to them? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. I represented to them that they were, as a class, both arrogant +and luxurious, and would, indeed, have long ago become insupportable, only that +the fabric which their rapacity was for ever striving to erect, their +extravagance as perpetually undermined. I further commented upon the insecurity +of any institution dependent solely upon prescription. Finding these +suggestions unpalatable, I next addressed myself to the priesthood. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. Those holy men, my daughter, must have rejoiced at the +opportunity of learning from you which portion of their traditions was impure +or fabricated, and which authentic and sublime. +</p> + + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. The value they placed upon my instructions was such that they +wished to reserve them exclusively for themselves, and proposed that they +should be delivered within the precincts of a certain subterranean apartment +termed a dungeon, the key of which should be kept by one of their order. +Whereupon I betook myself to the philosophers. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, my +daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. It was all that could be expected, my father, from learned and +virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the universe without +consulting me. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> You probably next addressed yourself to the middling orders of +society? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had much to +remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and their greed, +and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the rottenness of most of their +beliefs, and the thousand ways in which they spoiled lives that might have been +beautiful and harmonious, I soon discovered that they were so absolutely swayed +by the example of the higher orders that it was useless to expostulate with +them until I should have persuaded the latter. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> You returned, then, to the latter with this design? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> On the contrary, I hastened to the poor and needy, whom I fully +acquainted with the various wrongs and oppressions which they underwent at the +hands of the powerful and the rich. And here, for the first time, I found +myself welcome. All listened with gratitude and assent, and none made any +endeavour to stone me or imprison me, as those other unprincipled persons had +done. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter.</i> That was indeed satisfactory, daughter. But when you proceeded +to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery arose from their own +idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and abasement before those higher +in station, and jealousy of the best among themselves—what said they to +that? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth.</i> They expressed themselves desirous of killing me, and indeed +would have done so if my capital enemies, the priests, had not been beforehand +with them. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. What did they? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. Burned me. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. Burned you? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. Burned me in the market-place. And, but for my peculiar property +of reviving from my ashes, I should not be here now. Upon reconsolidating +myself, I felt in such a heat that I was fain to repair to the bottom of the +nearest well. Finding myself more comfortable there than I had ever yet been on +earth, I have come to ask permission to remain. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. It does not appear to me, daughter, that the mission you have +undertaken on behalf of mankind can be efficiently discharged at the bottom of +a well. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. No, father, nor in the middle of a fire either. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. I fear that you are too plain and downright in your dealings +with men, and deter where you ought to allure. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. I were not Truth, else, but Flattery. My nature is a +mirror’s—to exhibit reality with plainness and faithfulness. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. It is no less the nature of man to shatter every mirror that +does not exhibit to him what he wishes to behold. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. Let me, therefore, return to my well, and let him who wishes to +behold me, if such there be, repair to the brink and look down. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. No, daughter, you shall not return to your well. I have already +perceived that you are not of yourself sufficient for the office I have +assigned to you, and I am about to provide you with two auxiliaries. You are +Truth. Tell me how this one appears to you. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. Oh, father, the beautiful nymph! how mature, and yet how comely! +how good-humoured, yet how gentle and grave! Her robe is closely zoned; her +upraised finger approaches her lip; her foot falls soft as snow. What is her +name? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. Discretion. And this other? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Truth</i>. Oh, father! the cordial look, the blooming cheek, the bright +smile that is almost a laugh, the buoyant step, and the expansive bosom! What +name bears she? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Jupiter</i>. Good Nature. Return, my daughter, to earth; continue to +enlighten man’s ignorance and to reprove his folly; but let Discretion suggest +the occasion, and Good Nature inspire the wording of your admonitions. I cannot +engage that you may not, even with these precautions, sometimes pay a visit to +the stake; and if, when an adventure of this sort appears imminent, Discretion +should counsel a temporary retirement to your well, I am sure Good Nature will +urge nothing to the contrary. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>THE THREE PALACES</h2> + +<p> +Three pairs of young people, each a youth with his bride, came together along a +road to the point where it divided to the right and left. On one side was +inscribed, “To the Palace of Truth,” and on the other, “To the Palace of +Illusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“This way, my beauty!” cried one of the youths, drawing his companion in the +direction of the Palace of Truth. “To the place where and where alone thy +perfections may be beheld as they are!” +</p> + +<p> +“And my imperfections!” whispered the young spouse, but her tone was airy and +confident. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the second youth, “does the choice beseem you upon whom the moon +of your nuptials is beaming still. My beloved and I are riper in Hymen’s lore +by not less, I ween, than one fortnight. Prudence impels us towards the Palace +of Illusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy will is mine, Alonso,” said his lady. +</p> + +<p> +“I,” said the third youth, “will seek neither; for I would not be wise +over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured. Happy +am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer contiguity to +my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit it leapt not from her +mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for a red mouse and nothing worse; +had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion haply I had deemed it a rat. And, it +being a red mouse as it indubitably was, to what end fancy it a tawny-throated +nightingale?” +</p> + +<p> +While, therefore, the other pairs proceeded on the paths they had respectively +chosen, this sage youth and his bride settled themselves at the parting of the +ways, built their cot, tended their garden, tilled their field and raised +fruits around them, including children. +</p> + +<p> +The preparation of a cheerful repast was one day well advanced, when, lifting +up their eyes, the pair beheld a haggard and emaciated couple tottering along +the road that led from the Palace of Illusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens!” exclaimed they simultaneously, “no! yes! ’tis surely they!” O +friends! whence this forlorn semblance? whence this osseous condition?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of them anon,” replied the attenuated youth, “but, before all things, dinner!” +</p> + +<p> +The restorative was speedily administered, and the pilgrim commenced his +narration. +</p> + +<p> +“Guarded,” he said, “though the Palace of Illusion was by every species of +hippogriffic chimaera, my bride and I experienced no difficulty in penetrating +inside its precincts. The giants lifted us in their arms, the dragons carried +us on their backs, fairy bridges spanned the moats, golden ladders inclined +against the ramparts, we scaled the towers and trod the courts securely, though +constructed to all seeming of dissolving cloud. Delicate fare loaded every +dish; smiling companions invited to every festivity; perfumes caressed our +nostrils; music enwrapped our ears. +</p> + +<p> +“But while all else charmed and allured, one fact intruded of which we could +not pretend unconsciousness, the intensity of our aversion for each other. +Never could I behold my Imogene without marvelling whatever could have induced +me to wed her, and she has acknowledged that she laboured under the like +perplexity. On the other hand, our good opinion of ourselves had grown +prodigiously. The other’s dislike appeared to each an insane delusion, and we +seriously questioned whether it could be right to mate longer with a being so +destitute of true aesthetic feeling. We confided these scruples to each other, +with the result of a most tempestuous altercation. +</p> + +<p> +“As this was attaining its climax, one of the inmates of the Palace, a pert +forward boy, resembling a page out of livery, passed by, and ironically, as I +thought, congratulated us on the strength of our mutual attachment. ‘Never,’ +exclaimed he, ‘have I beheld the like here before, and I am the oldest +inhabitant.’ +</p> + +<p> +“As this felicitation was proffered at the precise moment when I was engaged in +staunching a rent in my cheek with a handful of my wife’s hair, I was +constrained to regard it as unseasonable, and expressed myself to that effect. +</p> + +<p> +“‘What!’ exclaimed he, with equal surprise, ‘know ye not that this is the +Palace of Illusion, where everything is inverted and appears the reverse of +itself? Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus drive you to +fisticuffs! Had I beheld you billing and cooing, truly I had counselled a +judicial separation!’ +</p> + +<p> +“My wife and I looked at each other, and by a common impulse made at our utmost +speed for the gate of the Palace of Illusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! it is one thing to enter and another to quit that domain of enchantment. +The golden clouds enwrapt us still, cates and dainties tempted us as of old, +the most bewitching strains detained us spellbound. The giant and dragon +warders, indeed, offered no violent resistance, they simply turned into open +portals which appeared to yield us egress, but proved entrances to interminable +labyrinthine mazes. At last we escaped by resolutely, following the exact +opposite track to that which we observed to be taken by a poet, who was chasing +a phantom of Fame with a scroll of unintelligible and inharmonious verse. +</p> + +<p> +“The moment that we emerged from the enchanted castle we knew ourselves and +each other for what we were, and fell weeping into each other’s arms. So feeble +were we that we could hardly move, nevertheless we have made a shift to crawl +hither, trusting to your hospitality to recruit us from the sawdust and +ditch-water which we vehemently suspect to have been our diet during the whole +of our residence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eat and drink without stint and without ceremony,” rejoined their host, +“provided only that somewhat remain for the guests whom I see approaching.” +</p> + +<p> +And in a few moments the fugitives from the Palace of Illusion were reinforced +by travellers from the Palace of Truth, whose backs were most determinately +turned to that august edifice. +</p> + +<p> +“My friends,” said the youth last arrived, when the first greetings were over, +“Truth’s Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not the inmates +necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, and did not all +innocent embellishments of her majestic person become entirely inefficient and +absolutely nugatory. For example, the number of my wife’s grey hairs speedily +confounded me; and how should it be otherwise, when the excellent dye she had +brought with her had completely lost its virtues? She on her part found herself +continually obliged to acquaint me with the manifold defects she was daily +discovering in my mind and person, which I was unable to deny, frequently as I +opened my mouth for that purpose. It is true that I had the satisfaction of +pointing out equal defects in herself; but this could not be considered a great +satisfaction, seeing that every such discovery impugned my taste and judgment, +and impaired the worth of my most cherished possession. At length we resolved +that Truth and we were not made for each other, and, having verified the +accuracy of this conclusion by uttering it unrebuked in Truth’s own palace, +quitted the unblest spot with all possible expedition. No sooner were we +outside than our tenderness revived, and, the rites of reconciliation duly +performed, my wife found nothing more urgent than to try whether her dye had +recovered its natural properties, which, as ye may perceive, proved to be the +case. We are now bound for the Palace of Illusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” said he who had escaped thence, “if my experience suffices not to deter +you, learn that they who have known Truth can never taste of Illusion. Illusion +is for life’s golden prime, its fanes and pavilions may be reared but by the +magic wand of Youth. The maturity that would recreate them builds not for +Illusion but for Deceit. Yet, lest mortality should despair, there exists, as I +have learned, yet another palace, founded midway between that of Illusion and +that of Truth, open to those who are too soft for the one and too hard for the +other. Thither, indeed, the majority of mankind in this age resort, and there +appear to find themselves comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this palace is?” inquired Truth’s runaways simultaneously. +</p> + +<p> +“The Palace of Convention,” replied the youth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>NEW READINGS IN BIOGRAPHY</h2> + +<h3>I.—T<small>IMON OF</small> A<small>THENS</small></h3> + +<p> +No, it was not true that Timon was dead, and buried on the sea-shore. So the +first party discovered that hastened to his cave at the tidings, thinking to +seize his treasure, and had their heads broken for their pains. But the second +party fared better; for these were robbers, captained by Alcibiades, who had +taken to the road, as many a man of spirit, has done before and since. They +took Timon’s gold, and left him bound in his chair. But on the way home the +lesser thieves mysteriously disappeared, and the gold became the sole property +of Alcibiades. As it is written, “The tools to him that can handle them.” +</p> + +<p> +Timon sat many hours in an uncomfortable position, and though, in a general +way, he abhorred the face of man, he was not displeased when a gentleman of +bland appearance entered the cavern, and made him a low obeisance. And +perceiving that Timon was bound, the bland man exclaimed with horror, and +severed his bonds, ere one could say Themistocles. And in an instant the cavern +was filled with Athenian senators. +</p> + +<p> +“Hail,” they cried, “to Timon the munificent! Hail to Timon the compassionate! +Hail to Timon the lover of his kind!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am none of these things,” said Timon. “I am Timon the misanthrope.” +</p> + +<p> +“This must be my Lord’s wit and playfulness,” said the bland man, “for how else +should the Senate and the people have passed a decree, indited by myself, +ordering an altar to be raised to Timon the Benefactor, and appointing him +chief archon? But come, hand over thy treasure, that thy installation may take +effect with due observance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been deprived of my treasure,” said Timon. +</p> + +<p> +But the ambassadors gave him no credit until they had searched every chink and +crevice in the cavern, and dug up all the earth round the entrance. They then +regarded each other with blank consternation. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us leave him as we found him,” said one. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us hang him up,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us sell him into captivity,” said a third. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, friends,” said the bland gentleman, “such confession of error would +impeach our credit as statesmen. Moreover, should the people learn that Timon +has lost his money, they will naturally conclude that we have taken it. Let us, +therefore, keep this misfortune from their knowledge, and trust for relief to +the chapter of accidents, as usual in State affairs.” +</p> + +<p> +They therefore robed Timon in a dress of honour, and conducted him to Athens, +where half the inhabitants were awaiting him. Two triumphal arches spanned the +principal street, and on one was inscribed “Timon the Benefactor,” and on the +other “Timon the Friend of Humanity.” And all along, far as the eye could +reach, stood those whom his bounty, as was stated, had rescued from perdition, +the poor he had relieved, the sick he had medicined, the orphans he had +fathered, the poets and painters he had patronised, all lauding and thanking +him, and soliciting a continuance of his liberality. And the rabble cried +“Largesse, largesse!” and horsemen galloped forth, casting among them nuts +enveloped in silver-leaf and apples and comfits and trinkets and brass +farthings in incredible quantities. At which the people murmured somewhat, and +spoke amiss respecting Timon and the senators who escorted him, and the bland +gentleman strove to keep Timon between himself and the populace. While Timon +was pondering what the end of these things should be, his mob encountered +another cheering for Alcibiades, and playing pitch and toss with drachmas and +didrachmas and tetradrachmas, yea, even with staters and darics. +</p> + +<p> +“Long live Alcibiades,” cried Timon’s followers, as they attacked Alcibiades’s +supporters to get their share. +</p> + +<p> +“Long live Timon,” cried Alcibiades’s party, as they defended themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Timon and Alcibiades extricated themselves from the scuffle, and walked away +arm in arm. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear friend,” said Timon, “how inexpressibly beholden I am to you for +taking the burden of my wealth upon yourself! There is nothing I would not do +to evince my gratitude.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing?” queried Alcibiades. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” persisted Timon. +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Alcibiades, “I will thank thee to relieve me of Timandra, who is +as tired of me as I am of her.” +</p> + +<p> +Timon winced horribly, but his word was his bond, and Timandra accompanied him +to his cavern, where at first she suffered much inconvenience from the +roughness of the accommodation. But Timon, though a misanthrope, was not a +brute; and when in process of time Timandra’s health required special care, +rugs and pillows were provided for her, and also for Timon; for he saw that he +could no longer pass for a churl if he made his wife more comfortable than +himself. And, though he counted gold as dross, yet was he not dissatisfied that +Timandra had saved the gold he had given her formerly against a rainy day. And +when a child was born, Timon was at his wits’ end, and blessed the old woman +who came to nurse it. And she admonished him of his duty to the Gods, which +meant sacrifice, which meant merry-making. And the child grew, and craved food +and drink, and Timon possessed himself of three acres and a cow. And not being +able to doubt his child’s affection for him, he came to believe in Timandra’s +also. And when the tax-gatherer oppressed his neighbours, he pleaded their +cause, which was also his own, in the courts of Athens, and gained it by the +interest of Alcibiades. And his neighbours made him demarch, and he feasted +them. And Apemantus came to deride him, and Timon bore with him; but he was +impertinent to Timandra, and Timon beat him. +</p> + +<p> +And in fine, Timon became very like any other Attic country gentleman, save +that he always maintained that a young man did well to be a misanthrope until +he got a loving and sensible wife, which, as he observed, could but seldom +happen. And the Gods looked down upon him with complacency, and deferred the +ruin of Athens until he should be no more. +</p> + +<h3>II.—N<small>APOLEON’S</small> S<small>ANGAREE</small></h3> + +<p> +Napoleon Buonaparte sat in his garden at St. Helena, in the shadow of a +fig-tree. Before him stood a little table, and upon the table stood a glass of +sangaree. The day was hot and drowsy; the sea boomed monotonously on the rocks; +the broad fig-leaves stirred not; great flies buzzed heavily in the sultry air. +Napoleon wore a loose linen coat and a broad brimmed planter’s hat, and looked +as red as the sangaree, but nowise as comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“To think,” he said aloud, “that I should end my life here, with nothing to +sweeten my destiny but this lump of sugar!” +</p> + +<p> +And he dropped it into the sangaree, and little ripples and beads broke out on +the surface of the liquid. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou should’st have followed me,” said a voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Me,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +And a steam from the sangaree rose high over Napoleon’s head, and from it +shaped themselves two beautiful female figures. One was fair and very youthful, +with a Phrygian cap on her head, and eager eyes beneath it, and a slender spear +in her hand. The other was somewhat older, and graver, and darker, with serious +eyes; and she carried a sword, and wore a helmet, from underneath which her +rich brown tresses escaped over her vesture of light steel armour. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Liberty,” said the first. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Loyalty,” said the second. +</p> + +<p> +And Napoleon laid his hand in that of the first spirit, and instantly saw +himself as he had been in the days of his youthful victories, only beset with a +multitude of people who were offering him a crown, and cheering loudly. But he +thrust it aside, and they cheered ten times more, and fell into each other’s +arms, and wept and kissed each other. And troops of young maidens robed in +white danced before him, strewing his way with flowers. And the debts of the +debtor were paid, and the prisoners were released from captivity. And the forty +Academicians came bringing Napoleon the prize of virtue. And the Abbé Sieyès +stood up, and offered Napoleon his choice of seventeen constitutions; and +Napoleon chose the worst. And he came to sit with five hundred other men, +mostly advocates. And when he said “Yea,” they said “Nay”; and when he said +“white,” they said “black.” And they suffered him to do neither good nor evil, +and when he went to war they commanded his army for him, until he was smitten +with a great slaughter. And the enemy entered the country, and bread was scarce +and wine dear; and the people cursed Napoleon, and Liberty vanished from before +him. But he roamed on, ever looking for her, and at length he found her lying +dead in the public way, all gashed and bleeding, and trampled with the feet of +men and horses, and the wheel of a tumbril was over her neck. And Napoleon, +under compulsion of the mob, ascended the tumbril; and Abbé Sieyès and Bishop +Talleyrand rode at his side, administering spiritual consolation. Thus they +came within sight of the guillotine, whereon stood M. de Robespierre in his +sky-blue coat, and his jaw bound up in a bloody cloth, bowing and smiling, +nevertheless, and beckoning Napoleon to ascend to him. Napoleon had never +feared the face of man; but when he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell upon +him, and he leapt out of the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the people +as it were mid withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood awaiting him. +</p> + +<p> +She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people proffering him +a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all wore his hair in a +queue with powder. +</p> + +<p> +“See,” said the little old man, “that thou takest not what doth not belong to +thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“To whom belongeth it then?” asked Napoleon, “for I am a plain soldier, and +have no skill in politics.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Louis the Disesteemed,” said the little old man, “for he is a +great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors reigned +here at the flood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?” asked Napoleon. +</p> + +<p> +“In England,” said the little old man. +</p> + +<p> +Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the Disesteemed. +But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to seek in the obscurest +places. And one day, as he was passing through a mean street, he heard a voice +of lamentation, and perceived a man whose coat and shirt were rent and dirty; +but not so his pantaloons, for he had none. +</p> + +<p> +“Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?” asked he, “and wherefore makest thou +this lamentation?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre,” replied the distrousered +personage, “and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have been enforced to pawn, +inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing upon my coat or my shirt.” +</p> + +<p> +And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether +garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those who +stood about. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast done wickedly,” said the king when he heard who Napoleon was, “in +that thou hast presumed to fight battles and win victories without any +commission from me. Go, nevertheless, and lose an arm, a leg, and an eye in my +service, then shall thy offence be forgiven thee.” +</p> + +<p> +And Napoleon raised a great army, and gained a great battle for the king, and +lost an arm. And he gained another greater battle, and lost a leg. And he +gained the greatest battle of all; and the king sat on the throne of his +ancestors, and was called Louis the Victorious: but Napoleon had lost an eye. +And he came into the king’s presence, bearing his eye, his arm, and his leg. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou art pardoned,” said the king, “and I will even confer a singular honour +upon thee. Thou shalt defray the expense of my coronation, which shall be the +most splendid ever seen in France.” +</p> + +<p> +So Napoleon lost all his substance, and no man pitied him. But after certain +days the keeper of the royal wardrobe rushed into the king’s presence, crying +“Treason! treason! O Majesty, whence these republican and revolutionary +pantaloons?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are those I deigned to receive from the rebel Buonaparte,” said the king. +“It were meet to return them. Where abides he now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Saving your Majesty’s presence,” they said, “he lieth upon a certain +dunghill.” +</p> + +<p> +“If this be so,” said the king, “life can be no gratification to him, and it +were humane to relieve him of it. Moreover, he is a dangerous man. Go, +therefore, and strangle him with his own pantaloons. Yet, let a monument be +raised to him, and engrave upon it, ‘Here lies Napoleon Buonaparte, whom Louis +the Victorious raised from the dunghill.’” +</p> + +<p> +They went accordingly; but behold! Napoleon already lay dead upon the dunghill. +And this was told unto the king. +</p> + +<p> +“He hath ever been envious of my glory,” said the king, “let him therefore be +buried underneath.” +</p> + +<p> +And it was so. And after no long space the king also died, and slept with his +fathers. But when there was again a revolution in France, the people cast his +bones out of the royal sepulchre, and laid Napoleon’s there instead. And the +dunghill complained grievously that it should be disturbed for so slight a +cause. +</p> + +<p> +And Napoleon withdrew his hand from the hand of Loyalty, saying, “Pish!” And +his eyes opened, and he heard the booming of the sea, and the buzzing of the +flies, and felt the heat of the sun, and saw that the sugar he had dropped into +his sangaree had not yet reached the bottom of the tumbler. +</p> + +<h3>III.—C<small>ONCERNING</small> D<small>ANIEL</small> +D<small>EFOE</small></h3> + +<p> +Daniel Defoe, at the invitation of the judge, came forth from the garret +wherein he abode, and rode in a cart unto the Royal Exchange, wherein he +ascended the pillory, to the end that his ears might be nailed thereunto. And +much people stood before him, some few pelting, some mocking, but the most part +cheering or weeping, for they knew him for a friend to the poor, and especially +those men who were called Dissenters. And a certain person in black stood by +him, invisible to the people, but well seen of Daniel, who knew him for one +whose life he had himself written. And the man in black reasoned with Daniel, +and said, “Thou seest this multitude of people, but which of them shall deliver +thee out of my hand? Nay, but let thy white be black, and thy black white, and +I myself will deliver thee, and make thee rich, and heal thy hurts, save the +holes in thy ears, that I may know thee for mine own.” But Daniel gave no heed +to him. So the Devil departed, having great wrath, and entered into a certain +smug-faced man standing by. +</p> + +<p> +And now the crowd before Daniel was greatly diminished, and consisted mainly of +his enemies, for his friends had gone away to drown their sorrow. And the +smug-faced man into whom Satan had entered came forth from among them, and said +unto him, “O Daniel, inasmuch as I am a Dissenter I am greatly beholden to +thee; but inasmuch as I am an honest tradesman I have somewhat against thee, +for thou hast written concerning short weights and measures. And a man’s shop +is more to him than his country or his religion. Wherefore I must needs be +avenged of thee. Yet shalt thou own that the tender mercies of the good man are +piteous, and that even in his wrath he thinketh upon compassion.” +</p> + +<p> +And he picked up a great stone from the ground, and wrapped it in a piece of +paper, saying, “Lest peradventure it hurt him overmuch.” And the stone was very +rough and sharp, and the paper was very thin. And he hurled it with all his +might at the middle of Daniel’s forehead, and the blood spouted forth. And +Daniel cried aloud, and called upon the name of the Devil. And in an instant +the pillory and the people were gone, and he found himself in the Prime +Minister’s cabinet, healed of all his hurts, except the holes in his ears. And +the Minister was so like the Devil that you could not tell the difference. And +he said, “Against what wilt thou write first, Daniel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dissenters,” said Daniel. +</p> + +<p> +And he wrote a pamphlet, and such as read it took firebrands, and visited the +Dissenters in their habitations. And many Dissenters were put into prison, and +others fined and spoiled of their goods. And he wrote other pamphlets, and each +was cleverer and wickeder than the last. And whatsoever Daniel had of old +declared to be white, lo! it was black; and what he had said was black, behold! +it was white. And he throve and prospered exceedingly, and became a +commissioner for public-houses and hackney-coaches and the imposing of oaths +and the levying of custom, and all other such things as one does by deputy. And +he mended the holes in his ears. +</p> + +<p> +But the time came when Daniel must be judged, and he went before the Lord. And +all the court was full of Dissenters, and the Devil was there also. And the +Dissenters testified many and grievous things against Daniel. +</p> + +<p> +“Daniel,” said the Lord, “what answerest thou?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, Lord,” said Daniel. “Only I would that the Dissenter who threw that +stone at me should receive due and condign punishment, adequate to his +misdeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said the Devil, “is impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou sayest well, Satan,” said the Lord, “and therefore shall Daniel go free. +For if anything can excuse the apostasy of the noble, it is the ingratitude of +the base.” +</p> + +<p> +So the Devil went to his own place, looking very small. And Daniel found +himself in the same garret whence he had gone forth to the pillory; and before +him were bread and cheese, and a pen and ink and paper. And he dipped the pen +into the ink, and wrote <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>. +</p> + +<h3>IV.—C<small>ORNELIUS THE</small> F<small>ERRYMAN</small></h3> + +<p> +Fourscore years ago there was a good ferryman named Cornelius, who rowed people +between New York and Brooklyn. He had neither wife nor child, nor any one to +think of except himself. It was, therefore, his custom, when he had earned +enough in a day for his own wants, to put the rest aside, and bestow it upon +sick or blind or maimed persons, lest they should come to the workhouse. And +the sick and the blind and the maimed gathered around him, and waited by the +water’s edge, until Cornelius’s day’s work should be over. +</p> + +<p> +This went on until one of the little sooty imps who are always in mischief came +to hear of it, and told the principal devil in charge of the United States, +whose name is Politicianus. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me,” said the Devil, “this will never do. I will see to it immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +And he went off to Cornelius, and caught him in the act of giving two dimes to +a blind beggar. +</p> + +<p> +“How foolish you are!” he said; “what waste of money is this! If you saved it +up, you would by-and-by be able to build an hospital for all the beggars in New +York.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be a long time before there was enough,” objected Cornelius. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said the Devil, “if you let me invest your money for you.” And he +showed Cornelius the plan of a most splendid hospital, and across the front of +it was inscribed in letters of gold, <i>Cornelius Diabolodorus</i>. And +Cornelius was persuaded, and that evening he gave nothing to the poor. And the +poor had come to think that Cornelius’s money was their own, and abused him as +though he had robbed them. And Cornelius drove them away: and his heart was +hardened against them from that day forth. +</p> + +<p> +But the Devil kept his promise to Cornelius, and put him up to all the good +things in Wall Street, and he soon had enough to build ten hospitals. But the +more he had to build with, the less he wanted to build. And by-and-by the Devil +called upon him, and found him contemplating two pictures. One of them showed +the finest hospital you can imagine, full of neat, clean rooms, in one of which +sat Cornelius himself, wearing a dress with a number and badge, and sipping +arrowroot. The other showed fine houses, and opera-boxes, and fast-trotting +horses, and dry champagne, and ladies who dance in ballets, and paintings by +the great masters. Cornelius thrust the pictures away, and the Devil did not +ask to see them, nor was it needful that he should, for he had painted them +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“O dear Mr. Devil,” said Cornelius, “I am so glad that you have called, for I +wanted to speak to you. It strikes me that there is a great defect in the plan +which you have been so good as to draw for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” asked the Devil. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no place for black men,” said Cornelius. “And you know white men will +never let them come into the same hospital.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Devil, to do him justice, talked very reasonably to Cornelius, and +represented to him that there were very few black men in New York, and that +these had very vigorous constitutions. But Cornelius was inflamed with +enthusiasm, and frantic with philanthropy, and he vowed that he would not give +a cent to an hospital that had not a wing for black men as big as all the rest +of the building. And the Devil had to take his plan back, and come again in a +year and a day. And when he did come back, Cornelius asked him if he did not +think it would be a most excellent thing if all the Irishmen in New York could +be shut up in an hospital or elsewhere; and he could not deny it. So he had to +take his plan back again. And next year it was the turn of the Chinese, and +then of the Red Indians, and then of the dogs and cats. And then Cornelius +thought that he ought to provide room for all the people who had been ruined by +his speculations, and the Devil thought so too, but doubted whether Cornelius +would be able to afford it. And at last Cornelius said: +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks I have been very foolish in wishing to build an hospital at all while +I am living. Surely it would be better that I should enjoy my money myself +during my life, and leave the residue for the lawyers to divide after my +death.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are quite right,” said the Devil; “that is exactly what I should do if I +were you.” +</p> + +<p> +So Cornelius put the plans behind a shelf in his counting-house, and the mice +ate them. And he went on prospering and growing rich, until the Devil became +envious of him, and insisted on changing places with him. So Cornelius went +below, and the Devil came and dwelt in New York, where he still is. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>THE POISON MAID</h2> + +<p class="poem"> + O not for him<br/> +Blooms my dark nightshade, nor doth hemlock brew<br/> +Murder for cups within her cavernous root. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +Grievous is the lot of the child, more especially of the female child, who is +doomed from the tenderest infancy to lack the blessing of a mother’s care. +</p> + +<p> +Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of the lovely +Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an extraordinary manner? +That enormous serpents infested her cradle, licking her face and twining around +her limbs? That her tiny fingers patted scorpions? and tied knots in the tails +of vipers? That her father, the magician Locuste, ever sedulous and +affectionate, fed her with spoonsful of the honeyed froth that gathers under +the tongues of asps? That as she grew older and craved a more nutritious diet, +she partook, at first in infinitesimal doses, but in ever increasing +quantities, of arsenic, strychnine, opium, and prussic acid? That at last +having attained the flower of youth, she drank habitually from vessels of gold, +for her favourite beverages were so corrosive that no other substance could +resist their solvent properties? +</p> + +<p> +Gradually accustomed to this strange regimen, she had thriven on it +marvellously, and was without a peer for beauty, sense, and goodness. Her +father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed her in all +lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no other human being +had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that her bringing up had differed +in so material a respect from that of other young people. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said she one day, bringing him a book she had been perusing, “what +strange follies learned men will pen with gravity! or is it rather that none +can set bounds to the licence of romancers? These dear serpents, my friends and +playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of my health and +vigour—that any one should write of these as pernicious, deadly, and +fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or but the wanton freak of an +idle imagination?” +</p> + +<p> +“My child,” answered the magician, “it is fit that thou shouldst now learn what +hath hitherto been concealed from thee, and with this object I left this +treatise in thy way. It speaks truth. Thou hast been nurtured from thy infancy +on substances endowed with lethal properties, commonly called poisons. Thy +entire frame is impregnated thereby, and, although thou thyself art in the +fullest enjoyment of health, thy kiss would be fatal to any one not, like thy +father, fortified by a course of antidotes. Now hear the reason. I bear a +deadly grudge to the king of this land. He indeed hath not injured me; but his +father slew my father, wherefore it is meet that I should slay that ancestor’s +son’s son. I have therefore nurtured thee from thy infancy on the deadliest +poisons, until thou art a walking vial of pestilence. The young prince shall +unseal thee, to his destruction and thy unspeakable advantage. Go to the great +city; thou art beautiful as the day; he is young, handsome, and amorous; he +will infallibly fall in love with thee. Do thou submit to his caresses, he will +perish miserably; thou (such is the charm) ransomed by the kiss of love, wilt +become wholesome and innocuous as thy fellows, preserving only thy knowledge of +poisons, always useful, in the present state of society invaluable. Thou wilt +therefore next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing recommendatory +letters from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily reigning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Mithridata, “either I shall love this young prince, or I shall +not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to caress me. If I +do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of his death.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not even in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to thee by this +event?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not even for that consideration.” +</p> + +<p> +“O these daughters!” exclaimed the old man. “We bring them up tenderly, we +exhaust all our science for the improvement of their minds and bodies, we set +our choicest hopes upon them, and entrust them with the fulfilment of our most +cherished aspirations; and when all is done, they will not so much as commit a +murder to please us! Miserable ingrate, receive the just requital of thy +selfish disobedience!” +</p> + +<p> +“O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors.” +</p> + +<p> +And he did. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a particle +of the philosopher’s stone—a slender outfit for a magician’s daughter! +yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she do now? The great +object of her life must henceforth be to avoid committing murder, especially +murdering any handsome young man. It would have seemed most natural to retire +into a convent, but, not to speak of her lack of vocation, she felt that her +father would justly consider that she had disgraced her family, and she still +looked forward to reconciliation with him. She might have taken a hermitage, +but her instinct told her that a fair solitary can only keep young men off by +strong measures; and she disliked the character of a hermitess with a bull-dog. +She therefore went straight to the great city, took a house, and surrounded +herself with attendants. In the choice of these she was particularly careful to +select those only whose personal appearance was such as to discourage any +approach to familiarity or endearment. Never before or since was youthful +beauty surrounded by such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, +hunchbacked pages, and stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, +for she loved beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel +it right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for +strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course at +first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious illness, but +youth and a sound constitution pulled her through. +</p> + +<p> +Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by love for +thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by word nor deed? To +pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume with vain yearnings for +usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled by thy fellows for failing to do +what it is not given thee to do? If so, thou wilt pity poor Mithridata, whose +nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate, but who, from the +necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as possible all contact +with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of solitude, and knew that +she was regarded as a monster of pride and exclusiveness. She dared bestow no +kind look, no encouraging gesture on any one, lest this small beginning should +lead to the manifestation of her fatal power. Her own servants, whose minds +were generally as deformed as their bodies, hated her, and bitterly resented +what they deemed her haughty disdain of them. Her munificence none could deny, +but bounty without tenderness receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The +young of her own sex secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a +providential set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced her +as a—well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody +else’s lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata’s +severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths that flew +around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold water thrown upon +them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep them from her door. They +filled her house with bouquets and billets doux; they stood before the windows, +they sat on the steps, they ran beside her litter when she was carried abroad, +they assembled at night to serenade her, fighting desperately among themselves. +They sought to gain admission as tradesmen, as errand boys, even as scullions +male and female. To such lengths did they proceed, that a particularly +audacious youth actually attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have +succeeded but for the interposition of another, who flew at him with a drawn +sword, and after a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata +had fainted, of course. What was her horror on reviving to find herself in the +arms of a young man of exquisite beauty and princely mien, sucking death from +her lips with extraordinary relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made +any unfeminine use of her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology. +The youth reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in silent +misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated her bosom +also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake to dismiss the young man +as it did to see him move away, slowly and languidly staggering to his doom. +</p> + +<p> +For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to a youth +dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually. She steadily +refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she wrung her hands, she +called for death and execrated her nurture. With that strange appetite for +self-torment which almost seems to diminish the pangs of the wretched, she +collected books on poisons, studied all the symptoms described, and fancied her +hapless lover undergoing them all in turn. At length a message came which +admitted of no evasion. The King commanded her presence. Admonished by past +experience, she provided herself with a veil and mask, and repaired to the +palace. +</p> + +<p> +The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier +circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her with +austerity, yet with kindness. +</p> + +<p> +“Maiden,” he began, “thy unaccountable cruelty to my son——” +</p> + +<p> +“Thy son!” she exclaimed, “The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for my +disobedience!” +</p> + +<p> +“Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate monsters. +Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he has risked his +life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy cruelty, and when a +smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou wilt not bestow it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! great King,” she replied, “I know too well what your Majesty’s opinion +of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight of me could +effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of that I shall judge,” said the King, “when thou hast divested thyself of +that veil and mask.” +</p> + +<p> +Mithridata reluctantly complied. +</p> + +<p> +“By Heaven!” exclaimed the King, “such a sight might recall the departing soul +from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet too late.” +</p> + +<p> +“O King,” urged Mithridata, “how could this countenance do thy son any good? Is +he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not aware of that,” said the King. +</p> + +<p> +“Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state of +deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he not +tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to my knowledge,” said the King. “The symptoms, as I understand, are not +unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a milder form, +certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and incessantly calls upon +thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is most incomprehensible,” said Mithridata. “There was no drug in my +father’s laboratory that could have produced such an effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sum of the matter is,” continued the King, “that either thou wilt repair +forthwith to my son’s chamber, and subsequently to church; or else unto the +scaffold.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it must be so, I choose the scaffold,” said Mithridata resolutely. “Believe +me, O King, my appearance in thy son’s chamber would but destroy whatever +feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond everything on earth, and +not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chamberlain,” cried the monarch, “bring me a strait waistcoat.” +</p> + +<p> +Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King’s feet, taking care, +however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched history. +</p> + +<p> +The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. “À bon chat bon rat!” he +exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. “So thou art the daughter of my +old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his craft, and, as he fed his child +upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes. Never did any child in the world take +an equal quantity of physic: but there is now no poison on earth can harm him. +Ye are clearly made for each other; haste to his bedside, and, as the spell +requires, rid thyself of thy venefic properties in his arms as expeditiously as +possible. Thy father shall be bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he +shall be, for having taught us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every +poison.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>NOTES</h2> + +<p> +The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained sixteen +stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. Many originally +appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the annotations which +the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it desirable to append, +and which further provide an opportunity of tendering thanks to many friends +for their assent to republication. +</p> + +<p> +P. 5. <i>The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,</i>—Hereby we may +detect the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with +Armenia. “Hellenic letters,” says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the fourth +century, “were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the slenderest means +crowded to the schools of Athens” (“University Life in Ancient Athens,” p. 73). +</p> + +<p> +P. 28. <i>Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality.</i>—The belief +in this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and many +emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the groundwork of +Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Der Unsterblichkeitstrank,” which has furnished the +conception, though not the incidents, of “The Potion of Lao-Tsze.” +</p> + +<p> +P. 38. <i>So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously.</i>—In A.D. +683, the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband’s death, caused her son to +be set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In our day we +have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns. +</p> + +<p> +P. 50. <i>Ananda the Miracle Worker.</i>—This story was originally +published in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation appeared +in the <i>Revue Britannique</i> for November, 1872. Buddha’s prohibition to +work miracles rests, so far as the present writer’s knowledge extends, on the +authority of Professor Max Müller (“Lectures on the Science of Religion”). It +should be needless to observe that Ananda, “the St. John of the Buddhist +group,” is not recorded to have contravened this or any other of his master’s +precepts. +</p> + +<p> +P. 66. <i>The City of Philosophers.</i>—This story has been translated +into French by M. Sarrazin. +</p> + +<p> +P. 68. <i>There to establish a philosophic commonwealth.</i>—The petition +was actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the disordered +condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to save a sinking state, +possessed the accomplishments which would have adorned an age of peace and +culture. +</p> + +<p> +P. 82. <i>The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor +edge.</i>—Gallienus was fond of such practical jocularity. “Quum quidam +gemmas vitreas pro veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re prodita, +vindicari vellet, surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. Deinde e cavea +caponem emittit, mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, per curionem dici +jussit, ‘Imposturam fecit et passus est’: deinde negotiatorem dimisit” +(Trebellius in Gallieno, cap. xii.). +</p> + +<p> +P. 100. <i>Hypati, anthypati, &c.</i>—<i>Hypati</i> and +<i>anthypati</i> denote consuls and proconsuls, dignities of course merely +titular at the court of Constantinople. <i>Silentiarii</i> were properly +officers charged with maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was +perhaps performed by deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to persons +of distinction. The <i>protospatharius</i> was the chief of the Imperial +body-guard, of which the <i>spatharocandidati</i> constituted the <i>élite</i>. +</p> + +<p> +P. 114. <i>The Wisdom of the Indians.</i>—Appeared in 1890 in <i>The +Universal Review</i>. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. Bastian’s +travels in Burma. +</p> + +<p> +P. 124. <i>The Dumb Oracle.</i>—Appeared in the <i>University +Magazine</i> for June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval +myth here transferred to classical times, is also the groundwork of Browning’s +ballad, “The Boy and the Angel.” +</p> + +<p> +P. 136. <i>Duke Virgil.</i>—The subject of this story is derived from +Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Die Sibylle von Mantua,” though there is but little +resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt as his +authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as their duke in the +thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely founded upon the interpretation +of the insignia accompanying a mediæval statue of the poet. +</p> + +<p> +P. 138. <i>To put the devil into a hole</i>.—“Then sayd Virgilius, +‘Shulde ye well passe in to the hole that ye cam out of?’ ‘Yea, I shall well,’ +sayd the devyl. ‘I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall not do it.’ +‘Well,’ sayd the devyll, ‘thereto I consent.’ And then the devyll wrange +himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. Virgilius kyvered the +hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and myght nat +there come out agen, but abideth shutte still therein” (“Romance of +Virgilius”). +</p> + +<p> +<i>Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?</i>—“Than he thought in +his mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with great landes +belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it Napells. And the +foundacyon of it was of eggs” (“Romance of Virgilius”). +</p> + +<p> +P. 148. <i>The Claw</i>.—Originally published in <i>The English +Illustrated Magazine</i>. +</p> + +<p> +P. 151. <i>Peter of Abano</i>.—Pietro di Abano, who took his name from +his birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, +whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic. It is +nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition or stoned by the +populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his remains having been +secretly removed by his friends. Honours were afterwards paid to his memory; +and there seems no doubt that he was a man of great attainments, including a +knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished character, if he had not sometimes sold +his skill at too high a rate. For his authentic history, see the article in the +<i>Biographie Universelle</i> by Ginguené; for the legendary, Tieck’s romantic +tale, “Pietro von Abano” (1825), which has been translated into English. +</p> + +<p> +P. 156. <i>Alexander the Rat-catcher</i>.—This story, to whose +ground-work History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published +in vol. xii. of <i>The Yellow Book</i>, January, 1897. +</p> + +<p> +P. 157. <i>Cardinal Barbadico</i>.—This cardinal was actually entrusted +by Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion +upon which the “sardonic grin” imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be +conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico was a remarkable +instance of a man “kicked upstairs.” As Archbishop of Corfu he had had a +violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent XI., equally unwilling +to disown the representative of Papal authority or offend the Republic, +recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there. +</p> + +<p> +P. 177. <i>The Rewards of Industry.</i>—Appeared originally in +<i>Atalanta for August</i>, 1888. +</p> + +<p> +P. 194. <i>The Talismans.</i>—First published in <i>Atalanta</i> for +September, 1890. +</p> + +<p> +P. 202. <i>The Elixir of Life.</i>—Published July, 1881, in the third +number of a magazine entitled <i>Our Times</i>, which blasted the elixir’s +character by expiring immediately afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +P. 226. <i>The Purple Head.</i>—Appeared originally in <i>Fraser’s +Magazine</i> for August, 1877. +</p> + +<p> +P. 228. <i>The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey in +comparison.</i> “Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini +comparatione fulgoris” (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.). +</p> + +<p> +P. 230. <i>All these sovereigns.</i>—“Diligentissime et Aurelianus et +Probus et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus +requisiverunt tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt” (Vopiscus, +<i>loc. cit.</i>). +</p> + +<p> +P. 241. <i>Pan’s Wand.</i>—Published originally in a Christmas number of +The <i>Illustrated London News</i>. +</p> + +<p> +P. 249. <i>A Page from the Book of Folly.</i>—Appeared in <i>Temple +Bar</i> for 1871. +</p> + +<p> +P. 282. <i>The Philosopher and the Butterflies.</i>—One of the +contributions by various writers to “The New Amphion,” a little book prepared +for sale at the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of +Edinburgh in 1886. +</p> + +<p> +P. 294. <i>The Three Palaces.</i>—Published originally on a similar +occasion to the last story, in “A Volunteer Haversack,” an extensive repertory +of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at +Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902. +</p> + +<p> +P. 300. <i>New Readings in Biography.</i>—Originally published in <i>The +Scots Observer</i> in 1889. +</p> + +<p> +P. 315. <i>The Poison Maid.</i>—The author wrote this tale in entire +forgetfulness of Hawthorne’s “Rapaccinip’s Daughter,” which nevertheless he had +certainly read. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/old/10095-h/images/frontis.jpg b/old/10095-h/images/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c740dd4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10095-h/images/frontis.jpg diff --git a/old/old/10095-8.txt b/old/old/10095-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b60c830 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/10095-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9762 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales +by Richard Garnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales + +Author: Richard Garnett + +Release Date: November 16, 2003 [EBook #10095] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT OF GODS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + +[Illustration: An eagle pecking at the heart of a bearded man, chained to +a rock, with the inscription: "Cor ex est numquam ex cordis regina +volantum".] + +THE TWILIGHT +OF THE GODS: +AND OTHER TALES + +BY + +RICHARD GARNETT + +MDCCCCIII + + +TO + +HORACE HOWARD FURNESS +AND +GEORG BRANDES. +DABO DUOBUS TESTIBUS MEIS + + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Twilight of the Gods +The Potion of Lao-Tsze +Abdallah the Adite +Ananda the Miracle Worker +The City of Philosophers +The Demon Pope +The Cupbearer +The Wisdom of the Indians +The Dumb Oracle +Duke Virgil +The Claw +Alexander the Ratcatcher +The Rewards of Industry +Madam Lucifer +The Talismans +The Elixir of Life +The Poet of Panopolis +The Purple Head +The Firefly +Pan's Wand +A Page from the Book of Folly +The Bell of Saint Euschemon +Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo +The Philosopher and the Butterflies +Truth and Her Companions +The Three Palaces +New Readings in Biography +The Poison Maid +NOTES + + + + +THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS + + + Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear + The longest date do melt like frosty rime. + + + +I + + +The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high above +the summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent eagle came +sailing on broad fans into the blue, and his shadow skimmed the glittering +snow as it had done day by day for thousands of years. A human figure--or +it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed more than mortal--lifted from +the crag, to which he hung suspended by massy gyves and rivets, eyes +mournful with the presentiment of pain. The eagle's screech clanged on the +wind, as with outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing +circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh +crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. +Then happened what all these millenniums had never witnessed. No +thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman +had approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the +eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable abyss +below. At the same moment the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and, +projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the perpendicular +precipice, he alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked greensward +amid young ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and motion. + +The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through the +leaves, stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which remained +prostrate and unconscious still. But as sunlight was born anew in the East +a thrill passed over the slumberer, and he became conscious, first of an +indescribably delicious feeling of restful ease, then of a gnawing pang, +acute as the beak of the eagle for which he at first mistook it. But his +wrists, though still encumbered with bonds and trailing fetters, were +otherwise at liberty, and eagle there was none. Marvelling at his inward +and invisible foe, he struggled to his feet, and found himself contending +with a faintness and dizziness heretofore utterly unknown to him. He dimly +felt himself in the midst of things grown wonderful by estrangement and +distance. No grass, no flower, no leaf had met his eye for thousands of +years, nothing but the impenetrable azure, the transient cloud, sun, moon, +and star, the lightning flash, the glittering peaks of ice, and the +solitary eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass than in all +these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed his +utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly growing +more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort he steadied +himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished so much when a tall +dark maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an antelope, wildly beautiful +as a Dryad, but liker a Maenad with her aspect of mingled disdain and +dismay, and step hasty as of one pursuing or pursued, suddenly checked her +speed on perceiving him. + +"Who art thou?" he exclaimed. + +"Gods! Thou speakest Greek!" + +"What else should I speak?" + +"What else? From whom save thee, since I closed my father's eyes, have I +heard the tongue of Homer and Plato?" + +"Who is Homer? Who is Plato?" + +The maiden regarded him with a look of the deepest astonishment. + +"Surely," she said, "thy gift has been bestowed upon thee to little +purpose. Say not, at least, that thou usest the speech of the Gods to +blaspheme them. Thou art surely yet a votary of Zeus?" + +"I a votary of Zeus!" exclaimed the stranger. "By these fetters, no!" And, +weak as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful laughter. + +"Farewell," said the maiden, as with dilating form and kindling eye she +gathered up her robes. "I parley with thee no more. Thou art tenfold more +detestable than the howling mob down yonder, intent on rapine and +destruction. They know no better, and can no other. But thou, apt in +speaking the sacred tongue yet brutally ignorant of its treasures, knowing +the father of the Gods only to revile him! Let me pass." + +The stranger, if willing to hinder her, seemed little able. His eyes +closed, his limbs relaxed, and without a cry he sank senseless on the +sward. + +In an instant the maiden was kneeling by his side. Hastily undoing a basket +she carried on her arm, she drew forth a leather flask, and, supporting +the sunken head with one hand, poured a stream of wine through the lips +with the other. As the gurgling purple coursed down his throat the sufferer +opened his eyes, and thanked her silently with a smile of exquisite +sweetness. Removing the large leaves which shaded the contents of the +basket, she disclosed ripe figs and pomegranates, honeycomb and snow-white +curd, lying close to each other in tempting array. The stranger took of +each alternately, and the basket was well-nigh emptied ere his appetite +seemed assuaged. + +The observant maiden, meanwhile, felt her mood strangely altered. + +"So have I imaged Ulysses to myself," she thought as she gazed on the +stranger's goodly form, full of vigour, though not without traces of age, +the massive brow, the kindly mouth, the expression of far-seeing wisdom. +"Such a man ignorant of letters, and a contemner of Zeus!" + +The stranger's eloquent thanks roused her from a reverie. The Greek tongue +fell upon her ear like the sweetest music, and she grieved when its flow +was interrupted by a question addressed directly to herself. + +"Can a God feel hunger and thirst?" + +"Surely no," she rejoined. + +"I should have said the same yesterday," returned the stranger. + +"Wherefore not to-day?" + +"Dear maiden," responded he, with winning voice and manner, "we must know +each other better ere my tale can gain credence with thee. Do thou rather +unfold what thine own speech has left dark to me. Why the language of the +Gods, as should seem, is here understood by thee and me alone; what foes +Zeus has here other than myself; what is the profane crowd of which thou +didst speak; and why, alone and defenceless, thou ascendest this mountain. +Think of me, if thou wilt, as one fallen from the clouds." + +"Strange man," returned the maiden, "who knowest Homer's speech and not +Homer's self, who renouncest Zeus and resemblest him, hear my tale ere I +require thine. Yesterday I should have called myself the last priestess of +Apollo in this fallen land, to-day I have neither shrine nor altar. Moved +by I know not what madness, my countrymen have long ago forsaken the +worship of the Gods. The temples crumbled into ruin, prayer was no longer +offered or sacrifice made as of old, the priestly revenues were plundered; +the sacred vessels carried away; the voice of oracles became dumb; the +divine tongue of Greece was forgotten, its scrolls of wisdom mouldered +unread, and the deluded people turned to human mechanics and fishermen. One +faithful servant of Apollo remained, my father; but 'tis seven days since +he closed his eyes for ever. It was time, for yesternoon the heralds +proclaimed by order of the King that Zeus and the Olympians should be named +no more in Caucasia." + +"Ha!" interrupted the stranger, "I see it all. Said I not so?" he shouted, +gazing into the sky as if his eye could pierce and his voice reach beyond +the drifting clouds. "But to thy own tale," he added, turning with a +gesture of command to the astonished Elenko. + +"It is soon told," she said. "I knew that it was death to serve the Gods +any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon +Apollo's altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware of +a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, but not +at their hands. I caught up this basket, and escaped up the mountain. On +its inaccessible summit, it is reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let +me bow in awe before his inscrutable counsels) doomed for his benevolence +to mankind. To him, as Aeschylus sings, Io of old found her way, and from +him received monition and knowledge of what should come to pass. I will try +if courage and some favouring God will guide me to him; if not, I will die +as near Heaven as I may attain. Tell me on thy part what thou wilt, and let +me depart. If thou art indeed Zeus's enemy, thou wilt find enough on thy +side down yonder." + +"I have been Zeus's enemy," returned the stranger, mildly and gravely, "I +am so no longer. Immortal hate befits not the mortal I feel myself to have +become. Nor needest thou ascend the peak further. Maiden, I am Prometheus!" + + + +II + + +It is a prerogative of the Gods that, when they do speak sooth, mortals +must needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity at the revelation +of Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than the bonds and broken links +of chain at his wrists and ankles. + +"Now," he cried, or rather shouted, "is the prophecy fulfilled with which +of old I admonished the Gods in the halls of Olympus. I told them that Zeus +should beget a child mightier than himself, who should send him and them +the way he had sent his father. I knew not that this child was already +begotten, and that his name was Man. It has taken Man ages to assert +himself, nor has he yet, as it would seem, done more than enthrone a new +idol in the place of the old. But for the old, behold the last traces of +its authority in these fetters, of which the first smith will rid me. +Expect no thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will come: nor shall I regain the +immortality of which I feel myself bereaved since yesterday." + +"Is this no sorrow to thee?" asked Elenko. + +"Has not my immortality been one of pain?" answered Prometheus. "Now I feel +no pain, and dread one only." + +"And that is?" + +"The pain of missing a certain fellow-mortal," answered Prometheus, with a +look so expressive that the hitherto unawed maiden cast her eyes to the +ground. Hastening away from the conversation to which, nevertheless, she +inly purposed to return. + +"Is Man, then, the maker of Deity?" she asked. + +"Can the source of his being originate in himself?" asked Prometheus. "To +assert this were self-contradiction, and pride inflated to madness. But of +the more exalted beings who have like him emanated from the common +principle of all existence, Man, since his advent on the earth, though not +the creator, is the preserver or the destroyer. He looks up to them, and +they are; he out-grows them, and they are not. For the barbarian and +Triballian gods there is no return; but the Olympians, if dead as deities, +survive as impersonations of Man's highest conceptions of the beautiful. +Languid and spectral indeed must be their existence in this barbarian age; +but better days are in store for them." + +"And for thee, Prometheus?" + +"There is now no place," replied he, "for an impeacher of the Gods. My +cause is won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of man by myself +becoming human. When I shall have proved myself also mortal I may haply +traverse realms which Zeus never knew, with, I would hope, Elenko by my +side." + +Elenko's countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany Prometheus +as far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he might please to +conduct her. A thought soon troubled her delicious reverie, and she +inquired: + +"Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer and +better than that which I have professed?" + +"If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye," answered Prometheus, "but +of this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy tale to have begun but +ill. Yet Saturn mutilated his father, and his reign was the Golden Age." + +While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling aimlessly +down the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path, they suddenly found +themselves in presence of an assembly of early Christians. + +These confessors were making the most of Elenko's dilapidated temple, whose +smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The effigies of +Apollo and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being diligently +broken up with mallets and hammers. Others of the sacrilegious throng were +rending scrolls, or dividing vestments, or firing the grove of laurel that +environed the shrine, or pelting the affrighted birds as they flew forth. +The sacred vessels, however, at least those of gold and silver, appeared +safe in the guardianship of an episcopal personage of shrewd and jovial +aspect, under whose inspection they were being piled up by a troop of +sturdy young ecclesiastics, the only weapon-bearers among the rabble. +Elenko stood riveted to the ground. Prometheus, to her amazement, rushed +forward to one of the groups with a loud "By all the Gods and Goddesses!" +Following his movements, she saw that the object of his interest was an +enormous dead eagle carried by one of the mob. The multitude, startled by +his cry and his emotion, gazed eagerly at the strangers, and instantly a +shout went up: + +"The heathen woman!" + +"With a heathen man!" + +And clubs began to be brandished, and stones to be picked up from the +ground. + +Prometheus, to whom the shouts were unintelligible, looked wistfully at +Elenko. As their eyes met, Elenko's countenance, which had hitherto been +all disdain and defiance, assumed an expression of irresolution. A stone +struck Prometheus on the temple, drawing blood; a hundred hands went up, +each weighted with a missile. + +"Do as I," cried Elenko to him, and crossed herself. + +Prometheus imitated her, not unsuccessfully for a novice. + +The uplifted arms were stayed, some even sank down. + +By this time the Bishop had bustled to the front, and addressed a torrent +of questions to Prometheus, who merely shook his head, and turned to +inspect the eagle. + +"Brethren," said the Bishop, "I smell a miracle!" And, turning to Elenko, +he rapidly proceeded to cross-examine her. + +"Thou wert the priestess of this temple?" + +"I was." + +"Thou didst leave it this morning a heathen?" + +"I did." + +"Thou returnest a Christian?" + +Elenko blushed fire, her throat swelled, her heart beat violently. All her +soul seemed concentrated in the gaze she fastened on the pale and bleeding +Prometheus. She remained silent--but she crossed herself. + +"Who then has persuaded thee to renounce Apollo?" + +Elenko pointed to Prometheus. + +"An enemy of Zeus, then?" + +"Zeus has not such another enemy in the world." + +"I knew it, I was sure of it," exclaimed the Bishop. "I can always tell a +Christian when I see him. Wherefore speaks he not?" + +"He is ancient, for all his vigorous mien. His martyrdom began ere our +present speech was, nor could he learn this in his captivity." + +"Martyrdom! Captivity!" exclaimed the prelate gleefully, "I thought we were +coming thither. An early martyr, doubtless?" + +"A very early martyr." + +"Fettered and manacled?" + +"Behold his wrists and ankles." + +"Tortured, of course?" + +"Incredibly." + +"Miraculously kept alive to this day?" + +"In an entirely supernatural manner." + +"Now," said the Bishop, "I would wager my mitre and ring that his life was +prolonged by the daily ministrations of yonder fowl that he caresses with +such singular affection?" + +"Never," replied Elenko, "for one day did that most punctual bird omit to +visit him." + +"Hurrah!" shouted the Bishop. "And now, its mission accomplished, the +blessed creature, as I am informed, is found dead at the foot of the +mountain. Saints and angels! this is glorious! On your knees, ye infidels!" + +And down they all went, the Bishop setting the example. As their heads were +bowed to the earth, Elenko made a sign to Prometheus, and when the +multitude looked up, it beheld him in the act of imparting the episcopal +blessing. + +"Tell him that we are all his brethren," said the Bishop, which +announcement became in Elenko's mouth, "Do as I do, and cleave to thy +eagle." + +A procession was formed. The new saint, his convert, and the eagle, rode in +a car at the head of it. The Bishop, surrounded by his bodyguard, followed +with the sacred vessels of Apollo, to which he had never ceased to direct a +vigilant eye throughout the whole proceedings. The multitude swarmed along +singing hymns, or contending for the stray feathers of the eagle. The +representatives of seven monasteries put in their claims for the links of +Prometheus's fetters, but the Bishop scouted them all. He found time to +whisper to Elenko: + +"You seem a sensible young person. Just hint to our friend that we don't +want to hear anything about his theology, and the less he talks about the +primitive Church the better. No doubt he is a most intelligent man, but he +cannot possibly be up to all the recent improvements." + +Elenko promised most fervently that Prometheus' theological sentiments +should remain a mystery to the public. She then began to reflect very +seriously on the subject of her own morals. "This day," she said to +herself, "I have renounced all the Gods, and told lies enough to last me my +life, and for no other reason than that I am in love. If this is a +sufficient reason, lovers must have a different code of morality from the +rest of the world, and indeed it would appear that they have. Will you die +for me? Yes. Admirable. Will you lie for me? No. Then you don't love me. +[Greek: Ball' eis korakas, eis Tainaron, eis 'Ogg Kogg]." + + + +III + + +Elenko soon found that there was no pausing upon the path to which she had +committed herself. As the sole medium of communication between Prometheus +and the religious public, her time was half spent in instructing Prometheus +in the creed in which he was supposed to have instructed her, and half in +framing the edifying sentences which passed for the interpretation of +discourses for the most part far more interesting to herself than if they +had been what they professed to be. The rapt and impassioned attention +which she was observed to bestow on his utterances on such occasions all +but gained her the reputation of a saint, and was accepted as a sufficient +set-off against the unhallowed affection which she could not help +manifesting for the memory of her father. The judicious reluctance of the +Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire over-anxiously into the creeds and +customs of the primitive Church was a great help to her; and another +difficulty was removed by the Bishop, who, having no idea of encouraging a +rival thaumaturgist, took an early opportunity of signifying that it was +rather in the line of Desmotes (for by this name the new saint passed) to +be the subject than the instrument of miracles, and that, at all events, no +more were to be looked for from him at his time of life. The warmth with +which Elenko espoused this view raised her greatly in his good opinion, and +he was always ready to come to her aid when she became entangled in +chronological or historical difficulties, or seasoned her versions of +Desmotes' speeches with reminiscences of Plato or Marcus Aurelius, or when +her invention failed altogether. On such occasions, if objectors grew +troublesome, the Bishop would thunder, "Brethren, I smell a heresy!" and no +more was said. One minor trouble both to Prometheus and Elenko was the +affection they were naturally expected to manifest towards the carcase of +the wretched eagle, which many identified with the eagle of the Evangelist +John. Prometheus was of a forgiving disposition, but Elenko wished nothing +more ardently than that the whole aquiline race might have but one neck, +and that she might wring it. It somewhat comforted her to observe that the +eagle's plumage was growing thin, while the eagle's custodian was growing +fat. + +But she had worse troubles to endure than any that eagles could occasion. +The youth of those who resorted to her and Prometheus attracted remark from +the graver members of the community. Young ladies found the precepts of the +handsome and dignified saint indispensable to their spiritual health; young +men were charmed with their purity as they came filtered through the lips +of Elenko. Is man more conceited than woman, or more confiding? Elenko +should certainly have been at ease; no temptress, however enterprising, +could well be spreading her nets for an Antony three hundred years old. +Prometheus, on the contrary, might have found cause for jealousy in many a +noble youth's unconcealed admiration of Elenko. Yet he seemed magnificently +unconscious of any cause for apprehension, while Elenko's heart swelled +till it was like to burst. She had the further satisfaction of knowing +herself the best hated woman in Caucasia, between the enmity of those of +whose admirers she had made an involuntary conquest, and of those who found +her standing between them and Prometheus. Her monopoly of Greek, she felt +sure, was her only security. Two constant attendants at Prometheus's +receptions particularly alarmed her, the Princess Miriam, niece of the +Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed to have things as she wished them; and +a tall veiled woman who seemed unknown to all, but whose unseen eyes, she +instinctively knew, were never averted from the unconscious Prometheus. + +It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons to the +private apartment of the Princess Miriam. + +"Dear friend," the Princess began, "thou knowest the singular affection +which I have invariably entertained for thee." + +"Right well do I know it," responded Elenko. ("The thirty-first lie +to-day," she added wearily to herself.) + +"It is this affection, dear friend," continued the Princess, "which induces +me on the present occasion to transgress the limits of conventional +propriety, and make a communication distressing to thee, but infinitely +more so to myself." + +Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause of +friendship, but the great lady was resolute. + +"People say," she continued-- + +"What say they?" + +"That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet. That it is equivocal. That it +is offensive. That it is sacrilegious. That, in a word, it is improper." + +Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would allow. + +"Dear friend," said the Princess, "thou dost not imagine that I have part +or lot in these odious imputations? Even could I deem them true, should I +not think charitably of thee, but yesterday a heathen, and educated in +impiety by a foul sorcerer? My poor lamb! But tongues must be stopped, and +I have now to advise thee how this may be accomplished." + +"Say on." + +"People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of +communication with the holy man. Some deem him less ignorant of our speech +than he seems, but concerning this I inquire not: for, in society, what +seems, is. Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to scandal. There is but +one remedy. Thou must yield thy place to another. It is meet that thou +forthwith instruct in that barbarous dialect some matron of unblemished +repute and devout aspirations; no mere ignorant devotee, however, but a +woman of the world, whose prudence and experience may preserve the holy man +from the pitfalls set for him by the unprincipled. Manifestly she must be a +married person, else nought were gained, yet must she not be chargeable +with forsaking her duties towards her husband and children. It follows that +she must be a widow. It were also well that she should be of kin to some +influential personage, to whose counsel she might have recourse in times of +difficulty, and whose authority might protect her against the slanderous +and evil disposed. I have not been able to meet any one endowed with all +these qualifications, excepting myself. I therefore propose to thee that +thou shouldst instruct me in the speech of Desmotes, and when I am +qualified to take thy place my uncle shall elevate thee to the dignity of +Abbess, or bestow thee upon some young clergyman of extraordinary desert." + +Elenko intimated, perhaps with more warmth than necessary, her aversion to +both propositions, and the extreme improbability of the Princess ever +acquiring any knowledge of Greek by her instrumentality. + +"If this is the case," said the Princess, with perfect calmness, "I must +have recourse to my other method, which is infallible." + +Elenko inquired what it might be. + +"I shall represent to my uncle, what indeed he very well knows, that a +saint is, properly speaking, of no value till he is dead. Not until his +decease are his relics available, or pilgrimages to his shrine feasible. It +is solely in anticipation of this event that my uncle is keeping Desmotes +at all; and the sooner it comes to pass, the sooner will my revered +relative come by his own. Only think of the capital locked up in the new +church, now so nearly completed, on the spot where they picked up the +eagle! How shall it be dedicated to Desmotes in Desmotes' lifetime? Were it +not a most blissful and appropriate coincidence if the day of the +consecration were that of the saint's migration to a better world? I shall +submit this view of the case to my uncle: he is accustomed to hear reason +from me, of whom, between ourselves, he is not a little afraid. Thou mayest +rely upon it that about the time of the consecration Desmotes will ascend +to heaven; while thou, it is gravely to be feared, wilt proceed in the +opposite direction. Would'st thou avert this unpleasantness, think well of +my first proposal. I give thee credit for loving Desmotes, and suppose, +therefore, that thou wilt make some sacrifice for his sake. I am a Kettle, +thou art a Pot. Take heed how thou knockest against me!" + +Elenko sped back to bear tidings of the threatened collision to +Prometheus. As she approached his chamber she heard with astonishment two +voices in eager conversation, and discovered with still greater amazement +that their dialogue was carried on in Greek. The second speaker, moreover, +was evidently a female. A jealous pang shot through Elenko's breast; she +looked cautiously in, and discerned the same mysterious veiled woman whose +demeanour had already been an enigma to her. But the veil was thrown back, +and the countenance went far to allay Elenko's disquiet. It bore indeed +traces of past beauty, but was altogether that of one who had known better +days; worn and faded, weary and repining. Elenko's jealousy vanished, +though her surprise redoubled, when she heard Prometheus address the +stranger as "Sister." + +"A pretty brother I have got," rejoined the lady, in high sharp tones: "to +leave me in want! Never once to inquire after me!" + +"Nay, sister, or sister-in-law," responded Prometheus, "if it comes to +that, where were you while I was on Caucasus? The Oceanides ministered to +me, Hermes came now and then, even Hercules left a card; but I never saw +Pandora." + +"How could I compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?" demanded Pandora. +"Besides, my attendant Hope was always telling me that all would come +right, without any meddling of mine." + +"Let her tell you so now," retorted Prometheus. + +"Tell me now! Do you pretend not to know that the hussey forsook Olympus +ten years ago, and has turned Christian?" + +"I am sure I am very sorry to hear it. Somehow, she never forsook _me_. I +can't imagine how you Gods get on without her." + +"Get on! We are getting off. Except Eros and Plutus, who seem as usual, and +the old Fates, who go on spinning as if nothing had happened, none of us +expects to last for another ten years. The sacrifices have dwindled down to +nothing. Zeus has put down his eagle. Hera has eaten her peacocks. Apollo's +lyre is never heard--pawned, no doubt. Bacchus drinks water, and +Venus--well, you can imagine how she gets on without him and Ceres. And +here you are, sleek and comfortable, and never troubling yourself about +your family. But you had better, or I swear I will tell Zeus; and we shall +see whether these Christians will keep you with your ante-chamber full of +starving gods. Take a day to think of what I have been saying!" + +And away she flounced, not noticing Elenko. Long and earnestly did the pair +discuss the perils that menaced them, and at the end of their deliberations +Elenko sought the Bishop, and briefly imparted the Princess Miriam's +ultimatum. + +"It is painful to a spiritual man," replied the prelate, "to be accessory +to a murder. It is also repugnant to his feelings to deny a beloved niece +anything on which she has set her heart. To avoid such grievous dilemma, I +judge it well that ye both ascend to heaven without further ceremony." + +That night the ascent of Prometheus and Elenko was witnessed by divers +credible persons. The new church was consecrated shortly afterwards. It was +amply stored with relics from the wardrobe of Prometheus and what remained +of the eagle. The damsels of the capital regained their admirers, and +those who had become enamoured of Prometheus mostly transferred their +affections to the Bishop. Everybody was satisfied except the Princess +Miriam, who never ceased to deplore her indulgence in giving Elenko the +chance of first speech with her uncle. + +"If I had been five minutes beforehand with the minx!" she said. + + + +IV + + +The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated in a +sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into the glen, +which was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds, who still observed +the rites of the ancient faith; and sometimes, deeming but to show kindness +to a mortal, refreshed or sheltered a forlorn and hungry Deity. Saving at +the entrance the vale was walled round by steep cliffs, for the most part +waving with trees, but here and there revealing the naked crag. It was +traversed by a silvery stream, in its windings enclosing Prometheus's and +Elenko's cottage, almost as in an island. The cot, buried in laurel and +myrtle, had a garden where fig and mulberry, grape and almond, ripened in +their season. A few goats browsed on the long grass, and yielded their milk +to the household. Bread and wine, and flesh when needed, were easily +procured from the neighbours. Beyond necessary furniture, the cottage +contained little but precious scrolls, obtained by Elenko from Athens and +the newly founded city of Constantine. In these, under her guidance, +Prometheus read of matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, entered +the imagination of any God. + +It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures wholly +their own, which they may yet make fully the possession of the other. These +treasures are of divers kinds, beauty, affection, memory, hope. But never +were such treasures of knowledge shared between lovers as between +Prometheus and Elenko. Each possessed immeasurable stores, hitherto +inaccessible to the other. How trifling seemed the mythical lore which +Elenko had gleaned as the minister of Phoebus to that now imparted by +Prometheus! The Titan had seen all, and been a part of all that he had +seen. He had bowed beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he had witnessed his +fall, and marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He remembered hoary +Saturn a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the throne of Heaven, and +devouring in a trice the stone that now resists his fangs for millenniums. +He had heard the shields of the Corybantes clash around the infant Zeus; he +described to Elenko how one day the sea had frothed and boiled, and +undraped Aphrodite had ascended from it in the presence of the gazing and +applauding amphitheatre of cloud-cushioned gods. He could depict the +personal appearance of Cybele, and sketch the character of Enceladus. He +had instructed Zeus, as Chiron had instructed Achilles; he remembered +Poseidon afraid of the water, and Pluto of the dark. He called to mind and +expounded ancient oracles heretofore unintelligible: he had himself been +told, and had disbelieved, that the happiest day of his own life would be +that on which he should feel himself divested of immortality. Of the +younger gods and their doings he knew but little; he inquired with interest +whether Bacchus had returned in safety from his Indian expedition, and +whether Proserpine had a family of divine imps. + +Much more, nevertheless, had Elenko to teach Prometheus than she could +learn from him. How trivial seemed the history of the gods to what he now +heard of the history of men! Were these indeed the beings he had known +"like ants in the sunless recesses of caves, dwelling deep-burrowing in the +earth, ignorant of the signs of the seasons," to whom he had given fire and +whom he had taught memory and number, for whom he had "brought the horse +under the chariot, and invented the sea-beaten, flaxen-winged chariot of +the sailor?" And now, how poorly showed the gods beside this once wretched +brood! What Deity could die for Olympus, as Leonidas had for Greece? Which +of them could, like Iphigenia, dwell for years beside the melancholy sea, +keeping a true heart for an absent brother? Which of them could raise his +fellows nearer to the source of all Deity, as Socrates and Plato had raised +men? Who could portray himself as Phidias had portrayed Athene? Could the +Muses speak with their own voices as they had spoken by Sappho's? He was +especially pleased to see his own moral superiority to Zeus so eloquently +enforced by schylus, and delighted in criticising the sentiments which +the other poets had put into the mouths of the gods. Homer, he thought, +must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes not seldom. When he read +in the Cyclops of Euripides, "Stranger, I laugh to scorn Zeus's +thunderbolts," he grew for a moment thoughtful. "Am I," he questioned, +"ending where Polyphemus began?" But when he read a little further on: + + The wise man's only Jupiter is this, + To eat and drink during his little day, + And give himself no care-- + +"No," he said, "the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than this +Zeus. But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put another in +their place; or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung away his religion. +Heaven has not departed with Zeus." And, taking his lyre, he sang: + + What floods of lavish splendour + The lofty sun doth pour! + What else can Heaven render? + What room hath she for more? + + Yet shall his course be shortly done, + And after his declining + The skies that held a single Sun + With thousands shall be shining. + + + +V + + +It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to Prometheus's +earthly paradise, and who came once came again. The first was Epimetheus, +who had probably suffered least of all from the general upset, having in +truth little to lose since his ill-starred union with Pandora. He had +indeed reason for thankfulness in his practical divorce from his spouse, +who had settled in Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to the Princess +Miriam. Would Prometheus lend him half a talent? a quarter? a tenth? a +hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus might rely upon it that his residence +should not be divulged on any account. Notwithstanding which assurance, the +cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. +Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, +having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, +and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly +well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on +most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal, +and marine. + +Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm, looking up +to something it feels or deems above itself. Beautiful, too, as autumn +sunshine is maturity looking down with gentleness on the ideal it has +surpassed, and reverencing it still for old ideas and associations. The +thought of beholding a Deity would once have thrilled Elenko with rapture, +if this had not been checked by awe at her own presumption. The idea that a +Deity, other than some disgraced offender like Prometheus, could be the +object of her compassion, would never have entered her mind. And now she +pitied the whole Olympian cohort most sincerely, not so much for having +fallen as for having deserved to fall. She could not conceal from herself +how grievously they were one and all behind the age. It was impossible to +make Zeus comprehend how an idea could be a match for a thunderbolt. Apollo +spoke handsomely of Homer, yet evidently esteemed the Iliad and Odyssey +but lightly in comparison with the blind bard's hymn to himself. Ceres +candidly admitted that her mind was a complete blank on the subject of the +Eleusinian mysteries. Aphrodite's dress was admirable for summer, but in +winter seemed obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make herself a +fright with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer frightened anybody? +Where Elenko would fain have adored she found herself tolerating, excusing, +condescending. How many Elenkos are even now tenderly nursing ancient +creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue of their professors! + +One autumn night all the principal gods were assembled under Prometheus's +roof, doing justice to the figs and mulberries, and wine cooled with +Taygetan snow. The guests were more than usually despondent. Prometheus was +moody and abstracted, his breast seemed labouring with thought. "So looked +my Pythoness," whispered Apollo to his neighbour, "when about to deliver an +oracle." + +And the oracle came--in lyric verse, not to infringe any patent of +Apollo's-- + + When o'er the towers of Constantine + An Orient Moon begins to shine, + Waning nor waxing aught, and bright + In daytide as in deep of night: + Then, though the fane be brought + To wreck, the God shall find, + Enthroned in human thought, + A temple in the mind. + +"And what becomes of us while this prodigious moonshine is concocting?" +demanded Zeus, who had become the most sceptical of any of the gods. + +"Go to Elysium," suggested Prometheus. + +"There's an idea!" cried Zeus and Pallas together. + +"To Elysium! to Elysium!" exclaimed the other gods, and all rose +tumultuously, saving two. + +"I go not," said Eros, "for where Love is, there is Elysium. And yonder +rising moon tells me that my hour is come." And he flitted forth. + +"Neither go I," said an old blind god, "for where Plutus is, Elysium is +not. Moreover, mankind would follow after me. But I too must away. Strange +that I should have abode so long under the roof of a pair of perfect +virtue." And he tottered out. + +But the other gods swept forth into the moonlight, and were seen no more. +And Prometheus picked up the forsaken sandals of Hermes, and bound them on +his own feet, and grasped Elenko, and they rose up by a dizzy flight to +empty heaven. All was silent in those immense courts, vacant of everything +save here and there some rusty thunderbolt or mouldering crumb of ambrosia. +Above, around, below, beyond sight, beyond thought, stretched the still +deeps of ther, blazing with innumerable worlds. Eye could rove nowhither +without beholding a star, nor could star be beheld from which the Gods' +hall, with all its vastness, would not have been utterly invisible. Elenko +leaned over the battlements, and watched the racing meteors. Prometheus +stood by her, and pointed out in the immeasurable distance the little speck +of shining dust from which they had flown. + +"There? or here?" he asked. + +"There!" said Elenko. + + + + +THE POTION OF LAO-TSZE + + + And there the body lay, age after age, + Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, + Like one asleep in a green hermitage, + With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, + And living in its dreams beyond the rage + Of death or life; while they were still arraying + In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, + And fleeting generations of mankind. + +In the days of the Tang dynasty China was long happy under the sceptre of a +good Emperor, named Sin-Woo. He had overcome the enemies of the land, +confirmed the friendship of its allies, augmented the wealth of the rich, +and mitigated the wretchedness of the poor. But most especially was he +admired and beloved for his persecution of the impious sect of Lao-tsze, +which he had well-nigh exterminated. + +It was but natural that such an Emperor should congratulate himself upon +his goodness and worth; yet, as no human bliss is perfect, sorrow could not +fail to enter his mind. + +"It is grievous to reflect," said he to his courtiers, "that if, as ye all +affirm, there hath not been any Emperor of equal merit with myself before +my time, neither will any such arise after me, my subjects must inevitably +be sufferers by my death." + +To which the courtiers unanimously responded, "O Emperor, live for ever!" + +"Happy thought!" exclaimed the Emperor; "but wherewithal shall it be +executed?" + +The Prime Minister looked at the Chancellor, the Chancellor looked at the +Treasurer, the Treasurer looked at the Chamberlain, the Chamberlain looked +at the Principal Bonze, the Principal Bonze looked at the Second Bonze, +who, to his great surprise, looked at him in return. + +"When the turn comes to me," murmured the inferior functionary, "I would +say somewhat." + +"Speak!" commanded the Emperor. + +"O Uncle of the stars," said the Bonze, "there are those in your Majesty's +dominions who possess the power of lengthening life, who have, in fact, +discovered the Elixir of Immortality." + +"Let them be immediately brought hither," commanded the Emperor. + +"Unhappily," returned the Bonze, "these persons, without exception, belong +to the abominable sect of Lao-tsze, whose members your Majesty long ago +commanded to cease from existence, with which august order they have for +the most part complied. In my own diocese, where for some years after your +Majesty's happy accession we were accustomed to impale twenty thousand +annually, it is now difficult to find twenty, with the utmost diligence on +the part of the executioners." + +"It has of late sometimes appeared to me," said the Emperor, "that there +may be more good in that sect than I have been led to believe by my +counsellors." + +"I have always thought," said the Prime Minister, "that they were rather +misguided than wilfully wicked." + +"They are a kind of harmless lunatics," said the Chancellor; "they should, +I think, be made wards in Chancery." + +"Their money does not appear different from other men's," said the +Treasurer. + +"I," said the Chamberlain, "have known an old woman who had known another +old woman who belonged to this sect, and who assured her that she had been +very good when she was a little girl." + +"If," said the Emperor, "it appears that his Grace the Principal Bonze hath +in any respect misled us, his property will necessarily be confiscated to +the Imperial Treasury, and the Second Bonze will succeed to his office. It +is needful, however, to ascertain before all things whether this sect does +really possess the Elixir of Immortality, for on that the entire question +of its deserts obviously depends. Our Counsellor the Second Bonze having, +next to myself, the greatest interest in the matter, I desire him to make +due inquiries and report to us at the next council, when I shall be +prepared to state what fine will be imposed upon him, should he not have +succeeded." + +That night all the members of the Lao-tsze sect inhabiting prisons under +the jurisdiction of the Principal Bonze were decapitated, and the P.B. laid +his own head upon his pillow with some approach to peace of mind, trusting +that the knowledge of the Elixir of Immortality had perished with them. + +The Second Bonze, having a different object to attain, proceeded in a +different manner. He sent for his captives, and discoursed to them touching +the evil arts of unprincipled courtiers, and the facility with which they +mislead even the best intentioned princes. For years had he, the Second +Bonze, pleaded the cause of toleration at court; and had at length +succeeded in enlightening his Majesty to such an extent that there was +every prospect of an edict of indulgence being shortly promulgated, +provided always that the Elixir of Life was previously forthcoming. + +The unfortunate heretics would have been only too thankful to prolong the +Emperor's life indefinitely in consideration of securing peace for their +own, but they could only inform the Bonze of the general tradition of their +sect. This was that the knowledge of Lao-tsze's secret was confined to +certain adepts, most of whom were plunged into so deep a trance that any +communication with them was impossible. For the administration of the +miraculous draught, it appeared, was attended with this inconvenience, that +it threw the partaker into a deep sleep, lasting any time between ten years +and eternity, according to the depth of his potation. During its +continuance the ordinary operations of nature were suspended, and the +patient awoke with precisely the same bodily constitution, old or young, as +he had possessed on falling into his lethargy; and though still liable to +wounds and accidents, he or she continued to enjoy undiminished health and +vigour for a period equal to the duration of the trance, after which he +sank back into the ranks of mortality, unless he could repeat the potion. +All the adepts who had come to life under his present Majesty's most +clement reign had immediately emigrated: the only persons, therefore, +capable of giving information were now buried in slumber, and of course +would only speak when they should awake. They were mostly concealed in the +recesses of caverns, those inhabited by wild beasts being usually preferred +for the sake of better security, as no tiger or bear would harm a follower +of Lao-tsze. The witnesses, therefore, advised the Bonze to ascertain the +residences of the most ferocious tigers in his diocese, and to wait upon +them personally, in the hope of thus discovering what he sought. + +This suggestion was exceedingly unpalatable to the Bonze, who felt almost +equally unwilling to venture himself into a wild beast's den or to give any +other person the chance of making the discovery. While he hesitated in +unspeakable perplexity he was informed that an old man, about to expire at +the age of an hundred and twenty years, desired to have speech with him. +Thinking so venerable a personage likely to have at least a glimmering of +the great secret, the Bonze hurried to his bedside. + +"Our master, Lao-tsze," began the old man, "forbids us to leave this world +with anything undisclosed which may contribute to the advantage of our +fellow-creatures. Whether he deemed the knowledge of the cup of immortality +conducive to this end I cannot say, but the question doth not arise, for I +do not possess it. Hear my tale, nevertheless. Ninety years ago, being a +hunter, it was my hap to fall into the jaws of an enormous tiger, who bore +me off to his cavern. I there found myself in the presence of two ladies, +one youthful and of surpassing loveliness, the other haggard and wrinkled. +The younger lady expostulated with the tiger, and he forthwith released me. +My gratitude won the women's confidence, and I learned that they were +disciples of Lao-tsze who had repaired to the cavern to partake of the +miraculous draught, which they were just about to do. They were, it +appeared, mother and daughter, and I distinctly remember that the +composition of the beverage was known to the daughter only. This impressed +me, for I should naturally have expected the contrary. The tiger escorted +me home. I forswore hunting, and became, and have secretly continued, a +disciple of Lao-tsze. I will now indicate the position of the cavern to +thee: whether the ladies will still be found in it is beyond my power to +say." + +And having pointed out the direction of the cavern, he expired. + +The thing had to be done. The Bonze dressed himself up as much like a +votary of Lao-tsze as possible, provided himself with a body-guard of _bona +fide_ disciples, and, accompanied by a small army of huntsmen and warriors +as well, marched in quest of the den of the tiger. It was discovered about +nightfall, and having tethered a small boy near the entrance, that his +screams when being devoured might give notice of the tiger's issue from or +return to his habitation, the Bonze and his myrmidons took up a flank +position and awaited the dawn. The distant howls of roaming beasts of prey +entirely deprived the holy man of his rest, but nothing worse befell him, +and when in the morning the small boy, instead of providing the tiger with +a breakfast, was heard crying for his own, the besiegers mustered up +courage to enter the cavern. The glare of their torches revealed no tiger: +but, to the Bonze's inexpressible delight, two females lay on the floor of +the cave, corresponding in all respects to the description of the old man. +Their costume was that of the preceding century. One was wrinkled and +hoary; the inexpressible loveliness of the other, who might have seen +seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a universal cry of admiration, +followed by a hush of enraptured silence. Warm, flexible, fresh in colour, +breathing naturally as in slumber, the figures lay, the younger woman's arm +underneath the elder woman's neck, and her chin nestling on the other's +shoulder. The countenance of each seemed to indicate happy dreams. + +"Can this indeed be but a trance?" simultaneously questioned several of the +Bonze's followers. + +"_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!_" exclaimed the Bonze; and he thrust +his long hunting spear into the elder woman's bosom. Blood poured forth +freely, but there was no change in the expression of the countenance. No +struggle announced dissolution; not until the body grew chill and the limbs +stiff could they be sure the old woman was indeed dead. + +"Carry the young woman like porcelain," ordered the priest, and like the +most fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from the cavern +smiling in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the corpse of her aged +companion was abandoned to the hynas. So often did the bearers pause to +look on her beauty that it was found necessary to drape the countenance +entirely, until reaching the closed sedan in which, vigilantly watched by +the Bonze, she was transported to the Imperial palace. + +And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was laid +on a couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful was the +contrast between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose, and the old +haggard Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love of life. + +"O Majesty," said his wisest counsellor, "is there any sect in thy +dominions that possesses the secret of perpetual youth?" + +And the Emperor made proclamation, but no such sect could be found. And he +mourned exceedingly, and caused strong perfumes to be burned around the +sleeper, and conches to be blown and gongs beaten in her ears, hoping that +she would awake ere he was dead or wholly decrepit. But she stirred not. +And he shut himself up with her and passed his time praying to Fo for her +awakening. + +But one day the door of the chamber was beaten down, and his old wife came +in passionately upbraiding him. + +"Sin-Woo," she cried, "thou hast not the heart of a man! Thou wouldest be +deathless, leaving me to die! I shall be laid in the grave, and thou wilt +reign with another! Wherefore have I been true to thee, if not that our +ashes might mingle at the last? Thou hoary sensualist!" + +"Su-Ti," said the Emperor, with feeling, "thou dost grievously misjudge me. +I am no heartless sensualist, no butterfly sipper at the lips of beauty. Is +not my soul entirely possessed by this divine creature, whom I love with an +affection infinitely exceeding that which I have entertained for thee at +any period? And how knowest thou," added he, striving to soothe her, "that +I will not give thee to drink of the miraculous potion?" + +"And keep my grey hairs and wrinkles through all time! Nay, Sin-Woo, I am +no fool like thee, and were I so, I am not in love with any youth. And know +I not that even if I would accept the boon, thou would'st never give it?" + +And she rushed away in fury and hanged herself by her Imperial girdle. +Whereupon all the other wives and concubines of the Emperor did likewise, +as custom and reason prescribe. All the palace was filled with lamentation +and funerals. But the Emperor lamented not, nor turned his gaze from the +sleeper, nor did the sleeper awaken. + +And his son came to him angry with exceeding wrath. + +"Thou hast murdered my mother. Thou would'st rob me of the crown that is +rightfully mine. I, born to be an Emperor, shall die a subject! Nay, but I +will save thee from thyself. I will pierce thy leman with the sword, or +burn her with fire." + +And the Emperor, fearing he would do as he threatened, commanded him to be +slain, as also his brothers and sisters. And he paid no heed to the affairs +of State, but gave all into the hand of the Second, now the Principal +Bonze. And the laws ceased to be observed, and rebellions broke out in the +provinces, and enemies invaded the country, and there was famine in the +land. + +And now the Emperor was well-nigh ten years nearer to the gates of death +than when the Sleeping Beauty had been brought to his court. The love of +beauty was nearly quenched in him, but the longing for life grew more +intense. He became angry with the sleeper, that she awakened not, and with +his little remaining strength smote her fiercely on the cheeks, but she +gave no sign of reviving. Remembering that if he gained the potion of +immortality he would himself be plunged into a trance, he made all +preparations for the interregnum. He decreed that he was to be seated erect +on his throne, with all his imperial insignia, and it was to be death to +any one who should presume to remove any of them. His slumbering figure was +to preside at all councils, and to be consulted in every act of state, and +all ministers and officers were to do homage daily. The revived Sleeping +Beauty was to partake of the draught anew, at the same time and in the same +manner as himself, that she might awake with him, and that he might find +her charms unimpaired. All the ministers swore solemnly to observe these +regulations; firmly purposing to burn the sleeper, if sleep he ever did, at +the very first opportunity, and scatter his ashes to the winds. Then they +would fight for the Empire among themselves; each, meanwhile, was mainly +occupied in striving to gain the rebels over to his interest, insomuch that +the people grew more miserable day by day. + +And as the aged Emperor waxed more and more feeble, he began to see +visions. Legions of little black imps surrounded him crying, "We are thy +sins, and would be punished--would'st thou by living for ever deprive us +of our due?" And fair female forms came veiled with drooping heads, and +murmured, "We are thy virtues, and would be rewarded--would'st thou cheat +us?" And other figures came, dark but lovely, and whispered, "We are thy +dead friends who have long waited for thee--would'st thou take to thyself +new friends, and forget us?" And others said, "We are thy memories--wilt +thou live on till we are all withered in thy heart?" And others said, "We +are thy strength and thy beauty, thy memory and thy wit--canst thou live, +knowing thou wilt never see us more?" And at last came two warders, +officers of the King of Death, and one of them was laughing. And the other +asked why he laughed, and he replied: + +"I laugh at the Emperor, who thinks to escape our master, not knowing that +the moment of his decease was engraved with a pen of iron upon a rock of +adamant a million million years or ever this world was." + +"And when comes it?" asked the other. + +"In ten minutes," said the first. + +When the Emperor heard this he was wild with terror, and tottered to the +couch on which the Sleeping Beauty lay. "Oh, awake!" he cried, "awake and +save me ere it is too late!" And, oh wonder! the sleeper stirred, and +opened her eyes. + +If she had been so beautiful while sleeping, what was she when awake! But +the love of life had overcome the love of beauty in the Emperor's bosom, +and he saw not the eyes like stars, and the bloom as of peaches and lilies, +or the aspect grand and smiling as daybreak. He could only cry, "Give me +the potion, lest I die, give me the potion!" + +"That cannot I," she said. "The secret was known only to my daughter." + +"Who is thy daughter?" + +"The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern." + +"That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so fresh? + +"Even so," she said, "I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy +years. When I awoke she was withered and decrepit: I youthful as when I +closed my eyes. But she had learned the secret, which I never knew." + +"The Bonze shall be crucified!" yelled the Emperor. + +"It is too late," said she; "he is torn in pieces already." + +"By whom?" + +"By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee." + +And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people, +headed by the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal +Bonze), who plunged a sword into the Emperor's breast, exclaiming: + +"He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose the +life which he has." Words, saith the historian Li, which have been thought +worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of Confucius. + +And the people were crying, "Kill the sorceress!" But she looked upon them, +and they cried, "Be our Empress!" + +"Remember," said she, "that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred +years!" + +"Would," said they, "that it might be a hundred thousand!" + +So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously. Among her good acts is +enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze. Since, however, +they have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild beasts +have lost their ancient respect for them, and devour them with no less +appetite than the members of other sects and denominations. + + + + +ABDALLAH THE ADITE + + +An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting +himself to the pursuit of religion and alchemy. Of his creed it could only +be said that it was so much better than that of his neighbours as to cause +him to be commonly esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper. But the better +informed deemed him a Nestorian monk, who had retired into the wilderness +on account of differences with his brethren, who sought to poison him. + +The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain +inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light concerning +the nature of demons. But he found that Sergius could give him no +information on that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so wisely and +beautifully on holy things, that his pupil's intellect was enlightened, and +his enthusiasm was inflamed, and he longed to go forth and instruct the +ignorant people around him; the Saracens, and the Sabaeans, and the +Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, and the Baphometites, and the +Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient Manichees. + +"Nay, good youth," said Sergius, "I have renounced the sending forth of +missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the Prophet +Abdallah." + +"What!" exclaimed the youth, "was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?" + +"Even so," said Sergius. "Hearken to his history. + +"Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he was +first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most simple-minded +and well-intentioned of youths. I always called him son, a title I have +never bestowed on another. Like thee, he had compassion on the darkness +around him, and craved my leave to go forth and dispel it. + +"'My son,' said I, 'I will not restrain thee: thou art no longer a child. +Thou hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and knowest +that poison was administered to me personally on account of my inability to +perceive the supernatural light emanating from the navel of Brother +Gregory. Thou art aware that thou wilt be beaten with rods and pricked with +goads, chained and starved in a dungeon, very probably blinded, very +possibly burned with fire?' + +"'All these things I am prepared to undergo,' said Abdallah; and he +embraced me and bid me farewell. + +"After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his +bones protruded through his skin. + +"'Whence are these weals and scars?' asked I, 'and what signifies this +protrusion of thy bones?' + +"'The weals and the scars,' answered he, 'proceed from the floggings +inflicted upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by reason +of the omission of his officers to furnish me with either food or drink in +the dungeon wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.' + +"'O my son,' exclaimed I, 'in the eyes of faith and right reason these +scars are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones is +like the beholding of hidden treasure!' + +"And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he entirely +fail therein. And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and sent him +forth a second time into the world. + +"And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and bruises, +but comely and somewhat fat. + +"'Whence this sleekness of body, my son?' I asked. + +"'Through the charity of the Caliph's wives,' he answered, 'who have fed me +secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good work each +of them in the world to come would have seven husbands.' + +"'How knewest thou this, my son?' I inquired. + +"'In truth, father,' he said, 'I did not know it; but I thought it +probable.' + +"'O my son! my son!' exclaimed I, 'thou art on a dangerous road. To win +over weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a +future life, whereof thou knowest no more than they do! Knowest thou not +that the inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and spiritual +nature? Did I ever promise any disciple any recompense for his +enlightenment and good deeds, save flogging, starvation, and burning?' + +"'Never, father," said he, 'and therefore thou hast had no follower of thy +law save one, and he hath broken it.' + +"He left me after a shorter stay than before, and again went forth to +preach. After a long time he returned in good condition of body, yet +manifestly having something upon his mind. + +"'Father,' he said, 'thy son hath preached with faithfulness and +acceptance, and turned thousands unto righteousness. But a sorcerer hath +arisen, saying, "Why follow ye Abdallah, seeing that he breathes not fire +out of his mouth and nostrils?" And the people give ear unto the words that +come from this man's lips, when they behold the flame that cometh from his +nose. And unless thou teachest me to do as he doth I shall assuredly +perish.' + +"And I told Abdallah that it was better to perish for the truth's sake than +to prolong life by lies and deceit. But he wept and lamented exceeding +sore, and in the end he prevailed with me; and I taught him to breathe +flame and smoke out of a hollow nut filled with combustible powder. And I +took a certain substance called soap, but little known in this country, and +anointed his feet therewith. And when he and the sorcerer met, both +breathing flame, the people knew not which to follow; but when Abdallah +walked over nine hot ploughshares, and the sorcerer could not touch one of +them, they beat his brains out, and became Abdallah's disciples. + +"A long time afterward Abdallah came to me again, this time with a joyful, +and yet with somewhat of a troubled look, carrying a camel-hair blanket, +which he undid, and lo! it was full of bones. + +"'O father,' he said, 'I bring thee happy tidings. We have found the bones +of the camel of the prophet Ad, upon which his revelation was engraved by +him.' + +"'If this be so,' said I, 'thou art acquainted with the precepts of the +prophet, and hast no need of mine.' + +"'Nay, but father,' said he, 'although the revelation was without question +originally engraved by the prophet on these very bones, it hath come to +pass by the injury of time that not one letter of his writing can be +distinguished. I have therefore come to ask thee to write it over again.' + +"'What!' I exclaimed, 'I forge a revelation in the name of the prophet Ad! +Get thee behind me!' + +"'Thou knowest, father,' he rejoined, 'that if we had the original words of +the prophet Ad here they would profit us nought, as by reason of their +antiquity none would understand them. Seeing therefore that I myself cannot +write, it is meet that thou shouldst set down in his name those things +which he would have desired to deliver had he been now among us; but if +thou wilt not, I shall ask Brother Gregory.' + +"And when I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and impostor +my spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad myself. And I +was heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable precepts, and more +especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a certain inclination +thereunto in my disciple. + +"After many days he came again, and this time he was in violent terror and +agitation, and hair was wanting to the lower part of his countenance. + +"'O Abdallah,' I inquired, 'where is thy beard?' + +"'In the hands of my ninth wife,' said he. + +"'Apostate!' I exclaimed, 'hast thou dared to espouse more wives than one? +Rememberest thou not what is written in the Book of the prophet Ad?' + +"'O father,' he said, 'the revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so +exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath been +supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of Gregory, +as I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my dictation, +an accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O Sergius. In this +gloss it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth part of the soul of +man, the prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now call ourselves) to take +but one wife, doth instruct us to take nine; to espouse a tenth would, I +grant, be damnable. It ensues, therefore, that having become enamoured of a +most charming young virgin, I am constrained to repudiate one of the wives +whom I have taken already. To this, each thinking that it may be her turn +speedily, if not now, they will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me +as thou seest, and the dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of +peace, compared to my seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to +disclose to the people the fact, of which they have unhappily become aware, +that the revelation of the blessed Ad is not written upon the bones of a +camel at all, but of a cow, and will therefore be accounted spurious, +inasmuch as the prophet is not recorded to have ridden upon this quadruped. +And seeing that thou didst inscribe the characters, O father, I cannot but +fear that the fury of the people will extend unto thee, and that thou wilt +be even in danger of thy life from them.' + +"This argument of Abdallah's had much weight with me, and I the more +readily consented to his request as he did not on this occasion require any +imposture at my hands, but merely the restitution of his domestic peace. +And I went with him to his wives, and discoursed with them, and they agreed +to abide by my sentence. And, willing to please him, I directed that he +should marry the beautiful virgin, and put away one of his wives who was +old and ugly, and endowed with the dispositions of Sheitan. + +"'O father,' said Abdallah, 'thou hast brought me from death unto life! And +thou, Zarah,' he continued, 'wilt lose nought, but gain exceedingly, in +becoming the spouse of the wise and virtuous Sergius.' + +"'I marry Zarah!' I exclaimed, 'I! a monk!' + +"'Surely,' said he, 'thou would'st not take away her husband without giving +her another in his stead?' + +"'If he does I will throttle him,' cried Zarah. + +"And I wept sore, and made great intercession. And it was agreed that there +should be a delay of forty days, in which space if any one else would marry +Zarah, I should be free of her. And I promised all my substance to any one +who would do this, and no one was found. And she was offered to thirteen +criminals doomed to suffer death, and they all chose death. And at the last +I was constrained to marry her. And truly I have now the comfort of +thinking that if I have offended by encouraging Abdallah's deceits, or +otherwise, the debt is paid, and Eternal Justice hath now nothing against +me; for verily I was an inmate of Gehenna until it came to pass that she +was herself translated thither. And respecting the manner of her +translation, inquire not thou too curiously. It was doubtless a token of +the displeasure of Heaven at her enormities that the water of the well of +Kefayat, which had been known as the Diamond of the Desert, became about +this time undrinkable, and pernicious to man and beast. + +"As I sat in my dwelling administering to the estate of my deceased wife, +which consisted principally of wines and strong liquors, Abdallah again +appeared before me. + +"'Hast thou come,' said I, 'to solicit me to abet thee in any new +imposture? Know, once for all, that I will not.' + +"'On the contrary,' said he, 'I am come to set thee at ease by proving to +thee that I shall not again require thy assistance. Follow me.' + +"And I followed him to a great plain, where was a host of armed horsemen +and footmen, more than I could number. And they bore banners on which the +name of Abdallah was embroidered in letters of gold. And in the midst was +an ark of gold, with the bones of Ad's camel, or cow. And by this was a +great pile of the heads of men, and warriors were continually casting more +and more upon the heap. + +"'How many?' asked Abdallah. + +"'Twelve thousand, O Apostle of God,' answered they, 'but there are more to +come.' + +"'Thou monster!' said I to Abdallah. + +"'Nay, father,' said he, 'there will not be more than sixteen thousand in +all, and these men were unbelievers. Moreover we have spared such of their +women as were young and handsome, and have taken them for our concubines, +as is ordained in the eleventh supplement to the Book of Ad, just +promulgated by my authority. But come, I have other things to manifest unto +thee.' + +"And he led me where a stake was driven into the earth, and a man was +chained unto it, and fuel was heaped all around him, and many stood by with +lighted torches in their hands. + +"'O Abdallah,' I exclaimed, 'wherefore this atrocity?' + +"'This man,' he replied, 'is a blasphemer, who hath said that the Book of +Ad is written on the bones of a cow.' + +"'But it is written on the bones of a cow! 'I cried. + +"'Even so,' said he, 'and therefore is his heresy the more damnable, and +his punishment the more exemplary. Had it been indeed written on the bones +of a camel, he might have affirmed what pleased him.' + +"And I shook off the dust from my feet, and hastened to my dwelling. The +rest of Abdallah's acts thou knowest, and how he fell warring with the +Carmathians. And now I ask thee, art thou yet minded to go forth as a +missionary of the truth?" + +"O Sergius," said the young man, "I perceive that the temptations are +greater, and the difficulties far surpassing what I had thought. Yet will I +go, and I trust by Heaven's grace not to fail utterly." + +"Then go," said Sergius, "and Heaven's blessing go with thee! Come back in +ten years, should I be living, and if thou canst declare that thou hast +forged no scriptures, and worked no miracles, and persecuted no +unbelievers, and flattered no potentate, and bribed no one with the promise +of aught in heaven or earth, I will give thee the philosopher's stone." + + + + +ANANDA THE MIRACLE WORKER + + +The holy Buddha, Sakhya Muni, on dispatching his apostles to proclaim his +religion throughout the peninsula of India, failed not to provide them with +salutary precepts for their guidance. He exhorted them to meekness, to +compassion, to abstemiousness, to zeal in the promulgation of his doctrine, +and added an injunction never before or since prescribed by the founder of +any religion--namely, on no account to perform any miracle. + +It is further related, that whereas the apostles experienced considerable +difficulty in complying with the other instructions of their master, and +sometimes actually failed therein, the prohibition to work miracles was +never once transgressed by any of them, save only the pious Ananda, the +history of whose first year's apostolate is recorded as follows. + +Ananda repaired to the kingdom of Magadha, and instructed the inhabitants +diligently in the law of Buddha. His doctrine being acceptable, and his +speech persuasive, the people hearkened to him willingly, and began to +forsake the Brahmins whom they had previously revered as spiritual guides. +Perceiving this, Ananda became elated in spirit, and one day he exclaimed: + +"How blessed is the apostle who propagates truth by the efficacy of reason +and virtuous example, combined with eloquence, rather than error by +imposture and devil-mongering, like those miserable Brahmins!" + +As he uttered this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was +diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from him, +insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first mocked, then +hooted, and finally pelted him. + +When matters had reached this pass, Ananda lifted his eyes and discerned a +number of Brahmins of the lower sort, busy about a boy who lay in a fit +upon the ground. They had long been applying exorcisms and other approved +methods with scant success, when the most sagacious among them suggested: + +"Let us render the body of this patient an uncomfortable residence for the +demon; peradventure he will then cease to abide therein." + +They were accordingly engaged in branding the sufferer with hot irons, +filling his nostrils with smoke, and otherwise to the best of their ability +disquieting the intrusive devil. Ananda's first thought was, "The lad is in +a fit;" the second, "It were a pious deed to deliver him from his +tormentors;" the third, "By good management this may extricate me from my +present uncomfortable predicament, and redound to the glory of the most +holy Buddha." + +Yielding to this temptation, he strode forward, chased away the Brahmins +with an air of authority, and, uplifting his countenance to heaven, recited +the appellations of seven devils. No effect ensuing, he repeated seven +more, and so continued until, the fit having passed off in the course of +nature, the patient's paroxysms ceased, he opened his eyes, and Ananda +restored him to his relatives. But the people cried loudly, "A miracle! a +miracle!" and when Ananda resumed his instructions, they gave heed to him, +and numbers embraced the religion of Buddha. Whereupon Ananda exulted, and +applauded himself for his dexterity and presence of mind, and said to +himself: + +"Surely the end sanctifies the means." + +As he propounded this heresy, the eminence of his merits was reduced to the +dimensions of a mole-hill, and he ceased to be of account in the eyes of +any of the saints, save only of Buddha, whose compassion is inexhaustible. + +The fame of his achievement, nevertheless, was bruited about the whole +country, and soon reached the ears of the king, who sent for him, and +inquired if he had actually expelled the demon. + +Ananda replied in the affirmative. + +"I am indeed rejoiced," returned the king, "as thou now wilt without doubt +proceed to heal _my_ son, who has lain in a trance for twenty-nine days." + +"Alas! dread sovereign," modestly returned Ananda, "how should the merits +which barely suffice to effect the cure of a miserable Pariah avail to +restore the offspring of an Elephant among Kings?" + +"By what process are these merits acquired?" demanded the monarch. + +"By the exercise of penance," responded Ananda, "in virtue of which the +austere devotee quells the winds, allays the waters, expostulates +convincingly with tigers, carries the moon in his sleeve, and otherwise +performs all acts and deeds appropriate to the character of a peripatetic +thaumaturgist." + +"This being so," answered the king, "thy inability to heal my son +manifestly arises from defect of merit, and defect of merit from defect of +penance. I will therefore consign thee to the charge of my Brahmins, that +they may aid thee to fill up the measure of that which is lacking." + +Ananda vainly strove to explain that the austerities to which he had +referred were entirely of a spiritual and contemplative character. The +Brahmins, enchanted to get a heretic into their clutches, immediately +seized upon him, and conveyed him to one of their temples. They stripped +him, and perceived with astonishment that not one single weal or scar was +visible anywhere on his person. "Horror!" they exclaimed; "here is a man +who expects to go to heaven in a whole skin!" To obviate this breach of +etiquette, they laid him upon his face, and flagellated him until the +obnoxious soundness of cuticle was entirely removed. They then departed, +promising to return next day and operate in a corresponding manner upon the +anterior part of his person, after which, they jeeringly assured him, his +merits would be in no respect less than those of the saintly Bhagiratha, or +of the regal Viswamitra himself. + +Ananda lay half dead upon the floor of the temple, when the sanctuary was +illuminated by the apparition of a resplendent Glendoveer, who thus +addressed him: + +"Well, backsliding disciple, art thou yet convinced of thy folly?" + +Ananda relished neither the imputation on his orthodoxy nor that on his +wisdom. He replied, notwithstanding, with all meekness: + +"Heaven forbid that I should repine at any variety of martyrdom that tends +to the propagation of my master's faith." + +"Wilt thou then first be healed, and moreover become the instrument of +converting the entire realm of Magadha?" + +"How shall this be accomplished?" demanded Ananda. + +"By perseverance in the path of deceit and disobedience," returned the +Glendoveer. + +Ananda winced, but maintained silence in the expectation of more explicit +directions. + +"Know," pursued the spirit, "that the king's son will revive from his +trance at the expiration of the thirtieth day, which takes place at noon +to-morrow. Thou hast but to proceed at the fitting period to the couch +whereon he is deposited, and, placing thy hand upon his heart, to command +him to rise forthwith. His recovery will be ascribed to thy supernatural +powers, and the establishment of Buddha's religion will result. Before this +it will be needful that I should perform an actual cure upon thy back, +which is within the compass of my capacity. I only request thee to take +notice, that thou wilt on this occasion be transgressing the precepts of +thy master with thine eyes open. It is also meet to apprise thee that thy +temporary extrication from thy present difficulties will only involve thee +in others still more formidable." + +"An incorporeal Glendoveer is no judge of the feelings of a flayed +apostle," thought Ananda. "Heal me," he replied, "if thou canst, and +reserve thy admonitions for a more convenient opportunity." + +"So be it," returned the Glendoveer; and as he extended his hand over +Ananda, the latter's back was clothed anew with skin, and his previous +smart simultaneously allayed. The Glendoveer vanished at the same moment, +saying, "When thou hast need of me, pronounce but the incantation, _Gnooh +Imdap Inam Mua_, [*] and I will immediately be by thy side." + +[Footnote: The mystic formula of the Buddhists, read backwards.] + +The anger and amazement of the Brahmins may be conceived when, on returning +equipped with fresh implements of flagellation, they discovered the +salubrious condition of their victim. Their scourges would probably have +undergone conversion into halters, had they not been accompanied by a royal +officer, who took the really triumphant martyr under his protection, and +carried him off to the palace. He was speedily conducted to the young +prince's couch, whither a vast crowd attended him. The hour of noon not +having yet arrived, Ananda discreetly protracted the time by a seasonable +discourse on the impossibility of miracles, those only excepted which +should be wrought by the professors of the faith of Buddha. He then +descended from his pulpit, and precisely as the sun attained the zenith +laid his hand upon the bosom of the young prince, who instantly revived, +and completed a sentence touching the game of dice which had been +interrupted by his catalepsy. + +The people shouted, the courtiers went into ecstasies, the countenances of +the Brahmins assumed an exceedingly sheepish expression. Even the king +seemed impressed, and craved to be more particularly instructed in the law +of Buddha. In complying with this request, Ananda, who had made marvellous +progress in worldly wisdom during the last twenty-four hours, deemed it +needless to dilate on the cardinal doctrines of his master, the misery of +existence, the need of redemption, the path to felicity, the prohibition to +shed blood. He simply stated that the priests of Buddha were bound to +perpetual poverty, and that under the new dispensation all ecclesiastical +property would accrue to the temporal authorities. + +"By the holy cow!" exclaimed the monarch, "this is something like a +religion!" + +The words were scarcely out of the royal lips ere the courtiers professed +themselves converts. The multitude followed their example. The Brahminical +church was promptly disestablished and disendowed, and more injustice was +committed in the name of the new and purified religion in one day than the +old corrupt one had occasioned in a hundred years. + +Ananda had the satisfaction of feeling able to forgive his adversaries, and +of valuing himself accordingly; and to complete his felicity, he was +received in the palace, and entrusted with the education of the king's son, +which he strove to conduct agreeably to the precepts of Buddha. This was a +task of some delicacy, as it involved interference with the princely +youth's favourite amusement, which had previously consisted in torturing +small reptiles. + +After a short interval Ananda was again summoned to the monarch's presence. +He found his majesty in the company of two most ferocious ruffians, one of +whom bore a huge axe, and the other an enormous pair of pincers. + +"My chief executioner and my chief tormentor," said the king. + +Ananda expressed his gratification at becoming acquainted with such exalted +functionaries. + +"Thou must know, most holy man," resumed the king, "that need has again +arisen for the exercise of fortitude and self-denial on thy part. A +powerful enemy has invaded my dominions, and has impiously presumed to +discomfit my troops. Well might I feel dismayed, were it not for the +consolations of religion; but my trust is in thee, O spiritual father! It +is urgent that thou shouldst accumulate the largest amount of merit with +the least delay possible. I am unable to invoke the ministrations of thy +old friends the Brahmins to this end, they being, as thou knowest, in +disgrace, but I have summoned these trusty and experienced counsellors in +their room. I find them not wholly in accord. My chief tormentor, being a +man of mild temper and humane disposition, considers that it might at first +suffice to employ gentle measures, such, for example, as suspending thee +head downwards in the smoke of a wood fire, and filling thy nostrils with +red pepper. My chief executioner, taking, peradventure, a too professional +view of the subject, deems it best to resort at once to crucifixion or +impalement. I would gladly know thy thoughts on the matter." + +Ananda expressed, as well as his terror would suffer him, his entire +disapproval of both the courses recommended by the royal advisers. + +"Well," said the king, with an air of resignation, "if we cannot agree upon +either, it follows that we must try both. We will meet for that purpose +to-morrow morning at the second hour. Go in peace!" + +Ananda went, but not in peace. His alarm would have well-nigh deprived him +of his faculties if he had not remembered the promise made him by his +former deliverer. On reaching a secluded spot he pronounced the mystic +formula, and immediately became aware of the presence, not of a radiant +Glendoveer, but of a holy man, whose head was strewn with ashes, and his +body anointed with cow-dung. + +"Thy occasion," said the Fakir, "brooks no delay. Thou must immediately +accompany me, and assume the garb of a Jogi." + +Ananda rebelled excessively in his heart, for he had imbibed from the mild +and sage Buddha a befitting contempt for these grotesque and cadaverous +fanatics. The emergency, however, left him no resource, and he followed his +guide to a charnel house, which the latter had selected as his domicile. +There, with many lamentations over the smoothness of his hair and the +brevity of his nails, the Jogi besprinkled and besmeared Ananda agreeably +to his own pattern, and scored him with chalk and ochre until the peaceful +apostle of the gentlest of creeds resembled a Bengal tiger. He then hung a +chaplet of infants' skulls about his neck, placed the skull of a malefactor +in one of his hands and the thigh-bone of a necromancer in the other, and +at nightfall conducted him into the adjacent cemetery, where, seating him +on the ashes of a recent funeral pile, he bade him drum upon the skull with +the thigh-bone, and repeat after himself the incantations which he began to +scream out towards the western part of the firmament. These charms were +apparently possessed of singular efficacy, for scarcely were they commenced +ere a hideous tempest arose, rain descended in torrents, phosphoric flashes +darted across the sky, wolves and hynas thronged howling from their dens, +and gigantic goblins, arising from the earth, extended their fleshless arms +towards Ananda, and strove to drag him from his seat. Urged by frantic +terror, and the example and exhortations of his companion, he battered, +banged, and vociferated, until on the very verge of exhaustion; when, as if +by enchantment, the tempest ceased, the spectres disappeared, and joyous +shouts and a burst of music announced the occurrence of something +auspicious in the adjoining city. + +"The hostile king is dead," said the Jogi; "and his army has dispersed. +This will be attributed to thy incantations. They are coming in quest of +thee even now. Farewell until thou again hast need of me." + +The Jogi disappeared, the tramp of a procession became audible, and soon +torches glared feebly through the damp, cheerless dawn. The monarch +descended from his state elephant, and, prostrating himself before Ananda, +exclaimed: + +"Inestimable man! why didst thou not disclose that thou wert a Jogi? Never +more shall I feel the least apprehension of any of my enemies, so long as +thou continuest an inmate of this cemetery." + +A family of jackals were unceremoniously dislodged from a disused +sepulchre, which was allotted to Ananda for his future residence. The king +permitted no alteration in his costume, and took care that the food doled +out to him should have no tendency to impair his sanctity, which speedily +gave promise of attaining a very high pitch. His hair had already become as +matted and his nails as long as the Jogi could have desired, when he +received a visit from another royal messenger. The Rajah, so ran the regal +missive, had been suddenly and mysteriously attacked by a dangerous malady, +but confidently anticipated relief from Ananda's merits and incantations. + +Ananda resumed his thigh-bone and his skull, and ruefully began to thump +the latter with the former, in dismal expectation of the things that were +to come. But the spell seemed to have lost its potency. Nothing more +unearthly than a bat presented itself, and Ananda was beginning to think +that he might as well desist when his reflections were diverted by the +apparition of a tall and grave personage, wearing a sad-coloured robe, and +carrying a long wand, who stood by his side as suddenly as though just +risen from the earth. + +"The caldron is ready," said the stranger. + +"What caldron?" demanded Ananda. + +"That wherein thou art about to be immersed." + +"I immersed in a caldron! wherefore?" + +"Thy spells," returned his interlocutor, "having hitherto failed to afford +his majesty the slightest relief, and his experience of their efficacy on a +former occasion forbidding him to suppose that they can be inoperative, he +is naturally led to ascribe to their pernicious influence that aggravation +of pain of which he has for some time past unfortunately been sensible. I +have confirmed him in this conjecture, esteeming it for the interest of +science that his anger should fall upon an impudent impostor like thee +rather than on a discreet and learned physician like myself. He has +consequently directed the principal caldron to be kept boiling all night, +intending to immerse thee therein at daybreak, unless he should in the +meantime derive some benefit from thy conjurations." + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Ananda, "whither shall I fly?" + +"Nowhere beyond this cemetery," returned the physician, "inasmuch as it is +entirely surrounded by the royal forces." + +"Wherein, then," demanded the agonized apostle, "doth the path of safety +lie?" + +"In this phial," answered the physician. "It contains a subtle poison. +Demand to be led before the king. Affirm that thou hast received a +sovereign medicine from the hands of benignant spirits. He will drink it +and perish, and thou wilt be richly rewarded by his successor." + +"Ayaunt, tempter!" cried Ananda, hurling the phial indignantly away. "I +defy thee! and will have recourse to my old deliverer--_Gnooh Imdap Inam +Mua!"_ + +But the charm appeared to fail of its effect. No figure was visible to his +gaze, save that of the physician, who seemed to regard him with an +expression of pity as he gathered up his robes and melted rather than +glided into the encompassing darkness. + +Ananda remained, contending with himself. Countless times was he on the +point of calling after the physician and imploring him to return with a +potion of like properties to the one rejected, but something seemed always +to rise in his throat and impede his utterance, until, worn out by +agitation, he fell asleep and dreamed this dream. + +He thought he stood at the vast and gloomy entrance of Patala. [*] The +lugubrious spot wore a holiday appearance; everything seemed to denote a +diabolical gala. Swarms of demons of all shapes and sizes beset the portal, +contemplating what appeared to be preparations for an illumination. Strings +of coloured lamps were in course of disposition in wreaths and festoons by +legions of frolicsome imps, chattering, laughing, and swinging by their +tails like so many monkeys. The operation was directed from below by +superior fiends of great apparent gravity and respectability. These bore +wands of office, tipped with yellow flames, wherewith they singed the tails +of the imps when such discipline appeared to them to be requisite. Ananda +could not refrain from asking the reason of these festive preparations. + +[Footnote: The Hindoo Pandemonium.] + +"They are in honour," responded the demon interrogated, "of the pious +Ananda, one of the apostles of the Lord Buddha, whose advent is hourly +expected among us with much eagerness and satisfaction." + +The horrified Ananda with much difficulty mustered resolution to inquire on +what account the apostle in question was necessitated to take up his abode +in the infernal regions. + +"On account of poisoning," returned the fiend laconically. + +Ananda was about to seek further explanations, when his attention was +arrested by a violent altercation between two of the supervising demons. + +"Kammuragha, evidently," croaked one. + +"Damburanana, of course," snarled the other. + +"May I," inquired Ananda of the fiend he had before addressed, "presume to +ask the signification of Kammuragha and Damburanana?" + +"They are two hells," replied the demon. "In Kammuragha the occupant is +plunged into melted pitch and fed with melted lead. In Damburanana he is +plunged into melted lead and fed with melted pitch. My colleagues are +debating which is the more appropriate to the demerits of our guest +Ananda." + +Ere Ananda had had time to digest this announcement a youthful imp +descended from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, +presented himself before the disputants. + +"Venerable demons," interposed he, "might my insignificance venture to +suggest that we cannot well testify too much honour for our visitor Ananda, +seeing that he is the only apostle of Buddha with whose company we are +likely ever to be indulged? Wherefore I would propose that neither +Kammuragha nor Damburanana be assigned for his residence, but that the +amenities of all the two hundred and forty-four thousand hells be combined +in a new one, constructed especially for his reception." + +The imp having thus spoken, the senior demons were amazed at his precocity, +and performed a _pradakshina_, exclaiming, "Truly thou art a highly +superior young devil!" They then departed to prepare the new infernal +chamber, agreeably to his recipe. + +Ananda awoke, shuddering with terror. + +"Why," he exclaimed, "why was I ever an apostle? O Buddha! Buddha! how hard +are the paths of saintliness! How prone to error are the well-meaning! How +huge is the absurdity of spiritual pride!" + +"Thou hast discovered that, my son?" said a gentle voice in his vicinity. + +He turned and beheld the divine Buddha, radiant with a mild and benignant +light. A cloud seemed rolled away from his vision, and he recognised in his +master the Glendoveer, the Jogi, and the Physician. + +"O holy teacher!" exclaimed he in extreme perturbation, "whither shall I +turn? My sin forbids me to approach thee." + +"Not on account of thy sin art thou forbidden, my son," returned Buddha, +"but on account of the ridiculous and unsavoury plight to which thy knavery +and disobedience have reduced thee. I have now appeared to remind thee that +this day all my apostles meet on Mount Vindhya to render an account of +their mission, and to inquire whether I am to deliver thine in thy stead, +or whether thou art minded to proclaim it thyself." + +"I will render it with my own lips," resolutely exclaimed Ananda. "It is +meet that I should bear the humiliation of acknowledging my folly." + +"Thou hast said well, my son," replied Buddha, "and in return I will permit +thee to discard the attire, if such it may be termed, of a Jogi, and to +appear in our assembly wearing the yellow robe as beseems my disciple. Nay, +I will even infringe my own rule on thy behalf, and perform a not +inconsiderable miracle by immediately transporting thee to the summit of +Vindhya, where the faithful are already beginning to assemble. Thou wouldst +otherwise incur much risk of being torn to pieces by the multitude, who, as +the shouts now approaching may instruct thee, are beginning to extirpate my +religion at the instigation of the new king, thy hopeful pupil. The old +king is dead, poisoned by the Brahmins." + +"O master! master!" exclaimed Ananda, weeping bitterly, "and is all the +work undone, and all by my fault and folly?" + +"That which is built on fraud and imposture can by no means endure," +returned Buddha, "be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou shalt +proclaim my doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast this time +but a sorry account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou mayest truly +declare that thou hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if not in the +spirit, since none can assert that thou hast ever wrought any miracle." + + + + +THE CITY OF PHILOSOPHERS + + + +I + + +Nature is manifold, not infinite, though the extent of the resources of +which she can dispose almost enables her to pass for such. Her cards are so +multitudinous that the pairs are easily shuffled into ages so far asunder +that their resemblance escapes remark. But sometimes her mischievous +daughter Fortune manages to thrust these duplicates into such conspicuous +places that their similarity cannot pass unobserved, and Nature is caught +plagiarising from herself. She is thus detected dealing a king--or +knave--a second time in the person of a king who has already fallen from +her pack as an emperor. Brilliant, careless, selfish, yet good-natured +_vauriens_, the Roman Emperor Gallienus and our Charles the Second excelled +in every art save the art of reigning, and might have excelled in that also +if they would have taken the trouble. The circumstances of their reigns +were in many respects as similar as their characters. Both were the sons of +grave and strict fathers, each of whom had met with terrible misfortunes: +one deprived of his liberty by his enemies, the other of his head by his +own subjects. Each of the sons had been grievously vexed by rebels, but +Charles's troubles from this quarter had mostly ended where those of +Gallienus began. Each saw his dominions ravaged by pestilence in a manner +beyond all former experience. The Goths destroyed the temple of the +Ephesian Diana, and the Dutch burned the English fleet at Chatham. Charles +shut up the Exchequer, and Gallienus debased the coinage. Charles accepted +a pension from Louis XIV., and Gallienus devolved the burden of his Eastern +provinces on a Syrian Emir. Their tastes and pursuits were as similar as +their histories. Charles excelled as a wit and a critic; Gallienus as a +poet and a gastronomer. Charles was curious about chemistry, and founded +the Royal Society. In the third century the conception of the systematic +investigation of nature did not exist. Gallienus, therefore, could not +patronise exact science; and the great literary light of the age, Longinus, +irradiated the court of Palmyra. But the Emperor bestowed his favour in +ample measure on the chief contemporary philosopher, Plotinus, who strove +to unite the characters of Plato and Pythagoras, of sage and seer. Like +Schelling in time to come, he maintained the necessity of a special organ +for the apprehension of philosophy, without perceiving that he thereby +proclaimed philosophy bankrupt, and placed himself on the level of the +Oriental hierophants, with whose sublime quackeries the modest sage could +not hope to contend. So extreme was his humility, that he would not claim +to have been consciously united to the Divinity more than four times in his +life; without condemning magic and thaumaturgy, he left their practice to +more adventurous spirits, and contented himself with the occasional visits +of a familiar demon in the shape of a serpent. He experienced, however, +frequent visitations of trance or ecstasy, sometimes lasting for a long +period; and it may have been in one of these that he was inspired by the +idea of asking the Emperor for a decayed city in Campania, there to +establish a philosophic commonwealth as nearly upon the model of Plato's +Republic as the degeneracy of the times would allow. + +"I cannot," said Gallienus, when the project had been explained to him, +"object in principle to aught so festive and jocose. The age is turned +upside down; its comedians are lamentable, and its sages ludicrous. It must +moreover, I apprehend, be sated with the earthquakes, famines, pestilences, +and barbarian invasions with which it hath been exclusively regaled for so +long, and must crave something enlivening, of the nature of thy +proposition. But whether, when we arrive at the consideration of ways and +means, I shall find my interview with my treasurer enlivening, is gravely +to be questioned. I have heard homilies enough on my prodigality, which +merely means that I prefer spending my treasures on myself to saving them +for my successor, whose title will probably have been acquired by cutting +my throat." + +"I know," said Plotinus, "that the expenses of administering an empire must +necessarily be prodigious. I am aware that the principal generals are only +kept to their allegiance by enormous bribes. I well understand that the +Empress must have pearls, and that the Roman populace must have panthers; +and that, since Egypt has revolted, the hippopotamus is worth his weight in +gold. I am further aware that the proposed colossal statue of your Majesty +in the same metal, including a staircase, with room in the head for a +child, like another Pallas in the brain of Zeus, must alone involve very +considerable outlay. But I am encouraged by your Majesty's wise and +statesmanlike measure of debasing the currency; since, money having become +devoid of value, there can be no difficulty in devoting any amount of it to +any purpose required." + +"Plotinus," said Gallienus, "in this age the devil is taking the hindmost, +and we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in +Bithynia, and three days' darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and +incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to +mention. At this moment some revolted legion is probably forcing the purple +upon some reluctant general; and the Persian king, a great equestrian, is +doubtless mounting his horse by the aid of my father's back. If I had been +an old Roman, I should by this time have avenged my father, but I am a man +of my age. Take the money for thy city, and see that it yields me some +amusement at any rate. I assume, of course, that thou wilt exercise severe +economy, and that cresses and spring water will be the diet of thy +philosophers. Farewell, I go to Gaul to encounter Postumus. Willingly would +I leave him in peace in Gaul if he would leave me in peace in Italy; but I +foresee that if I do not attack him there he will attack me here. As if the +Empire were not large enough for us all! What an ass the fellow must be!" + +And so Gallienus changed his silk for steel, and departed for his Gallic +campaign, where he bore himself more stoutly than his light talk would +have led those who judged him by it to expect. Plotinus, provided with an +Imperial rescript, undertook the regulation of his philosophical +commonwealth in Campania, where a brief experience of architects and +sophists threw him into an ecstasy, not of joy, which endured an unusually +long time. + + + +II + + +On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus's first sensation was one of +bodily hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his +philosophical Republic. In both respects it promised well to perceive that +his chamber was occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry, though he +was less gratified to observe his disciple busied, instead of with the +scrolls of the sages, with an enormous roll of accounts, which appeared to +be occasioning him much perplexity. + +"Porphyry!" cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his couch in +a moment. + +We pass over the mutual joy, the greetings, the administration of +restoratives and creature comforts, the eager interrogations of Porphyry +respecting the things his master had heard and seen in his trance, which +proved to be unspeakable. + +"And now," said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man of +business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special request as +a trustee, "and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it possible that the +accounts connected with the installation of a few abstemious lovers of +wisdom can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk? But indeed, why few? +Peradventure all the philosophers of the earth have flocked to my city." + +"It has, indeed," said Porphyry evasively, "been found necessary to incur +certain expenses not originally foreseen." + +"For a library, perhaps?" inquired Plotinus. "I remember thinking, just +before my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them +autographic, might require some special housing." + +"I rejoice to state," rejoined Porphyry, "that it is not these volumes that +have involved us in our present difficulties with the superintendent of the +Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing that they are now +impignorated with him." + +"Plato's manuscripts pawned!" exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. "Wherefore?" + +"As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects +deemed of more importance by the majority of the philosophers." + +"For example?" + +"Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre." + +"Bath! Amphitheatre!" gasped Plotinus. + +"O dear master," remonstrated Porphyry, "thou didst not deem that +philosophers could be induced to settle in a spot devoid of these +necessaries? Not a single one would have stayed if I had not yielded to +their demands, which, as regarded the bath, involved the addition of +exedrae and of a sphaeristerium." + +"And what can they want with an amphitheatre?" groaned Plotinus. + +"They _say_ it is for lectures," replied Porphyry; "I trust there is no +truth in the rumour that the head of the Stoics is three parts owner of a +lion of singular ferocity." + +"I must see to this as soon as I can get about," said Plotinus, turning to +the accounts. "What's this? To couch and litter for head of Peripatetic +school!" + +"Who is so enormously fat," explained Porphyry, "that these conveniences +are really indispensable to him. The Peripatetic school is positively at a +standstill." + +"And no great matter," said Plotinus; "its master Aristotle was at best a +rationalist, without perception of the supersensual. What's this? To +Maximus, for the invocation of demons." + +"That," said Porphyry, "is our own Platonic dirty linen, and I heartily +wish we were washing it elsewhere. Thou must know, dear master, that during +thy trance the theurgic movement has attained a singular development, and +that thou art regarded with disdain by thy younger disciples as one wholly +behind the age, unacquainted with the higher magic, and who can produce no +other outward and visible token of the Divine favour than the occasional +companionship of a serpent." + +"I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken," replied +Plotinus, "provided that the adept shall have purified himself by a fast of +forty months." + +"It may be from neglect of this precaution," said Porphyry, "that our +Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and +Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good +spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to convey +than that virtue differs from vice, and that one's grandmother is a fitting +object of reverence." + +"I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean +scoffers," remarked Plotinus. + +"O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till thou +hast regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some oracle." + +"What meanest thou?" exclaimed Plotinus, "I insist upon knowing." + +Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling portly +personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus recognised +Theocles, the chief of the Stoics. + +"I rejoice, Plotinus," he began, "that thou hast at length emerged from +that condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might well +designate as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak no word +which can offend any man. Thou wilt now be able to reprehend the malice or +obtuseness of thy deputy, and to do me right in my contention with these +impure dogs." + +"Which be they?" asked Plotinus. + +"Do I not sufficiently indicate the followers of Epicurus?" demanded the +Stoic. + +"O master," explained Porphyry, "in allotting and fitting up apartments +designed for the respective sects of philosophers I naturally gave heed to +what I understood to be the principles of each. To the Epicureans, as +lovers of pleasure and luxury, I assigned the most commodious quarters, +furnished the same with soft cushions and costly hangings, and provided a +liberal table. I should have deemed it insulting to have offered any of +these things to the frugal followers of Zeno, and nothing can surpass my +astonishment at the manner in which the austere Theocles has incessantly +persecuted me for choice food and wine, stately rooms and soft couches." + +"O Plotinus," replied Theocles, "let me make the grounds of my conduct +clear to thee. In the first place, the honour of my school is in my +keeping. What will the vulgar think when they see the sty of Epicurus +sumptuously adorned, and the porch of Zeno shabby and bare? Will they not +deem that the Epicureans are highly respected and the Stoics made of little +account? Furthermore, how can I and my disciples manifest our contempt for +gold, dainties, wine, fine linen, and all the other instruments of luxury, +unless we have them to despise? Shall we not appear like foxes, vilipending +the grapes that we cannot reach? Not so; offer me delicacies that I may +reject them, wine that I may pour it into the kennel, Tyrian purple that I +may trample upon it, gold that I may fling it away; if it break an +Epicurean's head, so much the better." + +"Plotinus," said Hermon, the chief of the Epicureans, who had meanwhile +entered the apartment, "let this hypocrite have what he wants, and send him +away. I and my followers are perfectly willing to remove at once into the +inferior apartments, and leave ours for his occupation with all their +furniture, and the reversion of our bill of fare. Thou should'st know that +the imputations of the vulgar against our sect are the grossest calumnies. +The Epicurean places happiness in tranquil enjoyment, not in luxury or +sensual pleasures. There is not a thing I possess which I am not perfectly +willing to resign, except the society of my female disciple." + +"Thy female disciple!" exclaimed the horrified Plotinus. "Thou art worse +than the Stoic!" + +"Plotinus," said the Epicurean, "consider well ere, as is the manner of +Platonists, thou committest thyself to a proposition of a transparently +foolish nature. Thou desirest to gather all sorts of philosophers around +thee, but to what end, if they are restrained from manifesting their +characteristic tenets? Thou mightest as well seek to illustrate the habits +of animals by establishing a menagerie in which panthers should eat grass, +and antelopes be dieted on rabbits. An Epicurean without his female +companion, unless by his own choice, is no more an Epicurean than a Cynic +is a Cynic without his rags and his impudence. Wilt thou take from me my +Pannychis, an object pleasing to the eye, and leave yonder fellow his +tatters and his vermin?" + +The apartment had gradually filled with philosophers, and Hermon was +pointing to a follower of Diogenes whose robe so fully bespoke his +obedience to his master's precepts that his skin seemed almost clean in +comparison. + +"Consider also," continued the Epicurean, "that thou art thyself by no +means exempt from scandal." + +"What does the man mean?" demanded Plotinus, turning to Porphyry. + +"Get them away," whispered the disciple, "and I will tell thee." + +Plotinus hastily conceded the point raised with reference to the +interesting Pannychis, and the philosophers went off to effect their +exchange of quarters. As soon as the room was clear, he repeated: + +"What _does_ the man mean?" + +"I suppose he is thinking of Leaena," said Porphyry. + +"The most notorious character in Rome, who, finding her charms on the wane, +has lately betaken herself to philosophy?" + +"The same." + +"What of her?" + +"She has followed thee here. She affects the greatest devotion to thee. She +vows that nothing shall make her budge until thou hast recovered from thy +ecstasy, and admitted her as thy disciple. She has rejected numerous +overtures from the philosopher Theocles; entirely for thy sake, she +affirms. She comes three times a day to inquire respecting thy condition, +and I fear it must be acknowledged that she has once or twice managed to +get into thy chamber." + +"O ye immortal Gods!" groaned Plotinus. + +"Here she is!" exclaimed Porphyry, as a woman of masculine stature and +bearing, with the remains of beauty not unskilfully patched, forced an +entrance into the room. + +"Plotinus," she exclaimed, "behold the most impassioned of thy disciples. +Let us celebrate the mystic nuptials of Wisdom and Beauty. Let the claims +of my sex to philosophic distinction be vindicated in my person." + +"The question of the admission of women to share the studies and society of +men," rejoined Plotinus, "is one by no means exempt from difficulty." + +"How so? I deemed it had been determined long ago in favour of Aspasia?" + +"Aspasia," said Plotinus, "was a very exceptional woman." + +"And am not I?" + +"I hope, that is, I conceive so," said Plotinus. "But one may be an +exceptional woman without being an Aspasia." + +"How so? Am I inferior to Aspasia in beauty?" + +"I should hope not," said Plotinus ambiguously. + +"Or in the irregularity of my deportment?" + +"I should think not," said Plotinus, with more confidence. + +"Then why does the Plato of our age hesitate to welcome his Diotima?" + +"Because," said Plotinus, "you are not Diotima, and I am not Plato." + +"I am sure I am as much like Diotima as you are like Plato," retorted the +lady. "But let us come to our own time. Do I not hear that that creature +Pannychis has obtained the freedom of the philosophers' city, and the right +to study therein?" + +"She takes private lessons from Hermon, who is responsible for her." + +"The very thing!" exclaimed Leaena triumphantly. "I take private lessons +from thee, and thou art responsible for me. Venus! what's that?" + +The exclamation was prompted by the sudden appearance of an enormous +serpent, which, emerging from a chink in the wall, glided swiftly towards +the couch of Plotinus. He reached forward to greet it, uttering a cry of +pleasure. + +"My guardian, my tutelary dmon," he exclaimed, "visible manifestation of +sculapius! Then I am not forsaken by the immortal gods." + +"Take away the monster," cried Leaena, in violent agitation, "the nasty +thing! Plotinus, how can you? Oh, I shall faint! I shall die! Take it away, +I say. You must choose between it and me." + +"Then, Madam," said Plotinus, civilly but firmly, "I choose _it_." + +"Thank sculapius we are rid of her," he added, as Leaena vanished from +the apartment. + +"I wish I knew that," said Porphyry. + +And indeed after no long time a note came up from Theocles, who was sure +that Plotinus would not refuse him that privilege of instructing a female +disciple which had been already, with such manifest advantage to +philosophical research, accorded to his colleague Hermon. No objection +could well be made, especially as Plotinus did not foresee how many +chambermaids, and pages, and cooks, and perfumers, and tiring women and +bath attendants would be required, ere Leaena could feel herself moderately +comfortable. How unlike the modest Pannychis! who wanted but half a bed, +which need not be stuffed with the down of hares or the feathers of +partridges, without which sleep refused to visit Leaena's eyelids. + +It was natural that Plotinus should appeal to Gallienus, now returned from +the Gallic expedition, but he could extract nothing save mysterious +intimations that the Emperor had his eye upon the philosophers, and that +they might find him among them when they least expected it. Plotinus's +spirits drooped, and Porphyry was almost glad when he again relapsed into +an ecstasy. + + + +III + + +When Plotinus's eyes were at length opened, they fell not this time upon +the faithful Porphyry, but upon two youthful followers of Plato who were +beguiling the tedium of their vigil at his bedside by a game of dice, which +prevented their observing his resuscitation. After a moment's hesitation +Plotinus resolved to lie quiet in the hopes of hearing something that might +indicate what influences were in the ascendant in the philosophical +republic. He had not long to wait. + +"Dice is dull work for long," said one of the young men, indolently +throwing himself back, and letting his caster fall upon the floor. "To +think how much better one might be employed, but for having to watch this +old fool here! I've a great mind to call up a slave." + +"All the slaves are sure to have gone to the show, unless any of them +should be Christians. Besides, Porphyry would hear you, he's only in a +cat's sleep," returned his companion. + +"Well, I mean to say it's a shame. All the town will be in the theatre by +this time." + +"How many gladiators, said you?" + +"Forty pairs, the best show Campania has seen time out of mind." + +"How has it all come about?" + +"Oh, news comes of the death of Postumus, killed by his own soldiers, and +this passes as a great victory for want of a better, 'We must have a day +of thanksgiving,' says Theocles. 'Right,' says Leaena, 'I am dying to see +an exhibition of gladiators.' Theocles demurs at first, expecting to have +to find the money--but Leaena tugs at his beard, and he gives in. Just at +the nick of time the right sort of fellow pops up nobody knows whence, a +lanista with hair like curling helichryse, as Theocritus has it, and a +small army of gladiators, whom, out of devotion to the Emperor, he offers +to exhibit for nothing. Who so pleased as Theocles now? He takes the chair +as archon with Leaena by his side, and off goes every soul in the place, +except Pannychis, who cannot bear the sight of blood, and Porphyry, who is +an outrageous humanitarian, and us poor devils left in charge of this old +dreamer." + +"Couldn't we leave him to mind himself? He isn't likely to awake yet." + +"Try him with your cloak-pin." The student detached the implement in +question, which was about the size of a small stiletto. Feeling uncertain +what part of his person was to be the subject of experiment, Plotinus +judged it advisable to manifest his recovery in an unmistakable fashion. + +"O dear Master, what joy!" cried both the students in a breath. "Porphyry! +Porphyry!" + +The trusty scholar appeared immediately, and under pretence of fetching +food, the two neophytes eloped to the amphitheatre. + +"What means all this, Porphyry?" demanded Plotinus sternly. "The City of +Philosophers polluted by human blood! The lovers of wisdom mingling with +the dregs of the rabble!" + +Porphyry's account, which Plotinus could only extract by consenting to eat +while his disciple talked, corresponded in all essential particulars with +that of the two young men. + +"And I see not," added he, "what we can do in the matter. This abomination +is supposed to be in honour of the Emperor's victories. If we interfere +with it we shall be executed as rebels, supposing that we are not first +torn to pieces as rioters." + +"Porphyry," replied Plotinus, "I should esteem this disgrace to philosophy +a disgrace to myself if I did not my utmost to avert it. Remain thou here, +and perform my funeral rites if it be necessary." + +But to this Porphyry would by no means consent, and the two philosophers +proceeded to the amphitheatre together. It was so crowded that there was no +room on the seats for another person. Theocles was enthroned in the chair +of honour, his beard manifesting evident traces of the depilatories +administered by Leaena, who nevertheless sat by his side, her voluptuous +face gloating over the anticipated banquet of agony. The philosophic part +of the spectators were ranged all around, the remaining seats were occupied +by a miscellaneous public. The master of the gladiators, a man of +distinguished appearance, whose yellow locks gave him the aspect of a +barbarian prince, stood in the arena surrounded by his myrmidons. The entry +of Plotinus and Porphyry attracted his attention: he motioned to his +followers, and in an instant the philosophers were seized, bound, and +gagged without the excited assembly being in the least conscious of their +presence. + +Two men stepped out into the arena, both fine and attractive figures. The +athletic limbs, the fair complexion, the curling yellow hair of one +proclaimed the Goth; he lightly swung his huge sword in his right hand, and +looked as if his sole arm would easily put to flight the crowd of +effeminate spectators. The other's beauty was of another sort; young, +slender, pensive, spiritual, he looked like anything rather than a +gladiator, and held his downward pointed sword with a negligent grasp. + +"Guard thyself!" cried the Goth, placing himself in an attitude of offence. + +"I spill not the blood of a fellow-creature," answered the other, casting +his sword away from him. + +"Coward!" yelled well-nigh every voice in the amphitheatre. + +"No," answered the youth with a grave smile, "Christian." + +His shield and helmet followed his sword, he stood entirely defenceless +before his adversary. + +"Throw him to my lion," cried Theocles. + +"Or thy lioness," suggested Hermon. + +This allusion to Leaena provoked a burst of laughter. Suddenly the Goth +aimed a mighty blow at the head of the unresisting man. A shorn curl fell +to the ground, the consummate skill of the swordsman averted all further +contact between his blade and the Christian, who remained erect and +smiling, without having moved a muscle or an eyelash. + +"Master," said the Goth, addressing the lanista, "I had rather fight ten +armed men than this unarmed one." + +"Good," returned his lord, with a gesture of approval. "Retire both of +you." + +A roar of disapprobation broke out from the spectators, which seemed not to +produce the slightest effect on the lanista. + +"Turn out the next pair," they cried. + +"I shall not," said he. + +"Wherefore?" + +"Because I do not choose." + +"Rogue! Cheat! Swindler! Cast him into prison! Throw him to the lion!" Such +epithets and recommendations rained from the spectators' seats, accompanied +by a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant the yellow hair +and common dress lay on the ground, and those who knew him not by the +features could by the Imperial ornaments recognise the Emperor Gallienus. +With no less celerity his followers, the Goth and the Christian excepted, +disencumbered themselves of their exterior vesture, and stood forward in +the character of Roman soldiers. + +"Friends," cried Gallienus, turning to the plebeian multitude, "I am not +about to balk you of your sport." + +At a sign from him the legionaries ascended to the seats allotted to the +philosophic portion of the audience, and a torrent of wisdom in their +persons, including that of Leaena, flung forth with the energy of a +catapult, descended abruptly and violently to the earth. They were +instantly seized and dragged into an erect attitude by the remainder of the +soldiery, who, amid the most tempestuous peals of laughter and applause +from the delighted public, thrust swords into their hands, ranged them in +opposite ranks, and summoned them to begin the fight and quit themselves +like men. It was equally ludicrous and pitiable to see the bald, mostly +grey-bearded men, their garments torn in their expulsion and their persons +bruised by the fall, confronting each other with quaking limbs, helplessly +brandishing their weapons or feebly calling their adversaries to come on, +while the soldiers prodded them from behind with spears, and urged them +into the close quarters they so anxiously desired to avoid. Plotinus, +helpless with his bonds and gag, looked on in impotent horror. Gallienus +was often cruel, but could he intend such a revolting massacre? There must +be something behind. + +The honour of developing the Emperor's purpose was reserved for Theocles, +who, with admirable presence of mind, had ever since he found he must fight +been engaged in trying to select the weakest antagonist. After hesitating +between the unwieldy chief of the Peripatetics and the feminine Leaena he +fixed on the latter, partly moved, perhaps, by the hope of avenging his +beard. With a martial cry he sprang towards her, and upraised his weapon +for a swashing blow. But he had sadly miscalculated. Leaena was hardly less +versed in the combats of Mars than in those of Venus, having, in fact, +commenced her distinguished career as a camp-follower of the Emperor +Gordian. A tremendous stroke caught him on the hand; his blade dropped to +the earth; why did not the fingers follow? Leaena elucidated the problem by +a still more violent blow on his face; torrents of blood gushed forth +indeed, but only from the nose. The sword doubled up; it had neither point +nor edge. Encouraged by this opportune discovery the philosophers attacked +each other with infinite spirit and valour. Infuriated by the blows given +and received, by the pokings and proddings of the military, and the +hilarious derision of the public, they cast away the shivered blades and +resorted to the weapons of Nature. They kicked, they cuffed, they +scratched, they tore the garments from each other's shoulders, they foamed +and rolled gasping in the yellow sand of the arena. At a signal from the +Emperor the portal of the amphitheatre was thrown open, and the whole mass +of clawing and cuffing philosophy was bundled ignominiously into the +street. + +By this time Gallienus was seated on his tribunal, and Plotinus, released +from his bonds, was standing by his side. + +"O Emperor," he murmured, deeply abashed, "what can I urge? Thou wilt +surely demolish my city!" + +"No, Plotinus," replied Gallienus, pointing to the Goth and the Christian, +"there are the men who will destroy the City of Philosophers. Would that +were all they will destroy!" + + + + +THE DEMON POPE + + +"So you won't sell me your soul?" said the devil. + +"Thank you," replied the student, "I had rather keep it myself, if it's all +the same to you." + +"But it's not all the same to me. I want it very particularly. Come, I'll +be liberal. I said twenty years. You can have thirty." + +The student shook his head. + +"Forty!" + +Another shake. + +"Fifty!" + +As before. + +"Now," said the devil, "I know I'm going to do a foolish thing, but I +cannot bear to see a clever, spirited young man throw himself away. I'll +make you another kind of offer. We won't have any bargain at present, but I +will push you on in the world for the next forty years. This day forty +years I come back and ask you for a boon; not your soul, mind, or anything +not perfectly in your power to grant. If you give it, we are quits; if not, +I fly away with you. What say you to this?" + +The student reflected for some minutes. "Agreed," he said at last. + +Scarcely had the devil disappeared, which he did instantaneously, ere a +messenger reined in his smoking steed at the gate of the University of +Cordova (the judicious reader will already have remarked that Lucifer could +never have been allowed inside a Christian seat of learning), and, +inquiring for the student Gerbert, presented him with the Emperor Otho's +nomination to the Abbacy of Bobbio, in consideration, said the document, of +his virtue and learning, well-nigh miraculous in one so young. Such +messengers were frequent visitors during Gerbert's prosperous career. +Abbot, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, he was ultimately enthroned Pope on +April 2, 999, and assumed the appellation of Silvester the Second. It was +then a general belief that the world would come to an end in the following +year, a catastrophe which to many seemed the more imminent from the +election of a chief pastor whose celebrity as a theologian, though not +inconsiderable, by no means equalled his reputation as a necromancer. + +The world, notwithstanding, revolved scatheless through the dreaded +twelvemonth, and early in the first year of the eleventh century Gerbert +was sitting peacefully in his study, perusing a book of magic. Volumes of +algebra, astrology, alchemy, Aristotelian philosophy, and other such light +reading filled his bookcase; and on a table stood an improved clock of his +invention, next to his introduction of the Arabic numerals his chief legacy +to posterity. Suddenly a sound of wings was heard, and Lucifer stood by his +side. + +"It is a long time," said the fiend, "since I have had the pleasure of +seeing you. I have now called to remind you of our little contract, +concluded this day forty years." + +"You remember," said Silvester, "that you are not to ask anything exceeding +my power to perform." + +"I have no such intention," said Lucifer. "On the contrary, I am about to +solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope, I desire +that you would make me a Cardinal. + +"In the expectation, I presume," returned Gerbert, "of becoming Pope on the +next vacancy." + +"An expectation," replied Lucifer, "which I may most reasonably entertain, +considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue, and the present +condition of the Sacred College." + +"You would doubtless," said Gerbert, "endeavour to subvert the foundations +of the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and licentiousness, render the +Holy See odious and contemptible." + +"On the contrary," said the fiend, "I would extirpate heresy, and all +learning and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer no +man to read but the priest, and confine his reading to his breviary. I +would burn your books together with your bones on the first convenient +opportunity. I would observe an austere propriety of conduct, and be +especially careful not to loosen one rivet in the tremendous yoke I was +forging for the minds and consciences of mankind." + +"If it be so," said Gerbert, "let's be off!" + +"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, "you are willing to accompany me to the infernal +regions!" + +"Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and Aristotle, +and give place to the darkness against which I have been contending all my +life." + +"Gerbert," replied the demon, "this is arrant trifling. Know you not that +no good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing possible, my +empire would become intolerable to me, and I should be compelled to +abdicate?" + +"I do know it," said Gerbert, "and hence I have been able to receive your +visit with composure." + +"Gerbert," said the devil, with tears in his eyes, "I put it to you--is +this fair, is this honest? I undertake to promote your interests in the +world; I fulfil my promise abundantly. You obtain through my +instrumentality a position to which you could never otherwise have aspired. +Often have I had a hand in the election of a Pope, but never before have I +contributed to confer the tiara on one eminent for virtue and learning. You +profit by my assistance to the full, and now take advantage of an +adventitious circumstance to deprive me of my reasonable guerdon. It is my +constant experience that the good people are much more slippery than the +sinners, and drive much harder bargains." + +"Lucifer," answered Gerbert, "I have always sought to treat you as a +gentleman, hoping that you would approve yourself such in return. I will +not inquire whether it was entirely in harmony with this character to seek +to intimidate me into compliance with your demand by threatening me with a +penalty which you well knew could not be enforced. I will overlook this +little irregularity, and concede even more than you have requested. You +have asked to be a Cardinal. I will make you Pope--" + +"Ha!" exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide, as +the light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it. + +"For twelve hours," continued Gerbert. "At the expiration of that time we +will consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are more +anxious to divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to assume it, +I promise to bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my power to grant, +and not plainly inconsistent with religion or morals." + +"Done!" cried the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in a +moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely indistinguishable +save by their attire, and the fact that one limped slightly with the left +foot. + +"You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard," said Gerbert, and, +taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked door to a +secret chamber. As the door closed behind him he chuckled, and muttered to +himself, "Poor old Lucifer! Sold again!" + +If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it. He approached a large slab +of silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his personal +appearance with some dissatisfaction. + +"I certainly don't look half so well without my horns," he soliloquised, +"and I am sure I shall miss my tail most grievously." + +A tiara and a train, however, made fair amends for the deficient +appendages, and Lucifer now looked every inch a Pope. He was about to call +the master of the ceremonies, and summon a consistory, when the door was +burst open, and seven cardinals, brandishing poniards, rushed into the +room. + +"Down with the sorcerer!" they cried, as they seized and gagged him. + +"Death to the Saracen!" + +"Practises algebra, and other devilish arts!" + +"Knows Greek!" + +"Talks Arabic!" + +"Reads Hebrew!" + +"Burn him!" + +"Smother him!" + +"Let him be deposed by a general council," said a young and inexperienced +Cardinal. + +"Heaven forbid!" said an old and wary one, _sotto voce_. + +Lucifer struggled frantically, but the feeble frame he was doomed to +inhabit for the next eleven hours was speedily exhausted. Bound and +helpless, he swooned away. + +"Brethren," said one of the senior cardinals, "it hath been delivered by +the exorcists that a sorcerer or other individual in league with the demon +doth usually bear upon his person some visible token of his infernal +compact. I propose that we forthwith institute a search for this stigma, +the discovery of which may contribute to justify our proceedings in the +eyes of the world." + +"I heartily approve of our brother Anno's proposition," said another, "the +rather as we cannot possibly fail to discover such a mark, if, indeed, we +desire to find it." + +The search was accordingly instituted, and had not proceeded far ere a +simultaneous yell from all the seven cardinals indicated that their +investigation had brought more to light than they had ventured to expect. + +The Holy Father had a cloven foot! + +For the next five minutes the Cardinals remained utterly stunned, silent, +and stupefied with amazement. As they gradually recovered their faculties +it would have become manifest to a nice observer that the Pope had risen +very considerably in their good opinion. + +"This is an affair requiring very mature deliberation," said one. + +"I always feared that we might be proceeding too precipitately," said +another. + +"It is written, 'the devils believe,'" said a third: "the Holy Father, +therefore, is not a heretic at any rate." + +"Brethren," said Anno, "this affair, as our brother Benno well remarks, +doth indeed call for mature deliberation. I therefore propose that, instead +of smothering his Holiness with cushions, as originally contemplated, we +immure him for the present in the dungeon adjoining hereunto, and, after +spending the night in meditation and prayer, resume the consideration of +the business tomorrow morning." + +"Informing the officials of the palace," said Benno, "that his Holiness has +retired for his devotions, and desires on no account to be disturbed." + +"A pious fraud," said Anno, "which not one of the Fathers would for a +moment have scrupled to commit." + +The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and bore him +carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for his detention. +Each would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery, but each felt that +the eyes of his six brethren were upon him: and all, therefore, retired +simultaneously, each taking a key of the cell. + +Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards. He had the +most confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in his +present scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were the usual +concomitants of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to his taste, and +he wished he had been made acquainted with them sooner. The dungeon was not +only perfectly dark, but horribly cold, and the poor devil in his present +form had no latent store of infernal heat to draw upon. His teeth +chattered, he shivered in every limb, and felt devoured with hunger and +thirst. There is much probability in the assertion of some of his +biographers that it was on this occasion that he invented ardent spirits; +but, even if he did, the mere conception of a glass of brandy could only +increase his sufferings. So the long January night wore wearily on, and +Lucifer seemed likely to expire from inanition, when a key turned in the +lock, and Cardinal Anno cautiously glided in, bearing a lamp, a loaf, half +a cold roast kid, and a bottle of wine. + +"I trust," he said, bowing courteously, "that I may be excused any slight +breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from the +difficulty under which I labour of determining whether, under present +circumstances, 'Your Holiness,' or 'Your Infernal Majesty' be the form of +address most befitting me to employ." + +"Bub-ub-bub-boo," went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "I crave your Infernal Holiness's +forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!" + +And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the refection, +upon which the demon fell voraciously. + +"Why the devil, if I may so express myself," pursued Anno, "did not your +Holiness inform us that you _were_ the devil? Not a hand would then have +been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my life for the +audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust of your faithful +Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously these many years?" + +Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters. + +"I shall never forgive myself," protested the Cardinal, "for the part I +have borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to your +Majesty's bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart as +to express my penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to remember that I +believed myself to be acting in your Majesty's interest by overthrowing a +magician who was accustomed to send your Majesty upon errands, and who +might at any time enclose you in a box, and cast you into the sea. It is +deplorable that your Majesty's most devoted servants should have been thus +misled." + +"Reasons of State," suggested Lucifer. + +"I trust that they no longer operate," said the Cardinal. "However, the +Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is therefore +unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject further. I would now +humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, perhaps, your +Holiness, since I am about to speak of spiritual things, on the important +and delicate point of your Holiness's successor. I am ignorant how long +your Holiness proposes to occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are +aware that public opinion will not suffer you to hold it for a term +exceeding that of the pontificate of Peter. A vacancy, therefore, must one +day occur; and I am humbly to represent that the office could not be filled +by one more congenial than myself to the present incumbent, or on whom he +could more fully rely to carry out in every respect his views and +intentions." + +And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past +life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion. He had not, +however, proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another key +in the lock, and had just time to whisper impressively, "Beware of Benno," +ere he dived under a table. + +Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands. Warned by the +other lamp and the remains of Lucifer's repast that some colleague had been +beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be in the field, +he came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and preferred his +claim in much the same manner as Anno. While he was earnestly cautioning +Lucifer against this Cardinal as one who could and would cheat the very +Devil himself, another key turned in the lock, and Benno escaped under the +table, where Anno immediately inserted his finger into his right eye. The +little squeal consequent upon this occurrence Lucifer successfully +smothered by a fit of coughing. + +Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the same +disgust as Benno on seeing himself forestalled. So far as his requests +transpired they were moderate, but no one knows where he would have stopped +if he had not been scared by the advent of Cardinal No. 4. Up to this time +he had only asked for an inexhaustible purse, power to call up the Devil +_ad libitum_, and a ring of invisibility to allow him free access to his +mistress, who was unfortunately a married woman. + +Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning Cardinal +No. 5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as respected Cardinal +No. 4. + +Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the Archbishoprics +of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them together, and of +unlimited non-residence. In the course of his harangue he made use of the +phrase _non obstantibus_, of which Lucifer immediately took a note. + +What the seventh Cardinal would have solicited is not known, for he had +hardly opened his mouth when the twelfth hour expired, and Lucifer, +regaining his vigour with his shape, sent the Prince of the Church spinning +to the other end of the room, and split the marble table with a single +stroke of his tail. The six crouched and huddling Cardinals cowered +revealed to one another, and at the same time enjoyed the spectacle of his +Holiness darting through the stone ceiling, which yielded like a film to +his passage, and closed up afterwards as if nothing had happened. After the +first shock of dismay they unanimously rushed to the door, but found it +bolted on the outside. There was no other exit, and no means of giving an +alarm. In this emergency the demeanour of the Italian Cardinals set a +bright example to their ultramontane colleagues. "_Bisogna pazienzia_," +they said, as they shrugged their shoulders. Nothing could exceed the +mutual politeness of Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless that of the two who +had sought to poison each other. The Frenchman was held to have gravely +derogated from good manners by alluding to this circumstance, which had +reached his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman swore so +outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians then +and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should ever be +Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to this day. + +Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed in all +the insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he thought his +visitor had probably had enough. + +"I should think so indeed," replied Lucifer. "But at the same time I feel +myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of the +loyalty of my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is needless +for me to devote any considerable amount of personal attention to +ecclesiastical affairs. I now claim the promised boon, which it will be in +no way inconsistent with thy functions to grant, seeing that it is a work +of mercy. I demand that the Cardinals be released, and that their +conspiracy against thee, by which I alone suffered, be buried in oblivion." + +"I hoped you would carry them all off," said Gerbert, with an expression of +disappointment. + +"Thank you," said the Devil. "It is more to my interest to leave them where +they are." + +So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth, sheepish +and crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than Lucifer had +expected from them, the cause was their entire bewilderment by what had +passed, and their utter inability to penetrate the policy of Gerbert, who +henceforth devoted himself even with ostentation to good works. They could +never quite satisfy themselves whether they were speaking to the Pope or to +the Devil, and when under the latter impression habitually emitted +propositions which Gerbert justly stigmatised as rash, temerarious, and +scandalous. They plagued him with allusions to certain matters mentioned in +their interviews with Lucifer, with which they naturally but erroneously +supposed him to be conversant, and worried him by continual nods and +titterings as they glanced at his nether extremities. To abolish this +nuisance, and at the same time silence sundry unpleasant rumours which had +somehow got abroad, Gerbert devised the ceremony of kissing the Pope's +feet, which, in a grievously mutilated form, endures to this day. The +stupefaction of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy Father had lost +his hoof surpasses all description, and they went to their graves without +having obtained the least insight into the mystery. + + + + +THE CUPBEARER + + +The minister Photinius had fallen, to the joy of Constantinople. He had +taken sanctuary in the immense monastery adjoining the Golden Gate in the +twelfth region of the city, founded for a thousand monks by the patrician +Studius, in the year 463. There he occupied himself with the concoction of +poisons, the resource of fallen statesmen. When a defeated minister of our +own day is indisposed to accept his discomfiture, he applies himself to +poison the public mind, inciting the lower orders against the higher, and +blowing up every smouldering ember of sedition he can discover, trusting +that the conflagration thus kindled, though it consume the edifice of the +State, will not fail to roast his own egg. Photinius's conceptions of +mischief were less refined; he perfected his toxicological knowledge in the +medical laboratory of the monastery, and sought eagerly for an opportunity +of employing it; whether in an experiment upon the Emperor, or on his own +successor, or on some other personage, circumstances must determine. + +The sanctity of Studius's convent, and the strength of its monastic +garrison, rendered it a safe refuge for disgraced courtiers, and in this +thirtieth year of the Emperor Basil the Second (reckoning from his nominal +accession) it harboured a legion of ex-prime ministers, patriarchs, +archbishops, chief secretaries, hypati, anthypati, silentiarii, +protospatharii, and even spatharo-candidati. And this small army was +nothing to the host that, maimed or blinded or tonsured or all three, +dragged out their lives in monasteries or in dungeons or on rocky islets; +and these again were few in comparison with the spirits of the traitors or +the betrayed who wailed nightly amid the planes and cypresses of the +Aretae, or stalked through the palatial apartments of verdantique and +porphyry. But of those comparatively at liberty, but whose liberty was +circumscribed by the hallowed precincts of Studius, every soul was +plotting. And never, perhaps, in the corrupt Byzantine Court, where true +friendship had been unknown since Theodora quarrelled with Antonia, had so +near an approach to it existed as in this asylum of villains. A sort of +freemasonry came to prevail in the sanctuary: every one longed to know how +his neighbour's plot throve, and grudged not to buy the knowledge by +disclosing a little corner of his own. Thus rendered communicative, their +colloquies would travel back into the past, and as the veterans of intrigue +fought their battles over again, the most experienced would learn things +that made them open their eyes with amazement. "Ah!" they would hear, "that +is just where you were mistaken. You had bought Eromenus, but so had I, and +old Nicephorus had outbid us both." "You deemed the dancer Anthusa a sure +card, and knew not of her secret infirmity, of which I had been apprised by +her waiting woman." "Did you really know nothing of that sliding panel? And +were you ignorant that whatever one says in the blue chamber is heard in +the green?" "Yes, I thought so too, and I spent a mint of money before +finding out that the dog whose slaver that brazen impostor Panurgiades +pretended to sell me was no more mad than he was." After such rehearsals of +future dialogues by the banks of Styx, the fallen statesmen were observed +to appear exceedingly dejected, but the stimulus had become necessary to +their existence. None gossiped so freely or disclosed so much as Photinius +and his predecessor Eustathius, whom he had himself displaced--probably +because Eustathius, believing in nothing in heaven or earth but gold, and +labouring under an absolute privation of that metal, was regarded even by +himself as an extinct volcano. + +"Well," observed he one day, when discoursing with Photinius is an +unusually confidential mood, "I am free to say that for my own part I don't +think over much of poison. It has its advantages, to be sure, but to my +mind the disadvantages are even more conspicuous." + +"For example?" inquired Photinius, who had the best reason for confiding in +the efficacy of a drag administered with dexterity and discretion. + +"Two people must be in the secret at least, if not three," replied +Eustathius, "and cooks, as a rule, are a class of persons entirely unfit to +be employed in affairs of State." + +"The Court physician," suggested Photinius. + +"Is only available," answered Eustathius, "in case his Majesty should send +for him, which is most improbable. If he ever did, poison, praised be the +Lord! would be totally unnecessary and entirely superfluous." + +"My dear friend," said Photinius, venturing at this favourable moment on a +question he had been dying to ask ever since he had been an inmate of the +convent, "would you mind telling me in confidence, did you ever administer +any potion of a deleterious nature to his Sacred Majesty?" + +"Never!" protested Eustathius, with fervour. "I tried once, to be sure, but +it was no use." + +"What was the impediment?" + +"The perverse opposition of the cupbearer. It is idle attempting anything +of the kind as long as she is about the Emperor." + +"_She_!" exclaimed Photinius. + +"Don't you know _that_?" responded Eustathius, with an air and manner that +plainly said, "You don't know much." + +Humbled and ashamed, Photinius nevertheless wisely stooped to avow his +nescience, and flattering his rival on his superior penetration, led him to +divulge the State secret that the handsome cupbearer Helladius was but the +disguise of the lovely Helladia, the object of Basil's tenderest affection, +and whose romantic attachment to his person had already frustrated more +conspiracies than the aged plotter could reckon up. + +This intelligence made Photinius for a season exceedingly thoughtful. He +had not deemed Basil of an amorous complexion. At length he sent for his +daughter, the beautiful and virtuous Euprepia, who from time to time +visited him in the monastery. + +"Daughter," he said, "it appears to me that the time has now arrived when +thou mayest with propriety present a petition to the Emperor on behalf of +thy unfortunate father. Here is the document. It is, I flatter myself, +composed with no ordinary address; nevertheless I will not conceal from +thee that I place my hopes rather on thy beauty of person than on my beauty +of style. Shake down thy hair and dishevel it, so!--that is excellent. +Remember to tear thy robe some little in the poignancy of thy woe, and to +lose a sandal. Tears and sobs of course thou hast always at command, but +let not the frenzy of thy grief render thee wholly inarticulate. Here is a +slight memorandum of what is most fitting for thee to say: thy old nurse's +instructions will do the rest. Light a candle for St. Sergius, and watch +for a favourable opportunity." + +Euprepia was upright, candid, and loyal; but the best of women has +something of the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was +stimulated by her filial affection. Basil was for a moment fairly carried +away by the consummate fact of her performance and the genuine feeling to +her appeal; but he was himself again by the time he had finished perusing +his late minister's long-winded and mendacious memorial. + +"What manner of woman was thy mother?" he inquired kindly + +Euprepia was eloquent in praise of her deceased parent's perfections of +mind and person. + +"Then I can believe thee Photinius's daughter, which I might otherwise have +doubted," returned Basil. "As concerns him, I can only say, if he feels +himself innocent, let him come out of sanctuary, and stand his trial. But I +will give thee a place at Court." + +This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully +consented to his daughter's entering the Imperial court, exulting at +having got in the thin end of the wedge. She was attached to the person of +the Emperor's sister-in-law, the "Slayer of the Bulgarians" himself being a +most determined bachelor. + +Time wore on. Euprepia's opportunities of visiting her father were less +frequent than formerly. At last she came, looking thoroughly miserable, +distracted, and forlorn. + +"What ails thee, child?" he inquired anxiously. + +"Oh, father, in what a frightful position do I find myself!" + +"Speak," he said, "and rely on my counsel." + +"When I entered the Court," she proceeded, "I found at first but one human +creature I could love or trust, and he--let me so call him--seemed to +make up for the deficiencies of all the rest. It was the cupbearer +Helladius." + +"I hope he is still thy friend," interrupted Photinius. "The good graces of +an Imperial cupbearer are always important, and I would have bought those +of Helladius with a myriad of bezants." + +"They were not to be thus obtained, father," said she. "The purest +disinterestedness, the noblest integrity, the most unselfish devotion, were +the distinction of my friend. And such beauty! I cannot, I must not conceal +that my heart was soon entirely his. But--most strange it seemed to me +then--it was long impossible for me to tell whether Helladius loved me or +loved me not. The most perfect sympathy existed between us: we seemed one +heart and one soul: and yet, and yet, Helladius never gave the slightest +indication of the sentiments which a young man might be supposed to +entertain for a young girl. Vainly did I try every innocent wile that a +modest maiden may permit herself: he was ever the friend, never the lover. +At length, after long pining between despairing fondness and wounded pride, +I myself turned away, and listened to one who left me in no doubt of the +sincerity of his passion." + +"Who?" + +"The Emperor! And, to shorten the story of my shame, I became his +mistress." + +"The saints be praised!" shouted Photinius. "O my incomparable daughter!" + +"Father!" cried Euprepia, blushing and indignant. "But let me hurry on with +my wretched tale. In proportion as the Emperor's affection became more +marked, Helladius, hitherto so buoyant and serene, became a visible prey to +despondency. Some scornful beauty, I deemed, was inflicting on him the +tortures he had previously inflicted upon me, and, cured of my unhappy +attachment, and entirely devoted to my Imperial lover, I did all in my +power to encourage him. He received my comfort with gratitude, nor did it, +as I had feared might happen, seem to excite the least lover-like feeling +towards me on his own part." + +"Euprepia," he said only two days ago, "never in this Court have I met one +like thee. Thou art the soul of honour and generosity. I can safely trust +thee with a secret which my bursting heart can no longer retain, but which +I dread to breathe even to myself. Know first I am not what I seem, I am a +woman!" And opening his vest--" + +"We know all about that already," interrupted Photinius. "Get on!" + +"If thou knowest this already, father," said the astonished Euprepia, "thou +wilt spare me the pain of entering further into Helladia's affection for +Basil. Suffice that it was impassioned beyond description, and vied with +whatever history or romance records. In her male costume she had +accompanied the conqueror of the Bulgarians in his campaigns, she had +fought in his battles; a gigantic foe, in act to strike him from behind, +had fallen by her arrow; she had warded the poison-cup from his lips, and +the assassin's dagger from his heart; she had rejected enormous wealth +offered as a bribe for treachery, and lived only for the Emperor. 'And +now,' she cried, 'his love for me is cold, and he deserts me for another. +Who she is I cannot find, else on her it were, not on him, that my +vengeance should alight. Oh, Euprepia, I would tear her eyes from her head, +were they beautiful as thine! But vengeance I must have. Basil must die. On +the third day he expires by my hand, poisoned by the cup which I alone am +trusted to offer him at the Imperial banquet where thou wilt be present. +Thou shalt see his agonies and my triumph, and rejoice that thy friend has +known how to avenge herself.' + +"Thou seest now, father, in how frightful a difficulty I am placed. All my +entreaties and remonstrances have been in vain: at my threats Helladia +merely laughs. I love Basil with my whole heart. Shall I look on and see +him murdered? Shall I, having first unwittingly done my friend the most +grievous injury, proceed further to betray her, and doom her to a cruel +death? I might anticipate her fell purpose by slaying her, but for that I +have neither strength nor courage. Many a time have I felt on the point of +revealing everything to her, and offering myself as her victim, but for +this also I lack fortitude. I might convey a warning to Basil, but +Helladia's vengeance is unsleeping, and nothing but her death or mine will +screen him. Oh, father, father! what am I to do?" + +"Nothing romantic or sentimental, I trust, dear child," replied Photinius. + +"Torture me not, father. I came to thee for counsel." + +"And counsel shalt thou have, but it must be the issue of mature +deliberation. Thou mayest observe," continued he with the air of a good man +contending with adversity, "how weak and miserable is man's estate even in +the day of good fortune, how hard it is for purblind mortals to discern the +right path, especially when two alluring routes are simultaneously +presented for their decision! The most obvious and natural course, the one +I should have adopted without hesitation half-an-hour ago, would be simply +to let Helladia alone. Should she succeed--and Heaven forbid else!--the +knot is loosed in the simplest manner. Basil dies--" + +"Father!" + +"I am a favourite with his sister-in-law," continued Photinius, entirely +unconscious of his daughter's horror and agitation, "who will govern in the +name of her weak husband, and is moreover thy mistress. She recalls me to +Court, and all is peace and joy. But then, Helladia may fail. In that case, +when she has been executed--" + +"Father, father!" + +"We are exactly where we were, save for the hold thou hast established over +the Emperor, which is of course invaluable. I cannot but feel that Heaven +is good when I reflect how easily thou mightest have thrown thyself away +upon a courtier. Now there is a much bolder game to play, which, relying on +the protection of Providence, I feel half disposed to attempt. Thou +mightest betray Helladia." + +"Deliver my friend to the tormentors!" + +"Then," pursued Photinius, without hearing her, "thy claim on the Emperor's +gratitude is boundless, and if he has any sense of what is seemly--and he +is what they call chivalrous--he will make thee his lawful consort. I +father-in-law of an Emperor! My brain reels to think of it. I must be cool. +I must not suffer myself to be dazzled or hurried away. Let me consider. +Thus acting, thou puttest all to the hazard of the die. For if Helladia +should deny everything, as of course she would, and the Emperor should +foolishly scruple to put her to the rack, she might probably persuade him +of her innocence, and where wouldst thou be then? It might almost be better +to be beforehand, and poison Helladia herself, but I fear there is no time +now. Thou hast no evidence but her threats, I suppose? Thou hast not caught +her tampering with poisons? There can of course be nothing in writing. I +daresay I could find something, if I had but time. Canst thou counterfeit +her signature?" + +But long ere this Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by +convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he +had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he +was by no means a bad father. + +"Poor child," he said, "thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a +terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under the +torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might have a +bad effect on the Emperor's mind. If he put thee to the torture too--but +no! that's impossible. I feel faint and giddy, dear child, and unable to +decide a point of such importance. Come to me at daybreak to-morrow." + +But Euprepia did not reappear, and Photinius spent the day in an agony of +expectation, fearing that she had compromised herself by some imprudence. +He gazed on the setting sun with uncontrollable impatience, knowing that it +would shine on the Imperial banquet, where so much was to happen. Basil was +in fact at that very moment seating himself among a brilliant assemblage. +By his side stood a choir of musicians, among them Euprepia. Soon the cup +was called for, and Helladia, in her masculine dress, stepped forward, +darting a glance of sinister triumph at her friend. Silently, almost +imperceptibly to the bulk of the company, Euprepia glided forward, and +hissed rather than whispered in Helladia's ear, ere she could retire from +the Emperor's side. + +"Didst thou not say that if thou couldst discover her who had wronged thee, +thou wouldst wreak thy vengeance on her, and molest Basil no further?" + +"I did, and I meant it." + +"See that thou keepest thy word. I am she!" And snatching the cup from the +table, she quaffed it to the last drop, and instantly expired in +convulsions. + +We pass over the dismay of the banqueters, the arrest and confession of +Helladia, the general amazement at the revelation of her sex, the frantic +grief of the Emperor. + +Basil's sorrow was sincere and durable. On an early occasion he thus +addressed his courtiers: + +"I cannot determine which of these two women loved me best: she who gave +her life for me, or she who would have taken mine. The first made the +greater sacrifice; the second did most violence to her feelings. What say +ye?" + +The courtiers hesitated, feeling themselves incompetent judges in problems +of this nature. At length the youngest exclaimed: + +"O Emperor, how can we tell thee, unless we know what thou thinkest +thyself?" + +"What!" exclaimed Basil, "an honest man in the Court of Byzantium! Let his +mouth be filled with gold immediately!" + +This operation having been performed, and the precious metal distributed in +fees among the proper officers, Basil thus addressed the object of his +favour: + +"Manuel, thy name shall henceforth be Chrysostomus, in memory of what has +just taken place. In further token of my approbation of thy honesty, I will +confer upon thee the hand of the only other respectable person about the +Court, namely, of Helladia. Take her, my son, and raise up a race of +heroes! She shall be amply dowered out of what remains of the property of +Photinius." + +"Gennadius," whispered a cynical courtier to his neighbour, "I hope thou +admirest the magnanimity of our sovereign, who deems he is performing a +most generous action in presenting Manuel with his cast-off mistress, who +has tried to poison him, and with whom he has been at his wits' end what to +do, and in dowering her at the expense of another." + +The snarl was just; but it is just also to acknowledge that Basil, as a +prince born in the purple, had not the least idea that he was laying +himself open to any such criticism. He actually did feel the manly glow of +self-approbation which accompanies the performance of a good action: an +emotion which no one else present, except Chrysostomus, was so much as able +to conceive. It is further to be remarked that the old courtier who sneered +at Chrysostomus was devoured by envy of his good fortune, and would have +given his right eye to have been in his place. + +"Chrysostomus," pursued Basil, "we must now think of the hapless Photinius. +That unfortunate father is doubtless in an agony of grief which renders the +forfeiture of the remains of his possessions indifferent to him. Thou, his +successor therein, mayest be regarded as in some sort his son-in-law. Go, +therefore, and comfort him, and report to me upon his condition." + +Chrysostomus accordingly proceeded to the monastery, where he was informed +that Photinius had retired with his spiritual adviser, and could on no +account be disturbed. + +"It is on my head to see the Emperor's orders obeyed," returned +Chrysostomus, and forced the door. The bereaved parent was busily engaged +in sticking pins into a wax effigy of Basil, under the direction of +Panurgiades, already honourably mentioned in this history. + +"Wretched old man!" exclaimed Chrysostomus, "is this thy grief for thy +daughter?" + +"My grief is great," answered Photinius, "but my time is small. If I turn +not every moment to account, I shall never be prime minister again. But all +is over now. Thou wilt denounce me, of course. I will give thee a counsel. +Say that thou didst arrive just as we were about to place the effigy of +Basil before a slow fire, and melt it into a caldron of bubbling poison." + +"I shall report what I have seen," replied Chrysostomus, "neither more nor +less. But I think I can assure thee that none will suffer for this mummery +except Panurgiades, and that he will at most be whipped." + +"Chrysostomus," said Basil, on receiving the report, "lust of power, a +fever in youth, is a leprosy in age. The hoary statesman out of place would +sell his daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he would part +with his skin and his senses, were it possible to hold office without them. +I commiserate Photinius, whose faculties are clearly on the decline; the +day has been when he would not have wasted his time sticking pins into a +waxen figure. I will give him some shadow of authority to amuse his old +days and keep him out of mischief. The Abbot of Catangion is just dead. +Photinius shall succeed him." + +So Photinius received the tonsure and the dignity, and made a very +tolerable Abbot. It is even recorded to his honour that he bestowed a +handsome funeral on his old enemy Eustathius. + +Helladia made Chrysostomus an excellent wife, a little over-prudish, some +thought. When, nearly two centuries afterwards, the Courts of Love came to +be established in Provence, the question at issue between her and Euprepia +was referred to those tribunals, which, finding the decision difficult, +adjourned it for seven hundred years. That period having now expired, it is +submitted to the British public. + + + + +THE WISDOM OF THE INDIANS + + +Everybody knows that in the reign of the Emperor Elagabalus Rome was +visited by an embassy from India; whose members, on their way from the +East, had held that memorable interview with the illustrious (though +heretical) Christian philosopher Bardesanes which enabled him to formulate +his doctrine of Fate, borrowed from the Indian theory of Karma, and +therefore, until lately, grievously misunderstood by his commentators. + +It may not, however, be equally notorious that the ambassadors returned by +sea as far as Berytus, and upon landing there were hospitably entertained +by the sage Euphronius, the head of the philosophical faculty of that +University. + +Euphronius naturally inquired what circumstance in Rome had appeared to his +visitors most worthy of remark. + +"The extreme evil of the Emperor's Karma," said they. + +Euphronius requested further explanation. + +"Karma," explained their interpreter, "is that congeries of circumstances +which has necessitated the birth of each individual, and of whose good or +evil he is the incarnation. Every act must needs be attended by +consequences, and as these are usually of too far-reaching a character to +be exhausted in the life of the doer of the action, they cannot but +engender another person by whom they are to be borne. This truth is +popularly expressed by the doctrine of transmigration, according to which +individuals, as the character of their deeds may determine, are re-born as +pigs or peacocks, beggars or princes. But this is a loose and unscientific +way of speaking, for in fact it is not the individual that is re-born, but +the character; which, even as the silkworm clothes itself with silk and the +caddis-worm with mud and small shingle, creates for itself a new +personality, congruous with its own nature. We are therefore led to reflect +what a prodigious multitude of sins some one must have committed ere the +Roman world could be afflicted with such an Emperor as Elagabalus." + +"What have ye found so exceedingly reprehensible in the Emperor's conduct?" +demanded Euphronius. + +"To speak only," said the Indians, "of such of his doings as may fitly be +recited to modest ears, we find him declaring war against Nature, and +delighting in nothing that is not the contrary of what Heaven meant it to +be. We see him bathing in perfumes, sailing ships in wine, feeding horses +on grapes and lions on parrots, peppering fish with pearls, wearing gems on +the soles of his feet, strewing his floor with gold-dust, paving the public +streets with precious marbles, driving teams of stags, scorning to eat fish +by the seaside, deploring his lot that he has never yet been able to dine +on a phoenix. Enormous must have been the folly and wickedness which has +incarnated itself in such a sovereign, and should his reign be prolonged, +discouraging is the prospect for the morals of the next generation. + +"According to you, then," said Euphronius, "the fates of men are not spun +for them by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but by their predecessors?" + +"So it is," said they, "always remembering that man can rid himself of his +Karma by philosophic meditation, combined with religious austerities, and +that if all walked in this path, existence with all its evils would come to +an end. Insomuch that the most bloodthirsty conqueror that ever devastated +the earth hath not destroyed one thousandth part as many existences as the +Lord Buddha." + +"These are abstruse matters," said Euphronius, "and I lament that your stay +in Berytus will not be long enough to instruct me adequately therein." + +"Accompany us to India," said they, "and thou shalt receive instruction at +the fountain head." + +"I am old and feeble," apologised Euphronius, "and adjusted by long habit +to my present environment. Nevertheless I will propound the enterprise to +my pupils, only somewhat repressing their ardour, lest the volunteers +should be inconveniently numerous." + +When, however, the proposition was made not a soul responded; though +Euphronius reproached his disciples severely, and desired them to compare +their want of spirit with his own thirst for knowledge, which, when he was +a young man, had taken him as far as Alexandria to hear a celebrated +rhetorician. In the evening, however, two disciples came to him together, +and professed their readiness to undertake the expedition, if promised a +reward commensurate with its danger and difficulty. + +"Ye would learn the secret of my celebrated dilemma," said he, "which no +sophist can elude? 'Tis much; 'tis immoderate; 'tis enormous; nevertheless, +bring the wisdom of India to Berytus, and the knowledge of the stratagem +shall be yours." + +"No, Master," they said, "it is not thy dilemma of which we are enamoured. +It is thy daughter." + +A vehement altercation ensued, but at length the old philosopher, who at +the bottom of his heart was much readier to part with his daughter than his +dilemma, was induced to promise her to whichever of the pupils should bring +home the most satisfactory exposition of Indian metaphysics: provided +always that during their absence he should not have been compelled to +bestow her hand as the price of a quibble even more subtle than his own: +but this he believed to be impossible. + +Mnesitheus and Rufus accordingly travelled with the embassy to India, and +arrived in safety at the metropolis of Palimbothra. They had wisely devoted +themselves meanwhile to learning the language, and were now able to +converse with some fluency. + +On reaching their destination they were placed under the superintendence of +competent instructors, who were commissioned to initiate them into the +canon of Buddhist scriptures, comprising, to mention only a few of the +principal, the Lalitavistara, the Dhammapada, the Kuddhapatha, the +Palinokkha, the Uragavagga, the Kulavagga, the Mahavagga, the Atthakavagga, +and the Upasampadakammavaca. These works, composed in dead languages, and +written in strange and unknown characters, were further provided with +commentaries more voluminous and inexplicable than the text. + +"Heavens," exclaimed Mnesitheus and Rufus, "can the life of a man suffice +to study all this?" + +"Assuredly not," replied the Indians. "The diligent student will resume his +investigations in a subsequent stage of existence, and, if endowed with +eminent faculties, may hope to attain the end he proposes to himself at the +fifteenth transmigration." + +"The end we propose to ourselves," said the Greeks, "is to marry our +master's daughter. Will the fair Euphronia also have undergone fifteen +transmigrations, and will her charms have continued unimpaired?" + +"It is difficult to pronounce," said they, "for should the maiden, through +the exercise of virtue, have merited to be born as a white elephant, her +transmigrations must in the order of nature be but few; whereas should she +have unfortunately become and remained a rat, a frog, or other shortlived +animal, they cannot but be exceedingly numerous." + +"The prospect of wedding a frog at the end of fifteen transmigrations," +said the youths, "doth not in any respect commend itself to us. Are there +no means by which the course of study may be accelerated?" + +"Undoubtedly," said the Indians, "by the practice of religious +austerities." + +"Of what nature are these?" inquired the young men. + +"The intrepid disciple," said the sages, "may chain himself to a tree, and +gaze upon the sun until he is deprived of the faculty of vision. He may +drive an iron bar through his cheeks and tongue, thus preventing all misuse +of the gift of speech. It is open to him to bury himself in the earth up to +his waist, relying for his maintenance on the alms of pious donors. He may +recline upon a couch studded with spikes, until from the induration of his +skin he shall have merited the title of a rhinoceros among sages. As, +however, these latter practices interfere with locomotion, and thus prevent +his close attendance on his spiritual guide, it is rather recommended to +him to elevate his arms above his head, and retain them in that position +until, by the withering of the sinews, it is impossible for him to bring +them down again." + +"In that case," cried Rufus, "farewell philosophy! farewell Euphronia!" + +There is reason to believe that Mnesitheus would have made exactly the same +observation if Rufus had not been beforehand with him. The spirit of +contradiction and the affectation of superiority, however, led him to +reproach his rival with pusillanimity, and he went so far that at length he +found himself committed to undergo the ordeal: merely stipulating that, in +consideration of his being a foreigner, he should be permitted to elevate +the right arm only. + +The king of the country most graciously came to his assistance by causing +him to be fastened to a tree, with his uplifted arm secured by iron bands +above his head, a fan being put in his other hand to protect him against +the molestations of gnats and mosquitoes. By this means, and with the +assistance of the monks who continually recited and expounded the Buddhist +scriptures in his ears, some time even before his arm had stiffened for +ever, the doctrine of the misery of existence had become perfectly clear to +him. + +Released from his captivity, he hastened back to Europe to claim the +guerdon of his sufferings. History is silent respecting his adventures +until his arrival at Berytus, where the strange wild-looking man with the +uplifted arm found himself the centre of a turbulent and mischievous +rabble. As he seemed about to suffer severe ill-usage, a personage of +dignified and portly appearance hastened up, and with his staff showered +blows to right and left upon the rioters. + +"Scoundrels," he exclaimed, "finely have ye profited by my precepts, thus +to misuse an innocent stranger! But I will no longer dwell among such +barbarians. I will remove my school to Tarsus!" + +The mob dispersed. The victim and his deliverer stood face to face. + +"Mnesitheus!" + +"Rufus!" + +"Call me Rufinianus," corrected the latter; "for such is the appellation +which I have felt it due to myself to assume, since the enhancement of my +dignity by becoming Euphronius's successor and son-in-law." + +"Son-in-law! Am I to lose the reward of my incredible sufferings?" + +"Thou forgettest," said Rufinianus, "that Euphronia's hand was not promised +as the reward of any austerities, but as the meed of the most intelligent, +that is, the most acceptable, account of the Indian philosophy, which in +the opinion of the late eminent Euphronius, has been delivered by me. But +come to my chamber, and let me minister to thy necessities." + +These having been duly attended to, Rufinianus demanded Mnesitheus's +history, and then proceeded to narrate his own. + +"On my journey homeward," said he, "I reflected seriously on the probable +purpose of our master in sending us forth, and saw reason to suspect that I +had hitherto misapprehended it. For I could not remember that he had ever +admitted that he could have anything to learn from other philosophers, or +that he had ever exhibited the least interest in philosophic dogmas, +excepting his own. The system of the Indians, I thought, must be either +inferior to that of Euphronius, or superior. If the former, he will not +want it: if the latter, he will want it much less. I therefore concluded +that our mission was partly a concession to public opinion, partly to +enable him to say that his name was known, and his teaching proclaimed on +the very banks of the Ganges. I formed my plan accordingly, and +disregarding certain indications that I was neither expected nor wanted, +presented myself before Euphronius with a gladsome countenance, slightly +overcast by sorrow on account of thee, whom I affirmed to have been +devoured by a tiger. + +"'Well,' said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, 'and what about this vaunted +wisdom of the Indians?' + +"'The wisdom of the Indians,' I replied, 'is entirely borrowed from +Pythagoras.' + +"'Did I not tell you so? 'Euphronius appealed to his disciples. + +"'Invariably,' they replied. + +"'As if a barbarian could teach a Greek!' said he. + +"'It is much if he is able to learn from one,' said they. + +"'Pythagoras, then,' said Euphronius addressing me,' did not resort to +India to be instructed by the Gymnosophists?' + +"'On the contrary,' I answered, 'he went there to teach them, and the +little knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived from +him. His mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the Ramayana, +wherein he is figuratively represented as allying himself with monkeys. He +is worshipped all over the country under the appellations of Siva, +Kamadeva, Kali, Gautama Buddha, and others too numerous to mention.' + +"When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to +Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called +Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his +good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter's hand without +difficulty. He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, +and I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy. +I am also the author of some admired works, especially a life of +Pythagoras, and a manual of Indian philosophy and religion. I hope for thy +own sake thou wilt forbear to contradict me: for no one will believe thee. +I trust also that thou wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with +respect to Euphronia. I do most honestly and truthfully assure thee that +for a one-armed man like thee to marry her would be most inexpedient, +inasmuch as the defence of one's beard from her, when she is in a state of +excitement, requires the full use of both hands, and of the feet also. But +come with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to her. She is always +taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal attractions, and I +promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture when she finds +thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder. Only, as I have +represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say +that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty." + +"I have learned in the Indian schools," said Mnesitheus, "not to lie for +the benefit of others. I will not see Euphronia; I would not disturb her +ideal of me, nor mine of her. Farewell. May the Rufinianian sect flourish! +and may thy works on Pythagoras and India instruct posterity to the tenth +generation! I return to Palimbothra, where I am held in honour on the +self-same account that here renders me ridiculous. It shall be my study to +enlighten the natives respecting their obligations to Pythagoras, whose +name I did not happen to hear while I abode among them." + + + + +THE DUMB ORACLE + + + Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod: + Few that be filled with the fire of the God. + + + +I + + +In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one of +peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed in the +city of Dorylseum, in Phrygia. Contrary to usage, its revelations were +imparted through the medium of a male priest. It was rarely left unthronged +by devout questioners, whose inquiries were resolved in writing, agreeably +to the method delivered by the pious Lucian, in his work "Concerning False +Prophecy." [*] Sometimes, on extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently +that of the deity, was heard declaring the response from the innermost +recesses of the shrine. The treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with +tripods and goblets, in general wrought from the precious metals; its +coffers were loaded with coins and ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy +suppliants and the copious offerings in kind of the country people provided +superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the temple servitors; while a +rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its guardians, and of the +officiating priest. The latter reverend personage was no less eminent for +prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had rewarded him with +extreme obesity. At length he died, whether of excess in meat or in drink +is not agreed among historians. + +[Footnote: _Pseudomantis_, cap. 19-21.] + +The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally +desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, +elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest, +purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men. So rare a +choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some extraordinary +manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which filled the sacred +authorities with dismay. The responses of the oracle ceased suddenly and +altogether. No revelation was vouchsafed to the pontiff in his slumbers; no +access of prophetic fury constrained him to disclose the secrets of the +future; no voice rang from the shrine; and the unanswered epistles of the +suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on the great altar. As a natural +consequence they speedily ceased to arrive; the influx of offerings into +the treasury terminated along with them; the temple-courts were bare of +worshippers; and the only victims whose blood smoked within them were those +slain by the priest himself, in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of +Apollo. The modest hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he +did not doubt that he had excited the Deity's wrath by some mysterious but +heinous pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous +verdict of all whom he approached. + +One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, and +pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he was +startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, espied +an ancient woman. Her appearance was rather venerable than prepossessing. +He recognised her as one of the inferior ministers of the temple. + +"Reverend mother," he addressed her, "doubtless thou comest to mingle with +mine thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to indicate the +cause, and the remedy of his wrath." + +"No, son," returned the venerable personage, "I propose to occasion no such +needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity. I hold within mine own +hand the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken sanctuary, and +for such consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce equitable, I am +minded to impart the same unto thee." And as the astonished priest made no +answer, she continued: + +"My price is one hundred pieces of gold." + +"Wretch!" exclaimed the priest indignantly, "thy mercenary demand alone +proves the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets of +the Gods. Depart my presence this moment!" + +The old woman retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the incident +soon passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the following +day, at the same hour, the aged woman again stood before him, and said: + +"My price is _two_ hundred pieces of gold." + +Again she was commanded to depart, and again obeyed without a murmur. But +the adventure now occasioned the priest much serious reflection. To his +excited fancy, the patient persistency of the crone began to assume +something of a supernatural character. He considered that the ways of the +Gods are not as our ways, and that it is rather the rule than the exception +with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by +the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the +Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy +might in the end cost the temple the whole of its revenues. The result of +his cogitations was a resolution, if the old woman should present herself +on the following day, to receive her in a different manner. + +Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, "My price is +_three_ hundred pieces of gold." + +"Venerable ambassadress of Heaven," said the priest, "thy boon is granted +thee. Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou mayest." + +The old woman's reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in extending +her open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the three hundred +pieces of gold with as much expedition as was compatible with the frequent +interruptions necessitated by the crone's depositing each successive +handful in a leather pouch; and the scrutiny, divided between jealousy and +affection, which she bestowed on each individual coin. + +"And now," said the priest, when the operation was at length completed, +"fulfil thy share of the compact." + +"The cause of the oracle's silence," returned the old woman, "is the +unworthiness of the minister." + +"Alas! 'tis even as I feared," sighed the priest. "Declare now, wherein +consists my sin?" + +"It consists in this," replied the old woman, "that the beard of thy +understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience +is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear +no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I +seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets, +that thou art an egregious nincompoop." + +And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued: + +"Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the very +nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into the +language of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the few wise +upon the many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more particularly the +former? O silly as the crowds who hitherto have brought their folly here, +but now carry it elsewhere to the profit of wiser men than thou! O fool! to +deem that oracles were rendered by Apollo! How should this be, seeing that +there is no such person? Needs there, peradventure, any greater miracle for +the decipherment of these epistles than a hot needle? [*] As for the +supernatural voice, it doth in truth proceed from a respectable, and in +some sense a sacred personage, being mine own when I am concealed within a +certain recess prepared for me by thy lamented predecessor, whose mistress +I was in youth, and whose coadjutor I have been in age. I am now ready to +minister to thee in the latter capacity. Be ruled by me; exchange thy +abject superstition for common sense; thy childish simplicity for discreet +policy; thy unbecoming spareness for a majestic portliness; thy present +ridiculous and uncomfortable situation for the repute of sanctity, and the +veneration of men. Thou wilt own that this is cheap at three hundred +pieces." + +[Footnote: Lucian.] + +The young priest had hearkened to the crone's discourse with an expression +of the most exquisite distress. When she had finished, he arose, and +disregarding his repulsive companion's efforts to detain him, departed +hastily from the temple. + + + +II + + +It was the young priest's purpose, as soon as he became capable of forming +one, to place the greatest possible distance between himself and the city +of Dorylum. The love of roaming insensibly grew upon him, and ere long +his active limbs had borne him over a considerable portion of Asia. His +simple wants were easily supplied by the wild productions of the country, +supplemented when needful by the proceeds of light manual labour. By +degrees the self-contempt which had originally stung him to desperation +took the form of an ironical compassion for the folly of mankind, and the +restlessness which had at first impelled him to seek relief in a change of +scene gave place to a spirit of curiosity and observation. He learned to +mix freely with all orders of men, save one, and rejoiced to find the +narrow mysticism which he had imbibed from his previous education gradually +yielding to contact with the great world. From one class of men, indeed, he +learned nothing--the priests, whose society he eschewed with scrupulous +vigilance, nor did he ever enter the temples of the Gods. Diviners, augurs, +all that made any pretension whatever to a supernatural character, he held +in utter abhorrence, and his ultimate return in the direction of his native +country is attributed to his inability to persevere further in the path he +was following without danger of encountering Chaldean soothsayers, or +Persian magi, or Indian gymnosophists. + +He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was still +at a considerable distance from that region, when one night, as he was +sitting in the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a phrase which +arrested his attention. + +"As true as the oracle of Dorylum." The speaker was a countryman, who +appeared to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of the +company as greatly in need of confirmation. The sudden start and stifled +cry of the ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt constrained to ask, +with the most indifferent air he could assume: + +"Is the oracle of Dorylum, then, so exceedingly renowned for veracity?" + +"Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?" demanded the countryman, with +some disdain. "Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?" + +"Eubulides!" exclaimed the young traveller, "that is my own name!" + +"Thou mayest well rejoice, then," observed another of the guests, "to bear +the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the happy +Gods. So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who have +often beheld him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, now that I +scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only that thy +namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous +in thee." + +"Divinity!" exclaimed another. "Aye, if Phoebus himself ministered at his +own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than Eubulides." + +"Or predict the future more accurately," added a priest. + +"Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse," subjoined a poet. + +"Yet is it not marvellous," remarked another speaker, "that for some +considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to +deliver a single oracle?" + +"Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of an +aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple." + +"Ha!" exclaimed Eubulides, "how was that?" + +"He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly came +to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully +appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the +root of her tongue." + +"The Gods be praised for that!" ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath. +"Pshaw! as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate this +vile mockery? To keep up the juggle--well, I know it must be so; but to +purloin my name! to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that are not, I +will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour." + +He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the city +of Dorylum. The further he progressed in this direction, the louder +became the bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic the +testimonies to the piety, prophetic endowments, and personal attractions of +the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was the theme of +continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the roads swarming with +throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part in a great religious +ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of worship blended +delightfully with the glee of the festival, and Eubulides, who at first +regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his moroseness insensibly +yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He could not but acknowledge +that the imposture he panted to expose was at least the source of much +innocent happiness, and almost wished that the importance of religion, +considered as an engine of policy, had been offered to his contemplation +from this point of view, instead of the sordid and revolting aspect in +which it had been exhibited by the old woman. + +In this ambiguous frame of mind he entered the temple. Before the high +altar stood the officiating priest, a young man, the image, yet not the +image, of himself. Lineament for lineament, the resemblance was exact, but +over the stranger's whole figure was diffused an air of majesty, of +absolute serenity and infinite superiority, which excluded every idea of +deceit, and so awed the young priest that his purpose of rushing forward to +denounce the impostor and drag him from the shrine was immediately and +involuntarily relinquished. As he stood confounded and irresolute, the +melodious voice of the hierophant rang through the temple: + +"Let the priest Eubulides stand forth." + +This summons naturally caused the greatest astonishment in every one but +Eubulides, who emerged as swiftly as he could from the swaying and +murmuring crowd, and confronted his namesake at the altar. A cry of +amazement broke from the multitude as they beheld the pair, whose main +distinction in the eyes of most was their garb. But, as they gazed, the +form of the officiating priest assumed colossal proportions; a circle of +beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth around his head; hyacinthine locks +clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural radiance; a +quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his hand; the majesty +and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented tenfold. Eubulides and +the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, for all recognised Apollo. + +All was silence for a space. It was at length broken by Phoebus. + +"Well, Eubulides," inquired he, with the bland raillery of an Immortal, +"has it at length occurred to thee that I may have been long enough away +from Parnassus, filling thy place here while thou hast been disporting +thyself amid heretics and barbarians?" + +The abashed Eubulides made no response. The Deity continued: + +"Deem not that thou hast in aught excited the displeasure of the Gods. In +deserting their altars for Truth's sake, thou didst render them the most +acceptable of sacrifices, the only one, it may be, by which they set much +store. But, Eubulides, take heed how thou again sufferest the unworthiness +of men to overcome the instincts of thine own nature. Thy holiest +sentiments should not have been at the mercy of a knave. If the oracle of +Dorylum was an imposture, hadst thou no oracle in thine own bosom? If the +voice of Religion was no longer breathed from the tripod, were the winds +and waters silent, or had aught quenched the everlasting stars? If there +was no power to impose its mandates from without, couldst thou be +unconscious of a power within? If thou hadst nothing to reveal unto men, +mightest thou not have found somewhat to propound unto them? Know this, +that thou hast never experienced a more truly religious emotion than that +which led thee to form the design of overthrowing this my temple, the +abode, as thou didst deem it, of fraud and superstition." + +"But now, Phoebus," Eubulides ventured to reply, "shall I not return to the +shrine purified by thy presence, and again officiate as thy unworthy +minister?" + +"No, Eubulides," returned Phoebus, with a smile; "silver is good, but not +for ploughshares. Thy strange experience, thy long wanderings, thy lonely +meditations, and varied intercourse with men, have spoiled thee for a +priest, while, as I would fain hope, qualifying thee for a sage. Some +worthy person may easily be found to preside over this temple; and by the +aid of such inspiration as I may from time to time see meet to vouchsafe +him, administer its affairs indifferently well. Do thou, Eubulides, +consecrate thy powers to a more august service than Apollo's, to one that +shall endure when Delphi and Delos know _his_ no more." + +"To whose service, Phoebus?" inquired Eubulides. + +"To the service of Humanity, my son," responded Apollo. + + + + +DUKE VIRGIL + + + +I + + +The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged the +suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had a +Podest of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a Papal +Legate, incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried dictators, +consuls, prtors, councils of ten, and other numbers odd and even, and ere +the middle of the thirteenth century were luxuriating in the enjoyment of +perfect anarchy. + +An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were forbidden +to propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything new. + +"Why not consult Manto, the alchemist's daughter, our prophetess, our +Sibyl?" the young Benedetto asked at last. + +"Why not?" repeated Eustachio, an elderly man. + +"Why not, indeed?" interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years. + +All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto's lover; Eustachio her +father's friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the +three were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before +proceeding formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain +private interviews, the two elder with Manto's father, the youth with Manto +herself. The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist's +influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went +further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man promised his good word +to both, but when he went to confer with his daughter he found her closeted +with Benedetto, and returned without disburdening himself of his errand. +The youth had just risen from his knees, pleading with her, and drawing +glowing pictures of their felicity when he should be Duke and she Duchess. + +She answered, "Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to rule +another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over my native +city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the dead." + +"And why should not Mantua have a tyrant?" demanded Benedetto. "The freedom +of the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no liberty save +that of making the base-born do his bidding. 'Tis hell to a man of spirit +to be contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my heart's desire on the +knaves, little would I reck submitting to the sway of the Emperor." + +"I know that well, Benedetto," said Manto, "and hence will take good heed +not to counsel Mantua to choose thee. No, the Duke I will give her shall be +one without passions to gratify or injuries to avenge, and shall already be +crowned with a crown to make the ducal cap as nothing in his eyes, if eyes +he had." + +Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward to +announce that the commissioners waited. + +"My projection," he whispered, "only wants one more piece of gold to insure +success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in exchange for +boundless riches!" + +"And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!" said Manto, patting +his cheek. + +The envoys' commission having been unfolded, she took not a moment to +reply, "Be your Duke Virgil." + +The deputation respectfully represented that although Virgil was no doubt +Mantua's greatest citizen, he laboured under the disqualification of having +been dead more than twelve hundred years. Nothing further, however, could +be extorted from the prophetess, and the ambassadors were obliged to +withdraw. + +The interpretation of Manto's oracle naturally provoked much diversity of +opinion in the council. + +"Obviously," said a poet, "the prophetess would have us confer the ducal +dignity upon the contemporary bard who doth most nearly accede to the +vestiges of the divine Maro; and he, as I judge, is even now in the midst +of you." + +"Virgil the poet," said a priest, who had long laboured under the suspicion +of occult practices, "was a fool to Virgil the enchanter. The wise woman +evidently demands one competent to put the devil into a hole--an operation +which I have striven to perform all my life." + +"Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?" inquired Eustachio. + +"Better upon an egg than upon a quack!" retorted the priest. + +But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately conferred +with Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; Leonardo had parts, +but no character. + +"I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess," he +said. "She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in divers +respects preferable to a living one." + +"Surely," said Eustachio, "provided always that the servant is a man of +exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord's withdrawal to +another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices with impunity, but +doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his great taskmaster's +eye." + +"Eustachio," said Leonardo, with admiration, "it is the misery of Mantua +that she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst talk. I +would fain have further discourse with thee." + +The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were +crying, "A Virgil! a Virgil!" + +The councillors reassembled and passed resolutions. + +"But who shall be Regent?" inquired some one when Virgil had been elected +unanimously. + +"Who but we?" asked Eustachio and Leonardo. "Are we not the heads of the +Virgilian party?" + +Thus had the enthusiastic Manto, purest of idealists, installed in +authority the two most unprincipled politicians in the republic; and she +had lost her lover besides, for Benedetto fled the city, vowing vengeance. + +Anyhow, the dead poet was enthroned Duke of Mantua; Eustachio and Leonardo +became Regents, with the style of Consuls, and it was provided that in +doubtful cases reference should be made to the Sortes Virgilianae. And +truly, if we may believe the chronicles, the arrangement worked for a time +surprisingly well. The Mantuans, in an irrational way, had done what it +behoves all communities to do rationally if they can. They had sought for a +good and worthy citizen to rule them; it was their misfortune that such an +one could only be found among the dead. They felt prouder of themselves for +being governed by a great man--one in comparison with whom kings and +pontiffs were the creatures of a day. They would not, if they could help +it, disgrace themselves by disgracing their hero; they would not have it +said that Mantua, which had not been too weak to bear him, had been too +weak to endure his government. The very hucksters and usurers among them +felt dimly that there was such a thing as an Ideal. A glimmering perception +dawned upon mailed, steel-fisted barons that there was such a thing as an +Idea, and they felt uneasily apprehensive, like beasts of prey who have for +the first time sniffed gunpowder. The railleries and mockeries of Mantua's +neighbours, moreover, stimulated Mantua's citizens to persevere in their +course, and deterred them from doing aught to approve themselves fools. +Were not Verona, Cremona, Lodi, Pavia, Crema, cities that could never +enthrone the Virgil they had never produced, watching with undissembled +expectation to see them trip? The hollow-hearted Eustachio and the +rapacious Leonardo, their virtual rulers, might indeed be little sensible +to this enthusiasm, but they could not disregard the general drift of +public opinion, which said clearly: "Mantua is trying a great experiment. +Woe to you if you bring it to nought by your selfish quarrels!" + +The best proof that there was something in Manto's idea was that after a +while the Emperor Frederick took alarm, and signified to the Mantuans that +they must cease their mumming and fooling and acknowledge him as their +sovereign, failing which he would besiege their city. + + + +II + + +Mantua was girt by a zone of fire and steel. Her villas and homesteads +flamed or smoked; her orchards flared heavenward in a torrent of sparks or +stood black sapless trunks charred to their inmost pith; the promise of her +harvests lay as grey ashes over the land. But her ramparts, though breached +in places, were yet manned by her sons, and their assailants recoiled +pierced by the shafts or stunned by the catapults of the defence. Kaiser +Frederick sat in his tent, giving secret audience to one who had stolen in +disguise over from the city in the grey of the morning. By the Emperor's +side stood a tall martial figure, wearing a visor which he never removed. + +"Your Majesty," Leonardo was saying, for it was he, "this madness will soon +pass away. The people will weary of sacrificing themselves for a dead +heathen." + +"And Liberty?" asked the Emperor, "is not that a name dear to those +misguided creatures?" + +"So dear, please your Majesty, that if they have but the name they will +perfectly dispense with the thing. I do not advise that your imperial yoke +should be too palpably adjusted to their stiff necks. Leave them in +appearance the choice of their magistrate, but insure its falling upon one +of approved fidelity, certain to execute obsequiously all your Majesty's +mandates; such an one, in short, as your faithful vassal Leonardo. It would +only be necessary to decapitate that dangerous revolutionist, Eustachio." + +"And the citizens are really ready for this?" + +"All the respectable citizens. All of whom your Majesty need take account. +All men of standing and substance." + +"I rejoice to hear it," said the Emperor, "and do the more readily credit +thee inasmuch as a most virtuous and honourable citizen hath already been +beforehand with thee, assuring me of the same thing, and affirming that but +one traitor, whose name, methinks, sounded like thine, stands between me +and the subjugation of Mantua." + +And, withdrawing a curtain, he disclosed the figure of Eustachio. + +"I thought he was asleep," muttered Eustachio. + +"That noodle to have been beforehand with me!" murmured Leonardo. + +"What perplexes me," continued Frederick, after enjoying the confusion of +the pair for a few moments, "is that our masked friend here will have it +that he is the man for the Dukedom, and offers to open the gates to me by a +method of his own." + +"By fair fighting, an' please my liege," observed the visored personage, +"not by these dastardly treacheries." + +"How inhuman!" sighed Eustachio. + +"How old-fashioned!" sneered Leonardo. + +"The truth is," continued Frederick, "he gravely doubts whether either of +you possesses the influence which you allege, and has devised a method of +putting this to the proof, which I trust will commend itself to you." + +Leonardo and Eustachio expressed their readiness to submit their credit +with their fellow-citizens to any reasonable trial. + +"He proposes, then," pursued the Emperor, "that ye, disarmed and bound, +should be placed at the head of the storming column, and in that situation +should, as questionless ye would, exert your entire moral influence with +your fellow-citizens to dissuade them from shooting you. If the column, +thus shielded, enters the city without resistance, ye will both have earned +the Dukedom, and the question who shall have it may be decided by single +combat between yourselves. But should the people, rather than submit to our +clemency, impiously slay their elected magistrates, it will be apparent +that the methods of our martial friend are the only ones corresponding to +the exigency of the case. Is the storming column ready?" + +"All but the first file, please your Majesty," responded the man in the +visor. + +"Let it be equipped," returned Frederick, and in half-an-hour Eustachio and +Leonardo, their hands tied behind them, were stumbling up the breach, +impelled by pikes in the rear, and confronting the catapults, _chevaux de +frise_, hidden pitfalls, Greek fire, and boiling water provided by their +own direction, and certified to them the preceding evening as all that +could be desired. They had, however, the full use of their voices, and this +they turned to the best account. Never had Leonardo been so cogent, or +Eustachio so pathetic. The Mantuans, already disorganised by the +unaccountable disappearance of the Executive, were entirely irresolute what +to do. As they hesitated the visored chief incited his followers. All +seemed lost, when a tall female figure appeared among the defenders. It was +Manto. + +"Fools and cowards!" she exclaimed, "must ye learn your duty from a woman?" + +And, seizing a catapult, she discharged a stone which laid the masked +warrior stunned and senseless on the ground. The next instant Eustachio and +Leonardo fell dead, pierced by showers of arrows. The Mantuans sallied +forth. The dismayed Imperialists fled to their camp. The bodies of the +fallen magistrates and of the unconscious chieftain in the mask were +brought into the city. Manto herself undid the fallen man's visor, and +uttered a fearful shriek as she recognised Benedetto. + +"What shall be done with him, mistress?" they asked. + +Manto long stood silent, torn by conflicting emotions. At length she said, +in a strange, unnatural voice: + +"Put him into the Square Tower." + +"And now, mistress, what further? How to choose the new consuls?" + +"Ask me no more," she said. "I shall never prophesy again. Virtue has gone +away from me." + +The leaders departed, to intrigue for the vacant posts, and devise +tortures for Benedetto. Manto sat on the rampart, still and silent as its +stones. Anon she rose, and roved about as if distraught, reciting verses +from Virgil. + +Night had fallen. Benedetto lay wakeful in his cell. A female figure stood +before him bearing a lamp. It was Manto. + +"Benedetto," she said, "I am a wretch, faithless to my country and to my +master. I did but even now open his sacred volume at hazard, and on what +did my eye first fall? + + Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. + +But I can no other. I am a woman. May Mantua never entrust her fortunes to +the like of me again! Come with me, I will release thee." + +She unlocked his chains; she guided him through the secret passage under +the moat; they stood at the exit, in the open air. + +"Fly," she said, "and never again draw sword against thy mother. I will +return to my house, and do that to myself which it behoved me to have done +ere I released thee." + +"Manto," exclaimed Benedetto "a truce to this folly! Forsake thy dead Duke, +and that cheat of Liberty more crazy and fantastic still. Wed a living Duke +in me!" + +"Never!" exclaimed Manto. "I love thee more than any man living on earth, +and I would not espouse thee if the earth held no other." + +"Thou canst not help thyself," he rejoined; "thou hast revealed to me the +secret of this passage. I hasten to the camp. I return in an hour with an +army, and wilt thou, wilt thou not, to-morrow's sun shall behold thee the +partner of my throne!" + +Manto wore a poniard. She struck Benedetto to the heart, and he fell dead. +She drew the corpse back into the passage, and hurried to her home. Opening +her master's volume again, she read: + + Tdet coeli convexa tueri. + +A few minutes afterwards her father entered the chamber to tell her he had +at last found the philosopher's stone, but, perceiving his daughter hanging +by her girdle, he forbore to intrude upon her, and returned to his +laboratory. + +It was time. A sentinel of the besiegers had marked Benedetto's fall, and +the disappearance of the body into the earth. A pool of blood revealed the +entrance to the passage. Ere sunrise Mantua was full of Frederick's +soldiers, full also of burning houses, rifled sanctuaries, violated +damsels, children playing with their dead mothers' breasts, especially full +of citizens protesting that they had ever longed for the restoration of the +Emperor, and that this was the happiest day of their lives. Frederick +waited till everybody was killed, then entered the city and proclaimed an +amnesty. Virgil's bust was broken, and his writings burned with Manto's +body. The flames glowed on the dead face, which gleamed as it were with +pleasure. The old alchemist had been slain among his crucibles; his scrolls +were preserved with jealous care. + +But Manto found another father. She sat at Virgil's feet in Elysium; and as +he stroked the fair head, now golden with perpetual youth, listened to his +mild reproofs and his cheerful oracles. By her side stood a bowl filled +with the untasted waters of Lethe. + +"Woe," said Virgil--but his manner contradicted his speech--"woe to the +idealist and enthusiast! Woe to them who live in the world to come! Woe to +them who live only for a hope whose fulfilment they will not behold on +earth! Drink not, therefore, of that cup, dear child, lest Duke Virgil's +day should come, and thou shouldst not know it. For come it will, and all +the sooner for thy tragedy and thy comedy." + + + + +THE CLAW + + +The balm and stillness of a summer's night enveloped a spacious piazza in +the city of Shylock and Desdemona. The sky teemed with light drifting +clouds through which the beaming of the full moon broke at intervals upon +some lamp-lit palace, thronged and musical, for it was a night of +festivity, or silvered the dull creeping waters. Ever and anon some richly +attired young patrician descended the steps of one or other of these +mansions, and hurried across the wide area to the canal stairs, where his +gondola awaited him. Whoever did this could not but observe a tall female +figure, which, cloaked and masked, walked backwards and forwards across the +piazza, regarding no one, yet with an air that seemed to invite a +companion. + +More than one of the young nobles approached the presumably fair +peripatetic, and, with courtesy commonly in inverse ratio to the amount of +wine he was carrying home, proffered his escort to his gondola. Whenever +this happened the figure removed her mask and unclasped her robe, and +revealed a sight which for one moment rooted the young man to the earth and +in the next sent him scampering to his bark. For the countenance was a +death's head, and the breast was that of a mouldering skeleton. + +At last, however, a youth presented himself who, more courageous or more +tipsy than his fellows, or more helplessly paralysed with horror than they, +did not decline the proffered caress, and suffered himself to be drawn +within the goblin's accursed embrace. Valiant or pot-valiant, great was his +relief at finding himself clasped, instead of by a loathsome spectre, by a +silver-haired man of noble presence, yet with a countenance indescribably +haggard and anxious. + +"Come, my son," he cried, "hasten whither the rewards of thy intrepidity +await thee. Impouch the purse of Fortunatus! Indue the signet of Solomon!" + +The young man hesitated. "Is there nought else?" he cautiously demanded. +"Needs it not that I should renounce my baptism? Must I not subscribe an +infernal compact?" + +"In thy own blood, my son," cheerfully responded the old gentleman. + +"Peradventure," hesitatingly interrogated the youth, "peradventure you are +_he_?" + +"Not so, my son, upon honour," returned the mysterious personage. "I am but +a distressed magician, at this present in fearful straits, from which I +look to be delivered by thee." + +The youth gazed some moments at his companion's head, and then still more +earnestly at his feet. He then yielded his own hand to him, and the pair +crossed the piazza, almost at a run, the magician ever ejaculating, "Speed! +speed!" + +They paused at the foot of a lofty tower, doorless and windowless, with no +visible access of any kind. But the magician signed with his hand, +pronounced some cabalistical words, and instantly stone and lime fell +asunder and revealed an entrance through which they passed, and which +immediately closed behind them. The youth quaked at finding himself alone +in utter darkness with he knew not what, but the wizard whistled, and a +severed hand appeared in air bearing a lamp which illuminated a long +winding staircase. The old man motioned to the youth to precede him, nor +dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would have given the world for +the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint. The distorted shadows +of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the wavering lamp-shine, +seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and he glanced back ever and +anon weening to see himself dogged by some frightful monster, but he saw +only the silver hair and sable velvet of the dignified old man. + +After the ascent of many steps a door opened before them, and they found +themselves in a spacious chamber, brightly, yet from its size imperfectly +illumined by a single large lamp. It was wainscoted with ebony, and the +furniture was of the same. A long table was covered with scrolls, skulls, +crucibles, crystals, star-charts, geomantic figures, and other +appurtenances of a magician's calling. Tomes of necromantic lore lined the +walls, which were yet principally occupied with crystal vessels, in which +foul beings seemed dimly and confusedly to agitate themselves. + +The magician signed to his visitor to be seated, sat down himself and +began: + +"Brave youth, ere entering upon the boundless power and riches that await +thee, learn who I am and why I have brought thee here. Behold in me no +vulgar wizard, no mere astrologer or alchemist, but a compeer of Merlin and +Michael Scott, with whose name it may be the nurse of thy infancy hath +oft-times quelled thy froward humours. I am Peter of Abano, falsely +believed to have lain two centuries buried in the semblance of a dog under +a heap of stones hurled by the furious populace, but in truth walking earth +to this day, in virtue of the compact now to be revealed to thee. Hearken, +my son! Vain must be the machinations of my enemies, vain the onslaughts of +the rabble, so long as I fulfil a certain contract registered in hell's +chancery, as I have now done these three hundred years. And the condition +is this, that every year I present unto the Demon one who hath at my +persuasion assigned his soul to him in exchange for power, riches, +knowledge, magical gifts, or whatever else his heart chiefly desireth; nor +until this present year have I perilled the fulfilment of my obligation. +Seest thou these scrolls? They are the assignments of which I have spoken. +It would amaze thee to scan the subscriptions, and perceive in these the +signatures of men exemplary in the eyes of their fellows, clothed with high +dignities in Church and State--nay sometimes redolent of the very odour of +sanctity. Never hath my sagacity deceived me until this year, when, smitten +with the fair promise of a youth of singular impishness, I omitted to take +due note of his consumptive habit, and have but this afternoon encountered +his funeral. This is the last day of my year, and should my engagement be +unredeemed when the sun attains the cusp of that nethermost house of heaven +which he is even now traversing, I must become an inmate of the infernal +kingdom. No time has remained for nice investigation. I have therefore +proved the courage of the Venetian youth in the manner thou knowest, and +thou alone hast sustained the ordeal. Fail not at my bidding, or thou +quittest not this chamber alive. For when the Demon comes to bear me away, +he will assuredly rend thee in pieces for being found in my company. Thou +hast, therefore, everything to gain and nothing to lose by joining the +goodly fellowship of my mates and partners. Delay not, time urges, night +deepens, they that would drink thy blood are abroad. Hearest thou not the +moaning and pelting of the rising storm, and the muttering and scraping of +my imprisoned goblins? Save us, I entreat, I command, save us both!" + +Screaming with agitation the aged sorcerer laid a scroll engrossed with +fairly written characters before the youth, stabbed the latter's arm with a +stylus that at once evoked and collected the crimson stream, thrust this +into his hand and strove to guide it to the parchment, chanting at the same +time litanies to the infernal powers. The crystal flagons rang like one +great harmonica with shrill but spirit-stirring music; volumes of vaporous +perfumes diffused themselves through the apartment, and an endless +procession of treasure-laden figures defiled before the bewildered youth. +He seemed buried in the opulence of the world, as he sat up to his waist in +gold and jewels; all the earth's beauty gazed at him through eyes brilliant +and countless as the stars of heaven; courtiers beckoned him to thrones; +battle-steeds neighed and pawed for his mounting; laden tables allured +every appetite; vassals bent in homage; slaves fell prostrate at his feet. +Now he seemed to collect or disperse legions of spirits with the waving of +a wand; anon, as he pronounced a spell, golden dragons glided away from +boughs laden with golden fruits. Well for him, doubtless, that in him +Nature had kneaded from ordinary clay as unimaginative a youth as could be +found in Venice: yet even so, dazzled with glamour, intoxicated with +illusion, less and less able to resist the cunningly mingled caresses, +entreaties, and menaces of Abano, he could not refrain from tracing a few +characters with the stylus, when, catching reflected in a mirror the old +magician's expression of wolfish glee, he dropped the instrument from his +grasp, and cast his eye upwards as if appealing to Heaven. But every drop +of blood seemed frozen in his frame as he beheld an enormous claw thrust +through the roof, member as it seemed of some being too gigantic to be +contained in the chamber or the tower itself. Cold, poignant, glittering as +steel, it rested upon a socket of the repulsive hue of jaundiced ivory, +with no vestige of a foot or anything to relieve its naked horror as, rigid +and lifeless, yet plainly with a mighty force behind it, it pointed at the +magician's heart. As Abano, following the youth's eye, caught sight of the +portent, his visage assumed an expression of frantic horror, his spells +died upon his lips, and the gorgeous figures became grinning apes or +blotchy toads: madly he seized the young man's hand, and strove to force +him to complete his signature. The robust youth felt as an infant in his +grasp, but ere the stylus could be again thrust upon him the first stroke +of the midnight hour rang through the chamber, and instantly the gigantic +talon pierced Abano from breast to back, projecting far beyond his +shoulders, and swept him upwards to the roof, through which both +disappeared without leaving a trace of their passage. + +Horror and thankfulness rushed together into the young man's mind, and +there contended for some brief instants: but as the last stroke sounded all +the crystal vials shivered with a stunning crash, and their hellish +inmates, rejoicing in their deliverance, swarmed into the chamber. All made +for the youth, who, tugged, clawed, fondled, bitten, beslimed, blinded, +deafened, beset in every way by creatures of indescribable loathsomeness, +grasped frantically as his sole weapon, the stylus; but it had become a +writhing serpent. This was too much, sense forsook him on the spot. + +On recovering consciousness he found himself stretched on a pallet in the +dungeons of the Inquisition. The Inquisitors sat on their tribunals; +black-robed familiars flitted about, or waited attentive upon their orders; +one expert in ecclesiastical jurisprudence proved the edge of an axe, and +another heated pincers in a chafing-dish; dismal groans pierced the massy +walls; two sturdy fellows, stripped to the waist, adjusted the rollers of a +rack. A surgeon approached the bedside, bearing a phial and a lancet. The +youth screamed and again became insensible. + +But his affright was groundless. The Inquisitors had already taken +cognisance of Abano's scrolls, and found that, touching these at least, he +had spoken sooth. Besides kings, princes, ministers, magistrates, and other +secular persons who had owed their success in life to dealings with the +devil under his mediation, the infernal bondsmen included so many pillars +of the Church and champions of the Faith; prelates plenty, abbots in +abundance, cardinals not a few, a (some whispered _the_) Pope; above all, +so many of the Inquisitors themselves, that further inquiry could evidently +nowise conduce to edification. The surgeon, therefore, infused an opiate +into the veins of the unconscious youth, and he came to himself upon a +galley speeding him to the holy war in Cyprus, where he fell fighting the +Turk. + + + + +ALEXANDER THE RATCATCHER + + +"Alexander Octavus mures, qui Urbem supra modum vexabant, anathemate +perculit."[--_Palatius. Fasti Cardinalium_, tom. v.p. 46.] + + + +I + + +"Rome and her rats are at the point of battle!" + +This metaphor of Menenius Agrippa's became, history records, matter of fact +in 1689, when rats pervaded the Eternal City from garret to cellar, and +Pope Alexander the Eighth seriously apprehended the fate of Bishop Hatto. +The situation worried him sorely; he had but lately attained the tiara at +an advanced age--the twenty-fourth hour, as he himself remarked in +extenuation of his haste to enrich his nephews. The time vouchsafed for +worthier deeds was brief, and he dreaded descending to posterity as the Rat +Pope. Witty and genial, his sense of humour teased him with a full +perception of the absurdity of his position. Peter and Pasquin concurred in +forbidding him to desert his post; and he derived but small comfort from +the ingenuity of his flatterers, who compared him to St. Paul contending +with beasts at Ephesus. + +It wanted three half-hours to midnight, as Alexander sat amid traps and +ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican, under the protection of two +enormous cats and a British terrier. A silver bell stood ready to his hand, +should the aid of the attendant chamberlains be requisite. The walls had +been divested of their tapestries, and the floor gleamed with pounded +glass. A tome of legendary lore lay open at the history of the Piper of +Hamelin. All was silence, save for the sniffing and scratching of the dog +and a sound of subterranean scraping and gnawing. + +"Why tarries Cardinal Barbadico thus?" the Pope at last asked himself +aloud. The inquiry was answered by a wild burst of squeaking and clattering +and scurrying to and fro, as who should say, "We've eaten him! We've eaten +him!" + +But this exultation was at least premature, for just as the terrified Pope +clutched his bell, the door opened to the narrowest extent compatible with +the admission of an ecclesiastical personage of dignified presence, and +Cardinal Barbadico hastily squeezed himself through. + +"I shall hardly trust myself upon these stairs again," he remarked, "unless +under the escort of your Holiness's terrier." + +"Take him, my son, and a cruse of holy water to boot," the Pope responded. +"Now, how go things in the city?" + +"As ill as may be, your Holiness. Not a saint stirs a finger to help us. +The country-folk shun the city, the citizens seek the country. The +multitude of enemies increases hour by hour. They set at defiance the +anathemas fulminated by your Holiness, the spiritual censures placarded in +the churches, and the citation to appear before the ecclesiastical courts, +although assured that their cause shall be pleaded by the ablest advocates +in Rome. The cats, amphibious with alarm, are taking to the Tiber. Vainly +the city reeks with toasted cheese, and the Commissary-General reports +himself short of arsenic." + +"And how are the people taking it?" demanded Alexander. "To what cause do +they attribute the public calamity?" + +"Generally speaking, to the sins of your Holiness," replied the Cardinal. + +"Cardinal!" exclaimed Alexander indignantly. + +"I crave pardon for my temerity," returned Barbadico. "It is with +difficulty that I force myself to speak, but I am bound to lay the +ungrateful truth before your Holiness. The late Pope, as all men know, was +a personage of singular sanctity." + +"Far too upright for this fallen world," observed Alexander with unction. + +"I will not dispute," responded the Cardinal, "that the head of Innocent +the Eleventh might have been more fitly graced by a halo than by a tiara. +But the vulgar are incapable of placing themselves at this point of view. +They know that the rats hardly squeaked under Innocent, and that they swarm +under Alexander. What wonder if they suspect your Holiness of familiarity +with Beelzebub, the patron of vermin, and earnestly desire that he would +take you to himself? Vainly have I represented to them the unreasonableness +of imposing upon him a trouble he may well deem superfluous, considering +your Holiness's infirm health and advanced age. Vainly, too, have I pointed +out that your anathema has actually produced all the effect that could +have been reasonably anticipated from any similar manifesto on your +predecessor's part. They won't see it. And, in fact, might I humbly advise, +it does appear impolitic to hurl anathemas unless your Holiness knows that +some one will be hit. It might be opportune, for example, to excommunicate +Father Molinos, now fast in the dungeons of St. Angelo, unless, indeed, the +rats have devoured him there. But I question the expediency of going much +further." + +"Cardinal," said the Pope, "you think yourself prodigiously clever, but you +ought to know that the state of public opinion allowed us no alternative. +Moreover, I will give you a wrinkle, in case you should ever come to be +Pope yourself. It is unwise to allow ancient prerogatives to fall entirely +into desuetude. Far-seeing men prognosticate a great revival of +sacerdotalism in the nineteenth century, and what is impotent in an age of +sense may be formidable in an age of nonsense. Further, we know not from +one day to another whether we may not be absolutely necessitated to +excommunicate that fautor of Gallicanism, Louis the Fourteenth, and before +launching our bolt at a king, we may think well to test its efficacy upon a +rat. _Fiat experimentum._ And now to return to our rats, from which we have +ratted. Is there indeed no hope?" + +"_Lateat scintillula forsan_," said the Cardinal mysteriously. + +"Ha! How so?" eagerly demanded Alexander. + +"Our hopes," answered the Cardinal, "are associated with the recent advent +to this city of an extraordinary personage." + +"Explain," urged the Pope. + +"I speak," resumed the Cardinal, "of an aged man of no plebeian mien or +bearing, albeit most shabbily attired in the skins, now fabulously cheap, +of the vermin that torment us; who, professing to practise as an herbalist, +some little time ago established himself in an obscure street of no good +repute. A tortoise hangs in his needy shop, nor are stuffed alligators +lacking. Understanding that he was resorted to by such as have need of +philters and love-potions, or are incommoded by the longevity of parents +and uncles, I was about to have him arrested, when I received a report +which gave me pause. This concerned the singular intimacy which appeared to +subsist between him and our enemies. When he left home, it was averred, he +was attended by troops of them obedient to his beck and call, and spies had +observed him banqueting them at his counter, the rats sitting erect and +comporting themselves with perfect decorum. I resolved to investigate the +matter for myself. Looking into his house through an unshuttered window, I +perceived him in truth surrounded by feasting and gambolling rats; but when +the door was opened in obedience to my attendants' summons, he appeared to +be entirely alone. Laying down a pestle and mortar, he greeted me by name +with an easy familiarity which for the moment quite disconcerted me, and +inquired what had procured him the honour of my visit. Recovering myself, +and wishing to intimidate him: + +"'I desire in the first place,' I said, 'to point out to you your grave +transgression of municipal regulations in omitting to paint your name over +your shop.' + +"'Call me Rattila,' he rejoined with unconcern, 'and state your further +business.' + +"I felt myself on the wrong tack, and hastened to interrogate him +respecting his relations with our adversaries. He frankly admitted his +acquaintance with rattery in all its branches, and his ability to deliver +the city from this scourge, but his attitude towards your Holiness was so +deficient in respect that I question whether I ought to report it." + +"Proceed, son," said the Pope; "we will not be deterred from providing for +the public weal by the ribaldry of a ratcatcher." + +"He scoffed at what he termed your Holiness's absurd position, and affirmed +that the world had seldom beheld, or would soon behold again, so ridiculous +a spectacle as a Pope besieged by rats. 'I can help your master,' he +continued, 'and am willing; but my honour, like his, is aspersed in the +eyes of the multitude, and he must come to my aid, if I am to come to his.' + +"I prayed him to be more explicit, and offered to be the bearer of any +communication to your Holiness. + +"'I will unfold myself to no one but the Pope himself,' he replied, 'and +the interview must take place when and where I please to appoint. Let him +meet me this very midnight, and alone, in the fifth chamber of the +Appartamento Borgia.' + +"'The Appartamento Borgia!' I exclaimed in consternation. 'The saloons +which the wicked Pope Alexander the Sixth nocturnally perambulates, +mingling poisons that have long lost their potency for Cardinals who have +long lost their lives!' + +"'Have a care!' he exclaimed sharply. 'You speak to his late Holiness's +most intimate friend.' + +"'Then,' I answered, 'you must obviously be the Devil, and I am not at +present empowered to negotiate with your Infernal Majesty. Consider, +however, the peril and inconvenience of visiting at dead of night rooms +closed for generations. Think of the chills and cobwebs. Weigh the +probability of his Holiness being devoured by rats.' + +"'I guarantee his Holiness absolute immunity from cold,' he replied, 'and +that none of my subjects shall molest him either going or returning.' + +"'But,' I objected, 'granting that you are not the Devil, how the devil, +let me ask, do you expect to gain admittance at midnight to the +Appartamento Borgia?' + +"'Think you I cannot pass through a stone wall?' answered he, and vanished +in an instant. A tremendous scampering of rats immediately ensued, then all +was silence. + +"On recovering in some measure from my astounded condition, I caused strict +search to be made throughout the shop. Nothing came to light but +herbalists' stuff and ordinary medicines. And now, Holy Father, your +Holiness's resolution? Reflect well. This Rattila may be the King of the +Rats, or he may be Beelzebub in person." + +Alexander the Eighth was principally considered by his contemporaries in +the light of a venerable fox, but the lion had by no means been omitted +from his composition. + +"All powers of good forbid," he exclaimed, "that a Pope and a Prince should +shrink from peril which the safety of the State summons him to encounter! +I will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of his own +appointing, under his late intimate friend's very nose. I am a man of many +transgressions, but something assures me that Heaven will not deem this a +fit occasion for calling them to remembrance. Time presses; I lead on; +follow, Cardinal Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let us not forget temporal +and spiritual armouries." + +And hastily providing himself with a lamp, a petronel, a bunch of keys, a +crucifix, a vial of holy water, and a manual of exorcisms, the Pope passed +through a secret door in a corner of his chamber, followed by the Cardinal +bearing another lamp and a naked sword, and preceded by the dog and the two +cats, all ardent and undaunted as champions bound to the Holy Land for the +recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. + + + +II + + +The wizard had kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the +pilgrimage, which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the +number of passages to be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length the +companions stood before the portal of the Appartamento Borgia. + +"Your Holiness must enter alone," Cardinal Barbadico admonished, with +manifest reluctance. + +"Await my return," enjoined the Pontiff, in a tone of more confidence than +he could actually feel, as, after much grinding and grating, the massive +door swung heavily back, and he passed on into the dim, unexplored space +beyond. The outer air, streaming in as though eager to indemnify itself for +years of exile, smote and swayed the flame of the Pope's lamp, whose feeble +ray flitted from floor to ceiling as the decrepit man, weary with the way +he had traversed and the load he was bearing, tottered and stumbled +painfully along, ever and anon arrested by a closed door, which he unlocked +with prodigious difficulty. The cats cowered close to the Cardinal; the dog +at first accompanied the Pope, but whined so grievously, as though he +beheld a spirit, that Alexander bade him back. + +Supreme is the spell of the _genius loci_. The chambers traversed by the +Pope were in fact adorned with fair examples of the painter's art, mostly +scriptural in subject, but some inspired with the devout Pantheism in which +all creeds are reconciled. All were alike invisible to the Pontiff, who, +with the dim flicker of his lamp, could no more discern Judaea wed with +Egypt on the frescoed ceiling than, with the human limitation of his +faculties, he could foresee that the ill-reputed rooms would one day +harbour a portion of the Vatican Library, so greatly enriched by himself. +Nothing but sinister memories and vague alarms presented themselves to his +imagination. The atmosphere, heavy and brooding from the long exclusion of +the outer air, seemed to weigh upon him with the density of matter, and to +afford the stuff out of which phantasmal bodies perpetually took shape and, +as he half persuaded himself, substance. Creeping and tottering between +bowl and cord, shielding himself with lamp and crucifix from Michelotto's +spectral poniard and more fearful contact with fleshless Vanozzas and +mouldering Giulias, the Pope urged, or seemed to urge, his course amid +phantom princes and cardinals, priests and courtesans, soldiers and +serving-men, dancers, drinkers, dicers, Bacchic and Cotyttian workers of +whatsoever least beseemed the inmates of a Pontifical household, until, +arrived in the fifth chamber, close by the, to him, invisible picture of +the Resurrection, he sank exhausted into a spacious chair that seemed +placed for his reception, and for a moment closed his eyes. Opening them +immediately afterwards, he saw with relief that the phantoms had vanished, +and that he confronted what at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient +ratcatcher, habited precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for +all his mean apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the +potentates of the earth on other subjects than the extermination of rats. + +"This is noble of your Holiness--really," he said, bowing with mock +reverence. "A second Leo the Great!" + +"I tell you what, my man," responded Alexander, feeling it very necessary +to assert his dignity while any of it remained, "you are not to imagine +that, because I have humoured you so far as to grant you an audience at an +unusual place and time, I am going to stand any amount of your nonsense and +impertinence. You can catch our rats, can you? Catch them then, and you +need not fear that we shall treat you like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. You +have committed sundry rascalities, no doubt? A pardon shall be made out +for you. You want a patent or a privilege for your ratsbane? You shall have +it. So to work, in the name of St. Muscipulus! and you may keep the tails +and skins." + +"Alexander," said the ratcatcher composedly, "I would not commend or +dispraise you unduly, but this I may say, that of all the Popes I have +known you are the most exuberant in hypocrisy and the most deficient in +penetration. The most hypocritical, because you well know, and know that I +know that you know, that you are not conversing with an ordinary +ratcatcher: had you deemed me such, you would never have condescended to +meet me at this hour and place. The least penetrating, because you +apparently have not yet discovered to whom you are speaking. Do you really +mean to say that you do not know me?" + +"I believe I have seen your face before," said Alexander, "and all the more +likely as I was inspector of prisons when I was Cardinal." + +"Then look yonder," enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the frescoed +wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers. Phosphoric sparks +hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue lambent flame, which +concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose precise attitude the +ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees. The Pope shrieked with +amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical vestments had become +ragged fur, in every other respect the kneeling figure was the counterpart +of the painted one, and the painted one was Pinturicchio's portrait of Pope +Alexander the Sixth kneeling as a witness of the Resurrection. + +Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor's attitude, +but terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his patron St. +Mark which struggled towards his lips never arrived there. The book of +exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water lay in +shivers upon the floor. Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope had +seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the grave, and, fondling a +ferret-skin, proceeded to enter into conversation. + +"What fear you?" he asked. "Why should I harm you? None can say that I ever +injured any one for any cause but my own advantage, and to injure your +Holiness now would be to obstruct a design which I have particularly at +heart." + +"I crave your Holiness's forgiveness," rejoined the Eighth Alexander, "but +you must be aware that you left the world with a reputation which +disqualifies you for the society of any Pope in the least careful of his +character. It positively compromises me to have so much as the ghost of a +person so universally decried as your Holiness under my roof, and you would +infinitely oblige me by forthwith repairing to your own place, which I take +to be about four thousand miles below where you are sitting. I could +materially facilitate and accelerate your Holiness's transit thither if you +would be so kind as to hand me that little book of exorcisms." + +"How is the fine gold become dim!" exclaimed Alexander the Sixth. "Popes in +bondage to moralists! Popes nervous about public opinion! Is there another +judge of morals than the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_, as I always did? Is +the Church to frame herself after the prescriptions of heathen +philosophers and profane jurists? How, then, shall she be terrible as an +army with banners? Did I concern myself with such pedantry when the Kings +of Spain and Portugal came to me like cats suing for morsels, and I gave +them the West and the East?" + +"It is true," Alexander the Eighth allowed, "that the lustre of the Church +hath of late been obfuscated by the prevalence of heresy." + +"It isn't the heretics," Borgia insisted. "It is the degeneracy of the +Popes. A shabby lot! You, Alexander, are about the best of them; but the +least Cardinal about my Court would have thought himself bigger than you." + +Alexander's spirit rose. "I would suggest," he said, "that this haughty +style is little in keeping with the sordid garb wherein your Holiness, +consistent after death as in your life, masquerades to the scandal and +distress of the faithful." + +"How can I other? Has your Holiness forgotten your Rabelais?" + +"The works of that eminent Doctor and Divine," answered Alexander the +Eighth, "are seldom long absent from my hands, yet I fail to remember in +what manner they elucidate the present topic." + +"Let me refresh your memory," rejoined Borgia, and, producing a volume of +the Sage of Meudon, he turned to the chapter descriptive of the employments +of various eminent inhabitants of the nether world, and pointed to the +sentence: + +"LE PAPE ALEXANDRE ESTOYT PRENEUR DE RATZ." [*] + +[Footnote: _Pantagruel_, Book XI. ch. 30.] + +"Is this indeed sooth?" demanded his successor. + +"How else should Franois Rabelais have affirmed it?" responded Borgia. +"When I arrived in the subterranean kingdom, I found it in the same +condition as your Holiness's dominions at the present moment, eaten up by +rats. The attention which, during my earthly pilgrimage, I had devoted to +the science of toxicology indicated me as a person qualified to abate the +nuisance, which commission I executed with such success, that I received +the appointment of Ratcatcher to his Infernal Majesty, and so discharged +its duties as to merit a continuance of the good opinion which had always +been entertained of me in that exalted quarter. After a while, however, +interest began to be made for me in even more elevated spheres. I had not +been able to cram Heaven with Spaniards, as I had crammed the Sacred +College--on the contrary. Truth to speak, my nation has not largely +contributed to the population of the regions above. But some of us are +people of consequence. My great-grandson, the General of the Jesuits, who, +as such, had the ear of St. Ignatius Loyola, represented that had I adhered +strictly to my vows, he could never have come into existence, and that the +Society would thus have wanted one of its brightest ornaments. This +argument naturally had great weight with St. Ignatius, the rather as he, +too, was my countryman. Much also was said of the charity I had shown to +the exiled Jews, which St. Dominic was pleased to say made him feel ashamed +of himself when he came to think of it; for my having fed my people in time +of dearth, instead of contriving famines to enrich myself, as so many +Popes' nephews have done since; and of the splendid order in which I kept +the College of Cardinals. Columbus said a good word for me, and Savonarola +did not oppose. Finally I was allowed to come upstairs, and exercise my +profession on earth. But mark what pitfalls line the good man's path! I +never could resist tampering with drugs of a deleterious nature, and was +constantly betrayed by the thirst for scientific experiment into practices +incompatible with the public health. The good nature which my detractors +have not denied me was a veritable snare. I felt for youth debarred from +its enjoyments by the unnatural vitality of age, and sympathised with the +blooming damsel whose parent alone stood between her and her lover. I thus +lived in constant apprehension of being ordered back to the Netherlands, +and yearned for the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be out of +mischief. At last I discovered that my promotion to a higher sphere +depended upon my obtaining a testimonial from the reigning Pope. Let a +solemn procession be held in my honour, and intercession be publicly made +for me, and I should ascend forthwith. I have consequently represented my +case to many of your predecessors: but, O Alexander, you +seventeenth-century Popes are a miserable breed! No fellow-feeling, no +_esprit de corps. Heu pietas! heu prisca fides_! No one was so rude as your +ascetic antecessor. The more of a saint, the less of a gentleman. +Personally offensive, I assure you! But the others were nearly as bad. The +haughty Paul, the fanatic Gregory, the worldly Urban, the austere Innocent +the Tenth, the affable Alexander the Seventh, all concurred in assuring me +that it was deeply to be regretted that I should ever have been emancipated +from the restraints of the Stygian realm, to which I should do well to +return with all possible celerity; that it would much conduce to the +interests of the Church if my name could be forgotten; and that as for +doing anything to revive its memory, they would just as soon think of +canonising Judas Iscariot." + +"And therefore your Holiness has brought these rats upon us, enlisted, I +nothing doubt, in the infernal regions?" + +"Precisely so: Plutonic, necyomantic, Lemurian rats, kindly lent by the +Prince of Darkness for the occasion, and come dripping from Styx to squeak +and gibber in the Capitol. But I note your Holiness's admission that they +belong to a region exempt from your jurisdiction, and that, therefore, your +measures against them, except as regards their status as belligerents, are +for the most part illegitimate and _ultra vires_." + +"I would argue that point," replied Alexander the Eighth, "if my lungs were +as tough as when I pleaded before the Rota in Pope Urban's time. For the +present I confine myself to formally protesting against your Holiness's +unprecedented and parricidal conduct in invading your country at the head +of an army of loathsome vermin." + +"Unprecedented!" exclaimed Borgia. "Am I not the modern Coriolanus? Did +Narses experience blacker ingratitude than I? Where would the temporal +power be but for me? Who smote the Colonna? Who squashed the Orsini? Who +gave the Popes to dwell quietly in their own house? Monsters of +unthankfulness!" + +"I am sure," said Alexander the Eighth soothingly, "that my predecessors' +inability to comply with your Holiness's request must have cost them many +inward tears, not the less genuine because entirely invisible and +completely inaudible. A wise Pope will, before all things, consider the +spirit of his age. The force of public opinion, which your Holiness lately +appeared to disparage, was, in fact, as operative upon yourself as upon any +of your successors. If you achieved great things in your lifetime, it was +because the world was with you. Did you pursue the same methods now, you +would soon discover that you had become an offensive anachronism. It will +not have escaped your Holiness's penetration that what moralists will +persist in terming the elevation of the standard of the Church, is the +result of the so-called improvement of the world." + +"There is a measure of truth in this," admitted Alexander the Sixth, "and +the spirit of this age is a very poor spirit. It was my felicity to be a +Pope of the Renaissance. Blest dispensation! when men's view of life was +large and liberal; when the fair humanities flourished; when the earth +yielded up her hoards of chiselled marble and breathing bronze, and +new-found agate urns as fresh as day; when painters and sculptors vied with +antiquity, and poets and historians followed in their path; when every +benign deity was worshipped save Diana and Vesta; when the arts of +courtship and cosmetics were expounded by archbishops; when the beauteous +Imperia was of more account than the eleven thousand virgins; when +obnoxious persons glided imperceptibly from the world; and no one +marvelled if he met the Pope arm in arm with the Devil. How miserable, in +comparison, is the present sapless age, with its prudery and its pedantry, +and its periwigs and its painted coaches, and its urban Arcadias and the +florid impotence and ostentatious inanity of what it calls its art! Pope +Alexander! I see in the spirit the sepulchre destined for _you_, and I +swear to you that my soul shivers in my ratskins! Come, now! I do not +expect you to emulate the Popes of my time, but show that your virtues are +your own, and your faults those of your epoch. Pluck up a spirit! Take +bulls by the horns! Look facts in the face! Think upon the images of Brutus +and Cassius! Recognise that you cannot get rid of me, and that the only +safe course is to rehabilitate me. I am not a candidate for canonisation +just now; but repair past neglect and appease my injured shade in the way +you wot of. If this is done, I pledge my word that every rat shall +forthwith evacuate Rome. Is it a bargain? I see it is; you are one of the +good old sort, though fallen on evil days." + +Renaissance or Rats, Alexander the Eighth yielded. + +"I promise," he declared. + +"Your hand upon it!" + +Subduing his repugnance and apprehension by a strong effort, Alexander laid +his hand within the spectre's clammy paw. An icy thrill ran through his +veins, and he sank back senseless into his chair. + + + +III + + +When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with slight +symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, and +confer with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently +befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal's mind seemed an entire blank +on the subject. He admitted having made his customary report to his +Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing of any supernatural +ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous at the Appartamento +Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his nescience; no vestige of the +man of rats or of his shop could be discovered; and the Borgian apartments, +opened and carefully searched through, revealed no trace of having been +visited for many years. The Pope's book of exorcisms was in its proper +place, his vial of holy water stood unbroken upon his table; and his +chamberlains deposed that they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual +hour. His illusion was at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly +vivid dream; but when he declared his intention of actually holding a +service and conducting a procession for the weal of his namesake and +predecessor, the conviction became universal that the rats had effected a +lodgement in his Holiness's upper storeys. + +Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that on +the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of Rome. +As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and monasteries in +the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst, marched, carrying candles, +intoning chants, and, with many a secret shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven +for the repose of Alexander the Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by +another procession precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, +but more grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and +pageants of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat +and lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and +galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in +single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the rising +to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber, which they +would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there a huge rift +opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated themselves. Their +descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as Vulcan occupied in falling +from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last tail was over the brink, the gulf +closed as effectually as the gulf in the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius, +not leaving the slightest inequality by which any could detect it. + +Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth from +his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who appeared +desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were exchanged, +and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, corpulent, +elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander the Sixth, +accoutred with the official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, who rose +slowly into the air as though he had been inflated with hydrogen. + +"To your prayers!" cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. The +priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their knees. +Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was rising +rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty, +contending which should receive the Holy Father into her bosom. [*] Borgia +struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be keeping them at bay, when +a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of men. Thunder roared, lightning +glared, the rush of waters blended with the ejaculations of the people and +the yet more tempestuous rushing of the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is +not probable that Alexander passed, like Dante's sigh, "beyond the sphere +that doth all spheres enfold"; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it +is not doubted that he attained at least as far as the moon. + +[Footnote: + + Per aver riposo + Portato fu fra l'anime beate + Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso; + Del qual seguiro le sante pedate + Tre sue familiari e care ancelle, + Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate. +[--Machiavelli, _Decennale Primo_.]] + + + + +THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY + + +In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the +Christian era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had +three sons, Fu-su, Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men of +active minds, always labouring to find out something new and useful. +Wang-li was clever too, but only in games of skill, in which he attained +great proficiency. + +Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful +inventions they would make when they arrived at man's estate, and of the +wealth and renown they promised themselves thereby. Their conversation +seldom reached the ears of Wang-li, for he rarely lifted his eyes from the +chess-board on which he solved his problems. But their father was more +attentive, and one day he said: + +"I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you +must have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you would +have learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means which you have +proposed to yourselves." + +"How so, father?" asked they. + +"It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors," said the old man, "that the +reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, by +reason of our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not but +become impaired if their posterity were suffered to eclipse their fame by +new discoveries, or presumptuously amend what might appear imperfect in +their productions. It is therefore, by an edict of the Emperor Suen, +forbidden to invent anything; and by a statute of the Emperor Wu-chi it is +further provided that nothing hitherto invented shall be improved. My +predecessor in the small office I hold was deprived of it for saying that +in his judgment money ought to be made round instead of square, and I have +myself run risk of my life for seeking to combine a small file with a pair +of tweezers." + +"If this is the case," said the young men, "our fatherland is not the place +for us." And they embraced their father, and departed. Of their brother +Wang-li they took no farewell, inasmuch as he was absorbed in a chess +problem. Before separating, they agreed to meet on the same spot after +thirty years, with the treasure which they doubted not to have acquired by +the exercise of their inventive faculties in foreign lands. They further +covenanted that if either had missed his reward the other should share his +possessions with him. + +Fu-su repaired to the artists who cut out characters in blocks of hard +wood, to the end that books may be printed from the same. When he had +fathomed their mystery he betook himself to a brass-founder, and learned +how to cast in metal. He then sought a learned man who had travelled much, +and made himself acquainted with the Greek, Persian, and Arabic languages. +Then he cast a number of Greek characters in type, and putting them into a +bag and providing himself with some wooden letter-tablets of his own +carving, he departed to seek his fortune. After innumerable hardships and +perils he arrived in the land of Persia, and inquired for the great king. + +"The great king is dead," they told him, "and his head is entirely +separated from his body. There is now no king in Persia, great or small." + +"Where shall I find another great king?" demanded he. + +"In the city of Alexandria," replied they, "where the Commander of the +Faithful is busy introducing the religion of the Prophet." + +Fu-su passed to Alexandria, carrying his types and tablets. + +As he entered the gates he remarked an enormous cloud of smoke, which +seemed to darken the whole city. Before he could inquire the reason, the +guard arrested him as a stranger, and conducted him to the presence of the +Caliph Omar. + +"Know, O Caliph," said Fu-su, "that my countrymen are at once the wisest of +mankind and the stupidest. They have invented an art for the preservation +of letters and the diffusion of knowledge, which the sages of Greece and +India never knew, but they have not learned to take, and they refuse to be +taught how to take, the one little step further necessary to render it +generally profitable to mankind." + +And producing his tablets and types, he explained to the Caliph the entire +mystery of the art of printing. + +"Thou seemest to be ignorant," said Omar, "that we have but yesterday +condemned and excommunicated all books, and banished the same from the +face of the earth, seeing that they contain either that which is contrary +to the Koran, in which case they are impious, or that which is agreeable to +the Koran, in which case they are superfluous. Thou art further unaware, as +it would seem, that the smoke which shrouds the city proceeds from the +library of the unbelievers, consumed by our orders. It will be meet to burn +thee along with it." + +"O Commander of the Faithful," said an officer, "of a surety the last +scroll of the accursed ceased to flame even as this infidel entered the +city." + +"If it be so," said Omar, "we will not burn him, seeing that we have taken +away from him the occasion to sin. Yet shall he swallow these little brass +amulets of his, at the rate of one a day, and then be banished from the +country." + +The sentence was executed, and Fu-su was happy that the Court physician +condescended to accept his little property in exchange for emetics. + +He begged his way slowly and painfully back to China, and arrived at the +covenanted spot at the expiration of the thirtieth year. His father's +modest dwelling had disappeared, and in its place stood a magnificent +mansion, around which stretched a park with pavilions, canals, +willow-trees, golden pheasants, and little bridges. + +"Tu-sin has surely made his fortune," thought he, "and he will not refuse +to share it with me agreeably to our covenant." + +As he thus reflected he heard a voice at his elbow, and turning round +perceived that one in a more wretched plight than himself was asking alms +of him. It was Tu-sin. + +The brothers embraced with many tears, and after Tu-sin had learned Fu-su's +history, he proceeded to recount his own. + +"I repaired," said he, "to those who know the secret of the grains termed +fire-dust, which Suen has not been able to prevent us from inventing, but +of which Wu-chi has taken care that we shall make no use, save only for +fireworks. Having learned their mystery I deposited a certain portion of +this fire-dust in hollow tubes which I had constructed of iron and brass, +and upon it I further laid leaden balls of a size corresponding to the +hollow of the tubes. I then found that by applying a light to the fire-dust +at one end of the tube I could send the ball out at the other with such +force that it penetrated the cuirasses of three warriors at once. I filled +a barrel with the dust, and concealing it and the tubes under carpets which +I laid upon the backs of oxen, I set out to the city of Constantinople. I +will not at present relate my adventures on the journey. Suffice it that I +arrived at last half dead from fatigue and hardship, and destitute of +everything except my merchandise. By bribing an officer with my carpets I +was admitted to have speech with the Emperor. I found him busily studying a +problem in chess. + +"I told him that I had discovered a secret which would make him the master +of the world, and in particular would help him to drive away the Saracens, +who threatened his empire with destruction. + +"'Thou must perceive,' he said, 'that I cannot possibly attend to thee +until I have solved this problem. Yet, lest any should say that the +Emperor neglects his duties, absorbed in idle amusement, I will refer thy +invention to the chief armourers of my capital. And he gave me a letter to +the armourers, and returned to his problem. And as I quitted the palace +bearing the missive, I came upon a great procession. Horsemen and running +footmen, musicians, heralds, and banner-bearers surrounded a Chinaman who +sat in the attitude of Fo under a golden umbrella upon a richly caparisoned +elephant, his pigtail plaited with yellow roses. And the musicians blew and +clashed, and the standard-bearers waved their ensigns, and the heralds +proclaimed, 'Thus shall it be done to the man whom the Emperor delights to +honour.' And unless I was very greatly mistaken, the face of the Chinaman +was the face of our brother Wang-li. + +"At another time I would have striven to find what this might mean, but my +impatience was great, as also my need and hunger. I sought the chief +armourers, and with great trouble brought them all together to give me +audience, I produced my tube and fire-dust, and sent my balls with ease +through the best armour they could set before me. + +"' Who will want breast-plates now?' cried the chief breast-plate maker. + +"'Or helmets?' exclaimed one who made armour for the head. + +"'I would not have taken fifty bezants for that shield, and what good is it +now?' said the head of the shield trade. + +"'My swords will be of less account,' said a swordsmith. + +"'My arrows of none,' lamented an arrow-maker. + +"''Tis villainy,' cried one. + +"''Tis magic,' shouted another. + +"''Tis illusion, as I'm an honest tradesman,' roared a third, and put his +integrity to the proof by thrusting a hot iron bar into my barrel. All +present rose up in company with the roof of the building, and all perished, +except myself, who escaped with the loss of my hair and skin. A fire broke +out on the spot, and consumed one-third of the city of Constantinople. + +"I was lying on a prison-bed some time afterwards, partly recovered of my +hurts, dolefully listening to a dispute between two of my guards as to +whether I ought to be burned or buried alive, when the Imperial order for +my disposal came down. The gaolers received it with humility, and read +'Kick him out of the city.' Marvelling at the mildness of the punishment, +they nevertheless executed it with so much zeal that I flew into the middle +of the Bosphorus, where I was picked up by a fishing vessel, and landed on +the Asiatic coast, whence I have begged my way home. I now propose that we +appeal to the pity of the owner of this splendid mansion, who may +compassionate us on hearing that we were reared in the Cottage which has +been pulled down to make room for his palace." + +They entered the gates, walked timidly up to the house, and prepared to +fall at the feet of the master, but did not, for ere they could do so they +recognised their brother Wang-li. + +It took Wang-li some time to recognise them, but when at length he knew +them he hastened to provide for their every want. When they had well eaten +and drunk, and had been clad in robes of honour, they imparted their +histories, and asked for his. + +"My brothers," said Wang-li, "the noble game of chess, which was happily +invented long before the time of the Emperor Suen, was followed by me +solely for its pleasure, and I dreamed not of acquiring wealth by its +pursuit until I casually heard one day that it was entirely unknown to the +people of the West. Even then I thought not of gaining money, but conceived +so deep a compassion for those forlorn barbarians that I felt I could know +no rest until I should have enlightened them. I accordingly proceeded to +the city of Constantinople, and was received as a messenger from Heaven. To +such effect did I labour that ere long the Emperor and his officers of +state thought of nothing else but playing chess all day and night, and the +empire fell into entire confusion, and the Saracens mightily prevailed. In +consideration of these services the Emperor was pleased to bestow those +distinguished honours upon me which thou didst witness at his palace gate, +dear brother. + +"After, however, the fire which was occasioned through thy instrumentality, +though in no respect by thy fault, the people murmured, and taxed the +Emperor with seeking to destroy his capital in league with a foreign +sorcerer, meaning thee. Ere long the chief officers conspired and entered +the Emperor's apartment, purposing to dethrone him, but he declared that he +would in nowise abdicate until he had finished the game of chess he was +then playing with me. They looked on, grew interested, began to dispute +with one another respecting the moves, and while they wrangled loyal +officers entered and made them all captive. This greatly augmented my +credit with the Emperor, which was even increased when shortly afterwards I +played with the Saracen admiral blockading the Hellespont, and won of him +forty corn-ships, which turned the dearth of the city into plenty. + +"The Emperor bade me choose any favour I would, but I said his liberality +had left me nothing to ask for except the life of a poor countryman of mine +who I had heard was in prison for burning the city. The Emperor bade me +write his sentence with my own hand. Had I known that it was thou, Tu-sin, +believe me I had shown more consideration for thy person. At length I +departed for my native land, loaded with wealth, and travelling most +comfortably by relays of swift dromedaries. I returned hither, bought our +father's cottage, and on its site erected this palace, where I dwell +meditating on the problems of chessplayers and the precepts of the sages, +and persuaded that a little thing which the world is willing to receive is +better than a great thing which it hath not yet learned to value aright. +For the world is a big child, and chooses amusement before instruction." + +"Call you chess an amusement?" asked his brothers. + + + + +MADAM LUCIFER + + +Lucifer sat playing chess with Man for his soul. + +The game was evidently going ill for Man. He had but pawns left, few and +straggling. Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops. + +It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no great +hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient. + +"It is a pity," said he at last, "that we did not fix some period within +which the player must move, or resign." + +"Oh, Lucifer," returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, "it is not +the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my +betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that paragon of +terrestrial loveliness!" Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was touched. + +"Is the Lady Adeliza's loveliness in sooth so transcendent?" he inquired. + +"She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!" + +"If that is the case," rejoined Lucifer, "thou mayest reassure thyself. The +Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy shape and +woo her in thy stead." + +The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this promise +which Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In an instant +the Devil checkmated him, and he disappeared. + + * * * * * + +"Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I don't +think I should have gone in for it," soliloquised the Devil, as, wearing +his captive's semblance and installed in his apartments, he surveyed the +effects to which he now had to administer. They included coats, shirts, +collars, neckties, foils, cigars, and the like _ad libitum_; and very +little else except three challenges, ten writs, and seventy-four unpaid +bills, elegantly disposed around the looking-glass. To the poor youth's +praise be it said, there were no billets-doux, except from the Lady Adeliza +herself. + +Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and nothing +but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him take the +back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking on the +principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer and a +bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady Adeliza's feet. + +The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such +correctness of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a love-sick +fiend. Not Merlin's mother had produced half the impression upon him; and +Adeliza on her part had never found her lover one-hundredth part so +interesting as he seemed that morning. + +Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape +for the occasion, he negotiated a loan without the smallest difficulty. All +debts were promptly discharged, and Adeliza was astonished at the splendour +and variety of the presents she was constantly receiving. + +Lucifer had all but brought her to name the day, when he was informed that +a gentleman of clerical appearance desired to wait upon him. + +"Wants money for a new church or mission, I suppose," said he. "Show him +up." + +But when the visitor was ushered in, Lucifer found with discomposure that +he was no earthly clergyman, but a celestial saint; a saint, too, with whom +Lucifer had never been able to get on. He had served in the army while on +earth, and his address was curt, precise, and peremptory. + +"I have called," he said, "to notify to you my appointment as Inspector of +Devils." + +"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, in consternation. "To the post of my old friend +Michael!" + +"Too old," said the Saint laconically. "Millions of years older than the +world. About your age, I think?" + +Lucifer winced, remembering the particular business he was then about. The +Saint continued: + +"I am a new broom, and am expected to sweep clean. I warn you that I mean +to be strict, and there is one little matter which I must set right +immediately. You are going to marry that poor young fellow's betrothed, are +you? Now you know you cannot take his wife, unless you give him yours." + +"Oh, my dear friend," exclaimed Lucifer, "what an inexpressibly blissful +prospect you do open unto me!" + +"I don't know that," said the Saint. "I must remind you that the dominion +of the infernal regions is unalterably attached to the person of the +present Queen thereof. If you part with her you immediately lose all your +authority and possessions. I don't care a brass button which you do, but +you must understand that you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Good +morning!" + +Who shall describe the conflict in Lucifer's bosom? If any stronger passion +existed therein at that moment than attachment to Adeliza, it was aversion +to his consort, and the two combined were well-nigh irresistible. But to +disenthrone himself, to descend to the condition of a poor devil! + +Feeling himself incapable of coming to a decision, he sent for Belial, +unfolded the matter, and requested his advice. + +"What a shame that our new inspector will not let you marry Adeliza!" +lamented his counsellor. "If you did, my private opinion is that +forty-eight hours afterwards you would care just as much for her as you do +now for Madam Lucifer, neither more nor less. Are your intentions really +honourable?" + +"Yes," replied Lucifer, "it is to be a Lucifer match." + +"The more fool you," rejoined Belial. "If you tempted her to commit a sin, +she would be yours without any conditions at all." + +"Oh, Belial," said Lucifer, "I cannot bring myself to be a tempter of so +much innocence and loveliness." + +And he meant what he said. + +"Well then, let me try," proposed Belial. + +"You?" replied Lucifer contemptuously; "do you imagine that Adeliza would +look at _you_?" + +"Why not?" asked Belial, surveying himself complacently in the glass. + +He was humpbacked, squinting, and lame, and his horns stood up under his +wig. + +The discussion ended in a wager after which there was no retreat for +Lucifer. + +The infernal Iachimo was introduced to Adeliza as a distinguished +foreigner, and was soon prosecuting his suit with all the success which +Lucifer had predicted. One thing protected while it baffled him--the +entire inability of Adeliza to understand what he meant. At length he was +constrained to make the matter clear by producing an enormous treasure, +which he offered Adeliza in exchange for the abandonment of her lover. + +The tempest of indignation which ensued would have swept away any ordinary +demon, but Belial listened unmoved. When Adeliza had exhausted herself he +smilingly rallied her upon her affection for an unworthy lover, of whose +infidelity he undertook to give her proof. Frantic with jealousy, Adeliza +consented, and in a trice found herself in the infernal regions. + + * * * * * + +Adeliza's arrival in Pandemonium, as Belial had planned, occurred +immediately after the receipt of a message from Lucifer, in whose bosom +love had finally gained the victory, and who had telegraphed his abdication +and resignation of Madam Lucifer to Adeliza's betrothed. The poor young man +had just been hauled up from the lower depths, and was beset by legions of +demons obsequiously pressing all manner of treasures upon his acceptance. +He stared, helpless and bewildered, unable to realise his position in the +smallest degree. In the background grave and serious demons, the princes of +the infernal realm, discussed the new departure, and consulted especially +how to break it to Madam Lucifer--a commission of which no one seemed +ambitious. + +"Stay where you are," whispered Belial to Adeliza; "stir not; you shall put +his constancy to the proof within five minutes." + +Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under +ordinary circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover's side: but what is +all hell to jealousy? + +In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by +Madam Lucifer. This lady's black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted +agreeably with her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair was +compensated by the exceptional length of her nails; she was a thousand +million years old, and, but for her remarkable muscular vigour, looked +every one of them. The rage into which Belial's communication had thrown +her was something indescribable; but, as her eye fell on the handsome +youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to take possession of her mind. + +"Let the monster go!" she exclaimed; "who cares? Come, my love, ascend the +throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond +Luciferetta." + +"If you don't, back you go," interjected Belial. + +What might have been the young man's decision if Madam Lucifer had borne +more resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent to +inquire, for the question never arose. + +"Take me away!" he screamed, "take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of her +reach! Oh, Adeliza!" + +With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant glance +at the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression changed, and +she screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike in every lineament +and every detail of costume, utterly indistinguishable, even by the eye of +Love. + +Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza's feet and pray her +to defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings of her +elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his dominions along +with his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions with such expedition +that he had had no time to change his costume. Hence the equivocation which +confounded Adeliza, but at the same time preserved her from being torn to +pieces by the no less mystified Madam Lucifer. + +Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling +resumed his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer's talons were immediately +inserted into his whiskers. + +"My dear! my love!" he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, "is this +the way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?" + +"Who is that person?" demanded Madam Lucifer. + +"I don't know her," screamed the wretched Lucifer. "I never saw her before. +Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!" + +"Not if I know it," sharply replied Madam Lucifer, "You can't bear to part +with her, can't you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, would you? +Take that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them both out!" + +"Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly," responded Lucifer. + +"Oh, Sire," cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, "for Heaven's sake let +your Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector----" + +"Bother the Inspector!" screeched Lucifer. "D'ye think I'm not a thousand +times more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in the calendar? +There," addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, "be off! You'll find all +debts paid, and a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!" + +They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus +stood wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down +which they scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it was +long ere they ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer. + + + + +THE TALISMANS + + +What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us perform, +which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem incredible! + +By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, who +was prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of which, +to judge by the little value he appeared to set on the subject of his +discourse, he must himself have been fully persuaded? Without exciting his +suspicions in the smallest degree, the student stole away to a region +inconceivably remote, and presented himself at the portal of a magnificent +palace, guarded by goblins, imps, lions, serpents, and monsters whose +uncouthness forbids description. + +A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the +professor's class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully +respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance, +brandishing a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal +goblins, by whom he was successively interrogated. + +"Hast thou undergone the seven probations?" + +"Yes," said the student. + +"Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?" + +"Ninety-nine times each," said the student. + +"Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?" + +"I have," said the student. + +"Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?" + +"I am," said the student. + +"Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?" + +"Of course," said the student, "Hast thou attestations of all these +circumstances under the hands and seals of a thousand and one demons?" + +The student displayed his parchments. + +"Thou hast undergone every trial," pronounced the seventh goblin; "thou +hast won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all things, +and to choose from it any one talisman at thy liking." + +The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank hissing +away, the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him upon his back +to the treasurer's presence. + +The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair, +received the adventurer with civility. + +"I have come," said the student, "for the talismans in thy keeping, to the +choice among which I have entitled myself." + +"Thou hast fairly earned them," replied the old man, "and I may not say +thee nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape which +it has received at my hands during the long period for which these have +remained in my custody." + +"I must submit to the condition," said the student. + +"Behold, then, Aladdin's lamp," said the ancient personage, tendering a +tiny vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a +coarse, rusty powder. + +"Aladdin's lamp!" cried the student. + +"All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve," replied the old +man. "Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to apprise thee +that the virtues of the talisman having necessarily dwindled with its bulk, +it is at present incompetent to evoke any Genie, and can at most summon an +imp, of whose company thou wilt never be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as +the least friction will inevitably destroy what little of the talisman +remains." + +"Confusion!" cried the young man, "Show me, then, Aladdin's ring." + +"Here," replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop. + +"This, at least," asked the student, "is not devoid of virtue?" + +"Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its magic +properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, which I have +gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any other use than +that of a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to admiration." + +"Produce another talisman," commanded the youth. + +"These," said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of +leather, "are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them out." + +"This, at least, is bright and weighty," exclaimed the student, as the old +man displayed the sword of sharpness. + +"In truth a doughty weapon," returned the treasurer, "if wielded by a +stronger arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite +off heads of its own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to the +new hilt." + +After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a +fragment of the original setting of Solomon's seal, the youth's eye lighted +upon a volume full of mysterious characters. + +"Whose book is this?" he inquired. "Heavens, it is Michael Scott's!" + +"Even so," returned the venerable man, "and its spells have lost nothing of +their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula for dismissing +spirits after they have been summoned from the nether world, hath been +removed by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath caused several most +respectable magicians to be torn in pieces, and hath notably increased the +number of demons at large." + +"Thou old villain!" shouted the exasperated youth, "is this the way in +which the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou that +I will brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, but I will +deprive thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair." + +"O good youth," supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, "bereave +me not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the +consequences!" + +"I will not think," roared the youth. "Deliver it to me, or I'll rend it +from thy head with my own hands." + +With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to the +youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters. + +Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding +streets until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large public +square. It was crowded with people, gazing intently at the afternoon sky, +and the air was rife with a confused murmur of altercations and +exclamations. + +"It is." "No, I tell you, it is impossible." "It cannot be." "I see it +move." "No, it's only my eyes are dazzled." "Who could have believed it?" +"Whatever will happen next?" + +Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object of +their attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could discover +nothing unusual. + +"No," a man by him was saying, "it positively has not moved for an hour. I +have my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken." + +"It ought to have been behind the houses long ago," said another. + +"What's o'clock?" asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes +towards the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The +hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew +them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in +turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a +single tick, but there was none to hear. + +"Time is no more," proclaimed a leader among the people. + +"I am a ruined man," lamented a watchmaker. + +"And I," ejaculated a maker of almanacks. + +"What of quarter-day?" inquired a landlord and a tenant simultaneously. + +"We shall never see the moon again," sobbed a pair of lovers. + +"It is well this did not happen at night," observed an optimist. + +"Indeed?" questioned the director of a gas company. + +"I told you the Last Day would come in our time," said a preacher. + +It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time had +paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation depending on her +silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not come to life. The sick +could not die. The human frame could not waste. Every one in the enjoyment +of health and strength felt assured of the perpetual possession of these +blessings, unless he should meet with accident or violent death. But all +growth ceased, and all dissolution was stayed. Mothers looked with despair +on infants who could never be weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs +gazed with dismay on immortal fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties, +the fashionable boxers and opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor +did the intellectual less rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired +faculties, and vowing to extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The +poor and the outcast, the sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the +dying made, indeed, a dismal outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by +some persons. + +As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to a +young lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been attached in +former days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that it would be +everlasting, revived his passion. To convince her of the perpetuity of her +charms, and establish a claim upon her gratitude, he cautiously revealed to +her that he was the author of this blissful state of things, and that +Time's hair was actually in his possession. + +"Oh, you dear good man!" she exclaimed, "how vastly I am obliged to you! +Ferdinand will never forsake me now." + +"Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for _me_." + +"Oh!" she said, "you young men of science are so conceited!" + +The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer's +palace. It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the city +ere he mixed again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was +addressing energetically. + +"I ask you one thing," he was saying. "Will it ever rain again?" + +"Certainly not," replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. "Rain +being an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be no place +for it under the present dispensation." + +"Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they not +withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea itself? Who +will feed your cattle? And who will feed _you_?" + +"This concerns us," said the butchers and bakers. + +"Us also," added the fishmongers. + +"I always thought," said a philosopher, "that this phenomenon must be the +work of some malignant wizard." + +"Show us the wizard that we may slay him," roared the mob. + +Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately identified +by twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and was held up in +sight of the multitude. + +"Kill him!" + +"Burn him!" + +"Crucify him!" + +"It moves! it moves!" cried another division of the crowd. All eyes were +bent on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving--no, it wasn't; +yes, it certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows were actually +lengthening? Was the sun's rim really drawing nigh yonder great edifice? +That muffled sound from the vast, silent multitude was, doubtless, the +quick beating of innumerable hearts; but that sharper note? Could it be the +ticking of watches? Suddenly all the public clocks clanged the first stroke +of an hour--an absurdly wrong hour, but it was an hour. No mortal heard +the second stroke, drowned in universal shouts of joy and gratitude. The +student mingled with the mass, no man regarding him. + +When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to +disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could get +beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a very +humble citizen, a barber. + +"Why," he said, "the old gentleman's hair has grown again!" + +And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying gave +up the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told the +professor his dream. + + + + +THE ELIXIR OF LIFE + + +The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of Balkh, +where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the occult sciences. +No one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet Aboniel did not wholly shun +intercourse with mankind, but, on the contrary, had seven pupils, towardly +youths belonging to the noblest families of the city, whom he instructed at +stated times in philosophy and all lawful knowledge, reserving the +forbidden lore of magic and alchemy for himself. + +But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious +apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing save +the sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven crystal +phials, filled with a clear liquid resembling water. + +"Ye know, my sons," he began, "with what ardour I am reputed to have +striven to penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the +problems which have allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this +rumour doth not err: such hath ever been my object; but, until yesterday, +my fortune hath been like unto theirs who have preceded me. The little I +could accomplish seemed as nothing in comparison with what I was compelled +to leave unachieved. Even now my success is but partial. I have not +learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is not mine; nor can I recall +the principle of life to the dead, or infuse it into inanimate matter. But +if I cannot create, I can preserve. I have found the Elixir of Life." + +The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them he +read extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their teacher, +and the dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves might become +participators in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. Addressing +himself to the latter sentiment--"I am willing," he continued, "to +communicate this secret to you, if such be your desire." + +An unanimous exclamation assured him that there need be no uncertainty on +this point. + +"But remember," he resumed, "that this knowledge, like all knowledge, has +its disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when ye come +to learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. Understand that +the stipulations I am about to propound are not of my imposing; the secret +was imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent order, and under +conditions with which I am constrained strictly to comply. Understand also +that I am not minded to employ this knowledge on my own behalf. My +fourscore years' acquaintance with life has rendered me more solicitous for +methods of abbreviating existence, than of prolonging it. It may be well +for you if your twenty years' experience has led you to the same +conclusion." + +There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, and +indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general +unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of their +venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have convinced +him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf between theory +and practice, and the feebleness of intellectual persuasion in presence of +innate instinct. With one voice they protested their readiness to brave any +conceivable peril, and undergo any test which might be imposed as a +condition of participation in their master's marvellous secret. + +"So be it," returned the sage, "and now hearken to the conditions. + +"Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these +seven phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far +different are the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly +poisons which the utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to prepare, +and science knows no antidote to any of them. The first scorches up the +entrails as with fire; the second slays by freezing every vein, and +benumbing every nerve; the third by frantic convulsions. Happy in +comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks dead upon the ground +immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. Nor do I overmuch +commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for slumber descends upon +him forthwith, and he passes away in painless oblivion. But wretched he who +chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from his head, whose skin peels from +his body, and who lingers long in excruciating agonies, a living death. The +seventh phial contains the object of your desire. Stretch forth your +hands, therefore, simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly +grasp and intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the +quality of his fortune attested by the result." + +The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold +blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their +preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable +features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable +solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked +beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they +scanned the phials, trusting that some infinitesimal distinction might +serve to discriminate the elixir from the poisons. But no, the vessels were +indistinguishable in external appearance, and the contents of each were +equally colourless and transparent. + +"Well," demanded Aboniel at length, with real or assumed surprise, +"wherefore tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you in +the agonies of death!" + +This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the +boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but perceiving +that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some confusion. + +"Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this worthless +existence," said one of their number at last, breaking the embarrassing +silence, "but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound up with mine." + +"I," said the second, "have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet that +I should provide." + +"I," said the third, "have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose cause +I may in nowise forsake." + +"And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged," said the fourth. + +"My life," said the fifth, "is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent to +lay it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?" + +"Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?" inquired the sixth. + +"I," said the seventh, "have neither mother nor sister, friends nor +enemies, neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But I +have all the greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is exceedingly +precious in my sight." + +"The conclusion of the whole matter, then," summed up the sage, "is that +not one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?" + +The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the +justice of their master's taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for +some middle path, which did not readily present itself. + +"May we not," said one at last, "may we not cast lots, and each take a +phial in succession, as destiny may appoint?" + +"I have nothing against this," replied Aboniel, "only remember that the +least endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of any +one of you, will ensure the discomfiture of all." + +The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and +proceeded to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in the +hand of the holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his mother. + +He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced half +the distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of the second +quill; the man with the sister, he said abruptly: + +"The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and +intimate than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not therefore +fitting that thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my stead?" + +"The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son," responded the +youth addressed, in a sententious tone, "albeit most holy, cannot in the +nature of things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be dissolved by +death. Whereas the relationship between brother and sister may endure for +many years, if such be the will of Allah. It is therefore proper that thou +shouldst first venture the experiment." + +"Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!" +exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. "The maternal +relationship--" + +"A truce to this trifling," cried the other six; "fulfil the conditions, or +abandon the task." + +Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized one of +the phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied that he +detected something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which distinguished +it, in his imagination, from the innocent transparency of the rest. He +hastily replaced it, and laid hold of the next. At that moment a blaze of +light burst forth upon them, and, thunderstruck, the seven scholars were +stretched senseless on the ground. + +On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of +Aboniel's dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part they +had played. They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned to their +homes. + +The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be +expected to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven +days, known to more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The last +of these to become acquainted with it was the Sultan, who immediately +despatched his guards to apprehend the sage, and confiscate the Elixir. +Failing to obtain admission at Aboniel's portal, they broke it open, and, +on entering his chamber, found him in a condition which more eloquently +than any profession bespoke his disdain for the life-bestowing draught. He +was dead in his chair. Before him, on the table, stood the seven phials, +six full as previously, the seventh empty. In his hand was a scroll +inscribed as follows: + +"Six times twice six years have I striven after knowledge, and I now +bequeath to the world the fruit of my toil, being six poisons. One more +deadly I might have added, but I have refrained, "Write upon my tomb, that +here he lies who forbore to perpetuate human affliction, and bestowed a +fatal boon where alone it could be innoxious." + +The intruders looked at each other, striving to penetrate the sense of +Aboniel's last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud +crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large +monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and +preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an +inspiration of supreme irony, had administered to the creature every drop +of the Elixir of Life. + + + + +THE POET OF PANOPOLIS + + + +I + + +Although in a manner retired from the world during the fifth and sixth +Christian centuries, the banished Gods did not neglect to keep an eye on +human affairs, interesting themselves in any movement which might seem to +afford them a chance of regaining their lost supremacy, or in any person +whose conduct evinced regret at their dethronement. They deeply sympathised +with the efforts of their votary Pamprepius to turn the revolt of Illus to +their advantage, and excused the low magical arts to which he stooped as a +necessary concession to the spirit of a barbarous age. They ministered +invisibly to Damascius and his companions on their flight into Persia, +alleviating the hardships under which the frames of the veteran +philosophers might otherwise have sunk. It was not, indeed, until the +burning of the Alexandrian library that they lost all heart and lapsed into +the chrysalis-like condition in which they remained until tempted forth by +the young sunshine of the Renaissance. + +Such a phenomenon for the fifth century as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of +Panopolis could not fail to excite their most lively interest. Forty-eight +books of verse on the exploits of Bacchus in the age of pugnacious prelates +and filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and rampant robbers, of the +threatened dissolution of every tie, legal, social, or political; an age of +earthquake, war, and famine! Bacchus, who is known from Aristophanes not to +have excelled in criticism, protested that his laureate was greater than +Homer; and, though Homer could not go quite so far as this, he graciously +conceded that if he had himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with +a faint glimmering of the poetical art, and encumbered with more learning +than he knew how to use, he might have written almost as badly as his +modern representative. More impartial critics judged Nonnus's achievement +more favourably, and all agreed that his steadfastness in the faith +deserved some special mark of distinction. The Muses under Pallas's +direction (being themselves a little awkward in female accomplishments) +embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus forged a +plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy. Whether +from distrust of Hermes' integrity, or wishing to make the personal +acquaintance of his follower, Phoebus volunteered to convey the testimonial +in person, and accordingly took his departure for the Egyptian Thebaid. + +As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the blazing +sun of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a vast crowd +of strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like bees +clustering at the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he identified +them as a posse of demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot describe the +enormous variety of whatever the universe holds of most heterogeneous. +Naked women of surpassing loveliness displayed their charms to the +anchorite's gaze, sturdy porters bent beneath loads of gold which they +heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien from humanity allured his +appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or smote at him with swords, +or made feints at his eyes with spears, or burned sulphur under his nose, +or displayed before him scrolls of poetry or learning, or shrieked +blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed him from a little distance with +glances of leering affection; while a motley crowd of goblins, wearing the +heads of boars or lions, or whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or +hoofed, or scaled, or feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and +wrangled with each other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting +and grinning, snapping, snarling, constantly running away and returning +like gnats dancing over a marsh. The holy man sat doggedly at the entrance +of his cavern, with an expression of fathomless stupidity, which seemed to +defy all the fiends of the Thebaid to get an idea into his head, or make +him vary his attitude by a single inch. + +"These people did not exist in our time," said Apollo aloud, "or at least +they knew their place, and behaved themselves." + +"Sir," said a comparatively grave and respectable demon, addressing the +stranger, "I should wish your peregrinity to understand that these imps are +mere schoolboys--my pupils, in fact. When their education has made further +progress they will be more mannerly, and will comprehend the folly of +pestering an unintellectual old gentleman like this worthy Pachymius with +beauty for which he has no eyes, and gold for which he has no use, and +dainties for which he has no palate, and learning for which he has no head. +But _I'll_ wake him up!" And waving his pupils away, the paedagogic fiend +placed himself at the anchorite's ear, and shouted into it-- + +"Nonnus is to be Bishop of Panopolis!" + +The hermit's features were instantly animated by an expression of envy and +hatred. + +"Nonnus!" he exclaimed, "the heathen poet, to have the see of Panopolis, of +which _I_ was promised the reversion!" + +"My dear sir," suggested Apollo, "it is all very well to enliven the +reverend eremite; but don't you think it is rather a liberty to make such +jokes at the expense of my good friend Nonnus?" + +"There is no liberty," said the demon, "for there is no joke. Recanted on +Monday. Baptized yesterday. Ordained to-day. To be consecrated to-morrow." + +The anchorite poured forth a torrent of the choicest ecclesiastical curses, +until he became speechless from exhaustion, and Apollo, profiting by the +opportunity, addressed the demon: + +"Would it be an unpardonable breach of politeness, respected sir, if I +ventured to hint that the illusions your pupils have been trying to impose +upon this venerable man have in some small measure impaired the confidence +with which I was originally inspired by your advantageous personal +appearance?" + +"Not in the least," replied the demon, "especially as I can easily make my +words good. If you and Pachymius will mount my back I will transport you +to Panopolis, where you can verify my assertion for yourselves." + +The Deity and the anchorite promptly consented, and seated themselves on +the demon's shoulders. The shadow of the fiend's expanded wings fell black +and vast on the fiery sand, but diminished and became invisible as he +soared to a prodigious height, to escape observation from below. By-and-by +the sun's glowing ball touched earth at the extremity of the horizon; it +disappeared, the fires of sunset burned low in the west, and the figures of +the demon and his freight showed like a black dot against a lake of green +sky, growing larger as he cautiously stooped to earth. Grazing temples, +skimming pyramids, the party came to ground in the precincts of Panopolis, +just in time to avoid the rising moon that would have betrayed them. The +demon immediately disappeared. Apollo hastened off to demand an explanation +from Nonnus, while Pachymius repaired to a neighbouring convent, peopled, +as he knew, by a legion of sturdy monks, ever ready to smite and be smitten +in the cause of orthodoxy. + + + +II + + +Nonnus sat in his study, wrinkling his brow as he polished his verses by +the light of a small lamp. A large scroll lay open on his knees, the +contents of which seemed to afford him little satisfaction. Forty-eight +more scrolls, resplendent with silver knobs and coquettishly tied with +purple cord, reposed in an adjoining book-case; the forty-eight books, +manifestly, of the Panopolitan bard's Dionysiaca. Homer, Euripides, and +other poets lay on the floor, having apparently been hurriedly dislodged to +make room for divers liturgies and lives of the saints. A set of episcopal +robes depended from a hook, and on a side table stood half-a-dozen mitres, +which, to all appearance, the designated prelate had been trying on. + +"Nonnus," said Phoebus, passing noiselessly through the unresisting wall, +"the tale of thy apostasy is then true?" + +It would be difficult to determine whether surprise, delight, or dismay +preponderated in Nonnus's expression as he lifted up his eyes and +recognised the God of Poetry. He had just presence of mind to shuffle his +scroll under an enormous dictionary ere he fell at Apollo's feet. + +"O Phoebus," he exclaimed, "hadst thou come a week ago!" + +"It is true, then?" said Apollo. "Thou forsakest me and the Muses. Thou +sidest with them who have broken our statues, unroofed our temples, +desecrated our altars, and banished us from among mankind. Thou rejectest +the glory of standing alone in a barbarous age as the last witness to +culture and civilisation. Thou despisest the gifts of the Gods and the +Muses, of which I am even now the bearer. Thou preferrest the mitre to the +laurel chaplet, and the hymns of Gregory to the epics of Homer?" + +"O Phoebus," replied Nonnus, "were it any God but thou, I should bend +before him in silence, having nought to reply. But thou art a poet, and +thou understandest the temper of a poet. Thou knowest how beyond other men +he is devoured by the craving for sympathy. This and not vulgar vanity is +his motive of action; his shaft is launched in vain unless he can deem it +embedded in the heart of a friend. Thou mayest well judge what scoffings +and revilings my Dionysiac epic has brought upon me in this evil age; yet, +had this been all, peradventure I might have borne it. But it was not all. +The gentle, the good, the affectionate, they who in happier times would +have been my audience, came about me, saying, Nonnus, why sing the strains +against which we must shut our ears? Sing what we may listen to, and we +will love and honour thee. I could not bear the thought of going to my +grave without having awakened an echo of sympathy, and weakly but not +basely I have yielded, given them what they craved, and suffered them, +since the Muses' garland is not theirs to bestow, to reward me with a +mitre." + +"And what demanded they?" asked Apollo. + +"Oh, a mere romance! Something entirely fabulous." + +"I must see it," persisted Apollo; and Nonnus reluctantly disinterred his +scroll from under the big dictionary, and handed it up, trembling like a +schoolboy who anticipates a castigation for a bad exercise. + +"What trash have we here?" cried Phoebus-- + + [Greek: "Achronos n, akichtos, en arrtoos Logos arch,] + [Greek: 'Isophus Genetros omlikos Tios amtoor,] + [Greek: Kai Logos antophygoio Theou, phoos, ek phaeos phoos.] + +"If it isn't the beginning of the Gospel of John! Thy impiety is worse than +thy poetry!" + +Apollo cast the scroll indignantly to the ground. His countenance wore an +expression so similar to that with which he is represented in act to smite +the Python, that Nonnus judged it prudent to catch up his manuscript and +hold it shield-wise before his face. + +"Thou doest well," said Apollo, laughing bitterly; "that rampart is indeed +impenetrable to my arrows." + +Nonnus seemed about to fall prostrate, when a sharp rap came to the door. + +"That is the Governor's knock," he exclaimed. "Do not forsake me utterly, O +Phoebus!" But as he turned to open the door, Apollo vanished. The Governor +entered, a sagacious, good-humoured-looking man in middle life. + +"Who was with thee just now?" he asked. "Methought I heard voices." + +"Merely the Muse," explained Nonnus, "with whom I am wont to hold nocturnal +communings." + +"Indeed!" replied the Governor. "Then the Muse has done well to take +herself off, and will do even better not to return. Bishops must have no +flirtations with Muses, heavenly or earthly--not that I am now altogether +certain that thou _wilt_ be a bishop." + +"How so?" asked Nonnus, not without a feeling of relief. + +"Imagine, my dear friend," returned the Governor, "who should turn up this +evening but that sordid anchorite Pachymius, to whom the see was promised +indeed, but who was reported to have been devoured by vermin in the desert. +The rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be feared that +sufficient pains were not taken to verify it--cannot have been, in fact; +for, as I said, here he comes, having been brought, as he affirms, through +the air by an angel. Little would it have signified if he had come by +himself, but he is accompanied by three hundred monks carrying cudgels, who +threaten an insurrection if he is not consecrated on the spot. My friend +the Archbishop and I are at our wits' end: we have set our hearts on having +a gentleman over the diocese, but we cannot afford to have tumults reported +at Constantinople. At last, mainly through the mediation of a sable +personage whom no one seems to know, but who approves himself most +intelligent and obliging, the matter is put off till to-morrow, when them +and Pachymius are to compete for the bishopric in public on conditions not +yet settled, but which our swarthy friend undertakes to arrange to every +one's satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don't run away in any +case. I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety for thee +but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if thou +art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius." + +With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the poor +poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing alone +somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of the Gods +lay on the table in their place, whence he concluded that a friendly power +might yet be watching over him. + + + +III + + +Next morning all Panopolis was in an uproar. It was generally known that +the pretensions of the candidates for the episcopate would be decided by +public competition, and it was rumoured that this would partake of the +nature of an ordeal by fire and water. Nothing further had transpired +except that the arrangements had been settled by the Governor and +Archbishop in concert with two strangers, a dingy Libyan and a handsome +young Greek, neither of whom was known in the city, but in both of whom the +authorities seemed to repose entire confidence. At the appointed time the +people flocked into the theatre, and found the stage already occupied by +the parties chiefly concerned. The Governor and the Archbishop sat in the +centre on their tribunals: the competitors stood on each side, Pachymius +backed by the demon, Nonnus by Apollo; both these supporters, of course, +appearing to the assembly in the light of ordinary mortals. Nonnus +recognised Apollo perfectly, but Pachymius's limited powers of intelligence +seemed entirely engrossed by the discomfort visibly occasioned him by the +proximity of an enormous brass vessel of water, close to which burned a +bright fire. Nonnus was also ill at ease, and continually directed his +attention to a large package, of the contents of which he seemed +instinctively cognisant. + +All being ready, the Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, with +the sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of +determining between the claims of two such highly qualified competitors had +been delegated to two gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full confidence, +who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective candidates. +Should one fail and the other succeed, the victor would of course be +instituted; should both undergo the probation successfully, new criterions +of merit would be devised; should both fall short, both would be set aside, +and the disputed mitre would be conferred elsewhere. He would first summon +Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and now their fellow-Christian, to +submit himself to the test proposed. + +Apollo now rose, and proclaimed in an audible voice, "By virtue of the +authority committed to me I call upon Nonnus of Panopolis, candidate for +the bishopric of his native city, to demonstrate his fitness for the same +by consigning to the flames with his own hands the forty-eight execrable +books of heathen poetry composed by him in the days of his darkness and +blindness, but now without doubt as detestable to him as to the universal +body of the faithful." So saying, he made a sign to an attendant, the +wrapping of the package fell away, and the forty-eight scrolls of the +Dionysiaca, silver knobs, purple cords, and all, came to view. + +"Burn my poem!" exclaimed Nonnus. "Destroy the labours of twenty-four +years! Bereave Egypt of its Homer! Erase the name of Nonnus from the tablet +of Time!" + +"How so, while thou hast the Paraphrase of St. John?" demanded Apollo +maliciously. + +"Indeed, good youth," said the Governor, who wished to favour Nonnus, +"methinks the condition is somewhat exorbitant. A single book might +suffice, surely!" + +"I am quite content," replied Apollo. "If he consents to burn any of his +books he is no poet, and I wash my hands of him." + +"Come, Nonnus," cried the Governor, "make haste; one book will do as well +as another. Hand them up here." + +"It must be with his own hands, please your Excellency," said Apollo. + +"Then," cried the Governor, pitching to the poet the first scroll brought +to him, "the thirteenth book. Who cares about the thirteenth book? Pop it +in!" + +"The thirteenth book!" exclaimed Nonnus, "containing the contest between +wine and honey, without which my epic becomes totally and entirely +unintelligible!" + +"This, then," said the Governor, picking out another, which chanced to be +the seventeenth. + +"In my seventeenth book," objected Nonnus, "Bacchus plants vines in India, +and the superiority of wine to milk is convincingly demonstrated." + +"Well," rejoined the Governor, "what say you to the twenty-second?" + +"With my Hamadryad! I can never give up my Hamadryad!" + +"Then," said the Governor, contemptuously hurling the whole set in the +direction of Nonnus, "burn which you will, only burn!" + +The wretched poet sat among his scrolls looking for a victim. All his +forty-eight children were equally dear to his parental heart. The cries of +applause and derision from the spectators, and the formidable bellowings +of the exasperated monks who surrounded Pachymius, did not tend to steady +his nerves, or render the task of critical discrimination the easier. + +"I won't! I won't!" he exclaimed at last, starting up defiantly. "Let the +bishopric go to the devil! Any one of my similes is worth all the +bishoprics in Egypt!" + +"Out on the vanity of these poets!" exclaimed the disappointed Governor. + +"It is not vanity," said Apollo, "it is paternal affection; and being +myself a sufferer from the same infirmity, I rejoice to find him my true +son after all." + +"Well," said the Governor, turning to the demon: "it is thy man's turn now. +Trot him out!" + +"Brethren," said the demon to the assembly, "it is meet that he who aspires +to the office of bishop should be prepared to give evidence of +extraordinary self-denial. Ye have seen even our weak brother Nonnus +adoring what he hath burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he hath +adored. How much more may be reasonably expected of our brother Pachymius, +so eminent for sanctity! I therefore call upon him to demonstrate his +humility and self-renunciation, and effectually mortify the natural man, by +washing himself in this ample vessel provided for the purpose" + +"Wash myself!" exclaimed Pacyhmius, with a vivacity of which he had +previously shown no token. "Destroy at one splash the sanctity of +fifty-seven years! Avaunt! thou subtle enemy of my salvation! I know thee +who thou art, the demon who brought me hither on his back yesterday." + +"I thought it had been an angel," said the Governor. + +"A demon in the disguise of an angel of light," said Pachymius. + +A tumultuous discussion arose among Pachymius's supporters, some extolling +his fortitude, others blaming his wrongheadedness. + +"What!" said he to the latter, "would ye rob me of my reputation? Shall it +be written of me, The holy Pachymius abode in the precepts of the eremites +so long as he dwelt in the desert where no water was, but as soon as he +came within sight of a bath, he stumbled and fell?" + +"Oh, father," urged they, "savoureth not this of vaingloriousness? The +demon in the guise of an angel of light, as thou so well saidest even now. +Be strong. Quit thyself valiantly. Think of the sufferings of the primitive +confessors." + +"St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil," said one. + +"St. Apocryphus was actually drowned," said another. + +"I have reason to believe," said a third, "that the loathsomeness of +ablution hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics." + +"I know it has," said another. "I _have_ washed myself once, though ye +might not think it, and can assert that it is by no means as disagreeable +as one supposes." + +"That is just what I dread," said Pachymius. "Little by little, one might +positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of evil." + +All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the +anchorite, and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the vessel, +purposing at a convenient season to throw him in. He was now near enough to +catch a glimpse of the limpid element. Recoiling in horror, he collected +all his energies, and with head depressed towards his chest, and hands +thrust forth as if to ward off pollution--butting, kicking, biting the +air--he rushed forwards, and with a preternatural force deserving to be +enumerated among his miracles, fairly overthrew the enormous vase, the +contents streaming on the crowd in front of the stage. + +"Take me to my hermitage!" he screamed. "I renounce the bishopric. Take me +to my hermitage!" + +"Amen," responded the demon, and, assuming his proper shape, he took +Pachymius upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the +multitude. + +Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he +received the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to +congratulate him on the constancy with which he had sustained his fiery, or +rather watery trial. He spent most of his remaining days in the society of +the devil, on which account he was canonised at his death. + +"O Phoebus," said Nonnus, when they were alone, "impose upon me any penance +thou wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the Muses. But before +all things let me destroy my paraphrase." + +"Thou shalt not destroy it," said Phoebus, "Thou shalt publish it. That +shall be thy penance." + +And so it is that the epic on the exploits of Bacchus and the paraphrase of +St. John's Gospel have alike come down to us as the work of Nonnus, whose +authorship of both learned men have never been able to deny, having regard +to the similarity of style, but never could explain until the facts above +narrated came to light in one of the Fayoum papyri recently acquired by the +Archduke Rainer. + + + + +THE PURPLE HEAD + + Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel + That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel. + + + +I + + +In the heyday of the Emperor Aurelian's greatness, when his strong right +arm propped Rome up, and hewed Palmyra down, when he surrounded his capital +with walls fifty miles in circuit, and led Tetricus and Zenobia in triumph +through its streets, and distributed elephants among the senators, and laid +Etruria out in vineyards, and contemplated in leisure moments the +suppression of Christianity as a subordinate detail of administration, a +mere ripple on the broad ocean of his policy--at this period Bahram the +First, King of Persia, naturally became disquieted in his mind. + +"This upstart soldier of fortune," reflected he, "has an unseemly habit of +overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing Divine +right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor Valerian, +curried and stuffed with straw, hangs to this hour in the temple at +Ctesiphon, a pleasing spectacle to the immortal gods. How would my own skin +appear in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus? This must not be. I will send +an embassy to him, and impress him with my greatness. But how?" + +He accordingly convoked his counsellors; the viziers, the warriors, the +magi, the philosophers; and addressed them thus: + +"The king deigns to consult ye touching a difficult matter. I would flatter +the pride of Rome, without lowering the pride of Persia. I would propitiate +Aurelian, and at the same time humble him. How shall this be accomplished?" + +The viziers, the warriors, and the magi answered not a word. Unbroken +silence reigned in the assembly, until the turn came to the sage Marcobad, +who, prostrating himself, said, "O king, live for ever! In ancient times, +as hath been delivered by our ancestors, Persians were instructed in three +accomplishments--to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. Persia +still rides and shoots; truth-speaking (praised be Ormuzd!) she hath +discontinued as unbefitting an enlightened nation. Thou needest not, +therefore, scruple to circumvent Aurelian. Offer him that which thou +knowest will not be found in his treasury, seeing that it is unique in +thine own; giving him, at the same time, to understand that it is the +ordinary produce of thy dominions. So, while rejoicing at the gift, shall +he be abashed at his inferiority. I refer to the purple robe of her majesty +the queen, the like of which is not to be found in the whole earth, neither +do any know where the dye that tinges it is produced, save that it proceeds +from the uttermost parts of India." + +"I approve thy advice," replied Bahram, "and in return will save thy life +by banishing thee from my dominions. When my august consort shall learn +that thou hast been the means of depriving her of her robe, she will +undoubtedly request that thou mayest be flayed, and thou knowest that I +can deny her nothing. I therefore counsel thee to depart with all possible +swiftness. Repair to the regions where the purple is produced, and if thou +returnest with an adequate supply, I undertake that my royal sceptre shall +be graciously extended to thee." + +The philosopher forsook the royal presence with celerity, and his office of +chief examiner of court spikenard was bestowed upon another; as also his +house and his garden, his gold and his silver, his wives and his +concubines, his camels and his asses, which were numerous. + +While the solitary adventurer wended his way eastward, a gorgeous embassy +travelled westward in the direction of Rome. + +Arrived in the presence of Aurelian, and at the conclusion of his +complimentary harangue, the chief envoy produced a cedar casket, from which +he drew a purple robe of such surpassing refulgence, that, in the words of +the historian who has recorded the transaction, the purple of the emperor +and of the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison. It was accompanied by +a letter thus conceived: + +"Bahram to Aurelian: health! Receive such purple as we have in Persia." + +"Persia, forsooth!" exclaimed Sorianus, a young philosopher versed in +natural science, "this purple never was in Persia, except as a rarity. Oh, +the mendacity and vanity of these Orientals!" + +The ambassador was beginning an angry reply, when Aurelian quelled the +dispute with a look, and with some awkwardness delivered himself of a brief +oration in acknowledgment of the gift. He took no more notice of the +matter until nightfall, when he sent for Sorianus, and inquired where the +purple actually was produced. + +"In the uttermost parts of India," returned the philosopher. + +"Well," rejoined Aurelian, summing up the matter with his accustomed +rapidity and clearness of head, "either thou or the Persian king has lied +to me, it is plain, and, by the favour of the Gods, it is immaterial which, +seeing that my ground for going to war with him is equally good in either +case. If he has sought to deceive me, I am right in punishing him; if he +possesses what I lack, I am justified in taking it away. It would, however, +be convenient to know which of these grounds to inscribe in my manifesto; +moreover, I am not ready for hostilities at present; having first to +extirpate the Blemmyes, Carpi, and other barbarian vermin. I will therefore +despatch thee to India to ascertain by personal examination the truth about +the purple. Do not return without it, or I shall cut off thy head. My +treasury will charge itself with the administration of thy property during +thy absence. The robe shall meanwhile be deposited in the temple of Jupiter +Capitolinus. May he have it and thee in his holy keeping!" + +Thus, in that age of darkness, were two most eminent philosophers reduced +to beggary, and constrained to wander in remote and insalubrious regions; +the one for advising a king, the other for instructing an emperor. But the +matter did not rest here. For Aurelian, having continued the visible deity +of half the world for one hundred and fifty days after the departure of +Sorianus, was slain by his own generals. To him succeeded Tacitus, who +sank oppressed by the weight of rule; to him Probus, who perished in a +military tumult; to him Carus, who was killed by lightning; to him Carinus, +who was assassinated by one whom he had wronged; to him Diocletian, who, +having maintained himself for twenty years, wisely forbore to tempt Nemesis +further, and retired to plant cabbages at Salona. All these sovereigns, +differing from each other in every other respect, agreed in a common desire +to possess the purple dye, and when the philosopher returned not, +successively despatched new emissaries in quest of it. Strange was the +diversity of fate which befell these envoys. Some fell into the jaws of +lions, some were crushed by monstrous serpents, some trampled by elephants +at the command of native princes, some perished of hunger, and some of +thirst; some, encountering smooth-browed and dark-tressed girls wreathing +their hair with the champak blossom or bathing by moonlight in +lotus-mantled tanks, forsook their quest, and led thenceforth idyllic lives +in groves of banian and of palm. Some became enamoured of the principles of +the Gymnosophists, some couched themselves for uneasy slumber upon beds of +spikes, weening to wake in the twenty-second heaven. All which romantic +variety of fortune was the work of a diminutive insect that crawled or +clung heedless of the purple it was weaving into the many-coloured web of +human life. + + + +II + + +Some thirty years after the departure of the Persian embassy to Aurelian, +two travellers met at the bottom of a dell in trans-Gangetic India, having +descended the hill-brow by opposite paths. It was early morning; the sun +had not yet surmounted the timbered and tangled sides of the little valley, +so that the bottom still lay steeped in shadow, and glittering with large +pearls of limpid dew, while the oval space of sky circumscribed by the +summit glowed with the delicate splendour of the purest sapphire. Songs of +birds resounded through the brake, and the water lilies which veiled the +rivulet trickling through the depths of the retreat were unexpanded still. +One of the wayfarers was aged, the other a man of the latest period of +middle life. Their raiment was scanty and soiled; their frames and +countenances alike bespoke fatigue and hardship; but while the elder one +moved with moderate alacrity, the other shuffled painfully along by the +help of a staff, shrinking every time that he placed either of his feet on +the ground. + +They exchanged looks and greetings as they encountered, and the more active +of the two, whose face was set in an easterly direction, ventured a +compassionate allusion to the other's apparent distress. + +'I but suffer from the usual effects of crucifixion,' returned the other; +and removing his sandals, displayed two wounds, completely penetrating each +foot. + +The Cross had not yet announced victory to Constantine, and was as yet no +passport to respectable society. The first traveller drew back hastily, and +regarded his companion with surprise and suspicion. + +"I see what is passing in thy mind," resumed the latter, with a smile; "but +be under no apprehension. I have not undergone the censure of any judicial +tribunal. My crucifixion was merely a painful but necessary incident in my +laudable enterprise of obtaining the marvellous purple dye, to which end I +was despatched unto these regions by the Emperor Aurelian." + +"The purple dye!" exclaimed the Persian, for it was he. "Thou hast obtained +it?" + +"I have. It is the product of insects found only in a certain valley +eastward from hence, to obtain access to which it is before all things +needful to elude the vigilance of seven dragons." + +"Thou didst elude them? and afterwards?" inquired Marcobad, with eagerness. + +"Afterwards," repeated Sorianus, "I made my way into the valley, where I +descried the remains of my immediate predecessor prefixed to a cross." + +"Thy predecessor?" + +"He who had last made the attempt before me. Upon any one's penetrating the +Valley of Purple, as it is termed, with the design I have indicated, the +inhabitants, observant of the precepts of their ancestors, append him to a +cross by the feet only, confining his arms by ropes at the shoulders, and +setting vessels of cooling drink within his grasp. If, overcome with +thirst, he partakes of the beverage, they leave him to expire at leisure; +if he endures for three days, he is permitted to depart with the object of +his quest. My predecessor, belonging, as I conjecture, to the Epicurean +persuasion, and consequently unable to resist the allurements of sense, had +perished in the manner aforesaid. I, a Stoic, refrained and attained." + +"Thou didst bear away the tincture? thou hast it now?" impetuously +interrogated the Persian. + +"Behold it!" replied the Greek, exhibiting a small flask filled with the +most gorgeous purple liquid. "What seest thou here?" demanded he +triumphantly, holding it up to the light. "To me this vial displays the +University of Athens, and throngs of fair youths hearkening to the +discourse of one who resembles myself." + +"To my vision," responded the Persian, peering at the vial, "it rather +reveals a palace, and a dress of honour. But suffer me to contemplate it +more closely, for my eyes have waxed dim by over application to study." + +So saying, he snatched the flask from Sorianus, and immediately turned to +fly. The Greek sprang after his treasure, and failing to grasp Marcobad's +wrist, seized his beard, plucking the hair out by handfuls. The infuriated +Persian smote him on the head with the crystal flagon. It burst into +shivers, and the priceless contents gushed forth in a torrent over the +uncovered head and uplifted visage of Sorianus, bathing every hair and +feature with the most vivid purple. + +The aghast and thunderstricken philosophers remained gazing at each other +for a moment. + +"It is indelible!" cried Sorianus in distraction, rushing down, however, to +the brink of the little stream, and plunging his head beneath the waters. +They carried away a cloud of purple, but left the purple head stained as +before. + +The philosopher, as he upraised his glowing and dripping countenance from +the brook, resembled Silenus emerging from one of the rivers which Bacchus +metamorphosed into wine during his campaign in India. He resorted to +attrition and contrition, to maceration and laceration; he tried friction +with leaves, with grass, with sedge, with his garments; he regarded himself +in one crystal pool after another, a grotesque anti-Narcissus. At last he +flung himself on the earth, and gave free course to his anguish. + +The grace of repentance is rarely denied us when our misdeeds have proved +unprofitable. Marcobad awkwardly approached. + +"Brother," he whispered, "I will restore the tincture of which I have +deprived thee, and add thereto an antidote, if such may be found. Await my +return under this camphor tree." + +So saying, he hastened up the path by which Sorianus had descended, and was +speedily out of sight. + + + +III + + +Sorianus tarried long under the camphor tree, but at last, becoming weary, +resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he entered the +dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary appearance speedily +attracted the attention of the royal officers, by whom he was apprehended +and brought before his majesty. + +"It is evident," pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention on +the case, "that thou art in possession of an object too rare and precious +for a private individual, of which thou must accordingly be deprived. I +lament the inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had been thy hand or +thy foot." + +Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the +indefeasible right of property which he conceived himself to have acquired +in his own head. + +"In respect," responded the royal logician, "that thy head is conjoined to +thy shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is mine, +purple being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy, mine on +jurisprudence. Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine, the most +uncertain of sciences, override law, the perfection of human reason? It is +but to the vulgar observation that thou appearest to have a head at all; in +the eye of the law thou art acephalous." + +"I would submit," urged the philosopher, "that the corporal connection of +my head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a +fortuitous accident." + +"Thou mightest as well contend," returned the king, "that the law is bound +to regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is disabled +from taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of smuggler--rebel, I +might say, seeing that thou hast assumed the purple." + +"But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty's +proceedings?" + +"There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be, it +must be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my +despoiling thee of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest mine. +I will labour to render this even clearer to thy apprehension. Thou art +found, as thou must needs admit, in possession of a contraband article +forfeit to the crown by operation of law. What then? Shall the intention of +the legislature be frustrated because thou hast insidiously rendered the +possession of _my_ property inseparable from the possession of _thine_? +Shall I, an innocent proprietor, be mulcted of my right by thy fraud and +covin? Justice howls, righteousness weeps, integrity stands aghast at the +bare notion. No, friend, thy head has not a leg to stand on. Wouldst thou +retain it, it behoves thee to show that it will be more serviceable to the +owner, namely, myself, upon thy shoulders than elsewhere. This may well be. +Hast thou peradventure any subtleties in perfumery? any secrets in +confectionery? any skill in the preparation of soup?" + +"I have condescended to none of these frivolities, O king. My study hath +ever consisted in divine philosophy, whereby men are rendered equal to the +gods." + +"And yet long most of all for purple!" retorted the monarch, "as I conclude +from perceiving thou hast after all preferred the latter. Thy head must +indeed be worth the taking." + +"Thy taunt is merited, O king! I will importune thee no longer. Thou wilt +indeed render me a service in depriving me of this wretched head, hideous +without, and I must fear, empty within, seeing that it hath not prevented +me from wasting my life in the service of vanity and luxury. Woe to the +sage who trusts his infirm wisdom and frail integrity within the precincts +of a court! Yet can I foretell a time when philosophers shall no longer run +on the futile and selfish errands of kings, and when kings shall be +suffered to rule only so far as they obey the bidding of philosophers. +Peace, Knowledge, Liberty--" + +The King of Ayodhya possessed, beyond all princes of his age, the art of +gracefully interrupting an unseasonable discourse. He slightly signed to a +courtier in attendance, a scimitar flashed for a moment from its scabbard, +and the head of Sorianus rolled on the pavement; the lips murmuring as +though still striving to dwell with inarticulate fondness upon the last +word of hope for mankind. + +It soon appeared that the principle of life was essential to the +resplendence of the Purple Head. Within a few minutes it had assumed so +ghastly a hue that the Rajah himself was intimidated, and directed that it +should be consumed with the body. + +The same full-moon that watched the white-robed throng busied with the +rites of incremation in a grove of palms, beheld also the seven dragons +contending for the body of Marcobad. But, for many a year, the maids and +matrons of Rome were not weary of regarding, extolling, and coveting the +priceless purple tissue that glowed in the fane of Jupiter Capitolinus. + + + + +THE FIREFLY + + +A certain Magician had retired for the sake of study to a cottage in a +forest. It was summer in a hot country. In the trees near the cottage dwelt +a most beautiful Firefly. The light she bore with her was dazzling, yet +soft and palpitating, as the evening star, and she seemed a single flash of +fire as she shot in and out suddenly from under the screen of foliage, or +like a lamp as she perched panting upon some leaf, or hung glowing from +some bough; or like a wandering meteor as she eddied gleaming over the +summits of the loftiest trees; as she often did, for she was an ambitious +Firefly. She learned to know the Magician, and would sometimes alight and +sit shining in his hair, or trail her lustre across his book as she crept +over the pages. The Magician admired her above all things: + +"What eyes she would have if she were a woman!" thought he. + +Once he said aloud, "How happy you must be, you rare, beautiful, brilliant +creature!" + +"I am not happy," rejoined the Firefly; "what am I, after all, but a flying +beetle with a candle in my tail? I wish I were a star." + +"Very well," said the Magician, and touched her with his wand, when she +became a beautiful star in the twelfth degree of the sign Pisces. + +After some nights the Magician asked her if she was content. + +"I am not," replied she. "When I was a Firefly I could fly whither I would, +and come and go as I pleased. Now I must rise and set at certain times, and +shine just so long and no longer. I cannot fly at all, and only creep +slowly across the sky. In the day I cannot shine, or if I do no one sees +me. I am often darkened by rain, and mist, and cloud. Even when I shine my +brightest I am less admired than when I was a Firefly, there are so many +others like me. I see, indeed, people looking up from the earth by night +towards me, but how do I know that they are looking at me?" + +"The laws of nature will have it so," returned the Magician. + +"Don't talk to me of the laws of Nature," rejoined the Firefly. "I did not +make them, and I don't see why I should be compelled to obey them. Make me +something else." + +"What would you be?" demanded the accommodating Magician. + +"As I creep along here," replied the Star, "I see such a soft pure track of +light. It proceeds from the lamp in your study. It flows out of your window +like a river of molten silver, both cool and warm. Let me be such a lamp." + +"Be it so," answered the Magician: and the star became a lovely alabaster +lamp, set in an alcove in his study. Her chaste radiance was shed over his +page as long as he continued to read. At a certain hour he extinguished her +and retired to rest. + +Next morning the Lamp was in a terrible humour. + +"I don't choose to be blown out," she said. + +"You would have gone out of your own accord else," returned the Magician. + +"What!" exclaimed the Lamp, "am I not shining by my own light?" + +"Certainly not: you are not now a Firefly or a Star. You must now depend +upon others. You would be dark for ever if I did not rekindle you by the +help of this oil." + +"What!" cried the Lamp, "not shine of my own accord! Never! Make me an +everlasting lamp, or I will not be one at all." + +"Alas, poor friend," returned the Magician sadly, "there is but one place +where aught is everlasting. I can make thee a lamp of the sepulchre." + +"Content," responded the Lamp. And the Magician made her one of those +strange occult lamps which men find ever and anon when they unseal the +tombs of ancient kings and wizards, sustaining without nutriment a +perpetual flame. And he bore her to a sepulchre where a great king was +lying embalmed and perfect in his golden raiment, and set her at the head +of the corpse. And whether the poor fitful Firefly found at last rest in +the grave, we may know when we come thither ourselves. But the Magician +closed the gates of the sepulchre behind him, and walked thoughtfully home. +And as he approached his cottage, behold another Firefly darting and +flashing in and out among the trees, as brilliantly as ever the first had +done. She was a wise Firefly, well satisfied with the world and everything +in it, more particularly her own tail. And if the Magician would have made +a pet of her no doubt she would have abode with him. But he never looked at +her. + + + + +PAN'S WAND + + +Iridion had broken her lily. A misfortune for any rustic nymph, but +especially for her, since her life depended upon it. + +From her birth the fate of Iridion had been associated with that of a +flower of unusual loveliness--a stately, candid lily, endowed with a +charmed life, like its possessor. The seasons came and went without leaving +a trace upon it; innocence and beauty seemed as enduring with it, as +evanescent with the children of men. In equal though dissimilar loveliness +its frolicsome young mistress nourished by its side. One thing alone, the +oracle had declared, could prejudice either, and this was an accident to +the flower. From such disaster it had long been shielded by the most +delicate care; yet in the inscrutable counsels of the Gods, the dreaded +calamity had at length come to pass. Broken through the upper part of the +stem, the listless flower drooped its petals towards the earth, and seemed +to mourn their chastity, already sullied by the wan flaccidity of decay. +Not one had fallen as yet, and Iridion felt no pain or any symptom of +approaching dissolution, except, it may be, the unwonted seriousness with +which, having exhausted all her simple skill on behalf of the languishing +plant, she sat down to consider its fate in the light of its bearing upon +her own. + +Meditation upon an utterly vague subject, whether of apprehension or of +hope, speedily lapses into reverie. To Iridion, Death was as indefinable an +object of thought as the twin omnipotent controller of human destiny, Love. +Love, like the immature fruit on the bough, hung unsoliciting and +unsolicited as yet, but slowly ripening to the maiden's hand. Death, a +vague film in an illimitable sky, tempered without obscuring the sunshine +of her life. Confronted with it suddenly, she found it, in truth, an +impalpable cloud, and herself as little competent as the gravest +philosopher to answer the self-suggested inquiry, "What shall I be when I +am no longer Iridion?" Superstition might have helped her to some definite +conceptions, but superstition did not exist in her time. Judge, reader, of +its remoteness. + +The maiden's reverie might have terminated only with her existence, but for +the salutary law which prohibits a young girl, not in love or at school, +from sitting still more than ten minutes. As she shifted her seat at the +expiration of something like this period, she perceived that she had been +sitting on a goatskin, and with a natural association of ideas-- + +"I will ask Pan," she exclaimed. + +Pan at that time inhabited a cavern hard by the maiden's dwelling, which +the judicious reader will have divined could only have been situated in +Arcadia. The honest god was on excellent terms with the simple people; his +goats browsed freely along with theirs, and the most melodious of the +rustic minstrels attributed their proficiency to his instructions. The +maidens were on a more reserved footing of intimacy--at least so they +wished it to be understood, and so it was understood, of course. Iridion, +however, decided that the occasion would warrant her incurring the risk +even of a kiss, and lost no time in setting forth upon her errand, carrying +her poor broken flower in its earthen vase. It was the time of day when the +god might be supposed to be arousing himself from his afternoon's siesta. +She did not fear that his door would be closed against her, for he had no +door. + +The sylvan deity stood, in fact, at the entrance of his cavern, about to +proceed in quest of his goats. The appearance of Iridion operated a change +in his intention, and he courteously escorted her to a seat of turf erected +for the special accommodation of his fair visitors, while he placed for +himself one of stone. + +"Pan," she began, "I have broken my lily." + +"That is a sad pity, child. If it had been a reed, now, you could have made +a flute of it." + +"I should not have time, Pan," and she recounted her story. A godlike +nature cannot confound truth with falsehood, though it may mistake +falsehood for truth. Pan therefore never doubted Iridion's strange +narrative, and, having heard it to the end, observed, "You will find plenty +more lilies in Elysium." + +"Common lilies, Pan; not like mine." + +"You are wrong. The lilies of Elysium--asphodels as they call them +there--are as immortal as the Elysians themselves. I have seen them in +Proserpine's hair at Jupiter's entertainment; they were as fresh as she +was. There is no doubt you might gather them by handfuls--at least if you +had any hands--and wear them to your heart's content, if you had but a +heart." + +"That's just what perplexes me, Pan. It is not the dying I mind, it's the +living. How am I to live without anything alive about me? If you take away +my hands, and my heart, and my brains, and my eyes, and my ears, and above +all my tongue, what is left me to live in Elysium?" + +As the maiden spake a petal detached itself from the emaciated lily, and +she pressed her hand to her brow with a responsive cry of pain. + +"Poor child!" said Pan compassionately, "you will feel no more pain +by-and-by." + +"I suppose not, Pan, since you say so. But if I can feel no pain, how can I +feel any pleasure? + +"In an incomprehensible manner," said Pan. + +"How can I feel, if I have no feeling? and what am I to do without it?" + +"You can think!" replied Pan. "Thinking (not that I am greatly given to it +myself) is a much finer thing than feeling; no right-minded person doubts +that. Feeling, as I have heard Minerva say, is a property of matter, and +matter, except, of course, that appertaining to myself and the other happy +gods, is vile and perishable--quite immaterial, in fact. Thought alone is +transcendent, incorruptible, and undying!" + +"But, Pan, how can any one think thoughts without something to think them +with? I never thought of anything that I have not seen, or touched, or +smelt, or tasted, or heard about from some one else. If I think with +nothing, and about nothing, is that thinking, do you think?" + +"I think," answered Pan evasively, "that you are a sensationalist, a +materialist, a sceptic, a revolutionist; and if you had not sought the +assistance of a god, I should have said not much better than an atheist. I +also think it is time I thought about some physic for you instead of +metaphysics, which are bad for my head, and for your soul." Saying this, +Pan, with rough tenderness, deposited the almost fainting maiden upon a +couch of fern, and, having supported her head with a bundle of herbs, +leaned his own upon his hand, and reflected with all his might. The +declining sun was now nearly opposite the cavern's mouth, and his rays, +straggling through the creepers that wove their intricacies over the +entrance, chequered with lustrous patches the forms of the dying girl and +the meditating god. Ever and anon, a petal would drop from the flower; this +was always succeeded by a shuddering tremor throughout Iridion's frame and +a more forlorn expression on her pallid countenance: while Pan's jovial +features assumed an expression of deeper concern as he pressed his knotty +hand more resolutely against his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter horn +with a more determined grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by +the tail. + +"Aha!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I have it!" + +"What have you, Pan?" faintly lisped the expiring Iridion. + +Instead of replying, Pan grasped a wand that leaned against the wall of his +grot, and with it touched the maiden and the flower. O strange +metamorphosis! Where the latter had been pining in its vase, a lovely girl, +the image of Iridion, lay along the ground with dishevelled hair, clammy +brow, and features slightly distorted by the last struggles of death. On +the ferny couch stood an earthen vase, from which rose a magnificent lily, +stately, with unfractured stem, and with no stain or wrinkle on its +numerous petals. + +"Aha!" repeated Pan; "I think we are ready for him now." Then, having +lifted the inanimate body to the couch, and placed the vase, with its +contents, on the floor of his cavern, he stepped to the entrance, and +shading his eyes with his hand, seemed to gaze abroad in quest of some +anticipated visitor. + +The boughs at the foot of the steep path to the cave divided, and a figure +appeared at the foot of the rock. The stranger's mien was majestic, but the +fitness of his proportions diminished his really colossal stature to +something more nearly the measure of mortality. His form was enveloped in a +sweeping sad-coloured robe; a light, thin veil resting on his countenance, +mitigated, without concealing, the not ungentle austerity of his marble +features. His gait was remarkable; nothing could be more remote from every +indication of haste, yet such was the actual celerity of his progression, +that Pan had scarcely beheld him ere he started to find him already at his +side. + +The stranger, without disturbing his veil, seemed to comprehend the whole +interior of the grotto with a glance; then, with the slightest gesture of +recognition to Pan, he glided to the couch on which lay the metamorphosed +lily, upraised the fictitious Iridion in his arms with indescribable +gentleness, and disappeared with her as swiftly and silently as he had +come. The discreet Pan struggled with suppressed merriment until the +stranger was fairly out of hearing, then threw himself back upon his seat +and laughed till the cave rang. + +"And now," he said, "to finish the business." He lifted the transformed +maiden into the vase, and caressed her beauty with an exulting but careful +hand. There was a glory and a splendour in the flower such as had never +until then been beheld in any earthly lily. The stem vibrated, the leaves +shook in unison, the petals panted and suspired, and seemed blanched with a +whiteness intense as the core of sunlight, as they throbbed in anticipation +of the richer existence awaiting them. + +Impatient to complete his task, Pan was about to grasp his wand when the +motion was arrested as the sinking beam of the sun was intercepted by a +gigantic shadow, and the stranger again stood by his side. The unbidden +guest uttered no word, but his manner was sufficiently expressive of wrath +as he disdainfully cast on the ground a broken, withered lily, the relic of +what had bloomed with such loveliness in the morning, and had since for a +brief space been arrayed in the vesture of humanity. He pointed imperiously +to the gorgeous tenant of the vase, and seemed to expect Pan to deliver it +forthwith. + +"Look here," said Pan, with more decision than dignity, "I am a poor +country god, but I know the law. If you can find on this plant one speck, +one stain, one token that you have anything to do with her, take her, and +welcome. If you cannot, take yourself off instead." + +"Be it so," returned the stranger, haughtily declining the proffered +inspection. "You will find it is ill joking with Death." + +So saying, he quitted the cavern. + +Pan sat down chuckling, yet not wholly at ease, for if the charity of Death +is beautiful even to a mortal, his anger is terrible, even to a god. +Anxious to terminate the adventure, he reached towards the charmed wand by +whose wonderful instrumentality the dying maiden had already become a +living flower, and was now to undergo a yet more delightful metamorphosis. + +Wondrous wand! But where was it? For Death, the great transfigurer of all +below this lunar sphere, had given Pan a characteristic proof of his +superior cunning. Where the wand had reposed writhed a ghastly worm, which, +as Pan's glance fell upon it, glided towards him, uplifting its head with +an aspect of defiance. Pan's immortal nature sickened at the emblem of +corruption; he could not for all Olympus have touched his metamorphosed +treasure. As he shrank back the creature pursued its way towards the vase; +but a marvellous change befell it as it came under the shadow of the +flower. The writhing body divided, end from end, the sordid scales sank +indiscernibly into the dust, and an exquisite butterfly, arising from the +ground, alighted on the lily, and remained for a moment fanning its wings +in the last sunbeam, ere it unclosed them to the evening breeze. Pan, +looking eagerly after the Psyche in its flight, did not perceive what was +taking place in the cavern; but the magic wand, now for ever lost to its +possessor, must have cancelled its own spell, for when his gaze reverted +from the ineffectual pursuit, the living lily had disappeared, and Iridion +lay a corpse upon the ground, the faded flower of her destiny reposing upon +her breast. + +Death now stood for a third time upon Pan's threshold, but Pan heeded him +not. + + + + +A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF FOLLY + + + "That owned the virtuous ring and glass." +[--_Il Penseroso_.] + + + +I + + +"Aurelia!" + +"Otto!" + +"Must we then part?" + +They were folded in each other's arms. There never was such kissing. + +"How shall we henceforth exchange the sweet tokens of our undying +affection, my Otto?" + +"Alas, my Aurelia, I know not! Thy Otto blushes to acquaint thee that he +cannot write." + +"Blush not, my Otto, thou needest not reproach thyself. Even couldest thou +write, thy Aurelia could not read. Oh these dark ages!" + +They remained some minutes gazing on each other with an expression of fond +perplexity. Suddenly the damsel's features assumed the aspect of one who +experiences the visitation of a happy thought. Gently yet decidedly she +pronounced: + +"We will exchange rings." + +They drew off their rings simultaneously. "This, Aurelia, was my +grandfather's." + +"This, Otto, was my grandmother's, which she charged me with her dying +breath never to part with save to him whom alone I loved." + +"Mine is a brilliant, more radiant than aught save the eyes of my Aurelia." + +And, in fact, Aurelia's eyes hardly sustained the comparison. A finer stone +could not easily be found. + +"Mine is a sapphire, azure as the everlasting heavens, and type of a +constancy enduring as they." + +In truth, it was of a tint seldom to be met with in sapphires. + +The exchange made, the lady seemed less anxious to detain her lover. + +"Beware, Otto!" she cried, as he slid down the cord, which yielded him an +oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted +knee-deep in mud. "Beware!--if my brother should be gazing from his +chamber on the resplendent moon!" + +But that ferocious young baron was accustomed to spend his time in a less +romantic manner; and so it came to pass that Otto encountered him not. + + + +II + + +Days, weeks, months had passed by, and Otto, a wanderer in a foreign land, +had heard no tidings of his Aurelia. Ye who have loved may well conceive +how her ring was all in all to him. He divided his time pretty equally +between gazing into its cerulean depths, as though her lovely image were +mirrored therein, and pressing its chilly surface to his lips, little as it +recalled the warmth and balminess of hers. + +The burnished glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and +sparkle of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he one +evening perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a jeweller's +shop. The grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench within, +sedulously polishing a streaked pebble by the light of a small lamp. A +sudden thought struck Otto; he entered the shop, and, presenting the ring +to the jeweller, inquired in a tone of suppressed exultation: + +"What hold you for the worth of this inestimable ring?" + +The jeweller, with no expression of surprise or curiosity, received the +ring from Otto, held it to the light, glanced slightly at the stone, +somewhat more carefully at the setting, laid the ring for a moment in a +pair of light scales, and, handing it back to Otto, remarked with a tone +and manner of the most entire indifference: + +"The worth of this inestimable ring is one shilling and sixpence." + +"Caitiff of a huckster!" exclaimed Otto, bringing down his fist on the +bench with such vigour that the pebbles leaped up and fell rattling down: +"Sayest thou this of a gem framed by genii in the bowels of the earth?" + +"Nay, friend," returned the jeweller with the same imperturbable air, "that +thy gem was framed of earth I in nowise question, seeing that it doth +principally consist of sand. But when thou speakest of genii and the bowels +of the earth, thou wilt not, I hope, take it amiss if I crave better proof +than thy word that the devil has taken to glass-making. For glass, and +nothing else, credit me, thy jewel is." + +"And the gold?" gasped Otto. + +"There is just as much gold in thy ring as sufficeth to gild handsomely a +like superficies of brass, which is not saying much." + +And, applying a sponge dipped in some liquid to a small part of the hoop, +the jeweller disclosed the dull hue of the baser metal so evidently that +Otto could hardly doubt longer. He doubted no more when the lapidary laid +his ring in the scales against another of the same size and make, and +pointed to the inequality of the balance. + +"Thou seest," he continued, "that in our craft a very little gold goes a +very great way. It is far otherwise in the world, as thou, albeit in no +sort eminent for sapience, hast doubtless ere this ascertained for thyself. +Thou art evidently a prodigious fool!" + +This latter disparaging observation could be safely ventured upon, as Otto +had rushed from the shop, speechless with rage. + +Was Aurelia deceiver or deceived? Should he execrate her, or her venerable +grandmother, or some unknown person? The point was too knotty to be solved +in the agitated state of his feelings. He decided it provisionally by +execrating the entire human race, not forgetting himself. + +In a mood like Otto's a trifling circumstance is sufficient to determine +the quality of action. The ancient city of which he was at the time an +inhabitant was traversed by a large river spanned by a quaint and +many-arched bridge, to which his frantic and aimless wanderings had +conducted him. Spires and gables and lengthy faades were reflected in the +water, blended with the shadows of boats, and interspersed with the +mirrored flames of innumerable windows on land, or of lanterns suspended +from the masts or sterns of the vessels. The dancing ripples bickered and +flickered, and seemed to say, "Come hither to us," while the dark reaches +of still water in the shadow of the piers promised that whatever might be +entrusted to them should be faithfully retained. Swayed by a sudden +impulse, Otto drew his ring from his finger. It gleamed an instant aloft in +air; in another the relaxation of his grasp would have consigned it to the +stream. + +"Forbear!" + +Otto turned, and perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger was +tall and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially concealed +a flame-coloured jerkin. A cock's feather peaked up in his cap; his eyes +were piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the expression of his +features sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more observant, or less +preoccupied, he might have noticed that the stranger's left shoe was of a +peculiar form, and that he limped some little with the corresponding foot. + +"Forbear, I say; thou knowest not what thou doest." + +"And what skills what I do with a piece of common glass?" + +"Thou errest, friend; thy ring is not common glass. Had thy mistress +surmised its mystic virtues, she would have thought oftener than twice ere +exchanging it for thy diamond." + +"What may these virtues be?" eagerly demanded Otto. + +"In the first place, it will show thee when thy mistress may chance to +think of thee, as it will then prick thy finger." + +"Now I know thee for a lying knave," exclaimed the youth indignantly. +"Learn, to thy confusion, that it hath not pricked me once since I parted +from Aurelia." + +"Which proves that she has never once thought of thee." + +"Villain!" shouted Otto, "say that again, and I will transfix thee." + +"Thou mayest if thou canst," rejoined the stranger, with an expression of +such cutting scorn that Otto's spirit quailed, and he felt a secret but +overpowering conviction of his interlocutor's veracity. Rallying, however, +in some measure, he exclaimed: + +"Aurelia is true! I will wager my soul upon it!" + +"Done!" screamed the stranger in a strident voice of triumph, while a burst +of diabolical laughter seemed to proceed from every cranny of the eaves and +piers of the old bridge, and to be taken up by goblin echoes from the +summits of the adjacent towers and steeples. + +Otto's blood ran chill, but he mustered sufficient courage to inquire +hoarsely: + +"What of its further virtues?" + +"When it shall have pricked thee," returned the mysterious personage, "on +turning it once completely round thy finger thou wilt see thy mistress +wherever she may be. If thou turnest it the second time, thou wilt know +what her thought of thee is; and, if the third time, thou wilt find +thyself in her presence. But I give thee fair warning that by doing this +thou wilt place thyself in a more disastrous plight than any thou hast +experienced hitherto. And now farewell." + +The speaker disappeared. Otto stood alone upon the bridge. He saw nothing +around him but the stream, with its shadows and lights, as he slowly and +thoughtfully turned round to walk to his lodgings. + + + +III + + +Ye who have loved, et cetera, as aforesaid, will comprehend the anxiety +with which Otto henceforth consulted his ring. He was continually adjusting +it to his finger in a manner, as he fancied, to render the anticipated +puncture more perceptible when it should come at last. He would have worn +it on all his fingers in succession had the conformation of his robust hand +admitted of its being placed on any but the slenderest. Thousands of times +he could have sworn that he felt the admonitory sting; thousands of times +he turned the trinket round and round with desperate impatience; but +Aurelia's form remained as invisible, her thoughts as inscrutable, as +before. His great dread was that he might be pricked in his sleep, on which +account he would sit up watching far into the morn. For, as he reasoned, +not without plausibility, when could he more rationally hope for a place in +Aurelia's thoughts than at that witching and suggestive period? She might +surely think of him when she had nothing else to do! Had she really nothing +else to do? And Otto grew sick and livid with jealousy. It of course +frequently occurred to him to doubt and deride the virtues of the ring, and +he was several times upon the point of flinging it away. But the more he +pondered upon the appearance and manner of the stranger, the less able he +felt to resist the conviction of his truthfulness. + +At last a most unmistakable puncture! the distinct, though slight, pang of +a miniature wound. A crimson bead of blood rose on Otto's finger, swelled +to its due proportion, and became a trickling blot. + +"She is thinking of me!" cried he rapturously, as if this were an instance +of the most signal and unforeseen condescension. All the weary expectancy +of the last six months was forgotten. He would have railed at himself had +the bliss of the moment allowed him to remember that he had ever railed at +her. + +Otto turned his ring once, and Aurelia became visible in an instant. She +was standing before the mercer's booth in the chief street of the little +town which adjoined her father's castle. Her gaze was riveted on a silk +mantle, trimmed with costly furs, which depended from a hook inside the +doorway. Her lovely features wore an expression of extreme dissatisfaction. +She was replacing a purse, apparently by no means weighty, in her +embroidered girdle. + +Otto turned the ring the second time, and Aurelia's silvery accents +immediately became audible to the following effect: + +"If that fool Otto were here, he would buy it for me." + +She turned away, and walked down the street. Otto uttered a cry like the +shriek of an uprooted mandrake. His hand was upon the ring to turn it for +the third time; but the stranger's warning occurred to him, and for a +moment he forbore. In that moment the entire vision vanished from before +his eyes. + +What boots it to describe Otto's feelings upon this revelation of Aurelia's +sentiments? For lovers, description would be needless; to wiser people, +incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, that as his lady deemed him a fool he +appeared bent on proving that she did not deem amiss. + +A long space of time elapsed without any further admonition from the ring. +Perhaps Aurelia had no further occasion for his purse; perhaps she had +found another pursebearer. The latter view of the case appeared the more +plausible to Otto, and it hugely aggravated his torments. + +At last the moment came. It was the hour of midnight. Again Otto felt the +sharp puncture, again the ruby drop started from his finger, again he +turned the ring, and again beheld Aurelia. She was in her chamber, but not +alone. Her companion was a youth of Otto's age. She was in the act of +placing Otto's brilliant upon his finger. Otto turned his own ring, and +heard her utter, with singular distinctness: + +"This ring was given me by the greatest fool I ever knew. Little did he +imagine that it would one day be the means of procuring me liberty, and +bliss in the arms of my Arnold. My venerable grandmother--" + +The voice expired upon her lips, for Otto stood before her. + +Arnold precipitated himself from the window, carrying the ring with him. +Otto, glaring at his faithless mistress, stood in the middle of the +apartment with his sword unsheathed. Was he about to use it? None can say; +for at this moment the young Baron burst into the room, and, without the +slightest apology for the liberty he was taking, passed his sword through +Otto's body. + +Otto groaned, and fell upon his face. He was dead. The young Baron ungently +reversed the position of the corpse, and scanned its features with evident +surprise and dissatisfaction. + +"It is not Arnold, after all!" he muttered. "Who would have thought it?" + +"Thou seest, brother, how unjust were thy suspicions," observed Aurelia, +with an air of injured but not implacable virtue. "As for this abominable +ravisher----" Her feelings forbade her to proceed. + +The brother looked mystified. There was something beyond his comprehension +in the affair; yet he could not but acknowledge that Otto was the person +who had rushed by him as he lay in wait upon the stairs. He finally +determined that it was best to say nothing about the matter: a resolution +the easier of performance as he was not wont to be lavish of his words at +any time. He wiped his sword on his sister's curtains, and was about to +withdraw, when Aurelia again spoke: + +"Ere thou departest, brother, have the goodness to ring the bell, and +desire the menials to remove this carrion from my apartment." + +The young Baron sulkily complied, and retreated growling to his chamber. + +The attendants carried Otto's body forth. To the honour of her sex be it +recorded, that before this was done Aurelia vouchsafed one glance to the +corpse of her old lover. Her eye fell on the brazen ring. "And he has +actually worn it all this time!" thought she. + +"Would have outraged my daughter, would he?" said the old Baron, when the +transaction was reported to him. "Let him be buried in a concatenation +accordingly." + +"What the guy dickens be a concatrenation, Geoffrey?" interrogated Giles. + +"Methinks it is Latin for a ditch," responded Geoffrey. + +This interpretation commending itself to the general judgment of the +retainers, Otto was interred in the shelving bank of the old moat, just +under Aurelia's window. A rough stone was laid upon the grave. The magic +ring, which no one thought worth appropriating, remained upon the corpse's +finger. Thou mayest probably find it there, reader, if thou searchest long +enough. + +The first visitor to Otto's humble sepulchre was, after all, Aurelia +herself, who alighted thereon on the following night after letting herself +down from her casement to fly with Arnold. Their escape was successfully +achieved upon a pair of excellent horses, the proceeds of Otto's diamond, +which had become the property of a Jew. + +On the third night an aged monk stood by Otto's grave, and wept +plentifully. He carried a lantern, a mallet, and a chisel. "He was my +pupil," sobbed the good old man. "It were meet to contribute what in me +lies to the befitting perpetuation of his memory." + +Setting down the lantern, he commenced work, and with pious toil engraved +on the stone in the Latin of the period: + + "HAC MAGNUS STULTUS JACET IN FOSSA SEPULTUS. + MULIER CUI CREDIDIT MORTUUM ILLUM REDDIDIT." + +Here he paused, at the end of his strength and of his Latin. + +"Beshrew my old arms and brains!" he sighed. + +"Hem!" coughed a deep voice in his vicinity. + +The monk looked up. The personage in the dusky cloak and flame-coloured +jerkin was standing over him. + +"Good monk," said the fiend, "what dost thou here?" + +"Good fiend," said the monk, "I am inscribing an epitaph to the memory of a +departed friend. Thou mightest kindly aid me to complete it." + +"Truly," rejoined the demon, "it would become me to do so, seeing that I +have his soul here in my pocket. Thou wilt not expect me to employ the +language of the Church. Nathless, I see not wherefore the vernacular may +not serve as well." + +And, taking the mallet and chisel, he completed the monk's inscription with +the supplementary legend: + + "SERVED HIM RIGHT." + + + + +THE BELL OF SAINT EUSCHEMON + + +The town of Epinal, in Lorraine, possessed in the Middle Ages a peal of +three bells, respectively dedicated to St. Eulogius, St. Eucherius, and St. +Euschemon, whose tintinnabulation was found to be an effectual safeguard +against all thunderstorms. Let the heavens be ever so murky, it was merely +requisite to set the bells ringing, and no lightning flashed and no thunder +peal broke over the town, nor was the neighbouring country within hearing +of them ravaged by hail or flood. + +One day the three saints, Eulogius, Eucherius, and Euschemon, were sitting +together, exceedingly well content with themselves and everything around +them, as indeed they had every right to be, supposing that they were in +Paradise. We say supposing, not being for our own part entirely able to +reconcile this locality with the presence of certain cans and flagons, +which had been fuller than they were. + +"What a happy reflection for a Saint," said Eulogius, who was rapidly +passing from the mellow stage of good fellowship to the maudlin, "that even +after his celestial assumption he is permitted to continue a source of +blessing and benefit to his fellow-creatures as yet dwelling in the shade +of mortality! The thought of the services of my bell, in averting lightning +and inundation from the good people of Epinal, fills me with indescribable +beatitude." + +"_Your_ bell!" interposed Eucherius, whose path had lain through the mellow +to the quarrelsome. "_Your_ bell, quotha! You had as good clink this +cannakin" (suiting the action to the word) "as your bell. It's my bell that +does the business." + +"I think you might put in a word for _my_ bell," interposed Euschemon, a +little squinting saint, very merry and friendly when not put out, as on the +present occasion. + +"Your bell!" retorted the big saints, with incredible disdain; and, +forgetting their own altercation, they fell so fiercely on their little +brother that he ran away, stopping his ears with his hands, and vowing +vengeance. + +A short time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance +presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and +bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance was +far from disagreeable, and he obtained the appointment without difficulty. +His deportment in it was in all respects edifying; or if he evinced some +little remissness in the service of Saints Eulogius and Eucherius, this was +more than compensated by his devotion to the hitherto somewhat slighted +Saint Euschemon. It was indeed observed that candles, garlands, and other +offerings made at the shrines of the two senior saints were found to be +transferred in an unaccountable and mystical manner to the junior, which +induced experienced persons to remark that a miracle was certainly +brewing. Nothing, however, occurred until, one hot summer afternoon, the +indications of a storm became so threatening that the sacristan was +directed to ring the bells. Scarcely had he begun than the sky became +clear, but instead of the usual rich volume of sound the townsmen heard +with astonishment a solitary tinkle, sounding quite ridiculous and +unsatisfactory in comparison. St. Euschemon's bell was ringing by itself. + +In a trice priests and laymen swarmed to the belfry, and indignantly +demanded of the sacristan what he meant. + +"To enlighten you," he responded. "To teach you to give honour where honour +is due. To unmask those canonised impostors." + +And he called their attention to the fact that the clappers of the bells of +Eulogius and Eucherius were so fastened up that they could not emit a +sound, while that of Euschemon vibrated freely. + +"Ye see," he continued, "that these sound not at all, yet is the tempest +stayed. Is it not thence manifest that the virtue resides solely in the +bell of the blessed Euschemon?" + +The argument seemed conclusive to the majority, but those of the clergy who +ministered at the altars of Eulogius and Eucherius stoutly resisted, +maintaining that no just decision could be arrived at until Euschemon's +bell was subjected to the same treatment as the others. Their view +eventually prevailed, to the great dismay of Euschemon, who, although +firmly convinced of the virtue of his own bell, did not in his heart +disbelieve in the bells of his brethren. Imagine his relief and amazed joy +when, upon his bell being silenced, the storm, for the first time in the +memory of the oldest inhabitant, broke with full fury over Epinal, and, for +all the frantic pealing of the other two bells, raged with unspeakable +fierceness until his own was brought into requisition, when, as if by +enchantment, the rain ceased, the thunder-clouds dispersed, and the sun +broke out gloriously from the blue sky. + +"Carry him in procession!" shouted the crowd. + +"Amen, brethren; here I am," rejoined Euschemon, stepping briskly into the +midst of the troop. + +"And why in the name of Zernebock should we carry _you?_" demanded some, +while others ran off to lug forth the image, the object of their devotion. + +"Why, verily," Euschemon began, and stopped short. How indeed was he to +prove to them that he _was_ Euschemon? His personal resemblance to his +effigy, the work of a sculptor of the idealistic school, was in no respect +remarkable; and he felt, alas! that he could no more work a miracle than +you or I. In the sight of the multitude he was only an elderly sexton with +a cast in his eye, with nothing but his office to keep him out of the +workhouse. A further and more awkward question arose, how on earth was he +to get back to Paradise? The ordinary method was not available, for he had +already been dead for several centuries; and no other presented itself to +his imagination. + +Muttering apologies, and glad to be overlooked, Euschemon shrank into a +corner, but slightly comforted by the honours his image was receiving at +the hands of the good people of Epinal. As time wore on he became pensive +and restless, and nothing pleased him so well as to ascend to the belfry on +moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, +which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an +incipient crack, which threatened to become a serious flaw. + +"If this goes on," said a voice behind him, "I shall get a holiday." + +Euschemon turned round, and with indescribable dismay perceived a gigantic +demon, negligently resting his hand on the top of the bell, and looking as +if it would cost him nothing to pitch it and Euschemon together to the +other side of the town. + +"Avaunt, fiend," he stammered, with as much dignity as he could muster, "or +at least remove thy unhallowed paw from my bell." + +"Come, Eusky," replied the fiend, with profane familiarity, "don't be a +fool. You are not really such an ass as to imagine that your virtue has +anything to do with the virtue of this bell?" + +"Whose virtue then?" demanded Euschemon. + +"Why truly," said the demon, "mine! When this bell was cast I was +imprisoned in it by a potent enchanter, and so long as I am in it no storm +can come within sound of its ringing. I am not allowed to quit it except by +night, and then no further than an arm's length: this, however, I take the +liberty of measuring by my own arm, which happens to be a long one. This +must continue, as I learn, until I receive a kiss from some bishop of +distinguished sanctity. Thou hast done some bishoping in thy time, +peradventure?" + +Euschemon energetically protested that he had been on earth but a simple +laic, which was indeed the fact, and was also the reason why Eulogius and +Eucherius despised him, but which, though he did not think it needful to +tell the demon, he found a singular relief under present circumstances. + +"Well," continued the fiend, "I wish he may turn up shortly, for I am half +deaf already with the banging and booming of this infernal clapper, which +seems to have grown much worse of late; and the blessings and the crossings +and the aspersions which I have to go through are most repugnant to my +tastes, and unsuitable to my position in society. Bye-bye, Eusky; come up +to-morrow night." And the fiend slipped back into the bell, and instantly +became invisible. + +The humiliation of poor Euschemon on learning that he was indebted for his +credit to the devil is easier to imagine than to describe. He did not, +however, fail at the rendezvous next night, and found the demon sitting +outside the bell in a most affable frame of mind. It did not take long for +the devil and the saint to become very good friends, both wanting company, +and the former being apparently as much amused by the latter's simplicity +as the latter was charmed by the former's knowingness. Euschemon learned +numbers of things of which he had not had the faintest notion. The demon +taught him how to play cards (just invented by the Saracens), and initiated +him into divers "arts, though unimagined, yet to be," such as smoking +tobacco, making a book on the Derby, and inditing queer stories for Society +journals. He drew the most profane but irresistibly funny caricatures of +Eulogius and Eucherius, and the rest of the host of heaven. He had been one +of the demons who tempted St. Anthony, and retailed anecdotes of that +eremite which Euschemon had never heard mentioned in Paradise. He was +versed in all scandal respecting saints in general, and Euschemon found +with astonishment how much about his own order was known downstairs. On the +whole he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life; he became +proficient in all manner of minor devilries, and was ceasing to trouble +himself about his bell or his ecclesiastical duties, when an untoward +incident interrupted his felicity. + +It chanced that the Bishop of Metz, in whose diocese Epinal was situated, +finding himself during a visitation journey within a short distance of the +town, determined to put, up there for the night. He did not arrive until +nightfall, but word of his intention having been sent forward by a +messenger the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, were ready to receive +him. When, escorted in state, he had arrived at the house prepared for his +reception, the Mayor ventured to express a hope that everything had been +satisfactory to his Lordship. + +"Everything," said the bishop emphatically. "I did indeed seem to remark +one little omission, which no doubt may be easily accounted for." + +"What was that, my Lord?" + +"It hath," said the bishop, "usually been the practice to receive a bishop +with the ringing of bells. It is a laudable custom, conducive to the +purification of the air and the discomfiture of the prince of the powers +thereof. I caught no sound of chimes on the present occasion, yet I am +sensible that my hearing is not what it was." + +The civil and ecclesiastical authorities looked at each other. "That +graceless knave of a sacristan!" said the Mayor. + +"He hath indeed of late strangely neglected his charge," said a priest. + +"Poor man, I doubt his wits are touched," charitably added another. + +"What!" exclaimed the bishop, who was very active, very fussy, and a great +stickler for discipline. "This important church, so renowned for its three +miraculous bells, confided to the tender mercies of an imbecile rogue who +may burn it down any night! I will look to it myself without losing a +minute." + +And in spite of all remonstrances, off he started. The keys were brought, +the doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly examined, but +neither in nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest trace of the +sacristan be found. + +"Perhaps he is in the belfry," suggested a chorister. + +"We'll see," responded the bishop, and bustling nimbly up the ladder, he +emerged into the open belfry in full moonlight. + +Heavens! what a sight met his eye! The sacristan and the devil sitting +_vis-a-vis_ close by the miraculous bell, with a smoking can of hot spiced +wine between them, finishing a close game of cribbage. + +"Seven," declared Euschemon. + +"And eight are fifteen," retorted the demon, marking two. + +"Twenty-three and pair," cried Euschemon, marking in his turn. + +"And seven is thirty." + +"Ace, thirty-one, and I'm up." + +"It _is_ up with you, my friend," shouted the bishop, bringing his crook +down smartly on Euschemon's shoulders. + +"Deuce!" said the devil, and vanished into his bell. + +When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very +long, the bishop briefly addressed the assembly. He said that the accounts +of the bell which had reached his ears had already excited his +apprehensions. He had greatly feared that all could not be right, and now +his anxieties were but too well justified. He trusted there was not a man +before him who would not suffer his flocks and his crops to be destroyed by +tempest fifty times over rather than purchase their safety by unhallowed +means. What had been done had doubtless been done in ignorance, and could +be made good by a mulct to the episcopal treasury. The amount of this he +would carefully consider, and the people of Epinal might rest assured that +it should not be too light to entitle them to the benefit of a full +absolution. The bell must go to his cathedral city, there to be examined +and reported on by the exorcists and inquisitors. Meanwhile he would +himself institute a slight preliminary scrutiny. + +The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the combined +beams of the moonlight and torchlight. Very slight examination served to +place the soundness of the bishop's opinion beyond dispute. On the lip of +the bell were engraven characters unknown to every one else, but which +seemed to affect the prelate with singular consternation. + +"I hope," he exclaimed, "that none of you know anything about these +characters! I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them. If I +thought anybody could I would burn him as soon as look at him!" + +The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the +slightest conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never been +observed before. + +"I rejoice to hear it," said the bishop. "It will be an evil day for the +church when these letters are understood." + +And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible +fiend inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and the +luckless Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness, the inmate +of a dismal dungeon. + +It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of any +partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats. At length, +however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear. + +"Who art thou?" he exclaimed. + +"An unfortunate prisoner," was the answer. + +"What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?" + +"Oh, a mere trifle. A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to +Beelzebub. One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur in +our profession." + +"_Our_ profession!" exclaimed Euschemon. + +"Art thou not a sorcerer?" demanded the voice. + +"No," replied Euschemon, "I am a saint." + +The warlock received Euschemon's statement with much incredulity, but +becoming eventually convinced of its truth-- + +"I congratulate thee," he said. "The devil has manifestly taken a fancy to +thee, and he never forgets his own. It is true that the bishop is a great +favourite with him also. But we will hope for the best. Thou hast never +practised riding a broomstick? No? 'Tis pity; thou mayest have to mount one +at a moment's notice." + +This consolation had scarcely been administered ere the bolts flew back, +the hinges grated, the door opened, and gaolers bearing torches informed +the sorcerer that the bishop desired his presence. + +He found the bishop in his study, which was nearly choked up by Euschemon's +bell. The prelate received him with the greatest affability, and expressed +a sincere hope that the very particular arrangements he had enjoined for +the comfort of his distinguished prisoner had been faithfully carried out +by his subordinates. The sorcerer, as much a man of the world as the +bishop, thanked his Lordship, and protested that he had been perfectly +comfortable. + +"I have need of thy art," said the bishop, coming to business. "I am +exceedingly bothered--flabbergasted were not too strong an expression--by +this confounded bell. All my best exorcists have been trying all they know +with it, to no purpose. They might as well have tried to exorcise my mitre +from my head by any other charm than the offer of a better one. Magic is +plainly the only remedy, and if thou canst disenchant it, I will give thee +thy freedom." + +"It will be a tough business," observed the sorcerer, surveying the bell +with the eye of a connoisseur. "It will require fumigations." + +"Yes," said the bishop, "and suffumigations." + +"Aloes and mastic," advised the sorcerer. + +"Aye," assented the bishop, "and red sanders." + +"We must call in Primeumaton," said the warlock. + +"Clearly," said the bishop, "and Amioram." + +"Triangles," said the sorcerer. + +"Pentacles," said the bishop. + +"In the hour of Methon," said the sorcerer. + +"I should have thought Tafrac," suggested the bishop, "but I defer to your +better judgment." + +"I can have the blood of a goat?" queried the wizard. + +"Yes," said the bishop, "and of a monkey also." + +"Does your Lordship think that one might venture to go so far as a little +unweaned child?" + +"If absolutely necessary," said the bishop. + +"I am delighted to find such liberality of sentiment on your Lordship's +part," said the sorcerer. "Your Lordship is evidently of the profession." + +"These are things which stuck by me when I was an inquisitor," explained +the bishop, with some little embarrassment. + +Ere long all arrangements were made. It would be impossible to enumerate +half the crosses, circles, pentagrams, naked swords, cross-bones, +chafing-dishes, and vials of incense which the sorcerer found to be +necessary. The child was fortunately deemed superfluous. Euschemon was +brought up from his dungeon, and, his teeth chattering with fright and +cold, set beside his bell to hold a candle to the devil. The incantations +commenced, and speedily gave evidence of their efficacy. The bell trembled, +swayed, split open, and a female figure of transcendent loveliness attired +in the costume of Eve stepped forth and extended her lips towards the +bishop. What could the bishop do but salute them? With a roar of triumph +the demon resumed his proper shape. The bishop swooned. The apartment was +filled with the fumes of sulphur. The devil soared majestically out of the +window, carrying the sorcerer under one arm and Euschemon under the other. + +It is commonly believed that the devil good-naturedly dropped Euschemon +back again into Paradise, or wheresoever he might have come from. It is +even added that he fell between Eulogius and Eucherius, who had been +arguing all the time respecting the merits of their bells, and resumed his +share in the discussion as if nothing had happened. Some maintain, indeed, +that the devil, chancing to be in want of a chaplain, offered the situation +to Euschemon, by whom it was accepted. But how to reconcile this assertion +with the undoubted fact that the duties of the post in question are at +present ably discharged by the Bishop of Metz, in truth we see not. One +thing is certain: thou wilt not find Euschemon's name in the calendar, +courteous reader. + +The mulct to be imposed upon the parish of Epinal was never exacted. The +bell, ruptured beyond repair by the demon's violent exit, was taken back +and deposited in the museum of the town. The bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius were rung freely on occasion; but Epinal has not since enjoyed +any greater immunity from storms than the contiguous districts. One day an +aged traveller, who had spent many years in Heathenesse and in whom some +discerned a remarkable resemblance to the sorcerer, noticed the bell, and +asked permission to examine it. He soon discovered the inscription, +recognised the mysterious characters as Greek, read them without the least +difficulty-- + +"[Greek: M kinei Kamarinan akintos gar ameinoon]--" + +and favoured the townsmen with this free but substantially accurate +translation:-- + +"CAN'T YOU LET WELL ALONE?" + + + + +BISHOP ADDO AND BISHOP GADDO + + +Midday, midsummer, middle of the dark ages. Fine healthy weather at the +city of Biserta in Barbary. Wind blowing strong from the sea, roughening +the dark blue waters, and fretting their indigo with foam, as though the +ocean's coursers champed an invisible curb. On land tawny sand whirling, +green palm-fans swaying and whistling, men abroad in the noonday blaze +rejoicing in the unwonted freshness. + +"She is standing in," they cried, "and, by the Prophet, she seemeth not a +ship of the true believers." + +She was not, but she bore a flag of truce. Pitching and rearing, the little +bark bounded in, and soon was fast in harbour. Ere long messengers of peace +had landed, bearing presents and a letter from the Bishop of Amalfi to the +Emir of Biserta. The presents consisted of fifty casks of Lacrima Christi, +and of a captive, a tall, noble-looking man, in soiled ecclesiastical +costume, and disfigured by the loss of his left eye, which seemed to have +been violently plucked out. + +"Health to the Emir!" ran the letter. "I send thee my captive, Gaddo, +sometime Bishop of Amalfi, now an ejected intruder. For what saith the +Scripture? 'When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in +peace; but if one stronger than he cometh, he divideth the spoils.' +Moreover it is written: 'His bishopric let another take.' Having solemnly +sworn that I would not kill or blind or maim my enemy, or imprison him in a +monastery, and the price of absolution from an oath in this corrupt age +exceeding all reason and Christian moderation, I knew not how to take +vengeance on him, until a sagacious counsellor represented that a man +cannot be said to be blinded so long as he is deprived of only one eye. +This I accordingly eradicated, and now, being restrained from imprisoning +him, and fearing to release him, I send him to thee, to retain in captivity +on my behalf; in return for which service, receive fifty casks of the +choicest Lacrima Christi, which shall not fail to be sent thee yearly, so +long as Gaddo continues in thy custody. + +"+ Addo, by Divine permission Bishop of Amalfi." + +"First," said the Emir, "I would be certified whether this vintage is +indeed of such excellence as to prevail upon a faithful Mussulman to +jeopard Paradise, the same being forbidden by his law." + +Experiments were instituted forthwith, and the problem was resolved in the +affirmative. + +"This being so," declared the Emir, "honour and good faith towards Bishop +Addo require that Bishop Gaddo be kept captive with all possible +strictness. Yet bolts may be burst, fetters may be filed, walls may be +scaled, doors may be broken through. Better to enchain the captive's soul, +binding him with invisible bonds, and searing out of him the very wish to +escape. Embrace the faith of the Prophet," continued he, addressing Gaddo; +"become a Mollah." + +"No," said the deposed Bishop, "my inclination hath ever been towards a +military life. At present, mutilated and banished as I am, I rather affect +the crown of martyrdom." + +"Thou shalt receive it by instalments," said the Emir. "Thou shalt work at +the new pavilion in my garden." + +Unceasing toil under the blazing sun, combined with the discipline of the +overseers, speedily wore down Gaddo's strength, already impaired by +captivity and ill-treatment. Unable to drag himself away after his +fellow-workmen had ceased from their labours, he lay one evening, faint and +almost senseless, among the stones and rubbish of the unfinished edifice. +The Emir's daughter passed by. Gaddo was handsome and wretched, the +Princess was beautiful and compassionate. Conveyed by her fair hands, a cup +of Bishop Addo's wine saved Bishop Gaddo's life. + +The next evening Gaddo again lingered behind, and the Princess spoke to him +out of her balcony. The third evening they encountered in an arbour. The +next meeting took place in her chamber, where her father discovered them. + +"I will tear thee to pieces with pincers," shouted he to Gaddo. + +"Your Highness will not be guilty of that black action," responded Gaddo +resolutely. + +"No?" roared the Emir. "No? and what shall hinder me?" + +"The Lacrima Christi will hinder your Highness," returned the far-seeing +Gaddo. "Deems your Highness that Bishop Addo will send another cupful, once +he is assured of my death?" + +"Thou sayest well," rejoined the Emir. "I may not slay thee. But my +daughter is manifestly most inflammable, wherefore I will burn her." + +"Were it not better to circumcise me?" suggested Gaddo. + +Many difficulties were raised, but Ayesha's mother siding with Gaddo, and +promising a more amicable deportment for the future towards the other +lights of the harem, the matter was arranged, and Gaddo recited the +Mahometan profession of faith, and became the Emir's son-in-law. The +execrable social system under which he had hitherto lived thus vanished +like a nightmare from an awakened sleeper. Wedded to one who had saved his +life by her compassion, and whose life he had in turn saved by his change +of creed, adoring her and adored by her, with the hope of children, and +active contact with multitudes of other interests from which he had +hitherto been estranged, he forgot the ecclesiastic in the man; his +intellect expanded, his ideas multiplied, he cleared his mind of cant, and +became an eminent philosopher. + +"Dear son," said the Emir to him one day, "the Lacrima is spent, we thirst, +and the tribute of that Christian dog, the Bishop of Amalfi, tarries to +arrive. We will presently fit out certain vessels, and thou shalt hold a +visitation of thine ancient diocese." + +"Methinks I see a ship even now," said Gaddo; and he was right. She +anchored, the ambassadors landed and addressed the Emir: + +"Prince, we bring thee the stipulated tribute, yet not without a trifling +deduction." + +"Deduction!" exclaimed the Emir, bending his brows ominously. + +"Highness," they represented, "by reason of the deficiency of last year's +vintage it hath not been possible to provide more than forty-nine casks, +which we crave to offer thee accordingly." + +"Then," pronounced the Emir sententiously, "the compact is broken, the ship +is confiscated, and war is declared." + +"Not so, Highness," said they, "for the fiftieth cask is worth all the +rest." + +"Let it be opened," commanded the Emir. + +It was accordingly hoisted out, deposited on the quay, and prized open; and +from its capacious interior, in a deplorable plight from hunger, cramp, and +sea-sickness, was extracted--Bishop Addo. + +"We have," explained the deputation, "wearied of our shepherd, who, +shearing his flock somewhat too closely, hath brought the wolf to light. We +therefore desire thee to receive him at our hands in exchange for our good +Bishop Gaddo, promising one hundred casks of Lacrima Christi as yearly +tribute for the future." + +"He stands before you," answered the Emir; "take him, an ye can prevail +upon him to return with you." + +The eyes of the envoys wandered hopelessly from one whiskered, turbaned, +caftaned, and yataghaned figure to another. They could not discover that +any of the Paynim present looked more or less like a bishop than his +fellows. + +"Brethren," said Gaddo, taking compassion on their bewilderment, "behold +me! I thank you for your kindly thought of me, but how to profit by it I +see not. I have become a Saracen. I have pronounced the Mahometan +confession. I am circumcised. I am known by the name of Mustapha." + +"We acknowledge the weight of your Lordship's objections," they said, "and +do but venture to hint remotely that the times are hard, and that the Holy +Father is grievously in want of money." + +"I have also taken a wife," said Gaddo. + +"A wife!" exclaimed they with one consent. "If it had been a concubine! Let +us return instantly." + +They gathered up their garments and spat upon the ground. + +"A bishop, then," inquired Gaddo, "may be guilty of any enormity sooner +than wedlock, which money itself cannot expiate?" + +"Such," they answered, "is the law and the prophets." + +"Unless," added one of benignant aspect, "he sew the abomination up in a +sack and cast her into the sea, then peradventure he may yet find place for +repentance." + +"Miserable blasphemers!" exclaimed Gaddo. "But why," continued he, checking +himself, "do I talk of what none will understand for five hundred years, +which to understand myself I was obliged to become a Saracen? Addo," he +pursued, addressing his dejected competitor, "bad as thou art, thou art +good enough for the world as it is. I spare thy life, restore thy dignity, +and, to prove that the precepts of Christ may be practised under the garb +of Mahomet, will not even exact eye for eye. Yet, as a wholesome admonition +to thee that treachery and cruelty escape not punishment even in this life, +I will that thou do presently surrender to me thy left ear. Restore my eye +and I will return it immediately. And ye," addressing the envoys, "will for +the future pay one hundred casks tribute, unless ye would see my +father-in-law's galleys on your coasts." + +So Addo returned to his bishopric, leaving his ear in Gaddo's keeping. The +Lacrima was punctually remitted, and as punctually absorbed by the Emir and +his son-in-law, with some little help from Ayesha. Gaddo's eye never came +back, and Addo never regained his ear until, after the ex-prelate's death +in years and honour, he ransomed it from his representatives. It became a +relic, and is shown in Addo's cathedral to this day in proof of his +inveterate enmity to the misbelievers, and of the sufferings he underwent +at their hands. But Gaddo trumped him, the entry after his name in the +episcopal register, "Fled to the Saracens," having been altered into +"Flayed by the Saracens" by a later bishop, jealous of the honour of the +diocese. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE BUTTERFLIES + + +The scene was in a garden on a fine summer morning, brilliant with slants +of sunshine, yet chequered with clouds significant of more than a remote +possibility of rain. All the animal world was astir. Birds flitted or +hopped from spray to spray; butterflies eddied around flowers within or +upon which bees were bustling; ants and earwigs ran nimbly about on the +mould; a member of the Universal Knowledge Society perambulated the gravel +path. + +The Universal Knowledge Society, be it understood, exists for the +dissemination and not for the acquisition of knowledge. Our philosopher, +therefore, did not occupy himself with considering whether in that +miniature world, with its countless varieties of animal and vegetable +being, something might not be found with which he was himself unacquainted; +but, like the honey-freighted bee, rather sought an opportunity of +disburdening himself of his stores of information than of adding to them. +But who was to profit by his communicativeness? The noisy birds could not +hear themselves speak, much less him; he shrewdly distrusted his ability to +command the attention of the busy bees; and even a member of the Universal +Knowledge Society may well be at a loss for a suitable address to an +earwig. At length he determined to accost a Butterfly who, after sipping +the juice of a flower, remained perched indolently upon it, apparently +undecided whither to direct his flight. + +"It seems likely to rain," he said, "have you an umbrella?" + +The Butterfly looked curiously at him, but returned no answer. + +"I do not ask," resumed the Philosopher, "as one who should imply that the +probability of even a complete saturation ought to appal a ratiocinative +being, endowed with wisdom and virtue. I rather designed to direct your +attention to the inquiry whether these attributes are, in fact, rightly +predicable of Butterflies." + +Still no answer. + +"An impression obtains among our own species," continued the Philosopher, +"that you Butterflies are deficient in foresight and providence to a +remarkable, I might almost say a culpable degree. Pardon me if I add that +this suspicion is to some extent confirmed by my finding you destitute of +protection against imbriferous inclemency under atmospheric conditions +whose contingent humidity should be obvious to a being endowed with the +most ordinary allotment of meteorological prevision." + +The Butterfly still left all the talk to the Philosopher. This was just +what the latter desired. + +"I greatly fear," he continued, "that the omission to which I have +reluctantly adverted is to a certain extent typically characteristic of the +entire political and social economy of the lepidopterous order. It has +even been stated, though the circumstance appears scarcely credible, that +your system of life does not include the accumulation of adequate resources +against the inevitable exigencies of winter." + +"What is winter?" asked the Butterfly, and flew off without awaiting an +answer. + +The Philosopher remained for a moment speechless, whether from amazement at +the Butterfly's nescience or disgust at his ill-breeding. Recovering +himself immediately, he shouted after the fugitive: + +"Frivolous animal!" "It is this levity," continued he, addressing a group +of butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted by the +conversation, "it is this fatal levity that constrains me to despair wholly +of the future of you insects. That you should persistently remain at your +present depressed level! That you should not immediately enter upon a +process of self-development! Look at the Bee! How did she acquire her +sting, think you? Why cannot you store up honey, as she does?" + +"We cannot build cells," suggested a Butterfly. + +"And how did the Bee learn, do you suppose, unless by imbuing her mind with +the elementary principles of mathematics? Know that time has been when the +Bee was as incapable of architectural construction as yourselves, when you +and she alike were indiscriminable particles of primary protoplasm. (I +suppose you know what that is.) One has in process of time exalted itself +to the cognition of mathematical truth, while the other--Pshaw! Now, +really, my friends, I must beg you to take my observations in good part. I +do not imply, of course, that any endeavours of yours in the direction I +have indicated could benefit any of you personally, or any of your +posterity for numberless generations. But I really do consider that after a +while its effects would be very observable--that in twenty millions of +years or so, provided no geological cataclysm supervened, you Butterflies, +with your innate genius for mimicry, might be conformed in all respects to +the hymenopterous model, or perhaps carry out the principle of development +into novel and unheard-of directions. You should derive much encouragement +from the beginning you have made already." + +"How a beginning?" inquired a Butterfly. + +"I am alluding to your larval constitution as Caterpillars," returned the +Philosopher. "Your advance upon that humiliating condition is, I admit, +remarkable. I only wonder that it should not have proceeded much further. +With such capacity for development, it is incomprehensible that you should +so long have remained stationary. You ought to be all toads by this time, +at the very least." + +"I beg your pardon," civilly interposed the Butterfly. "To what condition +were you pleased to allude?" + +"To that of a Caterpillar," rejoined the Philosopher. + +"Caterpillar!" echoed the Butterfly, and "Caterpillar!" tittered all his +volatile companions, till the air seemed broken into little silvery waves +of fairy laughter. "Caterpillar! he positively thinks we were once +Caterpillars! He! he! he!" + +"Do you actually mean to say you don't know that?" responded the +Philosopher, scandalised at the irreverence of the insects, but inwardly +rejoicing at the prospect of a controversy in which he could not be +worsted. + +"We know nothing of the sort," rejoined a Butterfly. + +"Can you possibly be plunged into such utter oblivion of your embryonic +antecedents?" + +"We do not understand you. All we know is that we have always been +Butterflies." + +"Sir," said a large, dull-looking Butterfly with one wing in tatters, +crawling from under a cabbage, and limping by reason of the deficiency of +several legs, "let me entreat you not to deduce our scientific status from +the inconsiderate assertions of the unthinking vulgar. I am proud to assure +you that our race comprises many philosophical reasoners--mostly indeed +such as have been disabled by accidental injuries from joining in the +amusements of the rest. The Origin of our Species has always occupied a +distinguished place in their investigations. It has on several occasions +engaged the attention of our profoundest thinkers for not less than two +consecutive minutes. There is hardly a quadruped on the land, a bird in the +air, or a fish in the water to which it has not been ascribed by some one +at some time; but never, I am rejoiced to say, has any Butterfly ever +dreamed of attributing it to the obnoxious thing to which you have +unaccountably made reference." + +"We should rather think not," chorussed all the Butterflies. + +"Look here," said the Philosopher, picking up and exhibiting a large hairy +Caterpillar of very unprepossessing appearance. "Look here, what do you +call this?" + +"An abnormal organisation," said the scientific Butterfly. + +"A nasty beast," said the others. + +"Heavens," exclaimed the Philosopher, "the obtuseness and arrogance of +these creatures! No, my poor friend," continued he, addressing the +Caterpillar, "disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect +certainly is at present, the time is at" hand when you will prank it with +the gayest of them all." + +"I cry your mercy," rejoined the Caterpillar somewhat crossly, "but I was +digesting a gooseberry leaf when you lifted me in that abrupt manner, and I +did not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you to mention my name +in connection with those flutterers?" + +"I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they." + +"I," exclaimed the Caterpillar, "I retrograde to the level of a Butterfly! +Is not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?" + +"I was not aware of that," replied the Philosopher, "although," he added in +a conciliatory tone, "far be it from me to deny you the possession of many +interesting qualities." + +"You probably refer to my agility," suggested the Caterpillar; "or perhaps +to my abstemiousness?" + +"I was not referring to either," returned the Philosopher. + +"To my utility to mankind?" + +"Not by any manner of means." + +"To what then?" + +"Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be the +prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly." + +The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at the +Philosopher. The Philosopher's countenance fell. A thrush, darting from an +adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore the latter +away in his bill. At the same moment the shower prognosticated by the Sage +burst forth, scattering the Butterflies in all directions, drenching the +Philosopher, whose foresight had not assumed the shape of an umbrella, and +spoiling his new hat. But he had ample consolation in the superiority of +his head. And the Caterpillar was right too, for after all he never did +become a Butterfly. + + + + +TRUTH AND HER COMPANIONS + + +_Jupiter_. Daughter Truth, is this a befitting manner of presenting +yourself before your divine father? You are positively dripping; the floor +of my celestial mansion would be a swamp but for your praiseworthy economy +in wearing apparel. Whence, in the name of the Naiads, do you come? + +_Truth_. From the bottom of a well, father. + +_Jupiter_. I thought, my daughter, that you had descended upon earth in the +capacity of a benefactress of men rather than of frogs. + +_Truth_. Such, indeed, was my purpose, father, and I accordingly repaired +to the great city. + +_Jupiter_. The city of the Emperor Apollyon? + +_Truth_. The same; and I there obtained an audience of the monarch. + +_Jupiter_. What passed? + +_Truth_. I took the liberty of observing to him, father, that, having +obtained his throne by perjury, and cemented it by blood, and maintained it +by hypocrisy, he could entertain no hope of preserving it unless the +collective baseness of his subjects should be found to exceed his own, +which was not probable. + +_Jupiter_. What reply did he vouchsafe to these admonitions? + +_Truth_. He threatened to cut out my tongue. Perceiving that this would +interfere with my utility to mankind, I retired somewhat precipitately from +the Imperial presence, marvelling that I should ever have been admitted, +and resolved never to be found there for the future. I then proceeded to +the Nobles. + +_Jupiter_. What said you to them? + +_Truth_. I represented to them that they were, as a class, both arrogant +and luxurious, and would, indeed, have long ago become insupportable, only +that the fabric which their rapacity was for ever striving to erect, their +extravagance as perpetually undermined. I further commented upon the +insecurity of any institution dependent solely upon prescription. Finding +these suggestions unpalatable, I next addressed myself to the priesthood. + +_Jupiter_. Those holy men, my daughter, must have rejoiced at the +opportunity of learning from you which portion of their traditions was +impure or fabricated, and which authentic and sublime. + +_Truth_. The value they placed upon my instructions was such that they +wished to reserve them exclusively for themselves, and proposed that they +should be delivered within the precincts of a certain subterranean +apartment termed a dungeon, the key of which should be kept by one of their +order. Whereupon I betook myself to the philosophers. + +_Jupiter_. Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, my +daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected. + +_Truth_. It was all that could be expected, my father, from learned and +virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the universe +without consulting me. + +_Jupiter_. You probably next addressed yourself to the middling orders of +society? + +_Truth_. I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had much to +remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and their +greed, and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the rottenness of +most of their beliefs, and the thousand ways in which they spoiled lives +that might have been beautiful and harmonious, I soon discovered that they +were so absolutely swayed by the example of the higher orders that it was +useless to expostulate with them until I should have persuaded the latter. + +_Jupiter_. You returned, then, to the latter with this design? + +_Truth_. On the contrary, I hastened to the poor and needy, whom I fully +acquainted with the various wrongs and oppressions which they underwent at +the hands of the powerful and the rich. And here, for the first time, I +found myself welcome. All listened with gratitude and assent, and none made +any endeavour to stone me or imprison me, as those other unprincipled +persons had done. + +_Jupiter_. That was indeed satisfactory, daughter. But when you proceeded +to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery arose from their +own idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and abasement before those +higher in station, and jealousy of the best among themselves--what said +they to that? + +_Truth_. They expressed themselves desirous of killing me, and indeed +would have done so if my capital enemies, the priests, had not been +beforehand with them. + +_Jupiter_. What did they? + +_Truth_. Burned me. + +_Jupiter_. Burned you? + +_Truth_. Burned me in the +market-place. And, but for my peculiar property of reviving from my ashes, +I should not be here now. Upon reconsolidating myself, I felt in such a +heat that I was fain to repair to the bottom of the nearest well. Finding +myself more comfortable there than I had ever yet been on earth, I have +come to ask permission to remain. + +_Jupiter_. It does not appear to me, daughter, that the mission you have +undertaken on behalf of mankind can be efficiently discharged at the bottom +of a well. + +_Truth_. No, father, nor in the middle of a fire either. + +_Jupiter_. I fear that you are too plain and downright in your dealings +with men, and deter where you ought to allure. + +_Truth_. I were not Truth, else, but Flattery. My nature is a mirror's--to +exhibit reality with plainness and faithfulness. + +_Jupiter_. It is no less the nature of man to shatter every mirror that +does not exhibit to him what he wishes to behold. + +_Truth_. Let me, therefore, return to my well, and let him who wishes to +behold me, if such there be, repair to the brink and look down. + +_Jupiter_. No, daughter, you shall not return to your well. I have already +perceived that you are not of yourself sufficient for the office I have +assigned to you, and I am about to provide you with two auxiliaries. You +are Truth. Tell me how this one appears to you. + +_Truth_. Oh, father, the beautiful nymph! how mature, and yet how comely! +how good-humoured, yet how gentle and grave! Her robe is closely zoned; her +upraised finger approaches her lip; her foot falls soft as snow. What is +her name? + +_Jupiter_. Discretion. And this other? + +_Truth_. Oh, father! the cordial look, the blooming cheek, the bright smile +that is almost a laugh, the buoyant step, and the expansive bosom! What +name bears she? + +_Jupiter_. Good Nature. Return, my daughter, to earth; continue to +enlighten man's ignorance and to reprove his folly; but let Discretion +suggest the occasion, and Good Nature inspire the wording of your +admonitions. I cannot engage that you may not, even with these precautions, +sometimes pay a visit to the stake; and if, when an adventure of this sort +appears imminent, Discretion should counsel a temporary retirement to your +well, I am sure Good Nature will urge nothing to the contrary. + + + + +THE THREE PALACES + + +Three pairs of young people, each a youth with his bride, came together +along a road to the point where it divided to the right and left. On one +side was inscribed, "To the Palace of Truth," and on the other, "To the +Palace of Illusion." + +"This way, my beauty!" cried one of the youths, drawing his companion in +the direction of the Palace of Truth. "To the place where and where alone +thy perfections may be beheld as they are!" + +"And my imperfections!" whispered the young spouse, but her tone was airy +and confident. + +"Well," said the second youth, "does the choice beseem you upon whom the +moon of your nuptials is beaming still. My beloved and I are riper in +Hymen's lore by not less, I ween, than one fortnight. Prudence impels us +towards the Palace of Illusion." + +"Thy will is mine, Alonso," said his lady. + +"I," said the third youth, "will seek neither; for I would not be wise +over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured. +Happy am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer +contiguity to my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit it +leapt not from her mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for a red +mouse and nothing worse; had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion haply I +had deemed it a rat. And, it being a red mouse as it indubitably was, to +what end fancy it a tawny-throated nightingale?" + +While, therefore, the other pairs proceeded on the paths they had +respectively chosen, this sage youth and his bride settled themselves at +the parting of the ways, built their cot, tended their garden, tilled their +field and raised fruits around them, including children. + +The preparation of a cheerful repast was one day well advanced, when, +lifting up their eyes, the pair beheld a haggard and emaciated couple +tottering along the road that led from the Palace of Illusion. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed they simultaneously, "no! yes! 'tis surely they!" O +friends! whence this forlorn semblance? whence this osseous condition?" + +"Of them anon," replied the attenuated youth, "but, before all things, +dinner!" + +The restorative was speedily administered, and the pilgrim commenced his +narration. + +"Guarded," he said, "though the Palace of Illusion was by every species of +hippogriffic chimaera, my bride and I experienced no difficulty in +penetrating inside its precincts. The giants lifted us in their arms, the +dragons carried us on their backs, fairy bridges spanned the moats, golden +ladders inclined against the ramparts, we scaled the towers and trod the +courts securely, though constructed to all seeming of dissolving cloud. +Delicate fare loaded every dish; smiling companions invited to every +festivity; perfumes caressed our nostrils; music enwrapped our ears. + +"But while all else charmed and allured, one fact intruded of which we +could not pretend unconsciousness, the intensity of our aversion for each +other. Never could I behold my Imogene without marvelling whatever could +have induced me to wed her, and she has acknowledged that she laboured +under the like perplexity. On the other hand, our good opinion of ourselves +had grown prodigiously. The other's dislike appeared to each an insane +delusion, and we seriously questioned whether it could be right to mate +longer with a being so destitute of true aesthetic feeling. We confided +these scruples to each other, with the result of a most tempestuous +altercation. + +"As this was attaining its climax, one of the inmates of the Palace, a pert +forward boy, resembling a page out of livery, passed by, and ironically, as +I thought, congratulated us on the strength of our mutual attachment. +'Never,' exclaimed he, 'have I beheld the like here before, and I am the +oldest inhabitant.' + +"As this felicitation was proffered at the precise moment when I was +engaged in staunching a rent in my cheek with a handful of my wife's hair, +I was constrained to regard it as unseasonable, and expressed myself to +that effect. + +"'What!' exclaimed he, with equal surprise, 'know ye not that this is the +Palace of Illusion, where everything is inverted and appears the reverse of +itself? Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus drive you to +fisticuffs! Had I beheld you billing and cooing, truly I had counselled a +judicial separation!' + +"My wife and I looked at each other, and by a common impulse made at our +utmost speed for the gate of the Palace of Illusion. + +"Alas! it is one thing to enter and another to quit that domain of +enchantment. The golden clouds enwrapt us still, cates and dainties tempted +us as of old, the most bewitching strains detained us spellbound. The giant +and dragon warders, indeed, offered no violent resistance, they simply +turned into open portals which appeared to yield us egress, but proved +entrances to interminable labyrinthine mazes. At last we escaped by +resolutely, following the exact opposite track to that which we observed to +be taken by a poet, who was chasing a phantom of Fame with a scroll of +unintelligible and inharmonious verse. + +"The moment that we emerged from the enchanted castle we knew ourselves and +each other for what we were, and fell weeping into each other's arms. So +feeble were we that we could hardly move, nevertheless we have made a shift +to crawl hither, trusting to your hospitality to recruit us from the +sawdust and ditch-water which we vehemently suspect to have been our diet +during the whole of our residence." + +"Eat and drink without stint and without ceremony," rejoined their host, +"provided only that somewhat remain for the guests whom I see approaching." + +And in a few moments the fugitives from the Palace of Illusion were +reinforced by travellers from the Palace of Truth, whose backs were most +determinately turned to that august edifice. + +"My friends," said the youth last arrived, when the first greetings were +over, "Truth's Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not the +inmates necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, and did +not all innocent embellishments of her majestic person become entirely +inefficient and absolutely nugatory. For example, the number of my wife's +grey hairs speedily confounded me; and how should it be otherwise, when the +excellent dye she had brought with her had completely lost its virtues? She +on her part found herself continually obliged to acquaint me with the +manifold defects she was daily discovering in my mind and person, which I +was unable to deny, frequently as I opened my mouth for that purpose. It is +true that I had the satisfaction of pointing out equal defects in herself; +but this could not be considered a great satisfaction, seeing that every +such discovery impugned my taste and judgment, and impaired the worth of my +most cherished possession. At length we resolved that Truth and we were not +made for each other, and, having verified the accuracy of this conclusion +by uttering it unrebuked in Truth's own palace, quitted the unblest spot +with all possible expedition. No sooner were we outside than our tenderness +revived, and, the rites of reconciliation duly performed, my wife found +nothing more urgent than to try whether her dye had recovered its natural +properties, which, as ye may perceive, proved to be the case. We are now +bound for the Palace of Illusion." + +"Nay," said he who had escaped thence, "if my experience suffices not to +deter you, learn that they who have known Truth can never taste of +Illusion. Illusion is for life's golden prime, its fanes and pavilions may +be reared but by the magic wand of Youth. The maturity that would recreate +them builds not for Illusion but for Deceit. Yet, lest mortality should +despair, there exists, as I have learned, yet another palace, founded +midway between that of Illusion and that of Truth, open to those who are +too soft for the one and too hard for the other. Thither, indeed, the +majority of mankind in this age resort, and there appear to find themselves +comfortable." + +"And this palace is?" inquired Truth's runaways simultaneously. + +"The Palace of Convention," replied the youth. + + + + +NEW READINGS IN BIOGRAPHY + + + +I.--Timon of Athens + + +No, it was not true that Timon was dead, and buried on the sea-shore. So +the first party discovered that hastened to his cave at the tidings, +thinking to seize his treasure, and had their heads broken for their pains. +But the second party fared better; for these were robbers, captained by +Alcibiades, who had taken to the road, as many a man of spirit, has done +before and since. They took Timon's gold, and left him bound in his chair. +But on the way home the lesser thieves mysteriously disappeared, and the +gold became the sole property of Alcibiades. As it is written, "The tools +to him that can handle them." + +Timon sat many hours in an uncomfortable position, and though, in a general +way, he abhorred the face of man, he was not displeased when a gentleman of +bland appearance entered the cavern, and made him a low obeisance. And +perceiving that Timon was bound, the bland man exclaimed with horror, and +severed his bonds, ere one could say Themistocles. And in an instant the +cavern was filled with Athenian senators. + +"Hail," they cried, "to Timon the munificent! Hail to Timon the +compassionate! Hail to Timon the lover of his kind!" + +"I am none of these things," said Timon. "I am Timon the misanthrope." + +"This must be my Lord's wit and playfulness," said the bland man, "for how +else should the Senate and the people have passed a decree, indited by +myself, ordering an altar to be raised to Timon the Benefactor, and +appointing him chief archon? But come, hand over thy treasure, that thy +installation may take effect with due observance." + +"I have been deprived of my treasure," said Timon. + +But the ambassadors gave him no credit until they had searched every chink +and crevice in the cavern, and dug up all the earth round the entrance. +They then regarded each other with blank consternation. + +"Let us leave him as we found him," said one. + +"Let us hang him up," said another. + +"Let us sell him into captivity," said a third. + +"Nay, friends," said the bland gentleman, "such confession of error would +impeach our credit as statesmen. Moreover, should the people learn that +Timon has lost his money, they will naturally conclude that we have taken +it. Let us, therefore, keep this misfortune from their knowledge, and trust +for relief to the chapter of accidents, as usual in State affairs." + +They therefore robed Timon in a dress of honour, and conducted him to +Athens, where half the inhabitants were awaiting him. Two triumphal arches +spanned the principal street, and on one was inscribed "Timon the +Benefactor," and on the other "Timon the Friend of Humanity." And all +along, far as the eye could reach, stood those whom his bounty, as was +stated, had rescued from perdition, the poor he had relieved, the sick he +had medicined, the orphans he had fathered, the poets and painters he had +patronised, all lauding and thanking him, and soliciting a continuance of +his liberality. And the rabble cried "Largesse, largesse!" and horsemen +galloped forth, casting among them nuts enveloped in silver-leaf and apples +and comfits and trinkets and brass farthings in incredible quantities. At +which the people murmured somewhat, and spoke amiss respecting Timon and +the senators who escorted him, and the bland gentleman strove to keep Timon +between himself and the populace. While Timon was pondering what the end of +these things should be, his mob encountered another cheering for +Alcibiades, and playing pitch and toss with drachmas and didrachmas and +tetradrachmas, yea, even with staters and darics. + +"Long live Alcibiades," cried Timon's followers, as they attacked +Alcibiades's supporters to get their share. + +"Long live Timon," cried Alcibiades's party, as they defended themselves. + +Timon and Alcibiades extricated themselves from the scuffle, and walked +away arm in arm. + +"My dear friend," said Timon, "how inexpressibly beholden I am to you for +taking the burden of my wealth upon yourself! There is nothing I would not +do to evince my gratitude." + +"Nothing?" queried Alcibiades. + +"Nothing," persisted Timon. + +"Then," said Alcibiades, "I will thank thee to relieve me of Timandra, who +is as tired of me as I am of her." + +Timon winced horribly, but his word was his bond, and Timandra accompanied +him to his cavern, where at first she suffered much inconvenience from the +roughness of the accommodation. But Timon, though a misanthrope, was not a +brute; and when in process of time Timandra's health required special care, +rugs and pillows were provided for her, and also for Timon; for he saw that +he could no longer pass for a churl if he made his wife more comfortable +than himself. And, though he counted gold as dross, yet was he not +dissatisfied that Timandra had saved the gold he had given her formerly +against a rainy day. And when a child was born, Timon was at his wits' end, +and blessed the old woman who came to nurse it. And she admonished him of +his duty to the Gods, which meant sacrifice, which meant merry-making. And +the child grew, and craved food and drink, and Timon possessed himself of +three acres and a cow. And not being able to doubt his child's affection +for him, he came to believe in Timandra's also. And when the tax-gatherer +oppressed his neighbours, he pleaded their cause, which was also his own, +in the courts of Athens, and gained it by the interest of Alcibiades. And +his neighbours made him demarch, and he feasted them. And Apemantus came to +deride him, and Timon bore with him; but he was impertinent to Timandra, +and Timon beat him. + +And in fine, Timon became very like any other Attic country gentleman, save +that he always maintained that a young man did well to be a misanthrope +until he got a loving and sensible wife, which, as he observed, could but +seldom happen. And the Gods looked down upon him with complacency, and +deferred the ruin of Athens until he should be no more. + + + +II.--Napoleon's Sangaree + + +Napoleon Buonaparte sat in his garden at St. Helena, in the shadow of a +fig-tree. Before him stood a little table, and upon the table stood a glass +of sangaree. The day was hot and drowsy; the sea boomed monotonously on the +rocks; the broad fig-leaves stirred not; great flies buzzed heavily in the +sultry air. Napoleon wore a loose linen coat and a broad brimmed planter's +hat, and looked as red as the sangaree, but nowise as comfortable. + +"To think," he said aloud, "that I should end my life here, with nothing to +sweeten my destiny but this lump of sugar!" + +And he dropped it into the sangaree, and little ripples and beads broke out +on the surface of the liquid. + +"Thou should'st have followed me," said a voice. + +"Me," said another. + +And a steam from the sangaree rose high over Napoleon's head, and from it +shaped themselves two beautiful female figures. One was fair and very +youthful, with a Phrygian cap on her head, and eager eyes beneath it, and a +slender spear in her hand. The other was somewhat older, and graver, and +darker, with serious eyes; and she carried a sword, and wore a helmet, from +underneath which her rich brown tresses escaped over her vesture of light +steel armour. + +"I am Liberty," said the first. + +"I am Loyalty," said the second. + +And Napoleon laid his hand in that of the first spirit, and instantly saw +himself as he had been in the days of his youthful victories, only beset +with a multitude of people who were offering him a crown, and cheering +loudly. But he thrust it aside, and they cheered ten times more, and fell +into each other's arms, and wept and kissed each other. And troops of young +maidens robed in white danced before him, strewing his way with flowers. +And the debts of the debtor were paid, and the prisoners were released from +captivity. And the forty Academicians came bringing Napoleon the prize of +virtue. And the Abb Sieys stood up, and offered Napoleon his choice of +seventeen constitutions; and Napoleon chose the worst. And he came to sit +with five hundred other men, mostly advocates. And when he said "Yea," they +said "Nay"; and when he said "white," they said "black." And they suffered +him to do neither good nor evil, and when he went to war they commanded his +army for him, until he was smitten with a great slaughter. And the enemy +entered the country, and bread was scarce and wine dear; and the people +cursed Napoleon, and Liberty vanished from before him. But he roamed on, +ever looking for her, and at length he found her lying dead in the public +way, all gashed and bleeding, and trampled with the feet of men and horses, +and the wheel of a tumbril was over her neck. And Napoleon, under +compulsion of the mob, ascended the tumbril; and Abb Sieys and Bishop +Talleyrand rode at his side, administering spiritual consolation. Thus they +came within sight of the guillotine, whereon stood M. de Robespierre in his +sky-blue coat, and his jaw bound up in a bloody cloth, bowing and smiling, +nevertheless, and beckoning Napoleon to ascend to him. Napoleon had never +feared the face of man; but when he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell +upon him, and he leapt out of the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the +people as it were mid withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood +awaiting him. + +She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people proffering +him a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all wore his hair +in a queue with powder. + +"See," said the little old man, "that thou takest not what doth not belong +to thee." + +"To whom belongeth it then?" asked Napoleon, "for I am a plain soldier, and +have no skill in politics." + +"To Louis the Disesteemed," said the little old man, "for he is a +great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors reigned +here at the flood." + +"Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?" asked Napoleon. + +"In England," said the little old man. + +Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the +Disesteemed. But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to seek in +the obscurest places. And one day, as he was passing through a mean street, +he heard a voice of lamentation, and perceived a man whose coat and shirt +were rent and dirty; but not so his pantaloons, for he had none. + +"Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?" asked he, "and wherefore makest +thou this lamentation?" + +"I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre," replied the +distrousered personage, "and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have been +enforced to pawn, inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing upon my coat +or my shirt." + +And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether +garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those who +stood about. + +"Thou hast done wickedly," said the king when he heard who Napoleon was, +"in that thou hast presumed to fight battles and win victories without any +commission from me. Go, nevertheless, and lose an arm, a leg, and an eye in +my service, then shall thy offence be forgiven thee." + +And Napoleon raised a great army, and gained a great battle for the king, +and lost an arm. And he gained another greater battle, and lost a leg. And +he gained the greatest battle of all; and the king sat on the throne of his +ancestors, and was called Louis the Victorious: but Napoleon had lost an +eye. And he came into the king's presence, bearing his eye, his arm, and +his leg. + +"Thou art pardoned," said the king, "and I will even confer a singular +honour upon thee. Thou shalt defray the expense of my coronation, which +shall be the most splendid ever seen in France." + +So Napoleon lost all his substance, and no man pitied him. But after +certain days the keeper of the royal wardrobe rushed into the king's +presence, crying "Treason! treason! O Majesty, whence these republican and +revolutionary pantaloons?" + +"They are those I deigned to receive from the rebel Buonaparte," said the +king. "It were meet to return them. Where abides he now?" + +"Saving your Majesty's presence," they said, "he lieth upon a certain +dunghill." + +"If this be so," said the king, "life can be no gratification to him, and +it were humane to relieve him of it. Moreover, he is a dangerous man. Go, +therefore, and strangle him with his own pantaloons. Yet, let a monument be +raised to him, and engrave upon it, 'Here lies Napoleon Buonaparte, whom +Louis the Victorious raised from the dunghill.'" + +They went accordingly; but behold! Napoleon already lay dead upon the +dunghill. And this was told unto the king. + +"He hath ever been envious of my glory," said the king, "let him therefore +be buried underneath." + +And it was so. And after no long space the king also died, and slept with +his fathers. But when there was again a revolution in France, the people +cast his bones out of the royal sepulchre, and laid Napoleon's there +instead. And the dunghill complained grievously that it should be disturbed +for so slight a cause. + +And Napoleon withdrew his hand from the hand of Loyalty, saying, "Pish!" +And his eyes opened, and he heard the booming of the sea, and the buzzing +of the flies, and felt the heat of the sun, and saw that the sugar he had +dropped into his sangaree had not yet reached the bottom of the tumbler. + + + +III.--Concerning Daniel Defoe + + +Daniel Defoe, at the invitation of the judge, came forth from the garret +wherein he abode, and rode in a cart unto the Royal Exchange, wherein he +ascended the pillory, to the end that his ears might be nailed thereunto. +And much people stood before him, some few pelting, some mocking, but the +most part cheering or weeping, for they knew him for a friend to the poor, +and especially those men who were called Dissenters. And a certain person +in black stood by him, invisible to the people, but well seen of Daniel, +who knew him for one whose life he had himself written. And the man in +black reasoned with Daniel, and said, "Thou seest this multitude of people, +but which of them shall deliver thee out of my hand? Nay, but let thy white +be black, and thy black white, and I myself will deliver thee, and make +thee rich, and heal thy hurts, save the holes in thy ears, that I may know +thee for mine own." But Daniel gave no heed to him. So the Devil departed, +having great wrath, and entered into a certain smug-faced man standing by. + +And now the crowd before Daniel was greatly diminished, and consisted +mainly of his enemies, for his friends had gone away to drown their sorrow. +And the smug-faced man into whom Satan had entered came forth from among +them, and said unto him, "O Daniel, inasmuch as I am a Dissenter I am +greatly beholden to thee; but inasmuch as I am an honest tradesman I have +somewhat against thee, for thou hast written concerning short weights and +measures. And a man's shop is more to him than his country or his religion. +Wherefore I must needs be avenged of thee. Yet shalt thou own that the +tender mercies of the good man are piteous, and that even in his wrath he +thinketh upon compassion." + +And he picked up a great stone from the ground, and wrapped it in a piece +of paper, saying, "Lest peradventure it hurt him overmuch." And the stone +was very rough and sharp, and the paper was very thin. And he hurled it +with all his might at the middle of Daniel's forehead, and the blood +spouted forth. And Daniel cried aloud, and called upon the name of the +Devil. And in an instant the pillory and the people were gone, and he found +himself in the Prime Minister's cabinet, healed of all his hurts, except +the holes in his ears. And the Minister was so like the Devil that you +could not tell the difference. And he said, "Against what wilt thou write +first, Daniel?" + +"Dissenters," said Daniel. + +And he wrote a pamphlet, and such as read it took firebrands, and visited +the Dissenters in their habitations. And many Dissenters were put into +prison, and others fined and spoiled of their goods. And he wrote other +pamphlets, and each was cleverer and wickeder than the last. And whatsoever +Daniel had of old declared to be white, lo! it was black; and what he had +said was black, behold! it was white. And he throve and prospered +exceedingly, and became a commissioner for public-houses and +hackney-coaches and the imposing of oaths and the levying of custom, and +all other such things as one does by deputy. And he mended the holes in his +ears. + +But the time came when Daniel must be judged, and he went before the Lord. +And all the court was full of Dissenters, and the Devil was there also. And +the Dissenters testified many and grievous things against Daniel. + +"Daniel," said the Lord, "what answerest thou?" + +"Nothing, Lord," said Daniel. "Only I would that the Dissenter who threw +that stone at me should receive due and condign punishment, adequate to his +misdeed." + +"That," said the Devil, "is impossible." + +"Thou sayest well, Satan," said the Lord, "and therefore shall Daniel go +free. For if anything can excuse the apostasy of the noble, it is the +ingratitude of the base." + +So the Devil went to his own place, looking very small. And Daniel found +himself in the same garret whence he had gone forth to the pillory; and +before him were bread and cheese, and a pen and ink and paper. And he +dipped the pen into the ink, and wrote _Robinson Crusoe_. + + + +IV.--Cornelius the Ferryman + + +Fourscore years ago there was a good ferryman named Cornelius, who rowed +people between New York and Brooklyn. He had neither wife nor child, nor +any one to think of except himself. It was, therefore, his custom, when he +had earned enough in a day for his own wants, to put the rest aside, and +bestow it upon sick or blind or maimed persons, lest they should come to +the workhouse. And the sick and the blind and the maimed gathered around +him, and waited by the water's edge, until Cornelius's day's work should be +over. + +This went on until one of the little sooty imps who are always in mischief +came to hear of it, and told the principal devil in charge of the United +States, whose name is Politicianus. + +"Dear me," said the Devil, "this will never do. I will see to it +immediately." + +And he went off to Cornelius, and caught him in the act of giving two dimes +to a blind beggar. + +"How foolish you are!" he said; "what waste of money is this! If you saved +it up, you would by-and-by be able to build an hospital for all the beggars +in New York." + +"It would be a long time before there was enough," objected Cornelius. + +"Not at all," said the Devil, "if you let me invest your money for you." +And he showed Cornelius the plan of a most splendid hospital, and across +the front of it was inscribed in letters of gold, _Cornelius Diabolodorus_. +And Cornelius was persuaded, and that evening he gave nothing to the poor. +And the poor had come to think that Cornelius's money was their own, and +abused him as though he had robbed them. And Cornelius drove them away: and +his heart was hardened against them from that day forth. + +But the Devil kept his promise to Cornelius, and put him up to all the good +things in Wall Street, and he soon had enough to build ten hospitals. But +the more he had to build with, the less he wanted to build. And by-and-by +the Devil called upon him, and found him contemplating two pictures. One of +them showed the finest hospital you can imagine, full of neat, clean rooms, +in one of which sat Cornelius himself, wearing a dress with a number and +badge, and sipping arrowroot. The other showed fine houses, and +opera-boxes, and fast-trotting horses, and dry champagne, and ladies who +dance in ballets, and paintings by the great masters. Cornelius thrust the +pictures away, and the Devil did not ask to see them, nor was it needful +that he should, for he had painted them himself. + +"O dear Mr. Devil," said Cornelius, "I am so glad that you have called, for +I wanted to speak to you. It strikes me that there is a great defect in the +plan which you have been so good as to draw for me." + +"What is that?" asked the Devil. + +"There is no place for black men," said Cornelius. "And you know white men +will never let them come into the same hospital." + +And the Devil, to do him justice, talked very reasonably to Cornelius, and +represented to him that there were very few black men in New York, and +that these had very vigorous constitutions. But Cornelius was inflamed with +enthusiasm, and frantic with philanthropy, and he vowed that he would not +give a cent to an hospital that had not a wing for black men as big as all +the rest of the building. And the Devil had to take his plan back, and come +again in a year and a day. And when he did come back, Cornelius asked him +if he did not think it would be a most excellent thing if all the Irishmen +in New York could be shut up in an hospital or elsewhere; and he could not +deny it. So he had to take his plan back again. And next year it was the +turn of the Chinese, and then of the Red Indians, and then of the dogs and +cats. And then Cornelius thought that he ought to provide room for all the +people who had been ruined by his speculations, and the Devil thought so +too, but doubted whether Cornelius would be able to afford it. And at last +Cornelius said: + +"Methinks I have been very foolish in wishing to build an hospital at all +while I am living. Surely it would be better that I should enjoy my money +myself during my life, and leave the residue for the lawyers to divide +after my death." + +"You are quite right," said the Devil; "that is exactly what I should do if +I were you." + +So Cornelius put the plans behind a shelf in his counting-house, and the +mice ate them. And he went on prospering and growing rich, until the Devil +became envious of him, and insisted on changing places with him. So +Cornelius went below, and the Devil came and dwelt in New York, where he +still is. + + + + +THE POISON MAID + + O not for him + Blooms my dark nightshade, nor doth hemlock brew + Murder for cups within her cavernous root. + + + +I + + +Grievous is the lot of the child, more especially of the female child, who +is doomed from the tenderest infancy to lack the blessing of a mother's +care. + +Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of the +lovely Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an extraordinary +manner? That enormous serpents infested her cradle, licking her face and +twining around her limbs? That her tiny fingers patted scorpions? and tied +knots in the tails of vipers? That her father, the magician Locuste, ever +sedulous and affectionate, fed her with spoonsful of the honeyed froth that +gathers under the tongues of asps? That as she grew older and craved a more +nutritious diet, she partook, at first in infinitesimal doses, but in ever +increasing quantities, of arsenic, strychnine, opium, and prussic acid? +That at last having attained the flower of youth, she drank habitually from +vessels of gold, for her favourite beverages were so corrosive that no +other substance could resist their solvent properties? + +Gradually accustomed to this strange regimen, she had thriven on it +marvellously, and was without a peer for beauty, sense, and goodness. Her +father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed her in +all lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no other human +being had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that her bringing up +had differed in so material a respect from that of other young people. + +"Father," said she one day, bringing him a book she had been perusing, +"what strange follies learned men will pen with gravity! or is it rather +that none can set bounds to the licence of romancers? These dear serpents, +my friends and playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of +my health and vigour--that any one should write of these as pernicious, +deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or but the wanton +freak of an idle imagination?" + +"My child," answered the magician, "it is fit that thou shouldst now learn +what hath hitherto been concealed from thee, and with this object I left +this treatise in thy way. It speaks truth. Thou hast been nurtured from thy +infancy on substances endowed with lethal properties, commonly called +poisons. Thy entire frame is impregnated thereby, and, although thou +thyself art in the fullest enjoyment of health, thy kiss would be fatal to +any one not, like thy father, fortified by a course of antidotes. Now hear +the reason. I bear a deadly grudge to the king of this land. He indeed hath +not injured me; but his father slew my father, wherefore it is meet that I +should slay that ancestor's son's son. I have therefore nurtured thee from +thy infancy on the deadliest poisons, until thou art a walking vial of +pestilence. The young prince shall unseal thee, to his destruction and thy +unspeakable advantage. Go to the great city; thou art beautiful as the day; +he is young, handsome, and amorous; he will infallibly fall in love with +thee. Do thou submit to his caresses, he will perish miserably; thou (such +is the charm) ransomed by the kiss of love, wilt become wholesome and +innocuous as thy fellows, preserving only thy knowledge of poisons, always +useful, in the present state of society invaluable. Thou wilt therefore +next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing recommendatory letters +from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily reigning." + +"Father," said Mithridata, "either I shall love this young prince, or I +shall not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to caress +me. If I do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of his death." + +"Not even in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to thee by this +event?" + +"Not even for that consideration." + +"O these daughters!" exclaimed the old man. "We bring them up tenderly, we +exhaust all our science for the improvement of their minds and bodies, we +set our choicest hopes upon them, and entrust them with the fulfilment of +our most cherished aspirations; and when all is done, they will not so much +as commit a murder to please us! Miserable ingrate, receive the just +requital of thy selfish disobedience!" + +"O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!" + +"I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors." + +And he did. + + + +II + + +Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a +particle of the philosopher's stone--a slender outfit for a magician's +daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she do +now? The great object of her life must henceforth be to avoid committing +murder, especially murdering any handsome young man. It would have seemed +most natural to retire into a convent, but, not to speak of her lack of +vocation, she felt that her father would justly consider that she had +disgraced her family, and she still looked forward to reconciliation with +him. She might have taken a hermitage, but her instinct told her that a +fair solitary can only keep young men off by strong measures; and she +disliked the character of a hermitess with a bull-dog. She therefore went +straight to the great city, took a house, and surrounded herself with +attendants. In the choice of these she was particularly careful to select +those only whose personal appearance was such as to discourage any approach +to familiarity or endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty +surrounded by such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked +pages, and stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she +loved beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel it +right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for +strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course at +first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious illness, +but youth and a sound constitution pulled her through. + +Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by love +for thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by word nor +deed? To pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume with vain +yearnings for usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled by thy fellows +for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If so, thou wilt pity +poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate, +but who, from the necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as +possible all contact with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of +solitude, and knew that she was regarded as a monster of pride and +exclusiveness. She dared bestow no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any +one, lest this small beginning should lead to the manifestation of her +fatal power. Her own servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as +their bodies, hated her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty +disdain of them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without +tenderness receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her +own sex secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a +providential set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced +her as a--well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody +else's lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata's +severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths that +flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold water +thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep them from +her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets doux; they stood +before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran beside her litter when +she was carried abroad, they assembled at night to serenade her, fighting +desperately among themselves. They sought to gain admission as tradesmen, +as errand boys, even as scullions male and female. To such lengths did they +proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually attempted to carry +her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for the interposition of +another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after a fierce contest +smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course. What +was her horror on reviving to find herself in the arms of a young man of +exquisite beauty and princely mien, sucking death from her lips with +extraordinary relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made any +unfeminine use of her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology. +The youth reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in +silent misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated +her bosom also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake to dismiss +the young man as it did to see him move away, slowly and languidly +staggering to his doom. + +For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to a +youth dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually. She +steadily refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she wrung +her hands, she called for death and execrated her nurture. With that +strange appetite for self-torment which almost seems to diminish the pangs +of the wretched, she collected books on poisons, studied all the symptoms +described, and fancied her hapless lover undergoing them all in turn. At +length a message came which admitted of no evasion. The King commanded her +presence. Admonished by past experience, she provided herself with a veil +and mask, and repaired to the palace. + +The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier +circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her with +austerity, yet with kindness. + +"Maiden," he began, "thy unaccountable cruelty to my son----" + +"Thy son!" she exclaimed, "The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for my +disobedience!" + +"Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate +monsters. Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he has +risked his life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy +cruelty, and when a smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou wilt +not bestow it." + +"Alas! great King," she replied, "I know too well what your Majesty's +opinion of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight of me +could effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son." + +"Of that I shall judge," said the King, "when thou hast divested thyself of +that veil and mask." + +Mithridata reluctantly complied. + +"By Heaven!" exclaimed the King, "such a sight might recall the departing +soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet too +late." + +"O King," urged Mithridata, "how could this countenance do thy son any +good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?" + +"I am not aware of that," said the King. + +"Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state of +deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he not +tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?" + +"Not to my knowledge," said the King. "The symptoms, as I understand, are +not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a milder +form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and incessantly +calls upon thee." + +"This is most incomprehensible," said Mithridata. "There was no drug in my +father's laboratory that could have produced such an effect." + +"The sum of the matter is," continued the King, "that either thou wilt +repair forthwith to my son's chamber, and subsequently to church; or else +unto the scaffold." + +"If it must be so, I choose the scaffold," said Mithridata resolutely. +"Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son's chamber would but destroy +whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond everything +on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul." + +"Chamberlain," cried the monarch, "bring me a strait waistcoat." + +Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King's feet, taking +care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched +history. + +The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. " bon chat bon rat!" +he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. "So thou art the +daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his craft, and, +as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes. Never did any +child in the world take an equal quantity of physic: but there is now no +poison on earth can harm him. Ye are clearly made for each other; haste to +his bedside, and, as the spell requires, rid thyself of thy venefic +properties in his arms as expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be +bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught +us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every poison." + + + + +NOTES + + +The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained +sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. Many +originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the +annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it +desirable to append, and which further provide an opportunity of tendering +thanks to many friends for their assent to republication. + +P. 5. _The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,_--Hereby we may detect +the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with +Armenia. "Hellenic letters," says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the +fourth century, "were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the +slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens" ("University Life in +Ancient Athens," p. 73). + +P. 28. _Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality._--The belief in +this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and many +emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the +groundwork of Leopold Schefer's novel, "Der Unsterblichkeitstrank," which +has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of "The Potion of +Lao-Tsze." + +P. 38. _So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously._--In A.D. 683, +the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband's death, caused her son to be +set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In our day we +have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns. + +P. 50. _Ananda the Miracle Worker._--This story was originally published +in Fraser's Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation appeared in the +_Revue Britannique_ for November, 1872. Buddha's prohibition to work +miracles rests, so far as the present writer's knowledge extends, on the +authority of Professor Max Mller ("Lectures on the Science of +Religion"). It should be needless to observe that Ananda, "the St. John of +the Buddhist group," is not recorded to have contravened this or any other +of his master's precepts. + +P. 66. _The City of Philosophers._--This story has been translated into +French by M. Sarrazin. + +P. 68. _There to establish a philosophic commonwealth._--The petition was +actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the disordered +condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to save a sinking +state, possessed the accomplishments which would have adorned an age of +peace and culture. + +P. 82. _The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor edge._--Gallienus +was fond of such practical jocularity. "Quum quidam gemmas vitreas pro +veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re prodita, vindicari vellet, +surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. Deinde e cavea caponem emittit, +mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, per curionem dici jussit, +'Imposturam fecit et passus est': deinde negotiatorem dimisit" (Trebellius +in Gallieno, cap. xii.). + +P. 100. _Hypati, anthypati, &c._--_Hypati_ and _anthypati_ denote consuls +and proconsuls, dignities of course merely titular at the court of +Constantinople. _Silentiarii_ were properly officers charged with +maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was perhaps performed by +deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to persons of distinction. +The _protospatharius_ was the chief of the Imperial body-guard, of which +the _spatharocandidati_ constituted the _lite_. + +P. 114. _The Wisdom of the Indians._--Appeared in 1890 in _The Universal +Review_. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. Bastian's travels in +Burma. + +P. 124. _The Dumb Oracle._--Appeared in the _University Magazine_ for +June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval myth here +transferred to classical times, is also the groundwork of Browning's +ballad, "The Boy and the Angel." + +P. 136. _Duke Virgil._--The subject of this story is derived from Leopold +Schefer's novel, "Die Sibylle von Mantua," though there is but little +resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt as his +authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as their duke in +the thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely founded upon the +interpretation of the insignia accompanying a medival statue of the poet. + +P. 138. _To put the devil into a hole_.--"Then sayd Virgilius, 'Shulde ye +well passe in to the hole that ye cam out of?' 'Yea, I shall well,' sayd +the devyl. 'I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall not do it.' +'Well,' sayd the devyll, 'thereto I consent.' And then the devyll wrange +himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. Virgilius kyvered +the hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and +myght nat there come out agen, but abideth shutte still therein" ("Romance +of Virgilius"). + +_Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?_--"Than he thought in his +mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with great landes +belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it Napells. And +the foundacyon of it was of eggs" ("Romance of Virgilius"). + +P. 148. _The Claw_.--Originally published in _The English Illustrated +Magazine_. + +P. 151. _Peter of Abano_.--Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his +birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, +whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic. It +is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition or stoned by +the populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his remains +having been secretly removed by his friends. Honours were afterwards paid +to his memory; and there seems no doubt that he was a man of great +attainments, including a knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished character, +if he had not sometimes sold his skill at too high a rate. For his +authentic history, see the article in the _Biographie Universelle_ by +Ginguen; for the legendary, Tieck's romantic tale, "Pietro von Abano" +(1825), which has been translated into English. + +P. 156. _Alexander the Rat-catcher_.--This story, to whose ground-work +History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published in vol. +xii. of _The Yellow Book_, January, 1897. + +P. 157. _Cardinal Barbadico_.--This cardinal was actually entrusted by +Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion +upon which the "sardonic grin" imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be +conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico was a remarkable +instance of a man "kicked upstairs." As Archbishop of Corfu he had had a +violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent XI., equally +unwilling to disown the representative of Papal authority or offend the +Republic, recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there. + +P. 177. _The Rewards of Industry._--Appeared originally in _Atalanta for +August_, 1888. + +P. 194. _The Talismans._--First published in _Atalanta_ for September, +1890. + +P. 202. _The Elixir of Life._--Published July, 1881, in the third number +of a magazine entitled _Our Times_, which blasted the elixir's character by +expiring immediately afterwards. + +P. 226. _The Purple Head._--Appeared originally in _Fraser's Magazine_ for +August, 1877. + +P. 228. _The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey in +comparison._ "Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini +comparatione fulgoris" (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.). + +P. 230. _All these sovereigns._--"Diligentissime et Aurelianus et Probus +et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus requisiverunt +tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt" (Vopiscus, _loc. cit._). + +P. 241. _Pan's Wand._--Published originally in a Christmas number of The +_Illustrated London News_. + +P. 249. _A Page from the Book of Folly._--Appeared in _Temple Bar_ for +1871. + +P. 282. _The Philosopher and the Butterflies._--One of the contributions +by various writers to "The New Amphion," a little book prepared for sale at +the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of Edinburgh in +1886. + +P. 294. _The Three Palaces._--Published originally on a similar occasion +to the last story, in "A Volunteer Haversack," an extensive repertory of +miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at +Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902. + +P. 300. _New Readings in Biography._--Originally published in _The Scots +Observer_ in 1889. + +P. 315. _The Poison Maid._--The author wrote this tale in entire +forgetfulness of Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter," which nevertheless he +had certainly read. + + + + +[Transcriber's note: a misprint in the book was corrected in +this edition, from "He martyrdom" to "His martyrdom".] + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twilight of the Gods, and Other +Tales, by Richard Garnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT OF GODS *** + +***** This file should be named 10095-8.txt or 10095-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/9/10095/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales + +Author: Richard Garnett + +Release Date: November 16, 2003 [EBook #10095] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT OF GODS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +</pre> + + +<a href="frontis.png"><img src="frontis-small.png" alt="An eagle pecking at +the heart of a bearded man, chained to a rock, with the inscription: +"Cor ex est numquam ex cordis regina volantum"."></a> + +<h1>THE TWILIGHT +<br>OF THE GODS: +<br>AND OTHER TALES</h1> + +BY +<br> +<br>RICHARD GARNETT +<br>MDCCCCIII<br><br> + + + + + +TO +<br>HORACE HOWARD FURNESS +<br>AND +<br>GEORG BRANDES. +<br>DABO DUOBUS TESTIBUS MEIS + +<div id="contents"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<ul> +<li><a href="#p1"><span class="hi">The Twilight of the Gods</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p27"><span class="hi">The Potion of Lao-Tsze</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p40"><span class="hi">Abdallah the Adite</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p50"><span class="hi">Ananda the Miracle +Worker</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p66"><span class="hi">The City of +Philosophers</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p86"><span class="hi">The Demon Pope</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p99"><span class="hi">The Cupbearer</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p114"><span class="hi">The Wisdom of the +Indians</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p124"><span class="hi">The Dumb Oracle</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p136"><span class="hi">Duke Virgil</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p148"><span class="hi">The Claw</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p156"><span class="hi">Alexander the +Ratcatcher</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p177"><span class="hi">The Rewards of +Industry</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p186"><span class="hi">Madam Lucifer</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p194"><span class="hi">The Talismans</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p202"><span class="hi">The Elixir of Life</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p210"><span class="hi">The Poet of Panopolis</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p226"><span class="hi">The Purple Head</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p238"><span class="hi">The Firefly</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p241"><span class="hi">Pan's Wand</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p249"><span class="hi">A Page from the Book of +Folly</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p261"><span class="hi">The Bell of Saint +Euschemon</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p275"><span class="hi">Bishop Addo and Bishop +Gaddo</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p282"><span class="hi">The Philosopher and the +Butterflies</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p289"><span class="hi">Truth and Her +Companions</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p294"><span class="hi">The Three Palaces</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p300"><span class="hi">New Readings in +Biography</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#p315"><span class="hi">The Poison Maid</span></a></li> </ul> +<ul> +<li><a href="#p325"><span class="hi">NOTES</span></a></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<a id="p1"></a> + +<a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS</h2> + +<br> Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear +<br> The longest date do melt like frosty rime. + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high above +the summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent eagle came +sailing on broad fans into the blue, and his shadow skimmed the glittering +snow as it had done day by day for thousands of years. A human +figure—or it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed more than +mortal—lifted from the crag, to which he hung suspended by massy +gyves and rivets, eyes mournful with the presentiment of pain. The eagle's +screech clanged on the wind, as with outstretched neck he stooped earthward +in ever narrowing circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's +ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated +his hands and feet. Then happened what all these millenniums had never +witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of cloudless +blue; no marksman had approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without +vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the +unfathomable abyss below. At the same moment the bonds of the captive +snapped asunder, and, projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the +perpendicular precipice, he alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked +greensward amid young ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and +motion.</p> + +<p>The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through the +leaves, stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which remained +prostrate and unconscious still. But as sunlight was born anew in the East +a thrill passed over the slumberer, and he became conscious, first of an +indescribably delicious feeling of restful ease, then of a gnawing pang, +acute as the beak of the eagle for which he at first mistook it. But his +wrists, though still encumbered with bonds and trailing fetters, were +otherwise at liberty, and eagle there was none. Marvelling at his inward +and invisible foe, he struggled to his feet, and found himself contending +with a faintness and dizziness heretofore utterly unknown to him. He dimly +felt himself in the midst of things grown wonderful by estrangement and +distance. No grass, no flower, no leaf had met his eye for thousands of +years, nothing but the impenetrable azure, the transient cloud, sun, moon, +and star, the lightning flash, the glittering peaks of ice, and the +solitary eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass than in all +these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed his +utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly growing +more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort he steadied +himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished so much when a tall +dark maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an antelope, wildly beautiful +as a Dryad, but liker a Maenad with her aspect of mingled disdain and +dismay, and step hasty as of one pursuing or pursued, suddenly checked her +speed on perceiving him.</p> + +<p>"Who art thou?" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Gods! Thou speakest Greek!"</p> + +<p>"What else should I speak?"</p> + +<p>"What else? From whom save thee, since I closed my father's eyes, have I +heard the tongue of Homer and Plato?"</p> + +<p>"Who is Homer? Who is Plato?"</p> + +<p>The maiden regarded him with a look of the deepest astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Surely," she said, "thy gift has been bestowed upon thee to little +purpose. Say not, at least, that thou usest the speech of the Gods to +blaspheme them. Thou art surely yet a votary of Zeus?"</p> + +<p>"I a votary of Zeus!" exclaimed the stranger. "By these fetters, no!" +And, weak as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful laughter.</p> + +<p>"Farewell," said the maiden, as with dilating form and kindling eye she +gathered up her robes. "I parley with thee no more. Thou art tenfold more +detestable than the howling mob down yonder, intent on rapine and +destruction. They know no better, and can no other. But thou, apt in +speaking the sacred tongue yet brutally ignorant of its treasures, knowing +the father of the Gods only to revile him! Let me pass."</p> + +<p>The stranger, if willing to hinder her, seemed little able. His eyes +closed, his limbs relaxed, and without a cry he sank senseless on the +sward.</p> + +<p>In an instant the maiden was kneeling by his side. Hastily undoing a +basket she carried on her arm, she drew forth a leather flask, and, +supporting the sunken head with one hand, poured a stream of wine through +the lips with the other. As the gurgling purple coursed down his throat the +sufferer opened his eyes, and thanked her silently with a smile of +exquisite sweetness. Removing the large leaves which shaded the contents of +the basket, she disclosed ripe figs and pomegranates, honeycomb and +snow-white curd, lying close to each other in tempting array. The stranger +took of each alternately, and the basket was well-nigh emptied ere his +appetite seemed assuaged.</p> + +<p>The observant maiden, meanwhile, felt her mood strangely altered.</p> + +<p>"So have I imaged Ulysses to myself," she thought as she gazed on the +stranger's goodly form, full of vigour, though not without traces of age, +the massive brow, the kindly mouth, the expression of far-seeing wisdom. +"Such a man ignorant of letters, and a contemner of Zeus!"</p> + +<p>The stranger's eloquent thanks roused her from a reverie. The Greek +tongue fell upon her ear like the sweetest music, and she grieved when its +flow was interrupted by a question addressed directly to herself.</p> + +<p>"Can a God feel hunger and thirst?"</p> + +<p>"Surely no," she rejoined.</p> + +<p>"I should have said the same yesterday," returned the stranger.</p> + +<p>"Wherefore not to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Dear maiden," responded he, with winning voice and manner, "we must +know each other better ere my tale can gain credence with thee. Do thou +rather unfold what thine own speech has left dark to me. Why the language +of the Gods, as should seem, is here understood by thee and me alone; what +foes Zeus has here other than myself; what is the profane crowd of which +thou didst speak; and why, alone and defenceless, thou ascendest this +mountain. Think of me, if thou wilt, as one fallen from the clouds."</p> + +<p>"Strange man," returned the maiden, "who knowest Homer's speech and not +Homer's self, who renouncest Zeus and resemblest him, hear my tale ere I +require thine. Yesterday I should have called myself the last priestess of +Apollo in this fallen land, to-day I have neither shrine nor altar. Moved +by I know not what madness, my countrymen have long ago forsaken the +worship of the Gods. The temples crumbled into ruin, prayer was no longer +offered or sacrifice made as of old, the priestly revenues were plundered; +the sacred vessels carried away; the voice of oracles became dumb; the +divine tongue of Greece was forgotten, its scrolls of wisdom mouldered +unread, and the deluded people turned to human mechanics and fishermen. One +faithful servant of Apollo remained, my father; but 'tis seven days since +he closed his eyes for ever. It was time, for yesternoon the heralds +proclaimed by order of the King that Zeus and the Olympians should be named +no more in Caucasia."</p> + +<p>"Ha!" interrupted the stranger, "I see it all. Said I not so?" he +shouted, gazing into the sky as if his eye could pierce and his voice reach +beyond the drifting clouds. "But to thy own tale," he added, turning with a +gesture of command to the astonished Elenko.</p> + +<p>"It is soon told," she said. "I knew that it was death to serve the Gods +any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon +Apollo's altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware of +a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, but not +at their hands. I caught up this basket, and escaped up the mountain. On +its inaccessible summit, it is reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let +me bow in awe before his inscrutable counsels) doomed for his benevolence +to mankind. To him, as Aeschylus sings, Io of old found her way, and from +him received monition and knowledge of what should come to pass. I will try +if courage and some favouring God will guide me to him; if not, I will die +as near Heaven as I may attain. Tell me on thy part what thou wilt, and let +me depart. If thou art indeed Zeus's enemy, thou wilt find enough on thy +side down yonder."</p> + +<p>"I have been Zeus's enemy," returned the stranger, mildly and gravely, +"I am so no longer. Immortal hate befits not the mortal I feel myself to +have become. Nor needest thou ascend the peak further. Maiden, I am +Prometheus!"</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It is a prerogative of the Gods that, when they do speak sooth, mortals +must needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity at the revelation +of Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than the bonds and broken links +of chain at his wrists and ankles.</p> + +<p>"Now," he cried, or rather shouted, "is the prophecy fulfilled with +which of old I admonished the Gods in the halls of Olympus. I told them +that Zeus should beget a child mightier than himself, who should send him +and them the way he had sent his father. I knew not that this child was +already begotten, and that his name was Man. It has taken Man ages to +assert himself, nor has he yet, as it would seem, done more than enthrone a +new idol in the place of the old. But for the old, behold the last traces +of its authority in these fetters, of which the first smith will rid me. +Expect no thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will come: nor shall I regain the +immortality of which I feel myself bereaved since yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Is this no sorrow to thee?" asked Elenko.</p> + +<p>"Has not my immortality been one of pain?" answered Prometheus. "Now I +feel no pain, and dread one only."</p> + +<p>"And that is?"</p> + +<p>"The pain of missing a certain fellow-mortal," answered Prometheus, with +a look so expressive that the hitherto unawed maiden cast her eyes to the +ground. Hastening away from the conversation to which, nevertheless, she +inly purposed to return.</p> + +<p>"Is Man, then, the maker of Deity?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Can the source of his being originate in himself?" asked Prometheus. +"To assert this were self-contradiction, and pride inflated to madness. But +of the more exalted beings who have like him emanated from the common +principle of all existence, Man, since his advent on the earth, though not +the creator, is the preserver or the destroyer. He looks up to them, and +they are; he out-grows them, and they are not. For the barbarian and +Triballian gods there is no return; but the Olympians, if dead as deities, +survive as impersonations of Man's highest conceptions of the beautiful. +Languid and spectral indeed must be their existence in this barbarian age; +but better days are in store for them."</p> + +<p>"And for thee, Prometheus?"</p> + +<p>"There is now no place," replied he, "for an impeacher of the Gods. My +cause is won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of man by myself +becoming human. When I shall have proved myself also mortal I may haply +traverse realms which Zeus never knew, with, I would hope, Elenko by my +side."</p> + +<p>Elenko's countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany +Prometheus as far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he might +please to conduct her. A thought soon troubled her delicious reverie, and +she inquired:</p> + +<p>"Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer and +better than that which I have professed?"</p> + +<p>"If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye," answered Prometheus, +"but of this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy tale to have begun +but ill. Yet Saturn mutilated his father, and his reign was the Golden +Age."</p> + +<p>While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling aimlessly +down the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path, they suddenly found +themselves in presence of an assembly of early Christians.</p> + +<p>These confessors were making the most of Elenko's dilapidated temple, +whose smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The +effigies of Apollo and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being +diligently broken up with mallets and hammers. Others of the sacrilegious +throng were rending scrolls, or dividing vestments, or firing the grove of +laurel that environed the shrine, or pelting the affrighted birds as they +flew forth. The sacred vessels, however, at least those of gold and silver, +appeared safe in the guardianship of an episcopal personage of shrewd and +jovial aspect, under whose inspection they were being piled up by a troop +of sturdy young ecclesiastics, the only weapon-bearers among the rabble. +Elenko stood riveted to the ground. Prometheus, to her amazement, rushed +forward to one of the groups with a loud "By all the Gods and Goddesses!" +Following his movements, she saw that the object of his interest was an +enormous dead eagle carried by one of the mob. The multitude, startled by +his cry and his emotion, gazed eagerly at the strangers, and instantly a +shout went up:</p> + +<p>"The heathen woman!"</p> + +<p>"With a heathen man!"</p> + +<p>And clubs began to be brandished, and stones to be picked up from the +ground.</p> + +<p>Prometheus, to whom the shouts were unintelligible, looked wistfully at +Elenko. As their eyes met, Elenko's countenance, which had hitherto been +all disdain and defiance, assumed an expression of irresolution. A stone +struck Prometheus on the temple, drawing blood; a hundred hands went up, +each weighted with a missile.</p> + +<p>"Do as I," cried Elenko to him, and crossed herself.</p> + +<p>Prometheus imitated her, not unsuccessfully for a novice.</p> + +<p>The uplifted arms were stayed, some even sank down.</p> + +<p>By this time the Bishop had bustled to the front, and addressed a +torrent of questions to Prometheus, who merely shook his head, and turned +to inspect the eagle.</p> + +<p>"Brethren," said the Bishop, "I smell a miracle!" And, turning to +Elenko, he rapidly proceeded to cross-examine her.</p> + +<p>"Thou wert the priestess of this temple?"</p> + +<p>"I was."</p> + +<p>"Thou didst leave it this morning a heathen?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Thou returnest a Christian?"</p> + +<p>Elenko blushed fire, her throat swelled, her heart beat violently. All +her soul seemed concentrated in the gaze she fastened on the pale and +bleeding Prometheus. She remained silent—but she crossed herself.</p> + +<p>"Who then has persuaded thee to renounce Apollo?"</p> + +<p>Elenko pointed to Prometheus.</p> + +<p>"An enemy of Zeus, then?"</p> + +<p>"Zeus has not such another enemy in the world."</p> + +<p>"I knew it, I was sure of it," exclaimed the Bishop. "I can always tell +a Christian when I see him. Wherefore speaks he not?"</p> + +<p>"He is ancient, for all his vigorous mien. His martyrdom began ere our +present speech was, nor could he learn this in his captivity."</p> + +<p>"Martyrdom! Captivity!" exclaimed the prelate gleefully, "I thought we +were coming thither. An early martyr, doubtless?"</p> + +<p>"A very early martyr."</p> + +<p>"Fettered and manacled?"</p> + +<p>"Behold his wrists and ankles."</p> + +<p>"Tortured, of course?"</p> + +<p>"Incredibly."</p> + +<p>"Miraculously kept alive to this day?"</p> + +<p>"In an entirely supernatural manner."</p> + +<p>"Now," said the Bishop, "I would wager my mitre and ring that his life +was prolonged by the daily ministrations of yonder fowl that he caresses +with such singular affection?"</p> + +<p>"Never," replied Elenko, "for one day did that most punctual bird omit +to visit him."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" shouted the Bishop. "And now, its mission accomplished, the +blessed creature, as I am informed, is found dead at the foot of the +mountain. Saints and angels! this is glorious! On your knees, ye +infidels!"</p> + +<p>And down they all went, the Bishop setting the example. As their heads +were bowed to the earth, Elenko made a sign to Prometheus, and when the +multitude looked up, it beheld him in the act of imparting the episcopal +blessing.</p> + +<p>"Tell him that we are all his brethren," said the Bishop, which +announcement became in Elenko's mouth, "Do as I do, and cleave to thy +eagle."</p> + +<p>A procession was formed. The new saint, his convert, and the eagle, rode +in a car at the head of it. The Bishop, surrounded by his bodyguard, +followed with the sacred vessels of Apollo, to which he had never ceased to +direct a vigilant eye throughout the whole proceedings. The multitude +swarmed along singing hymns, or contending for the stray feathers of the +eagle. The representatives of seven monasteries put in their claims for +the links of Prometheus's fetters, but the Bishop scouted them all. He +found time to whisper to Elenko:</p> + +<p>"You seem a sensible young person. Just hint to our friend that we don't +want to hear anything about his theology, and the less he talks about the +primitive Church the better. No doubt he is a most intelligent man, but he +cannot possibly be up to all the recent improvements."</p> + +<p>Elenko promised most fervently that Prometheus' theological sentiments +should remain a mystery to the public. She then began to reflect very +seriously on the subject of her own morals. "This day," she said to +herself, "I have renounced all the Gods, and told lies enough to last me my +life, and for no other reason than that I am in love. If this is a +sufficient reason, lovers must have a different code of morality from the +rest of the world, and indeed it would appear that they have. Will you die +for me? Yes. Admirable. Will you lie for me? No. Then you don't love me. +Βαλλ εισ +κορακασ εισ +Ταιναρον εισ +Όγγ Κογγ."</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Elenko soon found that there was no pausing upon the path to which she +had committed herself. As the sole medium of communication between +Prometheus and the religious public, her time was half spent in instructing +Prometheus in the creed in which he was supposed to have instructed her, +and half in framing the edifying sentences which passed for the +interpretation of discourses for the most part far more interesting to +herself than if they had been what they professed to be. The rapt and +impassioned attention which she was observed to bestow on his utterances on +such occasions all but gained her the reputation of a saint, and was +accepted as a sufficient set-off against the unhallowed affection which she +could not help manifesting for the memory of her father. The judicious +reluctance of the Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire over-anxiously into +the creeds and customs of the primitive Church was a great help to her; and +another difficulty was removed by the Bishop, who, having no idea of +encouraging a rival thaumaturgist, took an early opportunity of signifying +that it was rather in the line of Desmotes (for by this name the new saint +passed) to be the subject than the instrument of miracles, and that, at all +events, no more were to be looked for from him at his time of life. The +warmth with which Elenko espoused this view raised her greatly in his good +opinion, and he was always ready to come to her aid when she became +entangled in chronological or historical difficulties, or seasoned her +versions of Desmotes' speeches with reminiscences of Plato or Marcus +Aurelius, or when her invention failed altogether. On such occasions, if +objectors grew troublesome, the Bishop would thunder, "Brethren, I smell a +heresy!" and no more was said. One minor trouble both to Prometheus and +Elenko was the affection they were naturally expected to manifest towards +the carcase of the wretched eagle, which many identified with the eagle of +the Evangelist John. Prometheus was of a forgiving disposition, but Elenko +wished nothing more ardently than that the whole aquiline race might have +but one neck, and that she might wring it. It somewhat comforted her to +observe that the eagle's plumage was growing thin, while the eagle's +custodian was growing fat.</p> + +<p>But she had worse troubles to endure than any that eagles could +occasion. The youth of those who resorted to her and Prometheus attracted +remark from the graver members of the community. Young ladies found the +precepts of the handsome and dignified saint indispensable to their +spiritual health; young men were charmed with their purity as they came +filtered through the lips of Elenko. Is man more conceited than woman, or +more confiding? Elenko should certainly have been at ease; no temptress, +however enterprising, could well be spreading her nets for an Antony three +hundred years old. Prometheus, on the contrary, might have found cause for +jealousy in many a noble youth's unconcealed admiration of Elenko. Yet he +seemed magnificently unconscious of any cause for apprehension, while +Elenko's heart swelled till it was like to burst. She had the further +satisfaction of knowing herself the best hated woman in Caucasia, between +the enmity of those of whose admirers she had made an involuntary conquest, +and of those who found her standing between them and Prometheus. Her +monopoly of Greek, she felt sure, was her only security. Two constant +attendants at Prometheus's receptions particularly alarmed her, the +Princess Miriam, niece of the Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed to have +things as she wished them; and a tall veiled woman who seemed unknown to +all, but whose unseen eyes, she instinctively knew, were never averted from +the unconscious Prometheus.</p> + +<p>It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons to +the private apartment of the Princess Miriam.</p> + +<p>"Dear friend," the Princess began, "thou knowest the singular affection +which I have invariably entertained for thee."</p> + +<p>"Right well do I know it," responded Elenko. ("The thirty-first lie +to-day," she added wearily to herself.)</p> + +<p>"It is this affection, dear friend," continued the Princess, "which +induces me on the present occasion to transgress the limits of conventional +propriety, and make a communication distressing to thee, but infinitely +more so to myself."</p> + +<p>Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause of +friendship, but the great lady was resolute.</p> + +<p>"People say," she continued—</p> + +<p>"What say they?"</p> + +<p>"That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet. That it is equivocal. That +it is offensive. That it is sacrilegious. That, in a word, it is +improper."</p> + +<p>Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would +allow.</p> + +<p>"Dear friend," said the Princess, "thou dost not imagine that I have +part or lot in these odious imputations? Even could I deem them true, +should I not think charitably of thee, but yesterday a heathen, and +educated in impiety by a foul sorcerer? My poor lamb! But tongues must be +stopped, and I have now to advise thee how this may be accomplished."</p> + +<p>"Say on."</p> + +<p>"People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of +communication with the holy man. Some deem him less ignorant of our speech +than he seems, but concerning this I inquire not: for, in society, what +seems, is. Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to scandal. There is but +one remedy. Thou must yield thy place to another. It is meet that thou +forthwith instruct in that barbarous dialect some matron of unblemished +repute and devout aspirations; no mere ignorant devotee, however, but a +woman of the world, whose prudence and experience may preserve the holy man +from the pitfalls set for him by the unprincipled. Manifestly she must be a +married person, else nought were gained, yet must she not be chargeable +with forsaking her duties towards her husband and children. It follows that +she must be a widow. It were also well that she should be of kin to some +influential personage, to whose counsel she might have recourse in times of +difficulty, and whose authority might protect her against the slanderous +and evil disposed. I have not been able to meet any one endowed with all +these qualifications, excepting myself. I therefore propose to thee that +thou shouldst instruct me in the speech of Desmotes, and when I am +qualified to take thy place my uncle shall elevate thee to the dignity of +Abbess, or bestow thee upon some young clergyman of extraordinary +desert."</p> + +<p>Elenko intimated, perhaps with more warmth than necessary, her aversion +to both propositions, and the extreme improbability of the Princess ever +acquiring any knowledge of Greek by her instrumentality.</p> + +<p>"If this is the case," said the Princess, with perfect calmness, "I must +have recourse to my other method, which is infallible."</p> + +<p>Elenko inquired what it might be.</p> + +<p>"I shall represent to my uncle, what indeed he very well knows, that a +saint is, properly speaking, of no value till he is dead. Not until his +decease are his relics available, or pilgrimages to his shrine feasible. It +is solely in anticipation of this event that my uncle is keeping Desmotes +at all; and the sooner it comes to pass, the sooner will my revered +relative come by his own. Only think of the capital locked up in the new +church, now so nearly completed, on the spot where they picked up the +eagle! How shall it be dedicated to Desmotes in Desmotes' lifetime? Were it +not a most blissful and appropriate coincidence if the day of the +consecration were that of the saint's migration to a better world? I shall +submit this view of the case to my uncle: he is accustomed to hear reason +from me, of whom, between ourselves, he is not a little afraid. Thou mayest +rely upon it that about the time of the consecration Desmotes will ascend +to heaven; while thou, it is gravely to be feared, wilt proceed in the +opposite direction. Would'st thou avert this unpleasantness, think well of +my first proposal. I give thee credit for loving Desmotes, and suppose, +therefore, that thou wilt make some sacrifice for his sake. I am a Kettle, +thou art a Pot. Take heed how thou knockest against me!"</p> + +<p>Elenko sped back to bear tidings of the threatened collision to +Prometheus. As she approached his chamber she heard with astonishment two +voices in eager conversation, and discovered with still greater amazement +that their dialogue was carried on in Greek. The second speaker, moreover, +was evidently a female. A jealous pang shot through Elenko's breast; she +looked cautiously in, and discerned the same mysterious veiled woman whose +demeanour had already been an enigma to her. But the veil was thrown back, +and the countenance went far to allay Elenko's disquiet. It bore indeed +traces of past beauty, but was altogether that of one who had known better +days; worn and faded, weary and repining. Elenko's jealousy vanished, +though her surprise redoubled, when she heard Prometheus address the +stranger as "Sister."</p> + +<p>"A pretty brother I have got," rejoined the lady, in high sharp tones: +"to leave me in want! Never once to inquire after me!"</p> + +<p>"Nay, sister, or sister-in-law," responded Prometheus, "if it comes to +that, where were you while I was on Caucasus? The Oceanides ministered to +me, Hermes came now and then, even Hercules left a card; but I never saw +Pandora."</p> + +<p>"How could I compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?" demanded Pandora. +"Besides, my attendant Hope was always telling me that all would come +right, without any meddling of mine."</p> + +<p>"Let her tell you so now," retorted Prometheus.</p> + +<p>"Tell me now! Do you pretend not to know that the hussey forsook Olympus +ten years ago, and has turned Christian?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure I am very sorry to hear it. Somehow, she never forsook +<i>me</i>. I can't imagine how you Gods get on without her."</p> + +<p>"Get on! We are getting off. Except Eros and Plutus, who seem as usual, +and the old Fates, who go on spinning as if nothing had happened, none of +us expects to last for another ten years. The sacrifices have dwindled down +to nothing. Zeus has put down his eagle. Hera has eaten her peacocks. +Apollo's lyre is never heard—pawned, no doubt. Bacchus drinks water, +and Venus—well, you can imagine how she gets on without him and +Ceres. And here you are, sleek and comfortable, and never troubling +yourself about your family. But you had better, or I swear I will tell +Zeus; and we shall see whether these Christians will keep you with your +ante-chamber full of starving gods. Take a day to think of what I have been +saying!"</p> + +<p>And away she flounced, not noticing Elenko. Long and earnestly did the +pair discuss the perils that menaced them, and at the end of their +deliberations Elenko sought the Bishop, and briefly imparted the Princess +Miriam's ultimatum.</p> + +<p>"It is painful to a spiritual man," replied the prelate, "to be +accessory to a murder. It is also repugnant to his feelings to deny a +beloved niece anything on which she has set her heart. To avoid such +grievous dilemma, I judge it well that ye both ascend to heaven without +further ceremony."</p> + +<p>That night the ascent of Prometheus and Elenko was witnessed by divers +credible persons. The new church was consecrated shortly afterwards. It was +amply stored with relics from the wardrobe of Prometheus and what remained +of the eagle. The damsels of the capital regained their admirers, and +those who had become enamoured of Prometheus mostly transferred their +affections to the Bishop. Everybody was satisfied except the Princess +Miriam, who never ceased to deplore her indulgence in giving Elenko the +chance of first speech with her uncle.</p> + +<p>"If I had been five minutes beforehand with the minx!" she said.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated in a +sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into the glen, +which was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds, who still observed +the rites of the ancient faith; and sometimes, deeming but to show kindness +to a mortal, refreshed or sheltered a forlorn and hungry Deity. Saving at +the entrance the vale was walled round by steep cliffs, for the most part +waving with trees, but here and there revealing the naked crag. It was +traversed by a silvery stream, in its windings enclosing Prometheus's and +Elenko's cottage, almost as in an island. The cot, buried in laurel and +myrtle, had a garden where fig and mulberry, grape and almond, ripened in +their season. A few goats browsed on the long grass, and yielded their milk +to the household. Bread and wine, and flesh when needed, were easily +procured from the neighbours. Beyond necessary furniture, the cottage +contained little but precious scrolls, obtained by Elenko from Athens and +the newly founded city of Constantine. In these, under her guidance, +Prometheus read of matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, entered +the imagination of any God.</p> + +<p>It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures wholly +their own, which they may yet make fully the possession of the other. These +treasures are of divers kinds, beauty, affection, memory, hope. But never +were such treasures of knowledge shared between lovers as between +Prometheus and Elenko. Each possessed immeasurable stores, hitherto +inaccessible to the other. How trifling seemed the mythical lore which +Elenko had gleaned as the minister of Phoebus to that now imparted by +Prometheus! The Titan had seen all, and been a part of all that he had +seen. He had bowed beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he had witnessed his +fall, and marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He remembered hoary +Saturn a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the throne of Heaven, and +devouring in a trice the stone that now resists his fangs for millenniums. +He had heard the shields of the Corybantes clash around the infant Zeus; he +described to Elenko how one day the sea had frothed and boiled, and +undraped Aphrodite had ascended from it in the presence of the gazing and +applauding amphitheatre of cloud-cushioned gods. He could depict the +personal appearance of Cybele, and sketch the character of Enceladus. He +had instructed Zeus, as Chiron had instructed Achilles; he remembered +Poseidon afraid of the water, and Pluto of the dark. He called to mind and +expounded ancient oracles heretofore unintelligible: he had himself been +told, and had disbelieved, that the happiest day of his own life would be +that on which he should feel himself divested of immortality. Of the +younger gods and their doings he knew but little; he inquired with interest +whether Bacchus had returned in safety from his Indian expedition, and +whether Proserpine had a family of divine imps.</p> + +<p>Much more, nevertheless, had Elenko to teach Prometheus than she could +learn from him. How trivial seemed the history of the gods to what he now +heard of the history of men! Were these indeed the beings he had known +"like ants in the sunless recesses of caves, dwelling deep-burrowing in the +earth, ignorant of the signs of the seasons," to whom he had given fire and +whom he had taught memory and number, for whom he had "brought the horse +under the chariot, and invented the sea-beaten, flaxen-winged chariot of +the sailor?" And now, how poorly showed the gods beside this once wretched +brood! What Deity could die for Olympus, as Leonidas had for Greece? Which +of them could, like Iphigenia, dwell for years beside the melancholy sea, +keeping a true heart for an absent brother? Which of them could raise his +fellows nearer to the source of all Deity, as Socrates and Plato had raised +men? Who could portray himself as Phidias had portrayed Athene? Could the +Muses speak with their own voices as they had spoken by Sappho's? He was +especially pleased to see his own moral superiority to Zeus so eloquently +enforced by Æschylus, and delighted in criticising the sentiments +which the other poets had put into the mouths of the gods. Homer, he +thought, must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes not seldom. When +he read in the Cyclops of Euripides, "Stranger, I laugh to scorn Zeus's +thunderbolts," he grew for a moment thoughtful. "Am I," he questioned, +"ending where Polyphemus began?" But when he read a little further on:</p> +<br> The wise man's only Jupiter is this, +<br> To eat and drink during his little day, +<br> And give himself no care— + +<p>"No," he said, "the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than this +Zeus. But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put another in +their place; or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung away his religion. +Heaven has not departed with Zeus." And, taking his lyre, he sang:</p> +<br> What floods of lavish splendour +<br> The lofty sun doth pour! +<br> What else can Heaven render? +<br> What room hath she for more? +<br> Yet shall his course be shortly done, +<br> And after his declining +<br> The skies that held a single Sun +<br> With thousands shall be shining. + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to Prometheus's +earthly paradise, and who came once came again. The first was Epimetheus, +who had probably suffered least of all from the general upset, having in +truth little to lose since his ill-starred union with Pandora. He had +indeed reason for thankfulness in his practical divorce from his spouse, +who had settled in Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to the Princess +Miriam. Would Prometheus lend him half a talent? a quarter? a tenth? a +hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus might rely upon it that his residence +should not be divulged on any account. Notwithstanding which assurance, the +cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. +Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, +having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, +and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly +well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on +most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal, +and marine.</p> + +<p>Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm, looking +up to something it feels or deems above itself. Beautiful, too, as autumn +sunshine is maturity looking down with gentleness on the ideal it has +surpassed, and reverencing it still for old ideas and associations. The +thought of beholding a Deity would once have thrilled Elenko with rapture, +if this had not been checked by awe at her own presumption. The idea that a +Deity, other than some disgraced offender like Prometheus, could be the +object of her compassion, would never have entered her mind. And now she +pitied the whole Olympian cohort most sincerely, not so much for having +fallen as for having deserved to fall. She could not conceal from herself +how grievously they were one and all behind the age. It was impossible to +make Zeus comprehend how an idea could be a match for a thunderbolt. Apollo +spoke handsomely of Homer, yet evidently esteemed the Iliad and Odyssey +but lightly in comparison with the blind bard's hymn to himself. Ceres +candidly admitted that her mind was a complete blank on the subject of the +Eleusinian mysteries. Aphrodite's dress was admirable for summer, but in +winter seemed obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make herself a +fright with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer frightened anybody? +Where Elenko would fain have adored she found herself tolerating, excusing, +condescending. How many Elenkos are even now tenderly nursing ancient +creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue of their professors!</p> + +<p>One autumn night all the principal gods were assembled under +Prometheus's roof, doing justice to the figs and mulberries, and wine +cooled with Taygetan snow. The guests were more than usually despondent. +Prometheus was moody and abstracted, his breast seemed labouring with +thought. "So looked my Pythoness," whispered Apollo to his neighbour, "when +about to deliver an oracle."</p> + +<p>And the oracle came—in lyric verse, not to infringe any patent of +Apollo's—</p> +<br> When o'er the towers of Constantine +<br> An Orient Moon begins to shine, +<br> Waning nor waxing aught, and bright +<br> In daytide as in deep of night: +<br> Then, though the fane be brought +<br> To wreck, the God shall find, +<br> Enthroned in human thought, +<br> A temple in the mind. + +<p>"And what becomes of us while this prodigious moonshine is concocting?" +demanded Zeus, who had become the most sceptical of any of the gods.</p> + +<p>"Go to Elysium," suggested Prometheus.</p> + +<p>"There's an idea!" cried Zeus and Pallas together.</p> + +<p>"To Elysium! to Elysium!" exclaimed the other gods, and all rose +tumultuously, saving two.</p> + +<p>"I go not," said Eros, "for where Love is, there is Elysium. And yonder +rising moon tells me that my hour is come." And he flitted forth.</p> + +<p>"Neither go I," said an old blind god, "for where Plutus is, Elysium is +not. Moreover, mankind would follow after me. But I too must away. Strange +that I should have abode so long under the roof of a pair of perfect +virtue." And he tottered out.</p> + +<p>But the other gods swept forth into the moonlight, and were seen no +more. And Prometheus picked up the forsaken sandals of Hermes, and bound +them on his own feet, and grasped Elenko, and they rose up by a dizzy +flight to empty heaven. All was silent in those immense courts, vacant of +everything save here and there some rusty thunderbolt or mouldering crumb +of ambrosia. Above, around, below, beyond sight, beyond thought, stretched +the still deeps of æther, blazing with innumerable worlds. Eye could +rove nowhither without beholding a star, nor could star be beheld from +which the Gods' hall, with all its vastness, would not have been utterly +invisible. Elenko leaned over the battlements, and watched the racing +meteors. Prometheus stood by her, and pointed out in the immeasurable +distance the little speck of shining dust from which they had flown.</p> + +<p>"There? or here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"There!" said Elenko.</p> <a id="p27"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE POTION OF LAO-TSZE</h2> +<br> And there the body lay, age after age, +<br> Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, +<br> Like one asleep in a green hermitage, +<br> With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, +<br> And living in its dreams beyond the rage +<br> Of death or life; while they were still +arraying +<br> In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, +<br> And fleeting generations of mankind. + +<p>In the days of the Tang dynasty China was long happy under the sceptre +of a good Emperor, named Sin-Woo. He had overcome the enemies of the land, +confirmed the friendship of its allies, augmented the wealth of the rich, +and mitigated the wretchedness of the poor. But most especially was he +admired and beloved for his persecution of the impious sect of Lao-tsze, +which he had well-nigh exterminated.</p> + +<p>It was but natural that such an Emperor should congratulate himself upon +his goodness and worth; yet, as no human bliss is perfect, sorrow could not +fail to enter his mind.</p> + +<p>"It is grievous to reflect," said he to his courtiers, "that if, as ye +all affirm, there hath not been any Emperor of equal merit with myself +before my time, neither will any such arise after me, my subjects must +inevitably be sufferers by my death."</p> + +<p>To which the courtiers unanimously responded, "O Emperor, live for +ever!"</p> + +<p>"Happy thought!" exclaimed the Emperor; "but wherewithal shall it be +executed?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister looked at the Chancellor, the Chancellor looked at +the Treasurer, the Treasurer looked at the Chamberlain, the Chamberlain +looked at the Principal Bonze, the Principal Bonze looked at the Second +Bonze, who, to his great surprise, looked at him in return.</p> + +<p>"When the turn comes to me," murmured the inferior functionary, "I would +say somewhat."</p> + +<p>"Speak!" commanded the Emperor.</p> + +<p>"O Uncle of the stars," said the Bonze, "there are those in your +Majesty's dominions who possess the power of lengthening life, who have, in +fact, discovered the Elixir of Immortality."</p> + +<p>"Let them be immediately brought hither," commanded the Emperor.</p> + +<p>"Unhappily," returned the Bonze, "these persons, without exception, +belong to the abominable sect of Lao-tsze, whose members your Majesty long +ago commanded to cease from existence, with which august order they have +for the most part complied. In my own diocese, where for some years after +your Majesty's happy accession we were accustomed to impale twenty thousand +annually, it is now difficult to find twenty, with the utmost diligence on +the part of the executioners."</p> + +<p>"It has of late sometimes appeared to me," said the Emperor, "that there +may be more good in that sect than I have been led to believe by my +counsellors."</p> + +<p>"I have always thought," said the Prime Minister, "that they were rather +misguided than wilfully wicked."</p> + +<p>"They are a kind of harmless lunatics," said the Chancellor; "they +should, I think, be made wards in Chancery."</p> + +<p>"Their money does not appear different from other men's," said the +Treasurer.</p> + +<p>"I," said the Chamberlain, "have known an old woman who had known +another old woman who belonged to this sect, and who assured her that she +had been very good when she was a little girl."</p> + +<p>"If," said the Emperor, "it appears that his Grace the Principal Bonze +hath in any respect misled us, his property will necessarily be confiscated +to the Imperial Treasury, and the Second Bonze will succeed to his office. +It is needful, however, to ascertain before all things whether this sect +does really possess the Elixir of Immortality, for on that the entire +question of its deserts obviously depends. Our Counsellor the Second Bonze +having, next to myself, the greatest interest in the matter, I desire him +to make due inquiries and report to us at the next council, when I shall be +prepared to state what fine will be imposed upon him, should he not have +succeeded."</p> + +<p>That night all the members of the Lao-tsze sect inhabiting prisons under +the jurisdiction of the Principal Bonze were decapitated, and the P.B. laid +his own head upon his pillow with some approach to peace of mind, trusting +that the knowledge of the Elixir of Immortality had perished with them.</p> + +<p>The Second Bonze, having a different object to attain, proceeded in a +different manner. He sent for his captives, and discoursed to them touching +the evil arts of unprincipled courtiers, and the facility with which they +mislead even the best intentioned princes. For years had he, the Second +Bonze, pleaded the cause of toleration at court; and had at length +succeeded in enlightening his Majesty to such an extent that there was +every prospect of an edict of indulgence being shortly promulgated, +provided always that the Elixir of Life was previously forthcoming.</p> + +<p>The unfortunate heretics would have been only too thankful to prolong +the Emperor's life indefinitely in consideration of securing peace for +their own, but they could only inform the Bonze of the general tradition of +their sect. This was that the knowledge of Lao-tsze's secret was confined +to certain adepts, most of whom were plunged into so deep a trance that any +communication with them was impossible. For the administration of the +miraculous draught, it appeared, was attended with this inconvenience, that +it threw the partaker into a deep sleep, lasting any time between ten years +and eternity, according to the depth of his potation. During its +continuance the ordinary operations of nature were suspended, and the +patient awoke with precisely the same bodily constitution, old or young, as +he had possessed on falling into his lethargy; and though still liable to +wounds and accidents, he or she continued to enjoy undiminished health and +vigour for a period equal to the duration of the trance, after which he +sank back into the ranks of mortality, unless he could repeat the potion. +All the adepts who had come to life under his present Majesty's most +clement reign had immediately emigrated: the only persons, therefore, +capable of giving information were now buried in slumber, and of course +would only speak when they should awake. They were mostly concealed in the +recesses of caverns, those inhabited by wild beasts being usually preferred +for the sake of better security, as no tiger or bear would harm a follower +of Lao-tsze. The witnesses, therefore, advised the Bonze to ascertain the +residences of the most ferocious tigers in his diocese, and to wait upon +them personally, in the hope of thus discovering what he sought.</p> + +<p>This suggestion was exceedingly unpalatable to the Bonze, who felt +almost equally unwilling to venture himself into a wild beast's den or to +give any other person the chance of making the discovery. While he +hesitated in unspeakable perplexity he was informed that an old man, about +to expire at the age of an hundred and twenty years, desired to have speech +with him. Thinking so venerable a personage likely to have at least a +glimmering of the great secret, the Bonze hurried to his bedside.</p> + +<p>"Our master, Lao-tsze," began the old man, "forbids us to leave this +world with anything undisclosed which may contribute to the advantage of +our fellow-creatures. Whether he deemed the knowledge of the cup of +immortality conducive to this end I cannot say, but the question doth not +arise, for I do not possess it. Hear my tale, nevertheless. Ninety years +ago, being a hunter, it was my hap to fall into the jaws of an enormous +tiger, who bore me off to his cavern. I there found myself in the presence +of two ladies, one youthful and of surpassing loveliness, the other haggard +and wrinkled. The younger lady expostulated with the tiger, and he +forthwith released me. My gratitude won the women's confidence, and I +learned that they were disciples of Lao-tsze who had repaired to the cavern +to partake of the miraculous draught, which they were just about to do. +They were, it appeared, mother and daughter, and I distinctly remember that +the composition of the beverage was known to the daughter only. This +impressed me, for I should naturally have expected the contrary. The tiger +escorted me home. I forswore hunting, and became, and have secretly +continued, a disciple of Lao-tsze. I will now indicate the position of the +cavern to thee: whether the ladies will still be found in it is beyond my +power to say."</p> + +<p>And having pointed out the direction of the cavern, he expired.</p> + +<p>The thing had to be done. The Bonze dressed himself up as much like a +votary of Lao-tsze as possible, provided himself with a body-guard of +<i>bona fide</i> disciples, and, accompanied by a small army of huntsmen +and warriors as well, marched in quest of the den of the tiger. It was +discovered about nightfall, and having tethered a small boy near the +entrance, that his screams when being devoured might give notice of the +tiger's issue from or return to his habitation, the Bonze and his myrmidons +took up a flank position and awaited the dawn. The distant howls of roaming +beasts of prey entirely deprived the holy man of his rest, but nothing +worse befell him, and when in the morning the small boy, instead of +providing the tiger with a breakfast, was heard crying for his own, the +besiegers mustered up courage to enter the cavern. The glare of their +torches revealed no tiger: but, to the Bonze's inexpressible delight, two +females lay on the floor of the cave, corresponding in all respects to the +description of the old man. Their costume was that of the preceding +century. One was wrinkled and hoary; the inexpressible loveliness of the +other, who might have seen seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a +universal cry of admiration, followed by a hush of enraptured silence. +Warm, flexible, fresh in colour, breathing naturally as in slumber, the +figures lay, the younger woman's arm underneath the elder woman's neck, and +her chin nestling on the other's shoulder. The countenance of each seemed +to indicate happy dreams.</p> + +<p>"Can this indeed be but a trance?" simultaneously questioned several of +the Bonze's followers.</p> + +<p>"<i>Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!</i>" exclaimed the Bonze; and he +thrust his long hunting spear into the elder woman's bosom. Blood poured +forth freely, but there was no change in the expression of the countenance. +No struggle announced dissolution; not until the body grew chill and the +limbs stiff could they be sure the old woman was indeed dead.</p> + +<p>"Carry the young woman like porcelain," ordered the priest, and like the +most fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from the cavern +smiling in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the corpse of her aged +companion was abandoned to the hyænas. So often did the bearers pause +to look on her beauty that it was found necessary to drape the countenance +entirely, until reaching the closed sedan in which, vigilantly watched by +the Bonze, she was transported to the Imperial palace.</p> + +<p>And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was +laid on a couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful was +the contrast between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose, and the +old haggard Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love of life.</p> + +<p>"O Majesty," said his wisest counsellor, "is there any sect in thy +dominions that possesses the secret of perpetual youth?"</p> + +<p>And the Emperor made proclamation, but no such sect could be found. And +he mourned exceedingly, and caused strong perfumes to be burned around the +sleeper, and conches to be blown and gongs beaten in her ears, hoping that +she would awake ere he was dead or wholly decrepit. But she stirred not. +And he shut himself up with her and passed his time praying to Fo for her +awakening.</p> + +<p>But one day the door of the chamber was beaten down, and his old wife +came in passionately upbraiding him.</p> + +<p>"Sin-Woo," she cried, "thou hast not the heart of a man! Thou wouldest +be deathless, leaving me to die! I shall be laid in the grave, and thou +wilt reign with another! Wherefore have I been true to thee, if not that +our ashes might mingle at the last? Thou hoary sensualist!"</p> + +<p>"Su-Ti," said the Emperor, with feeling, "thou dost grievously misjudge +me. I am no heartless sensualist, no butterfly sipper at the lips of +beauty. Is not my soul entirely possessed by this divine creature, whom I +love with an affection infinitely exceeding that which I have entertained +for thee at any period? And how knowest thou," added he, striving to +soothe her, "that I will not give thee to drink of the miraculous +potion?"</p> + +<p>"And keep my grey hairs and wrinkles through all time! Nay, Sin-Woo, I +am no fool like thee, and were I so, I am not in love with any youth. And +know I not that even if I would accept the boon, thou would'st never give +it?"</p> + +<p>And she rushed away in fury and hanged herself by her Imperial girdle. +Whereupon all the other wives and concubines of the Emperor did likewise, +as custom and reason prescribe. All the palace was filled with lamentation +and funerals. But the Emperor lamented not, nor turned his gaze from the +sleeper, nor did the sleeper awaken.</p> + +<p>And his son came to him angry with exceeding wrath.</p> + +<p>"Thou hast murdered my mother. Thou would'st rob me of the crown that is +rightfully mine. I, born to be an Emperor, shall die a subject! Nay, but I +will save thee from thyself. I will pierce thy leman with the sword, or +burn her with fire."</p> + +<p>And the Emperor, fearing he would do as he threatened, commanded him to +be slain, as also his brothers and sisters. And he paid no heed to the +affairs of State, but gave all into the hand of the Second, now the +Principal Bonze. And the laws ceased to be observed, and rebellions broke +out in the provinces, and enemies invaded the country, and there was famine +in the land.</p> + +<p>And now the Emperor was well-nigh ten years nearer to the gates of death +than when the Sleeping Beauty had been brought to his court. The love of +beauty was nearly quenched in him, but the longing for life grew more +intense. He became angry with the sleeper, that she awakened not, and with +his little remaining strength smote her fiercely on the cheeks, but she +gave no sign of reviving. Remembering that if he gained the potion of +immortality he would himself be plunged into a trance, he made all +preparations for the interregnum. He decreed that he was to be seated erect +on his throne, with all his imperial insignia, and it was to be death to +any one who should presume to remove any of them. His slumbering figure was +to preside at all councils, and to be consulted in every act of state, and +all ministers and officers were to do homage daily. The revived Sleeping +Beauty was to partake of the draught anew, at the same time and in the same +manner as himself, that she might awake with him, and that he might find +her charms unimpaired. All the ministers swore solemnly to observe these +regulations; firmly purposing to burn the sleeper, if sleep he ever did, at +the very first opportunity, and scatter his ashes to the winds. Then they +would fight for the Empire among themselves; each, meanwhile, was mainly +occupied in striving to gain the rebels over to his interest, insomuch that +the people grew more miserable day by day.</p> + +<p>And as the aged Emperor waxed more and more feeble, he began to see +visions. Legions of little black imps surrounded him crying, "We are thy +sins, and would be punished—would'st thou by living for ever deprive +us of our due?" And fair female forms came veiled with drooping heads, and +murmured, "We are thy virtues, and would be rewarded—would'st thou +cheat us?" And other figures came, dark but lovely, and whispered, "We are +thy dead friends who have long waited for thee—would'st thou take to +thyself new friends, and forget us?" And others said, "We are thy +memories—wilt thou live on till we are all withered in thy heart?" +And others said, "We are thy strength and thy beauty, thy memory and thy +wit—canst thou live, knowing thou wilt never see us more?" And at +last came two warders, officers of the King of Death, and one of them was +laughing. And the other asked why he laughed, and he replied:</p> + +<p>"I laugh at the Emperor, who thinks to escape our master, not knowing +that the moment of his decease was engraved with a pen of iron upon a rock +of adamant a million million years or ever this world was."</p> + +<p>"And when comes it?" asked the other.</p> + +<p>"In ten minutes," said the first.</p> + +<p>When the Emperor heard this he was wild with terror, and tottered to the +couch on which the Sleeping Beauty lay. "Oh, awake!" he cried, "awake and +save me ere it is too late!" And, oh wonder! the sleeper stirred, and +opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>If she had been so beautiful while sleeping, what was she when awake! +But the love of life had overcome the love of beauty in the Emperor's +bosom, and he saw not the eyes like stars, and the bloom as of peaches and +lilies, or the aspect grand and smiling as daybreak. He could only cry, +"Give me the potion, lest I die, give me the potion!"</p> + +<p>"That cannot I," she said. "The secret was known only to my +daughter."</p> + +<p>"Who is thy daughter?"</p> + +<p>"The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern."</p> + +<p>"That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so +fresh?</p> + +<p>"Even so," she said, "I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy +years. When I awoke she was withered and decrepit: I youthful as when I +closed my eyes. But she had learned the secret, which I never knew."</p> + +<p>"The Bonze shall be crucified!" yelled the Emperor.</p> + +<p>"It is too late," said she; "he is torn in pieces already."</p> + +<p>"By whom?"</p> + +<p>"By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee."</p> + +<p>And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people, +headed by the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal +Bonze), who plunged a sword into the Emperor's breast, exclaiming:</p> + +<p>"He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose +the life which he has." Words, saith the historian Li, which have been +thought worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of +Confucius.</p> + +<p>And the people were crying, "Kill the sorceress!" But she looked upon +them, and they cried, "Be our Empress!"</p> + +<p>"Remember," said she, "that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred +years!"</p> + +<p>"Would," said they, "that it might be a hundred thousand!"</p> + +<p>So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously. Among her good acts is +enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze. Since, however, +they have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild beasts +have lost their ancient respect for them, and devour them with no less +appetite than the members of other sects and denominations.</p> <a +id="p40"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>ABDALLAH THE ADITE</h2> + +<p>An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting +himself to the pursuit of religion and alchemy. Of his creed it could only +be said that it was so much better than that of his neighbours as to cause +him to be commonly esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper. But the better +informed deemed him a Nestorian monk, who had retired into the wilderness +on account of differences with his brethren, who sought to poison him.</p> + +<p>The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain +inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light concerning +the nature of demons. But he found that Sergius could give him no +information on that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so wisely and +beautifully on holy things, that his pupil's intellect was enlightened, and +his enthusiasm was inflamed, and he longed to go forth and instruct the +ignorant people around him; the Saracens, and the Sabaeans, and the +Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, and the Baphometites, and the +Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient Manichees.</p> + +<p>"Nay, good youth," said Sergius, "I have renounced the sending forth of +missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the Prophet +Abdallah."</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed the youth, "was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?"</p> + +<p>"Even so," said Sergius. "Hearken to his history.</p> + +<p>"Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he +was first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most +simple-minded and well-intentioned of youths. I always called him son, a +title I have never bestowed on another. Like thee, he had compassion on the +darkness around him, and craved my leave to go forth and dispel it.</p> + +<p>"'My son,' said I, 'I will not restrain thee: thou art no longer a +child. Thou hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and +knowest that poison was administered to me personally on account of my +inability to perceive the supernatural light emanating from the navel of +Brother Gregory. Thou art aware that thou wilt be beaten with rods and +pricked with goads, chained and starved in a dungeon, very probably +blinded, very possibly burned with fire?'</p> + +<p>"'All these things I am prepared to undergo,' said Abdallah; and he +embraced me and bid me farewell.</p> + +<p>"After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his +bones protruded through his skin.</p> + +<p>"'Whence are these weals and scars?' asked I, 'and what signifies this +protrusion of thy bones?'</p> + +<p>"'The weals and the scars,' answered he, 'proceed from the floggings +inflicted upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by reason +of the omission of his officers to furnish me with either food or drink in +the dungeon wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.'</p> + +<p>"'O my son,' exclaimed I, 'in the eyes of faith and right reason these +scars are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones is +like the beholding of hidden treasure!'</p> + +<p>"And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he +entirely fail therein. And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and +sent him forth a second time into the world.</p> + +<p>"And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and +bruises, but comely and somewhat fat.</p> + +<p>"'Whence this sleekness of body, my son?' I asked.</p> + +<p>"'Through the charity of the Caliph's wives,' he answered, 'who have fed +me secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good work +each of them in the world to come would have seven husbands.'</p> + +<p>"'How knewest thou this, my son?' I inquired.</p> + +<p>"'In truth, father,' he said, 'I did not know it; but I thought it +probable.'</p> + +<p>"'O my son! my son!' exclaimed I, 'thou art on a dangerous road. To win +over weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a +future life, whereof thou knowest no more than they do! Knowest thou not +that the inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and spiritual +nature? Did I ever promise any disciple any recompense for his +enlightenment and good deeds, save flogging, starvation, and burning?'</p> + +<p>"'Never, father," said he, 'and therefore thou hast had no follower of +thy law save one, and he hath broken it.'</p> + +<p>"He left me after a shorter stay than before, and again went forth to +preach. After a long time he returned in good condition of body, yet +manifestly having something upon his mind.</p> + +<p>"'Father,' he said, 'thy son hath preached with faithfulness and +acceptance, and turned thousands unto righteousness. But a sorcerer hath +arisen, saying, "Why follow ye Abdallah, seeing that he breathes not fire +out of his mouth and nostrils?" And the people give ear unto the words that +come from this man's lips, when they behold the flame that cometh from his +nose. And unless thou teachest me to do as he doth I shall assuredly +perish.'</p> + +<p>"And I told Abdallah that it was better to perish for the truth's sake +than to prolong life by lies and deceit. But he wept and lamented exceeding +sore, and in the end he prevailed with me; and I taught him to breathe +flame and smoke out of a hollow nut filled with combustible powder. And I +took a certain substance called soap, but little known in this country, and +anointed his feet therewith. And when he and the sorcerer met, both +breathing flame, the people knew not which to follow; but when Abdallah +walked over nine hot ploughshares, and the sorcerer could not touch one of +them, they beat his brains out, and became Abdallah's disciples.</p> + +<p>"A long time afterward Abdallah came to me again, this time with a +joyful, and yet with somewhat of a troubled look, carrying a camel-hair +blanket, which he undid, and lo! it was full of bones.</p> + +<p>"'O father,' he said, 'I bring thee happy tidings. We have found the +bones of the camel of the prophet Ad, upon which his revelation was +engraved by him.'</p> + +<p>"'If this be so,' said I, 'thou art acquainted with the precepts of the +prophet, and hast no need of mine.'</p> + +<p>"'Nay, but father,' said he, 'although the revelation was without +question originally engraved by the prophet on these very bones, it hath +come to pass by the injury of time that not one letter of his writing can +be distinguished. I have therefore come to ask thee to write it over +again.'</p> + +<p>"'What!' I exclaimed, 'I forge a revelation in the name of the prophet +Ad! Get thee behind me!'</p> + +<p>"'Thou knowest, father,' he rejoined, 'that if we had the original words +of the prophet Ad here they would profit us nought, as by reason of their +antiquity none would understand them. Seeing therefore that I myself cannot +write, it is meet that thou shouldst set down in his name those things +which he would have desired to deliver had he been now among us; but if +thou wilt not, I shall ask Brother Gregory.'</p> + +<p>"And when I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and +impostor my spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad +myself. And I was heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable +precepts, and more especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a +certain inclination thereunto in my disciple.</p> + +<p>"After many days he came again, and this time he was in violent terror +and agitation, and hair was wanting to the lower part of his +countenance.</p> + +<p>"'O Abdallah,' I inquired, 'where is thy beard?'</p> + +<p>"'In the hands of my ninth wife,' said he.</p> + +<p>"'Apostate!' I exclaimed, 'hast thou dared to espouse more wives than +one? Rememberest thou not what is written in the Book of the prophet +Ad?'</p> + +<p>"'O father,' he said, 'the revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so +exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath been +supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of Gregory, +as I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my dictation, +an accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O Sergius. In this +gloss it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth part of the soul of +man, the prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now call ourselves) to take +but one wife, doth instruct us to take nine; to espouse a tenth would, I +grant, be damnable. It ensues, therefore, that having become enamoured of a +most charming young virgin, I am constrained to repudiate one of the wives +whom I have taken already. To this, each thinking that it may be her turn +speedily, if not now, they will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me +as thou seest, and the dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of +peace, compared to my seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to +disclose to the people the fact, of which they have unhappily become aware, +that the revelation of the blessed Ad is not written upon the bones of a +camel at all, but of a cow, and will therefore be accounted spurious, +inasmuch as the prophet is not recorded to have ridden upon this quadruped. +And seeing that thou didst inscribe the characters, O father, I cannot but +fear that the fury of the people will extend unto thee, and that thou wilt +be even in danger of thy life from them.'</p> + +<p>"This argument of Abdallah's had much weight with me, and I the more +readily consented to his request as he did not on this occasion require any +imposture at my hands, but merely the restitution of his domestic peace. +And I went with him to his wives, and discoursed with them, and they agreed +to abide by my sentence. And, willing to please him, I directed that he +should marry the beautiful virgin, and put away one of his wives who was +old and ugly, and endowed with the dispositions of Sheitan.</p> + +<p>"'O father,' said Abdallah, 'thou hast brought me from death unto life! +And thou, Zarah,' he continued, 'wilt lose nought, but gain exceedingly, in +becoming the spouse of the wise and virtuous Sergius.'</p> + +<p>"'I marry Zarah!' I exclaimed, 'I! a monk!'</p> + +<p>"'Surely,' said he, 'thou would'st not take away her husband without +giving her another in his stead?'</p> + +<p>"'If he does I will throttle him,' cried Zarah.</p> + +<p>"And I wept sore, and made great intercession. And it was agreed that +there should be a delay of forty days, in which space if any one else would +marry Zarah, I should be free of her. And I promised all my substance to +any one who would do this, and no one was found. And she was offered to +thirteen criminals doomed to suffer death, and they all chose death. And at +the last I was constrained to marry her. And truly I have now the comfort +of thinking that if I have offended by encouraging Abdallah's deceits, or +otherwise, the debt is paid, and Eternal Justice hath now nothing against +me; for verily I was an inmate of Gehenna until it came to pass that she +was herself translated thither. And respecting the manner of her +translation, inquire not thou too curiously. It was doubtless a token of +the displeasure of Heaven at her enormities that the water of the well of +Kefayat, which had been known as the Diamond of the Desert, became about +this time undrinkable, and pernicious to man and beast.</p> + +<p>"As I sat in my dwelling administering to the estate of my deceased +wife, which consisted principally of wines and strong liquors, Abdallah +again appeared before me.</p> + +<p>"'Hast thou come,' said I, 'to solicit me to abet thee in any new +imposture? Know, once for all, that I will not.'</p> + +<p>"'On the contrary,' said he, 'I am come to set thee at ease by proving +to thee that I shall not again require thy assistance. Follow me.'</p> + +<p>"And I followed him to a great plain, where was a host of armed horsemen +and footmen, more than I could number. And they bore banners on which the +name of Abdallah was embroidered in letters of gold. And in the midst was +an ark of gold, with the bones of Ad's camel, or cow. And by this was a +great pile of the heads of men, and warriors were continually casting more +and more upon the heap.</p> + +<p>"'How many?' asked Abdallah.</p> + +<p>"'Twelve thousand, O Apostle of God,' answered they, 'but there are more +to come.'</p> + +<p>"'Thou monster!' said I to Abdallah.</p> + +<p>"'Nay, father,' said he, 'there will not be more than sixteen thousand +in all, and these men were unbelievers. Moreover we have spared such of +their women as were young and handsome, and have taken them for our +concubines, as is ordained in the eleventh supplement to the Book of Ad, +just promulgated by my authority. But come, I have other things to manifest +unto thee.'</p> + +<p>"And he led me where a stake was driven into the earth, and a man was +chained unto it, and fuel was heaped all around him, and many stood by with +lighted torches in their hands.</p> + +<p>"'O Abdallah,' I exclaimed, 'wherefore this atrocity?'</p> + +<p>"'This man,' he replied, 'is a blasphemer, who hath said that the Book +of Ad is written on the bones of a cow.'</p> + +<p>"'But it is written on the bones of a cow! 'I cried.</p> + +<p>"'Even so,' said he, 'and therefore is his heresy the more damnable, and +his punishment the more exemplary. Had it been indeed written on the bones +of a camel, he might have affirmed what pleased him.'</p> + +<p>"And I shook off the dust from my feet, and hastened to my dwelling. The +rest of Abdallah's acts thou knowest, and how he fell warring with the +Carmathians. And now I ask thee, art thou yet minded to go forth as a +missionary of the truth?"</p> + +<p>"O Sergius," said the young man, "I perceive that the temptations are +greater, and the difficulties far surpassing what I had thought. Yet will I +go, and I trust by Heaven's grace not to fail utterly."</p> + +<p>"Then go," said Sergius, "and Heaven's blessing go with thee! Come back +in ten years, should I be living, and if thou canst declare that thou hast +forged no scriptures, and worked no miracles, and persecuted no +unbelievers, and flattered no potentate, and bribed no one with the promise +of aught in heaven or earth, I will give thee the philosopher's stone."</p> +<a id="p50"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>ANANDA THE MIRACLE WORKER</h2> + +<p>The holy Buddha, Sakhya Muni, on dispatching his apostles to proclaim +his religion throughout the peninsula of India, failed not to provide them +with salutary precepts for their guidance. He exhorted them to meekness, to +compassion, to abstemiousness, to zeal in the promulgation of his doctrine, +and added an injunction never before or since prescribed by the founder of +any religion—namely, on no account to perform any miracle.</p> + +<p>It is further related, that whereas the apostles experienced +considerable difficulty in complying with the other instructions of their +master, and sometimes actually failed therein, the prohibition to work +miracles was never once transgressed by any of them, save only the pious +Ananda, the history of whose first year's apostolate is recorded as +follows.</p> + +<p>Ananda repaired to the kingdom of Magadha, and instructed the +inhabitants diligently in the law of Buddha. His doctrine being acceptable, +and his speech persuasive, the people hearkened to him willingly, and began +to forsake the Brahmins whom they had previously revered as spiritual +guides. Perceiving this, Ananda became elated in spirit, and one day he +exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"How blessed is the apostle who propagates truth by the efficacy of +reason and virtuous example, combined with eloquence, rather than error by +imposture and devil-mongering, like those miserable Brahmins!"</p> + +<p>As he uttered this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was +diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from him, +insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first mocked, then +hooted, and finally pelted him.</p> + +<p>When matters had reached this pass, Ananda lifted his eyes and discerned +a number of Brahmins of the lower sort, busy about a boy who lay in a fit +upon the ground. They had long been applying exorcisms and other approved +methods with scant success, when the most sagacious among them +suggested:</p> + +<p>"Let us render the body of this patient an uncomfortable residence for +the demon; peradventure he will then cease to abide therein."</p> + +<p>They were accordingly engaged in branding the sufferer with hot irons, +filling his nostrils with smoke, and otherwise to the best of their ability +disquieting the intrusive devil. Ananda's first thought was, "The lad is in +a fit;" the second, "It were a pious deed to deliver him from his +tormentors;" the third, "By good management this may extricate me from my +present uncomfortable predicament, and redound to the glory of the most +holy Buddha."</p> + +<p>Yielding to this temptation, he strode forward, chased away the Brahmins +with an air of authority, and, uplifting his countenance to heaven, recited +the appellations of seven devils. No effect ensuing, he repeated seven +more, and so continued until, the fit having passed off in the course of +nature, the patient's paroxysms ceased, he opened his eyes, and Ananda +restored him to his relatives. But the people cried loudly, "A miracle! a +miracle!" and when Ananda resumed his instructions, they gave heed to him, +and numbers embraced the religion of Buddha. Whereupon Ananda exulted, and +applauded himself for his dexterity and presence of mind, and said to +himself:</p> + +<p>"Surely the end sanctifies the means,"</p> + +<p>As he propounded this heresy, the eminence of his merits was reduced to +the dimensions of a mole-hill, and he ceased to be of account in the eyes +of any of the saints, save only of Buddha, whose compassion is +inexhaustible.</p> + +<p>The fame of his achievement, nevertheless, was bruited about the whole +country, and soon reached the ears of the king, who sent for him, and +inquired if he had actually expelled the demon.</p> + +<p>Ananda replied in the affirmative.</p> + +<p>"I am indeed rejoiced," returned the king, "as thou now wilt without +doubt proceed to heal <i>my</i> son, who has lain in a trance for +twenty-nine days."</p> + +<p>"Alas! dread sovereign," modestly returned Ananda, "how should the +merits which barely suffice to effect the cure of a miserable Pariah avail +to restore the offspring of an Elephant among Kings?"</p> + +<p>"By what process are these merits acquired?" demanded the monarch.</p> + +<p>"By the exercise of penance," responded Ananda, "in virtue of which the +austere devotee quells the winds, allays the waters, expostulates +convincingly with tigers, carries the moon in his sleeve, and otherwise +performs all acts and deeds appropriate to the character of a peripatetic +thaumaturgist."</p> + +<p>"This being so," answered the king, "thy inability to heal my son +manifestly arises from defect of merit, and defect of merit from defect of +penance. I will therefore consign thee to the charge of my Brahmins, that +they may aid thee to fill up the measure of that which is lacking."</p> + +<p>Ananda vainly strove to explain that the austerities to which he had +referred were entirely of a spiritual and contemplative character. The +Brahmins, enchanted to get a heretic into their clutches, immediately +seized upon him, and conveyed him to one of their temples. They stripped +him, and perceived with astonishment that not one single weal or scar was +visible anywhere on his person. "Horror!" they exclaimed; "here is a man +who expects to go to heaven in a whole skin!" To obviate this breach of +etiquette, they laid him upon his face, and flagellated him until the +obnoxious soundness of cuticle was entirely removed. They then departed, +promising to return next day and operate in a corresponding manner upon the +anterior part of his person, after which, they jeeringly assured him, his +merits would be in no respect less than those of the saintly Bhagiratha, or +of the regal Viswamitra himself.</p> + +<p>Ananda lay half dead upon the floor of the temple, when the sanctuary +was illuminated by the apparition of a resplendent Glendoveer, who thus +addressed him:</p> + +<p>"Well, backsliding disciple, art thou yet convinced of thy folly?"</p> + +<p>Ananda relished neither the imputation on his orthodoxy nor that on his +wisdom. He replied, notwithstanding, with all meekness:</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid that I should repine at any variety of martyrdom that +tends to the propagation of my master's faith."</p> + +<p>"Wilt thou then first be healed, and moreover become the instrument of +converting the entire realm of Magadha?"</p> + +<p>"How shall this be accomplished?" demanded Ananda.</p> + +<p>"By perseverance in the path of deceit and disobedience," returned the +Glendoveer.</p> + +<p>Ananda winced, but maintained silence in the expectation of more +explicit directions.</p> + +<p>"Know," pursued the spirit, "that the king's son will revive from his +trance at the expiration of the thirtieth day, which takes place at noon +to-morrow. Thou hast but to proceed at the fitting period to the couch +whereon he is deposited, and, placing thy hand upon his heart, to command +him to rise forthwith. His recovery will be ascribed to thy supernatural +powers, and the establishment of Buddha's religion will result. Before this +it will be needful that I should perform an actual cure upon thy back, +which is within the compass of my capacity. I only request thee to take +notice, that thou wilt on this occasion be transgressing the precepts of +thy master with thine eyes open. It is also meet to apprise thee that thy +temporary extrication from thy present difficulties will only involve thee +in others still more formidable."</p> + +<p>"An incorporeal Glendoveer is no judge of the feelings of a flayed +apostle," thought Ananda. "Heal me," he replied, "if thou canst, and +reserve thy admonitions for a more convenient opportunity."</p> + +<p>"So be it," returned the Glendoveer; and as he extended his hand over +Ananda, the latter's back was clothed anew with skin, and his previous +smart simultaneously allayed. The Glendoveer vanished at the same moment, +saying, "When thou hast need of me, pronounce but the incantation, <i>Gnooh +Imdap Inam Mua</i>, [*] and I will immediately be by thy side."</p> <p +class="footnote">*) The mystic formula of the Buddhists, read +backwards. </p> + +<p>The anger and amazement of the Brahmins may be conceived when, on +returning equipped with fresh implements of flagellation, they discovered +the salubrious condition of their victim. Their scourges would probably +have undergone conversion into halters, had they not been accompanied by a +royal officer, who took the really triumphant martyr under his protection, +and carried him off to the palace. He was speedily conducted to the young +prince's couch, whither a vast crowd attended him. The hour of noon not +having yet arrived, Ananda discreetly protracted the time by a seasonable +discourse on the impossibility of miracles, those only excepted which +should be wrought by the professors of the faith of Buddha. He then +descended from his pulpit, and precisely as the sun attained the zenith +laid his hand upon the bosom of the young prince, who instantly revived, +and completed a sentence touching the game of dice which had been +interrupted by his catalepsy.</p> + +<p>The people shouted, the courtiers went into ecstasies, the countenances +of the Brahmins assumed an exceedingly sheepish expression. Even the king +seemed impressed, and craved to be more particularly instructed in the law +of Buddha. In complying with this request, Ananda, who had made marvellous +progress in worldly wisdom during the last twenty-four hours, deemed it +needless to dilate on the cardinal doctrines of his master, the misery of +existence, the need of redemption, the path to felicity, the prohibition to +shed blood. He simply stated that the priests of Buddha were bound to +perpetual poverty, and that under the new dispensation all ecclesiastical +property would accrue to the temporal authorities.</p> + +<p>"By the holy cow!" exclaimed the monarch, "this is something like a +religion!"</p> + +<p>The words were scarcely out of the royal lips ere the courtiers +professed themselves converts. The multitude followed their example. The +Brahminical church was promptly disestablished and disendowed, and more +injustice was committed in the name of the new and purified religion in one +day than the old corrupt one had occasioned in a hundred years.</p> + +<p>Ananda had the satisfaction of feeling able to forgive his adversaries, +and of valuing himself accordingly; and to complete his felicity, he was +received in the palace, and entrusted with the education of the king's son, +which he strove to conduct agreeably to the precepts of Buddha. This was a +task of some delicacy, as it involved interference with the princely +youth's favourite amusement, which had previously consisted in torturing +small reptiles.</p> + +<p>After a short interval Ananda was again summoned to the monarch's +presence. He found his majesty in the company of two most ferocious +ruffians, one of whom bore a huge axe, and the other an enormous pair of +pincers.</p> + +<p>"My chief executioner and my chief tormentor," said the king.</p> + +<p>Ananda expressed his gratification at becoming acquainted with such +exalted functionaries.</p> + +<p>"Thou must know, most holy man," resumed the king, "that need has again +arisen for the exercise of fortitude and self-denial on thy part. A +powerful enemy has invaded my dominions, and has impiously presumed to +discomfit my troops. Well might I feel dismayed, were it not for the +consolations of religion; but my trust is in thee, O spiritual father! It +is urgent that thou shouldst accumulate the largest amount of merit with +the least delay possible. I am unable to invoke the ministrations of thy +old friends the Brahmins to this end, they being, as thou knowest, in +disgrace, but I have summoned these trusty and experienced counsellors in +their room. I find them not wholly in accord. My chief tormentor, being a +man of mild temper and humane disposition, considers that it might at first +suffice to employ gentle measures, such, for example, as suspending thee +head downwards in the smoke of a wood fire, and filling thy nostrils with +red pepper. My chief executioner, taking, peradventure, a too professional +view of the subject, deems it best to resort at once to crucifixion or +impalement. I would gladly know thy thoughts on the matter."</p> + +<p>Ananda expressed, as well as his terror would suffer him, his entire +disapproval of both the courses recommended by the royal advisers.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the king, with an air of resignation, "if we cannot agree +upon either, it follows that we must try both. We will meet for that +purpose to-morrow morning at the second hour. Go in peace!"</p> + +<p>Ananda went, but not in peace. His alarm would have well-nigh deprived +him of his faculties if he had not remembered the promise made him by his +former deliverer. On reaching a secluded spot he pronounced the mystic +formula, and immediately became aware of the presence, not of a radiant +Glendoveer, but of a holy man, whose head was strewn with ashes, and his +body anointed with cow-dung.</p> + +<p>"Thy occasion," said the Fakir, "brooks no delay. Thou must immediately +accompany me, and assume the garb of a Jogi."</p> + +<p>Ananda rebelled excessively in his heart, for he had imbibed from the +mild and sage Buddha a befitting contempt for these grotesque and +cadaverous fanatics. The emergency, however, left him no resource, and he +followed his guide to a charnel house, which the latter had selected as his +domicile. There, with many lamentations over the smoothness of his hair and +the brevity of his nails, the Jogi besprinkled and besmeared Ananda +agreeably to his own pattern, and scored him with chalk and ochre until the +peaceful apostle of the gentlest of creeds resembled a Bengal tiger. He +then hung a chaplet of infants' skulls about his neck, placed the skull of +a malefactor in one of his hands and the thigh-bone of a necromancer in the +other, and at nightfall conducted him into the adjacent cemetery, where, +seating him on the ashes of a recent funeral pile, he bade him drum upon +the skull with the thigh-bone, and repeat after himself the incantations +which he began to scream out towards the western part of the firmament. +These charms were apparently possessed of singular efficacy, for scarcely +were they commenced ere a hideous tempest arose, rain descended in +torrents, phosphoric flashes darted across the sky, wolves and hyænas +thronged howling from their dens, and gigantic goblins, arising from the +earth, extended their fleshless arms towards Ananda, and strove to drag him +from his seat. Urged by frantic terror, and the example and exhortations of +his companion, he battered, banged, and vociferated, until on the very +verge of exhaustion; when, as if by enchantment, the tempest ceased, the +spectres disappeared, and joyous shouts and a burst of music announced the +occurrence of something auspicious in the adjoining city.</p> + +<p>"The hostile king is dead," said the Jogi; "and his army has dispersed. +This will be attributed to thy incantations. They are coming in quest of +thee even now. Farewell until thou again hast need of me."</p> + +<p>The Jogi disappeared, the tramp of a procession became audible, and soon +torches glared feebly through the damp, cheerless dawn. The monarch +descended from his state elephant, and, prostrating himself before Ananda, +exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Inestimable man! why didst thou not disclose that thou wert a Jogi? +Never more shall I feel the least apprehension of any of my enemies, so +long as thou continuest an inmate of this cemetery."</p> + +<p>A family of jackals were unceremoniously dislodged from a disused +sepulchre, which was allotted to Ananda for his future residence. The king +permitted no alteration in his costume, and took care that the food doled +out to him should have no tendency to impair his sanctity, which speedily +gave promise of attaining a very high pitch. His hair had already become as +matted and his nails as long as the Jogi could have desired, when he +received a visit from another royal messenger. The Rajah, so ran the regal +missive, had been suddenly and mysteriously attacked by a dangerous malady, +but confidently anticipated relief from Ananda's merits and +incantations.</p> + +<p>Ananda resumed his thigh-bone and his skull, and ruefully began to thump +the latter with the former, in dismal expectation of the things that were +to come. But the spell seemed to have lost its potency. Nothing more +unearthly than a bat presented itself, and Ananda was beginning to think +that he might as well desist when his reflections were diverted by the +apparition of a tall and grave personage, wearing a sad-coloured robe, and +carrying a long wand, who stood by his side as suddenly as though just +risen from the earth.</p> + +<p>"The caldron is ready," said the stranger.</p> + +<p>"What caldron?" demanded Ananda.</p> + +<p>"That wherein thou art about to be immersed."</p> + +<p>"I immersed in a caldron! wherefore?"</p> + +<p>"Thy spells," returned his interlocutor, "having hitherto failed to +afford his majesty the slightest relief, and his experience of their +efficacy on a former occasion forbidding him to suppose that they can be +inoperative, he is naturally led to ascribe to their pernicious influence +that aggravation of pain of which he has for some time past unfortunately +been sensible. I have confirmed him in this conjecture, esteeming it for +the interest of science that his anger should fall upon an impudent +impostor like thee rather than on a discreet and learned physician like +myself. He has consequently directed the principal caldron to be kept +boiling all night, intending to immerse thee therein at daybreak, unless he +should in the meantime derive some benefit from thy conjurations."</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" exclaimed Ananda, "whither shall I fly?"</p> + +<p>"Nowhere beyond this cemetery," returned the physician, "inasmuch as it +is entirely surrounded by the royal forces."</p> + +<p>"Wherein, then," demanded the agonized apostle, "doth the path of safety +lie?"</p> + +<p>"In this phial," answered the physician. "It contains a subtle poison. +Demand to be led before the king. Affirm that thou hast received a +sovereign medicine from the hands of benignant spirits. He will drink it +and perish, and thou wilt be richly rewarded by his successor."</p> + +<p>"Ayaunt, tempter!" cried Ananda, hurling the phial indignantly away. "I +defy thee! and will have recourse to my old deliverer—<i>Gnooh Imdap +Inam Mua!"</i> </p> + +<p>But the charm appeared to fail of its effect. No figure was visible to +his gaze, save that of the physician, who seemed to regard him with an +expression of pity as he gathered up his robes and melted rather than +glided into the encompassing darkness.</p> + +<p>Ananda remained, contending with himself. Countless times was he on the +point of calling after the physician and imploring him to return with a +potion of like properties to the one rejected, but something seemed always +to rise in his throat and impede his utterance, until, worn out by +agitation, he fell asleep and dreamed this dream.</p> + +<p>He thought he stood at the vast and gloomy entrance of Patala. [*] The +lugubrious spot wore a holiday appearance; everything seemed to denote a +diabolical gala. Swarms of demons of all shapes and sizes beset the portal, +contemplating what appeared to be preparations for an illumination. Strings +of coloured lamps were in course of disposition in wreaths and festoons by +legions of frolicsome imps, chattering, laughing, and swinging by their +tails like so many monkeys. The operation was directed from below by +superior fiends of great apparent gravity and respectability. These bore +wands of office, tipped with yellow flames, wherewith they singed the tails +of the imps when such discipline appeared to them to be requisite. Ananda +could not refrain from asking the reason of these festive preparations.</p> +<p class="footnote">*) The Hindoo Pandemonium. </p> + +<p>"They are in honour," responded the demon interrogated, "of the pious +Ananda, one of the apostles of the Lord Buddha, whose advent is hourly +expected among us with much eagerness and satisfaction."</p> + +<p>The horrified Ananda with much difficulty mustered resolution to inquire +on what account the apostle in question was necessitated to take up his +abode in the infernal regions.</p> + +<p>"On account of poisoning," returned the fiend laconically.</p> + +<p>Ananda was about to seek further explanations, when his attention was +arrested by a violent altercation between two of the supervising +demons.</p> + +<p>"Kammuragha, evidently," croaked one.</p> + +<p>"Damburanana, of course," snarled the other.</p> + +<p>"May I," inquired Ananda of the fiend he had before addressed, "presume +to ask the signification of Kammuragha and Damburanana?"</p> + +<p>"They are two hells," replied the demon. "In Kammuragha the occupant is +plunged into melted pitch and fed with melted lead. In Damburanana he is +plunged into melted lead and fed with melted pitch. My colleagues are +debating which is the more appropriate to the demerits of our guest +Ananda."</p> + +<p>Ere Ananda had had time to digest this announcement a youthful imp +descended from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, +presented himself before the disputants.</p> + +<p>"Venerable demons," interposed he, "might my insignificance venture to +suggest that we cannot well testify too much honour for our visitor Ananda, +seeing that he is the only apostle of Buddha with whose company we are +likely ever to be indulged? Wherefore I would propose that neither +Kammuragha nor Damburanana be assigned for his residence, but that the +amenities of all the two hundred and forty-four thousand hells be combined +in a new one, constructed especially for his reception."</p> + +<p>The imp having thus spoken, the senior demons were amazed at his +precocity, and performed a <i>pradakshina</i>, exclaiming, "Truly thou art +a highly superior young devil!" They then departed to prepare the new +infernal chamber, agreeably to his recipe.</p> + +<p>Ananda awoke, shuddering with terror.</p> + +<p>"Why," he exclaimed, "why was I ever an apostle? O Buddha! Buddha! how +hard are the paths of saintliness! How prone to error are the well-meaning! +How huge is the absurdity of spiritual pride!"</p> + +<p>"Thou hast discovered that, my son?" said a gentle voice in his +vicinity.</p> + +<p>He turned and beheld the divine Buddha, radiant with a mild and +benignant light. A cloud seemed rolled away from his vision, and he +recognised in his master the Glendoveer, the Jogi, and the Physician.</p> + +<p>"O holy teacher!" exclaimed he in extreme perturbation, "whither shall I +turn? My sin forbids me to approach thee."</p> + +<p>"Not on account of thy sin art thou forbidden, my son," returned Buddha, +"but on account of the ridiculous and unsavoury plight to which thy knavery +and disobedience have reduced thee. I have now appeared to remind thee that +this day all my apostles meet on Mount Vindhya to render an account of +their mission, and to inquire whether I am to deliver thine in thy stead, +or whether thou art minded to proclaim it thyself."</p> + +<p>"I will render it with my own lips," resolutely exclaimed Ananda. "It is +meet that I should bear the humiliation of acknowledging my folly."</p> + +<p>"Thou hast said well, my son," replied Buddha, "and in return I will +permit thee to discard the attire, if such it may be termed, of a Jogi, and +to appear in our assembly wearing the yellow robe as beseems my disciple. +Nay, I will even infringe my own rule on thy behalf, and perform a not +inconsiderable miracle by immediately transporting thee to the summit of +Vindhya, where the faithful are already beginning to assemble. Thou wouldst +otherwise incur much risk of being torn to pieces by the multitude, who, as +the shouts now approaching may instruct thee, are beginning to extirpate my +religion at the instigation of the new king, thy hopeful pupil. The old +king is dead, poisoned by the Brahmins."</p> + +<p>"O master! master!" exclaimed Ananda, weeping bitterly, "and is all the +work undone, and all by my fault and folly?"</p> + +<p>"That which is built on fraud and imposture can by no means endure," +returned Buddha, "be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou shalt +proclaim my doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast this time +but a sorry account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou mayest truly +declare that thou hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if not in the +spirit, since none can assert that thou hast ever wrought any miracle."</p> +<a id="p66"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE CITY OF PHILOSOPHERS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Nature is manifold, not infinite, though the extent of the resources of +which she can dispose almost enables her to pass for such. Her cards are so +multitudinous that the pairs are easily shuffled into ages so far asunder +that their resemblance escapes remark. But sometimes her mischievous +daughter Fortune manages to thrust these duplicates into such conspicuous +places that their similarity cannot pass unobserved, and Nature is caught +plagiarising from herself. She is thus detected dealing a king—or +knave—a second time in the person of a king who has already fallen +from her pack as an emperor. Brilliant, careless, selfish, yet good-natured +<i>vauriens</i>, the Roman Emperor Gallienus and our Charles the Second +excelled in every art save the art of reigning, and might have excelled in +that also if they would have taken the trouble. The circumstances of their +reigns were in many respects as similar as their characters. Both were the +sons of grave and strict fathers, each of whom had met with terrible +misfortunes: one deprived of his liberty by his enemies, the other of his +head by his own subjects. Each of the sons had been grievously vexed by +rebels, but Charles's troubles from this quarter had mostly ended where +those of Gallienus began. Each saw his dominions ravaged by pestilence in +a manner beyond all former experience. The Goths destroyed the temple of +the Ephesian Diana, and the Dutch burned the English fleet at Chatham. +Charles shut up the Exchequer, and Gallienus debased the coinage. Charles +accepted a pension from Louis XIV., and Gallienus devolved the burden of +his Eastern provinces on a Syrian Emir. Their tastes and pursuits were as +similar as their histories. Charles excelled as a wit and a critic; +Gallienus as a poet and a gastronomer. Charles was curious about chemistry, +and founded the Royal Society. In the third century the conception of the +systematic investigation of nature did not exist. Gallienus, therefore, +could not patronise exact science; and the great literary light of the age, +Longinus, irradiated the court of Palmyra. But the Emperor bestowed his +favour in ample measure on the chief contemporary philosopher, Plotinus, +who strove to unite the characters of Plato and Pythagoras, of sage and +seer. Like Schelling in time to come, he maintained the necessity of a +special organ for the apprehension of philosophy, without perceiving that +he thereby proclaimed philosophy bankrupt, and placed himself on the level +of the Oriental hierophants, with whose sublime quackeries the modest sage +could not hope to contend. So extreme was his humility, that he would not +claim to have been consciously united to the Divinity more than four times +in his life; without condemning magic and thaumaturgy, he left their +practice to more adventurous spirits, and contented himself with the +occasional visits of a familiar demon in the shape of a serpent. He +experienced, however, frequent visitations of trance or ecstasy, sometimes +lasting for a long period; and it may have been in one of these that he was +inspired by the idea of asking the Emperor for a decayed city in Campania, +there to establish a philosophic commonwealth as nearly upon the model of +Plato's Republic as the degeneracy of the times would allow.</p> + +<p>"I cannot," said Gallienus, when the project had been explained to him, +"object in principle to aught so festive and jocose. The age is turned +upside down; its comedians are lamentable, and its sages ludicrous. It must +moreover, I apprehend, be sated with the earthquakes, famines, pestilences, +and barbarian invasions with which it hath been exclusively regaled for so +long, and must crave something enlivening, of the nature of thy +proposition. But whether, when we arrive at the consideration of ways and +means, I shall find my interview with my treasurer enlivening, is gravely +to be questioned. I have heard homilies enough on my prodigality, which +merely means that I prefer spending my treasures on myself to saving them +for my successor, whose title will probably have been acquired by cutting +my throat."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Plotinus, "that the expenses of administering an empire +must necessarily be prodigious. I am aware that the principal generals are +only kept to their allegiance by enormous bribes. I well understand that +the Empress must have pearls, and that the Roman populace must have +panthers; and that, since Egypt has revolted, the hippopotamus is worth his +weight in gold. I am further aware that the proposed colossal statue of +your Majesty in the same metal, including a staircase, with room in the +head for a child, like another Pallas in the brain of Zeus, must alone +involve very considerable outlay. But I am encouraged by your Majesty's +wise and statesmanlike measure of debasing the currency; since, money +having become devoid of value, there can be no difficulty in devoting any +amount of it to any purpose required."</p> + +<p>"Plotinus," said Gallienus, "in this age the devil is taking the +hindmost, and we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new +earthquake in Bithynia, and three days' darkness, also of outbreaks of +pestilence, and incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too +disagreeable to mention. At this moment some revolted legion is probably +forcing the purple upon some reluctant general; and the Persian king, a +great equestrian, is doubtless mounting his horse by the aid of my father's +back. If I had been an old Roman, I should by this time have avenged my +father, but I am a man of my age. Take the money for thy city, and see that +it yields me some amusement at any rate. I assume, of course, that thou +wilt exercise severe economy, and that cresses and spring water will be the +diet of thy philosophers. Farewell, I go to Gaul to encounter Postumus. +Willingly would I leave him in peace in Gaul if he would leave me in peace +in Italy; but I foresee that if I do not attack him there he will attack me +here. As if the Empire were not large enough for us all! What an ass the +fellow must be!"</p> + +<p>And so Gallienus changed his silk for steel, and departed for his Gallic +campaign, where he bore himself more stoutly than his light talk would +have led those who judged him by it to expect. Plotinus, provided with an +Imperial rescript, undertook the regulation of his philosophical +commonwealth in Campania, where a brief experience of architects and +sophists threw him into an ecstasy, not of joy, which endured an unusually +long time.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus's first sensation was one of +bodily hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his +philosophical Republic. In both respects it promised well to perceive that +his chamber was occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry, though he +was less gratified to observe his disciple busied, instead of with the +scrolls of the sages, with an enormous roll of accounts, which appeared to +be occasioning him much perplexity.</p> + +<p>"Porphyry!" cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his couch +in a moment.</p> + +<p>We pass over the mutual joy, the greetings, the administration of +restoratives and creature comforts, the eager interrogations of Porphyry +respecting the things his master had heard and seen in his trance, which +proved to be unspeakable.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man +of business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special request +as a trustee, "and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it possible that +the accounts connected with the installation of a few abstemious lovers of +wisdom can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk? But indeed, why few? +Peradventure all the philosophers of the earth have flocked to my +city."</p> + +<p>"It has, indeed," said Porphyry evasively, "been found necessary to +incur certain expenses not originally foreseen."</p> + +<p>"For a library, perhaps?" inquired Plotinus. "I remember thinking, just +before my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them +autographic, might require some special housing."</p> + +<p>"I rejoice to state," rejoined Porphyry, "that it is not these volumes +that have involved us in our present difficulties with the superintendent +of the Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing that they are now +impignorated with him."</p> + +<p>"Plato's manuscripts pawned!" exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. +"Wherefore?"</p> + +<p>"As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects +deemed of more importance by the majority of the philosophers."</p> + +<p>"For example?"</p> + +<p>"Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre."</p> + +<p>"Bath! Amphitheatre!" gasped Plotinus.</p> + +<p>"O dear master," remonstrated Porphyry, "thou didst not deem that +philosophers could be induced to settle in a spot devoid of these +necessaries? Not a single one would have stayed if I had not yielded to +their demands, which, as regarded the bath, involved the addition of +exedrae and of a sphaeristerium."</p> + +<p>"And what can they want with an amphitheatre?" groaned Plotinus.</p> + +<p>"They <i>say</i> it is for lectures," replied Porphyry;</p> + +<p>"I trust there is no truth in the rumour that the head of the Stoics is +three parts owner of a lion of singular ferocity."</p> + +<p>"I must see to this as soon as I can get about," said Plotinus, turning +to the accounts. "What's this? To couch and litter for head of Peripatetic +school!"</p> + +<p>"Who is so enormously fat," explained Porphyry, "that these conveniences +are really indispensable to him. The Peripatetic school is positively at a +standstill."</p> + +<p>"And no great matter," said Plotinus; "its master Aristotle was at best +a rationalist, without perception of the supersensual. What's this? To +Maximus, for the invocation of demons."</p> + +<p>"That," said Porphyry, "is our own Platonic dirty linen, and I heartily +wish we were washing it elsewhere. Thou must know, dear master, that during +thy trance the theurgic movement has attained a singular development, and +that thou art regarded with disdain by thy younger disciples as one wholly +behind the age, unacquainted with the higher magic, and who can produce no +other outward and visible token of the Divine favour than the occasional +companionship of a serpent."</p> + +<p>"I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken," +replied Plotinus, "provided that the adept shall have purified himself by a +fast of forty months."</p> + +<p>"It may be from neglect of this precaution," said Porphyry, "that our +Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and +Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good +spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to convey +than that virtue differs from vice, and that one's grandmother is a fitting +object of reverence."</p> + +<p>"I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean +scoffers," remarked Plotinus.</p> + +<p>"O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till thou +hast regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some oracle."</p> + +<p>"What meanest thou?" exclaimed Plotinus, "I insist upon knowing."</p> + +<p>Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling +portly personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus +recognised Theocles, the chief of the Stoics.</p> + +<p>"I rejoice, Plotinus," he began, "that thou hast at length emerged from +that condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might well +designate as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak no word +which can offend any man. Thou wilt now be able to reprehend the malice or +obtuseness of thy deputy, and to do me right in my contention with these +impure dogs."</p> + +<p>"Which be they?" asked Plotinus.</p> + +<p>"Do I not sufficiently indicate the followers of Epicurus?" demanded the +Stoic.</p> + +<p>"O master," explained Porphyry, "in allotting and fitting up apartments +designed for the respective sects of philosophers I naturally gave heed to +what I understood to be the principles of each. To the Epicureans, as +lovers of pleasure and luxury, I assigned the most commodious quarters, +furnished the same with soft cushions and costly hangings, and provided a +liberal table. I should have deemed it insulting to have offered any of +these things to the frugal followers of Zeno, and nothing can surpass my +astonishment at the manner in which the austere Theocles has incessantly +persecuted me for choice food and wine, stately rooms and soft +couches."</p> + +<p>"O Plotinus," replied Theocles, "let me make the grounds of my conduct +clear to thee. In the first place, the honour of my school is in my +keeping. What will the vulgar think when they see the sty of Epicurus +sumptuously adorned, and the porch of Zeno shabby and bare? Will they not +deem that the Epicureans are highly respected and the Stoics made of little +account? Furthermore, how can I and my disciples manifest our contempt for +gold, dainties, wine, fine linen, and all the other instruments of luxury, +unless we have them to despise? Shall we not appear like foxes, vilipending +the grapes that we cannot reach? Not so; offer me delicacies that I may +reject them, wine that I may pour it into the kennel, Tyrian purple that I +may trample upon it, gold that I may fling it away; if it break an +Epicurean's head, so much the better."</p> + +<p>"Plotinus," said Hermon, the chief of the Epicureans, who had meanwhile +entered the apartment, "let this hypocrite have what he wants, and send him +away. I and my followers are perfectly willing to remove at once into the +inferior apartments, and leave ours for his occupation with all their +furniture, and the reversion of our bill of fare. Thou should'st know that +the imputations of the vulgar against our sect are the grossest calumnies. +The Epicurean places happiness in tranquil enjoyment, not in luxury or +sensual pleasures. There is not a thing I possess which I am not perfectly +willing to resign, except the society of my female disciple."</p> + +<p>"Thy female disciple!" exclaimed the horrified Plotinus. "Thou art worse +than the Stoic!"</p> + +<p>"Plotinus," said the Epicurean, "consider well ere, as is the manner of +Platonists, thou committest thyself to a proposition of a transparently +foolish nature. Thou desirest to gather all sorts of philosophers around +thee, but to what end, if they are restrained from manifesting their +characteristic tenets? Thou mightest as well seek to illustrate the habits +of animals by establishing a menagerie in which panthers should eat grass, +and antelopes be dieted on rabbits. An Epicurean without his female +companion, unless by his own choice, is no more an Epicurean than a Cynic +is a Cynic without his rags and his impudence. Wilt thou take from me my +Pannychis, an object pleasing to the eye, and leave yonder fellow his +tatters and his vermin?"</p> + +<p>The apartment had gradually filled with philosophers, and Hermon was +pointing to a follower of Diogenes whose robe so fully bespoke his +obedience to his master's precepts that his skin seemed almost clean in +comparison.</p> + +<p>"Consider also," continued the Epicurean, "that thou art thyself by no +means exempt from scandal."</p> + +<p>"What does the man mean?" demanded Plotinus, turning to Porphyry.</p> + +<p>"Get them away," whispered the disciple, "and I will tell thee."</p> + +<p>Plotinus hastily conceded the point raised with reference to the +interesting Pannychis, and the philosophers went off to effect their +exchange of quarters. As soon as the room was clear, he repeated:</p> + +<p>"What <i>does</i> the man mean?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose he is thinking of Leaena," said Porphyry.</p> + +<p>"The most notorious character in Rome, who, finding her charms on the +wane, has lately betaken herself to philosophy?"</p> + +<p>"The same."</p> + +<p>"What of her?"</p> + +<p>"She has followed thee here. She affects the greatest devotion to thee. +She vows that nothing shall make her budge until thou hast recovered from +thy ecstasy, and admitted her as thy disciple. She has rejected numerous +overtures from the philosopher Theocles; entirely for thy sake, she +affirms. She comes three times a day to inquire respecting thy condition, +and I fear it must be acknowledged that she has once or twice managed to +get into thy chamber."</p> + +<p>"O ye immortal Gods!" groaned Plotinus.</p> + +<p>"Here she is!" exclaimed Porphyry, as a woman of masculine stature and +bearing, with the remains of beauty not unskilfully patched, forced an +entrance into the room.</p> + +<p>"Plotinus," she exclaimed, "behold the most impassioned of thy +disciples. Let us celebrate the mystic nuptials of Wisdom and Beauty. Let +the claims of my sex to philosophic distinction be vindicated in my +person."</p> + +<p>"The question of the admission of women to share the studies and society +of men," rejoined Plotinus, "is one by no means exempt from +difficulty."</p> + +<p>"How so? I deemed it had been determined long ago in favour of +Aspasia?"</p> + +<p>"Aspasia," said Plotinus, "was a very exceptional woman."</p> + +<p>"And am not I?"</p> + +<p>"I hope, that is, I conceive so," said Plotinus. "But one may be an +exceptional woman without being an Aspasia."</p> + +<p>"How so? Am I inferior to Aspasia in beauty?"</p> + +<p>"I should hope not," said Plotinus ambiguously.</p> + +<p>"Or in the irregularity of my deportment?"</p> + +<p>"I should think not," said Plotinus, with more confidence.</p> + +<p>"Then why does the Plato of our age hesitate to welcome his +Diotima?"</p> + +<p>"Because," said Plotinus, "you are not Diotima, and I am not Plato."</p> + +<p>"I am sure I am as much like Diotima as you are like Plato," retorted +the lady. "But let us come to our own time. Do I not hear that that +creature Pannychis has obtained the freedom of the philosophers' city, and +the right to study therein?"</p> + +<p>"She takes private lessons from Hermon, who is responsible for her."</p> + +<p>"The very thing!" exclaimed Leaena triumphantly. "I take private lessons +from thee, and thou art responsible for me. Venus! what's that?"</p> + +<p>The exclamation was prompted by the sudden appearance of an enormous +serpent, which, emerging from a chink in the wall, glided swiftly towards +the couch of Plotinus. He reached forward to greet it, uttering a cry of +pleasure.</p> + +<p>"My guardian, my tutelary dæmon," he exclaimed, "visible +manifestation of Æsculapius! Then I am not forsaken by the immortal +gods."</p> + +<p>"Take away the monster," cried Leaena, in violent agitation, "the nasty +thing! Plotinus, how can you? Oh, I shall faint! I shall die! Take it away, +I say. You must choose between it and me."</p> + +<p>"Then, Madam," said Plotinus, civilly but firmly, "I choose +<i>it</i>."</p> + +<p>"Thank Æsculapius we are rid of her," he added, as Leaena vanished +from the apartment.</p> + +<p>"I wish I knew that," said Porphyry.</p> + +<p>And indeed after no long time a note came up from Theocles, who was sure +that Plotinus would not refuse him that privilege of instructing a female +disciple which had been already, with such manifest advantage to +philosophical research, accorded to his colleague Hermon. No objection +could well be made, especially as Plotinus did not foresee how many +chambermaids, and pages, and cooks, and perfumers, and tiring women and +bath attendants would be required, ere Leaena could feel herself moderately +comfortable. How unlike the modest Pannychis! who wanted but half a bed, +which need not be stuffed with the down of hares or the feathers of +partridges, without which sleep refused to visit Leaena's eyelids.</p> + +<p>It was natural that Plotinus should appeal to Gallienus, now returned +from the Gallic expedition, but he could extract nothing save mysterious +intimations that the Emperor had his eye upon the philosophers, and that +they might find him among them when they least expected it. Plotinus's +spirits drooped, and Porphyry was almost glad when he again relapsed into +an ecstasy.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>When Plotinus's eyes were at length opened, they fell not this time upon +the faithful Porphyry, but upon two youthful followers of Plato who were +beguiling the tedium of their vigil at his bedside by a game of dice, which +prevented their observing his resuscitation. After a moment's hesitation +Plotinus resolved to lie quiet in the hopes of hearing something that might +indicate what influences were in the ascendant in the philosophical +republic. He had not long to wait.</p> + +<p>"Dice is dull work for long," said one of the young men, indolently +throwing himself back, and letting his caster fall upon the floor. "To +think how much better one might be employed, but for having to watch this +old fool here! I've a great mind to call up a slave."</p> + +<p>"All the slaves are sure to have gone to the show, unless any of them +should be Christians. Besides, Porphyry would hear you, he's only in a +cat's sleep," returned his companion.</p> + +<p>"Well, I mean to say it's a shame. All the town will be in the theatre +by this time."</p> + +<p>"How many gladiators, said you?"</p> + +<p>"Forty pairs, the best show Campania has seen time out of mind."</p> + +<p>"How has it all come about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, news comes of the death of Postumus, killed by his own soldiers, +and this passes as a great victory for want of a better, 'We must have a +day of thanksgiving,' says Theocles. 'Right,' says Leaena, 'I am dying to +see an exhibition of gladiators.' Theocles demurs at first, expecting to +have to find the money—but Leaena tugs at his beard, and he gives in. +Just at the nick of time the right sort of fellow pops up nobody knows +whence, a lanista with hair like curling helichryse, as Theocritus has it, +and a small army of gladiators, whom, out of devotion to the Emperor, he +offers to exhibit for nothing. Who so pleased as Theocles now? He takes the +chair as archon with Leaena by his side, and off goes every soul in the +place, except Pannychis, who cannot bear the sight of blood, and Porphyry, +who is an outrageous humanitarian, and us poor devils left in charge of +this old dreamer."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we leave him to mind himself? He isn't likely to awake +yet."</p> + +<p>"Try him with your cloak-pin." The student detached the implement in +question, which was about the size of a small stiletto. Feeling uncertain +what part of his person was to be the subject of experiment, Plotinus +judged it advisable to manifest his recovery in an unmistakable +fashion.</p> + +<p>"O dear Master, what joy!" cried both the students in a breath. +"Porphyry! Porphyry!"</p> + +<p>The trusty scholar appeared immediately, and under pretence of fetching +food, the two neophytes eloped to the amphitheatre.</p> + +<p>"What means all this, Porphyry?" demanded Plotinus sternly. "The City of +Philosophers polluted by human blood! The lovers of wisdom mingling with +the dregs of the rabble!"</p> + +<p>Porphyry's account, which Plotinus could only extract by consenting to +eat while his disciple talked, corresponded in all essential particulars +with that of the two young men.</p> + +<p>"And I see not," added he, "what we can do in the matter. Thisabomination is supposed to be in honour of the Emperor's victories. If we +interfere with it we shall be executed as rebels, supposing that we are not +first torn to pieces as rioters."</p> + +<p>"Porphyry," replied Plotinus, "I should esteem this disgrace to +philosophy a disgrace to myself if I did not my utmost to avert it. Remain +thou here, and perform my funeral rites if it be necessary."</p> + +<p>But to this Porphyry would by no means consent, and the two philosophers +proceeded to the amphitheatre together. It was so crowded that there was no +room on the seats for another person. Theocles was enthroned in the chair +of honour, his beard manifesting evident traces of the depilatories +administered by Leaena, who nevertheless sat by his side, her voluptuous +face gloating over the anticipated banquet of agony. The philosophic part +of the spectators were ranged all around, the remaining seats were occupied +by a miscellaneous public. The master of the gladiators, a man of +distinguished appearance, whose yellow locks gave him the aspect of a +barbarian prince, stood in the arena surrounded by his myrmidons. The entry +of Plotinus and Porphyry attracted his attention: he motioned to his +followers, and in an instant the philosophers were seized, bound, and +gagged without the excited assembly being in the least conscious of their +presence.</p> + +<p>Two men stepped out into the arena, both fine and attractive figures. +The athletic limbs, the fair complexion, the curling yellow hair of one +proclaimed the Goth; he lightly swung his huge sword in his right hand, and +looked as if his sole arm would easily put to flight the crowd of +effeminate spectators. The other's beauty was of another sort; young, +slender, pensive, spiritual, he looked like anything rather than a +gladiator, and held his downward pointed sword with a negligent grasp.</p> + +<p>"Guard thyself!" cried the Goth, placing himself in an attitude of +offence.</p> + +<p>"I spill not the blood of a fellow-creature," answered the other, +casting his sword away from him.</p> + +<p>"Coward!" yelled well-nigh every voice in the amphitheatre.</p> + +<p>"No," answered the youth with a grave smile, "Christian."</p> + +<p>His shield and helmet followed his sword, he stood entirely defenceless +before his adversary.</p> + +<p>"Throw him to my lion," cried Theocles.</p> + +<p>"Or thy lioness," suggested Hermon.</p> + +<p>This allusion to Leaena provoked a burst of laughter. Suddenly the Goth +aimed a mighty blow at the head of the unresisting man. A shorn curl fell +to the ground, the consummate skill of the swordsman averted all further +contact between his blade and the Christian, who remained erect and +smiling, without having moved a muscle or an eyelash.</p> + +<p>"Master," said the Goth, addressing the lanista, "I had rather fight ten +armed men than this unarmed one."</p> + +<p>"Good," returned his lord, with a gesture of approval. "Retire both of +you."</p> + +<p>A roar of disapprobation broke out from the spectators, which seemed not +to produce the slightest effect on the lanista.</p> + +<p>"Turn out the next pair," they cried.</p> + +<p>"I shall not," said he.</p> + +<p>"Wherefore?"</p> + +<p>"Because I do not choose."</p> + +<p>"Rogue! Cheat! Swindler! Cast him into prison! Throw him to the lion!" +Such epithets and recommendations rained from the spectators' seats, +accompanied by a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant the +yellow hair and common dress lay on the ground, and those who knew him not +by the features could by the Imperial ornaments recognise the Emperor +Gallienus. With no less celerity his followers, the Goth and the Christian +excepted, disencumbered themselves of their exterior vesture, and stood +forward in the character of Roman soldiers.</p> + +<p>"Friends," cried Gallienus, turning to the plebeian multitude, "I am not +about to balk you of your sport."</p> + +<p>At a sign from him the legionaries ascended to the seats allotted to the +philosophic portion of the audience, and a torrent of wisdom in their +persons, including that of Leaena, flung forth with the energy of a +catapult, descended abruptly and violently to the earth. They were +instantly seized and dragged into an erect attitude by the remainder of the +soldiery, who, amid the most tempestuous peals of laughter and applause +from the delighted public, thrust swords into their hands, ranged them in +opposite ranks, and summoned them to begin the fight and quit themselves +like men. It was equally ludicrous and pitiable to see the bald, mostly +grey-bearded men, their garments torn in their expulsion and their persons +bruised by the fall, confronting each other with quaking limbs, helplessly +brandishing their weapons or feebly calling their adversaries to come on, +while the soldiers prodded them from behind with spears, and urged them +into the close quarters they so anxiously desired to avoid. Plotinus, +helpless with his bonds and gag, looked on in impotent horror. Gallienus +was often cruel, but could he intend such a revolting massacre? There must +be something behind.</p> + +<p>The honour of developing the Emperor's purpose was reserved for +Theocles, who, with admirable presence of mind, had ever since he found he +must fight been engaged in trying to select the weakest antagonist. After +hesitating between the unwieldy chief of the Peripatetics and the feminine +Leaena he fixed on the latter, partly moved, perhaps, by the hope of +avenging his beard. With a martial cry he sprang towards her, and upraised +his weapon for a swashing blow. But he had sadly miscalculated. Leaena was +hardly less versed in the combats of Mars than in those of Venus, having, +in fact, commenced her distinguished career as a camp-follower of the +Emperor Gordian. A tremendous stroke caught him on the hand; his blade +dropped to the earth; why did not the fingers follow? Leaena elucidated the +problem by a still more violent blow on his face; torrents of blood gushed +forth indeed, but only from the nose. The sword doubled up; it had neither +point nor edge. Encouraged by this opportune discovery the philosophers +attacked each other with infinite spirit and valour. Infuriated by the +blows given and received, by the pokings and proddings of the military, and +the hilarious derision of the public, they cast away the shivered blades +and resorted to the weapons of Nature. They kicked, they cuffed, they +scratched, they tore the garments from each other's shoulders, they foamed +and rolled gasping in the yellow sand of the arena. At a signal from the +Emperor the portal of the amphitheatre was thrown open, and the whole mass +of clawing and cuffing philosophy was bundled ignominiously into the +street.</p> + +<p>By this time Gallienus was seated on his tribunal, and Plotinus, +released from his bonds, was standing by his side.</p> + +<p>"O Emperor," he murmured, deeply abashed, "what can I urge? Thou wilt +surely demolish my city!"</p> + +<p>"No, Plotinus," replied Gallienus, pointing to the Goth and the +Christian, "there are the men who will destroy the City of Philosophers. +Would that were all they will destroy!"</p> <a id="p86"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE DEMON POPE</h2> + +<p>"So you won't sell me your soul?" said the devil.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," replied the student, "I had rather keep it myself, if it's +all the same to you."</p> + +<p>"But it's not all the same to me. I want it very particularly. Come, +I'll be liberal. I said twenty years. You can have thirty."</p> + +<p>The student shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Forty!"</p> + +<p>Another shake.</p> + +<p>"Fifty!"</p> + +<p>As before.</p> + +<p>"Now," said the devil, "I know I'm going to do a foolish thing, but I +cannot bear to see a clever, spirited young man throw himself away. I'll +make you another kind of offer. We won't have any bargain at present, but I +will push you on in the world for the next forty years. This day forty +years I come back and ask you for a boon; not your soul, mind, or anything +not perfectly in your power to grant. If you give it, we are quits; if not, +I fly away with you. What say you to this?"</p> + +<p>The student reflected for some minutes. "Agreed," he said at last.</p> + +<p>Scarcely had the devil disappeared, which he did instantaneously, ere a +messenger reined in his smoking steed at the gate of the University of +Cordova (the judicious reader will already have remarked that Lucifer could +never have been allowed inside a Christian seat of learning), and, +inquiring for the student Gerbert, presented him with the Emperor Otho's +nomination to the Abbacy of Bobbio, in consideration, said the document, of +his virtue and learning, well-nigh miraculous in one so young. Such +messengers were frequent visitors during Gerbert's prosperous career. +Abbot, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, he was ultimately enthroned Pope on +April 2, 999, and assumed the appellation of Silvester the Second. It was +then a general belief that the world would come to an end in the following +year, a catastrophe which to many seemed the more imminent from the +election of a chief pastor whose celebrity as a theologian, though not +inconsiderable, by no means equalled his reputation as a necromancer.</p> + +<p>The world, notwithstanding, revolved scatheless through the dreaded +twelvemonth, and early in the first year of the eleventh century Gerbert +was sitting peacefully in his study, perusing a book of magic. Volumes of +algebra, astrology, alchemy, Aristotelian philosophy, and other such light +reading filled his bookcase; and on a table stood an improved clock of his +invention, next to his introduction of the Arabic numerals his chief legacy +to posterity. Suddenly a sound of wings was heard, and Lucifer stood by his +side.</p> + +<p>"It is a long time," said the fiend, "since I have had the pleasure of +seeing you. I have now called to remind you of our little contract, +concluded this day forty years."</p> + +<p>"You remember," said Silvester, "that you are not to ask anything +exceeding my power to perform."</p> + +<p>"I have no such intention," said Lucifer. "On the contrary, I am about +to solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope, I +desire that you would make me a Cardinal.</p> + +<p>"In the expectation, I presume," returned Gerbert, "of becoming Pope on +the next vacancy."</p> + +<p>"An expectation," replied Lucifer, "which I may most reasonably +entertain, considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue, and +the present condition of the Sacred College."</p> + +<p>"You would doubtless," said Gerbert, "endeavour to subvert the +foundations of the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and +licentiousness, render the Holy See odious and contemptible."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said the fiend, "I would extirpate heresy, and all +learning and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer no +man to read but the priest, and confine his reading to his breviary. I +would burn your books together with your bones on the first convenient +opportunity. I would observe an austere propriety of conduct, and be +especially careful not to loosen one rivet in the tremendous yoke I was +forging for the minds and consciences of mankind."</p> + +<p>"If it be so," said Gerbert, "let's be off!"</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, "you are willing to accompany me to the +infernal regions!"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and +Aristotle, and give place to the darkness against which I have been +contending all my life."</p> + +<p>"Gerbert," replied the demon, "this is arrant trifling. Know you not +that no good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing possible, +my empire would become intolerable to me, and I should be compelled to +abdicate?"</p> + +<p>"I do know it," said Gerbert, "and hence I have been able to receive +your visit with composure."</p> + +<p>"Gerbert," said the devil, with tears in his eyes, "I put it to +you—is this fair, is this honest? I undertake to promote your +interests in the world; I fulfil my promise abundantly. You obtain through +my instrumentality a position to which you could never otherwise have +aspired. Often have I had a hand in the election of a Pope, but never +before have I contributed to confer the tiara on one eminent for virtue and +learning. You profit by my assistance to the full, and now take advantage +of an adventitious circumstance to deprive me of my reasonable guerdon. It +is my constant experience that the good people are much more slippery than +the sinners, and drive much harder bargains."</p> + +<p>"Lucifer," answered Gerbert, "I have always sought to treat you as a +gentleman, hoping that you would approve yourself such in return. I will +not inquire whether it was entirely in harmony with this character to seek +to intimidate me into compliance with your demand by threatening me with a +penalty which you well knew could not be enforced. I will overlook this +little irregularity, and concede even more than you have requested. You +have asked to be a Cardinal. I will make you Pope—"</p> + +<p>"Ha!" exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide, +as the light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it.</p> + +<p>"For twelve hours," continued Gerbert. "At the expiration of that time +we will consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are more +anxious to divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to assume it, +I promise to bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my power to grant, +and not plainly inconsistent with religion or morals."</p> + +<p>"Done!" cried the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in a +moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely indistinguishable +save by their attire, and the fact that one limped slightly with the left +foot.</p> + +<p>"You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard," said Gerbert, +and, taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked door +to a secret chamber. As the door closed behind him he chuckled, and +muttered to himself, "Poor old Lucifer! Sold again!"</p> + +<p>If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it. He approached a large +slab of silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his personal +appearance with some dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>"I certainly don't look half so well without my horns," he soliloquised, +"and I am sure I shall miss my tail most grievously."</p> + +<p>A tiara and a train, however, made fair amends for the deficient +appendages, and Lucifer now looked every inch a Pope. He was about to call +the master of the ceremonies, and summon a consistory, when the door was +burst open, and seven cardinals, brandishing poniards, rushed into the +room.</p> + +<p>"Down with the sorcerer!" they cried, as they seized and gagged him.</p> + +<p>"Death to the Saracen!"</p> + +<p>"Practises algebra, and other devilish arts!"</p> + +<p>"Knows Greek!"</p> + +<p>"Talks Arabic!"</p> + +<p>"Reads Hebrew!"</p> + +<p>"Burn him!"</p> + +<p>"Smother him!"</p> + +<p>"Let him be deposed by a general council," said a young and +inexperienced Cardinal.</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid!" said an old and wary one, <i>sotto voce</i>.</p> + +<p>Lucifer struggled frantically, but the feeble frame he was doomed to +inhabit for the next eleven hours was speedily exhausted. Bound and +helpless, he swooned away.</p> + +<p>"Brethren," said one of the senior cardinals, "it hath been delivered by +the exorcists that a sorcerer or other individual in league with the demon +doth usually bear upon his person some visible token of his infernal +compact. I propose that we forthwith institute a search for this stigma, +the discovery of which may contribute to justify our proceedings in the +eyes of the world."</p> + +<p>"I heartily approve of our brother Anno's proposition," said another, +"the rather as we cannot possibly fail to discover such a mark, if, indeed, +we desire to find it."</p> + +<p>The search was accordingly instituted, and had not proceeded far ere a +simultaneous yell from all the seven cardinals indicated that their +investigation had brought more to light than they had ventured to +expect.</p> + +<p>The Holy Father had a cloven foot!</p> + +<p>For the next five minutes the Cardinals remained utterly stunned, +silent, and stupefied with amazement. As they gradually recovered their +faculties it would have become manifest to a nice observer that the Pope +had risen very considerably in their good opinion.</p> + +<p>"This is an affair requiring very mature deliberation," said one.</p> + +<p>"I always feared that we might be proceeding too precipitately," said +another.</p> + +<p>"It is written, 'the devils believe,'" said a third: "the Holy Father, +therefore, is not a heretic at any rate."</p> + +<p>"Brethren," said Anno, "this affair, as our brother Benno well remarks, +doth indeed call for mature deliberation. I therefore propose that, instead +of smothering his Holiness with cushions, as originally contemplated, we +immure him for the present in the dungeon adjoining hereunto, and, after +spending the night in meditation and prayer, resume the consideration of +the business tomorrow morning."</p> + +<p>"Informing the officials of the palace," said Benno, "that his Holiness +has retired for his devotions, and desires on no account to be +disturbed."</p> + +<p>"A pious fraud," said Anno, "which not one of the Fathers would for a +moment have scrupled to commit."</p> + +<p>The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and bore +him carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for his +detention. Each would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery, but each +felt that the eyes of his six brethren were upon him: and all, therefore, +retired simultaneously, each taking a key of the cell.</p> + +<p>Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards. He had the +most confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in his +present scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were the usual +concomitants of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to his taste, and +he wished he had been made acquainted with them sooner. The dungeon was not +only perfectly dark, but horribly cold, and the poor devil in his present +form had no latent store of infernal heat to draw upon. His teeth +chattered, he shivered in every limb, and felt devoured with hunger and +thirst. There is much probability in the assertion of some of his +biographers that it was on this occasion that he invented ardent spirits; +but, even if he did, the mere conception of a glass of brandy could only +increase his sufferings. So the long January night wore wearily on, and +Lucifer seemed likely to expire from inanition, when a key turned in the +lock, and Cardinal Anno cautiously glided in, bearing a lamp, a loaf, half +a cold roast kid, and a bottle of wine.</p> + +<p>"I trust," he said, bowing courteously, "that I may be excused any +slight breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from the +difficulty under which I labour of determining whether, under present +circumstances, 'Your Holiness,' or 'Your Infernal Majesty' be the form of +address most befitting me to employ."</p> + +<p>"Bub-ub-bub-boo," went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "I crave your Infernal Holiness's +forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!"</p> + +<p>And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the refection, +upon which the demon fell voraciously.</p> + +<p>"Why the devil, if I may so express myself," pursued Anno, "did not your +Holiness inform us that you <i>were</i> the devil? Not a hand would then +have been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my life for +the audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust of your +faithful Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously these many +years?"</p> + +<p>Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters.</p> + +<p>"I shall never forgive myself," protested the Cardinal, "for the part I +have borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to your +Majesty's bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart as +to express my penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to remember that I +believed myself to be acting in your Majesty's interest by overthrowing a +magician who was accustomed to send your Majesty upon errands, and who +might at any time enclose you in a box, and cast you into the sea. It is +deplorable that your Majesty's most devoted servants should have been thus +misled."</p> + +<p>"Reasons of State," suggested Lucifer.</p> + +<p>"I trust that they no longer operate," said the Cardinal. "However, the +Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is therefore +unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject further. I would now +humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, perhaps, your +Holiness, since I am about to speak of spiritual things, on the important +and delicate point of your Holiness's successor. I am ignorant how long +your Holiness proposes to occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are +aware that public opinion will not suffer you to hold it for a term +exceeding that of the pontificate of Peter. A vacancy, therefore, must one +day occur; and I am humbly to represent that the office could not be filled +by one more congenial than myself to the present incumbent, or on whom he +could more fully rely to carry out in every respect his views and +intentions."</p> + +<p>And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past +life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion. He had not, +however, proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another key +in the lock, and had just time to whisper impressively, "Beware of Benno," +ere he dived under a table.</p> + +<p>Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands. Warned by +the other lamp and the remains of Lucifer's repast that some colleague had +been beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be in the +field, he came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and preferred +his claim in much the same manner as Anno. While he was earnestly +cautioning Lucifer against this Cardinal as one who could and would cheat +the very Devil himself, another key turned in the lock, and Benno escaped +under the table, where Anno immediately inserted his finger into his right +eye. The little squeal consequent upon this occurrence Lucifer successfully +smothered by a fit of coughing.</p> + +<p>Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the same +disgust as Benno on seeing himself forestalled. So far as his requests +transpired they were moderate, but no one knows where he would have stopped +if he had not been scared by the advent of Cardinal No. 4. Up to this time +he had only asked for an inexhaustible purse, power to call up the Devil +<i>ad libitum</i>, and a ring of invisibility to allow him free access to +his mistress, who was unfortunately a married woman.</p> + +<p>Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning +Cardinal No. 5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as respected +Cardinal No. 4.</p> + +<p>Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the +Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them +together, and of unlimited non-residence. In the course of his harangue he +made use of the phrase <i>non obstantibus</i>, of which Lucifer immediately +took a note.</p> + +<p>What the seventh Cardinal would have solicited is not known, for he had +hardly opened his mouth when the twelfth hour expired, and Lucifer, +regaining his vigour with his shape, sent the Prince of the Church spinning +to the other end of the room, and split the marble table with a single +stroke of his tail. The six crouched and huddling Cardinals cowered +revealed to one another, and at the same time enjoyed the spectacle of his +Holiness darting through the stone ceiling, which yielded like a film to +his passage, and closed up afterwards as if nothing had happened. After the +first shock of dismay they unanimously rushed to the door, but found it +bolted on the outside. There was no other exit, and no means of giving an +alarm. In this emergency the demeanour of the Italian Cardinals set a +bright example to their ultramontane colleagues. "<i>Bisogna +pazienzia</i>," they said, as they shrugged their shoulders. Nothing could +exceed the mutual politeness of Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless that of +the two who had sought to poison each other. The Frenchman was held to have +gravely derogated from good manners by alluding to this circumstance, which +had reached his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman swore +so outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians +then and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should +ever be Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to this +day.</p> + +<p>Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed in +all the insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he thought his +visitor had probably had enough.</p> + +<p>"I should think so indeed," replied Lucifer. "But at the same time I +feel myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of the +loyalty of my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is needless +for me to devote any considerable amount of personal attention to +ecclesiastical affairs. I now claim the promised boon, which it will be in +no way inconsistent with thy functions to grant, seeing that it is a work +of mercy. I demand that the Cardinals be released, and that their +conspiracy against thee, by which I alone suffered, be buried in +oblivion."</p> + +<p>"I hoped you would carry them all off," said Gerbert, with an expression +of disappointment.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said the Devil. "It is more to my interest to leave them +where they are."</p> + +<p>So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth, sheepish +and crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than Lucifer had +expected from them, the cause was their entire bewilderment by what had +passed, and their utter inability to penetrate the policy of Gerbert, who +henceforth devoted himself even with ostentation to good works. They could +never quite satisfy themselves whether they were speaking to the Pope or to +the Devil, and when under the latter impression habitually emitted +propositions which Gerbert justly stigmatised as rash, temerarious, and +scandalous. They plagued him with allusions to certain matters mentioned in +their interviews with Lucifer, with which they naturally but erroneously +supposed him to be conversant, and worried him by continual nods and +titterings as they glanced at his nether extremities. To abolish this +nuisance, and at the same time silence sundry unpleasant rumours which had +somehow got abroad, Gerbert devised the ceremony of kissing the Pope's +feet, which, in a grievously mutilated form, endures to this day. The +stupefaction of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy Father had lost +his hoof surpasses all description, and they went to their graves without +having obtained the least insight into the mystery.</p> <a id="p99"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE CUPBEARER</h2> + +<p>The minister Photinius had fallen, to the joy of Constantinople. He had +taken sanctuary in the immense monastery adjoining the Golden Gate in the +twelfth region of the city, founded for a thousand monks by the patrician +Studius, in the year 463. There he occupied himself with the concoction of +poisons, the resource of fallen statesmen. When a defeated minister of our +own day is indisposed to accept his discomfiture, he applies himself to +poison the public mind, inciting the lower orders against the higher, and +blowing up every smouldering ember of sedition he can discover, trusting +that the conflagration thus kindled, though it consume the edifice of the +State, will not fail to roast his own egg. Photinius's conceptions of +mischief were less refined; he perfected his toxicological knowledge in the +medical laboratory of the monastery, and sought eagerly for an opportunity +of employing it; whether in an experiment upon the Emperor, or on his own +successor, or on some other personage, circumstances must determine.</p> + +<p>The sanctity of Studius's convent, and the strength of its monastic +garrison, rendered it a safe refuge for disgraced courtiers, and in this +thirtieth year of the Emperor Basil the Second (reckoning from his nominal +accession) it harboured a legion of ex-prime ministers, patriarchs, +archbishops, chief secretaries, hypati, anthypati, silentiarii, +protospatharii, and even spatharo-candidati. And this small army was +nothing to the host that, maimed or blinded or tonsured or all three, +dragged out their lives in monasteries or in dungeons or on rocky islets; +and these again were few in comparison with the spirits of the traitors or +the betrayed who wailed nightly amid the planes and cypresses of the +Aretae, or stalked through the palatial apartments of verdantique and +porphyry. But of those comparatively at liberty, but whose liberty was +circumscribed by the hallowed precincts of Studius, every soul was +plotting. And never, perhaps, in the corrupt Byzantine Court, where true +friendship had been unknown since Theodora quarrelled with Antonia, had so +near an approach to it existed as in this asylum of villains. A sort of +freemasonry came to prevail in the sanctuary: every one longed to know how +his neighbour's plot throve, and grudged not to buy the knowledge by +disclosing a little corner of his own. Thus rendered communicative, their +colloquies would travel back into the past, and as the veterans of intrigue +fought their battles over again, the most experienced would learn things +that made them open their eyes with amazement. "Ah!" they would hear, "that +is just where you were mistaken. You had bought Eromenus, but so had I, and +old Nicephorus had outbid us both." "You deemed the dancer Anthusa a sure +card, and knew not of her secret infirmity, of which I had been apprised by +her waiting woman." "Did you really know nothing of that sliding panel? And +were you ignorant that whatever one says in the blue chamber is heard in +the green?" "Yes, I thought so too, and I spent a mint of money before +finding out that the dog whose slaver that brazen impostor Panurgiades +pretended to sell me was no more mad than he was." After such rehearsals of +future dialogues by the banks of Styx, the fallen statesmen were observed +to appear exceedingly dejected, but the stimulus had become necessary to +their existence. None gossiped so freely or disclosed so much as Photinius +and his predecessor Eustathius, whom he had himself +displaced—probably because Eustathius, believing in nothing in heaven +or earth but gold, and labouring under an absolute privation of that metal, +was regarded even by himself as an extinct volcano.</p> + +<p>"Well," observed he one day, when discoursing with Photinius is an +unusually confidential mood, "I am free to say that for my own part I don't +think over much of poison. It has its advantages, to be sure, but to my +mind the disadvantages are even more conspicuous."</p> + +<p>"For example?" inquired Photinius, who had the best reason for confiding +in the efficacy of a drag administered with dexterity and discretion.</p> + +<p>"Two people must be in the secret at least, if not three," replied +Eustathius, "and cooks, as a rule, are a class of persons entirely unfit to +be employed in affairs of State."</p> + +<p>"The Court physician," suggested Photinius.</p> + +<p>"Is only available," answered Eustathius, "in case his Majesty should +send for him, which is most improbable. If he ever did, poison, praised be +the Lord! would be totally unnecessary and entirely superfluous."</p> + +<p>"My dear friend," said Photinius, venturing at this favourable moment on +a question he had been dying to ask ever since he had been an inmate of the +convent, "would you mind telling me in confidence, did you ever administer +any potion of a deleterious nature to his Sacred Majesty?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" protested Eustathius, with fervour. "I tried once, to be sure, +but it was no use."</p> + +<p>"What was the impediment?"</p> + +<p>"The perverse opposition of the cupbearer. It is idle attempting +anything of the kind as long as she is about the Emperor."</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i>!" exclaimed Photinius.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know <i>that</i>?" responded Eustathius, with an air and +manner that plainly said, "You don't know much."</p> + +<p>Humbled and ashamed, Photinius nevertheless wisely stooped to avow his +nescience, and flattering his rival on his superior penetration, led him to +divulge the State secret that the handsome cupbearer Helladius was but the +disguise of the lovely Helladia, the object of Basil's tenderest affection, +and whose romantic attachment to his person had already frustrated more +conspiracies than the aged plotter could reckon up.</p> + +<p>This intelligence made Photinius for a season exceedingly thoughtful. He +had not deemed Basil of an amorous complexion. At length he sent for his +daughter, the beautiful and virtuous Euprepia, who from time to time +visited him in the monastery.</p> + +<p>"Daughter," he said, "it appears to me that the time has now arrived +when thou mayest with propriety present a petition to the Emperor on behalf +of thy unfortunate father. Here is the document. It is, I flatter myself, +composed with no ordinary address; nevertheless I will not conceal from +thee that I place my hopes rather on thy beauty of person than on my beauty +of style. Shake down thy hair and dishevel it, so!—that is excellent. +Remember to tear thy robe some little in the poignancy of thy woe, and to +lose a sandal. Tears and sobs of course thou hast always at command, but +let not the frenzy of thy grief render thee wholly inarticulate. Here is a +slight memorandum of what is most fitting for thee to say: thy old nurse's +instructions will do the rest. Light a candle for St. Sergius, and watch +for a favourable opportunity."</p> + +<p>Euprepia was upright, candid, and loyal; but the best of women has +something of the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was +stimulated by her filial affection. Basil was for a moment fairly carried +away by the consummate fact of her performance and the genuine feeling to +her appeal; but he was himself again by the time he had finished perusing +his late minister's long-winded and mendacious memorial.</p> + +<p>"What manner of woman was thy mother?" he inquired kindly</p> + +<p>Euprepia was eloquent in praise of her deceased parent's perfections of +mind and person.</p> + +<p>"Then I can believe thee Photinius's daughter, which I might otherwise +have doubted," returned Basil. "As concerns him, I can only say, if he +feels himself innocent, let him come out of sanctuary, and stand his trial. +But I will give thee a place at Court."</p> + +<p>This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully +consented to his daughter's entering the Imperial court, exulting at +having got in the thin end of the wedge. She was attached to the person of +the Emperor's sister-in-law, the "Slayer of the Bulgarians" himself being a +most determined bachelor.</p> + +<p>Time wore on. Euprepia's opportunities of visiting her father were less +frequent than formerly. At last she came, looking thoroughly miserable, +distracted, and forlorn.</p> + +<p>"What ails thee, child?" he inquired anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, in what a frightful position do I find myself!"</p> + +<p>"Speak," he said, "and rely on my counsel."</p> + +<p>"When I entered the Court," she proceeded, "I found at first but one +human creature I could love or trust, and he—let me so call +him—seemed to make up for the deficiencies of all the rest. It was +the cupbearer Helladius."</p> + +<p>"I hope he is still thy friend," interrupted Photinius. "The good graces +of an Imperial cupbearer are always important, and I would have bought +those of Helladius with a myriad of bezants."</p> + +<p>"They were not to be thus obtained, father," said she. "The purest +disinterestedness, the noblest integrity, the most unselfish devotion, were +the distinction of my friend. And such beauty! I cannot, I must not conceal +that my heart was soon entirely his. But—most strange it seemed to me +then—it was long impossible for me to tell whether Helladius loved me +or loved me not. The most perfect sympathy existed between us: we seemed +one heart and one soul: and yet, and yet, Helladius never gave the +slightest indication of the sentiments which a young man might be supposed +to entertain for a young girl. Vainly did I try every innocent wile that a +modest maiden may permit herself: he was ever the friend, never the lover. +At length, after long pining between despairing fondness and wounded pride, +I myself turned away, and listened to one who left me in no doubt of the +sincerity of his passion."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"The Emperor! And, to shorten the story of my shame, I became his +mistress."</p> + +<p>"The saints be praised!" shouted Photinius. "O my incomparable +daughter!"</p> + +<p>"Father!" cried Euprepia, blushing and indignant. "But let me hurry on +with my wretched tale. In proportion as the Emperor's affection became more +marked, Helladius, hitherto so buoyant and serene, became a visible prey to +despondency. Some scornful beauty, I deemed, was inflicting on him the +tortures he had previously inflicted upon me, and, cured of my unhappy +attachment, and entirely devoted to my Imperial lover, I did all in my +power to encourage him. He received my comfort with gratitude, nor did it, +as I had feared might happen, seem to excite the least lover-like feeling +towards me on his own part."</p> + +<p>"Euprepia," he said only two days ago, "never in this Court have I met +one like thee. Thou art the soul of honour and generosity. I can safely +trust thee with a secret which my bursting heart can no longer retain, but +which I dread to breathe even to myself. Know first I am not what I seem, I +am a woman!" And opening his vest—"</p> + +<p>"We know all about that already," interrupted Photinius. "Get on!"</p> + +<p>"If thou knowest this already, father," said the astonished Euprepia, +"thou wilt spare me the pain of entering further into Helladia's affection +for Basil. Suffice that it was impassioned beyond description, and vied +with whatever history or romance records. In her male costume she had +accompanied the conqueror of the Bulgarians in his campaigns, she had +fought in his battles; a gigantic foe, in act to strike him from behind, +had fallen by her arrow; she had warded the poison-cup from his lips, and +the assassin's dagger from his heart; she had rejected enormous wealth +offered as a bribe for treachery, and lived only for the Emperor. 'And +now,' she cried, 'his love for me is cold, and he deserts me for another. +Who she is I cannot find, else on her it were, not on him, that my +vengeance should alight. Oh, Euprepia, I would tear her eyes from her head, +were they beautiful as thine! But vengeance I must have. Basil must die. On +the third day he expires by my hand, poisoned by the cup which I alone am +trusted to offer him at the Imperial banquet where thou wilt be present. +Thou shalt see his agonies and my triumph, and rejoice that thy friend has +known how to avenge herself.'</p> + +<p>"Thou seest now, father, in how frightful a difficulty I am placed. All +my entreaties and remonstrances have been in vain: at my threats Helladia +merely laughs. I love Basil with my whole heart. Shall I look on and see +him murdered? Shall I, having first unwittingly done my friend the most +grievous injury, proceed further to betray her, and doom her to a cruel +death? I might anticipate her fell purpose by slaying her, but for that I +have neither strength nor courage. Many a time have I felt on the point of +revealing everything to her, and offering myself as her victim, but for +this also I lack fortitude. I might convey a warning to Basil, but +Helladia's vengeance is unsleeping, and nothing but her death or mine will +screen him. Oh, father, father! what am I to do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing romantic or sentimental, I trust, dear child," replied +Photinius.</p> + +<p>"Torture me not, father. I came to thee for counsel."</p> + +<p>"And counsel shalt thou have, but it must be the issue of mature +deliberation. Thou mayest observe," continued he with the air of a good man +contending with adversity, "how weak and miserable is man's estate even in +the day of good fortune, how hard it is for purblind mortals to discern the +right path, especially when two alluring routes are simultaneously +presented for their decision! The most obvious and natural course, the one +I should have adopted without hesitation half-an-hour ago, would be simply +to let Helladia alone. Should she succeed—and Heaven forbid +else!—the knot is loosed in the simplest manner. Basil +dies—"</p> + +<p>"Father!"</p> + +<p>"I am a favourite with his sister-in-law," continued Photinius, entirely +unconscious of his daughter's horror and agitation, "who will govern in the +name of her weak husband, and is moreover thy mistress. She recalls me to +Court, and all is peace and joy. But then, Helladia may fail. In that case, +when she has been executed—"</p> + +<p>"Father, father!"</p> + +<p>"We are exactly where we were, save for the hold thou hast established +over the Emperor, which is of course invaluable. I cannot but feel that +Heaven is good when I reflect how easily thou mightest have thrown thyself +away upon a courtier. Now there is a much bolder game to play, which, +relying on the protection of Providence, I feel half disposed to attempt. +Thou mightest betray Helladia."</p> + +<p>"Deliver my friend to the tormentors!"</p> + +<p>"Then," pursued Photinius, without hearing her, "thy claim on the +Emperor's gratitude is boundless, and if he has any sense of what is +seemly—and he is what they call chivalrous—he will make thee +his lawful consort. I father-in-law of an Emperor! My brain reels to think +of it. I must be cool. I must not suffer myself to be dazzled or hurried +away. Let me consider. Thus acting, thou puttest all to the hazard of the +die. For if Helladia should deny everything, as of course she would, and +the Emperor should foolishly scruple to put her to the rack, she might +probably persuade him of her innocence, and where wouldst thou be then? It +might almost be better to be beforehand, and poison Helladia herself, but I +fear there is no time now. Thou hast no evidence but her threats, I +suppose? Thou hast not caught her tampering with poisons? There can of +course be nothing in writing. I daresay I could find something, if I had +but time. Canst thou counterfeit her signature?"</p> + +<p>But long ere this Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by +convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he +had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he +was by no means a bad father.</p> + +<p>"Poor child," he said, "thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a +terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under the +torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might have a +bad effect on the Emperor's mind. If he put thee to the torture +too—but no! that's impossible. I feel faint and giddy, dear child, +and unable to decide a point of such importance. Come to me at daybreak +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>But Euprepia did not reappear, and Photinius spent the day in an agony +of expectation, fearing that she had compromised herself by some +imprudence. He gazed on the setting sun with uncontrollable impatience, +knowing that it would shine on the Imperial banquet, where so much was to +happen. Basil was in fact at that very moment seating himself among a +brilliant assemblage. By his side stood a choir of musicians, among them +Euprepia. Soon the cup was called for, and Helladia, in her masculine +dress, stepped forward, darting a glance of sinister triumph at her friend. +Silently, almost imperceptibly to the bulk of the company, Euprepia glided +forward, and hissed rather than whispered in Helladia's ear, ere she could +retire from the Emperor's side.</p> + +<p>"Didst thou not say that if thou couldst discover her who had wronged +thee, thou wouldst wreak thy vengeance on her, and molest Basil no +further?"</p> + +<p>"I did, and I meant it."</p> + +<p>"See that thou keepest thy word. I am she!" And snatching the cup from +the table, she quaffed it to the last drop, and instantly expired in +convulsions.</p> + +<p>We pass over the dismay of the banqueters, the arrest and confession of +Helladia, the general amazement at the revelation of her sex, the frantic +grief of the Emperor.</p> + +<p>Basil's sorrow was sincere and durable. On an early occasion he thus +addressed his courtiers:</p> + +<p>"I cannot determine which of these two women loved me best: she who gave +her life for me, or she who would have taken mine. The first made the +greater sacrifice; the second did most violence to her feelings. What say +ye?"</p> + +<p>The courtiers hesitated, feeling themselves incompetent judges in +problems of this nature. At length the youngest exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"O Emperor, how can we tell thee, unless we know what thou thinkest +thyself?"</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Basil, "an honest man in the Court of Byzantium! Let +his mouth be filled with gold immediately!"</p> + +<p>This operation having been performed, and the precious metal distributed +in fees among the proper officers, Basil thus addressed the object of his +favour:</p> + +<p>"Manuel, thy name shall henceforth be Chrysostomus, in memory of what +has just taken place. In further token of my approbation of thy honesty, I +will confer upon thee the hand of the only other respectable person about +the Court, namely, of Helladia. Take her, my son, and raise up a race of +heroes! She shall be amply dowered out of what remains of the property of +Photinius."</p> + +<p>"Gennadius," whispered a cynical courtier to his neighbour, "I hope +thou admirest the magnanimity of our sovereign, who deems he is performing +a most generous action in presenting Manuel with his cast-off mistress, who +has tried to poison him, and with whom he has been at his wits' end what to +do, and in dowering her at the expense of another."</p> + +<p>The snarl was just; but it is just also to acknowledge that Basil, as a +prince born in the purple, had not the least idea that he was laying +himself open to any such criticism. He actually did feel the manly glow of +self-approbation which accompanies the performance of a good action: an +emotion which no one else present, except Chrysostomus, was so much as able +to conceive. It is further to be remarked that the old courtier who sneered +at Chrysostomus was devoured by envy of his good fortune, and would have +given his right eye to have been in his place.</p> + +<p>"Chrysostomus," pursued Basil, "we must now think of the hapless +Photinius. That unfortunate father is doubtless in an agony of grief which +renders the forfeiture of the remains of his possessions indifferent to +him. Thou, his successor therein, mayest be regarded as in some sort his +son-in-law. Go, therefore, and comfort him, and report to me upon his +condition."</p> + +<p>Chrysostomus accordingly proceeded to the monastery, where he was +informed that Photinius had retired with his spiritual adviser, and could +on no account be disturbed.</p> + +<p>"It is on my head to see the Emperor's orders obeyed," returned +Chrysostomus, and forced the door. The bereaved parent was busily engaged +in sticking pins into a wax effigy of Basil, under the direction of +Panurgiades, already honourably mentioned in this history.</p> + +<p>"Wretched old man!" exclaimed Chrysostomus, "is this thy grief for thy +daughter?"</p> + +<p>"My grief is great," answered Photinius, "but my time is small. If I +turn not every moment to account, I shall never be prime minister again. +But all is over now. Thou wilt denounce me, of course. I will give thee a +counsel. Say that thou didst arrive just as we were about to place the +effigy of Basil before a slow fire, and melt it into a caldron of bubbling +poison."</p> + +<p>"I shall report what I have seen," replied Chrysostomus, "neither more +nor less. But I think I can assure thee that none will suffer for this +mummery except Panurgiades, and that he will at most be whipped."</p> + +<p>"Chrysostomus," said Basil, on receiving the report, "lust of power, a +fever in youth, is a leprosy in age. The hoary statesman out of place would +sell his daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he would part +with his skin and his senses, were it possible to hold office without them. +I commiserate Photinius, whose faculties are clearly on the decline; the +day has been when he would not have wasted his time sticking pins into a +waxen figure. I will give him some shadow of authority to amuse his old +days and keep him out of mischief. The Abbot of Catangion is just dead. +Photinius shall succeed him."</p> + +<p>So Photinius received the tonsure and the dignity, and made a very +tolerable Abbot. It is even recorded to his honour that he bestowed a +handsome funeral on his old enemy Eustathius.</p> + +<p>Helladia made Chrysostomus an excellent wife, a little over-prudish, +some thought. When, nearly two centuries afterwards, the Courts of Love +came to be established in Provence, the question at issue between her and +Euprepia was referred to those tribunals, which, finding the decision +difficult, adjourned it for seven hundred years. That period having now +expired, it is submitted to the British public.</p> <a id="p114"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE WISDOM OF THE INDIANS</h2> + +<p>Everybody knows that in the reign of the Emperor Elagabalus Rome was +visited by an embassy from India; whose members, on their way from the +East, had held that memorable interview with the illustrious (though +heretical) Christian philosopher Bardesanes which enabled him to formulate +his doctrine of Fate, borrowed from the Indian theory of Karma, and +therefore, until lately, grievously misunderstood by his commentators.</p> + +<p>It may not, however, be equally notorious that the ambassadors returned +by sea as far as Berytus, and upon landing there were hospitably +entertained by the sage Euphronius, the head of the philosophical faculty +of that University.</p> + +<p>Euphronius naturally inquired what circumstance in Rome had appeared to +his visitors most worthy of remark.</p> + +<p>"The extreme evil of the Emperor's Karma," said they.</p> + +<p>Euphronius requested further explanation.</p> + +<p>"Karma," explained their interpreter, "is that congeries of +circumstances which has necessitated the birth of each individual, and of +whose good or evil he is the incarnation. Every act must needs be attended +by consequences, and as these are usually of too far-reaching a character +to be exhausted in the life of the doer of the action, they cannot but +engender another person by whom they are to be borne. This truth is +popularly expressed by the doctrine of transmigration, according to which +individuals, as the character of their deeds may determine, are re-born as +pigs or peacocks, beggars or princes. But this is a loose and unscientific +way of speaking, for in fact it is not the individual that is re-born, but +the character; which, even as the silkworm clothes itself with silk and the +caddis-worm with mud and small shingle, creates for itself a new +personality, congruous with its own nature. We are therefore led to reflect +what a prodigious multitude of sins some one must have committed ere the +Roman world could be afflicted with such an Emperor as Elagabalus."</p> + +<p>"What have ye found so exceedingly reprehensible in the Emperor's +conduct?" demanded Euphronius.</p> + +<p>"To speak only," said the Indians, "of such of his doings as may fitly +be recited to modest ears, we find him declaring war against Nature, and +delighting in nothing that is not the contrary of what Heaven meant it to +be. We see him bathing in perfumes, sailing ships in wine, feeding horses +on grapes and lions on parrots, peppering fish with pearls, wearing gems on +the soles of his feet, strewing his floor with gold-dust, paving the public +streets with precious marbles, driving teams of stags, scorning to eat fish +by the seaside, deploring his lot that he has never yet been able to dine +on a phoenix. Enormous must have been the folly and wickedness which has +incarnated itself in such a sovereign, and should his reign be prolonged, +discouraging is the prospect for the morals of the next generation.</p> + +<p>"According to you, then," said Euphronius, "the fates of men are not +spun for them by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but by their +predecessors?"</p> + +<p>"So it is," said they, "always remembering that man can rid himself of +his Karma by philosophic meditation, combined with religious austerities, +and that if all walked in this path, existence with all its evils would +come to an end. Insomuch that the most bloodthirsty conqueror that ever +devastated the earth hath not destroyed one thousandth part as many +existences as the Lord Buddha."</p> + +<p>"These are abstruse matters," said Euphronius, "and I lament that your +stay in Berytus will not be long enough to instruct me adequately +therein."</p> + +<p>"Accompany us to India," said they, "and thou shalt receive instruction +at the fountain head."</p> + +<p>"I am old and feeble," apologised Euphronius, "and adjusted by long +habit to my present environment. Nevertheless I will propound the +enterprise to my pupils, only somewhat repressing their ardour, lest the +volunteers should be inconveniently numerous."</p> + +<p>When, however, the proposition was made not a soul responded; though +Euphronius reproached his disciples severely, and desired them to compare +their want of spirit with his own thirst for knowledge, which, when he was +a young man, had taken him as far as Alexandria to hear a celebrated +rhetorician. In the evening, however, two disciples came to him together, +and professed their readiness to undertake the expedition, if promised a +reward commensurate with its danger and difficulty.</p> + +<p>"Ye would learn the secret of my celebrated dilemma," said he, "which no +sophist can elude? 'Tis much; 'tis immoderate; 'tis enormous; nevertheless, +bring the wisdom of India to Berytus, and the knowledge of the stratagem +shall be yours."</p> + +<p>"No, Master," they said, "it is not thy dilemma of which we are +enamoured. It is thy daughter."</p> + +<p>A vehement altercation ensued, but at length the old philosopher, who at +the bottom of his heart was much readier to part with his daughter than his +dilemma, was induced to promise her to whichever of the pupils should bring +home the most satisfactory exposition of Indian metaphysics: provided +always that during their absence he should not have been compelled to +bestow her hand as the price of a quibble even more subtle than his own: +but this he believed to be impossible.</p> + +<p>Mnesitheus and Rufus accordingly travelled with the embassy to India, +and arrived in safety at the metropolis of Palimbothra. They had wisely +devoted themselves meanwhile to learning the language, and were now able to +converse with some fluency.</p> + +<p>On reaching their destination they were placed under the superintendence +of competent instructors, who were commissioned to initiate them into the +canon of Buddhist scriptures, comprising, to mention only a few of the +principal, the Lalitavistara, the Dhammapada, the Kuddhapatha, the +Palinokkha, the Uragavagga, the Kulavagga, the Mahavagga, the Atthakavagga, +and the Upasampadakammavaca. These works, composed in dead languages, and +written in strange and unknown characters, were further provided with +commentaries more voluminous and inexplicable than the text.</p> + +<p>"Heavens," exclaimed Mnesitheus and Rufus, "can the life of a man +suffice to study all this?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly not," replied the Indians. "The diligent student will resume +his investigations in a subsequent stage of existence, and, if endowed with +eminent faculties, may hope to attain the end he proposes to himself at the +fifteenth transmigration."</p> + +<p>"The end we propose to ourselves," said the Greeks, "is to marry our +master's daughter. Will the fair Euphronia also have undergone fifteen +transmigrations, and will her charms have continued unimpaired?"</p> + +<p>"It is difficult to pronounce," said they, "for should the maiden, +through the exercise of virtue, have merited to be born as a white +elephant, her transmigrations must in the order of nature be but few; +whereas should she have unfortunately become and remained a rat, a frog, or +other shortlived animal, they cannot but be exceedingly numerous."</p> + +<p>"The prospect of wedding a frog at the end of fifteen transmigrations," +said the youths, "doth not in any respect commend itself to us. Are there +no means by which the course of study may be accelerated?"</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly," said the Indians, "by the practice of religious +austerities."</p> + +<p>"Of what nature are these?" inquired the young men.</p> + +<p>"The intrepid disciple," said the sages, "may chain himself to a tree, +and gaze upon the sun until he is deprived of the faculty of vision. He may +drive an iron bar through his cheeks and tongue, thus preventing all misuse +of the gift of speech. It is open to him to bury himself in the earth up to +his waist, relying for his maintenance on the alms of pious donors. He may +recline upon a couch studded with spikes, until from the induration of his +skin he shall have merited the title of a rhinoceros among sages. As, +however, these latter practices interfere with locomotion, and thus prevent +his close attendance on his spiritual guide, it is rather recommended to +him to elevate his arms above his head, and retain them in that position +until, by the withering of the sinews, it is impossible for him to bring +them down again."</p> + +<p>"In that case," cried Rufus, "farewell philosophy! farewell +Euphronia!"</p> + +<p>There is reason to believe that Mnesitheus would have made exactly the +same observation if Rufus had not been beforehand with him. The spirit of +contradiction and the affectation of superiority, however, led him to +reproach his rival with pusillanimity, and he went so far that at length he +found himself committed to undergo the ordeal: merely stipulating that, in +consideration of his being a foreigner, he should be permitted to elevate +the right arm only.</p> + +<p>The king of the country most graciously came to his assistance by +causing him to be fastened to a tree, with his uplifted arm secured by iron +bands above his head, a fan being put in his other hand to protect him +against the molestations of gnats and mosquitoes. By this means, and with +the assistance of the monks who continually recited and expounded the +Buddhist scriptures in his ears, some time even before his arm had +stiffened for ever, the doctrine of the misery of existence had become +perfectly clear to him.</p> + +<p>Released from his captivity, he hastened back to Europe to claim the +guerdon of his sufferings. History is silent respecting his adventures +until his arrival at Berytus, where the strange wild-looking man with the +uplifted arm found himself the centre of a turbulent and mischievous +rabble. As he seemed about to suffer severe ill-usage, a personage of +dignified and portly appearance hastened up, and with his staff showered +blows to right and left upon the rioters.</p> + +<p>"Scoundrels," he exclaimed, "finely have ye profited by my precepts, +thus to misuse an innocent stranger! But I will no longer dwell among such +barbarians. I will remove my school to Tarsus!"</p> + +<p>The mob dispersed. The victim and his deliverer stood face to face.</p> + +<p>"Mnesitheus!"</p> + +<p>"Rufus!"</p> + +<p>"Call me Rufinianus," corrected the latter; "for such is the appellation +which I have felt it due to myself to assume, since the enhancement of my +dignity by becoming Euphronius's successor and son-in-law."</p> + +<p>"Son-in-law! Am I to lose the reward of my incredible sufferings?"</p> + +<p>"Thou forgettest," said Rufinianus, "that Euphronia's hand was not +promised as the reward of any austerities, but as the meed of the most +intelligent, that is, the most acceptable, account of the Indian +philosophy, which in the opinion of the late eminent Euphronius, has been +delivered by me. But come to my chamber, and let me minister to thy +necessities."</p> + +<p>These having been duly attended to, Rufinianus demanded Mnesitheus's +history, and then proceeded to narrate his own.</p> + +<p>"On my journey homeward," said he, "I reflected seriously on the +probable purpose of our master in sending us forth, and saw reason to +suspect that I had hitherto misapprehended it. For I could not remember +that he had ever admitted that he could have anything to learn from other +philosophers, or that he had ever exhibited the least interest in +philosophic dogmas, excepting his own. The system of the Indians, I +thought, must be either inferior to that of Euphronius, or superior. If the +former, he will not want it: if the latter, he will want it much less. I +therefore concluded that our mission was partly a concession to public +opinion, partly to enable him to say that his name was known, and his +teaching proclaimed on the very banks of the Ganges. I formed my plan +accordingly, and disregarding certain indications that I was neither +expected nor wanted, presented myself before Euphronius with a gladsome +countenance, slightly overcast by sorrow on account of thee, whom I +affirmed to have been devoured by a tiger.</p> + +<p>"'Well,' said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, 'and what about this +vaunted wisdom of the Indians?'</p> + +<p>"'The wisdom of the Indians,' I replied, 'is entirely borrowed from +Pythagoras.'</p> + +<p>"'Did I not tell you so? 'Euphronius appealed to his disciples.</p> + +<p>"'Invariably,' they replied.</p> + +<p>"'As if a barbarian could teach a Greek!' said he.</p> + +<p>"'It is much if he is able to learn from one,' said they.</p> + +<p>"'Pythagoras, then,' said Euphronius addressing me,' did not resort to +India to be instructed by the Gymnosophists?'</p> + +<p>"'On the contrary,' I answered, 'he went there to teach them, and the +little knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived from +him. His mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the Ramayana, +wherein he is figuratively represented as allying himself with monkeys. He +is worshipped all over the country under the appellations of Siva, +Kamadeva, Kali, Gautama Buddha, and others too numerous to mention.'</p> + +<p>"When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to +Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called +Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his +good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter's hand without +difficulty. He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, +and I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy. +I am also the author of some admired works, especially a life of +Pythagoras, and a manual of Indian philosophy and religion. I hope for thy +own sake thou wilt forbear to contradict me: for no one will believe thee. +I trust also that thou wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with +respect to Euphronia. I do most honestly and truthfully assure thee that +for a one-armed man like thee to marry her would be most inexpedient, +inasmuch as the defence of one's beard from her, when she is in a state of +excitement, requires the full use of both hands, and of the feet also. But +come with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to her. She is always +taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal attractions, and I +promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture when she finds +thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder. Only, as I have +represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say +that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty."</p> + +<p>"I have learned in the Indian schools," said Mnesitheus, "not to lie for +the benefit of others. I will not see Euphronia; I would not disturb her +ideal of me, nor mine of her. Farewell. May the Rufinianian sect flourish! +and may thy works on Pythagoras and India instruct posterity to the tenth +generation! I return to Palimbothra, where I am held in honour on the +self-same account that here renders me ridiculous. It shall be my study to +enlighten the natives respecting their obligations to Pythagoras, whose +name I did not happen to hear while I abode among them."</p> <a +id="p124"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE DUMB ORACLE</h2> +<br> Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod: +<br> Few that be filled with the fire of the God. + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one +of peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed in +the city of Dorylseum, in Phrygia. Contrary to usage, its revelations were +imparted through the medium of a male priest. It was rarely left unthronged +by devout questioners, whose inquiries were resolved in writing, agreeably +to the method delivered by the pious Lucian, in his work "Concerning False +Prophecy." [*] Sometimes, on extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently +that of the deity, was heard declaring the response from the innermost +recesses of the shrine. The treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with +tripods and goblets, in general wrought from the precious metals; its +coffers were loaded with coins and ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy +suppliants and the copious offerings in kind of the country people provided +superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the temple servitors; while a +rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its guardians, and of the +officiating priest. The latter reverend personage was no less eminent for +prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had rewarded him with +extreme obesity. At length he died, whether of excess in meat or in drink +is not agreed among historians.</p> <p class="footnote">*) +<i>Pseudomantis</i>, cap. 19-21. </p> + +<p>The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally +desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, +elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest, +purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men. So rare a +choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some extraordinary +manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which filled the sacred +authorities with dismay. The responses of the oracle ceased suddenly and +altogether. No revelation was vouchsafed to the pontiff in his slumbers; no +access of prophetic fury constrained him to disclose the secrets of the +future; no voice rang from the shrine; and the unanswered epistles of the +suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on the great altar. As a natural +consequence they speedily ceased to arrive; the influx of offerings into +the treasury terminated along with them; the temple-courts were bare of +worshippers; and the only victims whose blood smoked within them were those +slain by the priest himself, in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of +Apollo. The modest hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he +did not doubt that he had excited the Deity's wrath by some mysterious but +heinous pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous +verdict of all whom he approached.</p> + +<p>One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, +and pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he +was startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, +espied an ancient woman. Her appearance was rather venerable than +prepossessing. He recognised her as one of the inferior ministers of the +temple.</p> + +<p>"Reverend mother," he addressed her, "doubtless thou comest to mingle +with mine thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to +indicate the cause, and the remedy of his wrath."</p> + +<p>"No, son," returned the venerable personage, "I propose to occasion no +such needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity. I hold within mine +own hand the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken sanctuary, +and for such consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce equitable, I am +minded to impart the same unto thee." And as the astonished priest made no +answer, she continued:</p> + +<p>"My price is one hundred pieces of gold."</p> + +<p>"Wretch!" exclaimed the priest indignantly, "thy mercenary demand alone +proves the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets of +the Gods. Depart my presence this moment!"</p> + +<p>The old woman retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the +incident soon passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the +following day, at the same hour, the aged woman again stood before him, and +said:</p> + +<p>"My price is <i>two</i> hundred pieces of gold."</p> + +<p>Again she was commanded to depart, and again obeyed without a murmur. +But the adventure now occasioned the priest much serious reflection. To his +excited fancy, the patient persistency of the crone began to assume +something of a supernatural character. He considered that the ways of the +Gods are not as our ways, and that it is rather the rule than the exception +with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by +the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the +Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy +might in the end cost the temple the whole of its revenues. The result of +his cogitations was a resolution, if the old woman should present herself +on the following day, to receive her in a different manner.</p> + +<p>Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, "My price +is <i>three</i> hundred pieces of gold."</p> + +<p>"Venerable ambassadress of Heaven," said the priest, "thy boon is +granted thee. Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou +mayest."</p> + +<p>The old woman's reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in +extending her open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the three +hundred pieces of gold with as much expedition as was compatible with the +frequent interruptions necessitated by the crone's depositing each +successive handful in a leather pouch; and the scrutiny, divided between +jealousy and affection, which she bestowed on each individual coin.</p> + +<p>"And now," said the priest, when the operation was at length completed, +"fulfil thy share of the compact."</p> + +<p>"The cause of the oracle's silence," returned the old woman, "is the +unworthiness of the minister."</p> + +<p>"Alas! 'tis even as I feared," sighed the priest. "Declare now, wherein +consists my sin?"</p> + +<p>"It consists in this," replied the old woman, "that the beard of thy +understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience +is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear +no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I +seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets, +that thou art an egregious nincompoop."</p> + +<p>And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued:</p> + +<p>"Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the +very nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into the +language of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the few wise +upon the many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more particularly the +former? O silly as the crowds who hitherto have brought their folly here, +but now carry it elsewhere to the profit of wiser men than thou! O fool! to +deem that oracles were rendered by Apollo! How should this be, seeing that +there is no such person? Needs there, peradventure, any greater miracle for +the decipherment of these epistles than a hot needle? [*] As for the +supernatural voice, it doth in truth proceed from a respectable, and in +some sense a sacred personage, being mine own when I am concealed within a +certain recess prepared for me by thy lamented predecessor, whose mistress +I was in youth, and whose coadjutor I have been in age. I am now ready to +minister to thee in the latter capacity. Be ruled by me; exchange thy +abject superstition for common sense; thy childish simplicity for discreet +policy; thy unbecoming spareness for a majestic portliness; thy present +ridiculous and uncomfortable situation for the repute of sanctity, and the +veneration of men. Thou wilt own that this is cheap at three hundred +pieces."</p> <p class="footnote">*) Lucian. </p> + +<p>The young priest had hearkened to the crone's discourse with an +expression of the most exquisite distress. When she had finished, he arose, +and disregarding his repulsive companion's efforts to detain him, departed +hastily from the temple.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was the young priest's purpose, as soon as he became capable of +forming one, to place the greatest possible distance between himself and +the city of Dorylæum. The love of roaming insensibly grew upon him, +and ere long his active limbs had borne him over a considerable portion of +Asia. His simple wants were easily supplied by the wild productions of the +country, supplemented when needful by the proceeds of light manual labour. +By degrees the self-contempt which had originally stung him to desperation +took the form of an ironical compassion for the folly of mankind, and the +restlessness which had at first impelled him to seek relief in a change of +scene gave place to a spirit of curiosity and observation. He learned to +mix freely with all orders of men, save one, and rejoiced to find the +narrow mysticism which he had imbibed from his previous education gradually +yielding to contact with the great world. From one class of men, indeed, he +learned nothing—the priests, whose society he eschewed with +scrupulous vigilance, nor did he ever enter the temples of the Gods. +Diviners, augurs, all that made any pretension whatever to a supernatural +character, he held in utter abhorrence, and his ultimate return in the +direction of his native country is attributed to his inability to persevere +further in the path he was following without danger of encountering +Chaldean soothsayers, or Persian magi, or Indian gymnosophists.</p> + +<p>He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was +still at a considerable distance from that region, when one night, as he +was sitting in the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a phrase +which arrested his attention.</p> + +<p>"As true as the oracle of Dorylæum." The speaker was a countryman, +who appeared to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of +the company as greatly in need of confirmation. The sudden start and +stifled cry of the ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt constrained +to ask, with the most indifferent air he could assume:</p> + +<p>"Is the oracle of Dorylæum, then, so exceedingly renowned for +veracity?"</p> + +<p>"Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?" demanded the countryman, +with some disdain. "Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?"</p> + +<p>"Eubulides!" exclaimed the young traveller, "that is my own name!"</p> + +<p>"Thou mayest well rejoice, then," observed another of the guests, "to +bear the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the +happy Gods. So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who +have often beheld him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, now +that I scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only that thy +namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous +in thee."</p> + +<p>"Divinity!" exclaimed another. "Aye, if Phoebus himself ministered at +his own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than +Eubulides."</p> + +<p>"Or predict the future more accurately," added a priest.</p> + +<p>"Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse," subjoined a poet.</p> + +<p>"Yet is it not marvellous," remarked another speaker, "that for some +considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to +deliver a single oracle?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of +an aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple."</p> + +<p>"Ha!" exclaimed Eubulides, "how was that?"</p> + +<p>"He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly +came to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully +appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the +root of her tongue."</p> + +<p>"The Gods be praised for that!" ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath. +"Pshaw! as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate this +vile mockery? To keep up the juggle—well, I know it must be so; but +to purloin my name! to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that are not, +I will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour."</p> + +<p>He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the +city of Dorylæum. The further he progressed in this direction, the +louder became the bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic the +testimonies to the piety, prophetic endowments, and personal attractions of +the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was the theme of +continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the roads swarming with +throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part in a great religious +ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of worship blended +delightfully with the glee of the festival, and Eubulides, who at first +regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his moroseness insensibly +yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He could not but acknowledge +that the imposture he panted to expose was at least the source of much +innocent happiness, and almost wished that the importance of religion, +considered as an engine of policy, had been offered to his contemplation +from this point of view, instead of the sordid and revolting aspect in +which it had been exhibited by the old woman.</p> + +<p>In this ambiguous frame of mind he entered the temple. Before the high +altar stood the officiating priest, a young man, the image, yet not the +image, of himself. Lineament for lineament, the resemblance was exact, but +over the stranger's whole figure was diffused an air of majesty, of +absolute serenity and infinite superiority, which excluded every idea of +deceit, and so awed the young priest that his purpose of rushing forward to +denounce the impostor and drag him from the shrine was immediately and +involuntarily relinquished. As he stood confounded and irresolute, the +melodious voice of the hierophant rang through the temple:</p> + +<p>"Let the priest Eubulides stand forth."</p> + +<p>This summons naturally caused the greatest astonishment in every one but +Eubulides, who emerged as swiftly as he could from the swaying and +murmuring crowd, and confronted his namesake at the altar. A cry of +amazement broke from the multitude as they beheld the pair, whose main +distinction in the eyes of most was their garb. But, as they gazed, the +form of the officiating priest assumed colossal proportions; a circle of +beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth around his head; hyacinthine locks +clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural radiance; a +quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his hand; the majesty +and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented tenfold. Eubulides and +the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, for all recognised +Apollo.</p> + +<p>All was silence for a space. It was at length broken by Phoebus.</p> + +<p>"Well, Eubulides," inquired he, with the bland raillery of an Immortal, +"has it at length occurred to thee that I may have been long enough away +from Parnassus, filling thy place here while thou hast been disporting +thyself amid heretics and barbarians?"</p> + +<p>The abashed Eubulides made no response. The Deity continued:</p> + +<p>"Deem not that thou hast in aught excited the displeasure of the Gods. +In deserting their altars for Truth's sake, thou didst render them the most +acceptable of sacrifices, the only one, it may be, by which they set much +store. But, Eubulides, take heed how thou again sufferest the unworthiness +of men to overcome the instincts of thine own nature. Thy holiest +sentiments should not have been at the mercy of a knave. If the oracle of +Dorylæum was an imposture, hadst thou no oracle in thine own bosom? +If the voice of Religion was no longer breathed from the tripod, were the +winds and waters silent, or had aught quenched the everlasting stars? If +there was no power to impose its mandates from without, couldst thou be +unconscious of a power within? If thou hadst nothing to reveal unto men, +mightest thou not have found somewhat to propound unto them? Know this, +that thou hast never experienced a more truly religious emotion than that +which led thee to form the design of overthrowing this my temple, the +abode, as thou didst deem it, of fraud and superstition."</p> + +<p>"But now, Phoebus," Eubulides ventured to reply, "shall I not return to +the shrine purified by thy presence, and again officiate as thy unworthy +minister?"</p> + +<p>"No, Eubulides," returned Phoebus, with a smile; "silver is good, but +not for ploughshares. Thy strange experience, thy long wanderings, thy +lonely meditations, and varied intercourse with men, have spoiled thee for +a priest, while, as I would fain hope, qualifying thee for a sage. Some +worthy person may easily be found to preside over this temple; and by the +aid of such inspiration as I may from time to time see meet to vouchsafe +him, administer its affairs indifferently well. Do thou, Eubulides, +consecrate thy powers to a more august service than Apollo's, to one that +shall endure when Delphi and Delos know <i>his</i> no more."</p> + +<p>"To whose service, Phoebus?" inquired Eubulides.</p> + +<p>"To the service of Humanity, my son," responded Apollo.</p> <a +id="p136"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>DUKE VIRGIL</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged +the suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had a +Podestà of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a +Papal Legate, incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried dictators, +consuls, prætors, councils of ten, and other numbers odd and even, +and ere the middle of the thirteenth century were luxuriating in the +enjoyment of perfect anarchy.</p> + +<p>An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were +forbidden to propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything +new.</p> + +<p>"Why not consult Manto, the alchemist's daughter, our prophetess, our +Sibyl?" the young Benedetto asked at last.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" repeated Eustachio, an elderly man.</p> + +<p>"Why not, indeed?" interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years.</p> + +<p>All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto's lover; Eustachio her +father's friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the +three were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before +proceeding formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain +private interviews, the two elder with Manto's father, the youth with Manto +herself. The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist's +influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went +further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man promised his good word +to both, but when he went to confer with his daughter he found her closeted +with Benedetto, and returned without disburdening himself of his errand. +The youth had just risen from his knees, pleading with her, and drawing +glowing pictures of their felicity when he should be Duke and she +Duchess.</p> + +<p>She answered, "Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to rule +another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over my native +city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the dead."</p> + +<p>"And why should not Mantua have a tyrant?" demanded Benedetto. "The +freedom of the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no liberty +save that of making the base-born do his bidding. 'Tis hell to a man of +spirit to be contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my heart's desire +on the knaves, little would I reck submitting to the sway of the +Emperor."</p> + +<p>"I know that well, Benedetto," said Manto, "and hence will take good +heed not to counsel Mantua to choose thee. No, the Duke I will give her +shall be one without passions to gratify or injuries to avenge, and shall +already be crowned with a crown to make the ducal cap as nothing in his +eyes, if eyes he had."</p> + +<p>Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward +to announce that the commissioners waited.</p> + +<p>"My projection," he whispered, "only wants one more piece of gold to +insure success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in +exchange for boundless riches!"</p> + +<p>"And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!" said Manto, +patting his cheek.</p> + +<p>The envoys' commission having been unfolded, she took not a moment to +reply, "Be your Duke Virgil."</p> + +<p>The deputation respectfully represented that although Virgil was no +doubt Mantua's greatest citizen, he laboured under the disqualification of +having been dead more than twelve hundred years. Nothing further, however, +could be extorted from the prophetess, and the ambassadors were obliged to +withdraw.</p> + +<p>The interpretation of Manto's oracle naturally provoked much diversity +of opinion in the council.</p> + +<p>"Obviously," said a poet, "the prophetess would have us confer the ducal +dignity upon the contemporary bard who doth most nearly accede to the +vestiges of the divine Maro; and he, as I judge, is even now in the midst +of you."</p> + +<p>"Virgil the poet," said a priest, who had long laboured under the +suspicion of occult practices, "was a fool to Virgil the enchanter. The +wise woman evidently demands one competent to put the devil into a +hole—an operation which I have striven to perform all my life."</p> + +<p>"Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?" inquired Eustachio.</p> + +<p>"Better upon an egg than upon a quack!" retorted the priest.</p> + +<p>But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately +conferred with Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; Leonardo +had parts, but no character.</p> + +<p>"I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess," +he said. "She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in +divers respects preferable to a living one."</p> + +<p>"Surely," said Eustachio, "provided always that the servant is a man of +exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord's withdrawal to +another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices with impunity, but +doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his great taskmaster's +eye."</p> + +<p>"Eustachio," said Leonardo, with admiration, "it is the misery of Mantua +that she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst talk. I +would fain have further discourse with thee."</p> + +<p>The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were +crying, "A Virgil! a Virgil!"</p> + +<p>The councillors reassembled and passed resolutions.</p> + +<p>"But who shall be Regent?" inquired some one when Virgil had been +elected unanimously.</p> + +<p>"Who but we?" asked Eustachio and Leonardo. "Are we not the heads of the +Virgilian party?"</p> + +<p>Thus had the enthusiastic Manto, purest of idealists, installed in +authority the two most unprincipled politicians in the republic; and she +had lost her lover besides, for Benedetto fled the city, vowing +vengeance.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, the dead poet was enthroned Duke of Mantua; Eustachio and +Leonardo became Regents, with the style of Consuls, and it was provided +that in doubtful cases reference should be made to the Sortes Virgilianae. +And truly, if we may believe the chronicles, the arrangement worked for a +time surprisingly well. The Mantuans, in an irrational way, had done what +it behoves all communities to do rationally if they can. They had sought +for a good and worthy citizen to rule them; it was their misfortune that +such an one could only be found among the dead. They felt prouder of +themselves for being governed by a great man—one in comparison with +whom kings and pontiffs were the creatures of a day. They would not, if +they could help it, disgrace themselves by disgracing their hero; they +would not have it said that Mantua, which had not been too weak to bear +him, had been too weak to endure his government. The very hucksters and +usurers among them felt dimly that there was such a thing as an Ideal. A +glimmering perception dawned upon mailed, steel-fisted barons that there +was such a thing as an Idea, and they felt uneasily apprehensive, like +beasts of prey who have for the first time sniffed gunpowder. The +railleries and mockeries of Mantua's neighbours, moreover, stimulated +Mantua's citizens to persevere in their course, and deterred them from +doing aught to approve themselves fools. Were not Verona, Cremona, Lodi, +Pavia, Crema, cities that could never enthrone the Virgil they had never +produced, watching with undissembled expectation to see them trip? The +hollow-hearted Eustachio and the rapacious Leonardo, their virtual rulers, +might indeed be little sensible to this enthusiasm, but they could not +disregard the general drift of public opinion, which said clearly: "Mantua +is trying a great experiment. Woe to you if you bring it to nought by your +selfish quarrels!"</p> + +<p>The best proof that there was something in Manto's idea was that after a +while the Emperor Frederick took alarm, and signified to the Mantuans that +they must cease their mumming and fooling and acknowledge him as their +sovereign, failing which he would besiege their city.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Mantua was girt by a zone of fire and steel. Her villas and homesteads +flamed or smoked; her orchards flared heavenward in a torrent of sparks or +stood black sapless trunks charred to their inmost pith; the promise of her +harvests lay as grey ashes over the land. But her ramparts, though breached +in places, were yet manned by her sons, and their assailants recoiled +pierced by the shafts or stunned by the catapults of the defence. Kaiser +Frederick sat in his tent, giving secret audience to one who had stolen in +disguise over from the city in the grey of the morning. By the Emperor's +side stood a tall martial figure, wearing a visor which he never +removed.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty," Leonardo was saying, for it was he, "this madness will +soon pass away. The people will weary of sacrificing themselves for a dead +heathen."</p> + +<p>"And Liberty?" asked the Emperor, "is not that a name dear to those +misguided creatures?"</p> + +<p>"So dear, please your Majesty, that if they have but the name they will +perfectly dispense with the thing. I do not advise that your imperial yoke +should be too palpably adjusted to their stiff necks. Leave them in +appearance the choice of their magistrate, but insure its falling upon one +of approved fidelity, certain to execute obsequiously all your Majesty's +mandates; such an one, in short, as your faithful vassal Leonardo. It would +only be necessary to decapitate that dangerous revolutionist, +Eustachio."</p> + +<p>"And the citizens are really ready for this?"</p> + +<p>"All the respectable citizens. All of whom your Majesty need take +account. All men of standing and substance."</p> + +<p>"I rejoice to hear it," said the Emperor, "and do the more readily +credit thee inasmuch as a most virtuous and honourable citizen hath already +been beforehand with thee, assuring me of the same thing, and affirming +that but one traitor, whose name, methinks, sounded like thine, stands +between me and the subjugation of Mantua."</p> + +<p>And, withdrawing a curtain, he disclosed the figure of Eustachio.</p> + +<p>"I thought he was asleep," muttered Eustachio.</p> + +<p>"That noodle to have been beforehand with me!" murmured Leonardo.</p> + +<p>"What perplexes me," continued Frederick, after enjoying the confusion +of the pair for a few moments, "is that our masked friend here will have it +that he is the man for the Dukedom, and offers to open the gates to me by a +method of his own."</p> + +<p>"By fair fighting, an' please my liege," observed the visored +personage, "not by these dastardly treacheries."</p> + +<p>"How inhuman!" sighed Eustachio.</p> + +<p>"How old-fashioned!" sneered Leonardo.</p> + +<p>"The truth is," continued Frederick, "he gravely doubts whether either +of you possesses the influence which you allege, and has devised a method +of putting this to the proof, which I trust will commend itself to +you."</p> + +<p>Leonardo and Eustachio expressed their readiness to submit their credit +with their fellow-citizens to any reasonable trial.</p> + +<p>"He proposes, then," pursued the Emperor, "that ye, disarmed and bound, +should be placed at the head of the storming column, and in that situation +should, as questionless ye would, exert your entire moral influence with +your fellow-citizens to dissuade them from shooting you. If the column, +thus shielded, enters the city without resistance, ye will both have earned +the Dukedom, and the question who shall have it may be decided by single +combat between yourselves. But should the people, rather than submit to our +clemency, impiously slay their elected magistrates, it will be apparent +that the methods of our martial friend are the only ones corresponding to +the exigency of the case. Is the storming column ready?"</p> + +<p>"All but the first file, please your Majesty," responded the man in the +visor.</p> + +<p>"Let it be equipped," returned Frederick, and in half-an-hour Eustachio +and Leonardo, their hands tied behind them, were stumbling up the breach, +impelled by pikes in the rear, and confronting the catapults, <i>chevaux de +frise</i>, hidden pitfalls, Greek fire, and boiling water provided by +their own direction, and certified to them the preceding evening as all +that could be desired. They had, however, the full use of their voices, and +this they turned to the best account. Never had Leonardo been so cogent, or +Eustachio so pathetic. The Mantuans, already disorganised by the +unaccountable disappearance of the Executive, were entirely irresolute what +to do. As they hesitated the visored chief incited his followers. All +seemed lost, when a tall female figure appeared among the defenders. It was +Manto.</p> + +<p>"Fools and cowards!" she exclaimed, "must ye learn your duty from a +woman?"</p> + +<p>And, seizing a catapult, she discharged a stone which laid the masked +warrior stunned and senseless on the ground. The next instant Eustachio and +Leonardo fell dead, pierced by showers of arrows. The Mantuans sallied +forth. The dismayed Imperialists fled to their camp. The bodies of the +fallen magistrates and of the unconscious chieftain in the mask were +brought into the city. Manto herself undid the fallen man's visor, and +uttered a fearful shriek as she recognised Benedetto.</p> + +<p>"What shall be done with him, mistress?" they asked.</p> + +<p>Manto long stood silent, torn by conflicting emotions. At length she +said, in a strange, unnatural voice:</p> + +<p>"Put him into the Square Tower."</p> + +<p>"And now, mistress, what further? How to choose the new consuls?"</p> + +<p>"Ask me no more," she said. "I shall never prophesy again. Virtue has +gone away from me."</p> + +<p>The leaders departed, to intrigue for the vacant posts, and devise +tortures for Benedetto. Manto sat on the rampart, still and silent as its +stones. Anon she rose, and roved about as if distraught, reciting verses +from Virgil.</p> + +<p>Night had fallen. Benedetto lay wakeful in his cell. A female figure +stood before him bearing a lamp. It was Manto.</p> + +<p>"Benedetto," she said, "I am a wretch, faithless to my country and to my +master. I did but even now open his sacred volume at hazard, and on what +did my eye first fall? +<br> Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. But I can +no other. I am a woman. May Mantua never entrust her fortunes to the like +of me again! Come with me, I will release thee."</p> + +<p>She unlocked his chains; she guided him through the secret passage under +the moat; they stood at the exit, in the open air.</p> + +<p>"Fly," she said, "and never again draw sword against thy mother. I will +return to my house, and do that to myself which it behoved me to have done +ere I released thee."</p> + +<p>"Manto," exclaimed Benedetto "a truce to this folly! Forsake thy dead +Duke, and that cheat of Liberty more crazy and fantastic still. Wed a +living Duke in me!"</p> + +<p>"Never!" exclaimed Manto. "I love thee more than any man living on +earth, and I would not espouse thee if the earth held no other."</p> + +<p>"Thou canst not help thyself," he rejoined; "thou hast revealed to me +the secret of this passage. I hasten to the camp. I return in an hour with +an army, and wilt thou, wilt thou not, to-morrow's sun shall behold thee +the partner of my throne!"</p> + +<p>Manto wore a poniard. She struck Benedetto to the heart, and he fell +dead. She drew the corpse back into the passage, and hurried to her home. +Opening her master's volume again, she read:</p> +<br> Tædet coeli convexa tueri. + +<p>A few minutes afterwards her father entered the chamber to tell her he +had at last found the philosopher's stone, but, perceiving his daughter +hanging by her girdle, he forbore to intrude upon her, and returned to his +laboratory.</p> + +<p>It was time. A sentinel of the besiegers had marked Benedetto's fall, +and the disappearance of the body into the earth. A pool of blood revealed +the entrance to the passage. Ere sunrise Mantua was full of Frederick's +soldiers, full also of burning houses, rifled sanctuaries, violated +damsels, children playing with their dead mothers' breasts, especially full +of citizens protesting that they had ever longed for the restoration of the +Emperor, and that this was the happiest day of their lives. Frederick +waited till everybody was killed, then entered the city and proclaimed an +amnesty. Virgil's bust was broken, and his writings burned with Manto's +body. The flames glowed on the dead face, which gleamed as it were with +pleasure. The old alchemist had been slain among his crucibles; his scrolls +were preserved with jealous care.</p> + +<p>But Manto found another father. She sat at Virgil's feet in Elysium; and +as he stroked the fair head, now golden with perpetual youth, listened to +his mild reproofs and his cheerful oracles. By her side stood a bowl filled +with the untasted waters of Lethe.</p> + +<p>"Woe," said Virgil—but his manner contradicted his +speech—"woe to the idealist and enthusiast! Woe to them who live in +the world to come! Woe to them who live only for a hope whose fulfilment +they will not behold on earth! Drink not, therefore, of that cup, dear +child, lest Duke Virgil's day should come, and thou shouldst not know it. +For come it will, and all the sooner for thy tragedy and thy comedy."</p> +<a id="p148"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE CLAW</h2> + +<p>The balm and stillness of a summer's night enveloped a spacious piazza +in the city of Shylock and Desdemona. The sky teemed with light drifting +clouds through which the beaming of the full moon broke at intervals upon +some lamp-lit palace, thronged and musical, for it was a night of +festivity, or silvered the dull creeping waters. Ever and anon some richly +attired young patrician descended the steps of one or other of these +mansions, and hurried across the wide area to the canal stairs, where his +gondola awaited him. Whoever did this could not but observe a tall female +figure, which, cloaked and masked, walked backwards and forwards across the +piazza, regarding no one, yet with an air that seemed to invite a +companion.</p> + +<p>More than one of the young nobles approached the presumably fair +peripatetic, and, with courtesy commonly in inverse ratio to the amount of +wine he was carrying home, proffered his escort to his gondola. Whenever +this happened the figure removed her mask and unclasped her robe, and +revealed a sight which for one moment rooted the young man to the earth and +in the next sent him scampering to his bark. For the countenance was a +death's head, and the breast was that of a mouldering skeleton.</p> + +<p>At last, however, a youth presented himself who, more courageous or more +tipsy than his fellows, or more helplessly paralysed with horror than they, +did not decline the proffered caress, and suffered himself to be drawn +within the goblin's accursed embrace. Valiant or pot-valiant, great was his +relief at finding himself clasped, instead of by a loathsome spectre, by a +silver-haired man of noble presence, yet with a countenance indescribably +haggard and anxious.</p> + +<p>"Come, my son," he cried, "hasten whither the rewards of thy intrepidity +await thee. Impouch the purse of Fortunatus! Indue the signet of +Solomon!"</p> + +<p>The young man hesitated. "Is there nought else?" he cautiously demanded. +"Needs it not that I should renounce my baptism? Must I not subscribe an +infernal compact?"</p> + +<p>"In thy own blood, my son," cheerfully responded the old gentleman.</p> + +<p>"Peradventure," hesitatingly interrogated the youth, "peradventure you +are <i>he</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Not so, my son, upon honour," returned the mysterious personage. "I am +but a distressed magician, at this present in fearful straits, from which I +look to be delivered by thee."</p> + +<p>The youth gazed some moments at his companion's head, and then still +more earnestly at his feet. He then yielded his own hand to him, and the +pair crossed the piazza, almost at a run, the magician ever ejaculating, +"Speed! speed!"</p> + +<p>They paused at the foot of a lofty tower, doorless and windowless, with +no visible access of any kind. But the magician signed with his hand, +pronounced some cabalistical words, and instantly stone and lime fell +asunder and revealed an entrance through which they passed, and which +immediately closed behind them. The youth quaked at finding himself alone +in utter darkness with he knew not what, but the wizard whistled, and a +severed hand appeared in air bearing a lamp which illuminated a long +winding staircase. The old man motioned to the youth to precede him, nor +dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would have given the world for +the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint. The distorted shadows +of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the wavering lamp-shine, +seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and he glanced back ever and +anon weening to see himself dogged by some frightful monster, but he saw +only the silver hair and sable velvet of the dignified old man.</p> + +<p>After the ascent of many steps a door opened before them, and they found +themselves in a spacious chamber, brightly, yet from its size imperfectly +illumined by a single large lamp. It was wainscoted with ebony, and the +furniture was of the same. A long table was covered with scrolls, skulls, +crucibles, crystals, star-charts, geomantic figures, and other +appurtenances of a magician's calling. Tomes of necromantic lore lined the +walls, which were yet principally occupied with crystal vessels, in which +foul beings seemed dimly and confusedly to agitate themselves.</p> + +<p>The magician signed to his visitor to be seated, sat down himself and +began:</p> + +<p>"Brave youth, ere entering upon the boundless power and riches that +await thee, learn who I am and why I have brought thee here. Behold in me +no vulgar wizard, no mere astrologer or alchemist, but a compeer of Merlin +and Michael Scott, with whose name it may be the nurse of thy infancy hath +oft-times quelled thy froward humours. I am Peter of Abano, falsely +believed to have lain two centuries buried in the semblance of a dog under +a heap of stones hurled by the furious populace, but in truth walking earth +to this day, in virtue of the compact now to be revealed to thee. Hearken, +my son! Vain must be the machinations of my enemies, vain the onslaughts of +the rabble, so long as I fulfil a certain contract registered in hell's +chancery, as I have now done these three hundred years. And the condition +is this, that every year I present unto the Demon one who hath at my +persuasion assigned his soul to him in exchange for power, riches, +knowledge, magical gifts, or whatever else his heart chiefly desireth; nor +until this present year have I perilled the fulfilment of my obligation. +Seest thou these scrolls? They are the assignments of which I have spoken. +It would amaze thee to scan the subscriptions, and perceive in these the +signatures of men exemplary in the eyes of their fellows, clothed with high +dignities in Church and State—nay sometimes redolent of the very +odour of sanctity. Never hath my sagacity deceived me until this year, +when, smitten with the fair promise of a youth of singular impishness, I +omitted to take due note of his consumptive habit, and have but this +afternoon encountered his funeral. This is the last day of my year, and +should my engagement be unredeemed when the sun attains the cusp of that +nethermost house of heaven which he is even now traversing, I must become +an inmate of the infernal kingdom. No time has remained for nice +investigation. I have therefore proved the courage of the Venetian youth in +the manner thou knowest, and thou alone hast sustained the ordeal. Fail not +at my bidding, or thou quittest not this chamber alive. For when the Demon +comes to bear me away, he will assuredly rend thee in pieces for being +found in my company. Thou hast, therefore, everything to gain and nothing +to lose by joining the goodly fellowship of my mates and partners. Delay +not, time urges, night deepens, they that would drink thy blood are abroad. +Hearest thou not the moaning and pelting of the rising storm, and the +muttering and scraping of my imprisoned goblins? Save us, I entreat, I +command, save us both!"</p> + +<p>Screaming with agitation the aged sorcerer laid a scroll engrossed with +fairly written characters before the youth, stabbed the latter's arm with a +stylus that at once evoked and collected the crimson stream, thrust this +into his hand and strove to guide it to the parchment, chanting at the same +time litanies to the infernal powers. The crystal flagons rang like one +great harmonica with shrill but spirit-stirring music; volumes of vaporous +perfumes diffused themselves through the apartment, and an endless +procession of treasure-laden figures defiled before the bewildered youth. +He seemed buried in the opulence of the world, as he sat up to his waist in +gold and jewels; all the earth's beauty gazed at him through eyes brilliant +and countless as the stars of heaven; courtiers beckoned him to thrones; +battle-steeds neighed and pawed for his mounting; laden tables allured +every appetite; vassals bent in homage; slaves fell prostrate at his feet. +Now he seemed to collect or disperse legions of spirits with the waving of +a wand; anon, as he pronounced a spell, golden dragons glided away from +boughs laden with golden fruits. Well for him, doubtless, that in him +Nature had kneaded from ordinary clay as unimaginative a youth as could be +found in Venice: yet even so, dazzled with glamour, intoxicated with +illusion, less and less able to resist the cunningly mingled caresses, +entreaties, and menaces of Abano, he could not refrain from tracing a few +characters with the stylus, when, catching reflected in a mirror the old +magician's expression of wolfish glee, he dropped the instrument from his +grasp, and cast his eye upwards as if appealing to Heaven. But every drop +of blood seemed frozen in his frame as he beheld an enormous claw thrust +through the roof, member as it seemed of some being too gigantic to be +contained in the chamber or the tower itself. Cold, poignant, glittering as +steel, it rested upon a socket of the repulsive hue of jaundiced ivory, +with no vestige of a foot or anything to relieve its naked horror as, rigid +and lifeless, yet plainly with a mighty force behind it, it pointed at the +magician's heart. As Abano, following the youth's eye, caught sight of the +portent, his visage assumed an expression of frantic horror, his spells +died upon his lips, and the gorgeous figures became grinning apes or +blotchy toads: madly he seized the young man's hand, and strove to force +him to complete his signature. The robust youth felt as an infant in his +grasp, but ere the stylus could be again thrust upon him the first stroke +of the midnight hour rang through the chamber, and instantly the gigantic +talon pierced Abano from breast to back, projecting far beyond his +shoulders, and swept him upwards to the roof, through which both +disappeared without leaving a trace of their passage.</p> + +<p>Horror and thankfulness rushed together into the young man's mind, and +there contended for some brief instants: but as the last stroke sounded all +the crystal vials shivered with a stunning crash, and their hellish +inmates, rejoicing in their deliverance, swarmed into the chamber. All made +for the youth, who, tugged, clawed, fondled, bitten, beslimed, blinded, +deafened, beset in every way by creatures of indescribable loathsomeness, +grasped frantically as his sole weapon, the stylus; but it had become a +writhing serpent. This was too much, sense forsook him on the spot.</p> + +<p>On recovering consciousness he found himself stretched on a pallet in +the dungeons of the Inquisition. The Inquisitors sat on their tribunals; +black-robed familiars flitted about, or waited attentive upon their orders; +one expert in ecclesiastical jurisprudence proved the edge of an axe, and +another heated pincers in a chafing-dish; dismal groans pierced the massy +walls; two sturdy fellows, stripped to the waist, adjusted the rollers of a +rack. A surgeon approached the bedside, bearing a phial and a lancet. The +youth screamed and again became insensible.</p> + +<p>But his affright was groundless. The Inquisitors had already taken +cognisance of Abano's scrolls, and found that, touching these at least, he +had spoken sooth. Besides kings, princes, ministers, magistrates, and other +secular persons who had owed their success in life to dealings with the +devil under his mediation, the infernal bondsmen included so many pillars +of the Church and champions of the Faith; prelates plenty, abbots in +abundance, cardinals not a few, a (some whispered <i>the</i>) Pope; above +all, so many of the Inquisitors themselves, that further inquiry could +evidently nowise conduce to edification. The surgeon, therefore, infused an +opiate into the veins of the unconscious youth, and he came to himself upon +a galley speeding him to the holy war in Cyprus, where he fell fighting the +Turk.</p> <a id="p156"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>ALEXANDER THE RATCATCHER</h2> "Alexander Octavus mures, qui Urbem supra +modum vexabant, anathemate perculit."—<i>Palatius. Fasti +Cardinalium</i>, tom. v.p. 46. + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>"Rome and her rats are at the point of battle!"</p> + +<p>This metaphor of Menenius Agrippa's became, history records, matter of +fact in 1689, when rats pervaded the Eternal City from garret to cellar, +and Pope Alexander the Eighth seriously apprehended the fate of Bishop +Hatto. The situation worried him sorely; he had but lately attained the +tiara at an advanced age—the twenty-fourth hour, as he himself +remarked in extenuation of his haste to enrich his nephews. The time +vouchsafed for worthier deeds was brief, and he dreaded descending to +posterity as the Rat Pope. Witty and genial, his sense of humour teased him +with a full perception of the absurdity of his position. Peter and Pasquin +concurred in forbidding him to desert his post; and he derived but small +comfort from the ingenuity of his flatterers, who compared him to St. Paul +contending with beasts at Ephesus.</p> + +<p>It wanted three half-hours to midnight, as Alexander sat amid traps and +ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican, under the protection of two +enormous cats and a British terrier. A silver bell stood ready to his hand, +should the aid of the attendant chamberlains be requisite. The walls had +been divested of their tapestries, and the floor gleamed with pounded +glass. A tome of legendary lore lay open at the history of the Piper of +Hamelin. All was silence, save for the sniffing and scratching of the dog +and a sound of subterranean scraping and gnawing.</p> + +<p>"Why tarries Cardinal Barbadico thus?" the Pope at last asked himself +aloud. The inquiry was answered by a wild burst of squeaking and clattering +and scurrying to and fro, as who should say, "We've eaten him! We've eaten +him!"</p> + +<p>But this exultation was at least premature, for just as the terrified +Pope clutched his bell, the door opened to the narrowest extent compatible +with the admission of an ecclesiastical personage of dignified presence, +and Cardinal Barbadico hastily squeezed himself through.</p> + +<p>"I shall hardly trust myself upon these stairs again," he remarked, +"unless under the escort of your Holiness's terrier."</p> + +<p>"Take him, my son, and a cruse of holy water to boot," the Pope +responded. "Now, how go things in the city?"</p> + +<p>"As ill as may be, your Holiness. Not a saint stirs a finger to help us. +The country-folk shun the city, the citizens seek the country. The +multitude of enemies increases hour by hour. They set at defiance the +anathemas fulminated by your Holiness, the spiritual censures placarded in +the churches, and the citation to appear before the ecclesiastical courts, +although assured that their cause shall be pleaded by the ablest advocates +in Rome. The cats, amphibious with alarm, are taking to the Tiber. Vainly +the city reeks with toasted cheese, and the Commissary-General reports +himself short of arsenic."</p> + +<p>"And how are the people taking it?" demanded Alexander. "To what cause +do they attribute the public calamity?"</p> + +<p>"Generally speaking, to the sins of your Holiness," replied the +Cardinal.</p> + +<p>"Cardinal!" exclaimed Alexander indignantly.</p> + +<p>"I crave pardon for my temerity," returned Barbadico. "It is with +difficulty that I force myself to speak, but I am bound to lay the +ungrateful truth before your Holiness. The late Pope, as all men know, was +a personage of singular sanctity."</p> + +<p>"Far too upright for this fallen world," observed Alexander with +unction.</p> + +<p>"I will not dispute," responded the Cardinal, "that the head of Innocent +the Eleventh might have been more fitly graced by a halo than by a tiara. +But the vulgar are incapable of placing themselves at this point of view. +They know that the rats hardly squeaked under Innocent, and that they swarm +under Alexander. What wonder if they suspect your Holiness of familiarity +with Beelzebub, the patron of vermin, and earnestly desire that he would +take you to himself? Vainly have I represented to them the unreasonableness +of imposing upon him a trouble he may well deem superfluous, considering +your Holiness's infirm health and advanced age. Vainly, too, have I pointed +out that your anathema has actually produced all the effect that could +have been reasonably anticipated from any similar manifesto on your +predecessor's part. They won't see it. And, in fact, might I humbly advise, +it does appear impolitic to hurl anathemas unless your Holiness knows that +some one will be hit. It might be opportune, for example, to excommunicate +Father Molinos, now fast in the dungeons of St. Angelo, unless, indeed, the +rats have devoured him there. But I question the expediency of going much +further."</p> + +<p>"Cardinal," said the Pope, "you think yourself prodigiously clever, but +you ought to know that the state of public opinion allowed us no +alternative. Moreover, I will give you a wrinkle, in case you should ever +come to be Pope yourself. It is unwise to allow ancient prerogatives to +fall entirely into desuetude. Far-seeing men prognosticate a great revival +of sacerdotalism in the nineteenth century, and what is impotent in an age +of sense may be formidable in an age of nonsense. Further, we know not from +one day to another whether we may not be absolutely necessitated to +excommunicate that fautor of Gallicanism, Louis the Fourteenth, and before +launching our bolt at a king, we may think well to test its efficacy upon a +rat. <i>Fiat experimentum.</i> And now to return to our rats, from which we +have ratted. Is there indeed no hope?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Lateat scintillula forsan</i>," said the Cardinal mysteriously.</p> + +<p>"Ha! How so?" eagerly demanded Alexander.</p> + +<p>"Our hopes," answered the Cardinal, "are associated with the recent +advent to this city of an extraordinary personage."</p> + +<p>"Explain," urged the Pope.</p> + +<p>"I speak," resumed the Cardinal, "of an aged man of no plebeian mien or +bearing, albeit most shabbily attired in the skins, now fabulously cheap, +of the vermin that torment us; who, professing to practise as an herbalist, +some little time ago established himself in an obscure street of no good +repute. A tortoise hangs in his needy shop, nor are stuffed alligators +lacking. Understanding that he was resorted to by such as have need of +philters and love-potions, or are incommoded by the longevity of parents +and uncles, I was about to have him arrested, when I received a report +which gave me pause. This concerned the singular intimacy which appeared to +subsist between him and our enemies. When he left home, it was averred, he +was attended by troops of them obedient to his beck and call, and spies had +observed him banqueting them at his counter, the rats sitting erect and +comporting themselves with perfect decorum. I resolved to investigate the +matter for myself. Looking into his house through an unshuttered window, I +perceived him in truth surrounded by feasting and gambolling rats; but when +the door was opened in obedience to my attendants' summons, he appeared to +be entirely alone. Laying down a pestle and mortar, he greeted me by name +with an easy familiarity which for the moment quite disconcerted me, and +inquired what had procured him the honour of my visit. Recovering myself, +and wishing to intimidate him:</p> + +<p>"'I desire in the first place,' I said, 'to point out to you your grave +transgression of municipal regulations in omitting to paint your name over +your shop.'</p> + +<p>"'Call me Rattila,' he rejoined with unconcern, 'and state your further +business.'</p> + +<p>"I felt myself on the wrong tack, and hastened to interrogate him +respecting his relations with our adversaries. He frankly admitted his +acquaintance with rattery in all its branches, and his ability to deliver +the city from this scourge, but his attitude towards your Holiness was so +deficient in respect that I question whether I ought to report it."</p> + +<p>"Proceed, son," said the Pope; "we will not be deterred from providing +for the public weal by the ribaldry of a ratcatcher."</p> + +<p>"He scoffed at what he termed your Holiness's absurd position, and +affirmed that the world had seldom beheld, or would soon behold again, so +ridiculous a spectacle as a Pope besieged by rats. 'I can help your +master,' he continued, 'and am willing; but my honour, like his, is +aspersed in the eyes of the multitude, and he must come to my aid, if I am +to come to his.'</p> + +<p>"I prayed him to be more explicit, and offered to be the bearer of any +communication to your Holiness.</p> + +<p>"'I will unfold myself to no one but the Pope himself,' he replied, 'and +the interview must take place when and where I please to appoint. Let him +meet me this very midnight, and alone, in the fifth chamber of the +Appartamento Borgia.'</p> + +<p>"'The Appartamento Borgia!' I exclaimed in consternation. 'The saloons +which the wicked Pope Alexander the Sixth nocturnally perambulates, +mingling poisons that have long lost their potency for Cardinals who have +long lost their lives!'</p> + +<p>"'Have a care!' he exclaimed sharply. 'You speak to his late Holiness's +most intimate friend.'</p> + +<p>"'Then,' I answered, 'you must obviously be the Devil, and I am not at +present empowered to negotiate with your Infernal Majesty. Consider, +however, the peril and inconvenience of visiting at dead of night rooms +closed for generations. Think of the chills and cobwebs. Weigh the +probability of his Holiness being devoured by rats.'</p> + +<p>"'I guarantee his Holiness absolute immunity from cold,' he replied, +'and that none of my subjects shall molest him either going or +returning.'</p> + +<p>"'But,' I objected, 'granting that you are not the Devil, how the devil, +let me ask, do you expect to gain admittance at midnight to the +Appartamento Borgia?'</p> + +<p>"'Think you I cannot pass through a stone wall?' answered he, and +vanished in an instant. A tremendous scampering of rats immediately ensued, +then all was silence.</p> + +<p>"On recovering in some measure from my astounded condition, I caused +strict search to be made throughout the shop. Nothing came to light but +herbalists' stuff and ordinary medicines. And now, Holy Father, your +Holiness's resolution? Reflect well. This Rattila may be the King of the +Rats, or he may be Beelzebub in person."</p> + +<p>Alexander the Eighth was principally considered by his contemporaries in +the light of a venerable fox, but the lion had by no means been omitted +from his composition.</p> + +<p>"All powers of good forbid," he exclaimed, "that a Pope and a Prince +should shrink from peril which the safety of the State summons him to +encounter! I will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of his +own appointing, under his late intimate friend's very nose. I am a man of +many transgressions, but something assures me that Heaven will not deem +this a fit occasion for calling them to remembrance. Time presses; I lead +on; follow, Cardinal Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let us not forget +temporal and spiritual armouries."</p> + +<p>And hastily providing himself with a lamp, a petronel, a bunch of keys, +a crucifix, a vial of holy water, and a manual of exorcisms, the Pope +passed through a secret door in a corner of his chamber, followed by the +Cardinal bearing another lamp and a naked sword, and preceded by the dog +and the two cats, all ardent and undaunted as champions bound to the Holy +Land for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The wizard had kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the +pilgrimage, which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the +number of passages to be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length the +companions stood before the portal of the Appartamento Borgia.</p> + +<p>"Your Holiness must enter alone," Cardinal Barbadico admonished, with +manifest reluctance.</p> + +<p>"Await my return," enjoined the Pontiff, in a tone of more confidence +than he could actually feel, as, after much grinding and grating, the +massive door swung heavily back, and he passed on into the dim, unexplored +space beyond. The outer air, streaming in as though eager to indemnify +itself for years of exile, smote and swayed the flame of the Pope's lamp, +whose feeble ray flitted from floor to ceiling as the decrepit man, weary +with the way he had traversed and the load he was bearing, tottered and +stumbled painfully along, ever and anon arrested by a closed door, which he +unlocked with prodigious difficulty. The cats cowered close to the +Cardinal; the dog at first accompanied the Pope, but whined so grievously, +as though he beheld a spirit, that Alexander bade him back.</p> + +<p>Supreme is the spell of the <i>genius loci</i>. The chambers traversed +by the Pope were in fact adorned with fair examples of the painter's art, +mostly scriptural in subject, but some inspired with the devout Pantheism +in which all creeds are reconciled. All were alike invisible to the +Pontiff, who, with the dim flicker of his lamp, could no more discern +Judaea wed with Egypt on the frescoed ceiling than, with the human +limitation of his faculties, he could foresee that the ill-reputed rooms +would one day harbour a portion of the Vatican Library, so greatly enriched +by himself. Nothing but sinister memories and vague alarms presented +themselves to his imagination. The atmosphere, heavy and brooding from the +long exclusion of the outer air, seemed to weigh upon him with the density +of matter, and to afford the stuff out of which phantasmal bodies +perpetually took shape and, as he half persuaded himself, substance. +Creeping and tottering between bowl and cord, shielding himself with lamp +and crucifix from Michelotto's spectral poniard and more fearful contact +with fleshless Vanozzas and mouldering Giulias, the Pope urged, or seemed +to urge, his course amid phantom princes and cardinals, priests and +courtesans, soldiers and serving-men, dancers, drinkers, dicers, Bacchic +and Cotyttian workers of whatsoever least beseemed the inmates of a +Pontifical household, until, arrived in the fifth chamber, close by the, to +him, invisible picture of the Resurrection, he sank exhausted into a +spacious chair that seemed placed for his reception, and for a moment +closed his eyes. Opening them immediately afterwards, he saw with relief +that the phantoms had vanished, and that he confronted what at least seemed +a fellow-mortal, in the ancient ratcatcher, habited precisely as Cardinal +Barbadico had described, yet, for all his mean apparel, wearing the air of +one wont to confer with the potentates of the earth on other subjects than +the extermination of rats.</p> + +<p>"This is noble of your Holiness—really," he said, bowing with mock +reverence. "A second Leo the Great!"</p> + +<p>"I tell you what, my man," responded Alexander, feeling it very +necessary to assert his dignity while any of it remained, "you are not to +imagine that, because I have humoured you so far as to grant you an +audience at an unusual place and time, I am going to stand any amount of +your nonsense and impertinence. You can catch our rats, can you? Catch them +then, and you need not fear that we shall treat you like the Pied Piper of +Hamelin. You have committed sundry rascalities, no doubt? A pardon shall +be made out for you. You want a patent or a privilege for your ratsbane? +You shall have it. So to work, in the name of St. Muscipulus! and you may +keep the tails and skins."</p> + +<p>"Alexander," said the ratcatcher composedly, "I would not commend or +dispraise you unduly, but this I may say, that of all the Popes I have +known you are the most exuberant in hypocrisy and the most deficient in +penetration. The most hypocritical, because you well know, and know that I +know that you know, that you are not conversing with an ordinary +ratcatcher: had you deemed me such, you would never have condescended to +meet me at this hour and place. The least penetrating, because you +apparently have not yet discovered to whom you are speaking. Do you really +mean to say that you do not know me?"</p> + +<p>"I believe I have seen your face before," said Alexander, "and all the +more likely as I was inspector of prisons when I was Cardinal."</p> + +<p>"Then look yonder," enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the +frescoed wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers. Phosphoric +sparks hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue lambent flame, +which concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose precise attitude +the ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees. The Pope shrieked with +amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical vestments had become +ragged fur, in every other respect the kneeling figure was the counterpart +of the painted one, and the painted one was Pinturicchio's portrait of Pope +Alexander the Sixth kneeling as a witness of the Resurrection.</p> + +<p>Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor's +attitude, but terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his +patron St. Mark which struggled towards his lips never arrived there. The +book of exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water +lay in shivers upon the floor. Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope +had seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the grave, and, +fondling a ferret-skin, proceeded to enter into conversation.</p> + +<p>"What fear you?" he asked. "Why should I harm you? None can say that I +ever injured any one for any cause but my own advantage, and to injure your +Holiness now would be to obstruct a design which I have particularly at +heart."</p> + +<p>"I crave your Holiness's forgiveness," rejoined the Eighth Alexander, +"but you must be aware that you left the world with a reputation which +disqualifies you for the society of any Pope in the least careful of his +character. It positively compromises me to have so much as the ghost of a +person so universally decried as your Holiness under my roof, and you would +infinitely oblige me by forthwith repairing to your own place, which I take +to be about four thousand miles below where you are sitting. I could +materially facilitate and accelerate your Holiness's transit thither if you +would be so kind as to hand me that little book of exorcisms."</p> + +<p>"How is the fine gold become dim!" exclaimed Alexander the Sixth. "Popes +in bondage to moralists! Popes nervous about public opinion! Is there +another judge of morals than the Pope speaking <i>ex cathedra</i>, as I +always did? Is the Church to frame herself after the prescriptions of +heathen philosophers and profane jurists? How, then, shall she be terrible +as an army with banners? Did I concern myself with such pedantry when the +Kings of Spain and Portugal came to me like cats suing for morsels, and I +gave them the West and the East?"</p> + +<p>"It is true," Alexander the Eighth allowed, "that the lustre of the +Church hath of late been obfuscated by the prevalence of heresy."</p> + +<p>"It isn't the heretics," Borgia insisted. "It is the degeneracy of the +Popes. A shabby lot! You, Alexander, are about the best of them; but the +least Cardinal about my Court would have thought himself bigger than +you."</p> + +<p>Alexander's spirit rose. "I would suggest," he said, "that this haughty +style is little in keeping with the sordid garb wherein your Holiness, +consistent after death as in your life, masquerades to the scandal and +distress of the faithful."</p> + +<p>"How can I other? Has your Holiness forgotten your Rabelais?"</p> + +<p>"The works of that eminent Doctor and Divine," answered Alexander the +Eighth, "are seldom long absent from my hands, yet I fail to remember in +what manner they elucidate the present topic."</p> + +<p>"Let me refresh your memory," rejoined Borgia, and, producing a volume +of the Sage of Meudon, he turned to the chapter descriptive of the +employments of various eminent inhabitants of the nether world, and pointed +to the sentence:</p> + +<p>"LE PAPE ALEXANDRE ESTOYT PRENEUR DE RATZ." [*]</p> <p +class="footnote">*) <i>Pantagruel</i>, Book XI. ch. 30. </p> + +<p>"Is this indeed sooth?" demanded his successor.</p> + +<p>"How else should François Rabelais have affirmed it?" responded +Borgia. "When I arrived in the subterranean kingdom, I found it in the same +condition as your Holiness's dominions at the present moment, eaten up by +rats. The attention which, during my earthly pilgrimage, I had devoted to +the science of toxicology indicated me as a person qualified to abate the +nuisance, which commission I executed with such success, that I received +the appointment of Ratcatcher to his Infernal Majesty, and so discharged +its duties as to merit a continuance of the good opinion which had always +been entertained of me in that exalted quarter. After a while, however, +interest began to be made for me in even more elevated spheres. I had not +been able to cram Heaven with Spaniards, as I had crammed the Sacred +College—on the contrary. Truth to speak, my nation has not largely +contributed to the population of the regions above. But some of us are +people of consequence. My great-grandson, the General of the Jesuits, who, +as such, had the ear of St. Ignatius Loyola, represented that had I adhered +strictly to my vows, he could never have come into existence, and that the +Society would thus have wanted one of its brightest ornaments. This +argument naturally had great weight with St. Ignatius, the rather as he, +too, was my countryman. Much also was said of the charity I had shown to +the exiled Jews, which St. Dominic was pleased to say made him feel ashamed +of himself when he came to think of it; for my having fed my people in time +of dearth, instead of contriving famines to enrich myself, as so many +Popes' nephews have done since; and of the splendid order in which I kept +the College of Cardinals. Columbus said a good word for me, and Savonarola +did not oppose. Finally I was allowed to come upstairs, and exercise my +profession on earth. But mark what pitfalls line the good man's path! I +never could resist tampering with drugs of a deleterious nature, and was +constantly betrayed by the thirst for scientific experiment into practices +incompatible with the public health. The good nature which my detractors +have not denied me was a veritable snare. I felt for youth debarred from +its enjoyments by the unnatural vitality of age, and sympathised with the +blooming damsel whose parent alone stood between her and her lover. I thus +lived in constant apprehension of being ordered back to the Netherlands, +and yearned for the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be out of +mischief. At last I discovered that my promotion to a higher sphere +depended upon my obtaining a testimonial from the reigning Pope. Let a +solemn procession be held in my honour, and intercession be publicly made +for me, and I should ascend forthwith. I have consequently represented my +case to many of your predecessors: but, O Alexander, you +seventeenth-century Popes are a miserable breed! No fellow-feeling, no +<i>esprit de corps. Heu pietas! heu prisca fides</i>! No one was so rude as +your ascetic antecessor. The more of a saint, the less of a gentleman. +Personally offensive, I assure you! But the others were nearly as bad. The +haughty Paul, the fanatic Gregory, the worldly Urban, the austere Innocent +the Tenth, the affable Alexander the Seventh, all concurred in assuring me +that it was deeply to be regretted that I should ever have been emancipated +from the restraints of the Stygian realm, to which I should do well to +return with all possible celerity; that it would much conduce to the +interests of the Church if my name could be forgotten; and that as for +doing anything to revive its memory, they would just as soon think of +canonising Judas Iscariot."</p> + +<p>"And therefore your Holiness has brought these rats upon us, enlisted, I +nothing doubt, in the infernal regions?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely so: Plutonic, necyomantic, Lemurian rats, kindly lent by the +Prince of Darkness for the occasion, and come dripping from Styx to squeak +and gibber in the Capitol. But I note your Holiness's admission that they +belong to a region exempt from your jurisdiction, and that, therefore, your +measures against them, except as regards their status as belligerents, are +for the most part illegitimate and <i>ultra vires</i>."</p> + +<p>"I would argue that point," replied Alexander the Eighth, "if my lungs +were as tough as when I pleaded before the Rota in Pope Urban's time. For +the present I confine myself to formally protesting against your Holiness's +unprecedented and parricidal conduct in invading your country at the head +of an army of loathsome vermin."</p> + +<p>"Unprecedented!" exclaimed Borgia. "Am I not the modern Coriolanus? Did +Narses experience blacker ingratitude than I? Where would the temporal +power be but for me? Who smote the Colonna? Who squashed the Orsini? Who +gave the Popes to dwell quietly in their own house? Monsters of +unthankfulness!"</p> + +<p>"I am sure," said Alexander the Eighth soothingly, "that my +predecessors' inability to comply with your Holiness's request must have +cost them many inward tears, not the less genuine because entirely +invisible and completely inaudible. A wise Pope will, before all things, +consider the spirit of his age. The force of public opinion, which your +Holiness lately appeared to disparage, was, in fact, as operative upon +yourself as upon any of your successors. If you achieved great things in +your lifetime, it was because the world was with you. Did you pursue the +same methods now, you would soon discover that you had become an offensive +anachronism. It will not have escaped your Holiness's penetration that what +moralists will persist in terming the elevation of the standard of the +Church, is the result of the so-called improvement of the world."</p> + +<p>"There is a measure of truth in this," admitted Alexander the Sixth, +"and the spirit of this age is a very poor spirit. It was my felicity to be +a Pope of the Renaissance. Blest dispensation! when men's view of life was +large and liberal; when the fair humanities flourished; when the earth +yielded up her hoards of chiselled marble and breathing bronze, and +new-found agate urns as fresh as day; when painters and sculptors vied with +antiquity, and poets and historians followed in their path; when every +benign deity was worshipped save Diana and Vesta; when the arts of +courtship and cosmetics were expounded by archbishops; when the beauteous +Imperia was of more account than the eleven thousand virgins; when +obnoxious persons glided imperceptibly from the world; and no one +marvelled if he met the Pope arm in arm with the Devil. How miserable, in +comparison, is the present sapless age, with its prudery and its pedantry, +and its periwigs and its painted coaches, and its urban Arcadias and the +florid impotence and ostentatious inanity of what it calls its art! Pope +Alexander! I see in the spirit the sepulchre destined for <i>you</i>, and I +swear to you that my soul shivers in my ratskins! Come, now! I do not +expect you to emulate the Popes of my time, but show that your virtues are +your own, and your faults those of your epoch. Pluck up a spirit! Take +bulls by the horns! Look facts in the face! Think upon the images of Brutus +and Cassius! Recognise that you cannot get rid of me, and that the only +safe course is to rehabilitate me. I am not a candidate for canonisation +just now; but repair past neglect and appease my injured shade in the way +you wot of. If this is done, I pledge my word that every rat shall +forthwith evacuate Rome. Is it a bargain? I see it is; you are one of the +good old sort, though fallen on evil days."</p> + +<p>Renaissance or Rats, Alexander the Eighth yielded.</p> + +<p>"I promise," he declared.</p> + +<p>"Your hand upon it!"</p> + +<p>Subduing his repugnance and apprehension by a strong effort, Alexander +laid his hand within the spectre's clammy paw. An icy thrill ran through +his veins, and he sank back senseless into his chair.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with +slight symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, +and confer with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently +befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal's mind seemed an entire blank +on the subject. He admitted having made his customary report to his +Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing of any supernatural +ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous at the Appartamento +Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his nescience; no vestige of the +man of rats or of his shop could be discovered; and the Borgian apartments, +opened and carefully searched through, revealed no trace of having been +visited for many years. The Pope's book of exorcisms was in its proper +place, his vial of holy water stood unbroken upon his table; and his +chamberlains deposed that they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual +hour. His illusion was at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly +vivid dream; but when he declared his intention of actually holding a +service and conducting a procession for the weal of his namesake and +predecessor, the conviction became universal that the rats had effected a +lodgement in his Holiness's upper storeys.</p> + +<p>Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that on +the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of Rome. +As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and monasteries in +the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst, marched, carrying candles, +intoning chants, and, with many a secret shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven +for the repose of Alexander the Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by +another procession precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, +but more grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and +pageants of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat +and lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and +galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in +single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the rising +to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber, which they +would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there a huge rift +opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated themselves. Their +descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as Vulcan occupied in falling +from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last tail was over the brink, the gulf +closed as effectually as the gulf in the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius, +not leaving the slightest inequality by which any could detect it.</p> + +<p>Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth +from his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who +appeared desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were +exchanged, and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, +corpulent, elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander +the Sixth, accoutred with the official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, +who rose slowly into the air as though he had been inflated with +hydrogen.</p> + +<p>"To your prayers!" cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. The +priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their knees. +Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was rising +rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty, +contending which should receive the Holy Father into her bosom. [*] Borgia +struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be keeping them at bay, when +a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of men. Thunder roared, lightning +glared, the rush of waters blended with the ejaculations of the people and +the yet more tempestuous rushing of the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is +not probable that Alexander passed, like Dante's sigh, "beyond the sphere +that doth all spheres enfold"; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it +is not doubted that he attained at least as far as the moon.</p> <p +class="footnote">*) +<br> Per aver riposo +<br> Portato fu fra l'anime beate +<br> Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso; +<br> Del qual seguiro le sante pedate +<br> Tre sue familiari e care ancelle, +<br> Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate. —<span +class="hi">Machiavelli</span>, <i>Decennale Primo</i>. </p> <a +id="p177"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY</h2> + +<p>In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the +Christian era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had +three sons, Fu-su, Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men of +active minds, always labouring to find out something new and useful. +Wang-li was clever too, but only in games of skill, in which he attained +great proficiency.</p> + +<p>Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful +inventions they would make when they arrived at man's estate, and of the +wealth and renown they promised themselves thereby. Their conversation +seldom reached the ears of Wang-li, for he rarely lifted his eyes from the +chess-board on which he solved his problems. But their father was more +attentive, and one day he said:</p> + +<p>"I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you +must have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you would +have learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means which you have +proposed to yourselves."</p> + +<p>"How so, father?" asked they.</p> + +<p>"It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors," said the old man, "that +the reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, by +reason of our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not but +become impaired if their posterity were suffered to eclipse their fame by +new discoveries, or presumptuously amend what might appear imperfect in +their productions. It is therefore, by an edict of the Emperor Suen, +forbidden to invent anything; and by a statute of the Emperor Wu-chi it is +further provided that nothing hitherto invented shall be improved. My +predecessor in the small office I hold was deprived of it for saying that +in his judgment money ought to be made round instead of square, and I have +myself run risk of my life for seeking to combine a small file with a pair +of tweezers."</p> + +<p>"If this is the case," said the young men, "our fatherland is not the +place for us." And they embraced their father, and departed. Of their +brother Wang-li they took no farewell, inasmuch as he was absorbed in a +chess problem. Before separating, they agreed to meet on the same spot +after thirty years, with the treasure which they doubted not to have +acquired by the exercise of their inventive faculties in foreign lands. +They further covenanted that if either had missed his reward the other +should share his possessions with him.</p> + +<p>Fu-su repaired to the artists who cut out characters in blocks of hard +wood, to the end that books may be printed from the same. When he had +fathomed their mystery he betook himself to a brass-founder, and learned +how to cast in metal. He then sought a learned man who had travelled much, +and made himself acquainted with the Greek, Persian, and Arabic languages. +Then he cast a number of Greek characters in type, and putting them into a +bag and providing himself with some wooden letter-tablets of his own +carving, he departed to seek his fortune. After innumerable hardships and +perils he arrived in the land of Persia, and inquired for the great +king.</p> + +<p>"The great king is dead," they told him, "and his head is entirely +separated from his body. There is now no king in Persia, great or +small,"</p> + +<p>"Where shall I find another great king?" demanded he.</p> + +<p>"In the city of Alexandria," replied they, "where the Commander of the +Faithful is busy introducing the religion of the Prophet."</p> + +<p>Fu-su passed to Alexandria, carrying his types and tablets.</p> + +<p>As he entered the gates he remarked an enormous cloud of smoke, which +seemed to darken the whole city. Before he could inquire the reason, the +guard arrested him as a stranger, and conducted him to the presence of the +Caliph Omar.</p> + +<p>"Know, O Caliph," said Fu-su, "that my countrymen are at once the wisest +of mankind and the stupidest. They have invented an art for the +preservation of letters and the diffusion of knowledge, which the sages of +Greece and India never knew, but they have not learned to take, and they +refuse to be taught how to take, the one little step further necessary to +render it generally profitable to mankind."</p> + +<p>And producing his tablets and types, he explained to the Caliph the +entire mystery of the art of printing.</p> + +<p>"Thou seemest to be ignorant," said Omar, "that we have but yesterday +condemned and excommunicated all books, and banished the same from the +face of the earth, seeing that they contain either that which is contrary +to the Koran, in which case they are impious, or that which is agreeable to +the Koran, in which case they are superfluous. Thou art further unaware, as +it would seem, that the smoke which shrouds the city proceeds from the +library of the unbelievers, consumed by our orders. It will be meet to burn +thee along with it."</p> + +<p>"O Commander of the Faithful," said an officer, "of a surety the last +scroll of the accursed ceased to flame even as this infidel entered the +city."</p> + +<p>"If it be so," said Omar, "we will not burn him, seeing that we have +taken away from him the occasion to sin. Yet shall he swallow these little +brass amulets of his, at the rate of one a day, and then be banished from +the country."</p> + +<p>The sentence was executed, and Fu-su was happy that the Court physician +condescended to accept his little property in exchange for emetics.</p> + +<p>He begged his way slowly and painfully back to China, and arrived at the +covenanted spot at the expiration of the thirtieth year. His father's +modest dwelling had disappeared, and in its place stood a magnificent +mansion, around which stretched a park with pavilions, canals, +willow-trees, golden pheasants, and little bridges.</p> + +<p>"Tu-sin has surely made his fortune," thought he, "and he will not +refuse to share it with me agreeably to our covenant."</p> + +<p>As he thus reflected he heard a voice at his elbow, and turning round +perceived that one in a more wretched plight than himself was asking alms +of him. It was Tu-sin.</p> + +<p>The brothers embraced with many tears, and after Tu-sin had learned +Fu-su's history, he proceeded to recount his own.</p> + +<p>"I repaired," said he, "to those who know the secret of the grains +termed fire-dust, which Suen has not been able to prevent us from +inventing, but of which Wu-chi has taken care that we shall make no use, +save only for fireworks. Having learned their mystery I deposited a certain +portion of this fire-dust in hollow tubes which I had constructed of iron +and brass, and upon it I further laid leaden balls of a size corresponding +to the hollow of the tubes. I then found that by applying a light to the +fire-dust at one end of the tube I could send the ball out at the other +with such force that it penetrated the cuirasses of three warriors at once. +I filled a barrel with the dust, and concealing it and the tubes under +carpets which I laid upon the backs of oxen, I set out to the city of +Constantinople. I will not at present relate my adventures on the journey. +Suffice it that I arrived at last half dead from fatigue and hardship, and +destitute of everything except my merchandise. By bribing an officer with +my carpets I was admitted to have speech with the Emperor. I found him +busily studying a problem in chess.</p> + +<p>"I told him that I had discovered a secret which would make him the +master of the world, and in particular would help him to drive away the +Saracens, who threatened his empire with destruction.</p> + +<p>"'Thou must perceive,' he said, 'that I cannot possibly attend to thee +until I have solved this problem. Yet, lest any should say that the +Emperor neglects his duties, absorbed in idle amusement, I will refer thy +invention to the chief armourers of my capital. And he gave me a letter to +the armourers, and returned to his problem. And as I quitted the palace +bearing the missive, I came upon a great procession. Horsemen and running +footmen, musicians, heralds, and banner-bearers surrounded a Chinaman who +sat in the attitude of Fo under a golden umbrella upon a richly caparisoned +elephant, his pigtail plaited with yellow roses. And the musicians blew and +clashed, and the standard-bearers waved their ensigns, and the heralds +proclaimed, 'Thus shall it be done to the man whom the Emperor delights to +honour.' And unless I was very greatly mistaken, the face of the Chinaman +was the face of our brother Wang-li.</p> + +<p>"At another time I would have striven to find what this might mean, but +my impatience was great, as also my need and hunger. I sought the chief +armourers, and with great trouble brought them all together to give me +audience, I produced my tube and fire-dust, and sent my balls with ease +through the best armour they could set before me.</p> + +<p>"' Who will want breast-plates now?' cried the chief breast-plate +maker.</p> + +<p>"'Or helmets?' exclaimed one who made armour for the head.</p> + +<p>"'I would not have taken fifty bezants for that shield, and what good is +it now?' said the head of the shield trade.</p> + +<p>"'My swords will be of less account,' said a swordsmith.</p> + +<p>"'My arrows of none,' lamented an arrow-maker.</p> + +<p>"''Tis villainy,' cried one.</p> + +<p>"''Tis magic,' shouted another.</p> + +<p>"''Tis illusion, as I'm an honest tradesman,' roared a third, and put +his integrity to the proof by thrusting a hot iron bar into my barrel. All +present rose up in company with the roof of the building, and all perished, +except myself, who escaped with the loss of my hair and skin. A fire broke +out on the spot, and consumed one-third of the city of Constantinople.</p> + +<p>"I was lying on a prison-bed some time afterwards, partly recovered of +my hurts, dolefully listening to a dispute between two of my guards as to +whether I ought to be burned or buried alive, when the Imperial order for +my disposal came down. The gaolers received it with humility, and read +'Kick him out of the city.' Marvelling at the mildness of the punishment, +they nevertheless executed it with so much zeal that I flew into the middle +of the Bosphorus, where I was picked up by a fishing vessel, and landed on +the Asiatic coast, whence I have begged my way home. I now propose that we +appeal to the pity of the owner of this splendid mansion, who may +compassionate us on hearing that we were reared in the Cottage which has +been pulled down to make room for his palace."</p> + +<p>They entered the gates, walked timidly up to the house, and prepared to +fall at the feet of the master, but did not, for ere they could do so they +recognised their brother Wang-li.</p> + +<p>It took Wang-li some time to recognise them, but when at length he knew +them he hastened to provide for their every want. When they had well eaten +and drunk, and had been clad in robes of honour, they imparted their +histories, and asked for his.</p> + +<p>"My brothers," said Wang-li, "the noble game of chess, which was happily +invented long before the time of the Emperor Suen, was followed by me +solely for its pleasure, and I dreamed not of acquiring wealth by its +pursuit until I casually heard one day that it was entirely unknown to the +people of the West. Even then I thought not of gaining money, but conceived +so deep a compassion for those forlorn barbarians that I felt I could know +no rest until I should have enlightened them. I accordingly proceeded to +the city of Constantinople, and was received as a messenger from Heaven. To +such effect did I labour that ere long the Emperor and his officers of +state thought of nothing else but playing chess all day and night, and the +empire fell into entire confusion, and the Saracens mightily prevailed. In +consideration of these services the Emperor was pleased to bestow those +distinguished honours upon me which thou didst witness at his palace gate, +dear brother.</p> + +<p>"After, however, the fire which was occasioned through thy +instrumentality, though in no respect by thy fault, the people murmured, +and taxed the Emperor with seeking to destroy his capital in league with a +foreign sorcerer, meaning thee. Ere long the chief officers conspired and +entered the Emperor's apartment, purposing to dethrone him, but he declared +that he would in nowise abdicate until he had finished the game of chess he +was then playing with me. They looked on, grew interested, began to +dispute with one another respecting the moves, and while they wrangled +loyal officers entered and made them all captive. This greatly augmented my +credit with the Emperor, which was even increased when shortly afterwards I +played with the Saracen admiral blockading the Hellespont, and won of him +forty corn-ships, which turned the dearth of the city into plenty.</p> + +<p>"The Emperor bade me choose any favour I would, but I said his +liberality had left me nothing to ask for except the life of a poor +countryman of mine who I had heard was in prison for burning the city. The +Emperor bade me write his sentence with my own hand. Had I known that it +was thou, Tu-sin, believe me I had shown more consideration for thy person. +At length I departed for my native land, loaded with wealth, and travelling +most comfortably by relays of swift dromedaries. I returned hither, bought +our father's cottage, and on its site erected this palace, where I dwell +meditating on the problems of chessplayers and the precepts of the sages, +and persuaded that a little thing which the world is willing to receive is +better than a great thing which it hath not yet learned to value aright. +For the world is a big child, and chooses amusement before +instruction."</p> + +<p>"Call you chess an amusement?" asked his brothers.</p> <a id="p186"></a> +<a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>MADAM LUCIFER</h2> + +<p>Lucifer sat playing chess with Man for his soul.</p> + +<p>The game was evidently going ill for Man. He had but pawns left, few and +straggling. Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops.</p> + +<p>It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no +great hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity," said he at last, "that we did not fix some period within +which the player must move, or resign."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lucifer," returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, "it is +not the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my +betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that paragon of +terrestrial loveliness!" Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was +touched.</p> + +<p>"Is the Lady Adeliza's loveliness in sooth so transcendent?" he +inquired.</p> + +<p>"She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!"</p> + +<p>"If that is the case," rejoined Lucifer, "thou mayest reassure thyself. +The Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy shape +and woo her in thy stead."</p> + +<p>The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this promise +which Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In an instant +the Devil checkmated him, and he disappeared.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I +don't think I should have gone in for it," soliloquised the Devil, as, +wearing his captive's semblance and installed in his apartments, he +surveyed the effects to which he now had to administer. They included +coats, shirts, collars, neckties, foils, cigars, and the like <i>ad +libitum</i>; and very little else except three challenges, ten writs, and +seventy-four unpaid bills, elegantly disposed around the looking-glass. To +the poor youth's praise be it said, there were no billets-doux, except from +the Lady Adeliza herself.</p> + +<p>Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and +nothing but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him +take the back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking +on the principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer +and a bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady Adeliza's feet.</p> + +<p>The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such +correctness of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a love-sick +fiend. Not Merlin's mother had produced half the impression upon him; and +Adeliza on her part had never found her lover one-hundredth part so +interesting as he seemed that morning.</p> + +<p>Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape +for the occasion, he negotiated a loan without the smallest difficulty. All +debts were promptly discharged, and Adeliza was astonished at the splendour +and variety of the presents she was constantly receiving.</p> + +<p>Lucifer had all but brought her to name the day, when he was informed +that a gentleman of clerical appearance desired to wait upon him.</p> + +<p>"Wants money for a new church or mission, I suppose," said he. "Show him +up."</p> + +<p>But when the visitor was ushered in, Lucifer found with discomposure +that he was no earthly clergyman, but a celestial saint; a saint, too, with +whom Lucifer had never been able to get on. He had served in the army while +on earth, and his address was curt, precise, and peremptory.</p> + +<p>"I have called," he said, "to notify to you my appointment as Inspector +of Devils."</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, in consternation. "To the post of my old +friend Michael!"</p> + +<p>"Too old," said the Saint laconically. "Millions of years older than the +world. About your age, I think?"</p> + +<p>Lucifer winced, remembering the particular business he was then about. +The Saint continued:</p> + +<p>"I am a new broom, and am expected to sweep clean. I warn you that I +mean to be strict, and there is one little matter which I must set right +immediately. You are going to marry that poor young fellow's betrothed, are +you? Now you know you cannot take his wife, unless you give him yours."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear friend," exclaimed Lucifer, "what an inexpressibly blissful +prospect you do open unto me!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that," said the Saint. "I must remind you that the +dominion of the infernal regions is unalterably attached to the person of +the present Queen thereof. If you part with her you immediately lose all +your authority and possessions. I don't care a brass button which you do, +but you must understand that you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Good +morning!"</p> + +<p>Who shall describe the conflict in Lucifer's bosom? If any stronger +passion existed therein at that moment than attachment to Adeliza, it was +aversion to his consort, and the two combined were well-nigh irresistible. +But to disenthrone himself, to descend to the condition of a poor +devil!</p> + +<p>Feeling himself incapable of coming to a decision, he sent for Belial, +unfolded the matter, and requested his advice.</p> + +<p>"What a shame that our new inspector will not let you marry Adeliza!" +lamented his counsellor. "If you did, my private opinion is that +forty-eight hours afterwards you would care just as much for her as you do +now for Madam Lucifer, neither more nor less. Are your intentions really +honourable?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Lucifer, "it is to be a Lucifer match."</p> + +<p>"The more fool you," rejoined Belial. "If you tempted her to commit a +sin, she would be yours without any conditions at all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Belial," said Lucifer, "I cannot bring myself to be a tempter of so +much innocence and loveliness."</p> + +<p>And he meant what he said.</p> + +<p>"Well then, let me try," proposed Belial.</p> + +<p>"You?" replied Lucifer contemptuously; "do you imagine that Adeliza +would look at <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked Belial, surveying himself complacently in the +glass.</p> + +<p>He was humpbacked, squinting, and lame, and his horns stood up under his +wig.</p> + +<p>The discussion ended in a wager after which there was no retreat for +Lucifer.</p> + +<p>The infernal Iachimo was introduced to Adeliza as a distinguished +foreigner, and was soon prosecuting his suit with all the success which +Lucifer had predicted. One thing protected while it baffled him—the +entire inability of Adeliza to understand what he meant. At length he was +constrained to make the matter clear by producing an enormous treasure, +which he offered Adeliza in exchange for the abandonment of her lover.</p> + +<p>The tempest of indignation which ensued would have swept away any +ordinary demon, but Belial listened unmoved. When Adeliza had exhausted +herself he smilingly rallied her upon her affection for an unworthy lover, +of whose infidelity he undertook to give her proof. Frantic with jealousy, +Adeliza consented, and in a trice found herself in the infernal +regions.</p> + +<p>Adeliza's arrival in Pandemonium, as Belial had planned, occurred +immediately after the receipt of a message from Lucifer, in whose bosom +love had finally gained the victory, and who had telegraphed his abdication +and resignation of Madam Lucifer to Adeliza's betrothed. The poor young man +had just been hauled up from the lower depths, and was beset by legions of +demons obsequiously pressing all manner of treasures upon his acceptance. +He stared, helpless and bewildered, unable to realise his position in the +smallest degree. In the background grave and serious demons, the princes of +the infernal realm, discussed the new departure, and consulted especially +how to break it to Madam Lucifer—a commission of which no one seemed +ambitious.</p> + +<p>"Stay where you are," whispered Belial to Adeliza; "stir not; you shall +put his constancy to the proof within five minutes."</p> + +<p>Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under +ordinary circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover's side: but what is +all hell to jealousy?</p> + +<p>In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by +Madam Lucifer. This lady's black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted +agreeably with her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair was +compensated by the exceptional length of her nails; she was a thousand +million years old, and, but for her remarkable muscular vigour, looked +every one of them. The rage into which Belial's communication had thrown +her was something indescribable; but, as her eye fell on the handsome +youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to take possession of her +mind.</p> + +<p>"Let the monster go!" she exclaimed; "who cares? Come, my love, ascend +the throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond +Luciferetta."</p> + +<p>"If you don't, back you go," interjected Belial.</p> + +<p>What might have been the young man's decision if Madam Lucifer had borne +more resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent to +inquire, for the question never arose.</p> + +<p>"Take me away!" he screamed, "take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of +her reach! Oh, Adeliza!"</p> + +<p>With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant +glance at the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression +changed, and she screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike in +every lineament and every detail of costume, utterly indistinguishable, +even by the eye of Love.</p> + +<p>Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza's feet and pray +her to defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings of +her elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his dominions along +with his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions with such expedition +that he had had no time to change his costume. Hence the equivocation which +confounded Adeliza, but at the same time preserved her from being torn to +pieces by the no less mystified Madam Lucifer.</p> + +<p>Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling +resumed his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer's talons were immediately +inserted into his whiskers.</p> + +<p>"My dear! my love!" he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, "is this +the way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?"</p> + +<p>"Who is that person?" demanded Madam Lucifer.</p> + +<p>"I don't know her," screamed the wretched Lucifer. "I never saw her +before. Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!"</p> + +<p>"Not if I know it," sharply replied Madam Lucifer, "You can't bear to +part with her, can't you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, would +you? Take that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them both +out!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly," responded Lucifer.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sire," cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, "for Heaven's sake let +your Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector——"</p> + +<p>"Bother the Inspector!" screeched Lucifer. "D'ye think I'm not a +thousand times more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in the +calendar? There," addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, "be off! You'll +find all debts paid, and a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!"</p> + +<p>They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus +stood wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down +which they scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it was +long ere they ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer.</p> <a +id="p194"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE TALISMANS</h2> + +<p>What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us +perform, which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem +incredible!</p> + +<p>By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, +who was prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of +which, to judge by the little value he appeared to set on the subject of +his discourse, he must himself have been fully persuaded? Without exciting +his suspicions in the smallest degree, the student stole away to a region +inconceivably remote, and presented himself at the portal of a magnificent +palace, guarded by goblins, imps, lions, serpents, and monsters whose +uncouthness forbids description.</p> + +<p>A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the +professor's class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully +respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance, +brandishing a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal +goblins, by whom he was successively interrogated.</p> + +<p>"Hast thou undergone the seven probations?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the student.</p> + +<p>"Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?"</p> + +<p>"Ninety-nine times each," said the student.</p> + +<p>"Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?"</p> + +<p>"I have," said the student.</p> + +<p>"Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?"</p> + +<p>"I am," said the student.</p> + +<p>"Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said the student,</p> + +<p>"Hast thou attestations of all these circumstances under the hands and +seals of a thousand and one demons?"</p> + +<p>The student displayed his parchments.</p> + +<p>"Thou hast undergone every trial," pronounced the seventh goblin; "thou +hast won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all things, +and to choose from it any one talisman at thy liking."</p> + +<p>The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank hissing +away, the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him upon his back +to the treasurer's presence,</p> + +<p>The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair, +received the adventurer with civility.</p> + +<p>"I have come," said the student, "for the talismans in thy keeping, to +the choice among which I have entitled myself."</p> + +<p>"Thou hast fairly earned them," replied the old man, "and I may not say +thee nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape which +it has received at my hands during the long period for which these have +remained in my custody."</p> + +<p>"I must submit to the condition," said the student.</p> + +<p>"Behold, then, Aladdin's lamp," said the ancient personage, tendering a +tiny vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a +coarse, rusty powder.</p> + +<p>"Aladdin's lamp!" cried the student.</p> + +<p>"All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve," replied the old +man. "Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to apprise thee +that the virtues of the talisman having necessarily dwindled with its bulk, +it is at present incompetent to evoke any Genie, and can at most summon an +imp, of whose company thou wilt never be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as +the least friction will inevitably destroy what little of the talisman +remains."</p> + +<p>"Confusion!" cried the young man, "Show me, then, Aladdin's ring."</p> + +<p>"Here," replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop,</p> + +<p>"This, at least," asked the student, "is not devoid of virtue?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its +magic properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, which I +have gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any other use +than that of a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to admiration."</p> + +<p>"Produce another talisman," commanded the youth,</p> + +<p>"These," said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of +leather, "are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them +out."</p> + +<p>"This, at least, is bright and weighty," exclaimed the student, as the +old man displayed the sword of sharpness.</p> + +<p>"In truth a doughty weapon," returned the treasurer, "if wielded by a +stronger arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite +off heads of its own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to the +new hilt."</p> + +<p>After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a +fragment of the original setting of Solomon's seal, the youth's eye lighted +upon a volume full of mysterious characters.</p> + +<p>"Whose book is this?" he inquired. "Heavens, it is Michael Scott's!"</p> + +<p>"Even so," returned the venerable man, "and its spells have lost nothing +of their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula for dismissing +spirits after they have been summoned from the nether world, hath been +removed by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath caused several most +respectable magicians to be torn in pieces, and hath notably increased the +number of demons at large."</p> + +<p>"Thou old villain!" shouted the exasperated youth, "is this the way in +which the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou that +I will brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, but I will +deprive thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair."</p> + +<p>"O good youth," supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, +"bereave me not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the +consequences!"</p> + +<p>"I will not think," roared the youth. "Deliver it to me, or I'll rend it +from thy head with my own hands."</p> + +<p>With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to +the youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters.</p> + +<p>Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding +streets until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large public +square. It was crowded with people, gazing intently at the afternoon sky, +and the air was rife with a confused murmur of altercations and +exclamations.</p> + +<p>"It is." "No, I tell you, it is impossible." "It cannot be." "I see it +move." "No, it's only my eyes are dazzled." "Who could have believed it?" +"Whatever will happen next?"</p> + +<p>Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object +of their attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could discover +nothing unusual.</p> + +<p>"No," a man by him was saying, "it positively has not moved for an hour. +I have my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken."</p> + +<p>"It ought to have been behind the houses long ago," said another.</p> + +<p>"What's o'clock?" asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes +towards the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The +hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew +them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in +turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a +single tick, but there was none to hear.</p> + +<p>"Time is no more," proclaimed a leader among the people.</p> + +<p>"I am a ruined man," lamented a watchmaker.</p> + +<p>"And I," ejaculated a maker of almanacks.</p> + +<p>"What of quarter-day?" inquired a landlord and a tenant +simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"We shall never see the moon again," sobbed a pair of lovers.</p> + +<p>"It is well this did not happen at night," observed an optimist.</p> + +<p>"Indeed?" questioned the director of a gas company.</p> + +<p>"I told you the Last Day would come in our time," said a preacher.</p> + +<p>It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time had +paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation depending on her +silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not come to life. The sick +could not die. The human frame could not waste. Every one in the enjoyment +of health and strength felt assured of the perpetual possession of these +blessings, unless he should meet with accident or violent death. But all +growth ceased, and all dissolution was stayed. Mothers looked with despair +on infants who could never be weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs +gazed with dismay on immortal fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties, +the fashionable boxers and opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor +did the intellectual less rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired +faculties, and vowing to extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The +poor and the outcast, the sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the +dying made, indeed, a dismal outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by +some persons.</p> + +<p>As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to +a young lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been attached in +former days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that it would be +everlasting, revived his passion. To convince her of the perpetuity of her +charms, and establish a claim upon her gratitude, he cautiously revealed to +her that he was the author of this blissful state of things, and that +Time's hair was actually in his possession.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you dear good man!" she exclaimed, "how vastly I am obliged to you! +Ferdinand will never forsake me now."</p> + +<p>"Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said, "you young men of science are so conceited!"</p> + +<p>The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer's +palace. It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the city +ere he mixed again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was +addressing energetically.</p> + +<p>"I ask you one thing," he was saying. "Will it ever rain again?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. "Rain +being an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be no place +for it under the present dispensation."</p> + +<p>"Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they +not withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea itself? +Who will feed your cattle? And who will feed <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"This concerns us," said the butchers and bakers.</p> + +<p>"Us also," added the fishmongers.</p> + +<p>"I always thought," said a philosopher, "that this phenomenon must be +the work of some malignant wizard."</p> + +<p>"Show us the wizard that we may slay him," roared the mob.</p> + +<p>Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately +identified by twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and was +held up in sight of the multitude.</p> + +<p>"Kill him!"</p> + +<p>"Burn him!"</p> + +<p>"Crucify him!"</p> + +<p>"It moves! it moves!" cried another division of the crowd. All eyes were +bent on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving—no, it +wasn't; yes, it certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows were +actually lengthening? Was the sun's rim really drawing nigh yonder great +edifice? That muffled sound from the vast, silent multitude was, doubtless, +the quick beating of innumerable hearts; but that sharper note? Could it be +the ticking of watches? Suddenly all the public clocks clanged the first +stroke of an hour—an absurdly wrong hour, but it was an hour. No +mortal heard the second stroke, drowned in universal shouts of joy and +gratitude. The student mingled with the mass, no man regarding him.</p> + +<p>When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to +disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could get +beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a very +humble citizen, a barber.</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "the old gentleman's hair has grown again!"</p> + +<p>And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying +gave up the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told the +professor his dream.</p> <a id="p202"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE ELIXIR OF LIFE</h2> + +<p>The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of +Balkh, where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the occult +sciences. No one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet Aboniel did not +wholly shun intercourse with mankind, but, on the contrary, had seven +pupils, towardly youths belonging to the noblest families of the city, whom +he instructed at stated times in philosophy and all lawful knowledge, +reserving the forbidden lore of magic and alchemy for himself.</p> + +<p>But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious +apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing save +the sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven crystal +phials, filled with a clear liquid resembling water.</p> + +<p>"Ye know, my sons," he began, "with what ardour I am reputed to have +striven to penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the +problems which have allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this +rumour doth not err: such hath ever been my object; but, until yesterday, +my fortune hath been like unto theirs who have preceded me. The little I +could accomplish seemed as nothing in comparison with what I was compelled +to leave unachieved. Even now my success is but partial. I have not +learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is not mine; nor can I recall +the principle of life to the dead, or infuse it into inanimate matter. But +if I cannot create, I can preserve. I have found the Elixir of Life."</p> + +<p>The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them +he read extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their +teacher, and the dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves might +become participators in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. +Addressing himself to the latter sentiment—"I am willing," he +continued, "to communicate this secret to you, if such be your desire."</p> + +<p>An unanimous exclamation assured him that there need be no uncertainty +on this point.</p> + +<p>"But remember," he resumed, "that this knowledge, like all knowledge, +has its disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when ye +come to learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. Understand +that the stipulations I am about to propound are not of my imposing; the +secret was imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent order, and under +conditions with which I am constrained strictly to comply. Understand also +that I am not minded to employ this knowledge on my own behalf. My +fourscore years' acquaintance with life has rendered me more solicitous for +methods of abbreviating existence, than of prolonging it. It may be well +for you if your twenty years' experience has led you to the same +conclusion."</p> + +<p>There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, +and indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general +unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of their +venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have convinced +him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf between theory +and practice, and the feebleness of intellectual persuasion in presence of +innate instinct. With one voice they protested their readiness to brave any +conceivable peril, and undergo any test which might be imposed as a +condition of participation in their master's marvellous secret.</p> + +<p>"So be it," returned the sage, "and now hearken to the conditions.</p> + +<p>"Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these +seven phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far +different are the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly +poisons which the utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to prepare, +and science knows no antidote to any of them. The first scorches up the +entrails as with fire; the second slays by freezing every vein, and +benumbing every nerve; the third by frantic convulsions. Happy in +comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks dead upon the ground +immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. Nor do I overmuch +commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for slumber descends upon +him forthwith, and he passes away in painless oblivion. But wretched he who +chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from his head, whose skin peels from +his body, and who lingers long in excruciating agonies, a living death. The +seventh phial contains the object of your desire. Stretch forth your +hands, therefore, simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly +grasp and intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the +quality of his fortune attested by the result."</p> + +<p>The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold +blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their +preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable +features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable +solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked +beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they +scanned the phials, trusting that some infinitesimal distinction might +serve to discriminate the elixir from the poisons. But no, the vessels were +indistinguishable in external appearance, and the contents of each were +equally colourless and transparent.</p> + +<p>"Well," demanded Aboniel at length, with real or assumed surprise, +"wherefore tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you in +the agonies of death!"</p> + +<p>This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the +boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but perceiving +that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some confusion.</p> + +<p>"Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this worthless +existence," said one of their number at last, breaking the embarrassing +silence, "but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound up with mine."</p> + +<p>"I," said the second, "have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet +that I should provide."</p> + +<p>"I," said the third, "have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose +cause I may in nowise forsake."</p> + +<p>"And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged," said the fourth.</p> + +<p>"My life," said the fifth, "is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent +to lay it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?"</p> + +<p>"Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?" inquired the +sixth.</p> + +<p>"I," said the seventh, "have neither mother nor sister, friends nor +enemies, neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But I +have all the greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is exceedingly +precious in my sight."</p> + +<p>"The conclusion of the whole matter, then," summed up the sage, "is that +not one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?"</p> + +<p>The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the +justice of their master's taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for +some middle path, which did not readily present itself.</p> + +<p>"May we not," said one at last, "may we not cast lots, and each take a +phial in succession, as destiny may appoint?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing against this," replied Aboniel, "only remember that the +least endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of any +one of you, will ensure the discomfiture of all."</p> + +<p>The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and +proceeded to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in the +hand of the holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his mother.</p> + +<p>He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced half +the distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of the second +quill; the man with the sister, he said abruptly:</p> + +<p>"The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and +intimate than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not therefore +fitting that thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my stead?"</p> + +<p>"The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son," responded +the youth addressed, in a sententious tone, "albeit most holy, cannot in +the nature of things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be dissolved +by death. Whereas the relationship between brother and sister may endure +for many years, if such be the will of Allah. It is therefore proper that +thou shouldst first venture the experiment."</p> + +<p>"Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!" +exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. "The maternal +relationship—"</p> + +<p>"A truce to this trifling," cried the other six; "fulfil the conditions, +or abandon the task."</p> + +<p>Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized one +of the phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied that he +detected something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which distinguished +it, in his imagination, from the innocent transparency of the rest. He +hastily replaced it, and laid hold of the next. At that moment a blaze of +light burst forth upon them, and, thunderstruck, the seven scholars were +stretched senseless on the ground.</p> + +<p>On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of +Aboniel's dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part they +had played. They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned to their +homes.</p> + +<p>The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be +expected to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven +days, known to more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The last +of these to become acquainted with it was the Sultan, who immediately +despatched his guards to apprehend the sage, and confiscate the Elixir. +Failing to obtain admission at Aboniel's portal, they broke it open, and, +on entering his chamber, found him in a condition which more eloquently +than any profession bespoke his disdain for the life-bestowing draught. He +was dead in his chair. Before him, on the table, stood the seven phials, +six full as previously, the seventh empty. In his hand was a scroll +inscribed as follows;</p> + +<p>"Six times twice six years have I striven after knowledge, and I now +bequeath to the world the fruit of my toil, being six poisons. One more +deadly I might have added, but I have refrained,</p> + +<p>"Write upon my tomb, that here he lies who forbore to perpetuate human +affliction, and bestowed a fatal boon where alone it could be +innoxious."</p> + +<p>The intruders looked at each other, striving to penetrate the sense of +Aboniel's last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud +crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large +monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and +preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an +inspiration of supreme irony, had administered to the creature every drop +of the Elixir of Life.</p> <a id="p210"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE POET OF PANOPOLIS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Although in a manner retired from the world during the fifth and sixth +Christian centuries, the banished Gods did not neglect to keep an eye on +human affairs, interesting themselves in any movement which might seem to +afford them a chance of regaining their lost supremacy, or in any person +whose conduct evinced regret at their dethronement. They deeply sympathised +with the efforts of their votary Pamprepius to turn the revolt of Illus to +their advantage, and excused the low magical arts to which he stooped as a +necessary concession to the spirit of a barbarous age. They ministered +invisibly to Damascius and his companions on their flight into Persia, +alleviating the hardships under which the frames of the veteran +philosophers might otherwise have sunk. It was not, indeed, until the +burning of the Alexandrian library that they lost all heart and lapsed into +the chrysalis-like condition in which they remained until tempted forth by +the young sunshine of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>Such a phenomenon for the fifth century as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of +Panopolis could not fail to excite their most lively interest. Forty-eight +books of verse on the exploits of Bacchus in the age of pugnacious prelates +and filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and rampant robbers, of the +threatened dissolution of every tie, legal, social, or political; an age of +earthquake, war, and famine! Bacchus, who is known from Aristophanes not to +have excelled in criticism, protested that his laureate was greater than +Homer; and, though Homer could not go quite so far as this, he graciously +conceded that if he had himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with +a faint glimmering of the poetical art, and encumbered with more learning +than he knew how to use, he might have written almost as badly as his +modern representative. More impartial critics judged Nonnus's achievement +more favourably, and all agreed that his steadfastness in the faith +deserved some special mark of distinction. The Muses under Pallas's +direction (being themselves a little awkward in female accomplishments) +embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus forged a +plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy. Whether +from distrust of Hermes' integrity, or wishing to make the personal +acquaintance of his follower, Phoebus volunteered to convey the testimonial +in person, and accordingly took his departure for the Egyptian Thebaid.</p> + +<p>As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the +blazing sun of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a +vast crowd of strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like +bees clustering at the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he +identified them as a posse of demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot +describe the enormous variety of whatever the universe holds of most +heterogeneous. Naked women of surpassing loveliness displayed their charms +to the anchorite's gaze, sturdy porters bent beneath loads of gold which +they heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien from humanity allured his +appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or smote at him with swords, +or made feints at his eyes with spears, or burned sulphur under his nose, +or displayed before him scrolls of poetry or learning, or shrieked +blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed him from a little distance with +glances of leering affection; while a motley crowd of goblins, wearing the +heads of boars or lions, or whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or +hoofed, or scaled, or feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and +wrangled with each other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting +and grinning, snapping, snarling, constantly running away and returning +like gnats dancing over a marsh. The holy man sat doggedly at the entrance +of his cavern, with an expression of fathomless stupidity, which seemed to +defy all the fiends of the Thebaid to get an idea into his head, or make +him vary his attitude by a single inch.</p> + +<p>"These people did not exist in our time," said Apollo aloud, "or at +least they knew their place, and behaved themselves."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said a comparatively grave and respectable demon, addressing the +stranger, "I should wish your peregrinity to understand that these imps are +mere schoolboys—my pupils, in fact. When their education has made +further progress they will be more mannerly, and will comprehend the folly +of pestering an unintellectual old gentleman like this worthy Pachymius +with beauty for which he has no eyes, and gold for which he has no use, and +dainties for which he has no palate, and learning for which he has no head. +But <i>I'll</i> wake him up!" And waving his pupils away, the paedagogic +fiend placed himself at the anchorite's ear, and shouted into it—</p> + +<p>"Nonnus is to be Bishop of Panopolis!"</p> + +<p>The hermit's features were instantly animated by an expression of envy +and hatred.</p> + +<p>"Nonnus!" he exclaimed, "the heathen poet, to have the see of Panopolis, +of which <i>I</i> was promised the reversion!"</p> + +<p>"My dear sir," suggested Apollo, "it is all very well to enliven the +reverend eremite; but don't you think it is rather a liberty to make such +jokes at the expense of my good friend Nonnus?"</p> + +<p>"There is no liberty," said the demon, "for there is no joke. Recanted +on Monday. Baptized yesterday. Ordained to-day. To be consecrated +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The anchorite poured forth a torrent of the choicest ecclesiastical +curses, until he became speechless from exhaustion, and Apollo, profiting +by the opportunity, addressed the demon:</p> + +<p>"Would it be an unpardonable breach of politeness, respected sir, if I +ventured to hint that the illusions your pupils have been trying to impose +upon this venerable man have in some small measure impaired the confidence +with which I was originally inspired by your advantageous personal +appearance?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least," replied the demon, "especially as I can easily make +my words good. If you and Pachymius will mount my back I will transport +you to Panopolis, where you can verify my assertion for yourselves."</p> + +<p>The Deity and the anchorite promptly consented, and seated themselves on +the demon's shoulders. The shadow of the fiend's expanded wings fell black +and vast on the fiery sand, but diminished and became invisible as he +soared to a prodigious height, to escape observation from below. By-and-by +the sun's glowing ball touched earth at the extremity of the horizon; it +disappeared, the fires of sunset burned low in the west, and the figures of +the demon and his freight showed like a black dot against a lake of green +sky, growing larger as he cautiously stooped to earth. Grazing temples, +skimming pyramids, the party came to ground in the precincts of Panopolis, +just in time to avoid the rising moon that would have betrayed them. The +demon immediately disappeared. Apollo hastened off to demand an explanation +from Nonnus, while Pachymius repaired to a neighbouring convent, peopled, +as he knew, by a legion of sturdy monks, ever ready to smite and be smitten +in the cause of orthodoxy.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Nonnus sat in his study, wrinkling his brow as he polished his verses by +the light of a small lamp. A large scroll lay open on his knees, the +contents of which seemed to afford him little satisfaction. Forty-eight +more scrolls, resplendent with silver knobs and coquettishly tied with +purple cord, reposed in an adjoining book-case; the forty-eight books, +manifestly, of the Panopolitan bard's Dionysiaca. Homer, Euripides, and +other poets lay on the floor, having apparently been hurriedly dislodged to +make room for divers liturgies and lives of the saints. A set of episcopal +robes depended from a hook, and on a side table stood half-a-dozen mitres, +which, to all appearance, the designated prelate had been trying on.</p> + +<p>"Nonnus," said Phoebus, passing noiselessly through the unresisting +wall, "the tale of thy apostasy is then true?"</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to determine whether surprise, delight, or dismay +preponderated in Nonnus's expression as he lifted up his eyes and +recognised the God of Poetry. He had just presence of mind to shuffle his +scroll under an enormous dictionary ere he fell at Apollo's feet.</p> + +<p>"O Phoebus," he exclaimed, "hadst thou come a week ago!"</p> + +<p>"It is true, then?" said Apollo. "Thou forsakest me and the Muses. Thou +sidest with them who have broken our statues, unroofed our temples, +desecrated our altars, and banished us from among mankind. Thou rejectest +the glory of standing alone in a barbarous age as the last witness to +culture and civilisation. Thou despisest the gifts of the Gods and the +Muses, of which I am even now the bearer. Thou preferrest the mitre to the +laurel chaplet, and the hymns of Gregory to the epics of Homer?"</p> + +<p>"O Phoebus," replied Nonnus, "were it any God but thou, I should bend +before him in silence, having nought to reply. But thou art a poet, and +thou understandest the temper of a poet. Thou knowest how beyond other men +he is devoured by the craving for sympathy. This and not vulgar vanity is +his motive of action; his shaft is launched in vain unless he can deem it +embedded in the heart of a friend. Thou mayest well judge what scoffings +and revilings my Dionysiac epic has brought upon me in this evil age; yet, +had this been all, peradventure I might have borne it. But it was not all. +The gentle, the good, the affectionate, they who in happier times would +have been my audience, came about me, saying, Nonnus, why sing the strains +against which we must shut our ears? Sing what we may listen to, and we +will love and honour thee. I could not bear the thought of going to my +grave without having awakened an echo of sympathy, and weakly but not +basely I have yielded, given them what they craved, and suffered them, +since the Muses' garland is not theirs to bestow, to reward me with a +mitre."</p> + +<p>"And what demanded they?" asked Apollo.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a mere romance! Something entirely fabulous."</p> + +<p>"I must see it," persisted Apollo; and Nonnus reluctantly disinterred +his scroll from under the big dictionary, and handed it up, trembling like +a schoolboy who anticipates a castigation for a bad exercise.</p> + +<p>"What trash have we here?" cried Phoebus—</p> +<br> "Αχρονος ην, +ακιχητος, εν +αρρητω +Λογος αρχη, +<br> 'Ισοφυης +Γενετηρος +όμηλικος +Τιος αμητωρ, +<br> Και +Λογος +αυτοφυτοιο +Θεου, φως, εκ +φαεος φως. + +<p>"If it isn't the beginning of the Gospel of John! Thy impiety is worse +than thy poetry!"</p> + +<p>Apollo cast the scroll indignantly to the ground. His countenance wore +an expression so similar to that with which he is represented in act to +smite the Python, that Nonnus judged it prudent to catch up his manuscript +and hold it shield-wise before his face.</p> + +<p>"Thou doest well," said Apollo, laughing bitterly; "that rampart is +indeed impenetrable to my arrows."</p> + +<p>Nonnus seemed about to fall prostrate, when a sharp rap came to the +door.</p> + +<p>"That is the Governor's knock," he exclaimed. "Do not forsake me +utterly, O Phoebus!" But as he turned to open the door, Apollo vanished. +The Governor entered, a sagacious, good-humoured-looking man in middle +life.</p> + +<p>"Who was with thee just now?" he asked. "Methought I heard voices."</p> + +<p>"Merely the Muse," explained Nonnus, "with whom I am wont to hold +nocturnal communings."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" replied the Governor. "Then the Muse has done well to take +herself off, and will do even better not to return. Bishops must have no +flirtations with Muses, heavenly or earthly—not that I am now +altogether certain that thou <i>wilt</i> be a bishop."</p> + +<p>"How so?" asked Nonnus, not without a feeling of relief.</p> + +<p>"Imagine, my dear friend," returned the Governor, "who should turn up +this evening but that sordid anchorite Pachymius, to whom the see was +promised indeed, but who was reported to have been devoured by vermin in +the desert. The rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be feared +that sufficient pains were not taken to verify it—cannot have been, +in fact; for, as I said, here he comes, having been brought, as he affirms, +through the air by an angel. Little would it have signified if he had come +by himself, but he is accompanied by three hundred monks carrying cudgels, +who threaten an insurrection if he is not consecrated on the spot. My +friend the Archbishop and I are at our wits' end: we have set our hearts on +having a gentleman over the diocese, but we cannot afford to have tumults +reported at Constantinople. At last, mainly through the mediation of a +sable personage whom no one seems to know, but who approves himself most +intelligent and obliging, the matter is put off till to-morrow, when them +and Pachymius are to compete for the bishopric in public on conditions not +yet settled, but which our swarthy friend undertakes to arrange to every +one's satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don't run away in any +case. I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety for thee +but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if thou +art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius."</p> + +<p>With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the +poor poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing alone +somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of the Gods +lay on the table in their place, whence he concluded that a friendly power +might yet be watching over him.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Next morning all Panopolis was in an uproar. It was generally known that +the pretensions of the candidates for the episcopate would be decided by +public competition, and it was rumoured that this would partake of the +nature of an ordeal by fire and water. Nothing further had transpired +except that the arrangements had been settled by the Governor and +Archbishop in concert with two strangers, a dingy Libyan and a handsome +young Greek, neither of whom was known in the city, but in both of whom the +authorities seemed to repose entire confidence. At the appointed time the +people flocked into the theatre, and found the stage already occupied by +the parties chiefly concerned. The Governor and the Archbishop sat in the +centre on their tribunals: the competitors stood on each side, Pachymius +backed by the demon, Nonnus by Apollo; both these supporters, of course, +appearing to the assembly in the light of ordinary mortals. Nonnus +recognised Apollo perfectly, but Pachymius's limited powers of intelligence +seemed entirely engrossed by the discomfort visibly occasioned him by the +proximity of an enormous brass vessel of water, close to which burned a +bright fire. Nonnus was also ill at ease, and continually directed his +attention to a large package, of the contents of which he seemed +instinctively cognisant.</p> + +<p>All being ready, the Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, +with the sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of +determining between the claims of two such highly qualified competitors had +been delegated to two gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full confidence, +who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective candidates. +Should one fail and the other succeed, the victor would of course be +instituted; should both undergo the probation successfully, new criterions +of merit would be devised; should both fall short, both would be set aside, +and the disputed mitre would be conferred elsewhere. He would first summon +Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and now their fellow-Christian, to +submit himself to the test proposed.</p> + +<p>Apollo now rose, and proclaimed in an audible voice, "By virtue of the +authority committed to me I call upon Nonnus of Panopolis, candidate for +the bishopric of his native city, to demonstrate his fitness for the same +by consigning to the flames with his own hands the forty-eight execrable +books of heathen poetry composed by him in the days of his darkness and +blindness, but now without doubt as detestable to him as to the universal +body of the faithful." So saying, he made a sign to an attendant, the +wrapping of the package fell away, and the forty-eight scrolls of the +Dionysiaca, silver knobs, purple cords, and all, came to view.</p> + +<p>"Burn my poem!" exclaimed Nonnus. "Destroy the labours of twenty-four +years! Bereave Egypt of its Homer! Erase the name of Nonnus from the tablet +of Time!"</p> + +<p>"How so, while thou hast the Paraphrase of St. John?" demanded Apollo +maliciously.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, good youth," said the Governor, who wished to favour Nonnus, +"methinks the condition is somewhat exorbitant. A single book might +suffice, surely!"</p> + +<p>"I am quite content," replied Apollo. "If he consents to burn any of his +books he is no poet, and I wash my hands of him."</p> + +<p>"Come, Nonnus," cried the Governor, "make haste; one book will do as +well as another. Hand them up here."</p> + +<p>"It must be with his own hands, please your Excellency," said +Apollo.</p> + +<p>"Then," cried the Governor, pitching to the poet the first scroll +brought to him, "the thirteenth book. Who cares about the thirteenth book? +Pop it in!"</p> + +<p>"The thirteenth book!" exclaimed Nonnus, "containing the contest between +wine and honey, without which my epic becomes totally and entirely +unintelligible!"</p> + +<p>"This, then," said the Governor, picking out another, which chanced to +be the seventeenth,</p> + +<p>"In my seventeenth book," objected Nonnus, "Bacchus plants vines in +India, and the superiority of wine to milk is convincingly +demonstrated."</p> + +<p>"Well," rejoined the Governor, "what say you to the twenty-second?"</p> + +<p>"With my Hamadryad! I can never give up my Hamadryad!"</p> + +<p>"Then," said the Governor, contemptuously hurling the whole set in the +direction of Nonnus, "burn which you will, only burn!"</p> + +<p>The wretched poet sat among his scrolls looking for a victim. All his +forty-eight children were equally dear to his parental heart. The cries of +applause and derision from the spectators, and the formidable bellowings +of the exasperated monks who surrounded Pachymius, did not tend to steady +his nerves, or render the task of critical discrimination the easier,</p> + +<p>"I won't! I won't!" he exclaimed at last, starting up defiantly. "Let +the bishopric go to the devil! Any one of my similes is worth all the +bishoprics in Egypt!"</p> + +<p>"Out on the vanity of these poets!" exclaimed the disappointed +Governor.</p> + +<p>"It is not vanity," said Apollo, "it is paternal affection; and being +myself a sufferer from the same infirmity, I rejoice to find him my true +son after all."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Governor, turning to the demon: "it is thy man's turn +now. Trot him out!"</p> + +<p>"Brethren," said the demon to the assembly, "it is meet that he who +aspires to the office of bishop should be prepared to give evidence of +extraordinary self-denial. Ye have seen even our weak brother Nonnus +adoring what he hath burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he hath +adored. How much more may be reasonably expected of our brother Pachymius, +so eminent for sanctity! I therefore call upon him to demonstrate his +humility and self-renunciation, and effectually mortify the natural man, by +washing himself in this ample vessel provided for the purpose"</p> + +<p>"Wash myself!" exclaimed Pacyhmius, with a vivacity of which he had +previously shown no token. "Destroy at one splash the sanctity of +fifty-seven years! Avaunt! thou subtle enemy of my salvation! I know thee +who thou art, the demon who brought me hither on his back yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I thought it had been an angel," said the Governor.</p> + +<p>"A demon in the disguise of an angel of light," said Pachymius.</p> + +<p>A tumultuous discussion arose among Pachymius's supporters, some +extolling his fortitude, others blaming his wrongheadedness.</p> + +<p>"What!" said he to the latter, "would ye rob me of my reputation? Shall +it be written of me, The holy Pachymius abode in the precepts of the +eremites so long as he dwelt in the desert where no water was, but as soon +as he came within sight of a bath, he stumbled and fell?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, father," urged they, "savoureth not this of vaingloriousness? The +demon in the guise of an angel of light, as thou so well saidest even now. +Be strong. Quit thyself valiantly. Think of the sufferings of the primitive +confessors."</p> + +<p>"St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil," said one.</p> + +<p>"St. Apocryphus was actually drowned," said another.</p> + +<p>"I have reason to believe," said a third, "that the loathsomeness of +ablution hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics."</p> + +<p>"I know it has," said another. "I <i>have</i> washed myself once, though +ye might not think it, and can assert that it is by no means as +disagreeable as one supposes."</p> + +<p>"That is just what I dread," said Pachymius. "Little by little, one +might positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of +evil."</p> + +<p>All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the +anchorite, and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the vessel, +purposing at a convenient season to throw him in. He was now near enough to +catch a glimpse of the limpid element. Recoiling in horror, he collected +all his energies, and with head depressed towards his chest, and hands +thrust forth as if to ward off pollution—butting, kicking, biting the +air—he rushed forwards, and with a preternatural force deserving to +be enumerated among his miracles, fairly overthrew the enormous vase, the +contents streaming on the crowd in front of the stage.</p> + +<p>"Take me to my hermitage!" he screamed. "I renounce the bishopric. Take +me to my hermitage!"</p> + +<p>"Amen," responded the demon, and, assuming his proper shape, he took +Pachymius upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the +multitude.</p> + +<p>Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he +received the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to +congratulate him on the constancy with which he had sustained his fiery, or +rather watery trial. He spent most of his remaining days in the society of +the devil, on which account he was canonised at his death.</p> + +<p>"O Phoebus," said Nonnus, when they were alone, "impose upon me any +penance thou wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the Muses. +But before all things let me destroy my paraphrase."</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt not destroy it," said Phoebus, "Thou shalt publish it. That +shall be thy penance."</p> + +<p>And so it is that the epic on the exploits of Bacchus and the paraphrase +of St. John's Gospel have alike come down to us as the work of Nonnus, +whose authorship of both learned men have never been able to deny, having +regard to the similarity of style, but never could explain until the facts +above narrated came to light in one of the Fayoum papyri recently acquired +by the Archduke Rainer.</p> <a id="p226"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE PURPLE HEAD</h2> +<br> Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel +<br> That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel. + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>In the heyday of the Emperor Aurelian's greatness, when his strong right +arm propped Rome up, and hewed Palmyra down, when he surrounded his capital +with walls fifty miles in circuit, and led Tetricus and Zenobia in triumph +through its streets, and distributed elephants among the senators, and laid +Etruria out in vineyards, and contemplated in leisure moments the +suppression of Christianity as a subordinate detail of administration, a +mere ripple on the broad ocean of his policy—at this period Bahram +the First, King of Persia, naturally became disquieted in his mind.</p> + +<p>"This upstart soldier of fortune," reflected he, "has an unseemly habit +of overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing +Divine right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor +Valerian, curried and stuffed with straw, hangs to this hour in the temple +at Ctesiphon, a pleasing spectacle to the immortal gods. How would my own +skin appear in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus? This must not be. I will +send an embassy to him, and impress him with my greatness. But how?"</p> + +<p>He accordingly convoked his counsellors; the viziers, the warriors, the +magi, the philosophers; and addressed them thus:</p> + +<p>"The king deigns to consult ye touching a difficult matter. I would +flatter the pride of Rome, without lowering the pride of Persia. I would +propitiate Aurelian, and at the same time humble him. How shall this be +accomplished?"</p> + +<p>The viziers, the warriors, and the magi answered not a word. Unbroken +silence reigned in the assembly, until the turn came to the sage Marcobad, +who, prostrating himself, said, "O king, live for ever! In ancient times, +as hath been delivered by our ancestors, Persians were instructed in three +accomplishments—to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. +Persia still rides and shoots; truth-speaking (praised be Ormuzd!) she hath +discontinued as unbefitting an enlightened nation. Thou needest not, +therefore, scruple to circumvent Aurelian. Offer him that which thou +knowest will not be found in his treasury, seeing that it is unique in +thine own; giving him, at the same time, to understand that it is the +ordinary produce of thy dominions. So, while rejoicing at the gift, shall +he be abashed at his inferiority. I refer to the purple robe of her majesty +the queen, the like of which is not to be found in the whole earth, neither +do any know where the dye that tinges it is produced, save that it proceeds +from the uttermost parts of India."</p> + +<p>"I approve thy advice," replied Bahram, "and in return will save thy +life by banishing thee from my dominions. When my august consort shall +learn that thou hast been the means of depriving her of her robe, she will +undoubtedly request that thou mayest be flayed, and thou knowest that I +can deny her nothing. I therefore counsel thee to depart with all possible +swiftness. Repair to the regions where the purple is produced, and if thou +returnest with an adequate supply, I undertake that my royal sceptre shall +be graciously extended to thee."</p> + +<p>The philosopher forsook the royal presence with celerity, and his office +of chief examiner of court spikenard was bestowed upon another; as also his +house and his garden, his gold and his silver, his wives and his +concubines, his camels and his asses, which were numerous.</p> + +<p>While the solitary adventurer wended his way eastward, a gorgeous +embassy travelled westward in the direction of Rome.</p> + +<p>Arrived in the presence of Aurelian, and at the conclusion of his +complimentary harangue, the chief envoy produced a cedar casket, from which +he drew a purple robe of such surpassing refulgence, that, in the words of +the historian who has recorded the transaction, the purple of the emperor +and of the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison. It was accompanied by +a letter thus conceived:</p> + +<p>"Bahram to Aurelian: health! Receive such purple as we have in +Persia."</p> + +<p>"Persia, forsooth!" exclaimed Sorianus, a young philosopher versed in +natural science, "this purple never was in Persia, except as a rarity. Oh, +the mendacity and vanity of these Orientals!"</p> + +<p>The ambassador was beginning an angry reply, when Aurelian quelled the +dispute with a look, and with some awkwardness delivered himself of a brief +oration in acknowledgment of the gift. He took no more notice of the +matter until nightfall, when he sent for Sorianus, and inquired where the +purple actually was produced.</p> + +<p>"In the uttermost parts of India," returned the philosopher.</p> + +<p>"Well," rejoined Aurelian, summing up the matter with his accustomed +rapidity and clearness of head, "either thou or the Persian king has lied +to me, it is plain, and, by the favour of the Gods, it is immaterial which, +seeing that my ground for going to war with him is equally good in either +case. If he has sought to deceive me, I am right in punishing him; if he +possesses what I lack, I am justified in taking it away. It would, however, +be convenient to know which of these grounds to inscribe in my manifesto; +moreover, I am not ready for hostilities at present; having first to +extirpate the Blemmyes, Carpi, and other barbarian vermin. I will therefore +despatch thee to India to ascertain by personal examination the truth about +the purple. Do not return without it, or I shall cut off thy head. My +treasury will charge itself with the administration of thy property during +thy absence. The robe shall meanwhile be deposited in the temple of Jupiter +Capitolinus. May he have it and thee in his holy keeping!"</p> + +<p>Thus, in that age of darkness, were two most eminent philosophers +reduced to beggary, and constrained to wander in remote and insalubrious +regions; the one for advising a king, the other for instructing an emperor. +But the matter did not rest here. For Aurelian, having continued the +visible deity of half the world for one hundred and fifty days after the +departure of Sorianus, was slain by his own generals. To him succeeded +Tacitus, who sank oppressed by the weight of rule; to him Probus, who +perished in a military tumult; to him Carus, who was killed by lightning; +to him Carinus, who was assassinated by one whom he had wronged; to him +Diocletian, who, having maintained himself for twenty years, wisely forbore +to tempt Nemesis further, and retired to plant cabbages at Salona. All +these sovereigns, differing from each other in every other respect, agreed +in a common desire to possess the purple dye, and when the philosopher +returned not, successively despatched new emissaries in quest of it. +Strange was the diversity of fate which befell these envoys. Some fell into +the jaws of lions, some were crushed by monstrous serpents, some trampled +by elephants at the command of native princes, some perished of hunger, and +some of thirst; some, encountering smooth-browed and dark-tressed girls +wreathing their hair with the champak blossom or bathing by moonlight in +lotus-mantled tanks, forsook their quest, and led thenceforth idyllic lives +in groves of banian and of palm. Some became enamoured of the principles of +the Gymnosophists, some couched themselves for uneasy slumber upon beds of +spikes, weening to wake in the twenty-second heaven. All which romantic +variety of fortune was the work of a diminutive insect that crawled or +clung heedless of the purple it was weaving into the many-coloured web of +human life.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Some thirty years after the departure of the Persian embassy to +Aurelian, two travellers met at the bottom of a dell in trans-Gangetic +India, having descended the hill-brow by opposite paths. It was early +morning; the sun had not yet surmounted the timbered and tangled sides of +the little valley, so that the bottom still lay steeped in shadow, and +glittering with large pearls of limpid dew, while the oval space of sky +circumscribed by the summit glowed with the delicate splendour of the +purest sapphire. Songs of birds resounded through the brake, and the water +lilies which veiled the rivulet trickling through the depths of the retreat +were unexpanded still. One of the wayfarers was aged, the other a man of +the latest period of middle life. Their raiment was scanty and soiled; +their frames and countenances alike bespoke fatigue and hardship; but while +the elder one moved with moderate alacrity, the other shuffled painfully +along by the help of a staff, shrinking every time that he placed either of +his feet on the ground.</p> + +<p>They exchanged looks and greetings as they encountered, and the more +active of the two, whose face was set in an easterly direction, ventured a +compassionate allusion to the other's apparent distress.</p> + +<p>'I but suffer from the usual effects of crucifixion,' returned the +other; and removing his sandals, displayed two wounds, completely +penetrating each foot.</p> + +<p>The Cross had not yet announced victory to Constantine, and was as yet +no passport to respectable society. The first traveller drew back hastily, +and regarded his companion with surprise and suspicion.</p> + +<p>"I see what is passing in thy mind," resumed the latter, with a smile; +"but be under no apprehension. I have not undergone the censure of any +judicial tribunal. My crucifixion was merely a painful but necessary +incident in my laudable enterprise of obtaining the marvellous purple dye, +to which end I was despatched unto these regions by the Emperor +Aurelian."</p> + +<p>"The purple dye!" exclaimed the Persian, for it was he. "Thou hast +obtained it?"</p> + +<p>"I have. It is the product of insects found only in a certain valley +eastward from hence, to obtain access to which it is before all things +needful to elude the vigilance of seven dragons."</p> + +<p>"Thou didst elude them? and afterwards?" inquired Marcobad, with +eagerness.</p> + +<p>"Afterwards," repeated Sorianus, "I made my way into the valley, where I +descried the remains of my immediate predecessor prefixed to a cross."</p> + +<p>"Thy predecessor?"</p> + +<p>"He who had last made the attempt before me. Upon any one's penetrating +the Valley of Purple, as it is termed, with the design I have indicated, +the inhabitants, observant of the precepts of their ancestors, append him +to a cross by the feet only, confining his arms by ropes at the shoulders, +and setting vessels of cooling drink within his grasp. If, overcome with +thirst, he partakes of the beverage, they leave him to expire at leisure; +if he endures for three days, he is permitted to depart with the object of +his quest. My predecessor, belonging, as I conjecture, to the Epicurean +persuasion, and consequently unable to resist the allurements of sense, had +perished in the manner aforesaid. I, a Stoic, refrained and attained."</p> + +<p>"Thou didst bear away the tincture? thou hast it now?" impetuously +interrogated the Persian.</p> + +<p>"Behold it!" replied the Greek, exhibiting a small flask filled with the +most gorgeous purple liquid. "What seest thou here?" demanded he +triumphantly, holding it up to the light. "To me this vial displays the +University of Athens, and throngs of fair youths hearkening to the +discourse of one who resembles myself."</p> + +<p>"To my vision," responded the Persian, peering at the vial, "it rather +reveals a palace, and a dress of honour. But suffer me to contemplate it +more closely, for my eyes have waxed dim by over application to study."</p> + +<p>So saying, he snatched the flask from Sorianus, and immediately turned +to fly. The Greek sprang after his treasure, and failing to grasp +Marcobad's wrist, seized his beard, plucking the hair out by handfuls. The +infuriated Persian smote him on the head with the crystal flagon. It burst +into shivers, and the priceless contents gushed forth in a torrent over the +uncovered head and uplifted visage of Sorianus, bathing every hair and +feature with the most vivid purple.</p> + +<p>The aghast and thunderstricken philosophers remained gazing at each +other for a moment.</p> + +<p>"It is indelible!" cried Sorianus in distraction, rushing down, however, +to the brink of the little stream, and plunging his head beneath the +waters. They carried away a cloud of purple, but left the purple head +stained as before.</p> + +<p>The philosopher, as he upraised his glowing and dripping countenance +from the brook, resembled Silenus emerging from one of the rivers which +Bacchus metamorphosed into wine during his campaign in India. He resorted +to attrition and contrition, to maceration and laceration; he tried +friction with leaves, with grass, with sedge, with his garments; he +regarded himself in one crystal pool after another, a grotesque +anti-Narcissus. At last he flung himself on the earth, and gave free course +to his anguish.</p> + +<p>The grace of repentance is rarely denied us when our misdeeds have +proved unprofitable. Marcobad awkwardly approached.</p> + +<p>"Brother," he whispered, "I will restore the tincture of which I have +deprived thee, and add thereto an antidote, if such may be found. Await my +return under this camphor tree."</p> + +<p>So saying, he hastened up the path by which Sorianus had descended, and +was speedily out of sight.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Sorianus tarried long under the camphor tree, but at last, becoming +weary, resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he entered +the dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary appearance speedily +attracted the attention of the royal officers, by whom he was apprehended +and brought before his majesty.</p> + +<p>"It is evident," pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention +on the case, "that thou art in possession of an object too rare and +precious for a private individual, of which thou must accordingly be +deprived. I lament the inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had been +thy hand or thy foot."</p> + +<p>Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the +indefeasible right of property which he conceived himself to have acquired +in his own head.</p> + +<p>"In respect," responded the royal logician, "that thy head is conjoined +to thy shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is +mine, purple being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy, mine +on jurisprudence. Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine, the most +uncertain of sciences, override law, the perfection of human reason? It is +but to the vulgar observation that thou appearest to have a head at all; in +the eye of the law thou art acephalous."</p> + +<p>"I would submit," urged the philosopher, "that the corporal connection +of my head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a +fortuitous accident."</p> + +<p>"Thou mightest as well contend," returned the king, "that the law is +bound to regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is +disabled from taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of +smuggler—rebel, I might say, seeing that thou hast assumed the +purple."</p> + +<p>"But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty's +proceedings?"</p> + +<p>"There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be, +it must be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my +despoiling thee of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest mine. +I will labour to render this even clearer to thy apprehension. Thou art +found, as thou must needs admit, in possession of a contraband article +forfeit to the crown by operation of law. What then? Shall the intention of +the legislature be frustrated because thou hast insidiously rendered the +possession of <i>my</i> property inseparable from the possession of +<i>thine</i>? Shall I, an innocent proprietor, be mulcted of my right by +thy fraud and covin? Justice howls, righteousness weeps, integrity stands +aghast at the bare notion. No, friend, thy head has not a leg to stand on. +Wouldst thou retain it, it behoves thee to show that it will be more +serviceable to the owner, namely, myself, upon thy shoulders than +elsewhere. This may well be. Hast thou peradventure any subtleties in +perfumery? any secrets in confectionery? any skill in the preparation of +soup?"</p> + +<p>"I have condescended to none of these frivolities, O king. My study hath +ever consisted in divine philosophy, whereby men are rendered equal to the +gods."</p> + +<p>"And yet long most of all for purple!" retorted the monarch, "as I +conclude from perceiving thou hast after all preferred the latter. Thy head +must indeed be worth the taking."</p> + +<p>"Thy taunt is merited, O king! I will importune thee no longer. Thou +wilt indeed render me a service in depriving me of this wretched head, +hideous without, and I must fear, empty within, seeing that it hath not +prevented me from wasting my life in the service of vanity and luxury. Woe +to the sage who trusts his infirm wisdom and frail integrity within the +precincts of a court! Yet can I foretell a time when philosophers shall no +longer run on the futile and selfish errands of kings, and when kings shall +be suffered to rule only so far as they obey the bidding of philosophers. +Peace, Knowledge, Liberty—"</p> + +<p>The King of Ayodhya possessed, beyond all princes of his age, the art of +gracefully interrupting an unseasonable discourse. He slightly signed to a +courtier in attendance, a scimitar flashed for a moment from its scabbard, +and the head of Sorianus rolled on the pavement; the lips murmuring as +though still striving to dwell with inarticulate fondness upon the last +word of hope for mankind.</p> + +<p>It soon appeared that the principle of life was essential to the +resplendence of the Purple Head. Within a few minutes it had assumed so +ghastly a hue that the Rajah himself was intimidated, and directed that it +should be consumed with the body.</p> + +<p>The same full-moon that watched the white-robed throng busied with the +rites of incremation in a grove of palms, beheld also the seven dragons +contending for the body of Marcobad. But, for many a year, the maids and +matrons of Rome were not weary of regarding, extolling, and coveting the +priceless purple tissue that glowed in the fane of Jupiter Capitolinus.</p> +<a id="p238"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE FIREFLY</h2> + +<p>A certain Magician had retired for the sake of study to a cottage in a +forest. It was summer in a hot country. In the trees near the cottage dwelt +a most beautiful Firefly. The light she bore with her was dazzling, yet +soft and palpitating, as the evening star, and she seemed a single flash of +fire as she shot in and out suddenly from under the screen of foliage, or +like a lamp as she perched panting upon some leaf, or hung glowing from +some bough; or like a wandering meteor as she eddied gleaming over the +summits of the loftiest trees; as she often did, for she was an ambitious +Firefly. She learned to know the Magician, and would sometimes alight and +sit shining in his hair, or trail her lustre across his book as she crept +over the pages. The Magician admired her above all things:</p> + +<p>"What eyes she would have if she were a woman!" thought he.</p> + +<p>Once he said aloud;</p> + +<p>"How happy you must be, you rare, beautiful, brilliant creature!"</p> + +<p>"I am not happy," rejoined the Firefly; "what am I, after all, but a +flying beetle with a candle in my tail? I wish I were a star."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the Magician, and touched her with his wand, when she +became a beautiful star in the twelfth degree of the sign Pisces.</p> + +<p>After some nights the Magician asked her if she was content.</p> + +<p>"I am not," replied she. "When I was a Firefly I could fly whither I +would, and come and go as I pleased. Now I must rise and set at certain +times, and shine just so long and no longer. I cannot fly at all, and only +creep slowly across the sky. In the day I cannot shine, or if I do no one +sees me. I am often darkened by rain, and mist, and cloud. Even when I +shine my brightest I am less admired than when I was a Firefly, there are +so many others like me. I see, indeed, people looking up from the earth by +night towards me, but how do I know that they are looking at me?"</p> + +<p>"The laws of nature will have it so," returned the Magician.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk to me of the laws of Nature," rejoined the Firefly. "I did +not make them, and I don't see why I should be compelled to obey them. Make +me something else."</p> + +<p>"What would you be?" demanded the accommodating Magician.</p> + +<p>"As I creep along here," replied the Star, "I see such a soft pure track +of light. It proceeds from the lamp in your study. It flows out of your +window like a river of molten silver, both cool and warm. Let me be such a +lamp."</p> + +<p>"Be it so," answered the Magician: and the star became a lovely +alabaster lamp, set in an alcove in his study. Her chaste radiance was shed +over his page as long as he continued to read. At a certain hour he +extinguished her and retired to rest.</p> + +<p>Next morning the Lamp was in a terrible humour.</p> + +<p>"I don't choose to be blown out," she said.</p> + +<p>"You would have gone out of your own accord else," returned the +Magician.</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed the Lamp, "am I not shining by my own light?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not: you are not now a Firefly or a Star. You must now depend +upon others. You would be dark for ever if I did not rekindle you by the +help of this oil."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried the Lamp, "not shine of my own accord! Never! Make me an +everlasting lamp, or I will not be one at all."</p> + +<p>"Alas, poor friend," returned the Magician sadly, "there is but one +place where aught is everlasting. I can make thee a lamp of the +sepulchre."</p> + +<p>"Content," responded the Lamp. And the Magician made her one of those +strange occult lamps which men find ever and anon when they unseal the +tombs of ancient kings and wizards, sustaining without nutriment a +perpetual flame. And he bore her to a sepulchre where a great king was +lying embalmed and perfect in his golden raiment, and set her at the head +of the corpse. And whether the poor fitful Firefly found at last rest in +the grave, we may know when we come thither ourselves. But the Magician +closed the gates of the sepulchre behind him, and walked thoughtfully home. +And as he approached his cottage, behold another Firefly darting and +flashing in and out among the trees, as brilliantly as ever the first had +done. She was a wise Firefly, well satisfied with the world and everything +in it, more particularly her own tail. And if the Magician would have made +a pet of her no doubt she would have abode with him. But he never looked at +her.</p> <a id="p241"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>PAN'S WAND</h2> + +<p>Iridion had broken her lily. A misfortune for any rustic nymph, but +especially for her, since her life depended upon it.</p> + +<p>From her birth the fate of Iridion had been associated with that of a +flower of unusual loveliness—a stately, candid lily, endowed with a +charmed life, like its possessor. The seasons came and went without leaving +a trace upon it; innocence and beauty seemed as enduring with it, as +evanescent with the children of men. In equal though dissimilar loveliness +its frolicsome young mistress nourished by its side. One thing alone, the +oracle had declared, could prejudice either, and this was an accident to +the flower. From such disaster it had long been shielded by the most +delicate care; yet in the inscrutable counsels of the Gods, the dreaded +calamity had at length come to pass. Broken through the upper part of the +stem, the listless flower drooped its petals towards the earth, and seemed +to mourn their chastity, already sullied by the wan flaccidity of decay. +Not one had fallen as yet, and Iridion felt no pain or any symptom of +approaching dissolution, except, it may be, the unwonted seriousness with +which, having exhausted all her simple skill on behalf of the languishing +plant, she sat down to consider its fate in the light of its bearing upon +her own.</p> + +<p>Meditation upon an utterly vague subject, whether of apprehension or of +hope, speedily lapses into reverie. To Iridion, Death was as indefinable an +object of thought as the twin omnipotent controller of human destiny, Love. +Love, like the immature fruit on the bough, hung unsoliciting and +unsolicited as yet, but slowly ripening to the maiden's hand. Death, a +vague film in an illimitable sky, tempered without obscuring the sunshine +of her life. Confronted with it suddenly, she found it, in truth, an +impalpable cloud, and herself as little competent as the gravest +philosopher to answer the self-suggested inquiry, "What shall I be when I +am no longer Iridion?" Superstition might have helped her to some definite +conceptions, but superstition did not exist in her time. Judge, reader, of +its remoteness.</p> + +<p>The maiden's reverie might have terminated only with her existence, but +for the salutary law which prohibits a young girl, not in love or at +school, from sitting still more than ten minutes. As she shifted her seat +at the expiration of something like this period, she perceived that she had +been sitting on a goatskin, and with a natural association of +ideas—</p> + +<p>"I will ask Pan," she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Pan at that time inhabited a cavern hard by the maiden's dwelling, which +the judicious reader will have divined could only have been situated in +Arcadia. The honest god was on excellent terms with the simple people; his +goats browsed freely along with theirs, and the most melodious of the +rustic minstrels attributed their proficiency to his instructions. The +maidens were on a more reserved footing of intimacy—at least so they +wished it to be understood, and so it was understood, of course. Iridion, +however, decided that the occasion would warrant her incurring the risk +even of a kiss, and lost no time in setting forth upon her errand, carrying +her poor broken flower in its earthen vase. It was the time of day when the +god might be supposed to be arousing himself from his afternoon's siesta. +She did not fear that his door would be closed against her, for he had no +door.</p> + +<p>The sylvan deity stood, in fact, at the entrance of his cavern, about to +proceed in quest of his goats. The appearance of Iridion operated a change +in his intention, and he courteously escorted her to a seat of turf erected +for the special accommodation of his fair visitors, while he placed for +himself one of stone.</p> + +<p>"Pan," she began, "I have broken my lily."</p> + +<p>"That is a sad pity, child. If it had been a reed, now, you could have +made a flute of it."</p> + +<p>"I should not have time, Pan," and she recounted her story. A godlike +nature cannot confound truth with falsehood, though it may mistake +falsehood for truth. Pan therefore never doubted Iridion's strange +narrative, and, having heard it to the end, observed, "You will find plenty +more lilies in Elysium."</p> + +<p>"Common lilies, Pan; not like mine."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong. The lilies of Elysium—asphodels as they call them +there—are as immortal as the Elysians themselves. I have seen them in +Proserpine's hair at Jupiter's entertainment; they were as fresh as she +was. There is no doubt you might gather them by handfuls—at least if +you had any hands—and wear them to your heart's content, if you had +but a heart."</p> + +<p>"That's just what perplexes me, Pan. It is not the dying I mind, it's +the living. How am I to live without anything alive about me? If you take +away my hands, and my heart, and my brains, and my eyes, and my ears, and +above all my tongue, what is left me to live in Elysium?"</p> + +<p>As the maiden spake a petal detached itself from the emaciated lily, and +she pressed her hand to her brow with a responsive cry of pain.</p> + +<p>"Poor child!" said Pan compassionately, "you will feel no more pain +by-and-by."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not, Pan, since you say so. But if I can feel no pain, how +can I feel any pleasure?</p> + +<p>"In an incomprehensible manner," said Pan.</p> + +<p>"How can I feel, if I have no feeling? and what am I to do without +it?"</p> + +<p>"You can think!" replied Pan. "Thinking (not that I am greatly given to +it myself) is a much finer thing than feeling; no right-minded person +doubts that. Feeling, as I have heard Minerva say, is a property of matter, +and matter, except, of course, that appertaining to myself and the other +happy gods, is vile and perishable—quite immaterial, in fact. Thought +alone is transcendent, incorruptible, and undying!"</p> + +<p>"But, Pan, how can any one think thoughts without something to think +them with? I never thought of anything that I have not seen, or touched, or +smelt, or tasted, or heard about from some one else. If I think with +nothing, and about nothing, is that thinking, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I think," answered Pan evasively, "that you are a sensationalist, a +materialist, a sceptic, a revolutionist; and if you had not sought the +assistance of a god, I should have said not much better than an atheist. I +also think it is time I thought about some physic for you instead of +metaphysics, which are bad for my head, and for your soul." Saying this, +Pan, with rough tenderness, deposited the almost fainting maiden upon a +couch of fern, and, having supported her head with a bundle of herbs, +leaned his own upon his hand, and reflected with all his might. The +declining sun was now nearly opposite the cavern's mouth, and his rays, +straggling through the creepers that wove their intricacies over the +entrance, chequered with lustrous patches the forms of the dying girl and +the meditating god. Ever and anon, a petal would drop from the flower; this +was always succeeded by a shuddering tremor throughout Iridion's frame and +a more forlorn expression on her pallid countenance: while Pan's jovial +features assumed an expression of deeper concern as he pressed his knotty +hand more resolutely against his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter horn +with a more determined grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by +the tail.</p> + +<p>"Aha!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I have it!"</p> + +<p>"What have you, Pan?" faintly lisped the expiring Iridion.</p> + +<p>Instead of replying, Pan grasped a wand that leaned against the wall of +his grot, and with it touched the maiden and the flower. O strange +metamorphosis! Where the latter had been pining in its vase, a lovely girl, +the image of Iridion, lay along the ground with dishevelled hair, clammy +brow, and features slightly distorted by the last struggles of death. On +the ferny couch stood an earthen vase, from which rose a magnificent lily, +stately, with unfractured stem, and with no stain or wrinkle on its +numerous petals.</p> + +<p>"Aha!" repeated Pan; "I think we are ready for him now." Then, having +lifted the inanimate body to the couch, and placed the vase, with its +contents, on the floor of his cavern, he stepped to the entrance, and +shading his eyes with his hand, seemed to gaze abroad in quest of some +anticipated visitor.</p> + +<p>The boughs at the foot of the steep path to the cave divided, and a +figure appeared at the foot of the rock. The stranger's mien was majestic, +but the fitness of his proportions diminished his really colossal stature +to something more nearly the measure of mortality. His form was enveloped +in a sweeping sad-coloured robe; a light, thin veil resting on his +countenance, mitigated, without concealing, the not ungentle austerity of +his marble features. His gait was remarkable; nothing could be more remote +from every indication of haste, yet such was the actual celerity of his +progression, that Pan had scarcely beheld him ere he started to find him +already at his side.</p> + +<p>The stranger, without disturbing his veil, seemed to comprehend the +whole interior of the grotto with a glance; then, with the slightest +gesture of recognition to Pan, he glided to the couch on which lay the +metamorphosed lily, upraised the fictitious Iridion in his arms with +indescribable gentleness, and disappeared with her as swiftly and silently +as he had come. The discreet Pan struggled with suppressed merriment until +the stranger was fairly out of hearing, then threw himself back upon his +seat and laughed till the cave rang.</p> + +<p>"And now," he said, "to finish the business." He lifted the transformed +maiden into the vase, and caressed her beauty with an exulting but careful +hand. There was a glory and a splendour in the flower such as had never +until then been beheld in any earthly lily. The stem vibrated, the leaves +shook in unison, the petals panted and suspired, and seemed blanched with a +whiteness intense as the core of sunlight, as they throbbed in anticipation +of the richer existence awaiting them.</p> + +<p>Impatient to complete his task, Pan was about to grasp his wand when the +motion was arrested as the sinking beam of the sun was intercepted by a +gigantic shadow, and the stranger again stood by his side. The unbidden +guest uttered no word, but his manner was sufficiently expressive of wrath +as he disdainfully cast on the ground a broken, withered lily, the relic of +what had bloomed with such loveliness in the morning, and had since for a +brief space been arrayed in the vesture of humanity. He pointed imperiously +to the gorgeous tenant of the vase, and seemed to expect Pan to deliver it +forthwith.</p> + +<p>"Look here," said Pan, with more decision than dignity, "I am a poor +country god, but I know the law. If you can find on this plant one speck, +one stain, one token that you have anything to do with her, take her, and +welcome. If you cannot, take yourself off instead."</p> + +<p>"Be it so," returned the stranger, haughtily declining the proffered +inspection. "You will find it is ill joking with Death."</p> + +<p>So saying, he quitted the cavern.</p> + +<p>Pan sat down chuckling, yet not wholly at ease, for if the charity of +Death is beautiful even to a mortal, his anger is terrible, even to a god. +Anxious to terminate the adventure, he reached towards the charmed wand by +whose wonderful instrumentality the dying maiden had already become a +living flower, and was now to undergo a yet more delightful +metamorphosis.</p> + +<p>Wondrous wand! But where was it? For Death, the great transfigurer of +all below this lunar sphere, had given Pan a characteristic proof of his +superior cunning. Where the wand had reposed writhed a ghastly worm, which, +as Pan's glance fell upon it, glided towards him, uplifting its head with +an aspect of defiance. Pan's immortal nature sickened at the emblem of +corruption; he could not for all Olympus have touched his metamorphosed +treasure. As he shrank back the creature pursued its way towards the vase; +but a marvellous change befell it as it came under the shadow of the +flower. The writhing body divided, end from end, the sordid scales sank +indiscernibly into the dust, and an exquisite butterfly, arising from the +ground, alighted on the lily, and remained for a moment fanning its wings +in the last sunbeam, ere it unclosed them to the evening breeze. Pan, +looking eagerly after the Psyche in its flight, did not perceive what was +taking place in the cavern; but the magic wand, now for ever lost to its +possessor, must have cancelled its own spell, for when his gaze reverted +from the ineffectual pursuit, the living lily had disappeared, and Iridion +lay a corpse upon the ground, the faded flower of her destiny reposing upon +her breast.</p> + +<p>Death now stood for a third time upon Pan's threshold, but Pan heeded +him not.</p> <a id="p249"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF FOLLY</h2> +<br> "That owned the virtuous ring and glass." —<i>Il +Penseroso</i>. + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>"Aurelia!"</p> + +<p>"Otto!"</p> + +<p>"Must we then part?"</p> + +<p>They were folded in each other's arms. There never was such kissing.</p> + +<p>"How shall we henceforth exchange the sweet tokens of our undying +affection, my Otto?"</p> + +<p>"Alas, my Aurelia, I know not! Thy Otto blushes to acquaint thee that he +cannot write."</p> + +<p>"Blush not, my Otto, thou needest not reproach thyself. Even couldest +thou write, thy Aurelia could not read. Oh these dark ages!"</p> + +<p>They remained some minutes gazing on each other with an expression of +fond perplexity. Suddenly the damsel's features assumed the aspect of one +who experiences the visitation of a happy thought. Gently yet decidedly she +pronounced:</p> + +<p>"We will exchange rings."</p> + +<p>They drew off their rings simultaneously. "This, Aurelia, was my grandfather's."</p> + +<p>"This, Otto, was my grandmother's, which she charged me with her dying +breath never to part with save to him whom alone I loved."</p> + +<p>"Mine is a brilliant, more radiant than aught save the eyes of my +Aurelia."</p> + +<p>And, in fact, Aurelia's eyes hardly sustained the comparison. A finer +stone could not easily be found.</p> + +<p>"Mine is a sapphire, azure as the everlasting heavens, and type of a +constancy enduring as they."</p> + +<p>In truth, it was of a tint seldom to be met with in sapphires.</p> + +<p>The exchange made, the lady seemed less anxious to detain her lover.</p> + +<p>"Beware, Otto!" she cried, as he slid down the cord, which yielded him +an oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted +knee-deep in mud. "Beware!—if my brother should be gazing from his +chamber on the resplendent moon!"</p> + +<p>But that ferocious young baron was accustomed to spend his time in a +less romantic manner; and so it came to pass that Otto encountered him +not.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Days, weeks, months had passed by, and Otto, a wanderer in a foreign +land, had heard no tidings of his Aurelia. Ye who have loved may well +conceive how her ring was all in all to him. He divided his time pretty +equally between gazing into its cerulean depths, as though her lovely +image were mirrored therein, and pressing its chilly surface to his lips, +little as it recalled the warmth and balminess of hers.</p> + +<p>The burnished glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and +sparkle of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he one +evening perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a jeweller's +shop. The grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench within, +sedulously polishing a streaked pebble by the light of a small lamp. A +sudden thought struck Otto; he entered the shop, and, presenting the ring +to the jeweller, inquired in a tone of suppressed exultation:</p> + +<p>"What hold you for the worth of this inestimable ring?"</p> + +<p>The jeweller, with no expression of surprise or curiosity, received the +ring from Otto, held it to the light, glanced slightly at the stone, +somewhat more carefully at the setting, laid the ring for a moment in a +pair of light scales, and, handing it back to Otto, remarked with a tone +and manner of the most entire indifference:</p> + +<p>"The worth of this inestimable ring is one shilling and sixpence."</p> + +<p>"Caitiff of a huckster!" exclaimed Otto, bringing down his fist on the +bench with such vigour that the pebbles leaped up and fell rattling down: +"Sayest thou this of a gem framed by genii in the bowels of the earth?"</p> + +<p>"Nay, friend," returned the jeweller with the same imperturbable air, +"that thy gem was framed of earth I in nowise question, seeing that it doth +principally consist of sand. But when thou speakest of genii and the bowels +of the earth, thou wilt not, I hope, take it amiss if I crave better proof +than thy word that the devil has taken to glass-making. For glass, and +nothing else, credit me, thy jewel is."</p> + +<p>"And the gold?" gasped Otto.</p> + +<p>"There is just as much gold in thy ring as sufficeth to gild handsomely +a like superficies of brass, which is not saying much."</p> + +<p>And, applying a sponge dipped in some liquid to a small part of the +hoop, the jeweller disclosed the dull hue of the baser metal so evidently +that Otto could hardly doubt longer. He doubted no more when the lapidary +laid his ring in the scales against another of the same size and make, and +pointed to the inequality of the balance.</p> + +<p>"Thou seest," he continued, "that in our craft a very little gold goes a +very great way. It is far otherwise in the world, as thou, albeit in no +sort eminent for sapience, hast doubtless ere this ascertained for thyself. +Thou art evidently a prodigious fool!"</p> + +<p>This latter disparaging observation could be safely ventured upon, as +Otto had rushed from the shop, speechless with rage.</p> + +<p>Was Aurelia deceiver or deceived? Should he execrate her, or her +venerable grandmother, or some unknown person? The point was too knotty to +be solved in the agitated state of his feelings. He decided it +provisionally by execrating the entire human race, not forgetting +himself.</p> + +<p>In a mood like Otto's a trifling circumstance is sufficient to determine +the quality of action. The ancient city of which he was at the time an +inhabitant was traversed by a large river spanned by a quaint and +many-arched bridge, to which his frantic and aimless wanderings had +conducted him. Spires and gables and lengthy façades were reflected +in the water, blended with the shadows of boats, and interspersed with the +mirrored flames of innumerable windows on land, or of lanterns suspended +from the masts or sterns of the vessels. The dancing ripples bickered and +flickered, and seemed to say, "Come hither to us," while the dark reaches +of still water in the shadow of the piers promised that whatever might be +entrusted to them should be faithfully retained. Swayed by a sudden +impulse, Otto drew his ring from his finger. It gleamed an instant aloft in +air; in another the relaxation of his grasp would have consigned it to the +stream.</p> + +<p>"Forbear!"</p> + +<p>Otto turned, and perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger +was tall and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially +concealed a flame-coloured jerkin. A cock's feather peaked up in his cap; +his eyes were piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the expression +of his features sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more observant, or +less preoccupied, he might have noticed that the stranger's left shoe was +of a peculiar form, and that he limped some little with the corresponding +foot.</p> + +<p>"Forbear, I say; thou knowest not what thou doest."</p> + +<p>"And what skills what I do with a piece of common glass?"</p> + +<p>"Thou errest, friend; thy ring is not common glass. Had thy mistress +surmised its mystic virtues, she would have thought oftener than twice ere +exchanging it for thy diamond."</p> + +<p>"What may these virtues be?" eagerly demanded Otto.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, it will show thee when thy mistress may chance to +think of thee, as it will then prick thy finger."</p> + +<p>"Now I know thee for a lying knave," exclaimed the youth indignantly. +"Learn, to thy confusion, that it hath not pricked me once since I parted +from Aurelia."</p> + +<p>"Which proves that she has never once thought of thee."</p> + +<p>"Villain!" shouted Otto, "say that again, and I will transfix thee."</p> + +<p>"Thou mayest if thou canst," rejoined the stranger, with an expression +of such cutting scorn that Otto's spirit quailed, and he felt a secret but +overpowering conviction of his interlocutor's veracity. Rallying, however, +in some measure, he exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Aurelia is true! I will wager my soul upon it!"</p> + +<p>"Done!" screamed the stranger in a strident voice of triumph, while a +burst of diabolical laughter seemed to proceed from every cranny of the +eaves and piers of the old bridge, and to be taken up by goblin echoes from +the summits of the adjacent towers and steeples.</p> + +<p>Otto's blood ran chill, but he mustered sufficient courage to inquire +hoarsely:</p> + +<p>"What of its further virtues?"</p> + +<p>"When it shall have pricked thee," returned the mysterious personage, +"on turning it once completely round thy finger thou wilt see thy mistress +wherever she may be. If thou turnest it the second time, thou wilt know +what her thought of thee is; and, if the third time, thou wilt find +thyself in her presence. But I give thee fair warning that by doing this +thou wilt place thyself in a more disastrous plight than any thou hast +experienced hitherto. And now farewell."</p> + +<p>The speaker disappeared. Otto stood alone upon the bridge. He saw +nothing around him but the stream, with its shadows and lights, as he +slowly and thoughtfully turned round to walk to his lodgings.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Ye who have loved, et cetera, as aforesaid, will comprehend the anxiety +with which Otto henceforth consulted his ring. He was continually adjusting +it to his finger in a manner, as he fancied, to render the anticipated +puncture more perceptible when it should come at last. He would have worn +it on all his fingers in succession had the conformation of his robust hand +admitted of its being placed on any but the slenderest. Thousands of times +he could have sworn that he felt the admonitory sting; thousands of times +he turned the trinket round and round with desperate impatience; but +Aurelia's form remained as invisible, her thoughts as inscrutable, as +before. His great dread was that he might be pricked in his sleep, on which +account he would sit up watching far into the morn. For, as he reasoned, +not without plausibility, when could he more rationally hope for a place in +Aurelia's thoughts than at that witching and suggestive period? She might +surely think of him when she had nothing else to do! Had she really nothing +else to do? And Otto grew sick and livid with jealousy. It of course +frequently occurred to him to doubt and deride the virtues of the ring, and +he was several times upon the point of flinging it away. But the more he +pondered upon the appearance and manner of the stranger, the less able he +felt to resist the conviction of his truthfulness.</p> + +<p>At last a most unmistakable puncture! the distinct, though slight, pang +of a miniature wound. A crimson bead of blood rose on Otto's finger, +swelled to its due proportion, and became a trickling blot.</p> + +<p>"She is thinking of me!" cried he rapturously, as if this were an +instance of the most signal and unforeseen condescension. All the weary +expectancy of the last six months was forgotten. He would have railed at +himself had the bliss of the moment allowed him to remember that he had +ever railed at her.</p> + +<p>Otto turned his ring once, and Aurelia became visible in an instant. She +was standing before the mercer's booth in the chief street of the little +town which adjoined her father's castle. Her gaze was riveted on a silk +mantle, trimmed with costly furs, which depended from a hook inside the +doorway. Her lovely features wore an expression of extreme dissatisfaction. +She was replacing a purse, apparently by no means weighty, in her +embroidered girdle.</p> + +<p>Otto turned the ring the second time, and Aurelia's silvery accents +immediately became audible to the following effect:</p> + +<p>"If that fool Otto were here, he would buy it for me."</p> + +<p>She turned away, and walked down the street. Otto uttered a cry like the +shriek of an uprooted mandrake. His hand was upon the ring to turn it for +the third time; but the stranger's warning occurred to him, and for a +moment he forbore. In that moment the entire vision vanished from before +his eyes.</p> + +<p>What boots it to describe Otto's feelings upon this revelation of +Aurelia's sentiments? For lovers, description would be needless; to wiser +people, incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, that as his lady deemed him a +fool he appeared bent on proving that she did not deem amiss.</p> + +<p>A long space of time elapsed without any further admonition from the +ring. Perhaps Aurelia had no further occasion for his purse; perhaps she +had found another pursebearer. The latter view of the case appeared the +more plausible to Otto, and it hugely aggravated his torments.</p> + +<p>At last the moment came. It was the hour of midnight. Again Otto felt +the sharp puncture, again the ruby drop started from his finger, again he +turned the ring, and again beheld Aurelia. She was in her chamber, but not +alone. Her companion was a youth of Otto's age. She was in the act of +placing Otto's brilliant upon his finger. Otto turned his own ring, and +heard her utter, with singular distinctness:</p> + +<p>"This ring was given me by the greatest fool I ever knew. Little did he +imagine that it would one day be the means of procuring me liberty, and +bliss in the arms of my Arnold. My venerable grandmother—"</p> + +<p>The voice expired upon her lips, for Otto stood before her.</p> + +<p>Arnold precipitated himself from the window, carrying the ring with him. +Otto, glaring at his faithless mistress, stood in the middle of the +apartment with his sword unsheathed. Was he about to use it? None can say; +for at this moment the young Baron burst into the room, and, without the +slightest apology for the liberty he was taking, passed his sword through +Otto's body.</p> + +<p>Otto groaned, and fell upon his face. He was dead. The young Baron +ungently reversed the position of the corpse, and scanned its features with +evident surprise and dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>"It is not Arnold, after all!" he muttered. "Who would have thought +it?"</p> + +<p>"Thou seest, brother, how unjust were thy suspicions," observed Aurelia, +with an air of injured but not implacable virtue. "As for this abominable +ravisher——" Her feelings forbade her to proceed.</p> + +<p>The brother looked mystified. There was something beyond his +comprehension in the affair; yet he could not but acknowledge that Otto was +the person who had rushed by him as he lay in wait upon the stairs. He +finally determined that it was best to say nothing about the matter: a +resolution the easier of performance as he was not wont to be lavish of his +words at any time. He wiped his sword on his sister's curtains, and was +about to withdraw, when Aurelia again spoke:</p> + +<p>"Ere thou departest, brother, have the goodness to ring the bell, and +desire the menials to remove this carrion from my apartment."</p> + +<p>The young Baron sulkily complied, and retreated growling to his +chamber.</p> + +<p>The attendants carried Otto's body forth. To the honour of her sex be it +recorded, that before this was done Aurelia vouchsafed one glance to the +corpse of her old lover. Her eye fell on the brazen ring. "And he has +actually worn it all this time!" thought she.</p> + +<p>"Would have outraged my daughter, would he?" said the old Baron, when +the transaction was reported to him. "Let him be buried in a concatenation +accordingly."</p> + +<p>"What the guy dickens be a concatrenation, Geoffrey?" interrogated +Giles.</p> + +<p>"Methinks it is Latin for a ditch," responded Geoffrey.</p> + +<p>This interpretation commending itself to the general judgment of the +retainers, Otto was interred in the shelving bank of the old moat, just +under Aurelia's window. A rough stone was laid upon the grave. The magic +ring, which no one thought worth appropriating, remained upon the corpse's +finger. Thou mayest probably find it there, reader, if thou searchest long +enough.</p> + +<p>The first visitor to Otto's humble sepulchre was, after all, Aurelia +herself, who alighted thereon on the following night after letting herself +down from her casement to fly with Arnold. Their escape was successfully +achieved upon a pair of excellent horses, the proceeds of Otto's diamond, +which had become the property of a Jew.</p> + +<p>On the third night an aged monk stood by Otto's grave, and wept +plentifully. He carried a lantern, a mallet, and a chisel. "He was my +pupil," sobbed the good old man. "It were meet to contribute what in me +lies to the befitting perpetuation of his memory."</p> + +<p>Setting down the lantern, he commenced work, and with pious toil +engraved on the stone in the Latin of the period:</p> <blockquote> +<br>"HAC MAGNUS STULTUS JACET IN FOSSA SEPULTUS. +<br>MULIER CUI CREDIDIT MORTUUM ILLUM REDDIDIT." </blockquote> + +<p>Here he paused, at the end of his strength and of his Latin.</p> + +<p>"Beshrew my old arms and brains!" he sighed.</p> + +<p>"Hem!" coughed a deep voice in his vicinity.</p> + +<p>The monk looked up. The personage in the dusky cloak and flame-coloured +jerkin was standing over him.</p> + +<p>"Good monk," said the fiend, "what dost thou here?"</p> + +<p>"Good fiend," said the monk, "I am inscribing an epitaph to the memory +of a departed friend. Thou mightest kindly aid me to complete it."</p> + +<p>"Truly," rejoined the demon, "it would become me to do so, seeing that I +have his soul here in my pocket. Thou wilt not expect me to employ the +language of the Church. Nathless, I see not wherefore the vernacular may +not serve as well."</p> + +<p>And, taking the mallet and chisel, he completed the monk's inscription +with the supplementary legend:</p> <blockquote>"SERVED HIM +RIGHT."</blockquote> <a id="p261"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE BELL OF SAINT EUSCHEMON</h2> + +<p>The town of Epinal, in Lorraine, possessed in the Middle Ages a peal of +three bells, respectively dedicated to St. Eulogius, St. Eucherius, and St. +Euschemon, whose tintinnabulation was found to be an effectual safeguard +against all thunderstorms. Let the heavens be ever so murky, it was merely +requisite to set the bells ringing, and no lightning flashed and no thunder +peal broke over the town, nor was the neighbouring country within hearing +of them ravaged by hail or flood.</p> + +<p>One day the three saints, Eulogius, Eucherius, and Euschemon, were +sitting together, exceedingly well content with themselves and everything +around them, as indeed they had every right to be, supposing that they were +in Paradise. We say supposing, not being for our own part entirely able to +reconcile this locality with the presence of certain cans and flagons, +which had been fuller than they were.</p> + +<p>"What a happy reflection for a Saint," said Eulogius, who was rapidly +passing from the mellow stage of good fellowship to the maudlin, "that even +after his celestial assumption he is permitted to continue a source of +blessing and benefit to his fellow-creatures as yet dwelling in the shade +of mortality! The thought of the services of my bell, in averting lightning +and inundation from the good people of Epinal, fills me with indescribable +beatitude."</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> bell!" interposed Eucherius, whose path had lain through +the mellow to the quarrelsome. "<i>Your</i> bell, quotha! You had as good +clink this cannakin" (suiting the action to the word) "as your bell. It's +my bell that does the business."</p> + +<p>"I think you might put in a word for <i>my</i> bell," interposed +Euschemon, a little squinting saint, very merry and friendly when not put +out, as on the present occasion.</p> + +<p>"Your bell!" retorted the big saints, with incredible disdain; and, +forgetting their own altercation, they fell so fiercely on their little +brother that he ran away, stopping his ears with his hands, and vowing +vengeance.</p> + +<p>A short time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance +presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and +bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance was +far from disagreeable, and he obtained the appointment without difficulty. +His deportment in it was in all respects edifying; or if he evinced some +little remissness in the service of Saints Eulogius and Eucherius, this was +more than compensated by his devotion to the hitherto somewhat slighted +Saint Euschemon. It was indeed observed that candles, garlands, and other +offerings made at the shrines of the two senior saints were found to be +transferred in an unaccountable and mystical manner to the junior, which +induced experienced persons to remark that a miracle was certainly +brewing. Nothing, however, occurred until, one hot summer afternoon, the +indications of a storm became so threatening that the sacristan was +directed to ring the bells. Scarcely had he begun than the sky became +clear, but instead of the usual rich volume of sound the townsmen heard +with astonishment a solitary tinkle, sounding quite ridiculous and +unsatisfactory in comparison. St. Euschemon's bell was ringing by +itself.</p> + +<p>In a trice priests and laymen swarmed to the belfry, and indignantly +demanded of the sacristan what he meant.</p> + +<p>"To enlighten you," he responded. "To teach you to give honour where +honour is due. To unmask those canonised impostors."</p> + +<p>And he called their attention to the fact that the clappers of the bells +of Eulogius and Eucherius were so fastened up that they could not emit a +sound, while that of Euschemon vibrated freely.</p> + +<p>"Ye see," he continued, "that these sound not at all, yet is the tempest +stayed. Is it not thence manifest that the virtue resides solely in the +bell of the blessed Euschemon?"</p> + +<p>The argument seemed conclusive to the majority, but those of the clergy +who ministered at the altars of Eulogius and Eucherius stoutly resisted, +maintaining that no just decision could be arrived at until Euschemon's +bell was subjected to the same treatment as the others. Their view +eventually prevailed, to the great dismay of Euschemon, who, although +firmly convinced of the virtue of his own bell, did not in his heart +disbelieve in the bells of his brethren. Imagine his relief and amazed joy +when, upon his bell being silenced, the storm, for the first time in the +memory of the oldest inhabitant, broke with full fury over Epinal, and, for +all the frantic pealing of the other two bells, raged with unspeakable +fierceness until his own was brought into requisition, when, as if by +enchantment, the rain ceased, the thunder-clouds dispersed, and the sun +broke out gloriously from the blue sky.</p> + +<p>"Carry him in procession!" shouted the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Amen, brethren; here I am," rejoined Euschemon, stepping briskly into +the midst of the troop.</p> + +<p>"And why in the name of Zernebock should we carry <i>you?</i>" demanded +some, while others ran off to lug forth the image, the object of their +devotion.</p> + +<p>"Why, verily," Euschemon began, and stopped short. How indeed was he to +prove to them that he <i>was</i> Euschemon? His personal resemblance to his +effigy, the work of a sculptor of the idealistic school, was in no respect +remarkable; and he felt, alas! that he could no more work a miracle than +you or I. In the sight of the multitude he was only an elderly sexton with +a cast in his eye, with nothing but his office to keep him out of the +workhouse. A further and more awkward question arose, how on earth was he +to get back to Paradise? The ordinary method was not available, for he had +already been dead for several centuries; and no other presented itself to +his imagination.</p> + +<p>Muttering apologies, and glad to be overlooked, Euschemon shrank into a +corner, but slightly comforted by the honours his image was receiving at +the hands of the good people of Epinal. As time wore on he became pensive +and restless, and nothing pleased him so well as to ascend to the belfry on +moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, +which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an +incipient crack, which threatened to become a serious flaw.</p> + +<p>"If this goes on," said a voice behind him, "I shall get a holiday."</p> + +<p>Euschemon turned round, and with indescribable dismay perceived a +gigantic demon, negligently resting his hand on the top of the bell, and +looking as if it would cost him nothing to pitch it and Euschemon together +to the other side of the town.</p> + +<p>"Avaunt, fiend," he stammered, with as much dignity as he could muster, +"or at least remove thy unhallowed paw from my bell."</p> + +<p>"Come, Eusky," replied the fiend, with profane familiarity, "don't be a +fool. You are not really such an ass as to imagine that your virtue has +anything to do with the virtue of this bell?"</p> + +<p>"Whose virtue then?" demanded Euschemon.</p> + +<p>"Why truly," said the demon, "mine! When this bell was cast I was +imprisoned in it by a potent enchanter, and so long as I am in it no storm +can come within sound of its ringing. I am not allowed to quit it except by +night, and then no further than an arm's length: this, however, I take the +liberty of measuring by my own arm, which happens to be a long one. This +must continue, as I learn, until I receive a kiss from some bishop of +distinguished sanctity. Thou hast done some bishoping in thy time, +peradventure?"</p> + +<p>Euschemon energetically protested that he had been on earth but a simple +laic, which was indeed the fact, and was also the reason why Eulogius and +Eucherius despised him, but which, though he did not think it needful to +tell the demon, he found a singular relief under present circumstances.</p> + +<p>"Well," continued the fiend, "I wish he may turn up shortly, for I am +half deaf already with the banging and booming of this infernal clapper, +which seems to have grown much worse of late; and the blessings and the +crossings and the aspersions which I have to go through are most repugnant +to my tastes, and unsuitable to my position in society. Bye-bye, Eusky; +come up to-morrow night." And the fiend slipped back into the bell, and +instantly became invisible.</p> + +<p>The humiliation of poor Euschemon on learning that he was indebted for +his credit to the devil is easier to imagine than to describe. He did not, +however, fail at the rendezvous next night, and found the demon sitting +outside the bell in a most affable frame of mind. It did not take long for +the devil and the saint to become very good friends, both wanting company, +and the former being apparently as much amused by the latter's simplicity +as the latter was charmed by the former's knowingness. Euschemon learned +numbers of things of which he had not had the faintest notion. The demon +taught him how to play cards (just invented by the Saracens), and initiated +him into divers "arts, though unimagined, yet to be," such as smoking +tobacco, making a book on the Derby, and inditing queer stories for Society +journals. He drew the most profane but irresistibly funny caricatures of +Eulogius and Eucherius, and the rest of the host of heaven. He had been one +of the demons who tempted St. Anthony, and retailed anecdotes of that +eremite which Euschemon had never heard mentioned in Paradise. He was +versed in all scandal respecting saints in general, and Euschemon found +with astonishment how much about his own order was known downstairs. On the +whole he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life; he became +proficient in all manner of minor devilries, and was ceasing to trouble +himself about his bell or his ecclesiastical duties, when an untoward +incident interrupted his felicity.</p> + +<p>It chanced that the Bishop of Metz, in whose diocese Epinal was +situated, finding himself during a visitation journey within a short +distance of the town, determined to put, up there for the night. He did not +arrive until nightfall, but word of his intention having been sent forward +by a messenger the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, were ready to +receive him. When, escorted in state, he had arrived at the house prepared +for his reception, the Mayor ventured to express a hope that everything had +been satisfactory to his Lordship.</p> + +<p>"Everything," said the bishop emphatically. "I did indeed seem to remark +one little omission, which no doubt may be easily accounted for."</p> + +<p>"What was that, my Lord?"</p> + +<p>"It hath," said the bishop, "usually been the practice to receive a +bishop with the ringing of bells. It is a laudable custom, conducive to +the purification of the air and the discomfiture of the prince of the +powers thereof. I caught no sound of chimes on the present occasion, yet I +am sensible that my hearing is not what it was."</p> + +<p>The civil and ecclesiastical authorities looked at each other. "That +graceless knave of a sacristan!" said the Mayor.</p> + +<p>"He hath indeed of late strangely neglected his charge," said a +priest.</p> + +<p>"Poor man, I doubt his wits are touched," charitably added another.</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed the bishop, who was very active, very fussy, and a +great stickler for discipline. "This important church, so renowned for its +three miraculous bells, confided to the tender mercies of an imbecile rogue +who may burn it down any night! I will look to it myself without losing a +minute."</p> + +<p>And in spite of all remonstrances, off he started. The keys were +brought, the doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly examined, +but neither in nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest trace of the +sacristan be found.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he is in the belfry," suggested a chorister.</p> + +<p>"We'll see," responded the bishop, and bustling nimbly up the ladder, he +emerged into the open belfry in full moonlight.</p> + +<p>Heavens! what a sight met his eye! The sacristan and the devil sitting +<i>vis-a-vis</i> close by the miraculous bell, with a smoking can of hot +spiced wine between them, finishing a close game of cribbage.</p> + +<p>"Seven," declared Euschemon.</p> + +<p>"And eight are fifteen," retorted the demon, marking two.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-three and pair," cried Euschemon, marking in his turn.</p> + +<p>"And seven is thirty."</p> + +<p>"Ace, thirty-one, and I'm up."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> up with you, my friend," shouted the bishop, bringing his +crook down smartly on Euschemon's shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Deuce!" said the devil, and vanished into his bell.</p> + +<p>When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very +long, the bishop briefly addressed the assembly. He said that the accounts +of the bell which had reached his ears had already excited his +apprehensions. He had greatly feared that all could not be right, and now +his anxieties were but too well justified. He trusted there was not a man +before him who would not suffer his flocks and his crops to be destroyed by +tempest fifty times over rather than purchase their safety by unhallowed +means. What had been done had doubtless been done in ignorance, and could +be made good by a mulct to the episcopal treasury. The amount of this he +would carefully consider, and the people of Epinal might rest assured that +it should not be too light to entitle them to the benefit of a full +absolution. The bell must go to his cathedral city, there to be examined +and reported on by the exorcists and inquisitors. Meanwhile he would +himself institute a slight preliminary scrutiny.</p> + +<p>The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the +combined beams of the moonlight and torchlight. Very slight examination +served to place the soundness of the bishop's opinion beyond dispute. On +the lip of the bell were engraven characters unknown to every one else, but +which seemed to affect the prelate with singular consternation.</p> + +<p>"I hope," he exclaimed, "that none of you know anything about these +characters! I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them. If I +thought anybody could I would burn him as soon as look at him!"</p> + +<p>The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the +slightest conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never been +observed before.</p> + +<p>"I rejoice to hear it," said the bishop. "It will be an evil day for the +church when these letters are understood."</p> + +<p>And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible +fiend inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and the +luckless Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness, the inmate +of a dismal dungeon.</p> + +<p>It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of any +partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats. At length, +however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear.</p> + +<p>"Who art thou?" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"An unfortunate prisoner," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a mere trifle. A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to +Beelzebub. One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur in +our profession."</p> + +<p>"<i>Our</i> profession!" exclaimed Euschemon.</p> + +<p>"Art thou not a sorcerer?" demanded the voice.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Euschemon, "I am a saint."</p> + +<p>The warlock received Euschemon's statement with much incredulity, but +becoming eventually convinced of its truth—</p> + +<p>"I congratulate thee," he said. "The devil has manifestly taken a fancy +to thee, and he never forgets his own. It is true that the bishop is a +great favourite with him also. But we will hope for the best. Thou hast +never practised riding a broomstick? No? 'Tis pity; thou mayest have to +mount one at a moment's notice."</p> + +<p>This consolation had scarcely been administered ere the bolts flew back, +the hinges grated, the door opened, and gaolers bearing torches informed +the sorcerer that the bishop desired his presence.</p> + +<p>He found the bishop in his study, which was nearly choked up by +Euschemon's bell. The prelate received him with the greatest affability, +and expressed a sincere hope that the very particular arrangements he had +enjoined for the comfort of his distinguished prisoner had been faithfully +carried out by his subordinates. The sorcerer, as much a man of the world +as the bishop, thanked his Lordship, and protested that he had been +perfectly comfortable.</p> + +<p>"I have need of thy art," said the bishop, coming to business. "I am +exceedingly bothered—flabbergasted were not too strong an +expression—by this confounded bell. All my best exorcists have been +trying all they know with it, to no purpose. They might as well have tried +to exorcise my mitre from my head by any other charm than the offer of a +better one. Magic is plainly the only remedy, and if thou canst disenchant +it, I will give thee thy freedom."</p> + +<p>"It will be a tough business," observed the sorcerer, surveying the bell +with the eye of a connoisseur. "It will require fumigations."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the bishop, "and suffumigations."</p> + +<p>"Aloes and mastic," advised the sorcerer.</p> + +<p>"Aye," assented the bishop, "and red sanders."</p> + +<p>"We must call in Primeumaton," said the warlock.</p> + +<p>"Clearly," said the bishop, "and Amioram."</p> + +<p>"Triangles," said the sorcerer.</p> + +<p>"Pentacles," said the bishop.</p> + +<p>"In the hour of Methon," said the sorcerer.</p> + +<p>"I should have thought Tafrac," suggested the bishop, "but I defer to +your better judgment."</p> + +<p>"I can have the blood of a goat?" queried the wizard.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the bishop, "and of a monkey also."</p> + +<p>"Does your Lordship think that one might venture to go so far as a +little unweaned child?"</p> + +<p>"If absolutely necessary," said the bishop.</p> + +<p>"I am delighted to find such liberality of sentiment on your Lordship's +part," said the sorcerer. "Your Lordship is evidently of the +profession."</p> + +<p>"These are things which stuck by me when I was an inquisitor," explained +the bishop, with some little embarrassment.</p> + +<p>Ere long all arrangements were made. It would be impossible to enumerate +half the crosses, circles, pentagrams, naked swords, cross-bones, +chafing-dishes, and vials of incense which the sorcerer found to be +necessary. The child was fortunately deemed superfluous. Euschemon was +brought up from his dungeon, and, his teeth chattering with fright and +cold, set beside his bell to hold a candle to the devil. The incantations +commenced, and speedily gave evidence of their efficacy. The bell trembled, +swayed, split open, and a female figure of transcendent loveliness attired +in the costume of Eve stepped forth and extended her lips towards the +bishop. What could the bishop do but salute them? With a roar of triumph +the demon resumed his proper shape. The bishop swooned. The apartment was +filled with the fumes of sulphur. The devil soared majestically out of the +window, carrying the sorcerer under one arm and Euschemon under the +other.</p> + +<p>It is commonly believed that the devil good-naturedly dropped Euschemon +back again into Paradise, or wheresoever he might have come from. It is +even added that he fell between Eulogius and Eucherius, who had been +arguing all the time respecting the merits of their bells, and resumed his +share in the discussion as if nothing had happened. Some maintain, indeed, +that the devil, chancing to be in want of a chaplain, offered the situation +to Euschemon, by whom it was accepted. But how to reconcile this assertion +with the undoubted fact that the duties of the post in question are at +present ably discharged by the Bishop of Metz, in truth we see not. One +thing is certain: thou wilt not find Euschemon's name in the calendar, +courteous reader.</p> + +<p>The mulct to be imposed upon the parish of Epinal was never exacted. The +bell, ruptured beyond repair by the demon's violent exit, was taken back +and deposited in the museum of the town. The bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius were rung freely on occasion; but Epinal has not since enjoyed +any greater immunity from storms than the contiguous districts. One day an +aged traveller, who had spent many years in Heathenesse and in whom some +discerned a remarkable resemblance to the sorcerer, noticed the bell, and +asked permission to examine it. He soon discovered the inscription, +recognised the mysterious characters as Greek, read them without the least +difficulty—</p> <q>Μη κινει +Καμαριναν +ακινητος γαρ +αμεινων—</q> + +<p>and favoured the townsmen with this free but substantially accurate +translation:—</p> <q>CAN'T YOU LET WELL ALONE?</q> <a id="p275"></a> +<a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>BISHOP ADDO AND BISHOP GADDO</h2> + +<p>Midday, midsummer, middle of the dark ages. Fine healthy weather at the +city of Biserta in Barbary. Wind blowing strong from the sea, roughening +the dark blue waters, and fretting their indigo with foam, as though the +ocean's coursers champed an invisible curb. On land tawny sand whirling, +green palm-fans swaying and whistling, men abroad in the noonday blaze +rejoicing in the unwonted freshness.</p> + +<p>"She is standing in," they cried, "and, by the Prophet, she seemeth not +a ship of the true believers."</p> + +<p>She was not, but she bore a flag of truce. Pitching and rearing, the +little bark bounded in, and soon was fast in harbour. Ere long messengers +of peace had landed, bearing presents and a letter from the Bishop of +Amalfi to the Emir of Biserta. The presents consisted of fifty casks of +Lacrima Christi, and of a captive, a tall, noble-looking man, in soiled +ecclesiastical costume, and disfigured by the loss of his left eye, which +seemed to have been violently plucked out.</p> <blockquote> + +<p>"Health to the Emir!" ran the letter. "I send thee my captive, Gaddo, +sometime Bishop of Amalfi, now an ejected intruder. For what saith the +Scripture? 'When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in +peace; but if one stronger than he cometh, he divideth the spoils.' +Moreover it is written: 'His bishopric let another take.' Having solemnly +sworn that I would not kill or blind or maim my enemy, or imprison him in a +monastery, and the price of absolution from an oath in this corrupt age +exceeding all reason and Christian moderation, I knew not how to take +vengeance on him, until a sagacious counsellor represented that a man +cannot be said to be blinded so long as he is deprived of only one eye. +This I accordingly eradicated, and now, being restrained from imprisoning +him, and fearing to release him, I send him to thee, to retain in captivity +on my behalf; in return for which service, receive fifty casks of the +choicest Lacrima Christi, which shall not fail to be sent thee yearly, so +long as Gaddo continues in thy custody.</p> + +<p>"+ Addo, by Divine permission Bishop of Amalfi."</p> </blockquote> + +<p>"First," said the Emir, "I would be certified whether this vintage is +indeed of such excellence as to prevail upon a faithful Mussulman to +jeopard Paradise, the same being forbidden by his law."</p> + +<p>Experiments were instituted forthwith, and the problem was resolved in +the affirmative.</p> + +<p>"This being so," declared the Emir, "honour and good faith towards +Bishop Addo require that Bishop Gaddo be kept captive with all possible +strictness. Yet bolts may be burst, fetters may be filed, walls may be +scaled, doors may be broken through. Better to enchain the captive's soul, +binding him with invisible bonds, and searing out of him the very wish to +escape. Embrace the faith of the Prophet," continued he, addressing Gaddo; +"become a Mollah."</p> + +<p>"No," said the deposed Bishop, "my inclination hath ever been towards a +military life. At present, mutilated and banished as I am, I rather affect +the crown of martyrdom."</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt receive it by instalments," said the Emir. "Thou shalt work +at the new pavilion in my garden."</p> + +<p>Unceasing toil under the blazing sun, combined with the discipline of +the overseers, speedily wore down Gaddo's strength, already impaired by +captivity and ill-treatment. Unable to drag himself away after his +fellow-workmen had ceased from their labours, he lay one evening, faint and +almost senseless, among the stones and rubbish of the unfinished edifice. +The Emir's daughter passed by. Gaddo was handsome and wretched, the +Princess was beautiful and compassionate. Conveyed by her fair hands, a cup +of Bishop Addo's wine saved Bishop Gaddo's life.</p> + +<p>The next evening Gaddo again lingered behind, and the Princess spoke to +him out of her balcony. The third evening they encountered in an arbour. +The next meeting took place in her chamber, where her father discovered +them.</p> + +<p>"I will tear thee to pieces with pincers," shouted he to Gaddo.</p> + +<p>"Your Highness will not be guilty of that black action," responded Gaddo +resolutely.</p> + +<p>"No?" roared the Emir. "No? and what shall hinder me?"</p> + +<p>"The Lacrima Christi will hinder your Highness," returned the far-seeing +Gaddo. "Deems your Highness that Bishop Addo will send another cupful, once +he is assured of my death?"</p> + +<p>"Thou sayest well," rejoined the Emir. "I may not slay thee. But my +daughter is manifestly most inflammable, wherefore I will burn her."</p> + +<p>"Were it not better to circumcise me?" suggested Gaddo.</p> + +<p>Many difficulties were raised, but Ayesha's mother siding with Gaddo, +and promising a more amicable deportment for the future towards the other +lights of the harem, the matter was arranged, and Gaddo recited the +Mahometan profession of faith, and became the Emir's son-in-law. The +execrable social system under which he had hitherto lived thus vanished +like a nightmare from an awakened sleeper. Wedded to one who had saved his +life by her compassion, and whose life he had in turn saved by his change +of creed, adoring her and adored by her, with the hope of children, and +active contact with multitudes of other interests from which he had +hitherto been estranged, he forgot the ecclesiastic in the man; his +intellect expanded, his ideas multiplied, he cleared his mind of cant, and +became an eminent philosopher.</p> + +<p>"Dear son," said the Emir to him one day, "the Lacrima is spent, we +thirst, and the tribute of that Christian dog, the Bishop of Amalfi, +tarries to arrive. We will presently fit out certain vessels, and thou +shalt hold a visitation of thine ancient diocese."</p> + +<p>"Methinks I see a ship even now," said Gaddo; and he was right. She +anchored, the ambassadors landed and addressed the Emir:</p> + +<p>"Prince, we bring thee the stipulated tribute, yet not without a +trifling deduction."</p> + +<p>"Deduction!" exclaimed the Emir, bending his brows ominously.</p> + +<p>"Highness," they represented, "by reason of the deficiency of last +year's vintage it hath not been possible to provide more than forty-nine +casks, which we crave to offer thee accordingly."</p> + +<p>"Then," pronounced the Emir sententiously, "the compact is broken, the +ship is confiscated, and war is declared."</p> + +<p>"Not so, Highness," said they, "for the fiftieth cask is worth all the +rest."</p> + +<p>"Let it be opened," commanded the Emir.</p> + +<p>It was accordingly hoisted out, deposited on the quay, and prized open; +and from its capacious interior, in a deplorable plight from hunger, cramp, +and sea-sickness, was extracted—Bishop Addo.</p> + +<p>"We have," explained the deputation, "wearied of our shepherd, who, +shearing his flock somewhat too closely, hath brought the wolf to light. We +therefore desire thee to receive him at our hands in exchange for our good +Bishop Gaddo, promising one hundred casks of Lacrima Christi as yearly +tribute for the future."</p> + +<p>"He stands before you," answered the Emir; "take him, an ye can prevail +upon him to return with you."</p> + +<p>The eyes of the envoys wandered hopelessly from one whiskered, turbaned, +caftaned, and yataghaned figure to another. They could not discover that +any of the Paynim present looked more or less like a bishop than his +fellows.</p> + +<p>"Brethren," said Gaddo, taking compassion on their bewilderment, "behold +me! I thank you for your kindly thought of me, but how to profit by it I +see not. I have become a Saracen. I have pronounced the Mahometan +confession. I am circumcised. I am known by the name of Mustapha."</p> + +<p>"We acknowledge the weight of your Lordship's objections," they said, +"and do but venture to hint remotely that the times are hard, and that the +Holy Father is grievously in want of money."</p> + +<p>"I have also taken a wife," said Gaddo.</p> + +<p>"A wife!" exclaimed they with one consent. "If it had been a concubine! +Let us return instantly."</p> + +<p>They gathered up their garments and spat upon the ground.</p> + +<p>"A bishop, then," inquired Gaddo, "may be guilty of any enormity sooner +than wedlock, which money itself cannot expiate?"</p> + +<p>"Such," they answered, "is the law and the prophets."</p> + +<p>"Unless," added one of benignant aspect, "he sew the abomination up in a +sack and cast her into the sea, then peradventure he may yet find place for +repentance."</p> + +<p>"Miserable blasphemers!" exclaimed Gaddo. "But why," continued he, +checking himself, "do I talk of what none will understand for five hundred +years, which to understand myself I was obliged to become a Saracen? Addo," +he pursued, addressing his dejected competitor, "bad as thou art, thou art +good enough for the world as it is. I spare thy life, restore thy dignity, +and, to prove that the precepts of Christ may be practised under the garb +of Mahomet, will not even exact eye for eye. Yet, as a wholesome admonition +to thee that treachery and cruelty escape not punishment even in this life, +I will that thou do presently surrender to me thy left ear. Restore my eye +and I will return it immediately. And ye," addressing the envoys, "will for +the future pay one hundred casks tribute, unless ye would see my +father-in-law's galleys on your coasts."</p> + +<p>So Addo returned to his bishopric, leaving his ear in Gaddo's keeping. +The Lacrima was punctually remitted, and as punctually absorbed by the Emir +and his son-in-law, with some little help from Ayesha. Gaddo's eye never +came back, and Addo never regained his ear until, after the ex-prelate's +death in years and honour, he ransomed it from his representatives. It +became a relic, and is shown in Addo's cathedral to this day in proof of +his inveterate enmity to the misbelievers, and of the sufferings he +underwent at their hands. But Gaddo trumped him, the entry after his name +in the episcopal register, "Fled to the Saracens," having been altered into +"Flayed by the Saracens" by a later bishop, jealous of the honour of the +diocese.</p> <a id="p282"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE BUTTERFLIES</h2> + +<p>The scene was in a garden on a fine summer morning, brilliant with +slants of sunshine, yet chequered with clouds significant of more than a +remote possibility of rain. All the animal world was astir. Birds flitted +or hopped from spray to spray; butterflies eddied around flowers within or +upon which bees were bustling; ants and earwigs ran nimbly about on the +mould; a member of the Universal Knowledge Society perambulated the gravel +path.</p> + +<p>The Universal Knowledge Society, be it understood, exists for the +dissemination and not for the acquisition of knowledge. Our philosopher, +therefore, did not occupy himself with considering whether in that +miniature world, with its countless varieties of animal and vegetable +being, something might not be found with which he was himself unacquainted; +but, like the honey-freighted bee, rather sought an opportunity of +disburdening himself of his stores of information than of adding to them. +But who was to profit by his communicativeness? The noisy birds could not +hear themselves speak, much less him; he shrewdly distrusted his ability to +command the attention of the busy bees; and even a member of the Universal +Knowledge Society may well be at a loss for a suitable address to an +earwig. At length he determined to accost a Butterfly who, after sipping +the juice of a flower, remained perched indolently upon it, apparently +undecided whither to direct his flight.</p> + +<p>"It seems likely to rain," he said, "have you an umbrella?"</p> + +<p>The Butterfly looked curiously at him, but returned no answer.</p> + +<p>"I do not ask," resumed the Philosopher, "as one who should imply that +the probability of even a complete saturation ought to appal a +ratiocinative being, endowed with wisdom and virtue. I rather designed to +direct your attention to the inquiry whether these attributes are, in fact, +rightly predicable of Butterflies."</p> + +<p>Still no answer.</p> + +<p>"An impression obtains among our own species," continued the +Philosopher, "that you Butterflies are deficient in foresight and +providence to a remarkable, I might almost say a culpable degree. Pardon me +if I add that this suspicion is to some extent confirmed by my finding you +destitute of protection against imbriferous inclemency under atmospheric +conditions whose contingent humidity should be obvious to a being endowed +with the most ordinary allotment of meteorological prevision."</p> + +<p>The Butterfly still left all the talk to the Philosopher. This was just +what the latter desired.</p> + +<p>"I greatly fear," he continued, "that the omission to which I have +reluctantly adverted is to a certain extent typically characteristic of the +entire political and social economy of the lepidopterous order. It has +even been stated, though the circumstance appears scarcely credible, that +your system of life does not include the accumulation of adequate resources +against the inevitable exigencies of winter."</p> + +<p>"What is winter?" asked the Butterfly, and flew off without awaiting an +answer.</p> + +<p>The Philosopher remained for a moment speechless, whether from amazement +at the Butterfly's nescience or disgust at his ill-breeding. Recovering +himself immediately, he shouted after the fugitive:</p> + +<p>"Frivolous animal!" "It is this levity," continued he, addressing a +group of butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted by +the conversation, "it is this fatal levity that constrains me to despair +wholly of the future of you insects. That you should persistently remain at +your present depressed level! That you should not immediately enter upon a +process of self-development! Look at the Bee! How did she acquire her +sting, think you? Why cannot you store up honey, as she does?"</p> + +<p>"We cannot build cells," suggested a Butterfly.</p> + +<p>"And how did the Bee learn, do you suppose, unless by imbuing her mind +with the elementary principles of mathematics? Know that time has been when +the Bee was as incapable of architectural construction as yourselves, when +you and she alike were indiscriminable particles of primary protoplasm. (I +suppose you know what that is.) One has in process of time exalted itself +to the cognition of mathematical truth, while the other—Pshaw! Now, +really, my friends, I must beg you to take my observations in good part. I +do not imply, of course, that any endeavours of yours in the direction I +have indicated could benefit any of you personally, or any of your +posterity for numberless generations. But I really do consider that after a +while its effects would be very observable—that in twenty millions of +years or so, provided no geological cataclysm supervened, you Butterflies, +with your innate genius for mimicry, might be conformed in all respects to +the hymenopterous model, or perhaps carry out the principle of development +into novel and unheard-of directions. You should derive much encouragement +from the beginning you have made already."</p> + +<p>"How a beginning?" inquired a Butterfly.</p> + +<p>"I am alluding to your larval constitution as Caterpillars," returned +the Philosopher. "Your advance upon that humiliating condition is, I admit, +remarkable. I only wonder that it should not have proceeded much further. +With such capacity for development, it is incomprehensible that you should +so long have remained stationary. You ought to be all toads by this time, +at the very least."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," civilly interposed the Butterfly. "To what +condition were you pleased to allude?"</p> + +<p>"To that of a Caterpillar," rejoined the Philosopher.</p> + +<p>"Caterpillar!" echoed the Butterfly, and "Caterpillar!" tittered all his +volatile companions, till the air seemed broken into little silvery waves +of fairy laughter. "Caterpillar! he positively thinks we were once +Caterpillars! He! he! he!"</p> + +<p>"Do you actually mean to say you don't know that?" responded the +Philosopher, scandalised at the irreverence of the insects, but inwardly +rejoicing at the prospect of a controversy in which he could not be +worsted.</p> + +<p>"We know nothing of the sort," rejoined a Butterfly.</p> + +<p>"Can you possibly be plunged into such utter oblivion of your embryonic +antecedents?"</p> + +<p>"We do not understand you. All we know is that we have always been +Butterflies."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said a large, dull-looking Butterfly with one wing in tatters, +crawling from under a cabbage, and limping by reason of the deficiency of +several legs, "let me entreat you not to deduce our scientific status from +the inconsiderate assertions of the unthinking vulgar. I am proud to assure +you that our race comprises many philosophical reasoners—mostly +indeed such as have been disabled by accidental injuries from joining in +the amusements of the rest. The Origin of our Species has always occupied a +distinguished place in their investigations. It has on several occasions +engaged the attention of our profoundest thinkers for not less than two +consecutive minutes. There is hardly a quadruped on the land, a bird in the +air, or a fish in the water to which it has not been ascribed by some one +at some time; but never, I am rejoiced to say, has any Butterfly ever +dreamed of attributing it to the obnoxious thing to which you have +unaccountably made reference."</p> + +<p>"We should rather think not," chorussed all the Butterflies.</p> + +<p>"Look here," said the Philosopher, picking up and exhibiting a large +hairy Caterpillar of very unprepossessing appearance. "Look here, what do +you call this?"</p> + +<p>"An abnormal organisation," said the scientific Butterfly.</p> + +<p>"A nasty beast," said the others.</p> + +<p>"Heavens," exclaimed the Philosopher, "the obtuseness and arrogance of +these creatures! No, my poor friend," continued he, addressing the +Caterpillar, "disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect +certainly is at present, the time is at" hand when you will prank it with +the gayest of them all."</p> + +<p>"I cry your mercy," rejoined the Caterpillar somewhat crossly, "but I +was digesting a gooseberry leaf when you lifted me in that abrupt manner, +and I did not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you to mention my +name in connection with those flutterers?"</p> + +<p>"I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they."</p> + +<p>"I," exclaimed the Caterpillar, "I retrograde to the level of a +Butterfly! Is not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?"</p> + +<p>"I was not aware of that," replied the Philosopher, "although," he added +in a conciliatory tone, "far be it from me to deny you the possession of +many interesting qualities."</p> + +<p>"You probably refer to my agility," suggested the Caterpillar; "or +perhaps to my abstemiousness?"</p> + +<p>"I was not referring to either," returned the Philosopher.</p> + +<p>"To my utility to mankind?"</p> + +<p>"Not by any manner of means."</p> + +<p>"To what then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be +the prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly."</p> + +<p>The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at the +Philosopher. The Philosopher's countenance fell. A thrush, darting from an +adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore the latter +away in his bill. At the same moment the shower prognosticated by the Sage +burst forth, scattering the Butterflies in all directions, drenching the +Philosopher, whose foresight had not assumed the shape of an umbrella, and +spoiling his new hat. But he had ample consolation in the superiority of +his head. And the Caterpillar was right too, for after all he never did +become a Butterfly.</p> <a id="p289"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>TRUTH AND HER COMPANIONS</h2> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> Daughter Truth, is this a befitting manner of +presenting yourself before your divine father? You are positively dripping; +the floor of my celestial mansion would be a swamp but for your +praiseworthy economy in wearing apparel. Whence, in the name of the Naiads, +do you come?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> From the bottom of a well, father.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> I thought, my daughter, that you had descended upon +earth in the capacity of a benefactress of men rather than of frogs.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> Such, indeed, was my purpose, father, and I accordingly +repaired to the great city.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> The city of the Emperor Apollyon?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> The same; and I there obtained an audience of the +monarch.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> What passed?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> I took the liberty of observing to him, father, that, +having obtained his throne by perjury, and cemented it by blood, and +maintained it by hypocrisy, he could entertain no hope of preserving it +unless the collective baseness of his subjects should be found to exceed +his own, which was not probable.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> What reply did he vouchsafe to these admonitions?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. He threatened to cut out my tongue. Perceiving that this +would interfere with my utility to mankind, I retired somewhat +precipitately from the Imperial presence, marvelling that I should ever +have been admitted, and resolved never to be found there for the future. I +then proceeded to the Nobles.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. What said you to them?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. I represented to them that they were, as a class, both +arrogant and luxurious, and would, indeed, have long ago become +insupportable, only that the fabric which their rapacity was for ever +striving to erect, their extravagance as perpetually undermined. I further +commented upon the insecurity of any institution dependent solely upon +prescription. Finding these suggestions unpalatable, I next addressed +myself to the priesthood.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. Those holy men, my daughter, must have rejoiced at the +opportunity of learning from you which portion of their traditions was +impure or fabricated, and which authentic and sublime.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. The value they placed upon my instructions was such that +they wished to reserve them exclusively for themselves, and proposed that +they should be delivered within the precincts of a certain subterranean +apartment termed a dungeon, the key of which should be kept by one of their +order. Whereupon I betook myself to the philosophers.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, +my daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. It was all that could be expected, my father, from +learned and virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the +universe without consulting me.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> You probably next addressed yourself to the middling +orders of society?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had +much to remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and +their greed, and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the rottenness +of most of their beliefs, and the thousand ways in which they spoiled lives +that might have been beautiful and harmonious, I soon discovered that they +were so absolutely swayed by the example of the higher orders that it was +useless to expostulate with them until I should have persuaded the +latter.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> You returned, then, to the latter with this design?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> On the contrary, I hastened to the poor and needy, whom I +fully acquainted with the various wrongs and oppressions which they +underwent at the hands of the powerful and the rich. And here, for the +first time, I found myself welcome. All listened with gratitude and assent, +and none made any endeavour to stone me or imprison me, as those other +unprincipled persons had done.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter.</i> That was indeed satisfactory, daughter. But when you +proceeded to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery arose +from their own idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and abasement +before those higher in station, and jealousy of the best among +themselves—what said they to that?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth.</i> They expressed themselves desirous of killing me, and +indeed would have done so if my capital enemies, the priests, had not been +beforehand with them.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. What did they?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. Burned me.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. Burned you?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. Burned me in the market-place. And, but for my peculiar +property of reviving from my ashes, I should not be here now. Upon +reconsolidating myself, I felt in such a heat that I was fain to repair to +the bottom of the nearest well. Finding myself more comfortable there than +I had ever yet been on earth, I have come to ask permission to remain.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. It does not appear to me, daughter, that the mission +you have undertaken on behalf of mankind can be efficiently discharged at +the bottom of a well.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. No, father, nor in the middle of a fire either.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. I fear that you are too plain and downright in your +dealings with men, and deter where you ought to allure.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. I were not Truth, else, but Flattery. My nature is a +mirror's—to exhibit reality with plainness and faithfulness.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. It is no less the nature of man to shatter every mirror +that does not exhibit to him what he wishes to behold.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. Let me, therefore, return to my well, and let him who +wishes to behold me, if such there be, repair to the brink and look +down.</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. No, daughter, you shall not returnto your well. I have already perceived that you are not of yourself +sufficient for the office I have assigned to you, and I am about to +provide you with two auxiliaries. You are Truth. Tell me how this one +appears to you.</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. Oh, father, the beautiful nymph! how mature, and yet how +comely! how good-humoured, yet how gentle and grave! Her robe is closely +zoned; her upraised finger approaches her lip; her foot falls soft as snow. +What is her name?</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. Discretion. And this other?</p> + +<p> <i>Truth</i>. Oh, father! the cordial look, the blooming cheek, the +bright smile that is almost a laugh, the buoyant step, and the expansive +bosom! What name bears she?</p> + +<p> <i>Jupiter</i>. Good Nature. Return, my daughter, to earth; continue to +enlighten man's ignorance and to reprove his folly; but let Discretion +suggest the occasion, and Good Nature inspire the wording of your +admonitions. I cannot engage that you may not, even with these precautions, +sometimes pay a visit to the stake; and if, when an adventure of this sort +appears imminent, Discretion should counsel a temporary retirement to your +well, I am sure Good Nature will urge nothing to the contrary.</p> <a +id="p294"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE THREE PALACES</h2> + +<p>Three pairs of young people, each a youth with his bride, came together +along a road to the point where it divided to the right and left. On one +side was inscribed, "To the Palace of Truth," and on the other, "To the +Palace of Illusion."</p> + +<p>"This way, my beauty!" cried one of the youths, drawing his companion in +the direction of the Palace of Truth. "To the place where and where alone +thy perfections may be beheld as they are!"</p> + +<p>"And my imperfections!" whispered the young spouse, but her tone was +airy and confident.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the second youth, "does the choice beseem you upon whom the +moon of your nuptials is beaming still. My beloved and I are riper in +Hymen's lore by not less, I ween, than one fortnight. Prudence impels us +towards the Palace of Illusion."</p> + +<p>"Thy will is mine, Alonso," said his lady.</p> + +<p>"I," said the third youth, "will seek neither; for I would not be wise +over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured. +Happy am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer +contiguity to my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit it +leapt not from her mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for a red +mouse and nothing worse; had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion haply I +had deemed it a rat. And, it being a red mouse as it indubitably was, to +what end fancy it a tawny-throated nightingale?"</p> + +<p>While, therefore, the other pairs proceeded on the paths they had +respectively chosen, this sage youth and his bride settled themselves at +the parting of the ways, built their cot, tended their garden, tilled their +field and raised fruits around them, including children.</p> + +<p>The preparation of a cheerful repast was one day well advanced, when, +lifting up their eyes, the pair beheld a haggard and emaciated couple +tottering along the road that led from the Palace of Illusion.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" exclaimed they simultaneously, "no! yes! 'tis surely they!" O +friends! whence this forlorn semblance? whence this osseous condition?"</p> + +<p>"Of them anon," replied the attenuated youth, "but, before all things, +dinner!"</p> + +<p>The restorative was speedily administered, and the pilgrim commenced his +narration.</p> + +<p>"Guarded," he said, "though the Palace of Illusion was by every species +of hippogriffic chimaera, my bride and I experienced no difficulty in +penetrating inside its precincts. The giants lifted us in their arms, the +dragons carried us on their backs, fairy bridges spanned the moats, golden +ladders inclined against the ramparts, we scaled the towers and trod the +courts securely, though constructed to all seeming of dissolving cloud. +Delicate fare loaded every dish; smiling companions invited to every +festivity; perfumes caressed our nostrils; music enwrapped our ears.</p> + +<p>"But while all else charmed and allured, one fact intruded of which we +could not pretend unconsciousness, the intensity of our aversion for each +other. Never could I behold my Imogene without marvelling whatever could +have induced me to wed her, and she has acknowledged that she laboured +under the like perplexity. On the other hand, our good opinion of ourselves +had grown prodigiously. The other's dislike appeared to each an insane +delusion, and we seriously questioned whether it could be right to mate +longer with a being so destitute of true aesthetic feeling. We confided +these scruples to each other, with the result of a most tempestuous +altercation.</p> + +<p>"As this was attaining its climax, one of the inmates of the Palace, a +pert forward boy, resembling a page out of livery, passed by, and +ironically, as I thought, congratulated us on the strength of our mutual +attachment. 'Never,' exclaimed he, 'have I beheld the like here before, and +I am the oldest inhabitant.'</p> + +<p>"As this felicitation was proffered at the precise moment when I was +engaged in staunching a rent in my cheek with a handful of my wife's hair, +I was constrained to regard it as unseasonable, and expressed myself to +that effect.</p> + +<p>"'What!' exclaimed he, with equal surprise, 'know ye not that this is +the Palace of Illusion, where everything is inverted and appears the +reverse of itself? Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus +drive you to fisticuffs! Had I beheld you billing and cooing, truly I had +counselled a judicial separation!'</p> + +<p>"My wife and I looked at each other, and by a common impulse made at our +utmost speed for the gate of the Palace of Illusion.</p> + +<p>"Alas! it is one thing to enter and another to quit that domain of +enchantment. The golden clouds enwrapt us still, cates and dainties tempted +us as of old, the most bewitching strains detained us spellbound. The giant +and dragon warders, indeed, offered no violent resistance, they simply +turned into open portals which appeared to yield us egress, but proved +entrances to interminable labyrinthine mazes. At last we escaped by +resolutely, following the exact opposite track to that which we observed to +be taken by a poet, who was chasing a phantom of Fame with a scroll of +unintelligible and inharmonious verse.</p> + +<p>"The moment that we emerged from the enchanted castle we knew ourselves +and each other for what we were, and fell weeping into each other's arms. +So feeble were we that we could hardly move, nevertheless we have made a +shift to crawl hither, trusting to your hospitality to recruit us from the +sawdust and ditch-water which we vehemently suspect to have been our diet +during the whole of our residence."</p> + +<p>"Eat and drink without stint and without ceremony," rejoined their host, +"provided only that somewhat remain for the guests whom I see +approaching."</p> + +<p>And in a few moments the fugitives from the Palace of Illusion were +reinforced by travellers from the Palace of Truth, whose backs were most +determinately turned to that august edifice.</p> + +<p>"My friends," said the youth last arrived, when the first greetings were +over, "Truth's Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not the +inmates necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, and did +not all innocent embellishments of her majestic person become entirely +inefficient and absolutely nugatory. For example, the number of my wife's +grey hairs speedily confounded me; and how should it be otherwise, when the +excellent dye she had brought with her had completely lost its virtues? She +on her part found herself continually obliged to acquaint me with the +manifold defects she was daily discovering in my mind and person, which I +was unable to deny, frequently as I opened my mouth for that purpose. It is +true that I had the satisfaction of pointing out equal defects in herself; +but this could not be considered a great satisfaction, seeing that every +such discovery impugned my taste and judgment, and impaired the worth of my +most cherished possession. At length we resolved that Truth and we were not +made for each other, and, having verified the accuracy of this conclusion +by uttering it unrebuked in Truth's own palace, quitted the unblest spot +with all possible expedition. No sooner were we outside than our tenderness +revived, and, the rites of reconciliation duly performed, my wife found +nothing more urgent than to try whether her dye had recovered its natural +properties, which, as ye may perceive, proved to be the case. We are now +bound for the Palace of Illusion."</p> + +<p>"Nay," said he who had escaped thence, "if my experience suffices not to +deter you, learn that they who have known Truth can never taste of +Illusion. Illusion is for life's golden prime, its fanes and pavilions may +be reared but by the magic wand of Youth. The maturity that would recreate +them builds not for Illusion but for Deceit. Yet, lest mortality should +despair, there exists, as I have learned, yet another palace, founded +midway between that of Illusion and that of Truth, open to those who are +too soft for the one and too hard for the other. Thither, indeed, the +majority of mankind in this age resort, and there appear to find themselves +comfortable."</p> + +<p>"And this palace is?" inquired Truth's runaways simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"The Palace of Convention," replied the youth.</p> <a id="p300"></a> <a +href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>NEW READINGS IN BIOGRAPHY</h2> + +<h3>I.—<span class="hi">Timon of Athens</span> </h3> + +<p>No, it was not true that Timon was dead, and buried on the sea-shore. So +the first party discovered that hastened to his cave at the tidings, +thinking to seize his treasure, and had their heads broken for their pains. +But the second party fared better; for these were robbers, captained by +Alcibiades, who had taken to the road, as many a man of spirit, has done +before and since. They took Timon's gold, and left him bound in his chair. +But on the way home the lesser thieves mysteriously disappeared, and the +gold became the sole property of Alcibiades. As it is written, "The tools +to him that can handle them."</p> + +<p>Timon sat many hours in an uncomfortable position, and though, in a +general way, he abhorred the face of man, he was not displeased when a +gentleman of bland appearance entered the cavern, and made him a low +obeisance. And perceiving that Timon was bound, the bland man exclaimed +with horror, and severed his bonds, ere one could say Themistocles. And in +an instant the cavern was filled with Athenian senators.</p> + +<p>"Hail," they cried, "to Timon the munificent! Hail to Timon the +compassionate! Hail to Timon the lover of his kind!"</p> + +<p>"I am none of these things," said Timon. "I am Timon the +misanthrope."</p> + +<p>"This must be my Lord's wit and playfulness," said the bland man, "for +how else should the Senate and the people have passed a decree, indited by +myself, ordering an altar to be raised to Timon the Benefactor, and +appointing him chief archon? But come, hand over thy treasure, that thy +installation may take effect with due observance."</p> + +<p>"I have been deprived of my treasure," said Timon.</p> + +<p>But the ambassadors gave him no credit until they had searched every +chink and crevice in the cavern, and dug up all the earth round the +entrance. They then regarded each other with blank consternation.</p> + +<p>"Let us leave him as we found him," said one.</p> + +<p>"Let us hang him up," said another.</p> + +<p>"Let us sell him into captivity," said a third.</p> + +<p>"Nay, friends," said the bland gentleman, "such confession of error +would impeach our credit as statesmen. Moreover, should the people learn +that Timon has lost his money, they will naturally conclude that we have +taken it. Let us, therefore, keep this misfortune from their knowledge, and +trust for relief to the chapter of accidents, as usual in State +affairs."</p> + +<p>They therefore robed Timon in a dress of honour, and conducted him to +Athens, where half the inhabitants were awaiting him. Two triumphal arches +spanned the principal street, and on one was inscribed "Timon the +Benefactor," and on the other "Timon the Friend of Humanity." And all +along, far as the eye could reach, stood those whom his bounty, as was +stated, had rescued from perdition, the poor he had relieved, the sick he +had medicined, the orphans he had fathered, the poets and painters he had +patronised, all lauding and thanking him, and soliciting a continuance of +his liberality. And the rabble cried "Largesse, largesse!" and horsemen +galloped forth, casting among them nuts enveloped in silver-leaf and apples +and comfits and trinkets and brass farthings in incredible quantities. At +which the people murmured somewhat, and spoke amiss respecting Timon and +the senators who escorted him, and the bland gentleman strove to keep Timon +between himself and the populace. While Timon was pondering what the end of +these things should be, his mob encountered another cheering for +Alcibiades, and playing pitch and toss with drachmas and didrachmas and +tetradrachmas, yea, even with staters and darics.</p> + +<p>"Long live Alcibiades," cried Timon's followers, as they attacked +Alcibiades's supporters to get their share.</p> + +<p>"Long live Timon," cried Alcibiades's party, as they defended +themselves.</p> + +<p>Timon and Alcibiades extricated themselves from the scuffle, and walked +away arm in arm.</p> + +<p>"My dear friend," said Timon, "how inexpressibly beholden I am to you +for taking the burden of my wealth upon yourself! There is nothing I would +not do to evince my gratitude."</p> + +<p>"Nothing?" queried Alcibiades.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," persisted Timon.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Alcibiades, "I will thank thee to relieve me of Timandra, +who is as tired of me as I am of her."</p> + +<p>Timon winced horribly, but his word was his bond, and Timandra +accompanied him to his cavern, where at first she suffered much +inconvenience from the roughness of the accommodation. But Timon, though a +misanthrope, was not a brute; and when in process of time Timandra's health +required special care, rugs and pillows were provided for her, and also for +Timon; for he saw that he could no longer pass for a churl if he made his +wife more comfortable than himself. And, though he counted gold as dross, +yet was he not dissatisfied that Timandra had saved the gold he had given +her formerly against a rainy day. And when a child was born, Timon was at +his wits' end, and blessed the old woman who came to nurse it. And she +admonished him of his duty to the Gods, which meant sacrifice, which meant +merry-making. And the child grew, and craved food and drink, and Timon +possessed himself of three acres and a cow. And not being able to doubt his +child's affection for him, he came to believe in Timandra's also. And when +the tax-gatherer oppressed his neighbours, he pleaded their cause, which +was also his own, in the courts of Athens, and gained it by the interest of +Alcibiades. And his neighbours made him demarch, and he feasted them. And +Apemantus came to deride him, and Timon bore with him; but he was +impertinent to Timandra, and Timon beat him.</p> + +<p>And in fine, Timon became very like any other Attic country gentleman, +save that he always maintained that a young man did well to be a <a +id="p304"></a> misanthrope until he got a loving and sensible wife, which, +as he observed, could but seldom happen. And the Gods looked down upon him +with complacency, and deferred the ruin of Athens until he should be no +more.</p> + +<h3>II.—<span class="hi">Napoleon's Sangaree</span> </h3> + +<p>Napoleon Buonaparte sat in his garden at St. Helena, in the shadow of a +fig-tree. Before him stood a little table, and upon the table stood a glass +of sangaree. The day was hot and drowsy; the sea boomed monotonously on the +rocks; the broad fig-leaves stirred not; great flies buzzed heavily in the +sultry air. Napoleon wore a loose linen coat and a broad brimmed planter's +hat, and looked as red as the sangaree, but nowise as comfortable.</p> + +<p>"To think," he said aloud, "that I should end my life here, with nothing +to sweeten my destiny but this lump of sugar!"</p> + +<p>And he dropped it into the sangaree, and little ripples and beads broke +out on the surface of the liquid.</p> + +<p>"Thou should'st have followed me," said a voice.</p> + +<p>"Me," said another.</p> + +<p>And a steam from the sangaree rose high over Napoleon's head, and from +it shaped themselves two beautiful female figures. One was fair and very +youthful, with a Phrygian cap on her head, and eager eyes beneath it, and a +slender spear in her hand. The other was somewhat older, and graver, and +darker, with serious eyes; and she carried a sword, and wore a helmet, from +underneath which her rich brown tresses escaped over her vesture of light +steel armour.</p> + +<p>"I am Liberty," said the first.</p> + +<p>"I am Loyalty," said the second.</p> + +<p>And Napoleon laid his hand in that of the first spirit, and instantly +saw himself as he had been in the days of his youthful victories, only +beset with a multitude of people who were offering him a crown, and +cheering loudly. But he thrust it aside, and they cheered ten times more, +and fell into each other's arms, and wept and kissed each other. And troops +of young maidens robed in white danced before him, strewing his way with +flowers. And the debts of the debtor were paid, and the prisoners were +released from captivity. And the forty Academicians came bringing Napoleon +the prize of virtue. And the Abbé Sieyès stood up, and +offered Napoleon his choice of seventeen constitutions; and Napoleon chose +the worst. And he came to sit with five hundred other men, mostly +advocates. And when he said "Yea," they said "Nay"; and when he said +"white," they said "black." And they suffered him to do neither good nor +evil, and when he went to war they commanded his army for him, until he was +smitten with a great slaughter. And the enemy entered the country, and +bread was scarce and wine dear; and the people cursed Napoleon, and Liberty +vanished from before him. But he roamed on, ever looking for her, and at +length he found her lying dead in the public way, all gashed and bleeding, +and trampled with the feet of men and horses, and the wheel of a tumbril +was over her neck. And Napoleon, under compulsion of the mob, ascended the +tumbril; and Abbé Sieyès and Bishop Talleyrand rode at his +side, administering spiritual consolation. Thus they came within sight of +the guillotine, whereon stood M. de Robespierre in his sky-blue coat, and +his jaw bound up in a bloody cloth, bowing and smiling, nevertheless, and +beckoning Napoleon to ascend to him. Napoleon had never feared the face of +man; but when he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell upon him, and he +leapt out of the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the people as it +were mid withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood awaiting +him.</p> + +<p>She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people +proffering him a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all wore +his hair in a queue with powder.</p> + +<p>"See," said the little old man, "that thou takest not what doth not +belong to thee."</p> + +<p>"To whom belongeth it then?" asked Napoleon, "for I am a plain soldier, +and have no skill in politics."</p> + +<p>"To Louis the Disesteemed," said the little old man, "for he is a +great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors reigned +here at the flood."</p> + +<p>"Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?" asked Napoleon.</p> + +<p>"In England," said the little old man.</p> + +<p>Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the +Disesteemed. But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to seek in +the obscurest places. And one day, as he was passing through a mean street, +he heard a voice of lamentation, and perceived a man whose coat and shirt +were rent and dirty; but not so his pantaloons, for he had none.</p> + +<p>"Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?" asked he, "and wherefore makest +thou this lamentation?"</p> + +<p>"I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre," replied the +distrousered personage, "and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have been +enforced to pawn, inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing upon my coat +or my shirt."</p> + +<p>And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether +garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those who +stood about.</p> + +<p>"Thou hast done wickedly," said the king when he heard who Napoleon was, +"in that thou hast presumed to fight battles and win victories without any +commission from me. Go, nevertheless, and lose an arm, a leg, and an eye in +my service, then shall thy offence be forgiven thee."</p> + +<p>And Napoleon raised a great army, and gained a great battle for the +king, and lost an arm. And he gained another greater battle, and lost a +leg. And he gained the greatest battle of all; and the king sat on the +throne of his ancestors, and was called Louis the Victorious: but Napoleon +had lost an eye. And he came into the king's presence, bearing his eye, his +arm, and his leg.</p> + +<p>"Thou art pardoned," said the king, "and I will even confer a singular +honour upon thee. Thou shalt defray the expense of my coronation, which +shall be the most splendid ever seen in France."</p> + +<p>So Napoleon lost all his substance, and no man pitied him. But after +certain days the keeper of the royal wardrobe rushed into the king's +presence, crying "Treason! treason! O Majesty, whence these republican and +revolutionary pantaloons?"</p> + +<p>"They are those I deigned to receive from the rebel Buonaparte," said +the king. "It were meet to return them. Where abides he now?"</p> + +<p>"Saving your Majesty's presence," they said, "he lieth upon a certain +dunghill."</p> + +<p>"If this be so," said the king, "life can be no gratification to him, +and it were humane to relieve him of it. Moreover, he is a dangerous man. +Go, therefore, and strangle him with his own pantaloons. Yet, let a +monument be raised to him, and engrave upon it, 'Here lies Napoleon +Buonaparte, whom Louis the Victorious raised from the dunghill.'"</p> + +<p>They went accordingly; but behold! Napoleon already lay dead upon the +dunghill. And this was told unto the king.</p> + +<p>"He hath ever been envious of my glory," said the king, "let him +therefore be buried underneath."</p> + +<p>And it was so. And after no long space the king also died, and slept +with his fathers. But when there was again a revolution in France, the +people cast his bones out of the royal sepulchre, and laid Napoleon's there +instead. And the dunghill complained grievously that it should be disturbed +for so slight a cause.</p> + +<p>And Napoleon withdrew his hand from the <a id="p309"></a> hand of +Loyalty, saying, "Pish!" And his eyes opened, and he heard the booming of +the sea, and the buzzing of the flies, and felt the heat of the sun, and +saw that the sugar he had dropped into his sangaree had not yet reached the +bottom of the tumbler.</p> + +<h3>III.—<span class="hi">Concerning Daniel Defoe</span> </h3> + +<p>Daniel Defoe, at the invitation of the judge, came forth from the garret +wherein he abode, and rode in a cart unto the Royal Exchange, wherein he +ascended the pillory, to the end that his ears might be nailed thereunto. +And much people stood before him, some few pelting, some mocking, but the +most part cheering or weeping, for they knew him for a friend to the poor, +and especially those men who were called Dissenters. And a certain person +in black stood by him, invisible to the people, but well seen of Daniel, +who knew him for one whose life he had himself written. And the man in +black reasoned with Daniel, and said, "Thou seest this multitude of people, +but which of them shall deliver thee out of my hand? Nay, but let thy white +be black, and thy black white, and I myself will deliver thee, and make +thee rich, and heal thy hurts, save the holes in thy ears, that I may know +thee for mine own." But Daniel gave no heed to him. So the Devil departed, +having great wrath, and entered into a certain smug-faced man standing +by.</p> + +<p>And now the crowd before Daniel was greatly diminished, and consisted +mainly of his enemies, for his friends had gone away to drown their sorrow. +And the smug-faced man into whom Satan had entered came forth from among +them, and said unto him, "O Daniel, inasmuch as I am a Dissenter I am +greatly beholden to thee; but inasmuch as I am an honest tradesman I have +somewhat against thee, for thou hast written concerning short weights and +measures. And a man's shop is more to him than his country or his religion. +Wherefore I must needs be avenged of thee. Yet shalt thou own that the +tender mercies of the good man are piteous, and that even in his wrath he +thinketh upon compassion."</p> + +<p>And he picked up a great stone from the ground, and wrapped it in a +piece of paper, saying, "Lest peradventure it hurt him overmuch." And the +stone was very rough and sharp, and the paper was very thin. And he hurled +it with all his might at the middle of Daniel's forehead, and the blood +spouted forth. And Daniel cried aloud, and called upon the name of the +Devil. And in an instant the pillory and the people were gone, and he found +himself in the Prime Minister's cabinet, healed of all his hurts, except +the holes in his ears. And the Minister was so like the Devil that you +could not tell the difference. And he said, "Against what wilt thou write +first, Daniel?"</p> + +<p>"Dissenters," said Daniel.</p> + +<p>And he wrote a pamphlet, and such as read it took firebrands, and +visited the Dissenters in their habitations. And many Dissenters were put +into prison, and others fined and spoiled of their goods. And he wrote +other pamphlets, and each was cleverer and wickeder than the last. And +whatsoever Daniel had of old declared to be white, lo! it was black; and +what he had said was black, behold! it was white. And he throve and +prospered exceedingly, and became a commissioner for public-houses and +hackney-coaches and the imposing of oaths and the levying of custom, and +all other such things as one does by deputy. And he mended the holes in his +ears.</p> + +<p>But the time came when Daniel must be judged, and he went before the +Lord. And all the court was full of Dissenters, and the Devil was there +also. And the Dissenters testified many and grievous things against +Daniel.</p> + +<p>"Daniel," said the Lord, "what answerest thou?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Lord," said Daniel. "Only I would that the Dissenter who threw +that stone at me should receive due and condign punishment, adequate to his +misdeed."</p> + +<p>"That," said the Devil, "is impossible."</p> + +<p>"Thou sayest well, Satan," said the Lord, "and therefore shall Daniel go +free. For if anything can excuse the apostasy of the noble, it is the +ingratitude of the base."</p> + +<p>So the Devil went to his own place, looking very small. And Daniel found +himself in the same garret whence he had gone forth to the pillory; and +before him were bread and cheese, and a pen and ink and paper. And he +dipped the pen into the ink, and wrote <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>.</p> <a +id="p312"></a> + +<h3>IV.—<span class="hi">Cornelius the Ferryman</span> </h3> + +<p>Fourscore years ago there was a good ferryman named Cornelius, who rowed +people between New York and Brooklyn. He had neither wife nor child, nor +any one to think of except himself. It was, therefore, his custom, when he +had earned enough in a day for his own wants, to put the rest aside, and +bestow it upon sick or blind or maimed persons, lest they should come to +the workhouse. And the sick and the blind and the maimed gathered around +him, and waited by the water's edge, until Cornelius's day's work should be +over.</p> + +<p>This went on until one of the little sooty imps who are always in +mischief came to hear of it, and told the principal devil in charge of the +United States, whose name is Politicianus.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said the Devil, "this will never do. I will see to it +immediately."</p> + +<p>And he went off to Cornelius, and caught him in the act of giving two +dimes to a blind beggar.</p> + +<p>"How foolish you are!" he said; "what waste of money is this! If you +saved it up, you would by-and-by be able to build an hospital for all the +beggars in New York."</p> + +<p>"It would be a long time before there was enough," objected +Cornelius.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said the Devil, "if you let me invest your money for you." +And he showed Cornelius the plan of a most splendid hospital, and across +the front of it was inscribed in letters of gold, <i>Cornelius +Diabolodorus</i>. And Cornelius was persuaded, and that evening he gave +nothing to the poor. And the poor had come to think that Cornelius's money +was their own, and abused him as though he had robbed them. And Cornelius +drove them away: and his heart was hardened against them from that day +forth.</p> + +<p>But the Devil kept his promise to Cornelius, and put him up to all the +good things in Wall Street, and he soon had enough to build ten hospitals. +But the more he had to build with, the less he wanted to build. And +by-and-by the Devil called upon him, and found him contemplating two +pictures. One of them showed the finest hospital you can imagine, full of +neat, clean rooms, in one of which sat Cornelius himself, wearing a dress +with a number and badge, and sipping arrowroot. The other showed fine +houses, and opera-boxes, and fast-trotting horses, and dry champagne, and +ladies who dance in ballets, and paintings by the great masters. Cornelius +thrust the pictures away, and the Devil did not ask to see them, nor was it +needful that he should, for he had painted them himself.</p> + +<p>"O dear Mr. Devil," said Cornelius, "I am so glad that you have called, +for I wanted to speak to you. It strikes me that there is a great defect in +the plan which you have been so good as to draw for me."</p> + +<p>"What is that?" asked the Devil.</p> + +<p>"There is no place for black men," said Cornelius. "And you know white +men will never let them come into the same hospital."</p> + +<p>And the Devil, to do him justice, talked very reasonably to Cornelius, +and represented to him that there were very few black men in New York, and +that these had very vigorous constitutions. But Cornelius was inflamed with +enthusiasm, and frantic with philanthropy, and he vowed that he would not +give a cent to an hospital that had not a wing for black men as big as all +the rest of the building. And the Devil had to take his plan back, and come +again in a year and a day. And when he did come back, Cornelius asked him +if he did not think it would be a most excellent thing if all the Irishmen +in New York could be shut up in an hospital or elsewhere; and he could not +deny it. So he had to take his plan back again. And next year it was the +turn of the Chinese, and then of the Red Indians, and then of the dogs and +cats. And then Cornelius thought that he ought to provide room for all the +people who had been ruined by his speculations, and the Devil thought so +too, but doubted whether Cornelius would be able to afford it. And at last +Cornelius said:</p> + +<p>"Methinks I have been very foolish in wishing to build an hospital at +all while I am living. Surely it would be better that I should enjoy my +money myself during my life, and leave the residue for the lawyers to +divide after my death."</p> + +<p>"You are quite right," said the Devil; "that is exactly what I should do +if I were you."</p> + +<p>So Cornelius put the plans behind a shelf in his counting-house, and the +mice ate them. And he went on prospering and growing rich, until the Devil +became envious of him, and insisted on changing places with him. So +Cornelius went below, and the Devil came and dwelt in New York, where he +still is.</p> <a id="p315"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>THE POISON MAID</h2> +<br> O not for him +<br> Blooms my dark nightshade, nor doth hemlock brew +<br> Murder for cups within her cavernous root. + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Grievous is the lot of the child, more especially of the female child, +who is doomed from the tenderest infancy to lack the blessing of a mother's +care.</p> + +<p>Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of the +lovely Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an extraordinary +manner? That enormous serpents infested her cradle, licking her face and +twining around her limbs? That her tiny fingers patted scorpions? and tied +knots in the tails of vipers? That her father, the magician Locuste, ever +sedulous and affectionate, fed her with spoonsful of the honeyed froth that +gathers under the tongues of asps? That as she grew older and craved a more +nutritious diet, she partook, at first in infinitesimal doses, but in ever +increasing quantities, of arsenic, strychnine, opium, and prussic acid? +That at last having attained the flower of youth, she drank habitually from +vessels of gold, for her favourite beverages were so corrosive that no +other substance could resist their solvent properties?</p> + +<p>Gradually accustomed to this strange regimen, she had thriven on it +marvellously, and was without a peer for beauty, sense, and goodness. Her +father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed her in +all lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no other human +being had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that her bringing up +had differed in so material a respect from that of other young people.</p> + +<p>"Father," said she one day, bringing him a book she had been perusing, +"what strange follies learned men will pen with gravity! or is it rather +that none can set bounds to the licence of romancers? These dear serpents, +my friends and playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of +my health and vigour—that any one should write of these as +pernicious, deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or +but the wanton freak of an idle imagination?"</p> + +<p>"My child," answered the magician, "it is fit that thou shouldst now +learn what hath hitherto been concealed from thee, and with this object I +left this treatise in thy way. It speaks truth. Thou hast been nurtured +from thy infancy on substances endowed with lethal properties, commonly +called poisons. Thy entire frame is impregnated thereby, and, although thou +thyself art in the fullest enjoyment of health, thy kiss would be fatal to +any one not, like thy father, fortified by a course of antidotes. Now hear +the reason. I bear a deadly grudge to the king of this land. He indeed hath +not injured me; but his father slew my father, wherefore it is meet that I +should slay that ancestor's son's son. I have therefore nurtured thee from +thy infancy on the deadliest poisons, until thou art a walking vial of +pestilence. The young prince shall unseal thee, to his destruction and thy +unspeakable advantage. Go to the great city; thou art beautiful as the day; +he is young, handsome, and amorous; he will infallibly fall in love with +thee. Do thou submit to his caresses, he will perish miserably; thou (such +is the charm) ransomed by the kiss of love, wilt become wholesome and +innocuous as thy fellows, preserving only thy knowledge of poisons, always +useful, in the present state of society invaluable. Thou wilt therefore +next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing recommendatory letters +from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily reigning."</p> + +<p>"Father," said Mithridata, "either I shall love this young prince, or I +shall not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to caress +me. If I do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of his +death."</p> + +<p>"Not even in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to thee by +this event?"</p> + +<p>"Not even for that consideration."</p> + +<p>"O these daughters!" exclaimed the old man. "We bring them up tenderly, +we exhaust all our science for the improvement of their minds and bodies, +we set our choicest hopes upon them, and entrust them with the fulfilment +of our most cherished aspirations; and when all is done, they will not so +much as commit a murder to please us! Miserable ingrate, receive the just +requital of thy selfish disobedience!"</p> + +<p>"O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!"</p> + +<p>"I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors."</p> + +<p>And he did.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a +particle of the philosopher's stone—a slender outfit for a magician's +daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she do +now? The great object of her life must henceforth be to avoid committing +murder, especially murdering any handsome young man. It would have seemed +most natural to retire into a convent, but, not to speak of her lack of +vocation, she felt that her father would justly consider that she had +disgraced her family, and she still looked forward to reconciliation with +him. She might have taken a hermitage, but her instinct told her that a +fair solitary can only keep young men off by strong measures; and she +disliked the character of a hermitess with a bull-dog. She therefore went +straight to the great city, took a house, and surrounded herself with +attendants. In the choice of these she was particularly careful to select +those only whose personal appearance was such as to discourage any approach +to familiarity or endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty +surrounded by such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked +pages, and stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she +loved beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel it +right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for +strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course at +first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious illness, +but youth and a sound constitution pulled her through.</p> + +<p>Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by love +for thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by word nor +deed? To pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume with vain +yearnings for usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled by thy fellows +for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If so, thou wilt pity +poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate, +but who, from the necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as +possible all contact with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of +solitude, and knew that she was regarded as a monster of pride and +exclusiveness. She dared bestow no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any +one, lest this small beginning should lead to the manifestation of her +fatal power. Her own servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as +their bodies, hated her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty +disdain of them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without +tenderness receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her +own sex secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a +providential set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced +her as a—well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled +everybody else's lovers and would have none of her own. For with all +Mithridata's severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy +moths that flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold +water thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep them +from her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets doux; they +stood before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran beside her litter +when she was carried abroad, they assembled at night to serenade her, +fighting desperately among themselves. They sought to gain admission as +tradesmen, as errand boys, even as scullions male and female. To such +lengths did they proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually +attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for +the interposition of another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after +a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata had fainted, +of course. What was her horror on reviving to find herself in the arms of a +young man of exquisite beauty and princely mien, sucking death from her +lips with extraordinary relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made +any unfeminine use of her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her +apology. The youth reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She +listened in silent misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had +penetrated her bosom also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake +to dismiss the young man as it did to see him move away, slowly and +languidly staggering to his doom.</p> + +<p>For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to +a youth dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually. She +steadily refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she wrung +her hands, she called for death and execrated her nurture. With that +strange appetite for self-torment which almost seems to diminish the pangs +of the wretched, she collected books on poisons, studied all the symptoms +described, and fancied her hapless lover undergoing them all in turn. At +length a message came which admitted of no evasion. The King commanded her +presence. Admonished by past experience, she provided herself with a veil +and mask, and repaired to the palace.</p> + +<p>The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier +circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her with +austerity, yet with kindness.</p> + +<p>"Maiden," he began, "thy unaccountable cruelty to my +son——"</p> + +<p>"Thy son!" she exclaimed, "The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for my +disobedience!"</p> + +<p>"Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate +monsters. Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he has +risked his life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy +cruelty, and when a smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou wilt +not bestow it."</p> + +<p>"Alas! great King," she replied, "I know too well what your Majesty's +opinion of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight of me +could effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son."</p> + +<p>"Of that I shall judge," said the King, "when thou hast divested thyself +of that veil and mask."</p> + +<p>Mithridata reluctantly complied.</p> + +<p>"By Heaven!" exclaimed the King, "such a sight might recall the +departing soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet +too late."</p> + +<p>"O King," urged Mithridata, "how could this countenance do thy son any +good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?"</p> + +<p>"I am not aware of that," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state +of deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he not +tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?"</p> + +<p>"Not to my knowledge," said the King. "The symptoms, as I understand, +are not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a +milder form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and +incessantly calls upon thee."</p> + +<p>"This is most incomprehensible," said Mithridata. "There was no drug in +my father's laboratory that could have produced such an effect."</p> + +<p>"The sum of the matter is," continued the King, "that either thou wilt +repair forthwith to my son's chamber, and subsequently to church; or else +unto the scaffold."</p> + +<p>"If it must be so, I choose the scaffold," said Mithridata resolutely. +"Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son's chamber would but destroy +whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond everything +on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul."</p> + +<p>"Chamberlain," cried the monarch, "bring me a strait waistcoat."</p> + +<p>Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King's feet, +taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her +wretched history.</p> + +<p>The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. "À bon chat +bon rat!" he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. "So thou art +the daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his craft, +and, as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes. Never did +any child in the world take an equal quantity of physic: but there is now +no poison on earth can harm him. Ye are clearly made for each other; haste +to his bedside, and, as the spell requires, rid thyself of thy venefic +properties in his arms as expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be +bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught +us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every poison."</p> <a +id="p325"></a> <a href="#contents">Contents</a> + +<h2>NOTES</h2> + +<p>The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained +sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. Many +originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the +annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it +desirable to append, and which further provide an opportunity of tendering +thanks to many friends for their assent to republication.</p> + +<p>P. 5. <i>The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,</i>—Hereby we +may detect the error of those among the learned who have identified +Caucasia with Armenia. "Hellenic letters," says Mr. Capes, writing of +Armenia in the fourth century, "were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young +men of the slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens" ("University +Life in Ancient Athens," p. 73).</p> + +<p>P. 28. <i>Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality.</i>—The +belief in this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., +and many emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the +groundwork of Leopold Schefer's novel, "Der Unsterblichkeitstrank," which +has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of "The Potion of +Lao-Tsze."</p> + +<p>P. 38. <i>So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously.</i>—In +A.D. 683, the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband's death, caused her +son to be set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In +our day we have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns.</p> + +<p>P. 50. <i>Ananda the Miracle Worker.</i>—This story was originally +published in Fraser's Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation +appeared in the <i>Revue Britannique</i> for November, 1872. Buddha's +prohibition to work miracles rests, so far as the present writer's +knowledge extends, on the authority of Professor Max Müller ("Lectures +on the Science of Religion"). It should be needless to observe that +Ananda, "the St. John of the Buddhist group," is not recorded to have +contravened this or any other of his master's precepts.</p> + +<p>P. 66. <i>The City of Philosophers.</i>—This story has been +translated into French by M. Sarrazin.</p> + +<p>P. 68. <i>There to establish a philosophic commonwealth.</i>—The +petition was actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the +disordered condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to save a +sinking state, possessed the accomplishments which would have adorned an +age of peace and culture.</p> + +<p>P. 82. <i>The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor +edge.</i>—Gallienus was fond of such practical jocularity. "Quum +quidam gemmas vitreas pro veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re +prodita, vindicari vellet, surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. +Deinde e cavea caponem emittit, mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, +per curionem dici jussit, 'Imposturam fecit et passus est': deinde +negotiatorem dimisit" (Trebellius in Gallieno, cap. xii.).</p> + +<p>P. 100. <i>Hypati, anthypati, &c.</i>—<i>Hypati</i> and +<i>anthypati</i> denote consuls and proconsuls, dignities of course merely +titular at the court of Constantinople. <i>Silentiarii</i> were properly +officers charged with maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was +perhaps performed by deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to +persons of distinction. The <i>protospatharius</i> was the chief of the +Imperial body-guard, of which the <i>spatharocandidati</i> constituted the +<i>élite</i>.</p> + +<p>P. 114. <i>The Wisdom of the Indians.</i>—Appeared in 1890 in +<i>The Universal Review</i>. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. +Bastian's travels in Burma.</p> + +<p>P. 124. <i>The Dumb Oracle.</i>—Appeared in the <i>University +Magazine</i> for June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval +myth here transferred to classical times, is also the groundwork of +Browning's ballad, "The Boy and the Angel."</p> + +<p>P. 136. <i>Duke Virgil.</i>—The subject of this story is derived +from Leopold Schefer's novel, "Die Sibylle von Mantua," though there is but +little resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt as +his authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as their duke +in the thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely founded upon the +interpretation of the insignia accompanying a mediæval statue of the +poet.</p> + +<p>P. 138. <i>To put the devil into a hole</i>.—"Then sayd Virgilius, +'Shulde ye well passe in to the hole that ye cam out of?' 'Yea, I shall +well,' sayd the devyl. 'I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall +not do it.' 'Well,' sayd the devyll, 'thereto I consent.' And then the +devyll wrange himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. +Virgilius kyvered the hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the +devyll begyled, and myght nat there come out agen, but abideth shutte still +therein" ("Romance of Virgilius").</p> + +<p> <i>Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?</i>—"Than he +thought in his mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with +great landes belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it +Napells. And the foundacyon of it was of eggs" ("Romance of +Virgilius").</p> + +<p>P. 148. <i>The Claw</i>.—Originally published in <i>The English +Illustrated Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p>P. 151. <i>Peter of Abano</i>.—Pietro di Abano, who took his name +from his birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary +with Dante, whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused +of magic. It is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition +or stoned by the populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his +remains having been secretly removed by his friends. Honours were +afterwards paid to his memory; and there seems no doubt that he was a man +of great attainments, including a knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished +character, if he had not sometimes sold his skill at too high a rate. For +his authentic history, see the article in the <i>Biographie Universelle</i> +by Ginguené; for the legendary, Tieck's romantic tale, "Pietro von +Abano" (1825), which has been translated into English.</p> + +<p>P. 156. <i>Alexander the Rat-catcher</i>.—This story, to whose +ground-work History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first +published in vol. xii. of <i>The Yellow Book</i>, January, 1897.</p> + +<p>P. 157. <i>Cardinal Barbadico</i>.—This cardinal was actually +entrusted by Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; +an occasion upon which the "sardonic grin" imputed to the Pope by a +detractor may be conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico +was a remarkable instance of a man "kicked upstairs." As Archbishop of +Corfu he had had a violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent +XI., equally unwilling to disown the representative of Papal authority or +offend the Republic, recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep +him there.</p> + +<p>P. 177. <i>The Rewards of Industry.</i>—Appeared originally in +<i>Atalanta for August</i>, 1888.</p> + +<p>P. 194. <i>The Talismans.</i>—First published in <i>Atalanta</i> +for September, 1890.</p> + +<p>P. 202. <i>The Elixir of Life.</i>—Published July, 1881, in the +third number of a magazine entitled <i>Our Times</i>, which blasted the +elixir's character by expiring immediately afterwards.</p> + +<p>P. 226. <i>The Purple Head.</i>—Appeared originally in <i>Fraser's +Magazine</i> for August, 1877.</p> + +<p>P. 228. <i>The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey +in comparison.</i> "Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini +comparatione fulgoris" (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.).</p> + +<p>P. 230. <i>All these sovereigns.</i>—"Diligentissime et Aurelianus +et Probus et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus +requisiverunt tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt" (Vopiscus, +<i>loc. cit.</i>).</p> + +<p>P. 241. <i>Pan's Wand.</i>—Published originally in a Christmas +number of The <i>Illustrated London News</i>.</p> + +<p>P. 249. <i>A Page from the Book of Folly.</i>—Appeared in +<i>Temple Bar</i> for 1871.</p> + +<p>P. 282. <i>The Philosopher and the Butterflies.</i>—One of the +contributions by various writers to "The New Amphion," a little book +prepared for sale at the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the +University of Edinburgh in 1886.</p> + +<p>P. 294. <i>The Three Palaces.</i>—Published originally on a +similar occasion to the last story, in "A Volunteer Haversack," an +extensive repertory of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, +printed and sold at Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902.</p> + +<p>P. 300. <i>New Readings in Biography.</i>—Originally published in +<i>The Scots Observer</i> in 1889.</p> + +<p>P. 315. <i>The Poison Maid.</i>—The author wrote this tale in +entire forgetfulness of Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter," which +nevertheless he had certainly read.</p> + +<hr> + +<p>[Transcriber's note: a misprint in the book was corrected in +this edition, from "He martyrdom" to "His martyrdom".]</p> + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twilight of the Gods, and Other +Tales, by Richard Garnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT OF GODS *** + +***** This file should be named 10095-h.htm or 10095-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/9/10095/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales + +Author: Richard Garnett + +Release Date: November 16, 2003 [EBook #10095] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT OF GODS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + +[Illustration: An eagle pecking at the heart of a bearded man, chained to +a rock, with the inscription: "Cor ex est numquam ex cordis regina +volantum".] + +THE TWILIGHT +OF THE GODS: +AND OTHER TALES + +BY + +RICHARD GARNETT + +MDCCCCIII + + +TO + +HORACE HOWARD FURNESS +AND +GEORG BRANDES. +DABO DUOBUS TESTIBUS MEIS + + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Twilight of the Gods +The Potion of Lao-Tsze +Abdallah the Adite +Ananda the Miracle Worker +The City of Philosophers +The Demon Pope +The Cupbearer +The Wisdom of the Indians +The Dumb Oracle +Duke Virgil +The Claw +Alexander the Ratcatcher +The Rewards of Industry +Madam Lucifer +The Talismans +The Elixir of Life +The Poet of Panopolis +The Purple Head +The Firefly +Pan's Wand +A Page from the Book of Folly +The Bell of Saint Euschemon +Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo +The Philosopher and the Butterflies +Truth and Her Companions +The Three Palaces +New Readings in Biography +The Poison Maid +NOTES + + + + +THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS + + + Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear + The longest date do melt like frosty rime. + + + +I + + +The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high above +the summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent eagle came +sailing on broad fans into the blue, and his shadow skimmed the glittering +snow as it had done day by day for thousands of years. A human figure--or +it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed more than mortal--lifted from +the crag, to which he hung suspended by massy gyves and rivets, eyes +mournful with the presentiment of pain. The eagle's screech clanged on the +wind, as with outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing +circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh +crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. +Then happened what all these millenniums had never witnessed. No +thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman +had approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the +eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable abyss +below. At the same moment the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and, +projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the perpendicular +precipice, he alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked greensward +amid young ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and motion. + +The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through the +leaves, stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which remained +prostrate and unconscious still. But as sunlight was born anew in the East +a thrill passed over the slumberer, and he became conscious, first of an +indescribably delicious feeling of restful ease, then of a gnawing pang, +acute as the beak of the eagle for which he at first mistook it. But his +wrists, though still encumbered with bonds and trailing fetters, were +otherwise at liberty, and eagle there was none. Marvelling at his inward +and invisible foe, he struggled to his feet, and found himself contending +with a faintness and dizziness heretofore utterly unknown to him. He dimly +felt himself in the midst of things grown wonderful by estrangement and +distance. No grass, no flower, no leaf had met his eye for thousands of +years, nothing but the impenetrable azure, the transient cloud, sun, moon, +and star, the lightning flash, the glittering peaks of ice, and the +solitary eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass than in all +these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed his +utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly growing +more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort he steadied +himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished so much when a tall +dark maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an antelope, wildly beautiful +as a Dryad, but liker a Maenad with her aspect of mingled disdain and +dismay, and step hasty as of one pursuing or pursued, suddenly checked her +speed on perceiving him. + +"Who art thou?" he exclaimed. + +"Gods! Thou speakest Greek!" + +"What else should I speak?" + +"What else? From whom save thee, since I closed my father's eyes, have I +heard the tongue of Homer and Plato?" + +"Who is Homer? Who is Plato?" + +The maiden regarded him with a look of the deepest astonishment. + +"Surely," she said, "thy gift has been bestowed upon thee to little +purpose. Say not, at least, that thou usest the speech of the Gods to +blaspheme them. Thou art surely yet a votary of Zeus?" + +"I a votary of Zeus!" exclaimed the stranger. "By these fetters, no!" And, +weak as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful laughter. + +"Farewell," said the maiden, as with dilating form and kindling eye she +gathered up her robes. "I parley with thee no more. Thou art tenfold more +detestable than the howling mob down yonder, intent on rapine and +destruction. They know no better, and can no other. But thou, apt in +speaking the sacred tongue yet brutally ignorant of its treasures, knowing +the father of the Gods only to revile him! Let me pass." + +The stranger, if willing to hinder her, seemed little able. His eyes +closed, his limbs relaxed, and without a cry he sank senseless on the +sward. + +In an instant the maiden was kneeling by his side. Hastily undoing a basket +she carried on her arm, she drew forth a leather flask, and, supporting +the sunken head with one hand, poured a stream of wine through the lips +with the other. As the gurgling purple coursed down his throat the sufferer +opened his eyes, and thanked her silently with a smile of exquisite +sweetness. Removing the large leaves which shaded the contents of the +basket, she disclosed ripe figs and pomegranates, honeycomb and snow-white +curd, lying close to each other in tempting array. The stranger took of +each alternately, and the basket was well-nigh emptied ere his appetite +seemed assuaged. + +The observant maiden, meanwhile, felt her mood strangely altered. + +"So have I imaged Ulysses to myself," she thought as she gazed on the +stranger's goodly form, full of vigour, though not without traces of age, +the massive brow, the kindly mouth, the expression of far-seeing wisdom. +"Such a man ignorant of letters, and a contemner of Zeus!" + +The stranger's eloquent thanks roused her from a reverie. The Greek tongue +fell upon her ear like the sweetest music, and she grieved when its flow +was interrupted by a question addressed directly to herself. + +"Can a God feel hunger and thirst?" + +"Surely no," she rejoined. + +"I should have said the same yesterday," returned the stranger. + +"Wherefore not to-day?" + +"Dear maiden," responded he, with winning voice and manner, "we must know +each other better ere my tale can gain credence with thee. Do thou rather +unfold what thine own speech has left dark to me. Why the language of the +Gods, as should seem, is here understood by thee and me alone; what foes +Zeus has here other than myself; what is the profane crowd of which thou +didst speak; and why, alone and defenceless, thou ascendest this mountain. +Think of me, if thou wilt, as one fallen from the clouds." + +"Strange man," returned the maiden, "who knowest Homer's speech and not +Homer's self, who renouncest Zeus and resemblest him, hear my tale ere I +require thine. Yesterday I should have called myself the last priestess of +Apollo in this fallen land, to-day I have neither shrine nor altar. Moved +by I know not what madness, my countrymen have long ago forsaken the +worship of the Gods. The temples crumbled into ruin, prayer was no longer +offered or sacrifice made as of old, the priestly revenues were plundered; +the sacred vessels carried away; the voice of oracles became dumb; the +divine tongue of Greece was forgotten, its scrolls of wisdom mouldered +unread, and the deluded people turned to human mechanics and fishermen. One +faithful servant of Apollo remained, my father; but 'tis seven days since +he closed his eyes for ever. It was time, for yesternoon the heralds +proclaimed by order of the King that Zeus and the Olympians should be named +no more in Caucasia." + +"Ha!" interrupted the stranger, "I see it all. Said I not so?" he shouted, +gazing into the sky as if his eye could pierce and his voice reach beyond +the drifting clouds. "But to thy own tale," he added, turning with a +gesture of command to the astonished Elenko. + +"It is soon told," she said. "I knew that it was death to serve the Gods +any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon +Apollo's altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware of +a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, but not +at their hands. I caught up this basket, and escaped up the mountain. On +its inaccessible summit, it is reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let +me bow in awe before his inscrutable counsels) doomed for his benevolence +to mankind. To him, as Aeschylus sings, Io of old found her way, and from +him received monition and knowledge of what should come to pass. I will try +if courage and some favouring God will guide me to him; if not, I will die +as near Heaven as I may attain. Tell me on thy part what thou wilt, and let +me depart. If thou art indeed Zeus's enemy, thou wilt find enough on thy +side down yonder." + +"I have been Zeus's enemy," returned the stranger, mildly and gravely, "I +am so no longer. Immortal hate befits not the mortal I feel myself to have +become. Nor needest thou ascend the peak further. Maiden, I am Prometheus!" + + + +II + + +It is a prerogative of the Gods that, when they do speak sooth, mortals +must needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity at the revelation +of Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than the bonds and broken links +of chain at his wrists and ankles. + +"Now," he cried, or rather shouted, "is the prophecy fulfilled with which +of old I admonished the Gods in the halls of Olympus. I told them that Zeus +should beget a child mightier than himself, who should send him and them +the way he had sent his father. I knew not that this child was already +begotten, and that his name was Man. It has taken Man ages to assert +himself, nor has he yet, as it would seem, done more than enthrone a new +idol in the place of the old. But for the old, behold the last traces of +its authority in these fetters, of which the first smith will rid me. +Expect no thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will come: nor shall I regain the +immortality of which I feel myself bereaved since yesterday." + +"Is this no sorrow to thee?" asked Elenko. + +"Has not my immortality been one of pain?" answered Prometheus. "Now I feel +no pain, and dread one only." + +"And that is?" + +"The pain of missing a certain fellow-mortal," answered Prometheus, with a +look so expressive that the hitherto unawed maiden cast her eyes to the +ground. Hastening away from the conversation to which, nevertheless, she +inly purposed to return. + +"Is Man, then, the maker of Deity?" she asked. + +"Can the source of his being originate in himself?" asked Prometheus. "To +assert this were self-contradiction, and pride inflated to madness. But of +the more exalted beings who have like him emanated from the common +principle of all existence, Man, since his advent on the earth, though not +the creator, is the preserver or the destroyer. He looks up to them, and +they are; he out-grows them, and they are not. For the barbarian and +Triballian gods there is no return; but the Olympians, if dead as deities, +survive as impersonations of Man's highest conceptions of the beautiful. +Languid and spectral indeed must be their existence in this barbarian age; +but better days are in store for them." + +"And for thee, Prometheus?" + +"There is now no place," replied he, "for an impeacher of the Gods. My +cause is won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of man by myself +becoming human. When I shall have proved myself also mortal I may haply +traverse realms which Zeus never knew, with, I would hope, Elenko by my +side." + +Elenko's countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany Prometheus +as far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he might please to +conduct her. A thought soon troubled her delicious reverie, and she +inquired: + +"Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer and +better than that which I have professed?" + +"If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye," answered Prometheus, "but +of this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy tale to have begun but +ill. Yet Saturn mutilated his father, and his reign was the Golden Age." + +While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling aimlessly +down the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path, they suddenly found +themselves in presence of an assembly of early Christians. + +These confessors were making the most of Elenko's dilapidated temple, whose +smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The effigies of +Apollo and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being diligently +broken up with mallets and hammers. Others of the sacrilegious throng were +rending scrolls, or dividing vestments, or firing the grove of laurel that +environed the shrine, or pelting the affrighted birds as they flew forth. +The sacred vessels, however, at least those of gold and silver, appeared +safe in the guardianship of an episcopal personage of shrewd and jovial +aspect, under whose inspection they were being piled up by a troop of +sturdy young ecclesiastics, the only weapon-bearers among the rabble. +Elenko stood riveted to the ground. Prometheus, to her amazement, rushed +forward to one of the groups with a loud "By all the Gods and Goddesses!" +Following his movements, she saw that the object of his interest was an +enormous dead eagle carried by one of the mob. The multitude, startled by +his cry and his emotion, gazed eagerly at the strangers, and instantly a +shout went up: + +"The heathen woman!" + +"With a heathen man!" + +And clubs began to be brandished, and stones to be picked up from the +ground. + +Prometheus, to whom the shouts were unintelligible, looked wistfully at +Elenko. As their eyes met, Elenko's countenance, which had hitherto been +all disdain and defiance, assumed an expression of irresolution. A stone +struck Prometheus on the temple, drawing blood; a hundred hands went up, +each weighted with a missile. + +"Do as I," cried Elenko to him, and crossed herself. + +Prometheus imitated her, not unsuccessfully for a novice. + +The uplifted arms were stayed, some even sank down. + +By this time the Bishop had bustled to the front, and addressed a torrent +of questions to Prometheus, who merely shook his head, and turned to +inspect the eagle. + +"Brethren," said the Bishop, "I smell a miracle!" And, turning to Elenko, +he rapidly proceeded to cross-examine her. + +"Thou wert the priestess of this temple?" + +"I was." + +"Thou didst leave it this morning a heathen?" + +"I did." + +"Thou returnest a Christian?" + +Elenko blushed fire, her throat swelled, her heart beat violently. All her +soul seemed concentrated in the gaze she fastened on the pale and bleeding +Prometheus. She remained silent--but she crossed herself. + +"Who then has persuaded thee to renounce Apollo?" + +Elenko pointed to Prometheus. + +"An enemy of Zeus, then?" + +"Zeus has not such another enemy in the world." + +"I knew it, I was sure of it," exclaimed the Bishop. "I can always tell a +Christian when I see him. Wherefore speaks he not?" + +"He is ancient, for all his vigorous mien. His martyrdom began ere our +present speech was, nor could he learn this in his captivity." + +"Martyrdom! Captivity!" exclaimed the prelate gleefully, "I thought we were +coming thither. An early martyr, doubtless?" + +"A very early martyr." + +"Fettered and manacled?" + +"Behold his wrists and ankles." + +"Tortured, of course?" + +"Incredibly." + +"Miraculously kept alive to this day?" + +"In an entirely supernatural manner." + +"Now," said the Bishop, "I would wager my mitre and ring that his life was +prolonged by the daily ministrations of yonder fowl that he caresses with +such singular affection?" + +"Never," replied Elenko, "for one day did that most punctual bird omit to +visit him." + +"Hurrah!" shouted the Bishop. "And now, its mission accomplished, the +blessed creature, as I am informed, is found dead at the foot of the +mountain. Saints and angels! this is glorious! On your knees, ye infidels!" + +And down they all went, the Bishop setting the example. As their heads were +bowed to the earth, Elenko made a sign to Prometheus, and when the +multitude looked up, it beheld him in the act of imparting the episcopal +blessing. + +"Tell him that we are all his brethren," said the Bishop, which +announcement became in Elenko's mouth, "Do as I do, and cleave to thy +eagle." + +A procession was formed. The new saint, his convert, and the eagle, rode in +a car at the head of it. The Bishop, surrounded by his bodyguard, followed +with the sacred vessels of Apollo, to which he had never ceased to direct a +vigilant eye throughout the whole proceedings. The multitude swarmed along +singing hymns, or contending for the stray feathers of the eagle. The +representatives of seven monasteries put in their claims for the links of +Prometheus's fetters, but the Bishop scouted them all. He found time to +whisper to Elenko: + +"You seem a sensible young person. Just hint to our friend that we don't +want to hear anything about his theology, and the less he talks about the +primitive Church the better. No doubt he is a most intelligent man, but he +cannot possibly be up to all the recent improvements." + +Elenko promised most fervently that Prometheus' theological sentiments +should remain a mystery to the public. She then began to reflect very +seriously on the subject of her own morals. "This day," she said to +herself, "I have renounced all the Gods, and told lies enough to last me my +life, and for no other reason than that I am in love. If this is a +sufficient reason, lovers must have a different code of morality from the +rest of the world, and indeed it would appear that they have. Will you die +for me? Yes. Admirable. Will you lie for me? No. Then you don't love me. +[Greek: Ball' eis korakas, eis Tainaron, eis 'Ogg Kogg]." + + + +III + + +Elenko soon found that there was no pausing upon the path to which she had +committed herself. As the sole medium of communication between Prometheus +and the religious public, her time was half spent in instructing Prometheus +in the creed in which he was supposed to have instructed her, and half in +framing the edifying sentences which passed for the interpretation of +discourses for the most part far more interesting to herself than if they +had been what they professed to be. The rapt and impassioned attention +which she was observed to bestow on his utterances on such occasions all +but gained her the reputation of a saint, and was accepted as a sufficient +set-off against the unhallowed affection which she could not help +manifesting for the memory of her father. The judicious reluctance of the +Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire over-anxiously into the creeds and +customs of the primitive Church was a great help to her; and another +difficulty was removed by the Bishop, who, having no idea of encouraging a +rival thaumaturgist, took an early opportunity of signifying that it was +rather in the line of Desmotes (for by this name the new saint passed) to +be the subject than the instrument of miracles, and that, at all events, no +more were to be looked for from him at his time of life. The warmth with +which Elenko espoused this view raised her greatly in his good opinion, and +he was always ready to come to her aid when she became entangled in +chronological or historical difficulties, or seasoned her versions of +Desmotes' speeches with reminiscences of Plato or Marcus Aurelius, or when +her invention failed altogether. On such occasions, if objectors grew +troublesome, the Bishop would thunder, "Brethren, I smell a heresy!" and no +more was said. One minor trouble both to Prometheus and Elenko was the +affection they were naturally expected to manifest towards the carcase of +the wretched eagle, which many identified with the eagle of the Evangelist +John. Prometheus was of a forgiving disposition, but Elenko wished nothing +more ardently than that the whole aquiline race might have but one neck, +and that she might wring it. It somewhat comforted her to observe that the +eagle's plumage was growing thin, while the eagle's custodian was growing +fat. + +But she had worse troubles to endure than any that eagles could occasion. +The youth of those who resorted to her and Prometheus attracted remark from +the graver members of the community. Young ladies found the precepts of the +handsome and dignified saint indispensable to their spiritual health; young +men were charmed with their purity as they came filtered through the lips +of Elenko. Is man more conceited than woman, or more confiding? Elenko +should certainly have been at ease; no temptress, however enterprising, +could well be spreading her nets for an Antony three hundred years old. +Prometheus, on the contrary, might have found cause for jealousy in many a +noble youth's unconcealed admiration of Elenko. Yet he seemed magnificently +unconscious of any cause for apprehension, while Elenko's heart swelled +till it was like to burst. She had the further satisfaction of knowing +herself the best hated woman in Caucasia, between the enmity of those of +whose admirers she had made an involuntary conquest, and of those who found +her standing between them and Prometheus. Her monopoly of Greek, she felt +sure, was her only security. Two constant attendants at Prometheus's +receptions particularly alarmed her, the Princess Miriam, niece of the +Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed to have things as she wished them; and +a tall veiled woman who seemed unknown to all, but whose unseen eyes, she +instinctively knew, were never averted from the unconscious Prometheus. + +It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons to the +private apartment of the Princess Miriam. + +"Dear friend," the Princess began, "thou knowest the singular affection +which I have invariably entertained for thee." + +"Right well do I know it," responded Elenko. ("The thirty-first lie +to-day," she added wearily to herself.) + +"It is this affection, dear friend," continued the Princess, "which induces +me on the present occasion to transgress the limits of conventional +propriety, and make a communication distressing to thee, but infinitely +more so to myself." + +Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause of +friendship, but the great lady was resolute. + +"People say," she continued-- + +"What say they?" + +"That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet. That it is equivocal. That it +is offensive. That it is sacrilegious. That, in a word, it is improper." + +Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would allow. + +"Dear friend," said the Princess, "thou dost not imagine that I have part +or lot in these odious imputations? Even could I deem them true, should I +not think charitably of thee, but yesterday a heathen, and educated in +impiety by a foul sorcerer? My poor lamb! But tongues must be stopped, and +I have now to advise thee how this may be accomplished." + +"Say on." + +"People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of +communication with the holy man. Some deem him less ignorant of our speech +than he seems, but concerning this I inquire not: for, in society, what +seems, is. Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to scandal. There is but +one remedy. Thou must yield thy place to another. It is meet that thou +forthwith instruct in that barbarous dialect some matron of unblemished +repute and devout aspirations; no mere ignorant devotee, however, but a +woman of the world, whose prudence and experience may preserve the holy man +from the pitfalls set for him by the unprincipled. Manifestly she must be a +married person, else nought were gained, yet must she not be chargeable +with forsaking her duties towards her husband and children. It follows that +she must be a widow. It were also well that she should be of kin to some +influential personage, to whose counsel she might have recourse in times of +difficulty, and whose authority might protect her against the slanderous +and evil disposed. I have not been able to meet any one endowed with all +these qualifications, excepting myself. I therefore propose to thee that +thou shouldst instruct me in the speech of Desmotes, and when I am +qualified to take thy place my uncle shall elevate thee to the dignity of +Abbess, or bestow thee upon some young clergyman of extraordinary desert." + +Elenko intimated, perhaps with more warmth than necessary, her aversion to +both propositions, and the extreme improbability of the Princess ever +acquiring any knowledge of Greek by her instrumentality. + +"If this is the case," said the Princess, with perfect calmness, "I must +have recourse to my other method, which is infallible." + +Elenko inquired what it might be. + +"I shall represent to my uncle, what indeed he very well knows, that a +saint is, properly speaking, of no value till he is dead. Not until his +decease are his relics available, or pilgrimages to his shrine feasible. It +is solely in anticipation of this event that my uncle is keeping Desmotes +at all; and the sooner it comes to pass, the sooner will my revered +relative come by his own. Only think of the capital locked up in the new +church, now so nearly completed, on the spot where they picked up the +eagle! How shall it be dedicated to Desmotes in Desmotes' lifetime? Were it +not a most blissful and appropriate coincidence if the day of the +consecration were that of the saint's migration to a better world? I shall +submit this view of the case to my uncle: he is accustomed to hear reason +from me, of whom, between ourselves, he is not a little afraid. Thou mayest +rely upon it that about the time of the consecration Desmotes will ascend +to heaven; while thou, it is gravely to be feared, wilt proceed in the +opposite direction. Would'st thou avert this unpleasantness, think well of +my first proposal. I give thee credit for loving Desmotes, and suppose, +therefore, that thou wilt make some sacrifice for his sake. I am a Kettle, +thou art a Pot. Take heed how thou knockest against me!" + +Elenko sped back to bear tidings of the threatened collision to +Prometheus. As she approached his chamber she heard with astonishment two +voices in eager conversation, and discovered with still greater amazement +that their dialogue was carried on in Greek. The second speaker, moreover, +was evidently a female. A jealous pang shot through Elenko's breast; she +looked cautiously in, and discerned the same mysterious veiled woman whose +demeanour had already been an enigma to her. But the veil was thrown back, +and the countenance went far to allay Elenko's disquiet. It bore indeed +traces of past beauty, but was altogether that of one who had known better +days; worn and faded, weary and repining. Elenko's jealousy vanished, +though her surprise redoubled, when she heard Prometheus address the +stranger as "Sister." + +"A pretty brother I have got," rejoined the lady, in high sharp tones: "to +leave me in want! Never once to inquire after me!" + +"Nay, sister, or sister-in-law," responded Prometheus, "if it comes to +that, where were you while I was on Caucasus? The Oceanides ministered to +me, Hermes came now and then, even Hercules left a card; but I never saw +Pandora." + +"How could I compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?" demanded Pandora. +"Besides, my attendant Hope was always telling me that all would come +right, without any meddling of mine." + +"Let her tell you so now," retorted Prometheus. + +"Tell me now! Do you pretend not to know that the hussey forsook Olympus +ten years ago, and has turned Christian?" + +"I am sure I am very sorry to hear it. Somehow, she never forsook _me_. I +can't imagine how you Gods get on without her." + +"Get on! We are getting off. Except Eros and Plutus, who seem as usual, and +the old Fates, who go on spinning as if nothing had happened, none of us +expects to last for another ten years. The sacrifices have dwindled down to +nothing. Zeus has put down his eagle. Hera has eaten her peacocks. Apollo's +lyre is never heard--pawned, no doubt. Bacchus drinks water, and +Venus--well, you can imagine how she gets on without him and Ceres. And +here you are, sleek and comfortable, and never troubling yourself about +your family. But you had better, or I swear I will tell Zeus; and we shall +see whether these Christians will keep you with your ante-chamber full of +starving gods. Take a day to think of what I have been saying!" + +And away she flounced, not noticing Elenko. Long and earnestly did the pair +discuss the perils that menaced them, and at the end of their deliberations +Elenko sought the Bishop, and briefly imparted the Princess Miriam's +ultimatum. + +"It is painful to a spiritual man," replied the prelate, "to be accessory +to a murder. It is also repugnant to his feelings to deny a beloved niece +anything on which she has set her heart. To avoid such grievous dilemma, I +judge it well that ye both ascend to heaven without further ceremony." + +That night the ascent of Prometheus and Elenko was witnessed by divers +credible persons. The new church was consecrated shortly afterwards. It was +amply stored with relics from the wardrobe of Prometheus and what remained +of the eagle. The damsels of the capital regained their admirers, and +those who had become enamoured of Prometheus mostly transferred their +affections to the Bishop. Everybody was satisfied except the Princess +Miriam, who never ceased to deplore her indulgence in giving Elenko the +chance of first speech with her uncle. + +"If I had been five minutes beforehand with the minx!" she said. + + + +IV + + +The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated in a +sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into the glen, +which was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds, who still observed +the rites of the ancient faith; and sometimes, deeming but to show kindness +to a mortal, refreshed or sheltered a forlorn and hungry Deity. Saving at +the entrance the vale was walled round by steep cliffs, for the most part +waving with trees, but here and there revealing the naked crag. It was +traversed by a silvery stream, in its windings enclosing Prometheus's and +Elenko's cottage, almost as in an island. The cot, buried in laurel and +myrtle, had a garden where fig and mulberry, grape and almond, ripened in +their season. A few goats browsed on the long grass, and yielded their milk +to the household. Bread and wine, and flesh when needed, were easily +procured from the neighbours. Beyond necessary furniture, the cottage +contained little but precious scrolls, obtained by Elenko from Athens and +the newly founded city of Constantine. In these, under her guidance, +Prometheus read of matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, entered +the imagination of any God. + +It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures wholly +their own, which they may yet make fully the possession of the other. These +treasures are of divers kinds, beauty, affection, memory, hope. But never +were such treasures of knowledge shared between lovers as between +Prometheus and Elenko. Each possessed immeasurable stores, hitherto +inaccessible to the other. How trifling seemed the mythical lore which +Elenko had gleaned as the minister of Phoebus to that now imparted by +Prometheus! The Titan had seen all, and been a part of all that he had +seen. He had bowed beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he had witnessed his +fall, and marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He remembered hoary +Saturn a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the throne of Heaven, and +devouring in a trice the stone that now resists his fangs for millenniums. +He had heard the shields of the Corybantes clash around the infant Zeus; he +described to Elenko how one day the sea had frothed and boiled, and +undraped Aphrodite had ascended from it in the presence of the gazing and +applauding amphitheatre of cloud-cushioned gods. He could depict the +personal appearance of Cybele, and sketch the character of Enceladus. He +had instructed Zeus, as Chiron had instructed Achilles; he remembered +Poseidon afraid of the water, and Pluto of the dark. He called to mind and +expounded ancient oracles heretofore unintelligible: he had himself been +told, and had disbelieved, that the happiest day of his own life would be +that on which he should feel himself divested of immortality. Of the +younger gods and their doings he knew but little; he inquired with interest +whether Bacchus had returned in safety from his Indian expedition, and +whether Proserpine had a family of divine imps. + +Much more, nevertheless, had Elenko to teach Prometheus than she could +learn from him. How trivial seemed the history of the gods to what he now +heard of the history of men! Were these indeed the beings he had known +"like ants in the sunless recesses of caves, dwelling deep-burrowing in the +earth, ignorant of the signs of the seasons," to whom he had given fire and +whom he had taught memory and number, for whom he had "brought the horse +under the chariot, and invented the sea-beaten, flaxen-winged chariot of +the sailor?" And now, how poorly showed the gods beside this once wretched +brood! What Deity could die for Olympus, as Leonidas had for Greece? Which +of them could, like Iphigenia, dwell for years beside the melancholy sea, +keeping a true heart for an absent brother? Which of them could raise his +fellows nearer to the source of all Deity, as Socrates and Plato had raised +men? Who could portray himself as Phidias had portrayed Athene? Could the +Muses speak with their own voices as they had spoken by Sappho's? He was +especially pleased to see his own moral superiority to Zeus so eloquently +enforced by AEschylus, and delighted in criticising the sentiments which +the other poets had put into the mouths of the gods. Homer, he thought, +must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes not seldom. When he read +in the Cyclops of Euripides, "Stranger, I laugh to scorn Zeus's +thunderbolts," he grew for a moment thoughtful. "Am I," he questioned, +"ending where Polyphemus began?" But when he read a little further on: + + The wise man's only Jupiter is this, + To eat and drink during his little day, + And give himself no care-- + +"No," he said, "the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than this +Zeus. But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put another in +their place; or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung away his religion. +Heaven has not departed with Zeus." And, taking his lyre, he sang: + + What floods of lavish splendour + The lofty sun doth pour! + What else can Heaven render? + What room hath she for more? + + Yet shall his course be shortly done, + And after his declining + The skies that held a single Sun + With thousands shall be shining. + + + +V + + +It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to Prometheus's +earthly paradise, and who came once came again. The first was Epimetheus, +who had probably suffered least of all from the general upset, having in +truth little to lose since his ill-starred union with Pandora. He had +indeed reason for thankfulness in his practical divorce from his spouse, +who had settled in Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to the Princess +Miriam. Would Prometheus lend him half a talent? a quarter? a tenth? a +hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus might rely upon it that his residence +should not be divulged on any account. Notwithstanding which assurance, the +cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. +Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, +having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, +and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly +well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on +most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal, +and marine. + +Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm, looking up +to something it feels or deems above itself. Beautiful, too, as autumn +sunshine is maturity looking down with gentleness on the ideal it has +surpassed, and reverencing it still for old ideas and associations. The +thought of beholding a Deity would once have thrilled Elenko with rapture, +if this had not been checked by awe at her own presumption. The idea that a +Deity, other than some disgraced offender like Prometheus, could be the +object of her compassion, would never have entered her mind. And now she +pitied the whole Olympian cohort most sincerely, not so much for having +fallen as for having deserved to fall. She could not conceal from herself +how grievously they were one and all behind the age. It was impossible to +make Zeus comprehend how an idea could be a match for a thunderbolt. Apollo +spoke handsomely of Homer, yet evidently esteemed the Iliad and Odyssey +but lightly in comparison with the blind bard's hymn to himself. Ceres +candidly admitted that her mind was a complete blank on the subject of the +Eleusinian mysteries. Aphrodite's dress was admirable for summer, but in +winter seemed obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make herself a +fright with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer frightened anybody? +Where Elenko would fain have adored she found herself tolerating, excusing, +condescending. How many Elenkos are even now tenderly nursing ancient +creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue of their professors! + +One autumn night all the principal gods were assembled under Prometheus's +roof, doing justice to the figs and mulberries, and wine cooled with +Taygetan snow. The guests were more than usually despondent. Prometheus was +moody and abstracted, his breast seemed labouring with thought. "So looked +my Pythoness," whispered Apollo to his neighbour, "when about to deliver an +oracle." + +And the oracle came--in lyric verse, not to infringe any patent of +Apollo's-- + + When o'er the towers of Constantine + An Orient Moon begins to shine, + Waning nor waxing aught, and bright + In daytide as in deep of night: + Then, though the fane be brought + To wreck, the God shall find, + Enthroned in human thought, + A temple in the mind. + +"And what becomes of us while this prodigious moonshine is concocting?" +demanded Zeus, who had become the most sceptical of any of the gods. + +"Go to Elysium," suggested Prometheus. + +"There's an idea!" cried Zeus and Pallas together. + +"To Elysium! to Elysium!" exclaimed the other gods, and all rose +tumultuously, saving two. + +"I go not," said Eros, "for where Love is, there is Elysium. And yonder +rising moon tells me that my hour is come." And he flitted forth. + +"Neither go I," said an old blind god, "for where Plutus is, Elysium is +not. Moreover, mankind would follow after me. But I too must away. Strange +that I should have abode so long under the roof of a pair of perfect +virtue." And he tottered out. + +But the other gods swept forth into the moonlight, and were seen no more. +And Prometheus picked up the forsaken sandals of Hermes, and bound them on +his own feet, and grasped Elenko, and they rose up by a dizzy flight to +empty heaven. All was silent in those immense courts, vacant of everything +save here and there some rusty thunderbolt or mouldering crumb of ambrosia. +Above, around, below, beyond sight, beyond thought, stretched the still +deeps of aether, blazing with innumerable worlds. Eye could rove nowhither +without beholding a star, nor could star be beheld from which the Gods' +hall, with all its vastness, would not have been utterly invisible. Elenko +leaned over the battlements, and watched the racing meteors. Prometheus +stood by her, and pointed out in the immeasurable distance the little speck +of shining dust from which they had flown. + +"There? or here?" he asked. + +"There!" said Elenko. + + + + +THE POTION OF LAO-TSZE + + + And there the body lay, age after age, + Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, + Like one asleep in a green hermitage, + With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, + And living in its dreams beyond the rage + Of death or life; while they were still arraying + In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, + And fleeting generations of mankind. + +In the days of the Tang dynasty China was long happy under the sceptre of a +good Emperor, named Sin-Woo. He had overcome the enemies of the land, +confirmed the friendship of its allies, augmented the wealth of the rich, +and mitigated the wretchedness of the poor. But most especially was he +admired and beloved for his persecution of the impious sect of Lao-tsze, +which he had well-nigh exterminated. + +It was but natural that such an Emperor should congratulate himself upon +his goodness and worth; yet, as no human bliss is perfect, sorrow could not +fail to enter his mind. + +"It is grievous to reflect," said he to his courtiers, "that if, as ye all +affirm, there hath not been any Emperor of equal merit with myself before +my time, neither will any such arise after me, my subjects must inevitably +be sufferers by my death." + +To which the courtiers unanimously responded, "O Emperor, live for ever!" + +"Happy thought!" exclaimed the Emperor; "but wherewithal shall it be +executed?" + +The Prime Minister looked at the Chancellor, the Chancellor looked at the +Treasurer, the Treasurer looked at the Chamberlain, the Chamberlain looked +at the Principal Bonze, the Principal Bonze looked at the Second Bonze, +who, to his great surprise, looked at him in return. + +"When the turn comes to me," murmured the inferior functionary, "I would +say somewhat." + +"Speak!" commanded the Emperor. + +"O Uncle of the stars," said the Bonze, "there are those in your Majesty's +dominions who possess the power of lengthening life, who have, in fact, +discovered the Elixir of Immortality." + +"Let them be immediately brought hither," commanded the Emperor. + +"Unhappily," returned the Bonze, "these persons, without exception, belong +to the abominable sect of Lao-tsze, whose members your Majesty long ago +commanded to cease from existence, with which august order they have for +the most part complied. In my own diocese, where for some years after your +Majesty's happy accession we were accustomed to impale twenty thousand +annually, it is now difficult to find twenty, with the utmost diligence on +the part of the executioners." + +"It has of late sometimes appeared to me," said the Emperor, "that there +may be more good in that sect than I have been led to believe by my +counsellors." + +"I have always thought," said the Prime Minister, "that they were rather +misguided than wilfully wicked." + +"They are a kind of harmless lunatics," said the Chancellor; "they should, +I think, be made wards in Chancery." + +"Their money does not appear different from other men's," said the +Treasurer. + +"I," said the Chamberlain, "have known an old woman who had known another +old woman who belonged to this sect, and who assured her that she had been +very good when she was a little girl." + +"If," said the Emperor, "it appears that his Grace the Principal Bonze hath +in any respect misled us, his property will necessarily be confiscated to +the Imperial Treasury, and the Second Bonze will succeed to his office. It +is needful, however, to ascertain before all things whether this sect does +really possess the Elixir of Immortality, for on that the entire question +of its deserts obviously depends. Our Counsellor the Second Bonze having, +next to myself, the greatest interest in the matter, I desire him to make +due inquiries and report to us at the next council, when I shall be +prepared to state what fine will be imposed upon him, should he not have +succeeded." + +That night all the members of the Lao-tsze sect inhabiting prisons under +the jurisdiction of the Principal Bonze were decapitated, and the P.B. laid +his own head upon his pillow with some approach to peace of mind, trusting +that the knowledge of the Elixir of Immortality had perished with them. + +The Second Bonze, having a different object to attain, proceeded in a +different manner. He sent for his captives, and discoursed to them touching +the evil arts of unprincipled courtiers, and the facility with which they +mislead even the best intentioned princes. For years had he, the Second +Bonze, pleaded the cause of toleration at court; and had at length +succeeded in enlightening his Majesty to such an extent that there was +every prospect of an edict of indulgence being shortly promulgated, +provided always that the Elixir of Life was previously forthcoming. + +The unfortunate heretics would have been only too thankful to prolong the +Emperor's life indefinitely in consideration of securing peace for their +own, but they could only inform the Bonze of the general tradition of their +sect. This was that the knowledge of Lao-tsze's secret was confined to +certain adepts, most of whom were plunged into so deep a trance that any +communication with them was impossible. For the administration of the +miraculous draught, it appeared, was attended with this inconvenience, that +it threw the partaker into a deep sleep, lasting any time between ten years +and eternity, according to the depth of his potation. During its +continuance the ordinary operations of nature were suspended, and the +patient awoke with precisely the same bodily constitution, old or young, as +he had possessed on falling into his lethargy; and though still liable to +wounds and accidents, he or she continued to enjoy undiminished health and +vigour for a period equal to the duration of the trance, after which he +sank back into the ranks of mortality, unless he could repeat the potion. +All the adepts who had come to life under his present Majesty's most +clement reign had immediately emigrated: the only persons, therefore, +capable of giving information were now buried in slumber, and of course +would only speak when they should awake. They were mostly concealed in the +recesses of caverns, those inhabited by wild beasts being usually preferred +for the sake of better security, as no tiger or bear would harm a follower +of Lao-tsze. The witnesses, therefore, advised the Bonze to ascertain the +residences of the most ferocious tigers in his diocese, and to wait upon +them personally, in the hope of thus discovering what he sought. + +This suggestion was exceedingly unpalatable to the Bonze, who felt almost +equally unwilling to venture himself into a wild beast's den or to give any +other person the chance of making the discovery. While he hesitated in +unspeakable perplexity he was informed that an old man, about to expire at +the age of an hundred and twenty years, desired to have speech with him. +Thinking so venerable a personage likely to have at least a glimmering of +the great secret, the Bonze hurried to his bedside. + +"Our master, Lao-tsze," began the old man, "forbids us to leave this world +with anything undisclosed which may contribute to the advantage of our +fellow-creatures. Whether he deemed the knowledge of the cup of immortality +conducive to this end I cannot say, but the question doth not arise, for I +do not possess it. Hear my tale, nevertheless. Ninety years ago, being a +hunter, it was my hap to fall into the jaws of an enormous tiger, who bore +me off to his cavern. I there found myself in the presence of two ladies, +one youthful and of surpassing loveliness, the other haggard and wrinkled. +The younger lady expostulated with the tiger, and he forthwith released me. +My gratitude won the women's confidence, and I learned that they were +disciples of Lao-tsze who had repaired to the cavern to partake of the +miraculous draught, which they were just about to do. They were, it +appeared, mother and daughter, and I distinctly remember that the +composition of the beverage was known to the daughter only. This impressed +me, for I should naturally have expected the contrary. The tiger escorted +me home. I forswore hunting, and became, and have secretly continued, a +disciple of Lao-tsze. I will now indicate the position of the cavern to +thee: whether the ladies will still be found in it is beyond my power to +say." + +And having pointed out the direction of the cavern, he expired. + +The thing had to be done. The Bonze dressed himself up as much like a +votary of Lao-tsze as possible, provided himself with a body-guard of _bona +fide_ disciples, and, accompanied by a small army of huntsmen and warriors +as well, marched in quest of the den of the tiger. It was discovered about +nightfall, and having tethered a small boy near the entrance, that his +screams when being devoured might give notice of the tiger's issue from or +return to his habitation, the Bonze and his myrmidons took up a flank +position and awaited the dawn. The distant howls of roaming beasts of prey +entirely deprived the holy man of his rest, but nothing worse befell him, +and when in the morning the small boy, instead of providing the tiger with +a breakfast, was heard crying for his own, the besiegers mustered up +courage to enter the cavern. The glare of their torches revealed no tiger: +but, to the Bonze's inexpressible delight, two females lay on the floor of +the cave, corresponding in all respects to the description of the old man. +Their costume was that of the preceding century. One was wrinkled and +hoary; the inexpressible loveliness of the other, who might have seen +seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a universal cry of admiration, +followed by a hush of enraptured silence. Warm, flexible, fresh in colour, +breathing naturally as in slumber, the figures lay, the younger woman's arm +underneath the elder woman's neck, and her chin nestling on the other's +shoulder. The countenance of each seemed to indicate happy dreams. + +"Can this indeed be but a trance?" simultaneously questioned several of the +Bonze's followers. + +"_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!_" exclaimed the Bonze; and he thrust +his long hunting spear into the elder woman's bosom. Blood poured forth +freely, but there was no change in the expression of the countenance. No +struggle announced dissolution; not until the body grew chill and the limbs +stiff could they be sure the old woman was indeed dead. + +"Carry the young woman like porcelain," ordered the priest, and like the +most fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from the cavern +smiling in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the corpse of her aged +companion was abandoned to the hyaenas. So often did the bearers pause to +look on her beauty that it was found necessary to drape the countenance +entirely, until reaching the closed sedan in which, vigilantly watched by +the Bonze, she was transported to the Imperial palace. + +And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was laid +on a couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful was the +contrast between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose, and the old +haggard Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love of life. + +"O Majesty," said his wisest counsellor, "is there any sect in thy +dominions that possesses the secret of perpetual youth?" + +And the Emperor made proclamation, but no such sect could be found. And he +mourned exceedingly, and caused strong perfumes to be burned around the +sleeper, and conches to be blown and gongs beaten in her ears, hoping that +she would awake ere he was dead or wholly decrepit. But she stirred not. +And he shut himself up with her and passed his time praying to Fo for her +awakening. + +But one day the door of the chamber was beaten down, and his old wife came +in passionately upbraiding him. + +"Sin-Woo," she cried, "thou hast not the heart of a man! Thou wouldest be +deathless, leaving me to die! I shall be laid in the grave, and thou wilt +reign with another! Wherefore have I been true to thee, if not that our +ashes might mingle at the last? Thou hoary sensualist!" + +"Su-Ti," said the Emperor, with feeling, "thou dost grievously misjudge me. +I am no heartless sensualist, no butterfly sipper at the lips of beauty. Is +not my soul entirely possessed by this divine creature, whom I love with an +affection infinitely exceeding that which I have entertained for thee at +any period? And how knowest thou," added he, striving to soothe her, "that +I will not give thee to drink of the miraculous potion?" + +"And keep my grey hairs and wrinkles through all time! Nay, Sin-Woo, I am +no fool like thee, and were I so, I am not in love with any youth. And know +I not that even if I would accept the boon, thou would'st never give it?" + +And she rushed away in fury and hanged herself by her Imperial girdle. +Whereupon all the other wives and concubines of the Emperor did likewise, +as custom and reason prescribe. All the palace was filled with lamentation +and funerals. But the Emperor lamented not, nor turned his gaze from the +sleeper, nor did the sleeper awaken. + +And his son came to him angry with exceeding wrath. + +"Thou hast murdered my mother. Thou would'st rob me of the crown that is +rightfully mine. I, born to be an Emperor, shall die a subject! Nay, but I +will save thee from thyself. I will pierce thy leman with the sword, or +burn her with fire." + +And the Emperor, fearing he would do as he threatened, commanded him to be +slain, as also his brothers and sisters. And he paid no heed to the affairs +of State, but gave all into the hand of the Second, now the Principal +Bonze. And the laws ceased to be observed, and rebellions broke out in the +provinces, and enemies invaded the country, and there was famine in the +land. + +And now the Emperor was well-nigh ten years nearer to the gates of death +than when the Sleeping Beauty had been brought to his court. The love of +beauty was nearly quenched in him, but the longing for life grew more +intense. He became angry with the sleeper, that she awakened not, and with +his little remaining strength smote her fiercely on the cheeks, but she +gave no sign of reviving. Remembering that if he gained the potion of +immortality he would himself be plunged into a trance, he made all +preparations for the interregnum. He decreed that he was to be seated erect +on his throne, with all his imperial insignia, and it was to be death to +any one who should presume to remove any of them. His slumbering figure was +to preside at all councils, and to be consulted in every act of state, and +all ministers and officers were to do homage daily. The revived Sleeping +Beauty was to partake of the draught anew, at the same time and in the same +manner as himself, that she might awake with him, and that he might find +her charms unimpaired. All the ministers swore solemnly to observe these +regulations; firmly purposing to burn the sleeper, if sleep he ever did, at +the very first opportunity, and scatter his ashes to the winds. Then they +would fight for the Empire among themselves; each, meanwhile, was mainly +occupied in striving to gain the rebels over to his interest, insomuch that +the people grew more miserable day by day. + +And as the aged Emperor waxed more and more feeble, he began to see +visions. Legions of little black imps surrounded him crying, "We are thy +sins, and would be punished--would'st thou by living for ever deprive us +of our due?" And fair female forms came veiled with drooping heads, and +murmured, "We are thy virtues, and would be rewarded--would'st thou cheat +us?" And other figures came, dark but lovely, and whispered, "We are thy +dead friends who have long waited for thee--would'st thou take to thyself +new friends, and forget us?" And others said, "We are thy memories--wilt +thou live on till we are all withered in thy heart?" And others said, "We +are thy strength and thy beauty, thy memory and thy wit--canst thou live, +knowing thou wilt never see us more?" And at last came two warders, +officers of the King of Death, and one of them was laughing. And the other +asked why he laughed, and he replied: + +"I laugh at the Emperor, who thinks to escape our master, not knowing that +the moment of his decease was engraved with a pen of iron upon a rock of +adamant a million million years or ever this world was." + +"And when comes it?" asked the other. + +"In ten minutes," said the first. + +When the Emperor heard this he was wild with terror, and tottered to the +couch on which the Sleeping Beauty lay. "Oh, awake!" he cried, "awake and +save me ere it is too late!" And, oh wonder! the sleeper stirred, and +opened her eyes. + +If she had been so beautiful while sleeping, what was she when awake! But +the love of life had overcome the love of beauty in the Emperor's bosom, +and he saw not the eyes like stars, and the bloom as of peaches and lilies, +or the aspect grand and smiling as daybreak. He could only cry, "Give me +the potion, lest I die, give me the potion!" + +"That cannot I," she said. "The secret was known only to my daughter." + +"Who is thy daughter?" + +"The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern." + +"That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so fresh? + +"Even so," she said, "I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy +years. When I awoke she was withered and decrepit: I youthful as when I +closed my eyes. But she had learned the secret, which I never knew." + +"The Bonze shall be crucified!" yelled the Emperor. + +"It is too late," said she; "he is torn in pieces already." + +"By whom?" + +"By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee." + +And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people, +headed by the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal +Bonze), who plunged a sword into the Emperor's breast, exclaiming: + +"He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose the +life which he has." Words, saith the historian Li, which have been thought +worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of Confucius. + +And the people were crying, "Kill the sorceress!" But she looked upon them, +and they cried, "Be our Empress!" + +"Remember," said she, "that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred +years!" + +"Would," said they, "that it might be a hundred thousand!" + +So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously. Among her good acts is +enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze. Since, however, +they have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild beasts +have lost their ancient respect for them, and devour them with no less +appetite than the members of other sects and denominations. + + + + +ABDALLAH THE ADITE + + +An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting +himself to the pursuit of religion and alchemy. Of his creed it could only +be said that it was so much better than that of his neighbours as to cause +him to be commonly esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper. But the better +informed deemed him a Nestorian monk, who had retired into the wilderness +on account of differences with his brethren, who sought to poison him. + +The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain +inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light concerning +the nature of demons. But he found that Sergius could give him no +information on that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so wisely and +beautifully on holy things, that his pupil's intellect was enlightened, and +his enthusiasm was inflamed, and he longed to go forth and instruct the +ignorant people around him; the Saracens, and the Sabaeans, and the +Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, and the Baphometites, and the +Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient Manichees. + +"Nay, good youth," said Sergius, "I have renounced the sending forth of +missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the Prophet +Abdallah." + +"What!" exclaimed the youth, "was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?" + +"Even so," said Sergius. "Hearken to his history. + +"Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he was +first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most simple-minded +and well-intentioned of youths. I always called him son, a title I have +never bestowed on another. Like thee, he had compassion on the darkness +around him, and craved my leave to go forth and dispel it. + +"'My son,' said I, 'I will not restrain thee: thou art no longer a child. +Thou hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and knowest +that poison was administered to me personally on account of my inability to +perceive the supernatural light emanating from the navel of Brother +Gregory. Thou art aware that thou wilt be beaten with rods and pricked with +goads, chained and starved in a dungeon, very probably blinded, very +possibly burned with fire?' + +"'All these things I am prepared to undergo,' said Abdallah; and he +embraced me and bid me farewell. + +"After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his +bones protruded through his skin. + +"'Whence are these weals and scars?' asked I, 'and what signifies this +protrusion of thy bones?' + +"'The weals and the scars,' answered he, 'proceed from the floggings +inflicted upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by reason +of the omission of his officers to furnish me with either food or drink in +the dungeon wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.' + +"'O my son,' exclaimed I, 'in the eyes of faith and right reason these +scars are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones is +like the beholding of hidden treasure!' + +"And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he entirely +fail therein. And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and sent him +forth a second time into the world. + +"And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and bruises, +but comely and somewhat fat. + +"'Whence this sleekness of body, my son?' I asked. + +"'Through the charity of the Caliph's wives,' he answered, 'who have fed me +secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good work each +of them in the world to come would have seven husbands.' + +"'How knewest thou this, my son?' I inquired. + +"'In truth, father,' he said, 'I did not know it; but I thought it +probable.' + +"'O my son! my son!' exclaimed I, 'thou art on a dangerous road. To win +over weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a +future life, whereof thou knowest no more than they do! Knowest thou not +that the inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and spiritual +nature? Did I ever promise any disciple any recompense for his +enlightenment and good deeds, save flogging, starvation, and burning?' + +"'Never, father," said he, 'and therefore thou hast had no follower of thy +law save one, and he hath broken it.' + +"He left me after a shorter stay than before, and again went forth to +preach. After a long time he returned in good condition of body, yet +manifestly having something upon his mind. + +"'Father,' he said, 'thy son hath preached with faithfulness and +acceptance, and turned thousands unto righteousness. But a sorcerer hath +arisen, saying, "Why follow ye Abdallah, seeing that he breathes not fire +out of his mouth and nostrils?" And the people give ear unto the words that +come from this man's lips, when they behold the flame that cometh from his +nose. And unless thou teachest me to do as he doth I shall assuredly +perish.' + +"And I told Abdallah that it was better to perish for the truth's sake than +to prolong life by lies and deceit. But he wept and lamented exceeding +sore, and in the end he prevailed with me; and I taught him to breathe +flame and smoke out of a hollow nut filled with combustible powder. And I +took a certain substance called soap, but little known in this country, and +anointed his feet therewith. And when he and the sorcerer met, both +breathing flame, the people knew not which to follow; but when Abdallah +walked over nine hot ploughshares, and the sorcerer could not touch one of +them, they beat his brains out, and became Abdallah's disciples. + +"A long time afterward Abdallah came to me again, this time with a joyful, +and yet with somewhat of a troubled look, carrying a camel-hair blanket, +which he undid, and lo! it was full of bones. + +"'O father,' he said, 'I bring thee happy tidings. We have found the bones +of the camel of the prophet Ad, upon which his revelation was engraved by +him.' + +"'If this be so,' said I, 'thou art acquainted with the precepts of the +prophet, and hast no need of mine.' + +"'Nay, but father,' said he, 'although the revelation was without question +originally engraved by the prophet on these very bones, it hath come to +pass by the injury of time that not one letter of his writing can be +distinguished. I have therefore come to ask thee to write it over again.' + +"'What!' I exclaimed, 'I forge a revelation in the name of the prophet Ad! +Get thee behind me!' + +"'Thou knowest, father,' he rejoined, 'that if we had the original words of +the prophet Ad here they would profit us nought, as by reason of their +antiquity none would understand them. Seeing therefore that I myself cannot +write, it is meet that thou shouldst set down in his name those things +which he would have desired to deliver had he been now among us; but if +thou wilt not, I shall ask Brother Gregory.' + +"And when I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and impostor +my spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad myself. And I +was heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable precepts, and more +especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a certain inclination +thereunto in my disciple. + +"After many days he came again, and this time he was in violent terror and +agitation, and hair was wanting to the lower part of his countenance. + +"'O Abdallah,' I inquired, 'where is thy beard?' + +"'In the hands of my ninth wife,' said he. + +"'Apostate!' I exclaimed, 'hast thou dared to espouse more wives than one? +Rememberest thou not what is written in the Book of the prophet Ad?' + +"'O father,' he said, 'the revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so +exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath been +supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of Gregory, +as I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my dictation, +an accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O Sergius. In this +gloss it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth part of the soul of +man, the prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now call ourselves) to take +but one wife, doth instruct us to take nine; to espouse a tenth would, I +grant, be damnable. It ensues, therefore, that having become enamoured of a +most charming young virgin, I am constrained to repudiate one of the wives +whom I have taken already. To this, each thinking that it may be her turn +speedily, if not now, they will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me +as thou seest, and the dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of +peace, compared to my seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to +disclose to the people the fact, of which they have unhappily become aware, +that the revelation of the blessed Ad is not written upon the bones of a +camel at all, but of a cow, and will therefore be accounted spurious, +inasmuch as the prophet is not recorded to have ridden upon this quadruped. +And seeing that thou didst inscribe the characters, O father, I cannot but +fear that the fury of the people will extend unto thee, and that thou wilt +be even in danger of thy life from them.' + +"This argument of Abdallah's had much weight with me, and I the more +readily consented to his request as he did not on this occasion require any +imposture at my hands, but merely the restitution of his domestic peace. +And I went with him to his wives, and discoursed with them, and they agreed +to abide by my sentence. And, willing to please him, I directed that he +should marry the beautiful virgin, and put away one of his wives who was +old and ugly, and endowed with the dispositions of Sheitan. + +"'O father,' said Abdallah, 'thou hast brought me from death unto life! And +thou, Zarah,' he continued, 'wilt lose nought, but gain exceedingly, in +becoming the spouse of the wise and virtuous Sergius.' + +"'I marry Zarah!' I exclaimed, 'I! a monk!' + +"'Surely,' said he, 'thou would'st not take away her husband without giving +her another in his stead?' + +"'If he does I will throttle him,' cried Zarah. + +"And I wept sore, and made great intercession. And it was agreed that there +should be a delay of forty days, in which space if any one else would marry +Zarah, I should be free of her. And I promised all my substance to any one +who would do this, and no one was found. And she was offered to thirteen +criminals doomed to suffer death, and they all chose death. And at the last +I was constrained to marry her. And truly I have now the comfort of +thinking that if I have offended by encouraging Abdallah's deceits, or +otherwise, the debt is paid, and Eternal Justice hath now nothing against +me; for verily I was an inmate of Gehenna until it came to pass that she +was herself translated thither. And respecting the manner of her +translation, inquire not thou too curiously. It was doubtless a token of +the displeasure of Heaven at her enormities that the water of the well of +Kefayat, which had been known as the Diamond of the Desert, became about +this time undrinkable, and pernicious to man and beast. + +"As I sat in my dwelling administering to the estate of my deceased wife, +which consisted principally of wines and strong liquors, Abdallah again +appeared before me. + +"'Hast thou come,' said I, 'to solicit me to abet thee in any new +imposture? Know, once for all, that I will not.' + +"'On the contrary,' said he, 'I am come to set thee at ease by proving to +thee that I shall not again require thy assistance. Follow me.' + +"And I followed him to a great plain, where was a host of armed horsemen +and footmen, more than I could number. And they bore banners on which the +name of Abdallah was embroidered in letters of gold. And in the midst was +an ark of gold, with the bones of Ad's camel, or cow. And by this was a +great pile of the heads of men, and warriors were continually casting more +and more upon the heap. + +"'How many?' asked Abdallah. + +"'Twelve thousand, O Apostle of God,' answered they, 'but there are more to +come.' + +"'Thou monster!' said I to Abdallah. + +"'Nay, father,' said he, 'there will not be more than sixteen thousand in +all, and these men were unbelievers. Moreover we have spared such of their +women as were young and handsome, and have taken them for our concubines, +as is ordained in the eleventh supplement to the Book of Ad, just +promulgated by my authority. But come, I have other things to manifest unto +thee.' + +"And he led me where a stake was driven into the earth, and a man was +chained unto it, and fuel was heaped all around him, and many stood by with +lighted torches in their hands. + +"'O Abdallah,' I exclaimed, 'wherefore this atrocity?' + +"'This man,' he replied, 'is a blasphemer, who hath said that the Book of +Ad is written on the bones of a cow.' + +"'But it is written on the bones of a cow! 'I cried. + +"'Even so,' said he, 'and therefore is his heresy the more damnable, and +his punishment the more exemplary. Had it been indeed written on the bones +of a camel, he might have affirmed what pleased him.' + +"And I shook off the dust from my feet, and hastened to my dwelling. The +rest of Abdallah's acts thou knowest, and how he fell warring with the +Carmathians. And now I ask thee, art thou yet minded to go forth as a +missionary of the truth?" + +"O Sergius," said the young man, "I perceive that the temptations are +greater, and the difficulties far surpassing what I had thought. Yet will I +go, and I trust by Heaven's grace not to fail utterly." + +"Then go," said Sergius, "and Heaven's blessing go with thee! Come back in +ten years, should I be living, and if thou canst declare that thou hast +forged no scriptures, and worked no miracles, and persecuted no +unbelievers, and flattered no potentate, and bribed no one with the promise +of aught in heaven or earth, I will give thee the philosopher's stone." + + + + +ANANDA THE MIRACLE WORKER + + +The holy Buddha, Sakhya Muni, on dispatching his apostles to proclaim his +religion throughout the peninsula of India, failed not to provide them with +salutary precepts for their guidance. He exhorted them to meekness, to +compassion, to abstemiousness, to zeal in the promulgation of his doctrine, +and added an injunction never before or since prescribed by the founder of +any religion--namely, on no account to perform any miracle. + +It is further related, that whereas the apostles experienced considerable +difficulty in complying with the other instructions of their master, and +sometimes actually failed therein, the prohibition to work miracles was +never once transgressed by any of them, save only the pious Ananda, the +history of whose first year's apostolate is recorded as follows. + +Ananda repaired to the kingdom of Magadha, and instructed the inhabitants +diligently in the law of Buddha. His doctrine being acceptable, and his +speech persuasive, the people hearkened to him willingly, and began to +forsake the Brahmins whom they had previously revered as spiritual guides. +Perceiving this, Ananda became elated in spirit, and one day he exclaimed: + +"How blessed is the apostle who propagates truth by the efficacy of reason +and virtuous example, combined with eloquence, rather than error by +imposture and devil-mongering, like those miserable Brahmins!" + +As he uttered this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was +diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from him, +insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first mocked, then +hooted, and finally pelted him. + +When matters had reached this pass, Ananda lifted his eyes and discerned a +number of Brahmins of the lower sort, busy about a boy who lay in a fit +upon the ground. They had long been applying exorcisms and other approved +methods with scant success, when the most sagacious among them suggested: + +"Let us render the body of this patient an uncomfortable residence for the +demon; peradventure he will then cease to abide therein." + +They were accordingly engaged in branding the sufferer with hot irons, +filling his nostrils with smoke, and otherwise to the best of their ability +disquieting the intrusive devil. Ananda's first thought was, "The lad is in +a fit;" the second, "It were a pious deed to deliver him from his +tormentors;" the third, "By good management this may extricate me from my +present uncomfortable predicament, and redound to the glory of the most +holy Buddha." + +Yielding to this temptation, he strode forward, chased away the Brahmins +with an air of authority, and, uplifting his countenance to heaven, recited +the appellations of seven devils. No effect ensuing, he repeated seven +more, and so continued until, the fit having passed off in the course of +nature, the patient's paroxysms ceased, he opened his eyes, and Ananda +restored him to his relatives. But the people cried loudly, "A miracle! a +miracle!" and when Ananda resumed his instructions, they gave heed to him, +and numbers embraced the religion of Buddha. Whereupon Ananda exulted, and +applauded himself for his dexterity and presence of mind, and said to +himself: + +"Surely the end sanctifies the means." + +As he propounded this heresy, the eminence of his merits was reduced to the +dimensions of a mole-hill, and he ceased to be of account in the eyes of +any of the saints, save only of Buddha, whose compassion is inexhaustible. + +The fame of his achievement, nevertheless, was bruited about the whole +country, and soon reached the ears of the king, who sent for him, and +inquired if he had actually expelled the demon. + +Ananda replied in the affirmative. + +"I am indeed rejoiced," returned the king, "as thou now wilt without doubt +proceed to heal _my_ son, who has lain in a trance for twenty-nine days." + +"Alas! dread sovereign," modestly returned Ananda, "how should the merits +which barely suffice to effect the cure of a miserable Pariah avail to +restore the offspring of an Elephant among Kings?" + +"By what process are these merits acquired?" demanded the monarch. + +"By the exercise of penance," responded Ananda, "in virtue of which the +austere devotee quells the winds, allays the waters, expostulates +convincingly with tigers, carries the moon in his sleeve, and otherwise +performs all acts and deeds appropriate to the character of a peripatetic +thaumaturgist." + +"This being so," answered the king, "thy inability to heal my son +manifestly arises from defect of merit, and defect of merit from defect of +penance. I will therefore consign thee to the charge of my Brahmins, that +they may aid thee to fill up the measure of that which is lacking." + +Ananda vainly strove to explain that the austerities to which he had +referred were entirely of a spiritual and contemplative character. The +Brahmins, enchanted to get a heretic into their clutches, immediately +seized upon him, and conveyed him to one of their temples. They stripped +him, and perceived with astonishment that not one single weal or scar was +visible anywhere on his person. "Horror!" they exclaimed; "here is a man +who expects to go to heaven in a whole skin!" To obviate this breach of +etiquette, they laid him upon his face, and flagellated him until the +obnoxious soundness of cuticle was entirely removed. They then departed, +promising to return next day and operate in a corresponding manner upon the +anterior part of his person, after which, they jeeringly assured him, his +merits would be in no respect less than those of the saintly Bhagiratha, or +of the regal Viswamitra himself. + +Ananda lay half dead upon the floor of the temple, when the sanctuary was +illuminated by the apparition of a resplendent Glendoveer, who thus +addressed him: + +"Well, backsliding disciple, art thou yet convinced of thy folly?" + +Ananda relished neither the imputation on his orthodoxy nor that on his +wisdom. He replied, notwithstanding, with all meekness: + +"Heaven forbid that I should repine at any variety of martyrdom that tends +to the propagation of my master's faith." + +"Wilt thou then first be healed, and moreover become the instrument of +converting the entire realm of Magadha?" + +"How shall this be accomplished?" demanded Ananda. + +"By perseverance in the path of deceit and disobedience," returned the +Glendoveer. + +Ananda winced, but maintained silence in the expectation of more explicit +directions. + +"Know," pursued the spirit, "that the king's son will revive from his +trance at the expiration of the thirtieth day, which takes place at noon +to-morrow. Thou hast but to proceed at the fitting period to the couch +whereon he is deposited, and, placing thy hand upon his heart, to command +him to rise forthwith. His recovery will be ascribed to thy supernatural +powers, and the establishment of Buddha's religion will result. Before this +it will be needful that I should perform an actual cure upon thy back, +which is within the compass of my capacity. I only request thee to take +notice, that thou wilt on this occasion be transgressing the precepts of +thy master with thine eyes open. It is also meet to apprise thee that thy +temporary extrication from thy present difficulties will only involve thee +in others still more formidable." + +"An incorporeal Glendoveer is no judge of the feelings of a flayed +apostle," thought Ananda. "Heal me," he replied, "if thou canst, and +reserve thy admonitions for a more convenient opportunity." + +"So be it," returned the Glendoveer; and as he extended his hand over +Ananda, the latter's back was clothed anew with skin, and his previous +smart simultaneously allayed. The Glendoveer vanished at the same moment, +saying, "When thou hast need of me, pronounce but the incantation, _Gnooh +Imdap Inam Mua_, [*] and I will immediately be by thy side." + +[Footnote: The mystic formula of the Buddhists, read backwards.] + +The anger and amazement of the Brahmins may be conceived when, on returning +equipped with fresh implements of flagellation, they discovered the +salubrious condition of their victim. Their scourges would probably have +undergone conversion into halters, had they not been accompanied by a royal +officer, who took the really triumphant martyr under his protection, and +carried him off to the palace. He was speedily conducted to the young +prince's couch, whither a vast crowd attended him. The hour of noon not +having yet arrived, Ananda discreetly protracted the time by a seasonable +discourse on the impossibility of miracles, those only excepted which +should be wrought by the professors of the faith of Buddha. He then +descended from his pulpit, and precisely as the sun attained the zenith +laid his hand upon the bosom of the young prince, who instantly revived, +and completed a sentence touching the game of dice which had been +interrupted by his catalepsy. + +The people shouted, the courtiers went into ecstasies, the countenances of +the Brahmins assumed an exceedingly sheepish expression. Even the king +seemed impressed, and craved to be more particularly instructed in the law +of Buddha. In complying with this request, Ananda, who had made marvellous +progress in worldly wisdom during the last twenty-four hours, deemed it +needless to dilate on the cardinal doctrines of his master, the misery of +existence, the need of redemption, the path to felicity, the prohibition to +shed blood. He simply stated that the priests of Buddha were bound to +perpetual poverty, and that under the new dispensation all ecclesiastical +property would accrue to the temporal authorities. + +"By the holy cow!" exclaimed the monarch, "this is something like a +religion!" + +The words were scarcely out of the royal lips ere the courtiers professed +themselves converts. The multitude followed their example. The Brahminical +church was promptly disestablished and disendowed, and more injustice was +committed in the name of the new and purified religion in one day than the +old corrupt one had occasioned in a hundred years. + +Ananda had the satisfaction of feeling able to forgive his adversaries, and +of valuing himself accordingly; and to complete his felicity, he was +received in the palace, and entrusted with the education of the king's son, +which he strove to conduct agreeably to the precepts of Buddha. This was a +task of some delicacy, as it involved interference with the princely +youth's favourite amusement, which had previously consisted in torturing +small reptiles. + +After a short interval Ananda was again summoned to the monarch's presence. +He found his majesty in the company of two most ferocious ruffians, one of +whom bore a huge axe, and the other an enormous pair of pincers. + +"My chief executioner and my chief tormentor," said the king. + +Ananda expressed his gratification at becoming acquainted with such exalted +functionaries. + +"Thou must know, most holy man," resumed the king, "that need has again +arisen for the exercise of fortitude and self-denial on thy part. A +powerful enemy has invaded my dominions, and has impiously presumed to +discomfit my troops. Well might I feel dismayed, were it not for the +consolations of religion; but my trust is in thee, O spiritual father! It +is urgent that thou shouldst accumulate the largest amount of merit with +the least delay possible. I am unable to invoke the ministrations of thy +old friends the Brahmins to this end, they being, as thou knowest, in +disgrace, but I have summoned these trusty and experienced counsellors in +their room. I find them not wholly in accord. My chief tormentor, being a +man of mild temper and humane disposition, considers that it might at first +suffice to employ gentle measures, such, for example, as suspending thee +head downwards in the smoke of a wood fire, and filling thy nostrils with +red pepper. My chief executioner, taking, peradventure, a too professional +view of the subject, deems it best to resort at once to crucifixion or +impalement. I would gladly know thy thoughts on the matter." + +Ananda expressed, as well as his terror would suffer him, his entire +disapproval of both the courses recommended by the royal advisers. + +"Well," said the king, with an air of resignation, "if we cannot agree upon +either, it follows that we must try both. We will meet for that purpose +to-morrow morning at the second hour. Go in peace!" + +Ananda went, but not in peace. His alarm would have well-nigh deprived him +of his faculties if he had not remembered the promise made him by his +former deliverer. On reaching a secluded spot he pronounced the mystic +formula, and immediately became aware of the presence, not of a radiant +Glendoveer, but of a holy man, whose head was strewn with ashes, and his +body anointed with cow-dung. + +"Thy occasion," said the Fakir, "brooks no delay. Thou must immediately +accompany me, and assume the garb of a Jogi." + +Ananda rebelled excessively in his heart, for he had imbibed from the mild +and sage Buddha a befitting contempt for these grotesque and cadaverous +fanatics. The emergency, however, left him no resource, and he followed his +guide to a charnel house, which the latter had selected as his domicile. +There, with many lamentations over the smoothness of his hair and the +brevity of his nails, the Jogi besprinkled and besmeared Ananda agreeably +to his own pattern, and scored him with chalk and ochre until the peaceful +apostle of the gentlest of creeds resembled a Bengal tiger. He then hung a +chaplet of infants' skulls about his neck, placed the skull of a malefactor +in one of his hands and the thigh-bone of a necromancer in the other, and +at nightfall conducted him into the adjacent cemetery, where, seating him +on the ashes of a recent funeral pile, he bade him drum upon the skull with +the thigh-bone, and repeat after himself the incantations which he began to +scream out towards the western part of the firmament. These charms were +apparently possessed of singular efficacy, for scarcely were they commenced +ere a hideous tempest arose, rain descended in torrents, phosphoric flashes +darted across the sky, wolves and hyaenas thronged howling from their dens, +and gigantic goblins, arising from the earth, extended their fleshless arms +towards Ananda, and strove to drag him from his seat. Urged by frantic +terror, and the example and exhortations of his companion, he battered, +banged, and vociferated, until on the very verge of exhaustion; when, as if +by enchantment, the tempest ceased, the spectres disappeared, and joyous +shouts and a burst of music announced the occurrence of something +auspicious in the adjoining city. + +"The hostile king is dead," said the Jogi; "and his army has dispersed. +This will be attributed to thy incantations. They are coming in quest of +thee even now. Farewell until thou again hast need of me." + +The Jogi disappeared, the tramp of a procession became audible, and soon +torches glared feebly through the damp, cheerless dawn. The monarch +descended from his state elephant, and, prostrating himself before Ananda, +exclaimed: + +"Inestimable man! why didst thou not disclose that thou wert a Jogi? Never +more shall I feel the least apprehension of any of my enemies, so long as +thou continuest an inmate of this cemetery." + +A family of jackals were unceremoniously dislodged from a disused +sepulchre, which was allotted to Ananda for his future residence. The king +permitted no alteration in his costume, and took care that the food doled +out to him should have no tendency to impair his sanctity, which speedily +gave promise of attaining a very high pitch. His hair had already become as +matted and his nails as long as the Jogi could have desired, when he +received a visit from another royal messenger. The Rajah, so ran the regal +missive, had been suddenly and mysteriously attacked by a dangerous malady, +but confidently anticipated relief from Ananda's merits and incantations. + +Ananda resumed his thigh-bone and his skull, and ruefully began to thump +the latter with the former, in dismal expectation of the things that were +to come. But the spell seemed to have lost its potency. Nothing more +unearthly than a bat presented itself, and Ananda was beginning to think +that he might as well desist when his reflections were diverted by the +apparition of a tall and grave personage, wearing a sad-coloured robe, and +carrying a long wand, who stood by his side as suddenly as though just +risen from the earth. + +"The caldron is ready," said the stranger. + +"What caldron?" demanded Ananda. + +"That wherein thou art about to be immersed." + +"I immersed in a caldron! wherefore?" + +"Thy spells," returned his interlocutor, "having hitherto failed to afford +his majesty the slightest relief, and his experience of their efficacy on a +former occasion forbidding him to suppose that they can be inoperative, he +is naturally led to ascribe to their pernicious influence that aggravation +of pain of which he has for some time past unfortunately been sensible. I +have confirmed him in this conjecture, esteeming it for the interest of +science that his anger should fall upon an impudent impostor like thee +rather than on a discreet and learned physician like myself. He has +consequently directed the principal caldron to be kept boiling all night, +intending to immerse thee therein at daybreak, unless he should in the +meantime derive some benefit from thy conjurations." + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Ananda, "whither shall I fly?" + +"Nowhere beyond this cemetery," returned the physician, "inasmuch as it is +entirely surrounded by the royal forces." + +"Wherein, then," demanded the agonized apostle, "doth the path of safety +lie?" + +"In this phial," answered the physician. "It contains a subtle poison. +Demand to be led before the king. Affirm that thou hast received a +sovereign medicine from the hands of benignant spirits. He will drink it +and perish, and thou wilt be richly rewarded by his successor." + +"Ayaunt, tempter!" cried Ananda, hurling the phial indignantly away. "I +defy thee! and will have recourse to my old deliverer--_Gnooh Imdap Inam +Mua!"_ + +But the charm appeared to fail of its effect. No figure was visible to his +gaze, save that of the physician, who seemed to regard him with an +expression of pity as he gathered up his robes and melted rather than +glided into the encompassing darkness. + +Ananda remained, contending with himself. Countless times was he on the +point of calling after the physician and imploring him to return with a +potion of like properties to the one rejected, but something seemed always +to rise in his throat and impede his utterance, until, worn out by +agitation, he fell asleep and dreamed this dream. + +He thought he stood at the vast and gloomy entrance of Patala. [*] The +lugubrious spot wore a holiday appearance; everything seemed to denote a +diabolical gala. Swarms of demons of all shapes and sizes beset the portal, +contemplating what appeared to be preparations for an illumination. Strings +of coloured lamps were in course of disposition in wreaths and festoons by +legions of frolicsome imps, chattering, laughing, and swinging by their +tails like so many monkeys. The operation was directed from below by +superior fiends of great apparent gravity and respectability. These bore +wands of office, tipped with yellow flames, wherewith they singed the tails +of the imps when such discipline appeared to them to be requisite. Ananda +could not refrain from asking the reason of these festive preparations. + +[Footnote: The Hindoo Pandemonium.] + +"They are in honour," responded the demon interrogated, "of the pious +Ananda, one of the apostles of the Lord Buddha, whose advent is hourly +expected among us with much eagerness and satisfaction." + +The horrified Ananda with much difficulty mustered resolution to inquire on +what account the apostle in question was necessitated to take up his abode +in the infernal regions. + +"On account of poisoning," returned the fiend laconically. + +Ananda was about to seek further explanations, when his attention was +arrested by a violent altercation between two of the supervising demons. + +"Kammuragha, evidently," croaked one. + +"Damburanana, of course," snarled the other. + +"May I," inquired Ananda of the fiend he had before addressed, "presume to +ask the signification of Kammuragha and Damburanana?" + +"They are two hells," replied the demon. "In Kammuragha the occupant is +plunged into melted pitch and fed with melted lead. In Damburanana he is +plunged into melted lead and fed with melted pitch. My colleagues are +debating which is the more appropriate to the demerits of our guest +Ananda." + +Ere Ananda had had time to digest this announcement a youthful imp +descended from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, +presented himself before the disputants. + +"Venerable demons," interposed he, "might my insignificance venture to +suggest that we cannot well testify too much honour for our visitor Ananda, +seeing that he is the only apostle of Buddha with whose company we are +likely ever to be indulged? Wherefore I would propose that neither +Kammuragha nor Damburanana be assigned for his residence, but that the +amenities of all the two hundred and forty-four thousand hells be combined +in a new one, constructed especially for his reception." + +The imp having thus spoken, the senior demons were amazed at his precocity, +and performed a _pradakshina_, exclaiming, "Truly thou art a highly +superior young devil!" They then departed to prepare the new infernal +chamber, agreeably to his recipe. + +Ananda awoke, shuddering with terror. + +"Why," he exclaimed, "why was I ever an apostle? O Buddha! Buddha! how hard +are the paths of saintliness! How prone to error are the well-meaning! How +huge is the absurdity of spiritual pride!" + +"Thou hast discovered that, my son?" said a gentle voice in his vicinity. + +He turned and beheld the divine Buddha, radiant with a mild and benignant +light. A cloud seemed rolled away from his vision, and he recognised in his +master the Glendoveer, the Jogi, and the Physician. + +"O holy teacher!" exclaimed he in extreme perturbation, "whither shall I +turn? My sin forbids me to approach thee." + +"Not on account of thy sin art thou forbidden, my son," returned Buddha, +"but on account of the ridiculous and unsavoury plight to which thy knavery +and disobedience have reduced thee. I have now appeared to remind thee that +this day all my apostles meet on Mount Vindhya to render an account of +their mission, and to inquire whether I am to deliver thine in thy stead, +or whether thou art minded to proclaim it thyself." + +"I will render it with my own lips," resolutely exclaimed Ananda. "It is +meet that I should bear the humiliation of acknowledging my folly." + +"Thou hast said well, my son," replied Buddha, "and in return I will permit +thee to discard the attire, if such it may be termed, of a Jogi, and to +appear in our assembly wearing the yellow robe as beseems my disciple. Nay, +I will even infringe my own rule on thy behalf, and perform a not +inconsiderable miracle by immediately transporting thee to the summit of +Vindhya, where the faithful are already beginning to assemble. Thou wouldst +otherwise incur much risk of being torn to pieces by the multitude, who, as +the shouts now approaching may instruct thee, are beginning to extirpate my +religion at the instigation of the new king, thy hopeful pupil. The old +king is dead, poisoned by the Brahmins." + +"O master! master!" exclaimed Ananda, weeping bitterly, "and is all the +work undone, and all by my fault and folly?" + +"That which is built on fraud and imposture can by no means endure," +returned Buddha, "be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou shalt +proclaim my doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast this time +but a sorry account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou mayest truly +declare that thou hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if not in the +spirit, since none can assert that thou hast ever wrought any miracle." + + + + +THE CITY OF PHILOSOPHERS + + + +I + + +Nature is manifold, not infinite, though the extent of the resources of +which she can dispose almost enables her to pass for such. Her cards are so +multitudinous that the pairs are easily shuffled into ages so far asunder +that their resemblance escapes remark. But sometimes her mischievous +daughter Fortune manages to thrust these duplicates into such conspicuous +places that their similarity cannot pass unobserved, and Nature is caught +plagiarising from herself. She is thus detected dealing a king--or +knave--a second time in the person of a king who has already fallen from +her pack as an emperor. Brilliant, careless, selfish, yet good-natured +_vauriens_, the Roman Emperor Gallienus and our Charles the Second excelled +in every art save the art of reigning, and might have excelled in that also +if they would have taken the trouble. The circumstances of their reigns +were in many respects as similar as their characters. Both were the sons of +grave and strict fathers, each of whom had met with terrible misfortunes: +one deprived of his liberty by his enemies, the other of his head by his +own subjects. Each of the sons had been grievously vexed by rebels, but +Charles's troubles from this quarter had mostly ended where those of +Gallienus began. Each saw his dominions ravaged by pestilence in a manner +beyond all former experience. The Goths destroyed the temple of the +Ephesian Diana, and the Dutch burned the English fleet at Chatham. Charles +shut up the Exchequer, and Gallienus debased the coinage. Charles accepted +a pension from Louis XIV., and Gallienus devolved the burden of his Eastern +provinces on a Syrian Emir. Their tastes and pursuits were as similar as +their histories. Charles excelled as a wit and a critic; Gallienus as a +poet and a gastronomer. Charles was curious about chemistry, and founded +the Royal Society. In the third century the conception of the systematic +investigation of nature did not exist. Gallienus, therefore, could not +patronise exact science; and the great literary light of the age, Longinus, +irradiated the court of Palmyra. But the Emperor bestowed his favour in +ample measure on the chief contemporary philosopher, Plotinus, who strove +to unite the characters of Plato and Pythagoras, of sage and seer. Like +Schelling in time to come, he maintained the necessity of a special organ +for the apprehension of philosophy, without perceiving that he thereby +proclaimed philosophy bankrupt, and placed himself on the level of the +Oriental hierophants, with whose sublime quackeries the modest sage could +not hope to contend. So extreme was his humility, that he would not claim +to have been consciously united to the Divinity more than four times in his +life; without condemning magic and thaumaturgy, he left their practice to +more adventurous spirits, and contented himself with the occasional visits +of a familiar demon in the shape of a serpent. He experienced, however, +frequent visitations of trance or ecstasy, sometimes lasting for a long +period; and it may have been in one of these that he was inspired by the +idea of asking the Emperor for a decayed city in Campania, there to +establish a philosophic commonwealth as nearly upon the model of Plato's +Republic as the degeneracy of the times would allow. + +"I cannot," said Gallienus, when the project had been explained to him, +"object in principle to aught so festive and jocose. The age is turned +upside down; its comedians are lamentable, and its sages ludicrous. It must +moreover, I apprehend, be sated with the earthquakes, famines, pestilences, +and barbarian invasions with which it hath been exclusively regaled for so +long, and must crave something enlivening, of the nature of thy +proposition. But whether, when we arrive at the consideration of ways and +means, I shall find my interview with my treasurer enlivening, is gravely +to be questioned. I have heard homilies enough on my prodigality, which +merely means that I prefer spending my treasures on myself to saving them +for my successor, whose title will probably have been acquired by cutting +my throat." + +"I know," said Plotinus, "that the expenses of administering an empire must +necessarily be prodigious. I am aware that the principal generals are only +kept to their allegiance by enormous bribes. I well understand that the +Empress must have pearls, and that the Roman populace must have panthers; +and that, since Egypt has revolted, the hippopotamus is worth his weight in +gold. I am further aware that the proposed colossal statue of your Majesty +in the same metal, including a staircase, with room in the head for a +child, like another Pallas in the brain of Zeus, must alone involve very +considerable outlay. But I am encouraged by your Majesty's wise and +statesmanlike measure of debasing the currency; since, money having become +devoid of value, there can be no difficulty in devoting any amount of it to +any purpose required." + +"Plotinus," said Gallienus, "in this age the devil is taking the hindmost, +and we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in +Bithynia, and three days' darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and +incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to +mention. At this moment some revolted legion is probably forcing the purple +upon some reluctant general; and the Persian king, a great equestrian, is +doubtless mounting his horse by the aid of my father's back. If I had been +an old Roman, I should by this time have avenged my father, but I am a man +of my age. Take the money for thy city, and see that it yields me some +amusement at any rate. I assume, of course, that thou wilt exercise severe +economy, and that cresses and spring water will be the diet of thy +philosophers. Farewell, I go to Gaul to encounter Postumus. Willingly would +I leave him in peace in Gaul if he would leave me in peace in Italy; but I +foresee that if I do not attack him there he will attack me here. As if the +Empire were not large enough for us all! What an ass the fellow must be!" + +And so Gallienus changed his silk for steel, and departed for his Gallic +campaign, where he bore himself more stoutly than his light talk would +have led those who judged him by it to expect. Plotinus, provided with an +Imperial rescript, undertook the regulation of his philosophical +commonwealth in Campania, where a brief experience of architects and +sophists threw him into an ecstasy, not of joy, which endured an unusually +long time. + + + +II + + +On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus's first sensation was one of +bodily hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his +philosophical Republic. In both respects it promised well to perceive that +his chamber was occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry, though he +was less gratified to observe his disciple busied, instead of with the +scrolls of the sages, with an enormous roll of accounts, which appeared to +be occasioning him much perplexity. + +"Porphyry!" cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his couch in +a moment. + +We pass over the mutual joy, the greetings, the administration of +restoratives and creature comforts, the eager interrogations of Porphyry +respecting the things his master had heard and seen in his trance, which +proved to be unspeakable. + +"And now," said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man of +business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special request as +a trustee, "and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it possible that the +accounts connected with the installation of a few abstemious lovers of +wisdom can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk? But indeed, why few? +Peradventure all the philosophers of the earth have flocked to my city." + +"It has, indeed," said Porphyry evasively, "been found necessary to incur +certain expenses not originally foreseen." + +"For a library, perhaps?" inquired Plotinus. "I remember thinking, just +before my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them +autographic, might require some special housing." + +"I rejoice to state," rejoined Porphyry, "that it is not these volumes that +have involved us in our present difficulties with the superintendent of the +Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing that they are now +impignorated with him." + +"Plato's manuscripts pawned!" exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. "Wherefore?" + +"As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects +deemed of more importance by the majority of the philosophers." + +"For example?" + +"Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre." + +"Bath! Amphitheatre!" gasped Plotinus. + +"O dear master," remonstrated Porphyry, "thou didst not deem that +philosophers could be induced to settle in a spot devoid of these +necessaries? Not a single one would have stayed if I had not yielded to +their demands, which, as regarded the bath, involved the addition of +exedrae and of a sphaeristerium." + +"And what can they want with an amphitheatre?" groaned Plotinus. + +"They _say_ it is for lectures," replied Porphyry; "I trust there is no +truth in the rumour that the head of the Stoics is three parts owner of a +lion of singular ferocity." + +"I must see to this as soon as I can get about," said Plotinus, turning to +the accounts. "What's this? To couch and litter for head of Peripatetic +school!" + +"Who is so enormously fat," explained Porphyry, "that these conveniences +are really indispensable to him. The Peripatetic school is positively at a +standstill." + +"And no great matter," said Plotinus; "its master Aristotle was at best a +rationalist, without perception of the supersensual. What's this? To +Maximus, for the invocation of demons." + +"That," said Porphyry, "is our own Platonic dirty linen, and I heartily +wish we were washing it elsewhere. Thou must know, dear master, that during +thy trance the theurgic movement has attained a singular development, and +that thou art regarded with disdain by thy younger disciples as one wholly +behind the age, unacquainted with the higher magic, and who can produce no +other outward and visible token of the Divine favour than the occasional +companionship of a serpent." + +"I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken," replied +Plotinus, "provided that the adept shall have purified himself by a fast of +forty months." + +"It may be from neglect of this precaution," said Porphyry, "that our +Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and +Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good +spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to convey +than that virtue differs from vice, and that one's grandmother is a fitting +object of reverence." + +"I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean +scoffers," remarked Plotinus. + +"O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till thou +hast regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some oracle." + +"What meanest thou?" exclaimed Plotinus, "I insist upon knowing." + +Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling portly +personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus recognised +Theocles, the chief of the Stoics. + +"I rejoice, Plotinus," he began, "that thou hast at length emerged from +that condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might well +designate as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak no word +which can offend any man. Thou wilt now be able to reprehend the malice or +obtuseness of thy deputy, and to do me right in my contention with these +impure dogs." + +"Which be they?" asked Plotinus. + +"Do I not sufficiently indicate the followers of Epicurus?" demanded the +Stoic. + +"O master," explained Porphyry, "in allotting and fitting up apartments +designed for the respective sects of philosophers I naturally gave heed to +what I understood to be the principles of each. To the Epicureans, as +lovers of pleasure and luxury, I assigned the most commodious quarters, +furnished the same with soft cushions and costly hangings, and provided a +liberal table. I should have deemed it insulting to have offered any of +these things to the frugal followers of Zeno, and nothing can surpass my +astonishment at the manner in which the austere Theocles has incessantly +persecuted me for choice food and wine, stately rooms and soft couches." + +"O Plotinus," replied Theocles, "let me make the grounds of my conduct +clear to thee. In the first place, the honour of my school is in my +keeping. What will the vulgar think when they see the sty of Epicurus +sumptuously adorned, and the porch of Zeno shabby and bare? Will they not +deem that the Epicureans are highly respected and the Stoics made of little +account? Furthermore, how can I and my disciples manifest our contempt for +gold, dainties, wine, fine linen, and all the other instruments of luxury, +unless we have them to despise? Shall we not appear like foxes, vilipending +the grapes that we cannot reach? Not so; offer me delicacies that I may +reject them, wine that I may pour it into the kennel, Tyrian purple that I +may trample upon it, gold that I may fling it away; if it break an +Epicurean's head, so much the better." + +"Plotinus," said Hermon, the chief of the Epicureans, who had meanwhile +entered the apartment, "let this hypocrite have what he wants, and send him +away. I and my followers are perfectly willing to remove at once into the +inferior apartments, and leave ours for his occupation with all their +furniture, and the reversion of our bill of fare. Thou should'st know that +the imputations of the vulgar against our sect are the grossest calumnies. +The Epicurean places happiness in tranquil enjoyment, not in luxury or +sensual pleasures. There is not a thing I possess which I am not perfectly +willing to resign, except the society of my female disciple." + +"Thy female disciple!" exclaimed the horrified Plotinus. "Thou art worse +than the Stoic!" + +"Plotinus," said the Epicurean, "consider well ere, as is the manner of +Platonists, thou committest thyself to a proposition of a transparently +foolish nature. Thou desirest to gather all sorts of philosophers around +thee, but to what end, if they are restrained from manifesting their +characteristic tenets? Thou mightest as well seek to illustrate the habits +of animals by establishing a menagerie in which panthers should eat grass, +and antelopes be dieted on rabbits. An Epicurean without his female +companion, unless by his own choice, is no more an Epicurean than a Cynic +is a Cynic without his rags and his impudence. Wilt thou take from me my +Pannychis, an object pleasing to the eye, and leave yonder fellow his +tatters and his vermin?" + +The apartment had gradually filled with philosophers, and Hermon was +pointing to a follower of Diogenes whose robe so fully bespoke his +obedience to his master's precepts that his skin seemed almost clean in +comparison. + +"Consider also," continued the Epicurean, "that thou art thyself by no +means exempt from scandal." + +"What does the man mean?" demanded Plotinus, turning to Porphyry. + +"Get them away," whispered the disciple, "and I will tell thee." + +Plotinus hastily conceded the point raised with reference to the +interesting Pannychis, and the philosophers went off to effect their +exchange of quarters. As soon as the room was clear, he repeated: + +"What _does_ the man mean?" + +"I suppose he is thinking of Leaena," said Porphyry. + +"The most notorious character in Rome, who, finding her charms on the wane, +has lately betaken herself to philosophy?" + +"The same." + +"What of her?" + +"She has followed thee here. She affects the greatest devotion to thee. She +vows that nothing shall make her budge until thou hast recovered from thy +ecstasy, and admitted her as thy disciple. She has rejected numerous +overtures from the philosopher Theocles; entirely for thy sake, she +affirms. She comes three times a day to inquire respecting thy condition, +and I fear it must be acknowledged that she has once or twice managed to +get into thy chamber." + +"O ye immortal Gods!" groaned Plotinus. + +"Here she is!" exclaimed Porphyry, as a woman of masculine stature and +bearing, with the remains of beauty not unskilfully patched, forced an +entrance into the room. + +"Plotinus," she exclaimed, "behold the most impassioned of thy disciples. +Let us celebrate the mystic nuptials of Wisdom and Beauty. Let the claims +of my sex to philosophic distinction be vindicated in my person." + +"The question of the admission of women to share the studies and society of +men," rejoined Plotinus, "is one by no means exempt from difficulty." + +"How so? I deemed it had been determined long ago in favour of Aspasia?" + +"Aspasia," said Plotinus, "was a very exceptional woman." + +"And am not I?" + +"I hope, that is, I conceive so," said Plotinus. "But one may be an +exceptional woman without being an Aspasia." + +"How so? Am I inferior to Aspasia in beauty?" + +"I should hope not," said Plotinus ambiguously. + +"Or in the irregularity of my deportment?" + +"I should think not," said Plotinus, with more confidence. + +"Then why does the Plato of our age hesitate to welcome his Diotima?" + +"Because," said Plotinus, "you are not Diotima, and I am not Plato." + +"I am sure I am as much like Diotima as you are like Plato," retorted the +lady. "But let us come to our own time. Do I not hear that that creature +Pannychis has obtained the freedom of the philosophers' city, and the right +to study therein?" + +"She takes private lessons from Hermon, who is responsible for her." + +"The very thing!" exclaimed Leaena triumphantly. "I take private lessons +from thee, and thou art responsible for me. Venus! what's that?" + +The exclamation was prompted by the sudden appearance of an enormous +serpent, which, emerging from a chink in the wall, glided swiftly towards +the couch of Plotinus. He reached forward to greet it, uttering a cry of +pleasure. + +"My guardian, my tutelary daemon," he exclaimed, "visible manifestation of +AEsculapius! Then I am not forsaken by the immortal gods." + +"Take away the monster," cried Leaena, in violent agitation, "the nasty +thing! Plotinus, how can you? Oh, I shall faint! I shall die! Take it away, +I say. You must choose between it and me." + +"Then, Madam," said Plotinus, civilly but firmly, "I choose _it_." + +"Thank AEsculapius we are rid of her," he added, as Leaena vanished from +the apartment. + +"I wish I knew that," said Porphyry. + +And indeed after no long time a note came up from Theocles, who was sure +that Plotinus would not refuse him that privilege of instructing a female +disciple which had been already, with such manifest advantage to +philosophical research, accorded to his colleague Hermon. No objection +could well be made, especially as Plotinus did not foresee how many +chambermaids, and pages, and cooks, and perfumers, and tiring women and +bath attendants would be required, ere Leaena could feel herself moderately +comfortable. How unlike the modest Pannychis! who wanted but half a bed, +which need not be stuffed with the down of hares or the feathers of +partridges, without which sleep refused to visit Leaena's eyelids. + +It was natural that Plotinus should appeal to Gallienus, now returned from +the Gallic expedition, but he could extract nothing save mysterious +intimations that the Emperor had his eye upon the philosophers, and that +they might find him among them when they least expected it. Plotinus's +spirits drooped, and Porphyry was almost glad when he again relapsed into +an ecstasy. + + + +III + + +When Plotinus's eyes were at length opened, they fell not this time upon +the faithful Porphyry, but upon two youthful followers of Plato who were +beguiling the tedium of their vigil at his bedside by a game of dice, which +prevented their observing his resuscitation. After a moment's hesitation +Plotinus resolved to lie quiet in the hopes of hearing something that might +indicate what influences were in the ascendant in the philosophical +republic. He had not long to wait. + +"Dice is dull work for long," said one of the young men, indolently +throwing himself back, and letting his caster fall upon the floor. "To +think how much better one might be employed, but for having to watch this +old fool here! I've a great mind to call up a slave." + +"All the slaves are sure to have gone to the show, unless any of them +should be Christians. Besides, Porphyry would hear you, he's only in a +cat's sleep," returned his companion. + +"Well, I mean to say it's a shame. All the town will be in the theatre by +this time." + +"How many gladiators, said you?" + +"Forty pairs, the best show Campania has seen time out of mind." + +"How has it all come about?" + +"Oh, news comes of the death of Postumus, killed by his own soldiers, and +this passes as a great victory for want of a better, 'We must have a day +of thanksgiving,' says Theocles. 'Right,' says Leaena, 'I am dying to see +an exhibition of gladiators.' Theocles demurs at first, expecting to have +to find the money--but Leaena tugs at his beard, and he gives in. Just at +the nick of time the right sort of fellow pops up nobody knows whence, a +lanista with hair like curling helichryse, as Theocritus has it, and a +small army of gladiators, whom, out of devotion to the Emperor, he offers +to exhibit for nothing. Who so pleased as Theocles now? He takes the chair +as archon with Leaena by his side, and off goes every soul in the place, +except Pannychis, who cannot bear the sight of blood, and Porphyry, who is +an outrageous humanitarian, and us poor devils left in charge of this old +dreamer." + +"Couldn't we leave him to mind himself? He isn't likely to awake yet." + +"Try him with your cloak-pin." The student detached the implement in +question, which was about the size of a small stiletto. Feeling uncertain +what part of his person was to be the subject of experiment, Plotinus +judged it advisable to manifest his recovery in an unmistakable fashion. + +"O dear Master, what joy!" cried both the students in a breath. "Porphyry! +Porphyry!" + +The trusty scholar appeared immediately, and under pretence of fetching +food, the two neophytes eloped to the amphitheatre. + +"What means all this, Porphyry?" demanded Plotinus sternly. "The City of +Philosophers polluted by human blood! The lovers of wisdom mingling with +the dregs of the rabble!" + +Porphyry's account, which Plotinus could only extract by consenting to eat +while his disciple talked, corresponded in all essential particulars with +that of the two young men. + +"And I see not," added he, "what we can do in the matter. This abomination +is supposed to be in honour of the Emperor's victories. If we interfere +with it we shall be executed as rebels, supposing that we are not first +torn to pieces as rioters." + +"Porphyry," replied Plotinus, "I should esteem this disgrace to philosophy +a disgrace to myself if I did not my utmost to avert it. Remain thou here, +and perform my funeral rites if it be necessary." + +But to this Porphyry would by no means consent, and the two philosophers +proceeded to the amphitheatre together. It was so crowded that there was no +room on the seats for another person. Theocles was enthroned in the chair +of honour, his beard manifesting evident traces of the depilatories +administered by Leaena, who nevertheless sat by his side, her voluptuous +face gloating over the anticipated banquet of agony. The philosophic part +of the spectators were ranged all around, the remaining seats were occupied +by a miscellaneous public. The master of the gladiators, a man of +distinguished appearance, whose yellow locks gave him the aspect of a +barbarian prince, stood in the arena surrounded by his myrmidons. The entry +of Plotinus and Porphyry attracted his attention: he motioned to his +followers, and in an instant the philosophers were seized, bound, and +gagged without the excited assembly being in the least conscious of their +presence. + +Two men stepped out into the arena, both fine and attractive figures. The +athletic limbs, the fair complexion, the curling yellow hair of one +proclaimed the Goth; he lightly swung his huge sword in his right hand, and +looked as if his sole arm would easily put to flight the crowd of +effeminate spectators. The other's beauty was of another sort; young, +slender, pensive, spiritual, he looked like anything rather than a +gladiator, and held his downward pointed sword with a negligent grasp. + +"Guard thyself!" cried the Goth, placing himself in an attitude of offence. + +"I spill not the blood of a fellow-creature," answered the other, casting +his sword away from him. + +"Coward!" yelled well-nigh every voice in the amphitheatre. + +"No," answered the youth with a grave smile, "Christian." + +His shield and helmet followed his sword, he stood entirely defenceless +before his adversary. + +"Throw him to my lion," cried Theocles. + +"Or thy lioness," suggested Hermon. + +This allusion to Leaena provoked a burst of laughter. Suddenly the Goth +aimed a mighty blow at the head of the unresisting man. A shorn curl fell +to the ground, the consummate skill of the swordsman averted all further +contact between his blade and the Christian, who remained erect and +smiling, without having moved a muscle or an eyelash. + +"Master," said the Goth, addressing the lanista, "I had rather fight ten +armed men than this unarmed one." + +"Good," returned his lord, with a gesture of approval. "Retire both of +you." + +A roar of disapprobation broke out from the spectators, which seemed not to +produce the slightest effect on the lanista. + +"Turn out the next pair," they cried. + +"I shall not," said he. + +"Wherefore?" + +"Because I do not choose." + +"Rogue! Cheat! Swindler! Cast him into prison! Throw him to the lion!" Such +epithets and recommendations rained from the spectators' seats, accompanied +by a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant the yellow hair +and common dress lay on the ground, and those who knew him not by the +features could by the Imperial ornaments recognise the Emperor Gallienus. +With no less celerity his followers, the Goth and the Christian excepted, +disencumbered themselves of their exterior vesture, and stood forward in +the character of Roman soldiers. + +"Friends," cried Gallienus, turning to the plebeian multitude, "I am not +about to balk you of your sport." + +At a sign from him the legionaries ascended to the seats allotted to the +philosophic portion of the audience, and a torrent of wisdom in their +persons, including that of Leaena, flung forth with the energy of a +catapult, descended abruptly and violently to the earth. They were +instantly seized and dragged into an erect attitude by the remainder of the +soldiery, who, amid the most tempestuous peals of laughter and applause +from the delighted public, thrust swords into their hands, ranged them in +opposite ranks, and summoned them to begin the fight and quit themselves +like men. It was equally ludicrous and pitiable to see the bald, mostly +grey-bearded men, their garments torn in their expulsion and their persons +bruised by the fall, confronting each other with quaking limbs, helplessly +brandishing their weapons or feebly calling their adversaries to come on, +while the soldiers prodded them from behind with spears, and urged them +into the close quarters they so anxiously desired to avoid. Plotinus, +helpless with his bonds and gag, looked on in impotent horror. Gallienus +was often cruel, but could he intend such a revolting massacre? There must +be something behind. + +The honour of developing the Emperor's purpose was reserved for Theocles, +who, with admirable presence of mind, had ever since he found he must fight +been engaged in trying to select the weakest antagonist. After hesitating +between the unwieldy chief of the Peripatetics and the feminine Leaena he +fixed on the latter, partly moved, perhaps, by the hope of avenging his +beard. With a martial cry he sprang towards her, and upraised his weapon +for a swashing blow. But he had sadly miscalculated. Leaena was hardly less +versed in the combats of Mars than in those of Venus, having, in fact, +commenced her distinguished career as a camp-follower of the Emperor +Gordian. A tremendous stroke caught him on the hand; his blade dropped to +the earth; why did not the fingers follow? Leaena elucidated the problem by +a still more violent blow on his face; torrents of blood gushed forth +indeed, but only from the nose. The sword doubled up; it had neither point +nor edge. Encouraged by this opportune discovery the philosophers attacked +each other with infinite spirit and valour. Infuriated by the blows given +and received, by the pokings and proddings of the military, and the +hilarious derision of the public, they cast away the shivered blades and +resorted to the weapons of Nature. They kicked, they cuffed, they +scratched, they tore the garments from each other's shoulders, they foamed +and rolled gasping in the yellow sand of the arena. At a signal from the +Emperor the portal of the amphitheatre was thrown open, and the whole mass +of clawing and cuffing philosophy was bundled ignominiously into the +street. + +By this time Gallienus was seated on his tribunal, and Plotinus, released +from his bonds, was standing by his side. + +"O Emperor," he murmured, deeply abashed, "what can I urge? Thou wilt +surely demolish my city!" + +"No, Plotinus," replied Gallienus, pointing to the Goth and the Christian, +"there are the men who will destroy the City of Philosophers. Would that +were all they will destroy!" + + + + +THE DEMON POPE + + +"So you won't sell me your soul?" said the devil. + +"Thank you," replied the student, "I had rather keep it myself, if it's all +the same to you." + +"But it's not all the same to me. I want it very particularly. Come, I'll +be liberal. I said twenty years. You can have thirty." + +The student shook his head. + +"Forty!" + +Another shake. + +"Fifty!" + +As before. + +"Now," said the devil, "I know I'm going to do a foolish thing, but I +cannot bear to see a clever, spirited young man throw himself away. I'll +make you another kind of offer. We won't have any bargain at present, but I +will push you on in the world for the next forty years. This day forty +years I come back and ask you for a boon; not your soul, mind, or anything +not perfectly in your power to grant. If you give it, we are quits; if not, +I fly away with you. What say you to this?" + +The student reflected for some minutes. "Agreed," he said at last. + +Scarcely had the devil disappeared, which he did instantaneously, ere a +messenger reined in his smoking steed at the gate of the University of +Cordova (the judicious reader will already have remarked that Lucifer could +never have been allowed inside a Christian seat of learning), and, +inquiring for the student Gerbert, presented him with the Emperor Otho's +nomination to the Abbacy of Bobbio, in consideration, said the document, of +his virtue and learning, well-nigh miraculous in one so young. Such +messengers were frequent visitors during Gerbert's prosperous career. +Abbot, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, he was ultimately enthroned Pope on +April 2, 999, and assumed the appellation of Silvester the Second. It was +then a general belief that the world would come to an end in the following +year, a catastrophe which to many seemed the more imminent from the +election of a chief pastor whose celebrity as a theologian, though not +inconsiderable, by no means equalled his reputation as a necromancer. + +The world, notwithstanding, revolved scatheless through the dreaded +twelvemonth, and early in the first year of the eleventh century Gerbert +was sitting peacefully in his study, perusing a book of magic. Volumes of +algebra, astrology, alchemy, Aristotelian philosophy, and other such light +reading filled his bookcase; and on a table stood an improved clock of his +invention, next to his introduction of the Arabic numerals his chief legacy +to posterity. Suddenly a sound of wings was heard, and Lucifer stood by his +side. + +"It is a long time," said the fiend, "since I have had the pleasure of +seeing you. I have now called to remind you of our little contract, +concluded this day forty years." + +"You remember," said Silvester, "that you are not to ask anything exceeding +my power to perform." + +"I have no such intention," said Lucifer. "On the contrary, I am about to +solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope, I desire +that you would make me a Cardinal. + +"In the expectation, I presume," returned Gerbert, "of becoming Pope on the +next vacancy." + +"An expectation," replied Lucifer, "which I may most reasonably entertain, +considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue, and the present +condition of the Sacred College." + +"You would doubtless," said Gerbert, "endeavour to subvert the foundations +of the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and licentiousness, render the +Holy See odious and contemptible." + +"On the contrary," said the fiend, "I would extirpate heresy, and all +learning and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer no +man to read but the priest, and confine his reading to his breviary. I +would burn your books together with your bones on the first convenient +opportunity. I would observe an austere propriety of conduct, and be +especially careful not to loosen one rivet in the tremendous yoke I was +forging for the minds and consciences of mankind." + +"If it be so," said Gerbert, "let's be off!" + +"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, "you are willing to accompany me to the infernal +regions!" + +"Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and Aristotle, +and give place to the darkness against which I have been contending all my +life." + +"Gerbert," replied the demon, "this is arrant trifling. Know you not that +no good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing possible, my +empire would become intolerable to me, and I should be compelled to +abdicate?" + +"I do know it," said Gerbert, "and hence I have been able to receive your +visit with composure." + +"Gerbert," said the devil, with tears in his eyes, "I put it to you--is +this fair, is this honest? I undertake to promote your interests in the +world; I fulfil my promise abundantly. You obtain through my +instrumentality a position to which you could never otherwise have aspired. +Often have I had a hand in the election of a Pope, but never before have I +contributed to confer the tiara on one eminent for virtue and learning. You +profit by my assistance to the full, and now take advantage of an +adventitious circumstance to deprive me of my reasonable guerdon. It is my +constant experience that the good people are much more slippery than the +sinners, and drive much harder bargains." + +"Lucifer," answered Gerbert, "I have always sought to treat you as a +gentleman, hoping that you would approve yourself such in return. I will +not inquire whether it was entirely in harmony with this character to seek +to intimidate me into compliance with your demand by threatening me with a +penalty which you well knew could not be enforced. I will overlook this +little irregularity, and concede even more than you have requested. You +have asked to be a Cardinal. I will make you Pope--" + +"Ha!" exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide, as +the light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it. + +"For twelve hours," continued Gerbert. "At the expiration of that time we +will consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are more +anxious to divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to assume it, +I promise to bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my power to grant, +and not plainly inconsistent with religion or morals." + +"Done!" cried the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in a +moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely indistinguishable +save by their attire, and the fact that one limped slightly with the left +foot. + +"You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard," said Gerbert, and, +taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked door to a +secret chamber. As the door closed behind him he chuckled, and muttered to +himself, "Poor old Lucifer! Sold again!" + +If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it. He approached a large slab +of silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his personal +appearance with some dissatisfaction. + +"I certainly don't look half so well without my horns," he soliloquised, +"and I am sure I shall miss my tail most grievously." + +A tiara and a train, however, made fair amends for the deficient +appendages, and Lucifer now looked every inch a Pope. He was about to call +the master of the ceremonies, and summon a consistory, when the door was +burst open, and seven cardinals, brandishing poniards, rushed into the +room. + +"Down with the sorcerer!" they cried, as they seized and gagged him. + +"Death to the Saracen!" + +"Practises algebra, and other devilish arts!" + +"Knows Greek!" + +"Talks Arabic!" + +"Reads Hebrew!" + +"Burn him!" + +"Smother him!" + +"Let him be deposed by a general council," said a young and inexperienced +Cardinal. + +"Heaven forbid!" said an old and wary one, _sotto voce_. + +Lucifer struggled frantically, but the feeble frame he was doomed to +inhabit for the next eleven hours was speedily exhausted. Bound and +helpless, he swooned away. + +"Brethren," said one of the senior cardinals, "it hath been delivered by +the exorcists that a sorcerer or other individual in league with the demon +doth usually bear upon his person some visible token of his infernal +compact. I propose that we forthwith institute a search for this stigma, +the discovery of which may contribute to justify our proceedings in the +eyes of the world." + +"I heartily approve of our brother Anno's proposition," said another, "the +rather as we cannot possibly fail to discover such a mark, if, indeed, we +desire to find it." + +The search was accordingly instituted, and had not proceeded far ere a +simultaneous yell from all the seven cardinals indicated that their +investigation had brought more to light than they had ventured to expect. + +The Holy Father had a cloven foot! + +For the next five minutes the Cardinals remained utterly stunned, silent, +and stupefied with amazement. As they gradually recovered their faculties +it would have become manifest to a nice observer that the Pope had risen +very considerably in their good opinion. + +"This is an affair requiring very mature deliberation," said one. + +"I always feared that we might be proceeding too precipitately," said +another. + +"It is written, 'the devils believe,'" said a third: "the Holy Father, +therefore, is not a heretic at any rate." + +"Brethren," said Anno, "this affair, as our brother Benno well remarks, +doth indeed call for mature deliberation. I therefore propose that, instead +of smothering his Holiness with cushions, as originally contemplated, we +immure him for the present in the dungeon adjoining hereunto, and, after +spending the night in meditation and prayer, resume the consideration of +the business tomorrow morning." + +"Informing the officials of the palace," said Benno, "that his Holiness has +retired for his devotions, and desires on no account to be disturbed." + +"A pious fraud," said Anno, "which not one of the Fathers would for a +moment have scrupled to commit." + +The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and bore him +carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for his detention. +Each would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery, but each felt that +the eyes of his six brethren were upon him: and all, therefore, retired +simultaneously, each taking a key of the cell. + +Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards. He had the +most confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in his +present scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were the usual +concomitants of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to his taste, and +he wished he had been made acquainted with them sooner. The dungeon was not +only perfectly dark, but horribly cold, and the poor devil in his present +form had no latent store of infernal heat to draw upon. His teeth +chattered, he shivered in every limb, and felt devoured with hunger and +thirst. There is much probability in the assertion of some of his +biographers that it was on this occasion that he invented ardent spirits; +but, even if he did, the mere conception of a glass of brandy could only +increase his sufferings. So the long January night wore wearily on, and +Lucifer seemed likely to expire from inanition, when a key turned in the +lock, and Cardinal Anno cautiously glided in, bearing a lamp, a loaf, half +a cold roast kid, and a bottle of wine. + +"I trust," he said, bowing courteously, "that I may be excused any slight +breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from the +difficulty under which I labour of determining whether, under present +circumstances, 'Your Holiness,' or 'Your Infernal Majesty' be the form of +address most befitting me to employ." + +"Bub-ub-bub-boo," went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "I crave your Infernal Holiness's +forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!" + +And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the refection, +upon which the demon fell voraciously. + +"Why the devil, if I may so express myself," pursued Anno, "did not your +Holiness inform us that you _were_ the devil? Not a hand would then have +been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my life for the +audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust of your faithful +Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously these many years?" + +Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters. + +"I shall never forgive myself," protested the Cardinal, "for the part I +have borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to your +Majesty's bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart as +to express my penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to remember that I +believed myself to be acting in your Majesty's interest by overthrowing a +magician who was accustomed to send your Majesty upon errands, and who +might at any time enclose you in a box, and cast you into the sea. It is +deplorable that your Majesty's most devoted servants should have been thus +misled." + +"Reasons of State," suggested Lucifer. + +"I trust that they no longer operate," said the Cardinal. "However, the +Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is therefore +unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject further. I would now +humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, perhaps, your +Holiness, since I am about to speak of spiritual things, on the important +and delicate point of your Holiness's successor. I am ignorant how long +your Holiness proposes to occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are +aware that public opinion will not suffer you to hold it for a term +exceeding that of the pontificate of Peter. A vacancy, therefore, must one +day occur; and I am humbly to represent that the office could not be filled +by one more congenial than myself to the present incumbent, or on whom he +could more fully rely to carry out in every respect his views and +intentions." + +And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past +life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion. He had not, +however, proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another key +in the lock, and had just time to whisper impressively, "Beware of Benno," +ere he dived under a table. + +Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands. Warned by the +other lamp and the remains of Lucifer's repast that some colleague had been +beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be in the field, +he came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and preferred his +claim in much the same manner as Anno. While he was earnestly cautioning +Lucifer against this Cardinal as one who could and would cheat the very +Devil himself, another key turned in the lock, and Benno escaped under the +table, where Anno immediately inserted his finger into his right eye. The +little squeal consequent upon this occurrence Lucifer successfully +smothered by a fit of coughing. + +Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the same +disgust as Benno on seeing himself forestalled. So far as his requests +transpired they were moderate, but no one knows where he would have stopped +if he had not been scared by the advent of Cardinal No. 4. Up to this time +he had only asked for an inexhaustible purse, power to call up the Devil +_ad libitum_, and a ring of invisibility to allow him free access to his +mistress, who was unfortunately a married woman. + +Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning Cardinal +No. 5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as respected Cardinal +No. 4. + +Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the Archbishoprics +of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them together, and of +unlimited non-residence. In the course of his harangue he made use of the +phrase _non obstantibus_, of which Lucifer immediately took a note. + +What the seventh Cardinal would have solicited is not known, for he had +hardly opened his mouth when the twelfth hour expired, and Lucifer, +regaining his vigour with his shape, sent the Prince of the Church spinning +to the other end of the room, and split the marble table with a single +stroke of his tail. The six crouched and huddling Cardinals cowered +revealed to one another, and at the same time enjoyed the spectacle of his +Holiness darting through the stone ceiling, which yielded like a film to +his passage, and closed up afterwards as if nothing had happened. After the +first shock of dismay they unanimously rushed to the door, but found it +bolted on the outside. There was no other exit, and no means of giving an +alarm. In this emergency the demeanour of the Italian Cardinals set a +bright example to their ultramontane colleagues. "_Bisogna pazienzia_," +they said, as they shrugged their shoulders. Nothing could exceed the +mutual politeness of Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless that of the two who +had sought to poison each other. The Frenchman was held to have gravely +derogated from good manners by alluding to this circumstance, which had +reached his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman swore so +outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians then +and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should ever be +Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to this day. + +Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed in all +the insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he thought his +visitor had probably had enough. + +"I should think so indeed," replied Lucifer. "But at the same time I feel +myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of the +loyalty of my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is needless +for me to devote any considerable amount of personal attention to +ecclesiastical affairs. I now claim the promised boon, which it will be in +no way inconsistent with thy functions to grant, seeing that it is a work +of mercy. I demand that the Cardinals be released, and that their +conspiracy against thee, by which I alone suffered, be buried in oblivion." + +"I hoped you would carry them all off," said Gerbert, with an expression of +disappointment. + +"Thank you," said the Devil. "It is more to my interest to leave them where +they are." + +So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth, sheepish +and crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than Lucifer had +expected from them, the cause was their entire bewilderment by what had +passed, and their utter inability to penetrate the policy of Gerbert, who +henceforth devoted himself even with ostentation to good works. They could +never quite satisfy themselves whether they were speaking to the Pope or to +the Devil, and when under the latter impression habitually emitted +propositions which Gerbert justly stigmatised as rash, temerarious, and +scandalous. They plagued him with allusions to certain matters mentioned in +their interviews with Lucifer, with which they naturally but erroneously +supposed him to be conversant, and worried him by continual nods and +titterings as they glanced at his nether extremities. To abolish this +nuisance, and at the same time silence sundry unpleasant rumours which had +somehow got abroad, Gerbert devised the ceremony of kissing the Pope's +feet, which, in a grievously mutilated form, endures to this day. The +stupefaction of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy Father had lost +his hoof surpasses all description, and they went to their graves without +having obtained the least insight into the mystery. + + + + +THE CUPBEARER + + +The minister Photinius had fallen, to the joy of Constantinople. He had +taken sanctuary in the immense monastery adjoining the Golden Gate in the +twelfth region of the city, founded for a thousand monks by the patrician +Studius, in the year 463. There he occupied himself with the concoction of +poisons, the resource of fallen statesmen. When a defeated minister of our +own day is indisposed to accept his discomfiture, he applies himself to +poison the public mind, inciting the lower orders against the higher, and +blowing up every smouldering ember of sedition he can discover, trusting +that the conflagration thus kindled, though it consume the edifice of the +State, will not fail to roast his own egg. Photinius's conceptions of +mischief were less refined; he perfected his toxicological knowledge in the +medical laboratory of the monastery, and sought eagerly for an opportunity +of employing it; whether in an experiment upon the Emperor, or on his own +successor, or on some other personage, circumstances must determine. + +The sanctity of Studius's convent, and the strength of its monastic +garrison, rendered it a safe refuge for disgraced courtiers, and in this +thirtieth year of the Emperor Basil the Second (reckoning from his nominal +accession) it harboured a legion of ex-prime ministers, patriarchs, +archbishops, chief secretaries, hypati, anthypati, silentiarii, +protospatharii, and even spatharo-candidati. And this small army was +nothing to the host that, maimed or blinded or tonsured or all three, +dragged out their lives in monasteries or in dungeons or on rocky islets; +and these again were few in comparison with the spirits of the traitors or +the betrayed who wailed nightly amid the planes and cypresses of the +Aretae, or stalked through the palatial apartments of verdantique and +porphyry. But of those comparatively at liberty, but whose liberty was +circumscribed by the hallowed precincts of Studius, every soul was +plotting. And never, perhaps, in the corrupt Byzantine Court, where true +friendship had been unknown since Theodora quarrelled with Antonia, had so +near an approach to it existed as in this asylum of villains. A sort of +freemasonry came to prevail in the sanctuary: every one longed to know how +his neighbour's plot throve, and grudged not to buy the knowledge by +disclosing a little corner of his own. Thus rendered communicative, their +colloquies would travel back into the past, and as the veterans of intrigue +fought their battles over again, the most experienced would learn things +that made them open their eyes with amazement. "Ah!" they would hear, "that +is just where you were mistaken. You had bought Eromenus, but so had I, and +old Nicephorus had outbid us both." "You deemed the dancer Anthusa a sure +card, and knew not of her secret infirmity, of which I had been apprised by +her waiting woman." "Did you really know nothing of that sliding panel? And +were you ignorant that whatever one says in the blue chamber is heard in +the green?" "Yes, I thought so too, and I spent a mint of money before +finding out that the dog whose slaver that brazen impostor Panurgiades +pretended to sell me was no more mad than he was." After such rehearsals of +future dialogues by the banks of Styx, the fallen statesmen were observed +to appear exceedingly dejected, but the stimulus had become necessary to +their existence. None gossiped so freely or disclosed so much as Photinius +and his predecessor Eustathius, whom he had himself displaced--probably +because Eustathius, believing in nothing in heaven or earth but gold, and +labouring under an absolute privation of that metal, was regarded even by +himself as an extinct volcano. + +"Well," observed he one day, when discoursing with Photinius is an +unusually confidential mood, "I am free to say that for my own part I don't +think over much of poison. It has its advantages, to be sure, but to my +mind the disadvantages are even more conspicuous." + +"For example?" inquired Photinius, who had the best reason for confiding in +the efficacy of a drag administered with dexterity and discretion. + +"Two people must be in the secret at least, if not three," replied +Eustathius, "and cooks, as a rule, are a class of persons entirely unfit to +be employed in affairs of State." + +"The Court physician," suggested Photinius. + +"Is only available," answered Eustathius, "in case his Majesty should send +for him, which is most improbable. If he ever did, poison, praised be the +Lord! would be totally unnecessary and entirely superfluous." + +"My dear friend," said Photinius, venturing at this favourable moment on a +question he had been dying to ask ever since he had been an inmate of the +convent, "would you mind telling me in confidence, did you ever administer +any potion of a deleterious nature to his Sacred Majesty?" + +"Never!" protested Eustathius, with fervour. "I tried once, to be sure, but +it was no use." + +"What was the impediment?" + +"The perverse opposition of the cupbearer. It is idle attempting anything +of the kind as long as she is about the Emperor." + +"_She_!" exclaimed Photinius. + +"Don't you know _that_?" responded Eustathius, with an air and manner that +plainly said, "You don't know much." + +Humbled and ashamed, Photinius nevertheless wisely stooped to avow his +nescience, and flattering his rival on his superior penetration, led him to +divulge the State secret that the handsome cupbearer Helladius was but the +disguise of the lovely Helladia, the object of Basil's tenderest affection, +and whose romantic attachment to his person had already frustrated more +conspiracies than the aged plotter could reckon up. + +This intelligence made Photinius for a season exceedingly thoughtful. He +had not deemed Basil of an amorous complexion. At length he sent for his +daughter, the beautiful and virtuous Euprepia, who from time to time +visited him in the monastery. + +"Daughter," he said, "it appears to me that the time has now arrived when +thou mayest with propriety present a petition to the Emperor on behalf of +thy unfortunate father. Here is the document. It is, I flatter myself, +composed with no ordinary address; nevertheless I will not conceal from +thee that I place my hopes rather on thy beauty of person than on my beauty +of style. Shake down thy hair and dishevel it, so!--that is excellent. +Remember to tear thy robe some little in the poignancy of thy woe, and to +lose a sandal. Tears and sobs of course thou hast always at command, but +let not the frenzy of thy grief render thee wholly inarticulate. Here is a +slight memorandum of what is most fitting for thee to say: thy old nurse's +instructions will do the rest. Light a candle for St. Sergius, and watch +for a favourable opportunity." + +Euprepia was upright, candid, and loyal; but the best of women has +something of the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was +stimulated by her filial affection. Basil was for a moment fairly carried +away by the consummate fact of her performance and the genuine feeling to +her appeal; but he was himself again by the time he had finished perusing +his late minister's long-winded and mendacious memorial. + +"What manner of woman was thy mother?" he inquired kindly + +Euprepia was eloquent in praise of her deceased parent's perfections of +mind and person. + +"Then I can believe thee Photinius's daughter, which I might otherwise have +doubted," returned Basil. "As concerns him, I can only say, if he feels +himself innocent, let him come out of sanctuary, and stand his trial. But I +will give thee a place at Court." + +This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully +consented to his daughter's entering the Imperial court, exulting at +having got in the thin end of the wedge. She was attached to the person of +the Emperor's sister-in-law, the "Slayer of the Bulgarians" himself being a +most determined bachelor. + +Time wore on. Euprepia's opportunities of visiting her father were less +frequent than formerly. At last she came, looking thoroughly miserable, +distracted, and forlorn. + +"What ails thee, child?" he inquired anxiously. + +"Oh, father, in what a frightful position do I find myself!" + +"Speak," he said, "and rely on my counsel." + +"When I entered the Court," she proceeded, "I found at first but one human +creature I could love or trust, and he--let me so call him--seemed to +make up for the deficiencies of all the rest. It was the cupbearer +Helladius." + +"I hope he is still thy friend," interrupted Photinius. "The good graces of +an Imperial cupbearer are always important, and I would have bought those +of Helladius with a myriad of bezants." + +"They were not to be thus obtained, father," said she. "The purest +disinterestedness, the noblest integrity, the most unselfish devotion, were +the distinction of my friend. And such beauty! I cannot, I must not conceal +that my heart was soon entirely his. But--most strange it seemed to me +then--it was long impossible for me to tell whether Helladius loved me or +loved me not. The most perfect sympathy existed between us: we seemed one +heart and one soul: and yet, and yet, Helladius never gave the slightest +indication of the sentiments which a young man might be supposed to +entertain for a young girl. Vainly did I try every innocent wile that a +modest maiden may permit herself: he was ever the friend, never the lover. +At length, after long pining between despairing fondness and wounded pride, +I myself turned away, and listened to one who left me in no doubt of the +sincerity of his passion." + +"Who?" + +"The Emperor! And, to shorten the story of my shame, I became his +mistress." + +"The saints be praised!" shouted Photinius. "O my incomparable daughter!" + +"Father!" cried Euprepia, blushing and indignant. "But let me hurry on with +my wretched tale. In proportion as the Emperor's affection became more +marked, Helladius, hitherto so buoyant and serene, became a visible prey to +despondency. Some scornful beauty, I deemed, was inflicting on him the +tortures he had previously inflicted upon me, and, cured of my unhappy +attachment, and entirely devoted to my Imperial lover, I did all in my +power to encourage him. He received my comfort with gratitude, nor did it, +as I had feared might happen, seem to excite the least lover-like feeling +towards me on his own part." + +"Euprepia," he said only two days ago, "never in this Court have I met one +like thee. Thou art the soul of honour and generosity. I can safely trust +thee with a secret which my bursting heart can no longer retain, but which +I dread to breathe even to myself. Know first I am not what I seem, I am a +woman!" And opening his vest--" + +"We know all about that already," interrupted Photinius. "Get on!" + +"If thou knowest this already, father," said the astonished Euprepia, "thou +wilt spare me the pain of entering further into Helladia's affection for +Basil. Suffice that it was impassioned beyond description, and vied with +whatever history or romance records. In her male costume she had +accompanied the conqueror of the Bulgarians in his campaigns, she had +fought in his battles; a gigantic foe, in act to strike him from behind, +had fallen by her arrow; she had warded the poison-cup from his lips, and +the assassin's dagger from his heart; she had rejected enormous wealth +offered as a bribe for treachery, and lived only for the Emperor. 'And +now,' she cried, 'his love for me is cold, and he deserts me for another. +Who she is I cannot find, else on her it were, not on him, that my +vengeance should alight. Oh, Euprepia, I would tear her eyes from her head, +were they beautiful as thine! But vengeance I must have. Basil must die. On +the third day he expires by my hand, poisoned by the cup which I alone am +trusted to offer him at the Imperial banquet where thou wilt be present. +Thou shalt see his agonies and my triumph, and rejoice that thy friend has +known how to avenge herself.' + +"Thou seest now, father, in how frightful a difficulty I am placed. All my +entreaties and remonstrances have been in vain: at my threats Helladia +merely laughs. I love Basil with my whole heart. Shall I look on and see +him murdered? Shall I, having first unwittingly done my friend the most +grievous injury, proceed further to betray her, and doom her to a cruel +death? I might anticipate her fell purpose by slaying her, but for that I +have neither strength nor courage. Many a time have I felt on the point of +revealing everything to her, and offering myself as her victim, but for +this also I lack fortitude. I might convey a warning to Basil, but +Helladia's vengeance is unsleeping, and nothing but her death or mine will +screen him. Oh, father, father! what am I to do?" + +"Nothing romantic or sentimental, I trust, dear child," replied Photinius. + +"Torture me not, father. I came to thee for counsel." + +"And counsel shalt thou have, but it must be the issue of mature +deliberation. Thou mayest observe," continued he with the air of a good man +contending with adversity, "how weak and miserable is man's estate even in +the day of good fortune, how hard it is for purblind mortals to discern the +right path, especially when two alluring routes are simultaneously +presented for their decision! The most obvious and natural course, the one +I should have adopted without hesitation half-an-hour ago, would be simply +to let Helladia alone. Should she succeed--and Heaven forbid else!--the +knot is loosed in the simplest manner. Basil dies--" + +"Father!" + +"I am a favourite with his sister-in-law," continued Photinius, entirely +unconscious of his daughter's horror and agitation, "who will govern in the +name of her weak husband, and is moreover thy mistress. She recalls me to +Court, and all is peace and joy. But then, Helladia may fail. In that case, +when she has been executed--" + +"Father, father!" + +"We are exactly where we were, save for the hold thou hast established over +the Emperor, which is of course invaluable. I cannot but feel that Heaven +is good when I reflect how easily thou mightest have thrown thyself away +upon a courtier. Now there is a much bolder game to play, which, relying on +the protection of Providence, I feel half disposed to attempt. Thou +mightest betray Helladia." + +"Deliver my friend to the tormentors!" + +"Then," pursued Photinius, without hearing her, "thy claim on the Emperor's +gratitude is boundless, and if he has any sense of what is seemly--and he +is what they call chivalrous--he will make thee his lawful consort. I +father-in-law of an Emperor! My brain reels to think of it. I must be cool. +I must not suffer myself to be dazzled or hurried away. Let me consider. +Thus acting, thou puttest all to the hazard of the die. For if Helladia +should deny everything, as of course she would, and the Emperor should +foolishly scruple to put her to the rack, she might probably persuade him +of her innocence, and where wouldst thou be then? It might almost be better +to be beforehand, and poison Helladia herself, but I fear there is no time +now. Thou hast no evidence but her threats, I suppose? Thou hast not caught +her tampering with poisons? There can of course be nothing in writing. I +daresay I could find something, if I had but time. Canst thou counterfeit +her signature?" + +But long ere this Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by +convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he +had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he +was by no means a bad father. + +"Poor child," he said, "thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a +terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under the +torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might have a +bad effect on the Emperor's mind. If he put thee to the torture too--but +no! that's impossible. I feel faint and giddy, dear child, and unable to +decide a point of such importance. Come to me at daybreak to-morrow." + +But Euprepia did not reappear, and Photinius spent the day in an agony of +expectation, fearing that she had compromised herself by some imprudence. +He gazed on the setting sun with uncontrollable impatience, knowing that it +would shine on the Imperial banquet, where so much was to happen. Basil was +in fact at that very moment seating himself among a brilliant assemblage. +By his side stood a choir of musicians, among them Euprepia. Soon the cup +was called for, and Helladia, in her masculine dress, stepped forward, +darting a glance of sinister triumph at her friend. Silently, almost +imperceptibly to the bulk of the company, Euprepia glided forward, and +hissed rather than whispered in Helladia's ear, ere she could retire from +the Emperor's side. + +"Didst thou not say that if thou couldst discover her who had wronged thee, +thou wouldst wreak thy vengeance on her, and molest Basil no further?" + +"I did, and I meant it." + +"See that thou keepest thy word. I am she!" And snatching the cup from the +table, she quaffed it to the last drop, and instantly expired in +convulsions. + +We pass over the dismay of the banqueters, the arrest and confession of +Helladia, the general amazement at the revelation of her sex, the frantic +grief of the Emperor. + +Basil's sorrow was sincere and durable. On an early occasion he thus +addressed his courtiers: + +"I cannot determine which of these two women loved me best: she who gave +her life for me, or she who would have taken mine. The first made the +greater sacrifice; the second did most violence to her feelings. What say +ye?" + +The courtiers hesitated, feeling themselves incompetent judges in problems +of this nature. At length the youngest exclaimed: + +"O Emperor, how can we tell thee, unless we know what thou thinkest +thyself?" + +"What!" exclaimed Basil, "an honest man in the Court of Byzantium! Let his +mouth be filled with gold immediately!" + +This operation having been performed, and the precious metal distributed in +fees among the proper officers, Basil thus addressed the object of his +favour: + +"Manuel, thy name shall henceforth be Chrysostomus, in memory of what has +just taken place. In further token of my approbation of thy honesty, I will +confer upon thee the hand of the only other respectable person about the +Court, namely, of Helladia. Take her, my son, and raise up a race of +heroes! She shall be amply dowered out of what remains of the property of +Photinius." + +"Gennadius," whispered a cynical courtier to his neighbour, "I hope thou +admirest the magnanimity of our sovereign, who deems he is performing a +most generous action in presenting Manuel with his cast-off mistress, who +has tried to poison him, and with whom he has been at his wits' end what to +do, and in dowering her at the expense of another." + +The snarl was just; but it is just also to acknowledge that Basil, as a +prince born in the purple, had not the least idea that he was laying +himself open to any such criticism. He actually did feel the manly glow of +self-approbation which accompanies the performance of a good action: an +emotion which no one else present, except Chrysostomus, was so much as able +to conceive. It is further to be remarked that the old courtier who sneered +at Chrysostomus was devoured by envy of his good fortune, and would have +given his right eye to have been in his place. + +"Chrysostomus," pursued Basil, "we must now think of the hapless Photinius. +That unfortunate father is doubtless in an agony of grief which renders the +forfeiture of the remains of his possessions indifferent to him. Thou, his +successor therein, mayest be regarded as in some sort his son-in-law. Go, +therefore, and comfort him, and report to me upon his condition." + +Chrysostomus accordingly proceeded to the monastery, where he was informed +that Photinius had retired with his spiritual adviser, and could on no +account be disturbed. + +"It is on my head to see the Emperor's orders obeyed," returned +Chrysostomus, and forced the door. The bereaved parent was busily engaged +in sticking pins into a wax effigy of Basil, under the direction of +Panurgiades, already honourably mentioned in this history. + +"Wretched old man!" exclaimed Chrysostomus, "is this thy grief for thy +daughter?" + +"My grief is great," answered Photinius, "but my time is small. If I turn +not every moment to account, I shall never be prime minister again. But all +is over now. Thou wilt denounce me, of course. I will give thee a counsel. +Say that thou didst arrive just as we were about to place the effigy of +Basil before a slow fire, and melt it into a caldron of bubbling poison." + +"I shall report what I have seen," replied Chrysostomus, "neither more nor +less. But I think I can assure thee that none will suffer for this mummery +except Panurgiades, and that he will at most be whipped." + +"Chrysostomus," said Basil, on receiving the report, "lust of power, a +fever in youth, is a leprosy in age. The hoary statesman out of place would +sell his daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he would part +with his skin and his senses, were it possible to hold office without them. +I commiserate Photinius, whose faculties are clearly on the decline; the +day has been when he would not have wasted his time sticking pins into a +waxen figure. I will give him some shadow of authority to amuse his old +days and keep him out of mischief. The Abbot of Catangion is just dead. +Photinius shall succeed him." + +So Photinius received the tonsure and the dignity, and made a very +tolerable Abbot. It is even recorded to his honour that he bestowed a +handsome funeral on his old enemy Eustathius. + +Helladia made Chrysostomus an excellent wife, a little over-prudish, some +thought. When, nearly two centuries afterwards, the Courts of Love came to +be established in Provence, the question at issue between her and Euprepia +was referred to those tribunals, which, finding the decision difficult, +adjourned it for seven hundred years. That period having now expired, it is +submitted to the British public. + + + + +THE WISDOM OF THE INDIANS + + +Everybody knows that in the reign of the Emperor Elagabalus Rome was +visited by an embassy from India; whose members, on their way from the +East, had held that memorable interview with the illustrious (though +heretical) Christian philosopher Bardesanes which enabled him to formulate +his doctrine of Fate, borrowed from the Indian theory of Karma, and +therefore, until lately, grievously misunderstood by his commentators. + +It may not, however, be equally notorious that the ambassadors returned by +sea as far as Berytus, and upon landing there were hospitably entertained +by the sage Euphronius, the head of the philosophical faculty of that +University. + +Euphronius naturally inquired what circumstance in Rome had appeared to his +visitors most worthy of remark. + +"The extreme evil of the Emperor's Karma," said they. + +Euphronius requested further explanation. + +"Karma," explained their interpreter, "is that congeries of circumstances +which has necessitated the birth of each individual, and of whose good or +evil he is the incarnation. Every act must needs be attended by +consequences, and as these are usually of too far-reaching a character to +be exhausted in the life of the doer of the action, they cannot but +engender another person by whom they are to be borne. This truth is +popularly expressed by the doctrine of transmigration, according to which +individuals, as the character of their deeds may determine, are re-born as +pigs or peacocks, beggars or princes. But this is a loose and unscientific +way of speaking, for in fact it is not the individual that is re-born, but +the character; which, even as the silkworm clothes itself with silk and the +caddis-worm with mud and small shingle, creates for itself a new +personality, congruous with its own nature. We are therefore led to reflect +what a prodigious multitude of sins some one must have committed ere the +Roman world could be afflicted with such an Emperor as Elagabalus." + +"What have ye found so exceedingly reprehensible in the Emperor's conduct?" +demanded Euphronius. + +"To speak only," said the Indians, "of such of his doings as may fitly be +recited to modest ears, we find him declaring war against Nature, and +delighting in nothing that is not the contrary of what Heaven meant it to +be. We see him bathing in perfumes, sailing ships in wine, feeding horses +on grapes and lions on parrots, peppering fish with pearls, wearing gems on +the soles of his feet, strewing his floor with gold-dust, paving the public +streets with precious marbles, driving teams of stags, scorning to eat fish +by the seaside, deploring his lot that he has never yet been able to dine +on a phoenix. Enormous must have been the folly and wickedness which has +incarnated itself in such a sovereign, and should his reign be prolonged, +discouraging is the prospect for the morals of the next generation. + +"According to you, then," said Euphronius, "the fates of men are not spun +for them by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but by their predecessors?" + +"So it is," said they, "always remembering that man can rid himself of his +Karma by philosophic meditation, combined with religious austerities, and +that if all walked in this path, existence with all its evils would come to +an end. Insomuch that the most bloodthirsty conqueror that ever devastated +the earth hath not destroyed one thousandth part as many existences as the +Lord Buddha." + +"These are abstruse matters," said Euphronius, "and I lament that your stay +in Berytus will not be long enough to instruct me adequately therein." + +"Accompany us to India," said they, "and thou shalt receive instruction at +the fountain head." + +"I am old and feeble," apologised Euphronius, "and adjusted by long habit +to my present environment. Nevertheless I will propound the enterprise to +my pupils, only somewhat repressing their ardour, lest the volunteers +should be inconveniently numerous." + +When, however, the proposition was made not a soul responded; though +Euphronius reproached his disciples severely, and desired them to compare +their want of spirit with his own thirst for knowledge, which, when he was +a young man, had taken him as far as Alexandria to hear a celebrated +rhetorician. In the evening, however, two disciples came to him together, +and professed their readiness to undertake the expedition, if promised a +reward commensurate with its danger and difficulty. + +"Ye would learn the secret of my celebrated dilemma," said he, "which no +sophist can elude? 'Tis much; 'tis immoderate; 'tis enormous; nevertheless, +bring the wisdom of India to Berytus, and the knowledge of the stratagem +shall be yours." + +"No, Master," they said, "it is not thy dilemma of which we are enamoured. +It is thy daughter." + +A vehement altercation ensued, but at length the old philosopher, who at +the bottom of his heart was much readier to part with his daughter than his +dilemma, was induced to promise her to whichever of the pupils should bring +home the most satisfactory exposition of Indian metaphysics: provided +always that during their absence he should not have been compelled to +bestow her hand as the price of a quibble even more subtle than his own: +but this he believed to be impossible. + +Mnesitheus and Rufus accordingly travelled with the embassy to India, and +arrived in safety at the metropolis of Palimbothra. They had wisely devoted +themselves meanwhile to learning the language, and were now able to +converse with some fluency. + +On reaching their destination they were placed under the superintendence of +competent instructors, who were commissioned to initiate them into the +canon of Buddhist scriptures, comprising, to mention only a few of the +principal, the Lalitavistara, the Dhammapada, the Kuddhapatha, the +Palinokkha, the Uragavagga, the Kulavagga, the Mahavagga, the Atthakavagga, +and the Upasampadakammavaca. These works, composed in dead languages, and +written in strange and unknown characters, were further provided with +commentaries more voluminous and inexplicable than the text. + +"Heavens," exclaimed Mnesitheus and Rufus, "can the life of a man suffice +to study all this?" + +"Assuredly not," replied the Indians. "The diligent student will resume his +investigations in a subsequent stage of existence, and, if endowed with +eminent faculties, may hope to attain the end he proposes to himself at the +fifteenth transmigration." + +"The end we propose to ourselves," said the Greeks, "is to marry our +master's daughter. Will the fair Euphronia also have undergone fifteen +transmigrations, and will her charms have continued unimpaired?" + +"It is difficult to pronounce," said they, "for should the maiden, through +the exercise of virtue, have merited to be born as a white elephant, her +transmigrations must in the order of nature be but few; whereas should she +have unfortunately become and remained a rat, a frog, or other shortlived +animal, they cannot but be exceedingly numerous." + +"The prospect of wedding a frog at the end of fifteen transmigrations," +said the youths, "doth not in any respect commend itself to us. Are there +no means by which the course of study may be accelerated?" + +"Undoubtedly," said the Indians, "by the practice of religious +austerities." + +"Of what nature are these?" inquired the young men. + +"The intrepid disciple," said the sages, "may chain himself to a tree, and +gaze upon the sun until he is deprived of the faculty of vision. He may +drive an iron bar through his cheeks and tongue, thus preventing all misuse +of the gift of speech. It is open to him to bury himself in the earth up to +his waist, relying for his maintenance on the alms of pious donors. He may +recline upon a couch studded with spikes, until from the induration of his +skin he shall have merited the title of a rhinoceros among sages. As, +however, these latter practices interfere with locomotion, and thus prevent +his close attendance on his spiritual guide, it is rather recommended to +him to elevate his arms above his head, and retain them in that position +until, by the withering of the sinews, it is impossible for him to bring +them down again." + +"In that case," cried Rufus, "farewell philosophy! farewell Euphronia!" + +There is reason to believe that Mnesitheus would have made exactly the same +observation if Rufus had not been beforehand with him. The spirit of +contradiction and the affectation of superiority, however, led him to +reproach his rival with pusillanimity, and he went so far that at length he +found himself committed to undergo the ordeal: merely stipulating that, in +consideration of his being a foreigner, he should be permitted to elevate +the right arm only. + +The king of the country most graciously came to his assistance by causing +him to be fastened to a tree, with his uplifted arm secured by iron bands +above his head, a fan being put in his other hand to protect him against +the molestations of gnats and mosquitoes. By this means, and with the +assistance of the monks who continually recited and expounded the Buddhist +scriptures in his ears, some time even before his arm had stiffened for +ever, the doctrine of the misery of existence had become perfectly clear to +him. + +Released from his captivity, he hastened back to Europe to claim the +guerdon of his sufferings. History is silent respecting his adventures +until his arrival at Berytus, where the strange wild-looking man with the +uplifted arm found himself the centre of a turbulent and mischievous +rabble. As he seemed about to suffer severe ill-usage, a personage of +dignified and portly appearance hastened up, and with his staff showered +blows to right and left upon the rioters. + +"Scoundrels," he exclaimed, "finely have ye profited by my precepts, thus +to misuse an innocent stranger! But I will no longer dwell among such +barbarians. I will remove my school to Tarsus!" + +The mob dispersed. The victim and his deliverer stood face to face. + +"Mnesitheus!" + +"Rufus!" + +"Call me Rufinianus," corrected the latter; "for such is the appellation +which I have felt it due to myself to assume, since the enhancement of my +dignity by becoming Euphronius's successor and son-in-law." + +"Son-in-law! Am I to lose the reward of my incredible sufferings?" + +"Thou forgettest," said Rufinianus, "that Euphronia's hand was not promised +as the reward of any austerities, but as the meed of the most intelligent, +that is, the most acceptable, account of the Indian philosophy, which in +the opinion of the late eminent Euphronius, has been delivered by me. But +come to my chamber, and let me minister to thy necessities." + +These having been duly attended to, Rufinianus demanded Mnesitheus's +history, and then proceeded to narrate his own. + +"On my journey homeward," said he, "I reflected seriously on the probable +purpose of our master in sending us forth, and saw reason to suspect that I +had hitherto misapprehended it. For I could not remember that he had ever +admitted that he could have anything to learn from other philosophers, or +that he had ever exhibited the least interest in philosophic dogmas, +excepting his own. The system of the Indians, I thought, must be either +inferior to that of Euphronius, or superior. If the former, he will not +want it: if the latter, he will want it much less. I therefore concluded +that our mission was partly a concession to public opinion, partly to +enable him to say that his name was known, and his teaching proclaimed on +the very banks of the Ganges. I formed my plan accordingly, and +disregarding certain indications that I was neither expected nor wanted, +presented myself before Euphronius with a gladsome countenance, slightly +overcast by sorrow on account of thee, whom I affirmed to have been +devoured by a tiger. + +"'Well,' said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, 'and what about this vaunted +wisdom of the Indians?' + +"'The wisdom of the Indians,' I replied, 'is entirely borrowed from +Pythagoras.' + +"'Did I not tell you so? 'Euphronius appealed to his disciples. + +"'Invariably,' they replied. + +"'As if a barbarian could teach a Greek!' said he. + +"'It is much if he is able to learn from one,' said they. + +"'Pythagoras, then,' said Euphronius addressing me,' did not resort to +India to be instructed by the Gymnosophists?' + +"'On the contrary,' I answered, 'he went there to teach them, and the +little knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived from +him. His mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the Ramayana, +wherein he is figuratively represented as allying himself with monkeys. He +is worshipped all over the country under the appellations of Siva, +Kamadeva, Kali, Gautama Buddha, and others too numerous to mention.' + +"When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to +Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called +Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his +good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter's hand without +difficulty. He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, +and I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy. +I am also the author of some admired works, especially a life of +Pythagoras, and a manual of Indian philosophy and religion. I hope for thy +own sake thou wilt forbear to contradict me: for no one will believe thee. +I trust also that thou wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with +respect to Euphronia. I do most honestly and truthfully assure thee that +for a one-armed man like thee to marry her would be most inexpedient, +inasmuch as the defence of one's beard from her, when she is in a state of +excitement, requires the full use of both hands, and of the feet also. But +come with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to her. She is always +taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal attractions, and I +promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture when she finds +thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder. Only, as I have +represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say +that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty." + +"I have learned in the Indian schools," said Mnesitheus, "not to lie for +the benefit of others. I will not see Euphronia; I would not disturb her +ideal of me, nor mine of her. Farewell. May the Rufinianian sect flourish! +and may thy works on Pythagoras and India instruct posterity to the tenth +generation! I return to Palimbothra, where I am held in honour on the +self-same account that here renders me ridiculous. It shall be my study to +enlighten the natives respecting their obligations to Pythagoras, whose +name I did not happen to hear while I abode among them." + + + + +THE DUMB ORACLE + + + Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod: + Few that be filled with the fire of the God. + + + +I + + +In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one of +peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed in the +city of Dorylseum, in Phrygia. Contrary to usage, its revelations were +imparted through the medium of a male priest. It was rarely left unthronged +by devout questioners, whose inquiries were resolved in writing, agreeably +to the method delivered by the pious Lucian, in his work "Concerning False +Prophecy." [*] Sometimes, on extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently +that of the deity, was heard declaring the response from the innermost +recesses of the shrine. The treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with +tripods and goblets, in general wrought from the precious metals; its +coffers were loaded with coins and ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy +suppliants and the copious offerings in kind of the country people provided +superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the temple servitors; while a +rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its guardians, and of the +officiating priest. The latter reverend personage was no less eminent for +prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had rewarded him with +extreme obesity. At length he died, whether of excess in meat or in drink +is not agreed among historians. + +[Footnote: _Pseudomantis_, cap. 19-21.] + +The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally +desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, +elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest, +purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men. So rare a +choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some extraordinary +manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which filled the sacred +authorities with dismay. The responses of the oracle ceased suddenly and +altogether. No revelation was vouchsafed to the pontiff in his slumbers; no +access of prophetic fury constrained him to disclose the secrets of the +future; no voice rang from the shrine; and the unanswered epistles of the +suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on the great altar. As a natural +consequence they speedily ceased to arrive; the influx of offerings into +the treasury terminated along with them; the temple-courts were bare of +worshippers; and the only victims whose blood smoked within them were those +slain by the priest himself, in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of +Apollo. The modest hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he +did not doubt that he had excited the Deity's wrath by some mysterious but +heinous pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous +verdict of all whom he approached. + +One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, and +pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he was +startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, espied +an ancient woman. Her appearance was rather venerable than prepossessing. +He recognised her as one of the inferior ministers of the temple. + +"Reverend mother," he addressed her, "doubtless thou comest to mingle with +mine thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to indicate the +cause, and the remedy of his wrath." + +"No, son," returned the venerable personage, "I propose to occasion no such +needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity. I hold within mine own +hand the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken sanctuary, and +for such consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce equitable, I am +minded to impart the same unto thee." And as the astonished priest made no +answer, she continued: + +"My price is one hundred pieces of gold." + +"Wretch!" exclaimed the priest indignantly, "thy mercenary demand alone +proves the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets of +the Gods. Depart my presence this moment!" + +The old woman retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the incident +soon passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the following +day, at the same hour, the aged woman again stood before him, and said: + +"My price is _two_ hundred pieces of gold." + +Again she was commanded to depart, and again obeyed without a murmur. But +the adventure now occasioned the priest much serious reflection. To his +excited fancy, the patient persistency of the crone began to assume +something of a supernatural character. He considered that the ways of the +Gods are not as our ways, and that it is rather the rule than the exception +with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by +the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the +Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy +might in the end cost the temple the whole of its revenues. The result of +his cogitations was a resolution, if the old woman should present herself +on the following day, to receive her in a different manner. + +Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, "My price is +_three_ hundred pieces of gold." + +"Venerable ambassadress of Heaven," said the priest, "thy boon is granted +thee. Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou mayest." + +The old woman's reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in extending +her open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the three hundred +pieces of gold with as much expedition as was compatible with the frequent +interruptions necessitated by the crone's depositing each successive +handful in a leather pouch; and the scrutiny, divided between jealousy and +affection, which she bestowed on each individual coin. + +"And now," said the priest, when the operation was at length completed, +"fulfil thy share of the compact." + +"The cause of the oracle's silence," returned the old woman, "is the +unworthiness of the minister." + +"Alas! 'tis even as I feared," sighed the priest. "Declare now, wherein +consists my sin?" + +"It consists in this," replied the old woman, "that the beard of thy +understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience +is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear +no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I +seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets, +that thou art an egregious nincompoop." + +And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued: + +"Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the very +nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into the +language of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the few wise +upon the many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more particularly the +former? O silly as the crowds who hitherto have brought their folly here, +but now carry it elsewhere to the profit of wiser men than thou! O fool! to +deem that oracles were rendered by Apollo! How should this be, seeing that +there is no such person? Needs there, peradventure, any greater miracle for +the decipherment of these epistles than a hot needle? [*] As for the +supernatural voice, it doth in truth proceed from a respectable, and in +some sense a sacred personage, being mine own when I am concealed within a +certain recess prepared for me by thy lamented predecessor, whose mistress +I was in youth, and whose coadjutor I have been in age. I am now ready to +minister to thee in the latter capacity. Be ruled by me; exchange thy +abject superstition for common sense; thy childish simplicity for discreet +policy; thy unbecoming spareness for a majestic portliness; thy present +ridiculous and uncomfortable situation for the repute of sanctity, and the +veneration of men. Thou wilt own that this is cheap at three hundred +pieces." + +[Footnote: Lucian.] + +The young priest had hearkened to the crone's discourse with an expression +of the most exquisite distress. When she had finished, he arose, and +disregarding his repulsive companion's efforts to detain him, departed +hastily from the temple. + + + +II + + +It was the young priest's purpose, as soon as he became capable of forming +one, to place the greatest possible distance between himself and the city +of Dorylaeum. The love of roaming insensibly grew upon him, and ere long +his active limbs had borne him over a considerable portion of Asia. His +simple wants were easily supplied by the wild productions of the country, +supplemented when needful by the proceeds of light manual labour. By +degrees the self-contempt which had originally stung him to desperation +took the form of an ironical compassion for the folly of mankind, and the +restlessness which had at first impelled him to seek relief in a change of +scene gave place to a spirit of curiosity and observation. He learned to +mix freely with all orders of men, save one, and rejoiced to find the +narrow mysticism which he had imbibed from his previous education gradually +yielding to contact with the great world. From one class of men, indeed, he +learned nothing--the priests, whose society he eschewed with scrupulous +vigilance, nor did he ever enter the temples of the Gods. Diviners, augurs, +all that made any pretension whatever to a supernatural character, he held +in utter abhorrence, and his ultimate return in the direction of his native +country is attributed to his inability to persevere further in the path he +was following without danger of encountering Chaldean soothsayers, or +Persian magi, or Indian gymnosophists. + +He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was still +at a considerable distance from that region, when one night, as he was +sitting in the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a phrase which +arrested his attention. + +"As true as the oracle of Dorylaeum." The speaker was a countryman, who +appeared to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of the +company as greatly in need of confirmation. The sudden start and stifled +cry of the ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt constrained to ask, +with the most indifferent air he could assume: + +"Is the oracle of Dorylaeum, then, so exceedingly renowned for veracity?" + +"Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?" demanded the countryman, with +some disdain. "Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?" + +"Eubulides!" exclaimed the young traveller, "that is my own name!" + +"Thou mayest well rejoice, then," observed another of the guests, "to bear +the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the happy +Gods. So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who have +often beheld him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, now that I +scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only that thy +namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous +in thee." + +"Divinity!" exclaimed another. "Aye, if Phoebus himself ministered at his +own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than Eubulides." + +"Or predict the future more accurately," added a priest. + +"Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse," subjoined a poet. + +"Yet is it not marvellous," remarked another speaker, "that for some +considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to +deliver a single oracle?" + +"Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of an +aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple." + +"Ha!" exclaimed Eubulides, "how was that?" + +"He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly came +to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully +appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the +root of her tongue." + +"The Gods be praised for that!" ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath. +"Pshaw! as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate this +vile mockery? To keep up the juggle--well, I know it must be so; but to +purloin my name! to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that are not, I +will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour." + +He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the city +of Dorylaeum. The further he progressed in this direction, the louder +became the bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic the +testimonies to the piety, prophetic endowments, and personal attractions of +the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was the theme of +continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the roads swarming with +throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part in a great religious +ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of worship blended +delightfully with the glee of the festival, and Eubulides, who at first +regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his moroseness insensibly +yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He could not but acknowledge +that the imposture he panted to expose was at least the source of much +innocent happiness, and almost wished that the importance of religion, +considered as an engine of policy, had been offered to his contemplation +from this point of view, instead of the sordid and revolting aspect in +which it had been exhibited by the old woman. + +In this ambiguous frame of mind he entered the temple. Before the high +altar stood the officiating priest, a young man, the image, yet not the +image, of himself. Lineament for lineament, the resemblance was exact, but +over the stranger's whole figure was diffused an air of majesty, of +absolute serenity and infinite superiority, which excluded every idea of +deceit, and so awed the young priest that his purpose of rushing forward to +denounce the impostor and drag him from the shrine was immediately and +involuntarily relinquished. As he stood confounded and irresolute, the +melodious voice of the hierophant rang through the temple: + +"Let the priest Eubulides stand forth." + +This summons naturally caused the greatest astonishment in every one but +Eubulides, who emerged as swiftly as he could from the swaying and +murmuring crowd, and confronted his namesake at the altar. A cry of +amazement broke from the multitude as they beheld the pair, whose main +distinction in the eyes of most was their garb. But, as they gazed, the +form of the officiating priest assumed colossal proportions; a circle of +beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth around his head; hyacinthine locks +clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural radiance; a +quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his hand; the majesty +and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented tenfold. Eubulides and +the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, for all recognised Apollo. + +All was silence for a space. It was at length broken by Phoebus. + +"Well, Eubulides," inquired he, with the bland raillery of an Immortal, +"has it at length occurred to thee that I may have been long enough away +from Parnassus, filling thy place here while thou hast been disporting +thyself amid heretics and barbarians?" + +The abashed Eubulides made no response. The Deity continued: + +"Deem not that thou hast in aught excited the displeasure of the Gods. In +deserting their altars for Truth's sake, thou didst render them the most +acceptable of sacrifices, the only one, it may be, by which they set much +store. But, Eubulides, take heed how thou again sufferest the unworthiness +of men to overcome the instincts of thine own nature. Thy holiest +sentiments should not have been at the mercy of a knave. If the oracle of +Dorylaeum was an imposture, hadst thou no oracle in thine own bosom? If the +voice of Religion was no longer breathed from the tripod, were the winds +and waters silent, or had aught quenched the everlasting stars? If there +was no power to impose its mandates from without, couldst thou be +unconscious of a power within? If thou hadst nothing to reveal unto men, +mightest thou not have found somewhat to propound unto them? Know this, +that thou hast never experienced a more truly religious emotion than that +which led thee to form the design of overthrowing this my temple, the +abode, as thou didst deem it, of fraud and superstition." + +"But now, Phoebus," Eubulides ventured to reply, "shall I not return to the +shrine purified by thy presence, and again officiate as thy unworthy +minister?" + +"No, Eubulides," returned Phoebus, with a smile; "silver is good, but not +for ploughshares. Thy strange experience, thy long wanderings, thy lonely +meditations, and varied intercourse with men, have spoiled thee for a +priest, while, as I would fain hope, qualifying thee for a sage. Some +worthy person may easily be found to preside over this temple; and by the +aid of such inspiration as I may from time to time see meet to vouchsafe +him, administer its affairs indifferently well. Do thou, Eubulides, +consecrate thy powers to a more august service than Apollo's, to one that +shall endure when Delphi and Delos know _his_ no more." + +"To whose service, Phoebus?" inquired Eubulides. + +"To the service of Humanity, my son," responded Apollo. + + + + +DUKE VIRGIL + + + +I + + +The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged the +suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had a +Podesta of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a Papal +Legate, incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried dictators, +consuls, praetors, councils of ten, and other numbers odd and even, and ere +the middle of the thirteenth century were luxuriating in the enjoyment of +perfect anarchy. + +An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were forbidden +to propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything new. + +"Why not consult Manto, the alchemist's daughter, our prophetess, our +Sibyl?" the young Benedetto asked at last. + +"Why not?" repeated Eustachio, an elderly man. + +"Why not, indeed?" interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years. + +All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto's lover; Eustachio her +father's friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the +three were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before +proceeding formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain +private interviews, the two elder with Manto's father, the youth with Manto +herself. The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist's +influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went +further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man promised his good word +to both, but when he went to confer with his daughter he found her closeted +with Benedetto, and returned without disburdening himself of his errand. +The youth had just risen from his knees, pleading with her, and drawing +glowing pictures of their felicity when he should be Duke and she Duchess. + +She answered, "Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to rule +another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over my native +city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the dead." + +"And why should not Mantua have a tyrant?" demanded Benedetto. "The freedom +of the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no liberty save +that of making the base-born do his bidding. 'Tis hell to a man of spirit +to be contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my heart's desire on the +knaves, little would I reck submitting to the sway of the Emperor." + +"I know that well, Benedetto," said Manto, "and hence will take good heed +not to counsel Mantua to choose thee. No, the Duke I will give her shall be +one without passions to gratify or injuries to avenge, and shall already be +crowned with a crown to make the ducal cap as nothing in his eyes, if eyes +he had." + +Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward to +announce that the commissioners waited. + +"My projection," he whispered, "only wants one more piece of gold to insure +success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in exchange for +boundless riches!" + +"And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!" said Manto, patting +his cheek. + +The envoys' commission having been unfolded, she took not a moment to +reply, "Be your Duke Virgil." + +The deputation respectfully represented that although Virgil was no doubt +Mantua's greatest citizen, he laboured under the disqualification of having +been dead more than twelve hundred years. Nothing further, however, could +be extorted from the prophetess, and the ambassadors were obliged to +withdraw. + +The interpretation of Manto's oracle naturally provoked much diversity of +opinion in the council. + +"Obviously," said a poet, "the prophetess would have us confer the ducal +dignity upon the contemporary bard who doth most nearly accede to the +vestiges of the divine Maro; and he, as I judge, is even now in the midst +of you." + +"Virgil the poet," said a priest, who had long laboured under the suspicion +of occult practices, "was a fool to Virgil the enchanter. The wise woman +evidently demands one competent to put the devil into a hole--an operation +which I have striven to perform all my life." + +"Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?" inquired Eustachio. + +"Better upon an egg than upon a quack!" retorted the priest. + +But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately conferred +with Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; Leonardo had parts, +but no character. + +"I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess," he +said. "She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in divers +respects preferable to a living one." + +"Surely," said Eustachio, "provided always that the servant is a man of +exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord's withdrawal to +another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices with impunity, but +doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his great taskmaster's +eye." + +"Eustachio," said Leonardo, with admiration, "it is the misery of Mantua +that she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst talk. I +would fain have further discourse with thee." + +The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were +crying, "A Virgil! a Virgil!" + +The councillors reassembled and passed resolutions. + +"But who shall be Regent?" inquired some one when Virgil had been elected +unanimously. + +"Who but we?" asked Eustachio and Leonardo. "Are we not the heads of the +Virgilian party?" + +Thus had the enthusiastic Manto, purest of idealists, installed in +authority the two most unprincipled politicians in the republic; and she +had lost her lover besides, for Benedetto fled the city, vowing vengeance. + +Anyhow, the dead poet was enthroned Duke of Mantua; Eustachio and Leonardo +became Regents, with the style of Consuls, and it was provided that in +doubtful cases reference should be made to the Sortes Virgilianae. And +truly, if we may believe the chronicles, the arrangement worked for a time +surprisingly well. The Mantuans, in an irrational way, had done what it +behoves all communities to do rationally if they can. They had sought for a +good and worthy citizen to rule them; it was their misfortune that such an +one could only be found among the dead. They felt prouder of themselves for +being governed by a great man--one in comparison with whom kings and +pontiffs were the creatures of a day. They would not, if they could help +it, disgrace themselves by disgracing their hero; they would not have it +said that Mantua, which had not been too weak to bear him, had been too +weak to endure his government. The very hucksters and usurers among them +felt dimly that there was such a thing as an Ideal. A glimmering perception +dawned upon mailed, steel-fisted barons that there was such a thing as an +Idea, and they felt uneasily apprehensive, like beasts of prey who have for +the first time sniffed gunpowder. The railleries and mockeries of Mantua's +neighbours, moreover, stimulated Mantua's citizens to persevere in their +course, and deterred them from doing aught to approve themselves fools. +Were not Verona, Cremona, Lodi, Pavia, Crema, cities that could never +enthrone the Virgil they had never produced, watching with undissembled +expectation to see them trip? The hollow-hearted Eustachio and the +rapacious Leonardo, their virtual rulers, might indeed be little sensible +to this enthusiasm, but they could not disregard the general drift of +public opinion, which said clearly: "Mantua is trying a great experiment. +Woe to you if you bring it to nought by your selfish quarrels!" + +The best proof that there was something in Manto's idea was that after a +while the Emperor Frederick took alarm, and signified to the Mantuans that +they must cease their mumming and fooling and acknowledge him as their +sovereign, failing which he would besiege their city. + + + +II + + +Mantua was girt by a zone of fire and steel. Her villas and homesteads +flamed or smoked; her orchards flared heavenward in a torrent of sparks or +stood black sapless trunks charred to their inmost pith; the promise of her +harvests lay as grey ashes over the land. But her ramparts, though breached +in places, were yet manned by her sons, and their assailants recoiled +pierced by the shafts or stunned by the catapults of the defence. Kaiser +Frederick sat in his tent, giving secret audience to one who had stolen in +disguise over from the city in the grey of the morning. By the Emperor's +side stood a tall martial figure, wearing a visor which he never removed. + +"Your Majesty," Leonardo was saying, for it was he, "this madness will soon +pass away. The people will weary of sacrificing themselves for a dead +heathen." + +"And Liberty?" asked the Emperor, "is not that a name dear to those +misguided creatures?" + +"So dear, please your Majesty, that if they have but the name they will +perfectly dispense with the thing. I do not advise that your imperial yoke +should be too palpably adjusted to their stiff necks. Leave them in +appearance the choice of their magistrate, but insure its falling upon one +of approved fidelity, certain to execute obsequiously all your Majesty's +mandates; such an one, in short, as your faithful vassal Leonardo. It would +only be necessary to decapitate that dangerous revolutionist, Eustachio." + +"And the citizens are really ready for this?" + +"All the respectable citizens. All of whom your Majesty need take account. +All men of standing and substance." + +"I rejoice to hear it," said the Emperor, "and do the more readily credit +thee inasmuch as a most virtuous and honourable citizen hath already been +beforehand with thee, assuring me of the same thing, and affirming that but +one traitor, whose name, methinks, sounded like thine, stands between me +and the subjugation of Mantua." + +And, withdrawing a curtain, he disclosed the figure of Eustachio. + +"I thought he was asleep," muttered Eustachio. + +"That noodle to have been beforehand with me!" murmured Leonardo. + +"What perplexes me," continued Frederick, after enjoying the confusion of +the pair for a few moments, "is that our masked friend here will have it +that he is the man for the Dukedom, and offers to open the gates to me by a +method of his own." + +"By fair fighting, an' please my liege," observed the visored personage, +"not by these dastardly treacheries." + +"How inhuman!" sighed Eustachio. + +"How old-fashioned!" sneered Leonardo. + +"The truth is," continued Frederick, "he gravely doubts whether either of +you possesses the influence which you allege, and has devised a method of +putting this to the proof, which I trust will commend itself to you." + +Leonardo and Eustachio expressed their readiness to submit their credit +with their fellow-citizens to any reasonable trial. + +"He proposes, then," pursued the Emperor, "that ye, disarmed and bound, +should be placed at the head of the storming column, and in that situation +should, as questionless ye would, exert your entire moral influence with +your fellow-citizens to dissuade them from shooting you. If the column, +thus shielded, enters the city without resistance, ye will both have earned +the Dukedom, and the question who shall have it may be decided by single +combat between yourselves. But should the people, rather than submit to our +clemency, impiously slay their elected magistrates, it will be apparent +that the methods of our martial friend are the only ones corresponding to +the exigency of the case. Is the storming column ready?" + +"All but the first file, please your Majesty," responded the man in the +visor. + +"Let it be equipped," returned Frederick, and in half-an-hour Eustachio and +Leonardo, their hands tied behind them, were stumbling up the breach, +impelled by pikes in the rear, and confronting the catapults, _chevaux de +frise_, hidden pitfalls, Greek fire, and boiling water provided by their +own direction, and certified to them the preceding evening as all that +could be desired. They had, however, the full use of their voices, and this +they turned to the best account. Never had Leonardo been so cogent, or +Eustachio so pathetic. The Mantuans, already disorganised by the +unaccountable disappearance of the Executive, were entirely irresolute what +to do. As they hesitated the visored chief incited his followers. All +seemed lost, when a tall female figure appeared among the defenders. It was +Manto. + +"Fools and cowards!" she exclaimed, "must ye learn your duty from a woman?" + +And, seizing a catapult, she discharged a stone which laid the masked +warrior stunned and senseless on the ground. The next instant Eustachio and +Leonardo fell dead, pierced by showers of arrows. The Mantuans sallied +forth. The dismayed Imperialists fled to their camp. The bodies of the +fallen magistrates and of the unconscious chieftain in the mask were +brought into the city. Manto herself undid the fallen man's visor, and +uttered a fearful shriek as she recognised Benedetto. + +"What shall be done with him, mistress?" they asked. + +Manto long stood silent, torn by conflicting emotions. At length she said, +in a strange, unnatural voice: + +"Put him into the Square Tower." + +"And now, mistress, what further? How to choose the new consuls?" + +"Ask me no more," she said. "I shall never prophesy again. Virtue has gone +away from me." + +The leaders departed, to intrigue for the vacant posts, and devise +tortures for Benedetto. Manto sat on the rampart, still and silent as its +stones. Anon she rose, and roved about as if distraught, reciting verses +from Virgil. + +Night had fallen. Benedetto lay wakeful in his cell. A female figure stood +before him bearing a lamp. It was Manto. + +"Benedetto," she said, "I am a wretch, faithless to my country and to my +master. I did but even now open his sacred volume at hazard, and on what +did my eye first fall? + + Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. + +But I can no other. I am a woman. May Mantua never entrust her fortunes to +the like of me again! Come with me, I will release thee." + +She unlocked his chains; she guided him through the secret passage under +the moat; they stood at the exit, in the open air. + +"Fly," she said, "and never again draw sword against thy mother. I will +return to my house, and do that to myself which it behoved me to have done +ere I released thee." + +"Manto," exclaimed Benedetto "a truce to this folly! Forsake thy dead Duke, +and that cheat of Liberty more crazy and fantastic still. Wed a living Duke +in me!" + +"Never!" exclaimed Manto. "I love thee more than any man living on earth, +and I would not espouse thee if the earth held no other." + +"Thou canst not help thyself," he rejoined; "thou hast revealed to me the +secret of this passage. I hasten to the camp. I return in an hour with an +army, and wilt thou, wilt thou not, to-morrow's sun shall behold thee the +partner of my throne!" + +Manto wore a poniard. She struck Benedetto to the heart, and he fell dead. +She drew the corpse back into the passage, and hurried to her home. Opening +her master's volume again, she read: + + Taedet coeli convexa tueri. + +A few minutes afterwards her father entered the chamber to tell her he had +at last found the philosopher's stone, but, perceiving his daughter hanging +by her girdle, he forbore to intrude upon her, and returned to his +laboratory. + +It was time. A sentinel of the besiegers had marked Benedetto's fall, and +the disappearance of the body into the earth. A pool of blood revealed the +entrance to the passage. Ere sunrise Mantua was full of Frederick's +soldiers, full also of burning houses, rifled sanctuaries, violated +damsels, children playing with their dead mothers' breasts, especially full +of citizens protesting that they had ever longed for the restoration of the +Emperor, and that this was the happiest day of their lives. Frederick +waited till everybody was killed, then entered the city and proclaimed an +amnesty. Virgil's bust was broken, and his writings burned with Manto's +body. The flames glowed on the dead face, which gleamed as it were with +pleasure. The old alchemist had been slain among his crucibles; his scrolls +were preserved with jealous care. + +But Manto found another father. She sat at Virgil's feet in Elysium; and as +he stroked the fair head, now golden with perpetual youth, listened to his +mild reproofs and his cheerful oracles. By her side stood a bowl filled +with the untasted waters of Lethe. + +"Woe," said Virgil--but his manner contradicted his speech--"woe to the +idealist and enthusiast! Woe to them who live in the world to come! Woe to +them who live only for a hope whose fulfilment they will not behold on +earth! Drink not, therefore, of that cup, dear child, lest Duke Virgil's +day should come, and thou shouldst not know it. For come it will, and all +the sooner for thy tragedy and thy comedy." + + + + +THE CLAW + + +The balm and stillness of a summer's night enveloped a spacious piazza in +the city of Shylock and Desdemona. The sky teemed with light drifting +clouds through which the beaming of the full moon broke at intervals upon +some lamp-lit palace, thronged and musical, for it was a night of +festivity, or silvered the dull creeping waters. Ever and anon some richly +attired young patrician descended the steps of one or other of these +mansions, and hurried across the wide area to the canal stairs, where his +gondola awaited him. Whoever did this could not but observe a tall female +figure, which, cloaked and masked, walked backwards and forwards across the +piazza, regarding no one, yet with an air that seemed to invite a +companion. + +More than one of the young nobles approached the presumably fair +peripatetic, and, with courtesy commonly in inverse ratio to the amount of +wine he was carrying home, proffered his escort to his gondola. Whenever +this happened the figure removed her mask and unclasped her robe, and +revealed a sight which for one moment rooted the young man to the earth and +in the next sent him scampering to his bark. For the countenance was a +death's head, and the breast was that of a mouldering skeleton. + +At last, however, a youth presented himself who, more courageous or more +tipsy than his fellows, or more helplessly paralysed with horror than they, +did not decline the proffered caress, and suffered himself to be drawn +within the goblin's accursed embrace. Valiant or pot-valiant, great was his +relief at finding himself clasped, instead of by a loathsome spectre, by a +silver-haired man of noble presence, yet with a countenance indescribably +haggard and anxious. + +"Come, my son," he cried, "hasten whither the rewards of thy intrepidity +await thee. Impouch the purse of Fortunatus! Indue the signet of Solomon!" + +The young man hesitated. "Is there nought else?" he cautiously demanded. +"Needs it not that I should renounce my baptism? Must I not subscribe an +infernal compact?" + +"In thy own blood, my son," cheerfully responded the old gentleman. + +"Peradventure," hesitatingly interrogated the youth, "peradventure you are +_he_?" + +"Not so, my son, upon honour," returned the mysterious personage. "I am but +a distressed magician, at this present in fearful straits, from which I +look to be delivered by thee." + +The youth gazed some moments at his companion's head, and then still more +earnestly at his feet. He then yielded his own hand to him, and the pair +crossed the piazza, almost at a run, the magician ever ejaculating, "Speed! +speed!" + +They paused at the foot of a lofty tower, doorless and windowless, with no +visible access of any kind. But the magician signed with his hand, +pronounced some cabalistical words, and instantly stone and lime fell +asunder and revealed an entrance through which they passed, and which +immediately closed behind them. The youth quaked at finding himself alone +in utter darkness with he knew not what, but the wizard whistled, and a +severed hand appeared in air bearing a lamp which illuminated a long +winding staircase. The old man motioned to the youth to precede him, nor +dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would have given the world for +the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint. The distorted shadows +of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the wavering lamp-shine, +seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and he glanced back ever and +anon weening to see himself dogged by some frightful monster, but he saw +only the silver hair and sable velvet of the dignified old man. + +After the ascent of many steps a door opened before them, and they found +themselves in a spacious chamber, brightly, yet from its size imperfectly +illumined by a single large lamp. It was wainscoted with ebony, and the +furniture was of the same. A long table was covered with scrolls, skulls, +crucibles, crystals, star-charts, geomantic figures, and other +appurtenances of a magician's calling. Tomes of necromantic lore lined the +walls, which were yet principally occupied with crystal vessels, in which +foul beings seemed dimly and confusedly to agitate themselves. + +The magician signed to his visitor to be seated, sat down himself and +began: + +"Brave youth, ere entering upon the boundless power and riches that await +thee, learn who I am and why I have brought thee here. Behold in me no +vulgar wizard, no mere astrologer or alchemist, but a compeer of Merlin and +Michael Scott, with whose name it may be the nurse of thy infancy hath +oft-times quelled thy froward humours. I am Peter of Abano, falsely +believed to have lain two centuries buried in the semblance of a dog under +a heap of stones hurled by the furious populace, but in truth walking earth +to this day, in virtue of the compact now to be revealed to thee. Hearken, +my son! Vain must be the machinations of my enemies, vain the onslaughts of +the rabble, so long as I fulfil a certain contract registered in hell's +chancery, as I have now done these three hundred years. And the condition +is this, that every year I present unto the Demon one who hath at my +persuasion assigned his soul to him in exchange for power, riches, +knowledge, magical gifts, or whatever else his heart chiefly desireth; nor +until this present year have I perilled the fulfilment of my obligation. +Seest thou these scrolls? They are the assignments of which I have spoken. +It would amaze thee to scan the subscriptions, and perceive in these the +signatures of men exemplary in the eyes of their fellows, clothed with high +dignities in Church and State--nay sometimes redolent of the very odour of +sanctity. Never hath my sagacity deceived me until this year, when, smitten +with the fair promise of a youth of singular impishness, I omitted to take +due note of his consumptive habit, and have but this afternoon encountered +his funeral. This is the last day of my year, and should my engagement be +unredeemed when the sun attains the cusp of that nethermost house of heaven +which he is even now traversing, I must become an inmate of the infernal +kingdom. No time has remained for nice investigation. I have therefore +proved the courage of the Venetian youth in the manner thou knowest, and +thou alone hast sustained the ordeal. Fail not at my bidding, or thou +quittest not this chamber alive. For when the Demon comes to bear me away, +he will assuredly rend thee in pieces for being found in my company. Thou +hast, therefore, everything to gain and nothing to lose by joining the +goodly fellowship of my mates and partners. Delay not, time urges, night +deepens, they that would drink thy blood are abroad. Hearest thou not the +moaning and pelting of the rising storm, and the muttering and scraping of +my imprisoned goblins? Save us, I entreat, I command, save us both!" + +Screaming with agitation the aged sorcerer laid a scroll engrossed with +fairly written characters before the youth, stabbed the latter's arm with a +stylus that at once evoked and collected the crimson stream, thrust this +into his hand and strove to guide it to the parchment, chanting at the same +time litanies to the infernal powers. The crystal flagons rang like one +great harmonica with shrill but spirit-stirring music; volumes of vaporous +perfumes diffused themselves through the apartment, and an endless +procession of treasure-laden figures defiled before the bewildered youth. +He seemed buried in the opulence of the world, as he sat up to his waist in +gold and jewels; all the earth's beauty gazed at him through eyes brilliant +and countless as the stars of heaven; courtiers beckoned him to thrones; +battle-steeds neighed and pawed for his mounting; laden tables allured +every appetite; vassals bent in homage; slaves fell prostrate at his feet. +Now he seemed to collect or disperse legions of spirits with the waving of +a wand; anon, as he pronounced a spell, golden dragons glided away from +boughs laden with golden fruits. Well for him, doubtless, that in him +Nature had kneaded from ordinary clay as unimaginative a youth as could be +found in Venice: yet even so, dazzled with glamour, intoxicated with +illusion, less and less able to resist the cunningly mingled caresses, +entreaties, and menaces of Abano, he could not refrain from tracing a few +characters with the stylus, when, catching reflected in a mirror the old +magician's expression of wolfish glee, he dropped the instrument from his +grasp, and cast his eye upwards as if appealing to Heaven. But every drop +of blood seemed frozen in his frame as he beheld an enormous claw thrust +through the roof, member as it seemed of some being too gigantic to be +contained in the chamber or the tower itself. Cold, poignant, glittering as +steel, it rested upon a socket of the repulsive hue of jaundiced ivory, +with no vestige of a foot or anything to relieve its naked horror as, rigid +and lifeless, yet plainly with a mighty force behind it, it pointed at the +magician's heart. As Abano, following the youth's eye, caught sight of the +portent, his visage assumed an expression of frantic horror, his spells +died upon his lips, and the gorgeous figures became grinning apes or +blotchy toads: madly he seized the young man's hand, and strove to force +him to complete his signature. The robust youth felt as an infant in his +grasp, but ere the stylus could be again thrust upon him the first stroke +of the midnight hour rang through the chamber, and instantly the gigantic +talon pierced Abano from breast to back, projecting far beyond his +shoulders, and swept him upwards to the roof, through which both +disappeared without leaving a trace of their passage. + +Horror and thankfulness rushed together into the young man's mind, and +there contended for some brief instants: but as the last stroke sounded all +the crystal vials shivered with a stunning crash, and their hellish +inmates, rejoicing in their deliverance, swarmed into the chamber. All made +for the youth, who, tugged, clawed, fondled, bitten, beslimed, blinded, +deafened, beset in every way by creatures of indescribable loathsomeness, +grasped frantically as his sole weapon, the stylus; but it had become a +writhing serpent. This was too much, sense forsook him on the spot. + +On recovering consciousness he found himself stretched on a pallet in the +dungeons of the Inquisition. The Inquisitors sat on their tribunals; +black-robed familiars flitted about, or waited attentive upon their orders; +one expert in ecclesiastical jurisprudence proved the edge of an axe, and +another heated pincers in a chafing-dish; dismal groans pierced the massy +walls; two sturdy fellows, stripped to the waist, adjusted the rollers of a +rack. A surgeon approached the bedside, bearing a phial and a lancet. The +youth screamed and again became insensible. + +But his affright was groundless. The Inquisitors had already taken +cognisance of Abano's scrolls, and found that, touching these at least, he +had spoken sooth. Besides kings, princes, ministers, magistrates, and other +secular persons who had owed their success in life to dealings with the +devil under his mediation, the infernal bondsmen included so many pillars +of the Church and champions of the Faith; prelates plenty, abbots in +abundance, cardinals not a few, a (some whispered _the_) Pope; above all, +so many of the Inquisitors themselves, that further inquiry could evidently +nowise conduce to edification. The surgeon, therefore, infused an opiate +into the veins of the unconscious youth, and he came to himself upon a +galley speeding him to the holy war in Cyprus, where he fell fighting the +Turk. + + + + +ALEXANDER THE RATCATCHER + + +"Alexander Octavus mures, qui Urbem supra modum vexabant, anathemate +perculit."[--_Palatius. Fasti Cardinalium_, tom. v.p. 46.] + + + +I + + +"Rome and her rats are at the point of battle!" + +This metaphor of Menenius Agrippa's became, history records, matter of fact +in 1689, when rats pervaded the Eternal City from garret to cellar, and +Pope Alexander the Eighth seriously apprehended the fate of Bishop Hatto. +The situation worried him sorely; he had but lately attained the tiara at +an advanced age--the twenty-fourth hour, as he himself remarked in +extenuation of his haste to enrich his nephews. The time vouchsafed for +worthier deeds was brief, and he dreaded descending to posterity as the Rat +Pope. Witty and genial, his sense of humour teased him with a full +perception of the absurdity of his position. Peter and Pasquin concurred in +forbidding him to desert his post; and he derived but small comfort from +the ingenuity of his flatterers, who compared him to St. Paul contending +with beasts at Ephesus. + +It wanted three half-hours to midnight, as Alexander sat amid traps and +ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican, under the protection of two +enormous cats and a British terrier. A silver bell stood ready to his hand, +should the aid of the attendant chamberlains be requisite. The walls had +been divested of their tapestries, and the floor gleamed with pounded +glass. A tome of legendary lore lay open at the history of the Piper of +Hamelin. All was silence, save for the sniffing and scratching of the dog +and a sound of subterranean scraping and gnawing. + +"Why tarries Cardinal Barbadico thus?" the Pope at last asked himself +aloud. The inquiry was answered by a wild burst of squeaking and clattering +and scurrying to and fro, as who should say, "We've eaten him! We've eaten +him!" + +But this exultation was at least premature, for just as the terrified Pope +clutched his bell, the door opened to the narrowest extent compatible with +the admission of an ecclesiastical personage of dignified presence, and +Cardinal Barbadico hastily squeezed himself through. + +"I shall hardly trust myself upon these stairs again," he remarked, "unless +under the escort of your Holiness's terrier." + +"Take him, my son, and a cruse of holy water to boot," the Pope responded. +"Now, how go things in the city?" + +"As ill as may be, your Holiness. Not a saint stirs a finger to help us. +The country-folk shun the city, the citizens seek the country. The +multitude of enemies increases hour by hour. They set at defiance the +anathemas fulminated by your Holiness, the spiritual censures placarded in +the churches, and the citation to appear before the ecclesiastical courts, +although assured that their cause shall be pleaded by the ablest advocates +in Rome. The cats, amphibious with alarm, are taking to the Tiber. Vainly +the city reeks with toasted cheese, and the Commissary-General reports +himself short of arsenic." + +"And how are the people taking it?" demanded Alexander. "To what cause do +they attribute the public calamity?" + +"Generally speaking, to the sins of your Holiness," replied the Cardinal. + +"Cardinal!" exclaimed Alexander indignantly. + +"I crave pardon for my temerity," returned Barbadico. "It is with +difficulty that I force myself to speak, but I am bound to lay the +ungrateful truth before your Holiness. The late Pope, as all men know, was +a personage of singular sanctity." + +"Far too upright for this fallen world," observed Alexander with unction. + +"I will not dispute," responded the Cardinal, "that the head of Innocent +the Eleventh might have been more fitly graced by a halo than by a tiara. +But the vulgar are incapable of placing themselves at this point of view. +They know that the rats hardly squeaked under Innocent, and that they swarm +under Alexander. What wonder if they suspect your Holiness of familiarity +with Beelzebub, the patron of vermin, and earnestly desire that he would +take you to himself? Vainly have I represented to them the unreasonableness +of imposing upon him a trouble he may well deem superfluous, considering +your Holiness's infirm health and advanced age. Vainly, too, have I pointed +out that your anathema has actually produced all the effect that could +have been reasonably anticipated from any similar manifesto on your +predecessor's part. They won't see it. And, in fact, might I humbly advise, +it does appear impolitic to hurl anathemas unless your Holiness knows that +some one will be hit. It might be opportune, for example, to excommunicate +Father Molinos, now fast in the dungeons of St. Angelo, unless, indeed, the +rats have devoured him there. But I question the expediency of going much +further." + +"Cardinal," said the Pope, "you think yourself prodigiously clever, but you +ought to know that the state of public opinion allowed us no alternative. +Moreover, I will give you a wrinkle, in case you should ever come to be +Pope yourself. It is unwise to allow ancient prerogatives to fall entirely +into desuetude. Far-seeing men prognosticate a great revival of +sacerdotalism in the nineteenth century, and what is impotent in an age of +sense may be formidable in an age of nonsense. Further, we know not from +one day to another whether we may not be absolutely necessitated to +excommunicate that fautor of Gallicanism, Louis the Fourteenth, and before +launching our bolt at a king, we may think well to test its efficacy upon a +rat. _Fiat experimentum._ And now to return to our rats, from which we have +ratted. Is there indeed no hope?" + +"_Lateat scintillula forsan_," said the Cardinal mysteriously. + +"Ha! How so?" eagerly demanded Alexander. + +"Our hopes," answered the Cardinal, "are associated with the recent advent +to this city of an extraordinary personage." + +"Explain," urged the Pope. + +"I speak," resumed the Cardinal, "of an aged man of no plebeian mien or +bearing, albeit most shabbily attired in the skins, now fabulously cheap, +of the vermin that torment us; who, professing to practise as an herbalist, +some little time ago established himself in an obscure street of no good +repute. A tortoise hangs in his needy shop, nor are stuffed alligators +lacking. Understanding that he was resorted to by such as have need of +philters and love-potions, or are incommoded by the longevity of parents +and uncles, I was about to have him arrested, when I received a report +which gave me pause. This concerned the singular intimacy which appeared to +subsist between him and our enemies. When he left home, it was averred, he +was attended by troops of them obedient to his beck and call, and spies had +observed him banqueting them at his counter, the rats sitting erect and +comporting themselves with perfect decorum. I resolved to investigate the +matter for myself. Looking into his house through an unshuttered window, I +perceived him in truth surrounded by feasting and gambolling rats; but when +the door was opened in obedience to my attendants' summons, he appeared to +be entirely alone. Laying down a pestle and mortar, he greeted me by name +with an easy familiarity which for the moment quite disconcerted me, and +inquired what had procured him the honour of my visit. Recovering myself, +and wishing to intimidate him: + +"'I desire in the first place,' I said, 'to point out to you your grave +transgression of municipal regulations in omitting to paint your name over +your shop.' + +"'Call me Rattila,' he rejoined with unconcern, 'and state your further +business.' + +"I felt myself on the wrong tack, and hastened to interrogate him +respecting his relations with our adversaries. He frankly admitted his +acquaintance with rattery in all its branches, and his ability to deliver +the city from this scourge, but his attitude towards your Holiness was so +deficient in respect that I question whether I ought to report it." + +"Proceed, son," said the Pope; "we will not be deterred from providing for +the public weal by the ribaldry of a ratcatcher." + +"He scoffed at what he termed your Holiness's absurd position, and affirmed +that the world had seldom beheld, or would soon behold again, so ridiculous +a spectacle as a Pope besieged by rats. 'I can help your master,' he +continued, 'and am willing; but my honour, like his, is aspersed in the +eyes of the multitude, and he must come to my aid, if I am to come to his.' + +"I prayed him to be more explicit, and offered to be the bearer of any +communication to your Holiness. + +"'I will unfold myself to no one but the Pope himself,' he replied, 'and +the interview must take place when and where I please to appoint. Let him +meet me this very midnight, and alone, in the fifth chamber of the +Appartamento Borgia.' + +"'The Appartamento Borgia!' I exclaimed in consternation. 'The saloons +which the wicked Pope Alexander the Sixth nocturnally perambulates, +mingling poisons that have long lost their potency for Cardinals who have +long lost their lives!' + +"'Have a care!' he exclaimed sharply. 'You speak to his late Holiness's +most intimate friend.' + +"'Then,' I answered, 'you must obviously be the Devil, and I am not at +present empowered to negotiate with your Infernal Majesty. Consider, +however, the peril and inconvenience of visiting at dead of night rooms +closed for generations. Think of the chills and cobwebs. Weigh the +probability of his Holiness being devoured by rats.' + +"'I guarantee his Holiness absolute immunity from cold,' he replied, 'and +that none of my subjects shall molest him either going or returning.' + +"'But,' I objected, 'granting that you are not the Devil, how the devil, +let me ask, do you expect to gain admittance at midnight to the +Appartamento Borgia?' + +"'Think you I cannot pass through a stone wall?' answered he, and vanished +in an instant. A tremendous scampering of rats immediately ensued, then all +was silence. + +"On recovering in some measure from my astounded condition, I caused strict +search to be made throughout the shop. Nothing came to light but +herbalists' stuff and ordinary medicines. And now, Holy Father, your +Holiness's resolution? Reflect well. This Rattila may be the King of the +Rats, or he may be Beelzebub in person." + +Alexander the Eighth was principally considered by his contemporaries in +the light of a venerable fox, but the lion had by no means been omitted +from his composition. + +"All powers of good forbid," he exclaimed, "that a Pope and a Prince should +shrink from peril which the safety of the State summons him to encounter! +I will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of his own +appointing, under his late intimate friend's very nose. I am a man of many +transgressions, but something assures me that Heaven will not deem this a +fit occasion for calling them to remembrance. Time presses; I lead on; +follow, Cardinal Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let us not forget temporal +and spiritual armouries." + +And hastily providing himself with a lamp, a petronel, a bunch of keys, a +crucifix, a vial of holy water, and a manual of exorcisms, the Pope passed +through a secret door in a corner of his chamber, followed by the Cardinal +bearing another lamp and a naked sword, and preceded by the dog and the two +cats, all ardent and undaunted as champions bound to the Holy Land for the +recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. + + + +II + + +The wizard had kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the +pilgrimage, which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the +number of passages to be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length the +companions stood before the portal of the Appartamento Borgia. + +"Your Holiness must enter alone," Cardinal Barbadico admonished, with +manifest reluctance. + +"Await my return," enjoined the Pontiff, in a tone of more confidence than +he could actually feel, as, after much grinding and grating, the massive +door swung heavily back, and he passed on into the dim, unexplored space +beyond. The outer air, streaming in as though eager to indemnify itself for +years of exile, smote and swayed the flame of the Pope's lamp, whose feeble +ray flitted from floor to ceiling as the decrepit man, weary with the way +he had traversed and the load he was bearing, tottered and stumbled +painfully along, ever and anon arrested by a closed door, which he unlocked +with prodigious difficulty. The cats cowered close to the Cardinal; the dog +at first accompanied the Pope, but whined so grievously, as though he +beheld a spirit, that Alexander bade him back. + +Supreme is the spell of the _genius loci_. The chambers traversed by the +Pope were in fact adorned with fair examples of the painter's art, mostly +scriptural in subject, but some inspired with the devout Pantheism in which +all creeds are reconciled. All were alike invisible to the Pontiff, who, +with the dim flicker of his lamp, could no more discern Judaea wed with +Egypt on the frescoed ceiling than, with the human limitation of his +faculties, he could foresee that the ill-reputed rooms would one day +harbour a portion of the Vatican Library, so greatly enriched by himself. +Nothing but sinister memories and vague alarms presented themselves to his +imagination. The atmosphere, heavy and brooding from the long exclusion of +the outer air, seemed to weigh upon him with the density of matter, and to +afford the stuff out of which phantasmal bodies perpetually took shape and, +as he half persuaded himself, substance. Creeping and tottering between +bowl and cord, shielding himself with lamp and crucifix from Michelotto's +spectral poniard and more fearful contact with fleshless Vanozzas and +mouldering Giulias, the Pope urged, or seemed to urge, his course amid +phantom princes and cardinals, priests and courtesans, soldiers and +serving-men, dancers, drinkers, dicers, Bacchic and Cotyttian workers of +whatsoever least beseemed the inmates of a Pontifical household, until, +arrived in the fifth chamber, close by the, to him, invisible picture of +the Resurrection, he sank exhausted into a spacious chair that seemed +placed for his reception, and for a moment closed his eyes. Opening them +immediately afterwards, he saw with relief that the phantoms had vanished, +and that he confronted what at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient +ratcatcher, habited precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for +all his mean apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the +potentates of the earth on other subjects than the extermination of rats. + +"This is noble of your Holiness--really," he said, bowing with mock +reverence. "A second Leo the Great!" + +"I tell you what, my man," responded Alexander, feeling it very necessary +to assert his dignity while any of it remained, "you are not to imagine +that, because I have humoured you so far as to grant you an audience at an +unusual place and time, I am going to stand any amount of your nonsense and +impertinence. You can catch our rats, can you? Catch them then, and you +need not fear that we shall treat you like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. You +have committed sundry rascalities, no doubt? A pardon shall be made out +for you. You want a patent or a privilege for your ratsbane? You shall have +it. So to work, in the name of St. Muscipulus! and you may keep the tails +and skins." + +"Alexander," said the ratcatcher composedly, "I would not commend or +dispraise you unduly, but this I may say, that of all the Popes I have +known you are the most exuberant in hypocrisy and the most deficient in +penetration. The most hypocritical, because you well know, and know that I +know that you know, that you are not conversing with an ordinary +ratcatcher: had you deemed me such, you would never have condescended to +meet me at this hour and place. The least penetrating, because you +apparently have not yet discovered to whom you are speaking. Do you really +mean to say that you do not know me?" + +"I believe I have seen your face before," said Alexander, "and all the more +likely as I was inspector of prisons when I was Cardinal." + +"Then look yonder," enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the frescoed +wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers. Phosphoric sparks +hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue lambent flame, which +concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose precise attitude the +ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees. The Pope shrieked with +amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical vestments had become +ragged fur, in every other respect the kneeling figure was the counterpart +of the painted one, and the painted one was Pinturicchio's portrait of Pope +Alexander the Sixth kneeling as a witness of the Resurrection. + +Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor's attitude, +but terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his patron St. +Mark which struggled towards his lips never arrived there. The book of +exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water lay in +shivers upon the floor. Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope had +seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the grave, and, fondling a +ferret-skin, proceeded to enter into conversation. + +"What fear you?" he asked. "Why should I harm you? None can say that I ever +injured any one for any cause but my own advantage, and to injure your +Holiness now would be to obstruct a design which I have particularly at +heart." + +"I crave your Holiness's forgiveness," rejoined the Eighth Alexander, "but +you must be aware that you left the world with a reputation which +disqualifies you for the society of any Pope in the least careful of his +character. It positively compromises me to have so much as the ghost of a +person so universally decried as your Holiness under my roof, and you would +infinitely oblige me by forthwith repairing to your own place, which I take +to be about four thousand miles below where you are sitting. I could +materially facilitate and accelerate your Holiness's transit thither if you +would be so kind as to hand me that little book of exorcisms." + +"How is the fine gold become dim!" exclaimed Alexander the Sixth. "Popes in +bondage to moralists! Popes nervous about public opinion! Is there another +judge of morals than the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_, as I always did? Is +the Church to frame herself after the prescriptions of heathen +philosophers and profane jurists? How, then, shall she be terrible as an +army with banners? Did I concern myself with such pedantry when the Kings +of Spain and Portugal came to me like cats suing for morsels, and I gave +them the West and the East?" + +"It is true," Alexander the Eighth allowed, "that the lustre of the Church +hath of late been obfuscated by the prevalence of heresy." + +"It isn't the heretics," Borgia insisted. "It is the degeneracy of the +Popes. A shabby lot! You, Alexander, are about the best of them; but the +least Cardinal about my Court would have thought himself bigger than you." + +Alexander's spirit rose. "I would suggest," he said, "that this haughty +style is little in keeping with the sordid garb wherein your Holiness, +consistent after death as in your life, masquerades to the scandal and +distress of the faithful." + +"How can I other? Has your Holiness forgotten your Rabelais?" + +"The works of that eminent Doctor and Divine," answered Alexander the +Eighth, "are seldom long absent from my hands, yet I fail to remember in +what manner they elucidate the present topic." + +"Let me refresh your memory," rejoined Borgia, and, producing a volume of +the Sage of Meudon, he turned to the chapter descriptive of the employments +of various eminent inhabitants of the nether world, and pointed to the +sentence: + +"LE PAPE ALEXANDRE ESTOYT PRENEUR DE RATZ." [*] + +[Footnote: _Pantagruel_, Book XI. ch. 30.] + +"Is this indeed sooth?" demanded his successor. + +"How else should Francois Rabelais have affirmed it?" responded Borgia. +"When I arrived in the subterranean kingdom, I found it in the same +condition as your Holiness's dominions at the present moment, eaten up by +rats. The attention which, during my earthly pilgrimage, I had devoted to +the science of toxicology indicated me as a person qualified to abate the +nuisance, which commission I executed with such success, that I received +the appointment of Ratcatcher to his Infernal Majesty, and so discharged +its duties as to merit a continuance of the good opinion which had always +been entertained of me in that exalted quarter. After a while, however, +interest began to be made for me in even more elevated spheres. I had not +been able to cram Heaven with Spaniards, as I had crammed the Sacred +College--on the contrary. Truth to speak, my nation has not largely +contributed to the population of the regions above. But some of us are +people of consequence. My great-grandson, the General of the Jesuits, who, +as such, had the ear of St. Ignatius Loyola, represented that had I adhered +strictly to my vows, he could never have come into existence, and that the +Society would thus have wanted one of its brightest ornaments. This +argument naturally had great weight with St. Ignatius, the rather as he, +too, was my countryman. Much also was said of the charity I had shown to +the exiled Jews, which St. Dominic was pleased to say made him feel ashamed +of himself when he came to think of it; for my having fed my people in time +of dearth, instead of contriving famines to enrich myself, as so many +Popes' nephews have done since; and of the splendid order in which I kept +the College of Cardinals. Columbus said a good word for me, and Savonarola +did not oppose. Finally I was allowed to come upstairs, and exercise my +profession on earth. But mark what pitfalls line the good man's path! I +never could resist tampering with drugs of a deleterious nature, and was +constantly betrayed by the thirst for scientific experiment into practices +incompatible with the public health. The good nature which my detractors +have not denied me was a veritable snare. I felt for youth debarred from +its enjoyments by the unnatural vitality of age, and sympathised with the +blooming damsel whose parent alone stood between her and her lover. I thus +lived in constant apprehension of being ordered back to the Netherlands, +and yearned for the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be out of +mischief. At last I discovered that my promotion to a higher sphere +depended upon my obtaining a testimonial from the reigning Pope. Let a +solemn procession be held in my honour, and intercession be publicly made +for me, and I should ascend forthwith. I have consequently represented my +case to many of your predecessors: but, O Alexander, you +seventeenth-century Popes are a miserable breed! No fellow-feeling, no +_esprit de corps. Heu pietas! heu prisca fides_! No one was so rude as your +ascetic antecessor. The more of a saint, the less of a gentleman. +Personally offensive, I assure you! But the others were nearly as bad. The +haughty Paul, the fanatic Gregory, the worldly Urban, the austere Innocent +the Tenth, the affable Alexander the Seventh, all concurred in assuring me +that it was deeply to be regretted that I should ever have been emancipated +from the restraints of the Stygian realm, to which I should do well to +return with all possible celerity; that it would much conduce to the +interests of the Church if my name could be forgotten; and that as for +doing anything to revive its memory, they would just as soon think of +canonising Judas Iscariot." + +"And therefore your Holiness has brought these rats upon us, enlisted, I +nothing doubt, in the infernal regions?" + +"Precisely so: Plutonic, necyomantic, Lemurian rats, kindly lent by the +Prince of Darkness for the occasion, and come dripping from Styx to squeak +and gibber in the Capitol. But I note your Holiness's admission that they +belong to a region exempt from your jurisdiction, and that, therefore, your +measures against them, except as regards their status as belligerents, are +for the most part illegitimate and _ultra vires_." + +"I would argue that point," replied Alexander the Eighth, "if my lungs were +as tough as when I pleaded before the Rota in Pope Urban's time. For the +present I confine myself to formally protesting against your Holiness's +unprecedented and parricidal conduct in invading your country at the head +of an army of loathsome vermin." + +"Unprecedented!" exclaimed Borgia. "Am I not the modern Coriolanus? Did +Narses experience blacker ingratitude than I? Where would the temporal +power be but for me? Who smote the Colonna? Who squashed the Orsini? Who +gave the Popes to dwell quietly in their own house? Monsters of +unthankfulness!" + +"I am sure," said Alexander the Eighth soothingly, "that my predecessors' +inability to comply with your Holiness's request must have cost them many +inward tears, not the less genuine because entirely invisible and +completely inaudible. A wise Pope will, before all things, consider the +spirit of his age. The force of public opinion, which your Holiness lately +appeared to disparage, was, in fact, as operative upon yourself as upon any +of your successors. If you achieved great things in your lifetime, it was +because the world was with you. Did you pursue the same methods now, you +would soon discover that you had become an offensive anachronism. It will +not have escaped your Holiness's penetration that what moralists will +persist in terming the elevation of the standard of the Church, is the +result of the so-called improvement of the world." + +"There is a measure of truth in this," admitted Alexander the Sixth, "and +the spirit of this age is a very poor spirit. It was my felicity to be a +Pope of the Renaissance. Blest dispensation! when men's view of life was +large and liberal; when the fair humanities flourished; when the earth +yielded up her hoards of chiselled marble and breathing bronze, and +new-found agate urns as fresh as day; when painters and sculptors vied with +antiquity, and poets and historians followed in their path; when every +benign deity was worshipped save Diana and Vesta; when the arts of +courtship and cosmetics were expounded by archbishops; when the beauteous +Imperia was of more account than the eleven thousand virgins; when +obnoxious persons glided imperceptibly from the world; and no one +marvelled if he met the Pope arm in arm with the Devil. How miserable, in +comparison, is the present sapless age, with its prudery and its pedantry, +and its periwigs and its painted coaches, and its urban Arcadias and the +florid impotence and ostentatious inanity of what it calls its art! Pope +Alexander! I see in the spirit the sepulchre destined for _you_, and I +swear to you that my soul shivers in my ratskins! Come, now! I do not +expect you to emulate the Popes of my time, but show that your virtues are +your own, and your faults those of your epoch. Pluck up a spirit! Take +bulls by the horns! Look facts in the face! Think upon the images of Brutus +and Cassius! Recognise that you cannot get rid of me, and that the only +safe course is to rehabilitate me. I am not a candidate for canonisation +just now; but repair past neglect and appease my injured shade in the way +you wot of. If this is done, I pledge my word that every rat shall +forthwith evacuate Rome. Is it a bargain? I see it is; you are one of the +good old sort, though fallen on evil days." + +Renaissance or Rats, Alexander the Eighth yielded. + +"I promise," he declared. + +"Your hand upon it!" + +Subduing his repugnance and apprehension by a strong effort, Alexander laid +his hand within the spectre's clammy paw. An icy thrill ran through his +veins, and he sank back senseless into his chair. + + + +III + + +When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with slight +symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, and +confer with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently +befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal's mind seemed an entire blank +on the subject. He admitted having made his customary report to his +Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing of any supernatural +ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous at the Appartamento +Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his nescience; no vestige of the +man of rats or of his shop could be discovered; and the Borgian apartments, +opened and carefully searched through, revealed no trace of having been +visited for many years. The Pope's book of exorcisms was in its proper +place, his vial of holy water stood unbroken upon his table; and his +chamberlains deposed that they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual +hour. His illusion was at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly +vivid dream; but when he declared his intention of actually holding a +service and conducting a procession for the weal of his namesake and +predecessor, the conviction became universal that the rats had effected a +lodgement in his Holiness's upper storeys. + +Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that on +the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of Rome. +As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and monasteries in +the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst, marched, carrying candles, +intoning chants, and, with many a secret shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven +for the repose of Alexander the Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by +another procession precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, +but more grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and +pageants of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat +and lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and +galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in +single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the rising +to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber, which they +would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there a huge rift +opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated themselves. Their +descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as Vulcan occupied in falling +from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last tail was over the brink, the gulf +closed as effectually as the gulf in the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius, +not leaving the slightest inequality by which any could detect it. + +Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth from +his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who appeared +desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were exchanged, +and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, corpulent, +elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander the Sixth, +accoutred with the official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, who rose +slowly into the air as though he had been inflated with hydrogen. + +"To your prayers!" cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. The +priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their knees. +Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was rising +rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty, +contending which should receive the Holy Father into her bosom. [*] Borgia +struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be keeping them at bay, when +a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of men. Thunder roared, lightning +glared, the rush of waters blended with the ejaculations of the people and +the yet more tempestuous rushing of the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is +not probable that Alexander passed, like Dante's sigh, "beyond the sphere +that doth all spheres enfold"; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it +is not doubted that he attained at least as far as the moon. + +[Footnote: + + Per aver riposo + Portato fu fra l'anime beate + Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso; + Del qual seguiro le sante pedate + Tre sue familiari e care ancelle, + Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate. +[--Machiavelli, _Decennale Primo_.]] + + + + +THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY + + +In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the +Christian era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had +three sons, Fu-su, Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men of +active minds, always labouring to find out something new and useful. +Wang-li was clever too, but only in games of skill, in which he attained +great proficiency. + +Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful +inventions they would make when they arrived at man's estate, and of the +wealth and renown they promised themselves thereby. Their conversation +seldom reached the ears of Wang-li, for he rarely lifted his eyes from the +chess-board on which he solved his problems. But their father was more +attentive, and one day he said: + +"I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you +must have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you would +have learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means which you have +proposed to yourselves." + +"How so, father?" asked they. + +"It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors," said the old man, "that the +reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, by +reason of our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not but +become impaired if their posterity were suffered to eclipse their fame by +new discoveries, or presumptuously amend what might appear imperfect in +their productions. It is therefore, by an edict of the Emperor Suen, +forbidden to invent anything; and by a statute of the Emperor Wu-chi it is +further provided that nothing hitherto invented shall be improved. My +predecessor in the small office I hold was deprived of it for saying that +in his judgment money ought to be made round instead of square, and I have +myself run risk of my life for seeking to combine a small file with a pair +of tweezers." + +"If this is the case," said the young men, "our fatherland is not the place +for us." And they embraced their father, and departed. Of their brother +Wang-li they took no farewell, inasmuch as he was absorbed in a chess +problem. Before separating, they agreed to meet on the same spot after +thirty years, with the treasure which they doubted not to have acquired by +the exercise of their inventive faculties in foreign lands. They further +covenanted that if either had missed his reward the other should share his +possessions with him. + +Fu-su repaired to the artists who cut out characters in blocks of hard +wood, to the end that books may be printed from the same. When he had +fathomed their mystery he betook himself to a brass-founder, and learned +how to cast in metal. He then sought a learned man who had travelled much, +and made himself acquainted with the Greek, Persian, and Arabic languages. +Then he cast a number of Greek characters in type, and putting them into a +bag and providing himself with some wooden letter-tablets of his own +carving, he departed to seek his fortune. After innumerable hardships and +perils he arrived in the land of Persia, and inquired for the great king. + +"The great king is dead," they told him, "and his head is entirely +separated from his body. There is now no king in Persia, great or small." + +"Where shall I find another great king?" demanded he. + +"In the city of Alexandria," replied they, "where the Commander of the +Faithful is busy introducing the religion of the Prophet." + +Fu-su passed to Alexandria, carrying his types and tablets. + +As he entered the gates he remarked an enormous cloud of smoke, which +seemed to darken the whole city. Before he could inquire the reason, the +guard arrested him as a stranger, and conducted him to the presence of the +Caliph Omar. + +"Know, O Caliph," said Fu-su, "that my countrymen are at once the wisest of +mankind and the stupidest. They have invented an art for the preservation +of letters and the diffusion of knowledge, which the sages of Greece and +India never knew, but they have not learned to take, and they refuse to be +taught how to take, the one little step further necessary to render it +generally profitable to mankind." + +And producing his tablets and types, he explained to the Caliph the entire +mystery of the art of printing. + +"Thou seemest to be ignorant," said Omar, "that we have but yesterday +condemned and excommunicated all books, and banished the same from the +face of the earth, seeing that they contain either that which is contrary +to the Koran, in which case they are impious, or that which is agreeable to +the Koran, in which case they are superfluous. Thou art further unaware, as +it would seem, that the smoke which shrouds the city proceeds from the +library of the unbelievers, consumed by our orders. It will be meet to burn +thee along with it." + +"O Commander of the Faithful," said an officer, "of a surety the last +scroll of the accursed ceased to flame even as this infidel entered the +city." + +"If it be so," said Omar, "we will not burn him, seeing that we have taken +away from him the occasion to sin. Yet shall he swallow these little brass +amulets of his, at the rate of one a day, and then be banished from the +country." + +The sentence was executed, and Fu-su was happy that the Court physician +condescended to accept his little property in exchange for emetics. + +He begged his way slowly and painfully back to China, and arrived at the +covenanted spot at the expiration of the thirtieth year. His father's +modest dwelling had disappeared, and in its place stood a magnificent +mansion, around which stretched a park with pavilions, canals, +willow-trees, golden pheasants, and little bridges. + +"Tu-sin has surely made his fortune," thought he, "and he will not refuse +to share it with me agreeably to our covenant." + +As he thus reflected he heard a voice at his elbow, and turning round +perceived that one in a more wretched plight than himself was asking alms +of him. It was Tu-sin. + +The brothers embraced with many tears, and after Tu-sin had learned Fu-su's +history, he proceeded to recount his own. + +"I repaired," said he, "to those who know the secret of the grains termed +fire-dust, which Suen has not been able to prevent us from inventing, but +of which Wu-chi has taken care that we shall make no use, save only for +fireworks. Having learned their mystery I deposited a certain portion of +this fire-dust in hollow tubes which I had constructed of iron and brass, +and upon it I further laid leaden balls of a size corresponding to the +hollow of the tubes. I then found that by applying a light to the fire-dust +at one end of the tube I could send the ball out at the other with such +force that it penetrated the cuirasses of three warriors at once. I filled +a barrel with the dust, and concealing it and the tubes under carpets which +I laid upon the backs of oxen, I set out to the city of Constantinople. I +will not at present relate my adventures on the journey. Suffice it that I +arrived at last half dead from fatigue and hardship, and destitute of +everything except my merchandise. By bribing an officer with my carpets I +was admitted to have speech with the Emperor. I found him busily studying a +problem in chess. + +"I told him that I had discovered a secret which would make him the master +of the world, and in particular would help him to drive away the Saracens, +who threatened his empire with destruction. + +"'Thou must perceive,' he said, 'that I cannot possibly attend to thee +until I have solved this problem. Yet, lest any should say that the +Emperor neglects his duties, absorbed in idle amusement, I will refer thy +invention to the chief armourers of my capital. And he gave me a letter to +the armourers, and returned to his problem. And as I quitted the palace +bearing the missive, I came upon a great procession. Horsemen and running +footmen, musicians, heralds, and banner-bearers surrounded a Chinaman who +sat in the attitude of Fo under a golden umbrella upon a richly caparisoned +elephant, his pigtail plaited with yellow roses. And the musicians blew and +clashed, and the standard-bearers waved their ensigns, and the heralds +proclaimed, 'Thus shall it be done to the man whom the Emperor delights to +honour.' And unless I was very greatly mistaken, the face of the Chinaman +was the face of our brother Wang-li. + +"At another time I would have striven to find what this might mean, but my +impatience was great, as also my need and hunger. I sought the chief +armourers, and with great trouble brought them all together to give me +audience, I produced my tube and fire-dust, and sent my balls with ease +through the best armour they could set before me. + +"' Who will want breast-plates now?' cried the chief breast-plate maker. + +"'Or helmets?' exclaimed one who made armour for the head. + +"'I would not have taken fifty bezants for that shield, and what good is it +now?' said the head of the shield trade. + +"'My swords will be of less account,' said a swordsmith. + +"'My arrows of none,' lamented an arrow-maker. + +"''Tis villainy,' cried one. + +"''Tis magic,' shouted another. + +"''Tis illusion, as I'm an honest tradesman,' roared a third, and put his +integrity to the proof by thrusting a hot iron bar into my barrel. All +present rose up in company with the roof of the building, and all perished, +except myself, who escaped with the loss of my hair and skin. A fire broke +out on the spot, and consumed one-third of the city of Constantinople. + +"I was lying on a prison-bed some time afterwards, partly recovered of my +hurts, dolefully listening to a dispute between two of my guards as to +whether I ought to be burned or buried alive, when the Imperial order for +my disposal came down. The gaolers received it with humility, and read +'Kick him out of the city.' Marvelling at the mildness of the punishment, +they nevertheless executed it with so much zeal that I flew into the middle +of the Bosphorus, where I was picked up by a fishing vessel, and landed on +the Asiatic coast, whence I have begged my way home. I now propose that we +appeal to the pity of the owner of this splendid mansion, who may +compassionate us on hearing that we were reared in the Cottage which has +been pulled down to make room for his palace." + +They entered the gates, walked timidly up to the house, and prepared to +fall at the feet of the master, but did not, for ere they could do so they +recognised their brother Wang-li. + +It took Wang-li some time to recognise them, but when at length he knew +them he hastened to provide for their every want. When they had well eaten +and drunk, and had been clad in robes of honour, they imparted their +histories, and asked for his. + +"My brothers," said Wang-li, "the noble game of chess, which was happily +invented long before the time of the Emperor Suen, was followed by me +solely for its pleasure, and I dreamed not of acquiring wealth by its +pursuit until I casually heard one day that it was entirely unknown to the +people of the West. Even then I thought not of gaining money, but conceived +so deep a compassion for those forlorn barbarians that I felt I could know +no rest until I should have enlightened them. I accordingly proceeded to +the city of Constantinople, and was received as a messenger from Heaven. To +such effect did I labour that ere long the Emperor and his officers of +state thought of nothing else but playing chess all day and night, and the +empire fell into entire confusion, and the Saracens mightily prevailed. In +consideration of these services the Emperor was pleased to bestow those +distinguished honours upon me which thou didst witness at his palace gate, +dear brother. + +"After, however, the fire which was occasioned through thy instrumentality, +though in no respect by thy fault, the people murmured, and taxed the +Emperor with seeking to destroy his capital in league with a foreign +sorcerer, meaning thee. Ere long the chief officers conspired and entered +the Emperor's apartment, purposing to dethrone him, but he declared that he +would in nowise abdicate until he had finished the game of chess he was +then playing with me. They looked on, grew interested, began to dispute +with one another respecting the moves, and while they wrangled loyal +officers entered and made them all captive. This greatly augmented my +credit with the Emperor, which was even increased when shortly afterwards I +played with the Saracen admiral blockading the Hellespont, and won of him +forty corn-ships, which turned the dearth of the city into plenty. + +"The Emperor bade me choose any favour I would, but I said his liberality +had left me nothing to ask for except the life of a poor countryman of mine +who I had heard was in prison for burning the city. The Emperor bade me +write his sentence with my own hand. Had I known that it was thou, Tu-sin, +believe me I had shown more consideration for thy person. At length I +departed for my native land, loaded with wealth, and travelling most +comfortably by relays of swift dromedaries. I returned hither, bought our +father's cottage, and on its site erected this palace, where I dwell +meditating on the problems of chessplayers and the precepts of the sages, +and persuaded that a little thing which the world is willing to receive is +better than a great thing which it hath not yet learned to value aright. +For the world is a big child, and chooses amusement before instruction." + +"Call you chess an amusement?" asked his brothers. + + + + +MADAM LUCIFER + + +Lucifer sat playing chess with Man for his soul. + +The game was evidently going ill for Man. He had but pawns left, few and +straggling. Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops. + +It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no great +hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient. + +"It is a pity," said he at last, "that we did not fix some period within +which the player must move, or resign." + +"Oh, Lucifer," returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, "it is not +the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my +betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that paragon of +terrestrial loveliness!" Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was touched. + +"Is the Lady Adeliza's loveliness in sooth so transcendent?" he inquired. + +"She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!" + +"If that is the case," rejoined Lucifer, "thou mayest reassure thyself. The +Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy shape and +woo her in thy stead." + +The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this promise +which Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In an instant +the Devil checkmated him, and he disappeared. + + * * * * * + +"Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I don't +think I should have gone in for it," soliloquised the Devil, as, wearing +his captive's semblance and installed in his apartments, he surveyed the +effects to which he now had to administer. They included coats, shirts, +collars, neckties, foils, cigars, and the like _ad libitum_; and very +little else except three challenges, ten writs, and seventy-four unpaid +bills, elegantly disposed around the looking-glass. To the poor youth's +praise be it said, there were no billets-doux, except from the Lady Adeliza +herself. + +Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and nothing +but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him take the +back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking on the +principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer and a +bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady Adeliza's feet. + +The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such +correctness of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a love-sick +fiend. Not Merlin's mother had produced half the impression upon him; and +Adeliza on her part had never found her lover one-hundredth part so +interesting as he seemed that morning. + +Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape +for the occasion, he negotiated a loan without the smallest difficulty. All +debts were promptly discharged, and Adeliza was astonished at the splendour +and variety of the presents she was constantly receiving. + +Lucifer had all but brought her to name the day, when he was informed that +a gentleman of clerical appearance desired to wait upon him. + +"Wants money for a new church or mission, I suppose," said he. "Show him +up." + +But when the visitor was ushered in, Lucifer found with discomposure that +he was no earthly clergyman, but a celestial saint; a saint, too, with whom +Lucifer had never been able to get on. He had served in the army while on +earth, and his address was curt, precise, and peremptory. + +"I have called," he said, "to notify to you my appointment as Inspector of +Devils." + +"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, in consternation. "To the post of my old friend +Michael!" + +"Too old," said the Saint laconically. "Millions of years older than the +world. About your age, I think?" + +Lucifer winced, remembering the particular business he was then about. The +Saint continued: + +"I am a new broom, and am expected to sweep clean. I warn you that I mean +to be strict, and there is one little matter which I must set right +immediately. You are going to marry that poor young fellow's betrothed, are +you? Now you know you cannot take his wife, unless you give him yours." + +"Oh, my dear friend," exclaimed Lucifer, "what an inexpressibly blissful +prospect you do open unto me!" + +"I don't know that," said the Saint. "I must remind you that the dominion +of the infernal regions is unalterably attached to the person of the +present Queen thereof. If you part with her you immediately lose all your +authority and possessions. I don't care a brass button which you do, but +you must understand that you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Good +morning!" + +Who shall describe the conflict in Lucifer's bosom? If any stronger passion +existed therein at that moment than attachment to Adeliza, it was aversion +to his consort, and the two combined were well-nigh irresistible. But to +disenthrone himself, to descend to the condition of a poor devil! + +Feeling himself incapable of coming to a decision, he sent for Belial, +unfolded the matter, and requested his advice. + +"What a shame that our new inspector will not let you marry Adeliza!" +lamented his counsellor. "If you did, my private opinion is that +forty-eight hours afterwards you would care just as much for her as you do +now for Madam Lucifer, neither more nor less. Are your intentions really +honourable?" + +"Yes," replied Lucifer, "it is to be a Lucifer match." + +"The more fool you," rejoined Belial. "If you tempted her to commit a sin, +she would be yours without any conditions at all." + +"Oh, Belial," said Lucifer, "I cannot bring myself to be a tempter of so +much innocence and loveliness." + +And he meant what he said. + +"Well then, let me try," proposed Belial. + +"You?" replied Lucifer contemptuously; "do you imagine that Adeliza would +look at _you_?" + +"Why not?" asked Belial, surveying himself complacently in the glass. + +He was humpbacked, squinting, and lame, and his horns stood up under his +wig. + +The discussion ended in a wager after which there was no retreat for +Lucifer. + +The infernal Iachimo was introduced to Adeliza as a distinguished +foreigner, and was soon prosecuting his suit with all the success which +Lucifer had predicted. One thing protected while it baffled him--the +entire inability of Adeliza to understand what he meant. At length he was +constrained to make the matter clear by producing an enormous treasure, +which he offered Adeliza in exchange for the abandonment of her lover. + +The tempest of indignation which ensued would have swept away any ordinary +demon, but Belial listened unmoved. When Adeliza had exhausted herself he +smilingly rallied her upon her affection for an unworthy lover, of whose +infidelity he undertook to give her proof. Frantic with jealousy, Adeliza +consented, and in a trice found herself in the infernal regions. + + * * * * * + +Adeliza's arrival in Pandemonium, as Belial had planned, occurred +immediately after the receipt of a message from Lucifer, in whose bosom +love had finally gained the victory, and who had telegraphed his abdication +and resignation of Madam Lucifer to Adeliza's betrothed. The poor young man +had just been hauled up from the lower depths, and was beset by legions of +demons obsequiously pressing all manner of treasures upon his acceptance. +He stared, helpless and bewildered, unable to realise his position in the +smallest degree. In the background grave and serious demons, the princes of +the infernal realm, discussed the new departure, and consulted especially +how to break it to Madam Lucifer--a commission of which no one seemed +ambitious. + +"Stay where you are," whispered Belial to Adeliza; "stir not; you shall put +his constancy to the proof within five minutes." + +Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under +ordinary circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover's side: but what is +all hell to jealousy? + +In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by +Madam Lucifer. This lady's black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted +agreeably with her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair was +compensated by the exceptional length of her nails; she was a thousand +million years old, and, but for her remarkable muscular vigour, looked +every one of them. The rage into which Belial's communication had thrown +her was something indescribable; but, as her eye fell on the handsome +youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to take possession of her mind. + +"Let the monster go!" she exclaimed; "who cares? Come, my love, ascend the +throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond +Luciferetta." + +"If you don't, back you go," interjected Belial. + +What might have been the young man's decision if Madam Lucifer had borne +more resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent to +inquire, for the question never arose. + +"Take me away!" he screamed, "take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of her +reach! Oh, Adeliza!" + +With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant glance +at the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression changed, and +she screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike in every lineament +and every detail of costume, utterly indistinguishable, even by the eye of +Love. + +Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza's feet and pray her +to defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings of her +elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his dominions along +with his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions with such expedition +that he had had no time to change his costume. Hence the equivocation which +confounded Adeliza, but at the same time preserved her from being torn to +pieces by the no less mystified Madam Lucifer. + +Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling +resumed his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer's talons were immediately +inserted into his whiskers. + +"My dear! my love!" he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, "is this +the way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?" + +"Who is that person?" demanded Madam Lucifer. + +"I don't know her," screamed the wretched Lucifer. "I never saw her before. +Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!" + +"Not if I know it," sharply replied Madam Lucifer, "You can't bear to part +with her, can't you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, would you? +Take that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them both out!" + +"Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly," responded Lucifer. + +"Oh, Sire," cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, "for Heaven's sake let +your Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector----" + +"Bother the Inspector!" screeched Lucifer. "D'ye think I'm not a thousand +times more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in the calendar? +There," addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, "be off! You'll find all +debts paid, and a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!" + +They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus +stood wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down +which they scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it was +long ere they ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer. + + + + +THE TALISMANS + + +What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us perform, +which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem incredible! + +By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, who +was prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of which, +to judge by the little value he appeared to set on the subject of his +discourse, he must himself have been fully persuaded? Without exciting his +suspicions in the smallest degree, the student stole away to a region +inconceivably remote, and presented himself at the portal of a magnificent +palace, guarded by goblins, imps, lions, serpents, and monsters whose +uncouthness forbids description. + +A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the +professor's class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully +respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance, +brandishing a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal +goblins, by whom he was successively interrogated. + +"Hast thou undergone the seven probations?" + +"Yes," said the student. + +"Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?" + +"Ninety-nine times each," said the student. + +"Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?" + +"I have," said the student. + +"Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?" + +"I am," said the student. + +"Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?" + +"Of course," said the student, "Hast thou attestations of all these +circumstances under the hands and seals of a thousand and one demons?" + +The student displayed his parchments. + +"Thou hast undergone every trial," pronounced the seventh goblin; "thou +hast won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all things, +and to choose from it any one talisman at thy liking." + +The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank hissing +away, the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him upon his back +to the treasurer's presence. + +The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair, +received the adventurer with civility. + +"I have come," said the student, "for the talismans in thy keeping, to the +choice among which I have entitled myself." + +"Thou hast fairly earned them," replied the old man, "and I may not say +thee nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape which +it has received at my hands during the long period for which these have +remained in my custody." + +"I must submit to the condition," said the student. + +"Behold, then, Aladdin's lamp," said the ancient personage, tendering a +tiny vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a +coarse, rusty powder. + +"Aladdin's lamp!" cried the student. + +"All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve," replied the old +man. "Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to apprise thee +that the virtues of the talisman having necessarily dwindled with its bulk, +it is at present incompetent to evoke any Genie, and can at most summon an +imp, of whose company thou wilt never be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as +the least friction will inevitably destroy what little of the talisman +remains." + +"Confusion!" cried the young man, "Show me, then, Aladdin's ring." + +"Here," replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop. + +"This, at least," asked the student, "is not devoid of virtue?" + +"Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its magic +properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, which I have +gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any other use than +that of a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to admiration." + +"Produce another talisman," commanded the youth. + +"These," said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of +leather, "are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them out." + +"This, at least, is bright and weighty," exclaimed the student, as the old +man displayed the sword of sharpness. + +"In truth a doughty weapon," returned the treasurer, "if wielded by a +stronger arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite +off heads of its own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to the +new hilt." + +After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a +fragment of the original setting of Solomon's seal, the youth's eye lighted +upon a volume full of mysterious characters. + +"Whose book is this?" he inquired. "Heavens, it is Michael Scott's!" + +"Even so," returned the venerable man, "and its spells have lost nothing of +their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula for dismissing +spirits after they have been summoned from the nether world, hath been +removed by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath caused several most +respectable magicians to be torn in pieces, and hath notably increased the +number of demons at large." + +"Thou old villain!" shouted the exasperated youth, "is this the way in +which the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou that +I will brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, but I will +deprive thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair." + +"O good youth," supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, "bereave +me not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the +consequences!" + +"I will not think," roared the youth. "Deliver it to me, or I'll rend it +from thy head with my own hands." + +With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to the +youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters. + +Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding +streets until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large public +square. It was crowded with people, gazing intently at the afternoon sky, +and the air was rife with a confused murmur of altercations and +exclamations. + +"It is." "No, I tell you, it is impossible." "It cannot be." "I see it +move." "No, it's only my eyes are dazzled." "Who could have believed it?" +"Whatever will happen next?" + +Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object of +their attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could discover +nothing unusual. + +"No," a man by him was saying, "it positively has not moved for an hour. I +have my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken." + +"It ought to have been behind the houses long ago," said another. + +"What's o'clock?" asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes +towards the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The +hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew +them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in +turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a +single tick, but there was none to hear. + +"Time is no more," proclaimed a leader among the people. + +"I am a ruined man," lamented a watchmaker. + +"And I," ejaculated a maker of almanacks. + +"What of quarter-day?" inquired a landlord and a tenant simultaneously. + +"We shall never see the moon again," sobbed a pair of lovers. + +"It is well this did not happen at night," observed an optimist. + +"Indeed?" questioned the director of a gas company. + +"I told you the Last Day would come in our time," said a preacher. + +It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time had +paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation depending on her +silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not come to life. The sick +could not die. The human frame could not waste. Every one in the enjoyment +of health and strength felt assured of the perpetual possession of these +blessings, unless he should meet with accident or violent death. But all +growth ceased, and all dissolution was stayed. Mothers looked with despair +on infants who could never be weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs +gazed with dismay on immortal fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties, +the fashionable boxers and opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor +did the intellectual less rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired +faculties, and vowing to extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The +poor and the outcast, the sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the +dying made, indeed, a dismal outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by +some persons. + +As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to a +young lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been attached in +former days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that it would be +everlasting, revived his passion. To convince her of the perpetuity of her +charms, and establish a claim upon her gratitude, he cautiously revealed to +her that he was the author of this blissful state of things, and that +Time's hair was actually in his possession. + +"Oh, you dear good man!" she exclaimed, "how vastly I am obliged to you! +Ferdinand will never forsake me now." + +"Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for _me_." + +"Oh!" she said, "you young men of science are so conceited!" + +The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer's +palace. It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the city +ere he mixed again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was +addressing energetically. + +"I ask you one thing," he was saying. "Will it ever rain again?" + +"Certainly not," replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. "Rain +being an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be no place +for it under the present dispensation." + +"Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they not +withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea itself? Who +will feed your cattle? And who will feed _you_?" + +"This concerns us," said the butchers and bakers. + +"Us also," added the fishmongers. + +"I always thought," said a philosopher, "that this phenomenon must be the +work of some malignant wizard." + +"Show us the wizard that we may slay him," roared the mob. + +Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately identified +by twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and was held up in +sight of the multitude. + +"Kill him!" + +"Burn him!" + +"Crucify him!" + +"It moves! it moves!" cried another division of the crowd. All eyes were +bent on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving--no, it wasn't; +yes, it certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows were actually +lengthening? Was the sun's rim really drawing nigh yonder great edifice? +That muffled sound from the vast, silent multitude was, doubtless, the +quick beating of innumerable hearts; but that sharper note? Could it be the +ticking of watches? Suddenly all the public clocks clanged the first stroke +of an hour--an absurdly wrong hour, but it was an hour. No mortal heard +the second stroke, drowned in universal shouts of joy and gratitude. The +student mingled with the mass, no man regarding him. + +When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to +disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could get +beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a very +humble citizen, a barber. + +"Why," he said, "the old gentleman's hair has grown again!" + +And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying gave +up the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told the +professor his dream. + + + + +THE ELIXIR OF LIFE + + +The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of Balkh, +where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the occult sciences. +No one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet Aboniel did not wholly shun +intercourse with mankind, but, on the contrary, had seven pupils, towardly +youths belonging to the noblest families of the city, whom he instructed at +stated times in philosophy and all lawful knowledge, reserving the +forbidden lore of magic and alchemy for himself. + +But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious +apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing save +the sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven crystal +phials, filled with a clear liquid resembling water. + +"Ye know, my sons," he began, "with what ardour I am reputed to have +striven to penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the +problems which have allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this +rumour doth not err: such hath ever been my object; but, until yesterday, +my fortune hath been like unto theirs who have preceded me. The little I +could accomplish seemed as nothing in comparison with what I was compelled +to leave unachieved. Even now my success is but partial. I have not +learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is not mine; nor can I recall +the principle of life to the dead, or infuse it into inanimate matter. But +if I cannot create, I can preserve. I have found the Elixir of Life." + +The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them he +read extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their teacher, +and the dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves might become +participators in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. Addressing +himself to the latter sentiment--"I am willing," he continued, "to +communicate this secret to you, if such be your desire." + +An unanimous exclamation assured him that there need be no uncertainty on +this point. + +"But remember," he resumed, "that this knowledge, like all knowledge, has +its disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when ye come +to learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. Understand that +the stipulations I am about to propound are not of my imposing; the secret +was imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent order, and under +conditions with which I am constrained strictly to comply. Understand also +that I am not minded to employ this knowledge on my own behalf. My +fourscore years' acquaintance with life has rendered me more solicitous for +methods of abbreviating existence, than of prolonging it. It may be well +for you if your twenty years' experience has led you to the same +conclusion." + +There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, and +indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general +unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of their +venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have convinced +him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf between theory +and practice, and the feebleness of intellectual persuasion in presence of +innate instinct. With one voice they protested their readiness to brave any +conceivable peril, and undergo any test which might be imposed as a +condition of participation in their master's marvellous secret. + +"So be it," returned the sage, "and now hearken to the conditions. + +"Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these +seven phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far +different are the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly +poisons which the utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to prepare, +and science knows no antidote to any of them. The first scorches up the +entrails as with fire; the second slays by freezing every vein, and +benumbing every nerve; the third by frantic convulsions. Happy in +comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks dead upon the ground +immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. Nor do I overmuch +commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for slumber descends upon +him forthwith, and he passes away in painless oblivion. But wretched he who +chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from his head, whose skin peels from +his body, and who lingers long in excruciating agonies, a living death. The +seventh phial contains the object of your desire. Stretch forth your +hands, therefore, simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly +grasp and intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the +quality of his fortune attested by the result." + +The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold +blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their +preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable +features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable +solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked +beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they +scanned the phials, trusting that some infinitesimal distinction might +serve to discriminate the elixir from the poisons. But no, the vessels were +indistinguishable in external appearance, and the contents of each were +equally colourless and transparent. + +"Well," demanded Aboniel at length, with real or assumed surprise, +"wherefore tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you in +the agonies of death!" + +This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the +boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but perceiving +that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some confusion. + +"Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this worthless +existence," said one of their number at last, breaking the embarrassing +silence, "but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound up with mine." + +"I," said the second, "have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet that +I should provide." + +"I," said the third, "have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose cause +I may in nowise forsake." + +"And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged," said the fourth. + +"My life," said the fifth, "is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent to +lay it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?" + +"Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?" inquired the sixth. + +"I," said the seventh, "have neither mother nor sister, friends nor +enemies, neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But I +have all the greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is exceedingly +precious in my sight." + +"The conclusion of the whole matter, then," summed up the sage, "is that +not one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?" + +The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the +justice of their master's taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for +some middle path, which did not readily present itself. + +"May we not," said one at last, "may we not cast lots, and each take a +phial in succession, as destiny may appoint?" + +"I have nothing against this," replied Aboniel, "only remember that the +least endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of any +one of you, will ensure the discomfiture of all." + +The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and +proceeded to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in the +hand of the holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his mother. + +He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced half +the distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of the second +quill; the man with the sister, he said abruptly: + +"The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and +intimate than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not therefore +fitting that thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my stead?" + +"The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son," responded the +youth addressed, in a sententious tone, "albeit most holy, cannot in the +nature of things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be dissolved by +death. Whereas the relationship between brother and sister may endure for +many years, if such be the will of Allah. It is therefore proper that thou +shouldst first venture the experiment." + +"Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!" +exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. "The maternal +relationship--" + +"A truce to this trifling," cried the other six; "fulfil the conditions, or +abandon the task." + +Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized one of +the phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied that he +detected something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which distinguished +it, in his imagination, from the innocent transparency of the rest. He +hastily replaced it, and laid hold of the next. At that moment a blaze of +light burst forth upon them, and, thunderstruck, the seven scholars were +stretched senseless on the ground. + +On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of +Aboniel's dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part they +had played. They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned to their +homes. + +The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be +expected to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven +days, known to more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The last +of these to become acquainted with it was the Sultan, who immediately +despatched his guards to apprehend the sage, and confiscate the Elixir. +Failing to obtain admission at Aboniel's portal, they broke it open, and, +on entering his chamber, found him in a condition which more eloquently +than any profession bespoke his disdain for the life-bestowing draught. He +was dead in his chair. Before him, on the table, stood the seven phials, +six full as previously, the seventh empty. In his hand was a scroll +inscribed as follows: + +"Six times twice six years have I striven after knowledge, and I now +bequeath to the world the fruit of my toil, being six poisons. One more +deadly I might have added, but I have refrained, "Write upon my tomb, that +here he lies who forbore to perpetuate human affliction, and bestowed a +fatal boon where alone it could be innoxious." + +The intruders looked at each other, striving to penetrate the sense of +Aboniel's last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud +crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large +monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and +preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an +inspiration of supreme irony, had administered to the creature every drop +of the Elixir of Life. + + + + +THE POET OF PANOPOLIS + + + +I + + +Although in a manner retired from the world during the fifth and sixth +Christian centuries, the banished Gods did not neglect to keep an eye on +human affairs, interesting themselves in any movement which might seem to +afford them a chance of regaining their lost supremacy, or in any person +whose conduct evinced regret at their dethronement. They deeply sympathised +with the efforts of their votary Pamprepius to turn the revolt of Illus to +their advantage, and excused the low magical arts to which he stooped as a +necessary concession to the spirit of a barbarous age. They ministered +invisibly to Damascius and his companions on their flight into Persia, +alleviating the hardships under which the frames of the veteran +philosophers might otherwise have sunk. It was not, indeed, until the +burning of the Alexandrian library that they lost all heart and lapsed into +the chrysalis-like condition in which they remained until tempted forth by +the young sunshine of the Renaissance. + +Such a phenomenon for the fifth century as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of +Panopolis could not fail to excite their most lively interest. Forty-eight +books of verse on the exploits of Bacchus in the age of pugnacious prelates +and filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and rampant robbers, of the +threatened dissolution of every tie, legal, social, or political; an age of +earthquake, war, and famine! Bacchus, who is known from Aristophanes not to +have excelled in criticism, protested that his laureate was greater than +Homer; and, though Homer could not go quite so far as this, he graciously +conceded that if he had himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with +a faint glimmering of the poetical art, and encumbered with more learning +than he knew how to use, he might have written almost as badly as his +modern representative. More impartial critics judged Nonnus's achievement +more favourably, and all agreed that his steadfastness in the faith +deserved some special mark of distinction. The Muses under Pallas's +direction (being themselves a little awkward in female accomplishments) +embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus forged a +plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy. Whether +from distrust of Hermes' integrity, or wishing to make the personal +acquaintance of his follower, Phoebus volunteered to convey the testimonial +in person, and accordingly took his departure for the Egyptian Thebaid. + +As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the blazing +sun of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a vast crowd +of strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like bees +clustering at the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he identified +them as a posse of demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot describe the +enormous variety of whatever the universe holds of most heterogeneous. +Naked women of surpassing loveliness displayed their charms to the +anchorite's gaze, sturdy porters bent beneath loads of gold which they +heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien from humanity allured his +appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or smote at him with swords, +or made feints at his eyes with spears, or burned sulphur under his nose, +or displayed before him scrolls of poetry or learning, or shrieked +blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed him from a little distance with +glances of leering affection; while a motley crowd of goblins, wearing the +heads of boars or lions, or whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or +hoofed, or scaled, or feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and +wrangled with each other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting +and grinning, snapping, snarling, constantly running away and returning +like gnats dancing over a marsh. The holy man sat doggedly at the entrance +of his cavern, with an expression of fathomless stupidity, which seemed to +defy all the fiends of the Thebaid to get an idea into his head, or make +him vary his attitude by a single inch. + +"These people did not exist in our time," said Apollo aloud, "or at least +they knew their place, and behaved themselves." + +"Sir," said a comparatively grave and respectable demon, addressing the +stranger, "I should wish your peregrinity to understand that these imps are +mere schoolboys--my pupils, in fact. When their education has made further +progress they will be more mannerly, and will comprehend the folly of +pestering an unintellectual old gentleman like this worthy Pachymius with +beauty for which he has no eyes, and gold for which he has no use, and +dainties for which he has no palate, and learning for which he has no head. +But _I'll_ wake him up!" And waving his pupils away, the paedagogic fiend +placed himself at the anchorite's ear, and shouted into it-- + +"Nonnus is to be Bishop of Panopolis!" + +The hermit's features were instantly animated by an expression of envy and +hatred. + +"Nonnus!" he exclaimed, "the heathen poet, to have the see of Panopolis, of +which _I_ was promised the reversion!" + +"My dear sir," suggested Apollo, "it is all very well to enliven the +reverend eremite; but don't you think it is rather a liberty to make such +jokes at the expense of my good friend Nonnus?" + +"There is no liberty," said the demon, "for there is no joke. Recanted on +Monday. Baptized yesterday. Ordained to-day. To be consecrated to-morrow." + +The anchorite poured forth a torrent of the choicest ecclesiastical curses, +until he became speechless from exhaustion, and Apollo, profiting by the +opportunity, addressed the demon: + +"Would it be an unpardonable breach of politeness, respected sir, if I +ventured to hint that the illusions your pupils have been trying to impose +upon this venerable man have in some small measure impaired the confidence +with which I was originally inspired by your advantageous personal +appearance?" + +"Not in the least," replied the demon, "especially as I can easily make my +words good. If you and Pachymius will mount my back I will transport you +to Panopolis, where you can verify my assertion for yourselves." + +The Deity and the anchorite promptly consented, and seated themselves on +the demon's shoulders. The shadow of the fiend's expanded wings fell black +and vast on the fiery sand, but diminished and became invisible as he +soared to a prodigious height, to escape observation from below. By-and-by +the sun's glowing ball touched earth at the extremity of the horizon; it +disappeared, the fires of sunset burned low in the west, and the figures of +the demon and his freight showed like a black dot against a lake of green +sky, growing larger as he cautiously stooped to earth. Grazing temples, +skimming pyramids, the party came to ground in the precincts of Panopolis, +just in time to avoid the rising moon that would have betrayed them. The +demon immediately disappeared. Apollo hastened off to demand an explanation +from Nonnus, while Pachymius repaired to a neighbouring convent, peopled, +as he knew, by a legion of sturdy monks, ever ready to smite and be smitten +in the cause of orthodoxy. + + + +II + + +Nonnus sat in his study, wrinkling his brow as he polished his verses by +the light of a small lamp. A large scroll lay open on his knees, the +contents of which seemed to afford him little satisfaction. Forty-eight +more scrolls, resplendent with silver knobs and coquettishly tied with +purple cord, reposed in an adjoining book-case; the forty-eight books, +manifestly, of the Panopolitan bard's Dionysiaca. Homer, Euripides, and +other poets lay on the floor, having apparently been hurriedly dislodged to +make room for divers liturgies and lives of the saints. A set of episcopal +robes depended from a hook, and on a side table stood half-a-dozen mitres, +which, to all appearance, the designated prelate had been trying on. + +"Nonnus," said Phoebus, passing noiselessly through the unresisting wall, +"the tale of thy apostasy is then true?" + +It would be difficult to determine whether surprise, delight, or dismay +preponderated in Nonnus's expression as he lifted up his eyes and +recognised the God of Poetry. He had just presence of mind to shuffle his +scroll under an enormous dictionary ere he fell at Apollo's feet. + +"O Phoebus," he exclaimed, "hadst thou come a week ago!" + +"It is true, then?" said Apollo. "Thou forsakest me and the Muses. Thou +sidest with them who have broken our statues, unroofed our temples, +desecrated our altars, and banished us from among mankind. Thou rejectest +the glory of standing alone in a barbarous age as the last witness to +culture and civilisation. Thou despisest the gifts of the Gods and the +Muses, of which I am even now the bearer. Thou preferrest the mitre to the +laurel chaplet, and the hymns of Gregory to the epics of Homer?" + +"O Phoebus," replied Nonnus, "were it any God but thou, I should bend +before him in silence, having nought to reply. But thou art a poet, and +thou understandest the temper of a poet. Thou knowest how beyond other men +he is devoured by the craving for sympathy. This and not vulgar vanity is +his motive of action; his shaft is launched in vain unless he can deem it +embedded in the heart of a friend. Thou mayest well judge what scoffings +and revilings my Dionysiac epic has brought upon me in this evil age; yet, +had this been all, peradventure I might have borne it. But it was not all. +The gentle, the good, the affectionate, they who in happier times would +have been my audience, came about me, saying, Nonnus, why sing the strains +against which we must shut our ears? Sing what we may listen to, and we +will love and honour thee. I could not bear the thought of going to my +grave without having awakened an echo of sympathy, and weakly but not +basely I have yielded, given them what they craved, and suffered them, +since the Muses' garland is not theirs to bestow, to reward me with a +mitre." + +"And what demanded they?" asked Apollo. + +"Oh, a mere romance! Something entirely fabulous." + +"I must see it," persisted Apollo; and Nonnus reluctantly disinterred his +scroll from under the big dictionary, and handed it up, trembling like a +schoolboy who anticipates a castigation for a bad exercise. + +"What trash have we here?" cried Phoebus-- + + [Greek: "Achronos aen, akichaetos, en arraetoos Logos archae,] + [Greek: 'Isophuaes Genetaeros omaelikos Tios amaetoor,] + [Greek: Kai Logos antophygoio Theou, phoos, ek phaeos phoos.] + +"If it isn't the beginning of the Gospel of John! Thy impiety is worse than +thy poetry!" + +Apollo cast the scroll indignantly to the ground. His countenance wore an +expression so similar to that with which he is represented in act to smite +the Python, that Nonnus judged it prudent to catch up his manuscript and +hold it shield-wise before his face. + +"Thou doest well," said Apollo, laughing bitterly; "that rampart is indeed +impenetrable to my arrows." + +Nonnus seemed about to fall prostrate, when a sharp rap came to the door. + +"That is the Governor's knock," he exclaimed. "Do not forsake me utterly, O +Phoebus!" But as he turned to open the door, Apollo vanished. The Governor +entered, a sagacious, good-humoured-looking man in middle life. + +"Who was with thee just now?" he asked. "Methought I heard voices." + +"Merely the Muse," explained Nonnus, "with whom I am wont to hold nocturnal +communings." + +"Indeed!" replied the Governor. "Then the Muse has done well to take +herself off, and will do even better not to return. Bishops must have no +flirtations with Muses, heavenly or earthly--not that I am now altogether +certain that thou _wilt_ be a bishop." + +"How so?" asked Nonnus, not without a feeling of relief. + +"Imagine, my dear friend," returned the Governor, "who should turn up this +evening but that sordid anchorite Pachymius, to whom the see was promised +indeed, but who was reported to have been devoured by vermin in the desert. +The rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be feared that +sufficient pains were not taken to verify it--cannot have been, in fact; +for, as I said, here he comes, having been brought, as he affirms, through +the air by an angel. Little would it have signified if he had come by +himself, but he is accompanied by three hundred monks carrying cudgels, who +threaten an insurrection if he is not consecrated on the spot. My friend +the Archbishop and I are at our wits' end: we have set our hearts on having +a gentleman over the diocese, but we cannot afford to have tumults reported +at Constantinople. At last, mainly through the mediation of a sable +personage whom no one seems to know, but who approves himself most +intelligent and obliging, the matter is put off till to-morrow, when them +and Pachymius are to compete for the bishopric in public on conditions not +yet settled, but which our swarthy friend undertakes to arrange to every +one's satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don't run away in any +case. I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety for thee +but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if thou +art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius." + +With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the poor +poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing alone +somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of the Gods +lay on the table in their place, whence he concluded that a friendly power +might yet be watching over him. + + + +III + + +Next morning all Panopolis was in an uproar. It was generally known that +the pretensions of the candidates for the episcopate would be decided by +public competition, and it was rumoured that this would partake of the +nature of an ordeal by fire and water. Nothing further had transpired +except that the arrangements had been settled by the Governor and +Archbishop in concert with two strangers, a dingy Libyan and a handsome +young Greek, neither of whom was known in the city, but in both of whom the +authorities seemed to repose entire confidence. At the appointed time the +people flocked into the theatre, and found the stage already occupied by +the parties chiefly concerned. The Governor and the Archbishop sat in the +centre on their tribunals: the competitors stood on each side, Pachymius +backed by the demon, Nonnus by Apollo; both these supporters, of course, +appearing to the assembly in the light of ordinary mortals. Nonnus +recognised Apollo perfectly, but Pachymius's limited powers of intelligence +seemed entirely engrossed by the discomfort visibly occasioned him by the +proximity of an enormous brass vessel of water, close to which burned a +bright fire. Nonnus was also ill at ease, and continually directed his +attention to a large package, of the contents of which he seemed +instinctively cognisant. + +All being ready, the Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, with +the sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of +determining between the claims of two such highly qualified competitors had +been delegated to two gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full confidence, +who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective candidates. +Should one fail and the other succeed, the victor would of course be +instituted; should both undergo the probation successfully, new criterions +of merit would be devised; should both fall short, both would be set aside, +and the disputed mitre would be conferred elsewhere. He would first summon +Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and now their fellow-Christian, to +submit himself to the test proposed. + +Apollo now rose, and proclaimed in an audible voice, "By virtue of the +authority committed to me I call upon Nonnus of Panopolis, candidate for +the bishopric of his native city, to demonstrate his fitness for the same +by consigning to the flames with his own hands the forty-eight execrable +books of heathen poetry composed by him in the days of his darkness and +blindness, but now without doubt as detestable to him as to the universal +body of the faithful." So saying, he made a sign to an attendant, the +wrapping of the package fell away, and the forty-eight scrolls of the +Dionysiaca, silver knobs, purple cords, and all, came to view. + +"Burn my poem!" exclaimed Nonnus. "Destroy the labours of twenty-four +years! Bereave Egypt of its Homer! Erase the name of Nonnus from the tablet +of Time!" + +"How so, while thou hast the Paraphrase of St. John?" demanded Apollo +maliciously. + +"Indeed, good youth," said the Governor, who wished to favour Nonnus, +"methinks the condition is somewhat exorbitant. A single book might +suffice, surely!" + +"I am quite content," replied Apollo. "If he consents to burn any of his +books he is no poet, and I wash my hands of him." + +"Come, Nonnus," cried the Governor, "make haste; one book will do as well +as another. Hand them up here." + +"It must be with his own hands, please your Excellency," said Apollo. + +"Then," cried the Governor, pitching to the poet the first scroll brought +to him, "the thirteenth book. Who cares about the thirteenth book? Pop it +in!" + +"The thirteenth book!" exclaimed Nonnus, "containing the contest between +wine and honey, without which my epic becomes totally and entirely +unintelligible!" + +"This, then," said the Governor, picking out another, which chanced to be +the seventeenth. + +"In my seventeenth book," objected Nonnus, "Bacchus plants vines in India, +and the superiority of wine to milk is convincingly demonstrated." + +"Well," rejoined the Governor, "what say you to the twenty-second?" + +"With my Hamadryad! I can never give up my Hamadryad!" + +"Then," said the Governor, contemptuously hurling the whole set in the +direction of Nonnus, "burn which you will, only burn!" + +The wretched poet sat among his scrolls looking for a victim. All his +forty-eight children were equally dear to his parental heart. The cries of +applause and derision from the spectators, and the formidable bellowings +of the exasperated monks who surrounded Pachymius, did not tend to steady +his nerves, or render the task of critical discrimination the easier. + +"I won't! I won't!" he exclaimed at last, starting up defiantly. "Let the +bishopric go to the devil! Any one of my similes is worth all the +bishoprics in Egypt!" + +"Out on the vanity of these poets!" exclaimed the disappointed Governor. + +"It is not vanity," said Apollo, "it is paternal affection; and being +myself a sufferer from the same infirmity, I rejoice to find him my true +son after all." + +"Well," said the Governor, turning to the demon: "it is thy man's turn now. +Trot him out!" + +"Brethren," said the demon to the assembly, "it is meet that he who aspires +to the office of bishop should be prepared to give evidence of +extraordinary self-denial. Ye have seen even our weak brother Nonnus +adoring what he hath burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he hath +adored. How much more may be reasonably expected of our brother Pachymius, +so eminent for sanctity! I therefore call upon him to demonstrate his +humility and self-renunciation, and effectually mortify the natural man, by +washing himself in this ample vessel provided for the purpose" + +"Wash myself!" exclaimed Pacyhmius, with a vivacity of which he had +previously shown no token. "Destroy at one splash the sanctity of +fifty-seven years! Avaunt! thou subtle enemy of my salvation! I know thee +who thou art, the demon who brought me hither on his back yesterday." + +"I thought it had been an angel," said the Governor. + +"A demon in the disguise of an angel of light," said Pachymius. + +A tumultuous discussion arose among Pachymius's supporters, some extolling +his fortitude, others blaming his wrongheadedness. + +"What!" said he to the latter, "would ye rob me of my reputation? Shall it +be written of me, The holy Pachymius abode in the precepts of the eremites +so long as he dwelt in the desert where no water was, but as soon as he +came within sight of a bath, he stumbled and fell?" + +"Oh, father," urged they, "savoureth not this of vaingloriousness? The +demon in the guise of an angel of light, as thou so well saidest even now. +Be strong. Quit thyself valiantly. Think of the sufferings of the primitive +confessors." + +"St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil," said one. + +"St. Apocryphus was actually drowned," said another. + +"I have reason to believe," said a third, "that the loathsomeness of +ablution hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics." + +"I know it has," said another. "I _have_ washed myself once, though ye +might not think it, and can assert that it is by no means as disagreeable +as one supposes." + +"That is just what I dread," said Pachymius. "Little by little, one might +positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of evil." + +All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the +anchorite, and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the vessel, +purposing at a convenient season to throw him in. He was now near enough to +catch a glimpse of the limpid element. Recoiling in horror, he collected +all his energies, and with head depressed towards his chest, and hands +thrust forth as if to ward off pollution--butting, kicking, biting the +air--he rushed forwards, and with a preternatural force deserving to be +enumerated among his miracles, fairly overthrew the enormous vase, the +contents streaming on the crowd in front of the stage. + +"Take me to my hermitage!" he screamed. "I renounce the bishopric. Take me +to my hermitage!" + +"Amen," responded the demon, and, assuming his proper shape, he took +Pachymius upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the +multitude. + +Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he +received the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to +congratulate him on the constancy with which he had sustained his fiery, or +rather watery trial. He spent most of his remaining days in the society of +the devil, on which account he was canonised at his death. + +"O Phoebus," said Nonnus, when they were alone, "impose upon me any penance +thou wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the Muses. But before +all things let me destroy my paraphrase." + +"Thou shalt not destroy it," said Phoebus, "Thou shalt publish it. That +shall be thy penance." + +And so it is that the epic on the exploits of Bacchus and the paraphrase of +St. John's Gospel have alike come down to us as the work of Nonnus, whose +authorship of both learned men have never been able to deny, having regard +to the similarity of style, but never could explain until the facts above +narrated came to light in one of the Fayoum papyri recently acquired by the +Archduke Rainer. + + + + +THE PURPLE HEAD + + Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel + That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel. + + + +I + + +In the heyday of the Emperor Aurelian's greatness, when his strong right +arm propped Rome up, and hewed Palmyra down, when he surrounded his capital +with walls fifty miles in circuit, and led Tetricus and Zenobia in triumph +through its streets, and distributed elephants among the senators, and laid +Etruria out in vineyards, and contemplated in leisure moments the +suppression of Christianity as a subordinate detail of administration, a +mere ripple on the broad ocean of his policy--at this period Bahram the +First, King of Persia, naturally became disquieted in his mind. + +"This upstart soldier of fortune," reflected he, "has an unseemly habit of +overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing Divine +right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor Valerian, +curried and stuffed with straw, hangs to this hour in the temple at +Ctesiphon, a pleasing spectacle to the immortal gods. How would my own skin +appear in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus? This must not be. I will send +an embassy to him, and impress him with my greatness. But how?" + +He accordingly convoked his counsellors; the viziers, the warriors, the +magi, the philosophers; and addressed them thus: + +"The king deigns to consult ye touching a difficult matter. I would flatter +the pride of Rome, without lowering the pride of Persia. I would propitiate +Aurelian, and at the same time humble him. How shall this be accomplished?" + +The viziers, the warriors, and the magi answered not a word. Unbroken +silence reigned in the assembly, until the turn came to the sage Marcobad, +who, prostrating himself, said, "O king, live for ever! In ancient times, +as hath been delivered by our ancestors, Persians were instructed in three +accomplishments--to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. Persia +still rides and shoots; truth-speaking (praised be Ormuzd!) she hath +discontinued as unbefitting an enlightened nation. Thou needest not, +therefore, scruple to circumvent Aurelian. Offer him that which thou +knowest will not be found in his treasury, seeing that it is unique in +thine own; giving him, at the same time, to understand that it is the +ordinary produce of thy dominions. So, while rejoicing at the gift, shall +he be abashed at his inferiority. I refer to the purple robe of her majesty +the queen, the like of which is not to be found in the whole earth, neither +do any know where the dye that tinges it is produced, save that it proceeds +from the uttermost parts of India." + +"I approve thy advice," replied Bahram, "and in return will save thy life +by banishing thee from my dominions. When my august consort shall learn +that thou hast been the means of depriving her of her robe, she will +undoubtedly request that thou mayest be flayed, and thou knowest that I +can deny her nothing. I therefore counsel thee to depart with all possible +swiftness. Repair to the regions where the purple is produced, and if thou +returnest with an adequate supply, I undertake that my royal sceptre shall +be graciously extended to thee." + +The philosopher forsook the royal presence with celerity, and his office of +chief examiner of court spikenard was bestowed upon another; as also his +house and his garden, his gold and his silver, his wives and his +concubines, his camels and his asses, which were numerous. + +While the solitary adventurer wended his way eastward, a gorgeous embassy +travelled westward in the direction of Rome. + +Arrived in the presence of Aurelian, and at the conclusion of his +complimentary harangue, the chief envoy produced a cedar casket, from which +he drew a purple robe of such surpassing refulgence, that, in the words of +the historian who has recorded the transaction, the purple of the emperor +and of the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison. It was accompanied by +a letter thus conceived: + +"Bahram to Aurelian: health! Receive such purple as we have in Persia." + +"Persia, forsooth!" exclaimed Sorianus, a young philosopher versed in +natural science, "this purple never was in Persia, except as a rarity. Oh, +the mendacity and vanity of these Orientals!" + +The ambassador was beginning an angry reply, when Aurelian quelled the +dispute with a look, and with some awkwardness delivered himself of a brief +oration in acknowledgment of the gift. He took no more notice of the +matter until nightfall, when he sent for Sorianus, and inquired where the +purple actually was produced. + +"In the uttermost parts of India," returned the philosopher. + +"Well," rejoined Aurelian, summing up the matter with his accustomed +rapidity and clearness of head, "either thou or the Persian king has lied +to me, it is plain, and, by the favour of the Gods, it is immaterial which, +seeing that my ground for going to war with him is equally good in either +case. If he has sought to deceive me, I am right in punishing him; if he +possesses what I lack, I am justified in taking it away. It would, however, +be convenient to know which of these grounds to inscribe in my manifesto; +moreover, I am not ready for hostilities at present; having first to +extirpate the Blemmyes, Carpi, and other barbarian vermin. I will therefore +despatch thee to India to ascertain by personal examination the truth about +the purple. Do not return without it, or I shall cut off thy head. My +treasury will charge itself with the administration of thy property during +thy absence. The robe shall meanwhile be deposited in the temple of Jupiter +Capitolinus. May he have it and thee in his holy keeping!" + +Thus, in that age of darkness, were two most eminent philosophers reduced +to beggary, and constrained to wander in remote and insalubrious regions; +the one for advising a king, the other for instructing an emperor. But the +matter did not rest here. For Aurelian, having continued the visible deity +of half the world for one hundred and fifty days after the departure of +Sorianus, was slain by his own generals. To him succeeded Tacitus, who +sank oppressed by the weight of rule; to him Probus, who perished in a +military tumult; to him Carus, who was killed by lightning; to him Carinus, +who was assassinated by one whom he had wronged; to him Diocletian, who, +having maintained himself for twenty years, wisely forbore to tempt Nemesis +further, and retired to plant cabbages at Salona. All these sovereigns, +differing from each other in every other respect, agreed in a common desire +to possess the purple dye, and when the philosopher returned not, +successively despatched new emissaries in quest of it. Strange was the +diversity of fate which befell these envoys. Some fell into the jaws of +lions, some were crushed by monstrous serpents, some trampled by elephants +at the command of native princes, some perished of hunger, and some of +thirst; some, encountering smooth-browed and dark-tressed girls wreathing +their hair with the champak blossom or bathing by moonlight in +lotus-mantled tanks, forsook their quest, and led thenceforth idyllic lives +in groves of banian and of palm. Some became enamoured of the principles of +the Gymnosophists, some couched themselves for uneasy slumber upon beds of +spikes, weening to wake in the twenty-second heaven. All which romantic +variety of fortune was the work of a diminutive insect that crawled or +clung heedless of the purple it was weaving into the many-coloured web of +human life. + + + +II + + +Some thirty years after the departure of the Persian embassy to Aurelian, +two travellers met at the bottom of a dell in trans-Gangetic India, having +descended the hill-brow by opposite paths. It was early morning; the sun +had not yet surmounted the timbered and tangled sides of the little valley, +so that the bottom still lay steeped in shadow, and glittering with large +pearls of limpid dew, while the oval space of sky circumscribed by the +summit glowed with the delicate splendour of the purest sapphire. Songs of +birds resounded through the brake, and the water lilies which veiled the +rivulet trickling through the depths of the retreat were unexpanded still. +One of the wayfarers was aged, the other a man of the latest period of +middle life. Their raiment was scanty and soiled; their frames and +countenances alike bespoke fatigue and hardship; but while the elder one +moved with moderate alacrity, the other shuffled painfully along by the +help of a staff, shrinking every time that he placed either of his feet on +the ground. + +They exchanged looks and greetings as they encountered, and the more active +of the two, whose face was set in an easterly direction, ventured a +compassionate allusion to the other's apparent distress. + +'I but suffer from the usual effects of crucifixion,' returned the other; +and removing his sandals, displayed two wounds, completely penetrating each +foot. + +The Cross had not yet announced victory to Constantine, and was as yet no +passport to respectable society. The first traveller drew back hastily, and +regarded his companion with surprise and suspicion. + +"I see what is passing in thy mind," resumed the latter, with a smile; "but +be under no apprehension. I have not undergone the censure of any judicial +tribunal. My crucifixion was merely a painful but necessary incident in my +laudable enterprise of obtaining the marvellous purple dye, to which end I +was despatched unto these regions by the Emperor Aurelian." + +"The purple dye!" exclaimed the Persian, for it was he. "Thou hast obtained +it?" + +"I have. It is the product of insects found only in a certain valley +eastward from hence, to obtain access to which it is before all things +needful to elude the vigilance of seven dragons." + +"Thou didst elude them? and afterwards?" inquired Marcobad, with eagerness. + +"Afterwards," repeated Sorianus, "I made my way into the valley, where I +descried the remains of my immediate predecessor prefixed to a cross." + +"Thy predecessor?" + +"He who had last made the attempt before me. Upon any one's penetrating the +Valley of Purple, as it is termed, with the design I have indicated, the +inhabitants, observant of the precepts of their ancestors, append him to a +cross by the feet only, confining his arms by ropes at the shoulders, and +setting vessels of cooling drink within his grasp. If, overcome with +thirst, he partakes of the beverage, they leave him to expire at leisure; +if he endures for three days, he is permitted to depart with the object of +his quest. My predecessor, belonging, as I conjecture, to the Epicurean +persuasion, and consequently unable to resist the allurements of sense, had +perished in the manner aforesaid. I, a Stoic, refrained and attained." + +"Thou didst bear away the tincture? thou hast it now?" impetuously +interrogated the Persian. + +"Behold it!" replied the Greek, exhibiting a small flask filled with the +most gorgeous purple liquid. "What seest thou here?" demanded he +triumphantly, holding it up to the light. "To me this vial displays the +University of Athens, and throngs of fair youths hearkening to the +discourse of one who resembles myself." + +"To my vision," responded the Persian, peering at the vial, "it rather +reveals a palace, and a dress of honour. But suffer me to contemplate it +more closely, for my eyes have waxed dim by over application to study." + +So saying, he snatched the flask from Sorianus, and immediately turned to +fly. The Greek sprang after his treasure, and failing to grasp Marcobad's +wrist, seized his beard, plucking the hair out by handfuls. The infuriated +Persian smote him on the head with the crystal flagon. It burst into +shivers, and the priceless contents gushed forth in a torrent over the +uncovered head and uplifted visage of Sorianus, bathing every hair and +feature with the most vivid purple. + +The aghast and thunderstricken philosophers remained gazing at each other +for a moment. + +"It is indelible!" cried Sorianus in distraction, rushing down, however, to +the brink of the little stream, and plunging his head beneath the waters. +They carried away a cloud of purple, but left the purple head stained as +before. + +The philosopher, as he upraised his glowing and dripping countenance from +the brook, resembled Silenus emerging from one of the rivers which Bacchus +metamorphosed into wine during his campaign in India. He resorted to +attrition and contrition, to maceration and laceration; he tried friction +with leaves, with grass, with sedge, with his garments; he regarded himself +in one crystal pool after another, a grotesque anti-Narcissus. At last he +flung himself on the earth, and gave free course to his anguish. + +The grace of repentance is rarely denied us when our misdeeds have proved +unprofitable. Marcobad awkwardly approached. + +"Brother," he whispered, "I will restore the tincture of which I have +deprived thee, and add thereto an antidote, if such may be found. Await my +return under this camphor tree." + +So saying, he hastened up the path by which Sorianus had descended, and was +speedily out of sight. + + + +III + + +Sorianus tarried long under the camphor tree, but at last, becoming weary, +resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he entered the +dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary appearance speedily +attracted the attention of the royal officers, by whom he was apprehended +and brought before his majesty. + +"It is evident," pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention on +the case, "that thou art in possession of an object too rare and precious +for a private individual, of which thou must accordingly be deprived. I +lament the inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had been thy hand or +thy foot." + +Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the +indefeasible right of property which he conceived himself to have acquired +in his own head. + +"In respect," responded the royal logician, "that thy head is conjoined to +thy shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is mine, +purple being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy, mine on +jurisprudence. Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine, the most +uncertain of sciences, override law, the perfection of human reason? It is +but to the vulgar observation that thou appearest to have a head at all; in +the eye of the law thou art acephalous." + +"I would submit," urged the philosopher, "that the corporal connection of +my head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a +fortuitous accident." + +"Thou mightest as well contend," returned the king, "that the law is bound +to regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is disabled +from taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of smuggler--rebel, I +might say, seeing that thou hast assumed the purple." + +"But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty's +proceedings?" + +"There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be, it +must be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my +despoiling thee of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest mine. +I will labour to render this even clearer to thy apprehension. Thou art +found, as thou must needs admit, in possession of a contraband article +forfeit to the crown by operation of law. What then? Shall the intention of +the legislature be frustrated because thou hast insidiously rendered the +possession of _my_ property inseparable from the possession of _thine_? +Shall I, an innocent proprietor, be mulcted of my right by thy fraud and +covin? Justice howls, righteousness weeps, integrity stands aghast at the +bare notion. No, friend, thy head has not a leg to stand on. Wouldst thou +retain it, it behoves thee to show that it will be more serviceable to the +owner, namely, myself, upon thy shoulders than elsewhere. This may well be. +Hast thou peradventure any subtleties in perfumery? any secrets in +confectionery? any skill in the preparation of soup?" + +"I have condescended to none of these frivolities, O king. My study hath +ever consisted in divine philosophy, whereby men are rendered equal to the +gods." + +"And yet long most of all for purple!" retorted the monarch, "as I conclude +from perceiving thou hast after all preferred the latter. Thy head must +indeed be worth the taking." + +"Thy taunt is merited, O king! I will importune thee no longer. Thou wilt +indeed render me a service in depriving me of this wretched head, hideous +without, and I must fear, empty within, seeing that it hath not prevented +me from wasting my life in the service of vanity and luxury. Woe to the +sage who trusts his infirm wisdom and frail integrity within the precincts +of a court! Yet can I foretell a time when philosophers shall no longer run +on the futile and selfish errands of kings, and when kings shall be +suffered to rule only so far as they obey the bidding of philosophers. +Peace, Knowledge, Liberty--" + +The King of Ayodhya possessed, beyond all princes of his age, the art of +gracefully interrupting an unseasonable discourse. He slightly signed to a +courtier in attendance, a scimitar flashed for a moment from its scabbard, +and the head of Sorianus rolled on the pavement; the lips murmuring as +though still striving to dwell with inarticulate fondness upon the last +word of hope for mankind. + +It soon appeared that the principle of life was essential to the +resplendence of the Purple Head. Within a few minutes it had assumed so +ghastly a hue that the Rajah himself was intimidated, and directed that it +should be consumed with the body. + +The same full-moon that watched the white-robed throng busied with the +rites of incremation in a grove of palms, beheld also the seven dragons +contending for the body of Marcobad. But, for many a year, the maids and +matrons of Rome were not weary of regarding, extolling, and coveting the +priceless purple tissue that glowed in the fane of Jupiter Capitolinus. + + + + +THE FIREFLY + + +A certain Magician had retired for the sake of study to a cottage in a +forest. It was summer in a hot country. In the trees near the cottage dwelt +a most beautiful Firefly. The light she bore with her was dazzling, yet +soft and palpitating, as the evening star, and she seemed a single flash of +fire as she shot in and out suddenly from under the screen of foliage, or +like a lamp as she perched panting upon some leaf, or hung glowing from +some bough; or like a wandering meteor as she eddied gleaming over the +summits of the loftiest trees; as she often did, for she was an ambitious +Firefly. She learned to know the Magician, and would sometimes alight and +sit shining in his hair, or trail her lustre across his book as she crept +over the pages. The Magician admired her above all things: + +"What eyes she would have if she were a woman!" thought he. + +Once he said aloud, "How happy you must be, you rare, beautiful, brilliant +creature!" + +"I am not happy," rejoined the Firefly; "what am I, after all, but a flying +beetle with a candle in my tail? I wish I were a star." + +"Very well," said the Magician, and touched her with his wand, when she +became a beautiful star in the twelfth degree of the sign Pisces. + +After some nights the Magician asked her if she was content. + +"I am not," replied she. "When I was a Firefly I could fly whither I would, +and come and go as I pleased. Now I must rise and set at certain times, and +shine just so long and no longer. I cannot fly at all, and only creep +slowly across the sky. In the day I cannot shine, or if I do no one sees +me. I am often darkened by rain, and mist, and cloud. Even when I shine my +brightest I am less admired than when I was a Firefly, there are so many +others like me. I see, indeed, people looking up from the earth by night +towards me, but how do I know that they are looking at me?" + +"The laws of nature will have it so," returned the Magician. + +"Don't talk to me of the laws of Nature," rejoined the Firefly. "I did not +make them, and I don't see why I should be compelled to obey them. Make me +something else." + +"What would you be?" demanded the accommodating Magician. + +"As I creep along here," replied the Star, "I see such a soft pure track of +light. It proceeds from the lamp in your study. It flows out of your window +like a river of molten silver, both cool and warm. Let me be such a lamp." + +"Be it so," answered the Magician: and the star became a lovely alabaster +lamp, set in an alcove in his study. Her chaste radiance was shed over his +page as long as he continued to read. At a certain hour he extinguished her +and retired to rest. + +Next morning the Lamp was in a terrible humour. + +"I don't choose to be blown out," she said. + +"You would have gone out of your own accord else," returned the Magician. + +"What!" exclaimed the Lamp, "am I not shining by my own light?" + +"Certainly not: you are not now a Firefly or a Star. You must now depend +upon others. You would be dark for ever if I did not rekindle you by the +help of this oil." + +"What!" cried the Lamp, "not shine of my own accord! Never! Make me an +everlasting lamp, or I will not be one at all." + +"Alas, poor friend," returned the Magician sadly, "there is but one place +where aught is everlasting. I can make thee a lamp of the sepulchre." + +"Content," responded the Lamp. And the Magician made her one of those +strange occult lamps which men find ever and anon when they unseal the +tombs of ancient kings and wizards, sustaining without nutriment a +perpetual flame. And he bore her to a sepulchre where a great king was +lying embalmed and perfect in his golden raiment, and set her at the head +of the corpse. And whether the poor fitful Firefly found at last rest in +the grave, we may know when we come thither ourselves. But the Magician +closed the gates of the sepulchre behind him, and walked thoughtfully home. +And as he approached his cottage, behold another Firefly darting and +flashing in and out among the trees, as brilliantly as ever the first had +done. She was a wise Firefly, well satisfied with the world and everything +in it, more particularly her own tail. And if the Magician would have made +a pet of her no doubt she would have abode with him. But he never looked at +her. + + + + +PAN'S WAND + + +Iridion had broken her lily. A misfortune for any rustic nymph, but +especially for her, since her life depended upon it. + +From her birth the fate of Iridion had been associated with that of a +flower of unusual loveliness--a stately, candid lily, endowed with a +charmed life, like its possessor. The seasons came and went without leaving +a trace upon it; innocence and beauty seemed as enduring with it, as +evanescent with the children of men. In equal though dissimilar loveliness +its frolicsome young mistress nourished by its side. One thing alone, the +oracle had declared, could prejudice either, and this was an accident to +the flower. From such disaster it had long been shielded by the most +delicate care; yet in the inscrutable counsels of the Gods, the dreaded +calamity had at length come to pass. Broken through the upper part of the +stem, the listless flower drooped its petals towards the earth, and seemed +to mourn their chastity, already sullied by the wan flaccidity of decay. +Not one had fallen as yet, and Iridion felt no pain or any symptom of +approaching dissolution, except, it may be, the unwonted seriousness with +which, having exhausted all her simple skill on behalf of the languishing +plant, she sat down to consider its fate in the light of its bearing upon +her own. + +Meditation upon an utterly vague subject, whether of apprehension or of +hope, speedily lapses into reverie. To Iridion, Death was as indefinable an +object of thought as the twin omnipotent controller of human destiny, Love. +Love, like the immature fruit on the bough, hung unsoliciting and +unsolicited as yet, but slowly ripening to the maiden's hand. Death, a +vague film in an illimitable sky, tempered without obscuring the sunshine +of her life. Confronted with it suddenly, she found it, in truth, an +impalpable cloud, and herself as little competent as the gravest +philosopher to answer the self-suggested inquiry, "What shall I be when I +am no longer Iridion?" Superstition might have helped her to some definite +conceptions, but superstition did not exist in her time. Judge, reader, of +its remoteness. + +The maiden's reverie might have terminated only with her existence, but for +the salutary law which prohibits a young girl, not in love or at school, +from sitting still more than ten minutes. As she shifted her seat at the +expiration of something like this period, she perceived that she had been +sitting on a goatskin, and with a natural association of ideas-- + +"I will ask Pan," she exclaimed. + +Pan at that time inhabited a cavern hard by the maiden's dwelling, which +the judicious reader will have divined could only have been situated in +Arcadia. The honest god was on excellent terms with the simple people; his +goats browsed freely along with theirs, and the most melodious of the +rustic minstrels attributed their proficiency to his instructions. The +maidens were on a more reserved footing of intimacy--at least so they +wished it to be understood, and so it was understood, of course. Iridion, +however, decided that the occasion would warrant her incurring the risk +even of a kiss, and lost no time in setting forth upon her errand, carrying +her poor broken flower in its earthen vase. It was the time of day when the +god might be supposed to be arousing himself from his afternoon's siesta. +She did not fear that his door would be closed against her, for he had no +door. + +The sylvan deity stood, in fact, at the entrance of his cavern, about to +proceed in quest of his goats. The appearance of Iridion operated a change +in his intention, and he courteously escorted her to a seat of turf erected +for the special accommodation of his fair visitors, while he placed for +himself one of stone. + +"Pan," she began, "I have broken my lily." + +"That is a sad pity, child. If it had been a reed, now, you could have made +a flute of it." + +"I should not have time, Pan," and she recounted her story. A godlike +nature cannot confound truth with falsehood, though it may mistake +falsehood for truth. Pan therefore never doubted Iridion's strange +narrative, and, having heard it to the end, observed, "You will find plenty +more lilies in Elysium." + +"Common lilies, Pan; not like mine." + +"You are wrong. The lilies of Elysium--asphodels as they call them +there--are as immortal as the Elysians themselves. I have seen them in +Proserpine's hair at Jupiter's entertainment; they were as fresh as she +was. There is no doubt you might gather them by handfuls--at least if you +had any hands--and wear them to your heart's content, if you had but a +heart." + +"That's just what perplexes me, Pan. It is not the dying I mind, it's the +living. How am I to live without anything alive about me? If you take away +my hands, and my heart, and my brains, and my eyes, and my ears, and above +all my tongue, what is left me to live in Elysium?" + +As the maiden spake a petal detached itself from the emaciated lily, and +she pressed her hand to her brow with a responsive cry of pain. + +"Poor child!" said Pan compassionately, "you will feel no more pain +by-and-by." + +"I suppose not, Pan, since you say so. But if I can feel no pain, how can I +feel any pleasure? + +"In an incomprehensible manner," said Pan. + +"How can I feel, if I have no feeling? and what am I to do without it?" + +"You can think!" replied Pan. "Thinking (not that I am greatly given to it +myself) is a much finer thing than feeling; no right-minded person doubts +that. Feeling, as I have heard Minerva say, is a property of matter, and +matter, except, of course, that appertaining to myself and the other happy +gods, is vile and perishable--quite immaterial, in fact. Thought alone is +transcendent, incorruptible, and undying!" + +"But, Pan, how can any one think thoughts without something to think them +with? I never thought of anything that I have not seen, or touched, or +smelt, or tasted, or heard about from some one else. If I think with +nothing, and about nothing, is that thinking, do you think?" + +"I think," answered Pan evasively, "that you are a sensationalist, a +materialist, a sceptic, a revolutionist; and if you had not sought the +assistance of a god, I should have said not much better than an atheist. I +also think it is time I thought about some physic for you instead of +metaphysics, which are bad for my head, and for your soul." Saying this, +Pan, with rough tenderness, deposited the almost fainting maiden upon a +couch of fern, and, having supported her head with a bundle of herbs, +leaned his own upon his hand, and reflected with all his might. The +declining sun was now nearly opposite the cavern's mouth, and his rays, +straggling through the creepers that wove their intricacies over the +entrance, chequered with lustrous patches the forms of the dying girl and +the meditating god. Ever and anon, a petal would drop from the flower; this +was always succeeded by a shuddering tremor throughout Iridion's frame and +a more forlorn expression on her pallid countenance: while Pan's jovial +features assumed an expression of deeper concern as he pressed his knotty +hand more resolutely against his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter horn +with a more determined grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by +the tail. + +"Aha!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I have it!" + +"What have you, Pan?" faintly lisped the expiring Iridion. + +Instead of replying, Pan grasped a wand that leaned against the wall of his +grot, and with it touched the maiden and the flower. O strange +metamorphosis! Where the latter had been pining in its vase, a lovely girl, +the image of Iridion, lay along the ground with dishevelled hair, clammy +brow, and features slightly distorted by the last struggles of death. On +the ferny couch stood an earthen vase, from which rose a magnificent lily, +stately, with unfractured stem, and with no stain or wrinkle on its +numerous petals. + +"Aha!" repeated Pan; "I think we are ready for him now." Then, having +lifted the inanimate body to the couch, and placed the vase, with its +contents, on the floor of his cavern, he stepped to the entrance, and +shading his eyes with his hand, seemed to gaze abroad in quest of some +anticipated visitor. + +The boughs at the foot of the steep path to the cave divided, and a figure +appeared at the foot of the rock. The stranger's mien was majestic, but the +fitness of his proportions diminished his really colossal stature to +something more nearly the measure of mortality. His form was enveloped in a +sweeping sad-coloured robe; a light, thin veil resting on his countenance, +mitigated, without concealing, the not ungentle austerity of his marble +features. His gait was remarkable; nothing could be more remote from every +indication of haste, yet such was the actual celerity of his progression, +that Pan had scarcely beheld him ere he started to find him already at his +side. + +The stranger, without disturbing his veil, seemed to comprehend the whole +interior of the grotto with a glance; then, with the slightest gesture of +recognition to Pan, he glided to the couch on which lay the metamorphosed +lily, upraised the fictitious Iridion in his arms with indescribable +gentleness, and disappeared with her as swiftly and silently as he had +come. The discreet Pan struggled with suppressed merriment until the +stranger was fairly out of hearing, then threw himself back upon his seat +and laughed till the cave rang. + +"And now," he said, "to finish the business." He lifted the transformed +maiden into the vase, and caressed her beauty with an exulting but careful +hand. There was a glory and a splendour in the flower such as had never +until then been beheld in any earthly lily. The stem vibrated, the leaves +shook in unison, the petals panted and suspired, and seemed blanched with a +whiteness intense as the core of sunlight, as they throbbed in anticipation +of the richer existence awaiting them. + +Impatient to complete his task, Pan was about to grasp his wand when the +motion was arrested as the sinking beam of the sun was intercepted by a +gigantic shadow, and the stranger again stood by his side. The unbidden +guest uttered no word, but his manner was sufficiently expressive of wrath +as he disdainfully cast on the ground a broken, withered lily, the relic of +what had bloomed with such loveliness in the morning, and had since for a +brief space been arrayed in the vesture of humanity. He pointed imperiously +to the gorgeous tenant of the vase, and seemed to expect Pan to deliver it +forthwith. + +"Look here," said Pan, with more decision than dignity, "I am a poor +country god, but I know the law. If you can find on this plant one speck, +one stain, one token that you have anything to do with her, take her, and +welcome. If you cannot, take yourself off instead." + +"Be it so," returned the stranger, haughtily declining the proffered +inspection. "You will find it is ill joking with Death." + +So saying, he quitted the cavern. + +Pan sat down chuckling, yet not wholly at ease, for if the charity of Death +is beautiful even to a mortal, his anger is terrible, even to a god. +Anxious to terminate the adventure, he reached towards the charmed wand by +whose wonderful instrumentality the dying maiden had already become a +living flower, and was now to undergo a yet more delightful metamorphosis. + +Wondrous wand! But where was it? For Death, the great transfigurer of all +below this lunar sphere, had given Pan a characteristic proof of his +superior cunning. Where the wand had reposed writhed a ghastly worm, which, +as Pan's glance fell upon it, glided towards him, uplifting its head with +an aspect of defiance. Pan's immortal nature sickened at the emblem of +corruption; he could not for all Olympus have touched his metamorphosed +treasure. As he shrank back the creature pursued its way towards the vase; +but a marvellous change befell it as it came under the shadow of the +flower. The writhing body divided, end from end, the sordid scales sank +indiscernibly into the dust, and an exquisite butterfly, arising from the +ground, alighted on the lily, and remained for a moment fanning its wings +in the last sunbeam, ere it unclosed them to the evening breeze. Pan, +looking eagerly after the Psyche in its flight, did not perceive what was +taking place in the cavern; but the magic wand, now for ever lost to its +possessor, must have cancelled its own spell, for when his gaze reverted +from the ineffectual pursuit, the living lily had disappeared, and Iridion +lay a corpse upon the ground, the faded flower of her destiny reposing upon +her breast. + +Death now stood for a third time upon Pan's threshold, but Pan heeded him +not. + + + + +A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF FOLLY + + + "That owned the virtuous ring and glass." +[--_Il Penseroso_.] + + + +I + + +"Aurelia!" + +"Otto!" + +"Must we then part?" + +They were folded in each other's arms. There never was such kissing. + +"How shall we henceforth exchange the sweet tokens of our undying +affection, my Otto?" + +"Alas, my Aurelia, I know not! Thy Otto blushes to acquaint thee that he +cannot write." + +"Blush not, my Otto, thou needest not reproach thyself. Even couldest thou +write, thy Aurelia could not read. Oh these dark ages!" + +They remained some minutes gazing on each other with an expression of fond +perplexity. Suddenly the damsel's features assumed the aspect of one who +experiences the visitation of a happy thought. Gently yet decidedly she +pronounced: + +"We will exchange rings." + +They drew off their rings simultaneously. "This, Aurelia, was my +grandfather's." + +"This, Otto, was my grandmother's, which she charged me with her dying +breath never to part with save to him whom alone I loved." + +"Mine is a brilliant, more radiant than aught save the eyes of my Aurelia." + +And, in fact, Aurelia's eyes hardly sustained the comparison. A finer stone +could not easily be found. + +"Mine is a sapphire, azure as the everlasting heavens, and type of a +constancy enduring as they." + +In truth, it was of a tint seldom to be met with in sapphires. + +The exchange made, the lady seemed less anxious to detain her lover. + +"Beware, Otto!" she cried, as he slid down the cord, which yielded him an +oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted +knee-deep in mud. "Beware!--if my brother should be gazing from his +chamber on the resplendent moon!" + +But that ferocious young baron was accustomed to spend his time in a less +romantic manner; and so it came to pass that Otto encountered him not. + + + +II + + +Days, weeks, months had passed by, and Otto, a wanderer in a foreign land, +had heard no tidings of his Aurelia. Ye who have loved may well conceive +how her ring was all in all to him. He divided his time pretty equally +between gazing into its cerulean depths, as though her lovely image were +mirrored therein, and pressing its chilly surface to his lips, little as it +recalled the warmth and balminess of hers. + +The burnished glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and +sparkle of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he one +evening perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a jeweller's +shop. The grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench within, +sedulously polishing a streaked pebble by the light of a small lamp. A +sudden thought struck Otto; he entered the shop, and, presenting the ring +to the jeweller, inquired in a tone of suppressed exultation: + +"What hold you for the worth of this inestimable ring?" + +The jeweller, with no expression of surprise or curiosity, received the +ring from Otto, held it to the light, glanced slightly at the stone, +somewhat more carefully at the setting, laid the ring for a moment in a +pair of light scales, and, handing it back to Otto, remarked with a tone +and manner of the most entire indifference: + +"The worth of this inestimable ring is one shilling and sixpence." + +"Caitiff of a huckster!" exclaimed Otto, bringing down his fist on the +bench with such vigour that the pebbles leaped up and fell rattling down: +"Sayest thou this of a gem framed by genii in the bowels of the earth?" + +"Nay, friend," returned the jeweller with the same imperturbable air, "that +thy gem was framed of earth I in nowise question, seeing that it doth +principally consist of sand. But when thou speakest of genii and the bowels +of the earth, thou wilt not, I hope, take it amiss if I crave better proof +than thy word that the devil has taken to glass-making. For glass, and +nothing else, credit me, thy jewel is." + +"And the gold?" gasped Otto. + +"There is just as much gold in thy ring as sufficeth to gild handsomely a +like superficies of brass, which is not saying much." + +And, applying a sponge dipped in some liquid to a small part of the hoop, +the jeweller disclosed the dull hue of the baser metal so evidently that +Otto could hardly doubt longer. He doubted no more when the lapidary laid +his ring in the scales against another of the same size and make, and +pointed to the inequality of the balance. + +"Thou seest," he continued, "that in our craft a very little gold goes a +very great way. It is far otherwise in the world, as thou, albeit in no +sort eminent for sapience, hast doubtless ere this ascertained for thyself. +Thou art evidently a prodigious fool!" + +This latter disparaging observation could be safely ventured upon, as Otto +had rushed from the shop, speechless with rage. + +Was Aurelia deceiver or deceived? Should he execrate her, or her venerable +grandmother, or some unknown person? The point was too knotty to be solved +in the agitated state of his feelings. He decided it provisionally by +execrating the entire human race, not forgetting himself. + +In a mood like Otto's a trifling circumstance is sufficient to determine +the quality of action. The ancient city of which he was at the time an +inhabitant was traversed by a large river spanned by a quaint and +many-arched bridge, to which his frantic and aimless wanderings had +conducted him. Spires and gables and lengthy facades were reflected in the +water, blended with the shadows of boats, and interspersed with the +mirrored flames of innumerable windows on land, or of lanterns suspended +from the masts or sterns of the vessels. The dancing ripples bickered and +flickered, and seemed to say, "Come hither to us," while the dark reaches +of still water in the shadow of the piers promised that whatever might be +entrusted to them should be faithfully retained. Swayed by a sudden +impulse, Otto drew his ring from his finger. It gleamed an instant aloft in +air; in another the relaxation of his grasp would have consigned it to the +stream. + +"Forbear!" + +Otto turned, and perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger was +tall and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially concealed +a flame-coloured jerkin. A cock's feather peaked up in his cap; his eyes +were piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the expression of his +features sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more observant, or less +preoccupied, he might have noticed that the stranger's left shoe was of a +peculiar form, and that he limped some little with the corresponding foot. + +"Forbear, I say; thou knowest not what thou doest." + +"And what skills what I do with a piece of common glass?" + +"Thou errest, friend; thy ring is not common glass. Had thy mistress +surmised its mystic virtues, she would have thought oftener than twice ere +exchanging it for thy diamond." + +"What may these virtues be?" eagerly demanded Otto. + +"In the first place, it will show thee when thy mistress may chance to +think of thee, as it will then prick thy finger." + +"Now I know thee for a lying knave," exclaimed the youth indignantly. +"Learn, to thy confusion, that it hath not pricked me once since I parted +from Aurelia." + +"Which proves that she has never once thought of thee." + +"Villain!" shouted Otto, "say that again, and I will transfix thee." + +"Thou mayest if thou canst," rejoined the stranger, with an expression of +such cutting scorn that Otto's spirit quailed, and he felt a secret but +overpowering conviction of his interlocutor's veracity. Rallying, however, +in some measure, he exclaimed: + +"Aurelia is true! I will wager my soul upon it!" + +"Done!" screamed the stranger in a strident voice of triumph, while a burst +of diabolical laughter seemed to proceed from every cranny of the eaves and +piers of the old bridge, and to be taken up by goblin echoes from the +summits of the adjacent towers and steeples. + +Otto's blood ran chill, but he mustered sufficient courage to inquire +hoarsely: + +"What of its further virtues?" + +"When it shall have pricked thee," returned the mysterious personage, "on +turning it once completely round thy finger thou wilt see thy mistress +wherever she may be. If thou turnest it the second time, thou wilt know +what her thought of thee is; and, if the third time, thou wilt find +thyself in her presence. But I give thee fair warning that by doing this +thou wilt place thyself in a more disastrous plight than any thou hast +experienced hitherto. And now farewell." + +The speaker disappeared. Otto stood alone upon the bridge. He saw nothing +around him but the stream, with its shadows and lights, as he slowly and +thoughtfully turned round to walk to his lodgings. + + + +III + + +Ye who have loved, et cetera, as aforesaid, will comprehend the anxiety +with which Otto henceforth consulted his ring. He was continually adjusting +it to his finger in a manner, as he fancied, to render the anticipated +puncture more perceptible when it should come at last. He would have worn +it on all his fingers in succession had the conformation of his robust hand +admitted of its being placed on any but the slenderest. Thousands of times +he could have sworn that he felt the admonitory sting; thousands of times +he turned the trinket round and round with desperate impatience; but +Aurelia's form remained as invisible, her thoughts as inscrutable, as +before. His great dread was that he might be pricked in his sleep, on which +account he would sit up watching far into the morn. For, as he reasoned, +not without plausibility, when could he more rationally hope for a place in +Aurelia's thoughts than at that witching and suggestive period? She might +surely think of him when she had nothing else to do! Had she really nothing +else to do? And Otto grew sick and livid with jealousy. It of course +frequently occurred to him to doubt and deride the virtues of the ring, and +he was several times upon the point of flinging it away. But the more he +pondered upon the appearance and manner of the stranger, the less able he +felt to resist the conviction of his truthfulness. + +At last a most unmistakable puncture! the distinct, though slight, pang of +a miniature wound. A crimson bead of blood rose on Otto's finger, swelled +to its due proportion, and became a trickling blot. + +"She is thinking of me!" cried he rapturously, as if this were an instance +of the most signal and unforeseen condescension. All the weary expectancy +of the last six months was forgotten. He would have railed at himself had +the bliss of the moment allowed him to remember that he had ever railed at +her. + +Otto turned his ring once, and Aurelia became visible in an instant. She +was standing before the mercer's booth in the chief street of the little +town which adjoined her father's castle. Her gaze was riveted on a silk +mantle, trimmed with costly furs, which depended from a hook inside the +doorway. Her lovely features wore an expression of extreme dissatisfaction. +She was replacing a purse, apparently by no means weighty, in her +embroidered girdle. + +Otto turned the ring the second time, and Aurelia's silvery accents +immediately became audible to the following effect: + +"If that fool Otto were here, he would buy it for me." + +She turned away, and walked down the street. Otto uttered a cry like the +shriek of an uprooted mandrake. His hand was upon the ring to turn it for +the third time; but the stranger's warning occurred to him, and for a +moment he forbore. In that moment the entire vision vanished from before +his eyes. + +What boots it to describe Otto's feelings upon this revelation of Aurelia's +sentiments? For lovers, description would be needless; to wiser people, +incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, that as his lady deemed him a fool he +appeared bent on proving that she did not deem amiss. + +A long space of time elapsed without any further admonition from the ring. +Perhaps Aurelia had no further occasion for his purse; perhaps she had +found another pursebearer. The latter view of the case appeared the more +plausible to Otto, and it hugely aggravated his torments. + +At last the moment came. It was the hour of midnight. Again Otto felt the +sharp puncture, again the ruby drop started from his finger, again he +turned the ring, and again beheld Aurelia. She was in her chamber, but not +alone. Her companion was a youth of Otto's age. She was in the act of +placing Otto's brilliant upon his finger. Otto turned his own ring, and +heard her utter, with singular distinctness: + +"This ring was given me by the greatest fool I ever knew. Little did he +imagine that it would one day be the means of procuring me liberty, and +bliss in the arms of my Arnold. My venerable grandmother--" + +The voice expired upon her lips, for Otto stood before her. + +Arnold precipitated himself from the window, carrying the ring with him. +Otto, glaring at his faithless mistress, stood in the middle of the +apartment with his sword unsheathed. Was he about to use it? None can say; +for at this moment the young Baron burst into the room, and, without the +slightest apology for the liberty he was taking, passed his sword through +Otto's body. + +Otto groaned, and fell upon his face. He was dead. The young Baron ungently +reversed the position of the corpse, and scanned its features with evident +surprise and dissatisfaction. + +"It is not Arnold, after all!" he muttered. "Who would have thought it?" + +"Thou seest, brother, how unjust were thy suspicions," observed Aurelia, +with an air of injured but not implacable virtue. "As for this abominable +ravisher----" Her feelings forbade her to proceed. + +The brother looked mystified. There was something beyond his comprehension +in the affair; yet he could not but acknowledge that Otto was the person +who had rushed by him as he lay in wait upon the stairs. He finally +determined that it was best to say nothing about the matter: a resolution +the easier of performance as he was not wont to be lavish of his words at +any time. He wiped his sword on his sister's curtains, and was about to +withdraw, when Aurelia again spoke: + +"Ere thou departest, brother, have the goodness to ring the bell, and +desire the menials to remove this carrion from my apartment." + +The young Baron sulkily complied, and retreated growling to his chamber. + +The attendants carried Otto's body forth. To the honour of her sex be it +recorded, that before this was done Aurelia vouchsafed one glance to the +corpse of her old lover. Her eye fell on the brazen ring. "And he has +actually worn it all this time!" thought she. + +"Would have outraged my daughter, would he?" said the old Baron, when the +transaction was reported to him. "Let him be buried in a concatenation +accordingly." + +"What the guy dickens be a concatrenation, Geoffrey?" interrogated Giles. + +"Methinks it is Latin for a ditch," responded Geoffrey. + +This interpretation commending itself to the general judgment of the +retainers, Otto was interred in the shelving bank of the old moat, just +under Aurelia's window. A rough stone was laid upon the grave. The magic +ring, which no one thought worth appropriating, remained upon the corpse's +finger. Thou mayest probably find it there, reader, if thou searchest long +enough. + +The first visitor to Otto's humble sepulchre was, after all, Aurelia +herself, who alighted thereon on the following night after letting herself +down from her casement to fly with Arnold. Their escape was successfully +achieved upon a pair of excellent horses, the proceeds of Otto's diamond, +which had become the property of a Jew. + +On the third night an aged monk stood by Otto's grave, and wept +plentifully. He carried a lantern, a mallet, and a chisel. "He was my +pupil," sobbed the good old man. "It were meet to contribute what in me +lies to the befitting perpetuation of his memory." + +Setting down the lantern, he commenced work, and with pious toil engraved +on the stone in the Latin of the period: + + "HAC MAGNUS STULTUS JACET IN FOSSA SEPULTUS. + MULIER CUI CREDIDIT MORTUUM ILLUM REDDIDIT." + +Here he paused, at the end of his strength and of his Latin. + +"Beshrew my old arms and brains!" he sighed. + +"Hem!" coughed a deep voice in his vicinity. + +The monk looked up. The personage in the dusky cloak and flame-coloured +jerkin was standing over him. + +"Good monk," said the fiend, "what dost thou here?" + +"Good fiend," said the monk, "I am inscribing an epitaph to the memory of a +departed friend. Thou mightest kindly aid me to complete it." + +"Truly," rejoined the demon, "it would become me to do so, seeing that I +have his soul here in my pocket. Thou wilt not expect me to employ the +language of the Church. Nathless, I see not wherefore the vernacular may +not serve as well." + +And, taking the mallet and chisel, he completed the monk's inscription with +the supplementary legend: + + "SERVED HIM RIGHT." + + + + +THE BELL OF SAINT EUSCHEMON + + +The town of Epinal, in Lorraine, possessed in the Middle Ages a peal of +three bells, respectively dedicated to St. Eulogius, St. Eucherius, and St. +Euschemon, whose tintinnabulation was found to be an effectual safeguard +against all thunderstorms. Let the heavens be ever so murky, it was merely +requisite to set the bells ringing, and no lightning flashed and no thunder +peal broke over the town, nor was the neighbouring country within hearing +of them ravaged by hail or flood. + +One day the three saints, Eulogius, Eucherius, and Euschemon, were sitting +together, exceedingly well content with themselves and everything around +them, as indeed they had every right to be, supposing that they were in +Paradise. We say supposing, not being for our own part entirely able to +reconcile this locality with the presence of certain cans and flagons, +which had been fuller than they were. + +"What a happy reflection for a Saint," said Eulogius, who was rapidly +passing from the mellow stage of good fellowship to the maudlin, "that even +after his celestial assumption he is permitted to continue a source of +blessing and benefit to his fellow-creatures as yet dwelling in the shade +of mortality! The thought of the services of my bell, in averting lightning +and inundation from the good people of Epinal, fills me with indescribable +beatitude." + +"_Your_ bell!" interposed Eucherius, whose path had lain through the mellow +to the quarrelsome. "_Your_ bell, quotha! You had as good clink this +cannakin" (suiting the action to the word) "as your bell. It's my bell that +does the business." + +"I think you might put in a word for _my_ bell," interposed Euschemon, a +little squinting saint, very merry and friendly when not put out, as on the +present occasion. + +"Your bell!" retorted the big saints, with incredible disdain; and, +forgetting their own altercation, they fell so fiercely on their little +brother that he ran away, stopping his ears with his hands, and vowing +vengeance. + +A short time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance +presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and +bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance was +far from disagreeable, and he obtained the appointment without difficulty. +His deportment in it was in all respects edifying; or if he evinced some +little remissness in the service of Saints Eulogius and Eucherius, this was +more than compensated by his devotion to the hitherto somewhat slighted +Saint Euschemon. It was indeed observed that candles, garlands, and other +offerings made at the shrines of the two senior saints were found to be +transferred in an unaccountable and mystical manner to the junior, which +induced experienced persons to remark that a miracle was certainly +brewing. Nothing, however, occurred until, one hot summer afternoon, the +indications of a storm became so threatening that the sacristan was +directed to ring the bells. Scarcely had he begun than the sky became +clear, but instead of the usual rich volume of sound the townsmen heard +with astonishment a solitary tinkle, sounding quite ridiculous and +unsatisfactory in comparison. St. Euschemon's bell was ringing by itself. + +In a trice priests and laymen swarmed to the belfry, and indignantly +demanded of the sacristan what he meant. + +"To enlighten you," he responded. "To teach you to give honour where honour +is due. To unmask those canonised impostors." + +And he called their attention to the fact that the clappers of the bells of +Eulogius and Eucherius were so fastened up that they could not emit a +sound, while that of Euschemon vibrated freely. + +"Ye see," he continued, "that these sound not at all, yet is the tempest +stayed. Is it not thence manifest that the virtue resides solely in the +bell of the blessed Euschemon?" + +The argument seemed conclusive to the majority, but those of the clergy who +ministered at the altars of Eulogius and Eucherius stoutly resisted, +maintaining that no just decision could be arrived at until Euschemon's +bell was subjected to the same treatment as the others. Their view +eventually prevailed, to the great dismay of Euschemon, who, although +firmly convinced of the virtue of his own bell, did not in his heart +disbelieve in the bells of his brethren. Imagine his relief and amazed joy +when, upon his bell being silenced, the storm, for the first time in the +memory of the oldest inhabitant, broke with full fury over Epinal, and, for +all the frantic pealing of the other two bells, raged with unspeakable +fierceness until his own was brought into requisition, when, as if by +enchantment, the rain ceased, the thunder-clouds dispersed, and the sun +broke out gloriously from the blue sky. + +"Carry him in procession!" shouted the crowd. + +"Amen, brethren; here I am," rejoined Euschemon, stepping briskly into the +midst of the troop. + +"And why in the name of Zernebock should we carry _you?_" demanded some, +while others ran off to lug forth the image, the object of their devotion. + +"Why, verily," Euschemon began, and stopped short. How indeed was he to +prove to them that he _was_ Euschemon? His personal resemblance to his +effigy, the work of a sculptor of the idealistic school, was in no respect +remarkable; and he felt, alas! that he could no more work a miracle than +you or I. In the sight of the multitude he was only an elderly sexton with +a cast in his eye, with nothing but his office to keep him out of the +workhouse. A further and more awkward question arose, how on earth was he +to get back to Paradise? The ordinary method was not available, for he had +already been dead for several centuries; and no other presented itself to +his imagination. + +Muttering apologies, and glad to be overlooked, Euschemon shrank into a +corner, but slightly comforted by the honours his image was receiving at +the hands of the good people of Epinal. As time wore on he became pensive +and restless, and nothing pleased him so well as to ascend to the belfry on +moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, +which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an +incipient crack, which threatened to become a serious flaw. + +"If this goes on," said a voice behind him, "I shall get a holiday." + +Euschemon turned round, and with indescribable dismay perceived a gigantic +demon, negligently resting his hand on the top of the bell, and looking as +if it would cost him nothing to pitch it and Euschemon together to the +other side of the town. + +"Avaunt, fiend," he stammered, with as much dignity as he could muster, "or +at least remove thy unhallowed paw from my bell." + +"Come, Eusky," replied the fiend, with profane familiarity, "don't be a +fool. You are not really such an ass as to imagine that your virtue has +anything to do with the virtue of this bell?" + +"Whose virtue then?" demanded Euschemon. + +"Why truly," said the demon, "mine! When this bell was cast I was +imprisoned in it by a potent enchanter, and so long as I am in it no storm +can come within sound of its ringing. I am not allowed to quit it except by +night, and then no further than an arm's length: this, however, I take the +liberty of measuring by my own arm, which happens to be a long one. This +must continue, as I learn, until I receive a kiss from some bishop of +distinguished sanctity. Thou hast done some bishoping in thy time, +peradventure?" + +Euschemon energetically protested that he had been on earth but a simple +laic, which was indeed the fact, and was also the reason why Eulogius and +Eucherius despised him, but which, though he did not think it needful to +tell the demon, he found a singular relief under present circumstances. + +"Well," continued the fiend, "I wish he may turn up shortly, for I am half +deaf already with the banging and booming of this infernal clapper, which +seems to have grown much worse of late; and the blessings and the crossings +and the aspersions which I have to go through are most repugnant to my +tastes, and unsuitable to my position in society. Bye-bye, Eusky; come up +to-morrow night." And the fiend slipped back into the bell, and instantly +became invisible. + +The humiliation of poor Euschemon on learning that he was indebted for his +credit to the devil is easier to imagine than to describe. He did not, +however, fail at the rendezvous next night, and found the demon sitting +outside the bell in a most affable frame of mind. It did not take long for +the devil and the saint to become very good friends, both wanting company, +and the former being apparently as much amused by the latter's simplicity +as the latter was charmed by the former's knowingness. Euschemon learned +numbers of things of which he had not had the faintest notion. The demon +taught him how to play cards (just invented by the Saracens), and initiated +him into divers "arts, though unimagined, yet to be," such as smoking +tobacco, making a book on the Derby, and inditing queer stories for Society +journals. He drew the most profane but irresistibly funny caricatures of +Eulogius and Eucherius, and the rest of the host of heaven. He had been one +of the demons who tempted St. Anthony, and retailed anecdotes of that +eremite which Euschemon had never heard mentioned in Paradise. He was +versed in all scandal respecting saints in general, and Euschemon found +with astonishment how much about his own order was known downstairs. On the +whole he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life; he became +proficient in all manner of minor devilries, and was ceasing to trouble +himself about his bell or his ecclesiastical duties, when an untoward +incident interrupted his felicity. + +It chanced that the Bishop of Metz, in whose diocese Epinal was situated, +finding himself during a visitation journey within a short distance of the +town, determined to put, up there for the night. He did not arrive until +nightfall, but word of his intention having been sent forward by a +messenger the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, were ready to receive +him. When, escorted in state, he had arrived at the house prepared for his +reception, the Mayor ventured to express a hope that everything had been +satisfactory to his Lordship. + +"Everything," said the bishop emphatically. "I did indeed seem to remark +one little omission, which no doubt may be easily accounted for." + +"What was that, my Lord?" + +"It hath," said the bishop, "usually been the practice to receive a bishop +with the ringing of bells. It is a laudable custom, conducive to the +purification of the air and the discomfiture of the prince of the powers +thereof. I caught no sound of chimes on the present occasion, yet I am +sensible that my hearing is not what it was." + +The civil and ecclesiastical authorities looked at each other. "That +graceless knave of a sacristan!" said the Mayor. + +"He hath indeed of late strangely neglected his charge," said a priest. + +"Poor man, I doubt his wits are touched," charitably added another. + +"What!" exclaimed the bishop, who was very active, very fussy, and a great +stickler for discipline. "This important church, so renowned for its three +miraculous bells, confided to the tender mercies of an imbecile rogue who +may burn it down any night! I will look to it myself without losing a +minute." + +And in spite of all remonstrances, off he started. The keys were brought, +the doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly examined, but +neither in nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest trace of the +sacristan be found. + +"Perhaps he is in the belfry," suggested a chorister. + +"We'll see," responded the bishop, and bustling nimbly up the ladder, he +emerged into the open belfry in full moonlight. + +Heavens! what a sight met his eye! The sacristan and the devil sitting +_vis-a-vis_ close by the miraculous bell, with a smoking can of hot spiced +wine between them, finishing a close game of cribbage. + +"Seven," declared Euschemon. + +"And eight are fifteen," retorted the demon, marking two. + +"Twenty-three and pair," cried Euschemon, marking in his turn. + +"And seven is thirty." + +"Ace, thirty-one, and I'm up." + +"It _is_ up with you, my friend," shouted the bishop, bringing his crook +down smartly on Euschemon's shoulders. + +"Deuce!" said the devil, and vanished into his bell. + +When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very +long, the bishop briefly addressed the assembly. He said that the accounts +of the bell which had reached his ears had already excited his +apprehensions. He had greatly feared that all could not be right, and now +his anxieties were but too well justified. He trusted there was not a man +before him who would not suffer his flocks and his crops to be destroyed by +tempest fifty times over rather than purchase their safety by unhallowed +means. What had been done had doubtless been done in ignorance, and could +be made good by a mulct to the episcopal treasury. The amount of this he +would carefully consider, and the people of Epinal might rest assured that +it should not be too light to entitle them to the benefit of a full +absolution. The bell must go to his cathedral city, there to be examined +and reported on by the exorcists and inquisitors. Meanwhile he would +himself institute a slight preliminary scrutiny. + +The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the combined +beams of the moonlight and torchlight. Very slight examination served to +place the soundness of the bishop's opinion beyond dispute. On the lip of +the bell were engraven characters unknown to every one else, but which +seemed to affect the prelate with singular consternation. + +"I hope," he exclaimed, "that none of you know anything about these +characters! I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them. If I +thought anybody could I would burn him as soon as look at him!" + +The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the +slightest conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never been +observed before. + +"I rejoice to hear it," said the bishop. "It will be an evil day for the +church when these letters are understood." + +And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible +fiend inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and the +luckless Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness, the inmate +of a dismal dungeon. + +It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of any +partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats. At length, +however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear. + +"Who art thou?" he exclaimed. + +"An unfortunate prisoner," was the answer. + +"What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?" + +"Oh, a mere trifle. A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to +Beelzebub. One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur in +our profession." + +"_Our_ profession!" exclaimed Euschemon. + +"Art thou not a sorcerer?" demanded the voice. + +"No," replied Euschemon, "I am a saint." + +The warlock received Euschemon's statement with much incredulity, but +becoming eventually convinced of its truth-- + +"I congratulate thee," he said. "The devil has manifestly taken a fancy to +thee, and he never forgets his own. It is true that the bishop is a great +favourite with him also. But we will hope for the best. Thou hast never +practised riding a broomstick? No? 'Tis pity; thou mayest have to mount one +at a moment's notice." + +This consolation had scarcely been administered ere the bolts flew back, +the hinges grated, the door opened, and gaolers bearing torches informed +the sorcerer that the bishop desired his presence. + +He found the bishop in his study, which was nearly choked up by Euschemon's +bell. The prelate received him with the greatest affability, and expressed +a sincere hope that the very particular arrangements he had enjoined for +the comfort of his distinguished prisoner had been faithfully carried out +by his subordinates. The sorcerer, as much a man of the world as the +bishop, thanked his Lordship, and protested that he had been perfectly +comfortable. + +"I have need of thy art," said the bishop, coming to business. "I am +exceedingly bothered--flabbergasted were not too strong an expression--by +this confounded bell. All my best exorcists have been trying all they know +with it, to no purpose. They might as well have tried to exorcise my mitre +from my head by any other charm than the offer of a better one. Magic is +plainly the only remedy, and if thou canst disenchant it, I will give thee +thy freedom." + +"It will be a tough business," observed the sorcerer, surveying the bell +with the eye of a connoisseur. "It will require fumigations." + +"Yes," said the bishop, "and suffumigations." + +"Aloes and mastic," advised the sorcerer. + +"Aye," assented the bishop, "and red sanders." + +"We must call in Primeumaton," said the warlock. + +"Clearly," said the bishop, "and Amioram." + +"Triangles," said the sorcerer. + +"Pentacles," said the bishop. + +"In the hour of Methon," said the sorcerer. + +"I should have thought Tafrac," suggested the bishop, "but I defer to your +better judgment." + +"I can have the blood of a goat?" queried the wizard. + +"Yes," said the bishop, "and of a monkey also." + +"Does your Lordship think that one might venture to go so far as a little +unweaned child?" + +"If absolutely necessary," said the bishop. + +"I am delighted to find such liberality of sentiment on your Lordship's +part," said the sorcerer. "Your Lordship is evidently of the profession." + +"These are things which stuck by me when I was an inquisitor," explained +the bishop, with some little embarrassment. + +Ere long all arrangements were made. It would be impossible to enumerate +half the crosses, circles, pentagrams, naked swords, cross-bones, +chafing-dishes, and vials of incense which the sorcerer found to be +necessary. The child was fortunately deemed superfluous. Euschemon was +brought up from his dungeon, and, his teeth chattering with fright and +cold, set beside his bell to hold a candle to the devil. The incantations +commenced, and speedily gave evidence of their efficacy. The bell trembled, +swayed, split open, and a female figure of transcendent loveliness attired +in the costume of Eve stepped forth and extended her lips towards the +bishop. What could the bishop do but salute them? With a roar of triumph +the demon resumed his proper shape. The bishop swooned. The apartment was +filled with the fumes of sulphur. The devil soared majestically out of the +window, carrying the sorcerer under one arm and Euschemon under the other. + +It is commonly believed that the devil good-naturedly dropped Euschemon +back again into Paradise, or wheresoever he might have come from. It is +even added that he fell between Eulogius and Eucherius, who had been +arguing all the time respecting the merits of their bells, and resumed his +share in the discussion as if nothing had happened. Some maintain, indeed, +that the devil, chancing to be in want of a chaplain, offered the situation +to Euschemon, by whom it was accepted. But how to reconcile this assertion +with the undoubted fact that the duties of the post in question are at +present ably discharged by the Bishop of Metz, in truth we see not. One +thing is certain: thou wilt not find Euschemon's name in the calendar, +courteous reader. + +The mulct to be imposed upon the parish of Epinal was never exacted. The +bell, ruptured beyond repair by the demon's violent exit, was taken back +and deposited in the museum of the town. The bells of Eulogius and +Eucherius were rung freely on occasion; but Epinal has not since enjoyed +any greater immunity from storms than the contiguous districts. One day an +aged traveller, who had spent many years in Heathenesse and in whom some +discerned a remarkable resemblance to the sorcerer, noticed the bell, and +asked permission to examine it. He soon discovered the inscription, +recognised the mysterious characters as Greek, read them without the least +difficulty-- + +"[Greek: Mae kinei Kamarinan akinaetos gar ameinoon]--" + +and favoured the townsmen with this free but substantially accurate +translation:-- + +"CAN'T YOU LET WELL ALONE?" + + + + +BISHOP ADDO AND BISHOP GADDO + + +Midday, midsummer, middle of the dark ages. Fine healthy weather at the +city of Biserta in Barbary. Wind blowing strong from the sea, roughening +the dark blue waters, and fretting their indigo with foam, as though the +ocean's coursers champed an invisible curb. On land tawny sand whirling, +green palm-fans swaying and whistling, men abroad in the noonday blaze +rejoicing in the unwonted freshness. + +"She is standing in," they cried, "and, by the Prophet, she seemeth not a +ship of the true believers." + +She was not, but she bore a flag of truce. Pitching and rearing, the little +bark bounded in, and soon was fast in harbour. Ere long messengers of peace +had landed, bearing presents and a letter from the Bishop of Amalfi to the +Emir of Biserta. The presents consisted of fifty casks of Lacrima Christi, +and of a captive, a tall, noble-looking man, in soiled ecclesiastical +costume, and disfigured by the loss of his left eye, which seemed to have +been violently plucked out. + +"Health to the Emir!" ran the letter. "I send thee my captive, Gaddo, +sometime Bishop of Amalfi, now an ejected intruder. For what saith the +Scripture? 'When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in +peace; but if one stronger than he cometh, he divideth the spoils.' +Moreover it is written: 'His bishopric let another take.' Having solemnly +sworn that I would not kill or blind or maim my enemy, or imprison him in a +monastery, and the price of absolution from an oath in this corrupt age +exceeding all reason and Christian moderation, I knew not how to take +vengeance on him, until a sagacious counsellor represented that a man +cannot be said to be blinded so long as he is deprived of only one eye. +This I accordingly eradicated, and now, being restrained from imprisoning +him, and fearing to release him, I send him to thee, to retain in captivity +on my behalf; in return for which service, receive fifty casks of the +choicest Lacrima Christi, which shall not fail to be sent thee yearly, so +long as Gaddo continues in thy custody. + +"+ Addo, by Divine permission Bishop of Amalfi." + +"First," said the Emir, "I would be certified whether this vintage is +indeed of such excellence as to prevail upon a faithful Mussulman to +jeopard Paradise, the same being forbidden by his law." + +Experiments were instituted forthwith, and the problem was resolved in the +affirmative. + +"This being so," declared the Emir, "honour and good faith towards Bishop +Addo require that Bishop Gaddo be kept captive with all possible +strictness. Yet bolts may be burst, fetters may be filed, walls may be +scaled, doors may be broken through. Better to enchain the captive's soul, +binding him with invisible bonds, and searing out of him the very wish to +escape. Embrace the faith of the Prophet," continued he, addressing Gaddo; +"become a Mollah." + +"No," said the deposed Bishop, "my inclination hath ever been towards a +military life. At present, mutilated and banished as I am, I rather affect +the crown of martyrdom." + +"Thou shalt receive it by instalments," said the Emir. "Thou shalt work at +the new pavilion in my garden." + +Unceasing toil under the blazing sun, combined with the discipline of the +overseers, speedily wore down Gaddo's strength, already impaired by +captivity and ill-treatment. Unable to drag himself away after his +fellow-workmen had ceased from their labours, he lay one evening, faint and +almost senseless, among the stones and rubbish of the unfinished edifice. +The Emir's daughter passed by. Gaddo was handsome and wretched, the +Princess was beautiful and compassionate. Conveyed by her fair hands, a cup +of Bishop Addo's wine saved Bishop Gaddo's life. + +The next evening Gaddo again lingered behind, and the Princess spoke to him +out of her balcony. The third evening they encountered in an arbour. The +next meeting took place in her chamber, where her father discovered them. + +"I will tear thee to pieces with pincers," shouted he to Gaddo. + +"Your Highness will not be guilty of that black action," responded Gaddo +resolutely. + +"No?" roared the Emir. "No? and what shall hinder me?" + +"The Lacrima Christi will hinder your Highness," returned the far-seeing +Gaddo. "Deems your Highness that Bishop Addo will send another cupful, once +he is assured of my death?" + +"Thou sayest well," rejoined the Emir. "I may not slay thee. But my +daughter is manifestly most inflammable, wherefore I will burn her." + +"Were it not better to circumcise me?" suggested Gaddo. + +Many difficulties were raised, but Ayesha's mother siding with Gaddo, and +promising a more amicable deportment for the future towards the other +lights of the harem, the matter was arranged, and Gaddo recited the +Mahometan profession of faith, and became the Emir's son-in-law. The +execrable social system under which he had hitherto lived thus vanished +like a nightmare from an awakened sleeper. Wedded to one who had saved his +life by her compassion, and whose life he had in turn saved by his change +of creed, adoring her and adored by her, with the hope of children, and +active contact with multitudes of other interests from which he had +hitherto been estranged, he forgot the ecclesiastic in the man; his +intellect expanded, his ideas multiplied, he cleared his mind of cant, and +became an eminent philosopher. + +"Dear son," said the Emir to him one day, "the Lacrima is spent, we thirst, +and the tribute of that Christian dog, the Bishop of Amalfi, tarries to +arrive. We will presently fit out certain vessels, and thou shalt hold a +visitation of thine ancient diocese." + +"Methinks I see a ship even now," said Gaddo; and he was right. She +anchored, the ambassadors landed and addressed the Emir: + +"Prince, we bring thee the stipulated tribute, yet not without a trifling +deduction." + +"Deduction!" exclaimed the Emir, bending his brows ominously. + +"Highness," they represented, "by reason of the deficiency of last year's +vintage it hath not been possible to provide more than forty-nine casks, +which we crave to offer thee accordingly." + +"Then," pronounced the Emir sententiously, "the compact is broken, the ship +is confiscated, and war is declared." + +"Not so, Highness," said they, "for the fiftieth cask is worth all the +rest." + +"Let it be opened," commanded the Emir. + +It was accordingly hoisted out, deposited on the quay, and prized open; and +from its capacious interior, in a deplorable plight from hunger, cramp, and +sea-sickness, was extracted--Bishop Addo. + +"We have," explained the deputation, "wearied of our shepherd, who, +shearing his flock somewhat too closely, hath brought the wolf to light. We +therefore desire thee to receive him at our hands in exchange for our good +Bishop Gaddo, promising one hundred casks of Lacrima Christi as yearly +tribute for the future." + +"He stands before you," answered the Emir; "take him, an ye can prevail +upon him to return with you." + +The eyes of the envoys wandered hopelessly from one whiskered, turbaned, +caftaned, and yataghaned figure to another. They could not discover that +any of the Paynim present looked more or less like a bishop than his +fellows. + +"Brethren," said Gaddo, taking compassion on their bewilderment, "behold +me! I thank you for your kindly thought of me, but how to profit by it I +see not. I have become a Saracen. I have pronounced the Mahometan +confession. I am circumcised. I am known by the name of Mustapha." + +"We acknowledge the weight of your Lordship's objections," they said, "and +do but venture to hint remotely that the times are hard, and that the Holy +Father is grievously in want of money." + +"I have also taken a wife," said Gaddo. + +"A wife!" exclaimed they with one consent. "If it had been a concubine! Let +us return instantly." + +They gathered up their garments and spat upon the ground. + +"A bishop, then," inquired Gaddo, "may be guilty of any enormity sooner +than wedlock, which money itself cannot expiate?" + +"Such," they answered, "is the law and the prophets." + +"Unless," added one of benignant aspect, "he sew the abomination up in a +sack and cast her into the sea, then peradventure he may yet find place for +repentance." + +"Miserable blasphemers!" exclaimed Gaddo. "But why," continued he, checking +himself, "do I talk of what none will understand for five hundred years, +which to understand myself I was obliged to become a Saracen? Addo," he +pursued, addressing his dejected competitor, "bad as thou art, thou art +good enough for the world as it is. I spare thy life, restore thy dignity, +and, to prove that the precepts of Christ may be practised under the garb +of Mahomet, will not even exact eye for eye. Yet, as a wholesome admonition +to thee that treachery and cruelty escape not punishment even in this life, +I will that thou do presently surrender to me thy left ear. Restore my eye +and I will return it immediately. And ye," addressing the envoys, "will for +the future pay one hundred casks tribute, unless ye would see my +father-in-law's galleys on your coasts." + +So Addo returned to his bishopric, leaving his ear in Gaddo's keeping. The +Lacrima was punctually remitted, and as punctually absorbed by the Emir and +his son-in-law, with some little help from Ayesha. Gaddo's eye never came +back, and Addo never regained his ear until, after the ex-prelate's death +in years and honour, he ransomed it from his representatives. It became a +relic, and is shown in Addo's cathedral to this day in proof of his +inveterate enmity to the misbelievers, and of the sufferings he underwent +at their hands. But Gaddo trumped him, the entry after his name in the +episcopal register, "Fled to the Saracens," having been altered into +"Flayed by the Saracens" by a later bishop, jealous of the honour of the +diocese. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE BUTTERFLIES + + +The scene was in a garden on a fine summer morning, brilliant with slants +of sunshine, yet chequered with clouds significant of more than a remote +possibility of rain. All the animal world was astir. Birds flitted or +hopped from spray to spray; butterflies eddied around flowers within or +upon which bees were bustling; ants and earwigs ran nimbly about on the +mould; a member of the Universal Knowledge Society perambulated the gravel +path. + +The Universal Knowledge Society, be it understood, exists for the +dissemination and not for the acquisition of knowledge. Our philosopher, +therefore, did not occupy himself with considering whether in that +miniature world, with its countless varieties of animal and vegetable +being, something might not be found with which he was himself unacquainted; +but, like the honey-freighted bee, rather sought an opportunity of +disburdening himself of his stores of information than of adding to them. +But who was to profit by his communicativeness? The noisy birds could not +hear themselves speak, much less him; he shrewdly distrusted his ability to +command the attention of the busy bees; and even a member of the Universal +Knowledge Society may well be at a loss for a suitable address to an +earwig. At length he determined to accost a Butterfly who, after sipping +the juice of a flower, remained perched indolently upon it, apparently +undecided whither to direct his flight. + +"It seems likely to rain," he said, "have you an umbrella?" + +The Butterfly looked curiously at him, but returned no answer. + +"I do not ask," resumed the Philosopher, "as one who should imply that the +probability of even a complete saturation ought to appal a ratiocinative +being, endowed with wisdom and virtue. I rather designed to direct your +attention to the inquiry whether these attributes are, in fact, rightly +predicable of Butterflies." + +Still no answer. + +"An impression obtains among our own species," continued the Philosopher, +"that you Butterflies are deficient in foresight and providence to a +remarkable, I might almost say a culpable degree. Pardon me if I add that +this suspicion is to some extent confirmed by my finding you destitute of +protection against imbriferous inclemency under atmospheric conditions +whose contingent humidity should be obvious to a being endowed with the +most ordinary allotment of meteorological prevision." + +The Butterfly still left all the talk to the Philosopher. This was just +what the latter desired. + +"I greatly fear," he continued, "that the omission to which I have +reluctantly adverted is to a certain extent typically characteristic of the +entire political and social economy of the lepidopterous order. It has +even been stated, though the circumstance appears scarcely credible, that +your system of life does not include the accumulation of adequate resources +against the inevitable exigencies of winter." + +"What is winter?" asked the Butterfly, and flew off without awaiting an +answer. + +The Philosopher remained for a moment speechless, whether from amazement at +the Butterfly's nescience or disgust at his ill-breeding. Recovering +himself immediately, he shouted after the fugitive: + +"Frivolous animal!" "It is this levity," continued he, addressing a group +of butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted by the +conversation, "it is this fatal levity that constrains me to despair wholly +of the future of you insects. That you should persistently remain at your +present depressed level! That you should not immediately enter upon a +process of self-development! Look at the Bee! How did she acquire her +sting, think you? Why cannot you store up honey, as she does?" + +"We cannot build cells," suggested a Butterfly. + +"And how did the Bee learn, do you suppose, unless by imbuing her mind with +the elementary principles of mathematics? Know that time has been when the +Bee was as incapable of architectural construction as yourselves, when you +and she alike were indiscriminable particles of primary protoplasm. (I +suppose you know what that is.) One has in process of time exalted itself +to the cognition of mathematical truth, while the other--Pshaw! Now, +really, my friends, I must beg you to take my observations in good part. I +do not imply, of course, that any endeavours of yours in the direction I +have indicated could benefit any of you personally, or any of your +posterity for numberless generations. But I really do consider that after a +while its effects would be very observable--that in twenty millions of +years or so, provided no geological cataclysm supervened, you Butterflies, +with your innate genius for mimicry, might be conformed in all respects to +the hymenopterous model, or perhaps carry out the principle of development +into novel and unheard-of directions. You should derive much encouragement +from the beginning you have made already." + +"How a beginning?" inquired a Butterfly. + +"I am alluding to your larval constitution as Caterpillars," returned the +Philosopher. "Your advance upon that humiliating condition is, I admit, +remarkable. I only wonder that it should not have proceeded much further. +With such capacity for development, it is incomprehensible that you should +so long have remained stationary. You ought to be all toads by this time, +at the very least." + +"I beg your pardon," civilly interposed the Butterfly. "To what condition +were you pleased to allude?" + +"To that of a Caterpillar," rejoined the Philosopher. + +"Caterpillar!" echoed the Butterfly, and "Caterpillar!" tittered all his +volatile companions, till the air seemed broken into little silvery waves +of fairy laughter. "Caterpillar! he positively thinks we were once +Caterpillars! He! he! he!" + +"Do you actually mean to say you don't know that?" responded the +Philosopher, scandalised at the irreverence of the insects, but inwardly +rejoicing at the prospect of a controversy in which he could not be +worsted. + +"We know nothing of the sort," rejoined a Butterfly. + +"Can you possibly be plunged into such utter oblivion of your embryonic +antecedents?" + +"We do not understand you. All we know is that we have always been +Butterflies." + +"Sir," said a large, dull-looking Butterfly with one wing in tatters, +crawling from under a cabbage, and limping by reason of the deficiency of +several legs, "let me entreat you not to deduce our scientific status from +the inconsiderate assertions of the unthinking vulgar. I am proud to assure +you that our race comprises many philosophical reasoners--mostly indeed +such as have been disabled by accidental injuries from joining in the +amusements of the rest. The Origin of our Species has always occupied a +distinguished place in their investigations. It has on several occasions +engaged the attention of our profoundest thinkers for not less than two +consecutive minutes. There is hardly a quadruped on the land, a bird in the +air, or a fish in the water to which it has not been ascribed by some one +at some time; but never, I am rejoiced to say, has any Butterfly ever +dreamed of attributing it to the obnoxious thing to which you have +unaccountably made reference." + +"We should rather think not," chorussed all the Butterflies. + +"Look here," said the Philosopher, picking up and exhibiting a large hairy +Caterpillar of very unprepossessing appearance. "Look here, what do you +call this?" + +"An abnormal organisation," said the scientific Butterfly. + +"A nasty beast," said the others. + +"Heavens," exclaimed the Philosopher, "the obtuseness and arrogance of +these creatures! No, my poor friend," continued he, addressing the +Caterpillar, "disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect +certainly is at present, the time is at" hand when you will prank it with +the gayest of them all." + +"I cry your mercy," rejoined the Caterpillar somewhat crossly, "but I was +digesting a gooseberry leaf when you lifted me in that abrupt manner, and I +did not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you to mention my name +in connection with those flutterers?" + +"I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they." + +"I," exclaimed the Caterpillar, "I retrograde to the level of a Butterfly! +Is not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?" + +"I was not aware of that," replied the Philosopher, "although," he added in +a conciliatory tone, "far be it from me to deny you the possession of many +interesting qualities." + +"You probably refer to my agility," suggested the Caterpillar; "or perhaps +to my abstemiousness?" + +"I was not referring to either," returned the Philosopher. + +"To my utility to mankind?" + +"Not by any manner of means." + +"To what then?" + +"Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be the +prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly." + +The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at the +Philosopher. The Philosopher's countenance fell. A thrush, darting from an +adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore the latter +away in his bill. At the same moment the shower prognosticated by the Sage +burst forth, scattering the Butterflies in all directions, drenching the +Philosopher, whose foresight had not assumed the shape of an umbrella, and +spoiling his new hat. But he had ample consolation in the superiority of +his head. And the Caterpillar was right too, for after all he never did +become a Butterfly. + + + + +TRUTH AND HER COMPANIONS + + +_Jupiter_. Daughter Truth, is this a befitting manner of presenting +yourself before your divine father? You are positively dripping; the floor +of my celestial mansion would be a swamp but for your praiseworthy economy +in wearing apparel. Whence, in the name of the Naiads, do you come? + +_Truth_. From the bottom of a well, father. + +_Jupiter_. I thought, my daughter, that you had descended upon earth in the +capacity of a benefactress of men rather than of frogs. + +_Truth_. Such, indeed, was my purpose, father, and I accordingly repaired +to the great city. + +_Jupiter_. The city of the Emperor Apollyon? + +_Truth_. The same; and I there obtained an audience of the monarch. + +_Jupiter_. What passed? + +_Truth_. I took the liberty of observing to him, father, that, having +obtained his throne by perjury, and cemented it by blood, and maintained it +by hypocrisy, he could entertain no hope of preserving it unless the +collective baseness of his subjects should be found to exceed his own, +which was not probable. + +_Jupiter_. What reply did he vouchsafe to these admonitions? + +_Truth_. He threatened to cut out my tongue. Perceiving that this would +interfere with my utility to mankind, I retired somewhat precipitately from +the Imperial presence, marvelling that I should ever have been admitted, +and resolved never to be found there for the future. I then proceeded to +the Nobles. + +_Jupiter_. What said you to them? + +_Truth_. I represented to them that they were, as a class, both arrogant +and luxurious, and would, indeed, have long ago become insupportable, only +that the fabric which their rapacity was for ever striving to erect, their +extravagance as perpetually undermined. I further commented upon the +insecurity of any institution dependent solely upon prescription. Finding +these suggestions unpalatable, I next addressed myself to the priesthood. + +_Jupiter_. Those holy men, my daughter, must have rejoiced at the +opportunity of learning from you which portion of their traditions was +impure or fabricated, and which authentic and sublime. + +_Truth_. The value they placed upon my instructions was such that they +wished to reserve them exclusively for themselves, and proposed that they +should be delivered within the precincts of a certain subterranean +apartment termed a dungeon, the key of which should be kept by one of their +order. Whereupon I betook myself to the philosophers. + +_Jupiter_. Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, my +daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected. + +_Truth_. It was all that could be expected, my father, from learned and +virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the universe +without consulting me. + +_Jupiter_. You probably next addressed yourself to the middling orders of +society? + +_Truth_. I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had much to +remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and their +greed, and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the rottenness of +most of their beliefs, and the thousand ways in which they spoiled lives +that might have been beautiful and harmonious, I soon discovered that they +were so absolutely swayed by the example of the higher orders that it was +useless to expostulate with them until I should have persuaded the latter. + +_Jupiter_. You returned, then, to the latter with this design? + +_Truth_. On the contrary, I hastened to the poor and needy, whom I fully +acquainted with the various wrongs and oppressions which they underwent at +the hands of the powerful and the rich. And here, for the first time, I +found myself welcome. All listened with gratitude and assent, and none made +any endeavour to stone me or imprison me, as those other unprincipled +persons had done. + +_Jupiter_. That was indeed satisfactory, daughter. But when you proceeded +to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery arose from their +own idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and abasement before those +higher in station, and jealousy of the best among themselves--what said +they to that? + +_Truth_. They expressed themselves desirous of killing me, and indeed +would have done so if my capital enemies, the priests, had not been +beforehand with them. + +_Jupiter_. What did they? + +_Truth_. Burned me. + +_Jupiter_. Burned you? + +_Truth_. Burned me in the +market-place. And, but for my peculiar property of reviving from my ashes, +I should not be here now. Upon reconsolidating myself, I felt in such a +heat that I was fain to repair to the bottom of the nearest well. Finding +myself more comfortable there than I had ever yet been on earth, I have +come to ask permission to remain. + +_Jupiter_. It does not appear to me, daughter, that the mission you have +undertaken on behalf of mankind can be efficiently discharged at the bottom +of a well. + +_Truth_. No, father, nor in the middle of a fire either. + +_Jupiter_. I fear that you are too plain and downright in your dealings +with men, and deter where you ought to allure. + +_Truth_. I were not Truth, else, but Flattery. My nature is a mirror's--to +exhibit reality with plainness and faithfulness. + +_Jupiter_. It is no less the nature of man to shatter every mirror that +does not exhibit to him what he wishes to behold. + +_Truth_. Let me, therefore, return to my well, and let him who wishes to +behold me, if such there be, repair to the brink and look down. + +_Jupiter_. No, daughter, you shall not return to your well. I have already +perceived that you are not of yourself sufficient for the office I have +assigned to you, and I am about to provide you with two auxiliaries. You +are Truth. Tell me how this one appears to you. + +_Truth_. Oh, father, the beautiful nymph! how mature, and yet how comely! +how good-humoured, yet how gentle and grave! Her robe is closely zoned; her +upraised finger approaches her lip; her foot falls soft as snow. What is +her name? + +_Jupiter_. Discretion. And this other? + +_Truth_. Oh, father! the cordial look, the blooming cheek, the bright smile +that is almost a laugh, the buoyant step, and the expansive bosom! What +name bears she? + +_Jupiter_. Good Nature. Return, my daughter, to earth; continue to +enlighten man's ignorance and to reprove his folly; but let Discretion +suggest the occasion, and Good Nature inspire the wording of your +admonitions. I cannot engage that you may not, even with these precautions, +sometimes pay a visit to the stake; and if, when an adventure of this sort +appears imminent, Discretion should counsel a temporary retirement to your +well, I am sure Good Nature will urge nothing to the contrary. + + + + +THE THREE PALACES + + +Three pairs of young people, each a youth with his bride, came together +along a road to the point where it divided to the right and left. On one +side was inscribed, "To the Palace of Truth," and on the other, "To the +Palace of Illusion." + +"This way, my beauty!" cried one of the youths, drawing his companion in +the direction of the Palace of Truth. "To the place where and where alone +thy perfections may be beheld as they are!" + +"And my imperfections!" whispered the young spouse, but her tone was airy +and confident. + +"Well," said the second youth, "does the choice beseem you upon whom the +moon of your nuptials is beaming still. My beloved and I are riper in +Hymen's lore by not less, I ween, than one fortnight. Prudence impels us +towards the Palace of Illusion." + +"Thy will is mine, Alonso," said his lady. + +"I," said the third youth, "will seek neither; for I would not be wise +over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured. +Happy am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer +contiguity to my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit it +leapt not from her mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for a red +mouse and nothing worse; had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion haply I +had deemed it a rat. And, it being a red mouse as it indubitably was, to +what end fancy it a tawny-throated nightingale?" + +While, therefore, the other pairs proceeded on the paths they had +respectively chosen, this sage youth and his bride settled themselves at +the parting of the ways, built their cot, tended their garden, tilled their +field and raised fruits around them, including children. + +The preparation of a cheerful repast was one day well advanced, when, +lifting up their eyes, the pair beheld a haggard and emaciated couple +tottering along the road that led from the Palace of Illusion. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed they simultaneously, "no! yes! 'tis surely they!" O +friends! whence this forlorn semblance? whence this osseous condition?" + +"Of them anon," replied the attenuated youth, "but, before all things, +dinner!" + +The restorative was speedily administered, and the pilgrim commenced his +narration. + +"Guarded," he said, "though the Palace of Illusion was by every species of +hippogriffic chimaera, my bride and I experienced no difficulty in +penetrating inside its precincts. The giants lifted us in their arms, the +dragons carried us on their backs, fairy bridges spanned the moats, golden +ladders inclined against the ramparts, we scaled the towers and trod the +courts securely, though constructed to all seeming of dissolving cloud. +Delicate fare loaded every dish; smiling companions invited to every +festivity; perfumes caressed our nostrils; music enwrapped our ears. + +"But while all else charmed and allured, one fact intruded of which we +could not pretend unconsciousness, the intensity of our aversion for each +other. Never could I behold my Imogene without marvelling whatever could +have induced me to wed her, and she has acknowledged that she laboured +under the like perplexity. On the other hand, our good opinion of ourselves +had grown prodigiously. The other's dislike appeared to each an insane +delusion, and we seriously questioned whether it could be right to mate +longer with a being so destitute of true aesthetic feeling. We confided +these scruples to each other, with the result of a most tempestuous +altercation. + +"As this was attaining its climax, one of the inmates of the Palace, a pert +forward boy, resembling a page out of livery, passed by, and ironically, as +I thought, congratulated us on the strength of our mutual attachment. +'Never,' exclaimed he, 'have I beheld the like here before, and I am the +oldest inhabitant.' + +"As this felicitation was proffered at the precise moment when I was +engaged in staunching a rent in my cheek with a handful of my wife's hair, +I was constrained to regard it as unseasonable, and expressed myself to +that effect. + +"'What!' exclaimed he, with equal surprise, 'know ye not that this is the +Palace of Illusion, where everything is inverted and appears the reverse of +itself? Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus drive you to +fisticuffs! Had I beheld you billing and cooing, truly I had counselled a +judicial separation!' + +"My wife and I looked at each other, and by a common impulse made at our +utmost speed for the gate of the Palace of Illusion. + +"Alas! it is one thing to enter and another to quit that domain of +enchantment. The golden clouds enwrapt us still, cates and dainties tempted +us as of old, the most bewitching strains detained us spellbound. The giant +and dragon warders, indeed, offered no violent resistance, they simply +turned into open portals which appeared to yield us egress, but proved +entrances to interminable labyrinthine mazes. At last we escaped by +resolutely, following the exact opposite track to that which we observed to +be taken by a poet, who was chasing a phantom of Fame with a scroll of +unintelligible and inharmonious verse. + +"The moment that we emerged from the enchanted castle we knew ourselves and +each other for what we were, and fell weeping into each other's arms. So +feeble were we that we could hardly move, nevertheless we have made a shift +to crawl hither, trusting to your hospitality to recruit us from the +sawdust and ditch-water which we vehemently suspect to have been our diet +during the whole of our residence." + +"Eat and drink without stint and without ceremony," rejoined their host, +"provided only that somewhat remain for the guests whom I see approaching." + +And in a few moments the fugitives from the Palace of Illusion were +reinforced by travellers from the Palace of Truth, whose backs were most +determinately turned to that august edifice. + +"My friends," said the youth last arrived, when the first greetings were +over, "Truth's Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not the +inmates necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, and did +not all innocent embellishments of her majestic person become entirely +inefficient and absolutely nugatory. For example, the number of my wife's +grey hairs speedily confounded me; and how should it be otherwise, when the +excellent dye she had brought with her had completely lost its virtues? She +on her part found herself continually obliged to acquaint me with the +manifold defects she was daily discovering in my mind and person, which I +was unable to deny, frequently as I opened my mouth for that purpose. It is +true that I had the satisfaction of pointing out equal defects in herself; +but this could not be considered a great satisfaction, seeing that every +such discovery impugned my taste and judgment, and impaired the worth of my +most cherished possession. At length we resolved that Truth and we were not +made for each other, and, having verified the accuracy of this conclusion +by uttering it unrebuked in Truth's own palace, quitted the unblest spot +with all possible expedition. No sooner were we outside than our tenderness +revived, and, the rites of reconciliation duly performed, my wife found +nothing more urgent than to try whether her dye had recovered its natural +properties, which, as ye may perceive, proved to be the case. We are now +bound for the Palace of Illusion." + +"Nay," said he who had escaped thence, "if my experience suffices not to +deter you, learn that they who have known Truth can never taste of +Illusion. Illusion is for life's golden prime, its fanes and pavilions may +be reared but by the magic wand of Youth. The maturity that would recreate +them builds not for Illusion but for Deceit. Yet, lest mortality should +despair, there exists, as I have learned, yet another palace, founded +midway between that of Illusion and that of Truth, open to those who are +too soft for the one and too hard for the other. Thither, indeed, the +majority of mankind in this age resort, and there appear to find themselves +comfortable." + +"And this palace is?" inquired Truth's runaways simultaneously. + +"The Palace of Convention," replied the youth. + + + + +NEW READINGS IN BIOGRAPHY + + + +I.--Timon of Athens + + +No, it was not true that Timon was dead, and buried on the sea-shore. So +the first party discovered that hastened to his cave at the tidings, +thinking to seize his treasure, and had their heads broken for their pains. +But the second party fared better; for these were robbers, captained by +Alcibiades, who had taken to the road, as many a man of spirit, has done +before and since. They took Timon's gold, and left him bound in his chair. +But on the way home the lesser thieves mysteriously disappeared, and the +gold became the sole property of Alcibiades. As it is written, "The tools +to him that can handle them." + +Timon sat many hours in an uncomfortable position, and though, in a general +way, he abhorred the face of man, he was not displeased when a gentleman of +bland appearance entered the cavern, and made him a low obeisance. And +perceiving that Timon was bound, the bland man exclaimed with horror, and +severed his bonds, ere one could say Themistocles. And in an instant the +cavern was filled with Athenian senators. + +"Hail," they cried, "to Timon the munificent! Hail to Timon the +compassionate! Hail to Timon the lover of his kind!" + +"I am none of these things," said Timon. "I am Timon the misanthrope." + +"This must be my Lord's wit and playfulness," said the bland man, "for how +else should the Senate and the people have passed a decree, indited by +myself, ordering an altar to be raised to Timon the Benefactor, and +appointing him chief archon? But come, hand over thy treasure, that thy +installation may take effect with due observance." + +"I have been deprived of my treasure," said Timon. + +But the ambassadors gave him no credit until they had searched every chink +and crevice in the cavern, and dug up all the earth round the entrance. +They then regarded each other with blank consternation. + +"Let us leave him as we found him," said one. + +"Let us hang him up," said another. + +"Let us sell him into captivity," said a third. + +"Nay, friends," said the bland gentleman, "such confession of error would +impeach our credit as statesmen. Moreover, should the people learn that +Timon has lost his money, they will naturally conclude that we have taken +it. Let us, therefore, keep this misfortune from their knowledge, and trust +for relief to the chapter of accidents, as usual in State affairs." + +They therefore robed Timon in a dress of honour, and conducted him to +Athens, where half the inhabitants were awaiting him. Two triumphal arches +spanned the principal street, and on one was inscribed "Timon the +Benefactor," and on the other "Timon the Friend of Humanity." And all +along, far as the eye could reach, stood those whom his bounty, as was +stated, had rescued from perdition, the poor he had relieved, the sick he +had medicined, the orphans he had fathered, the poets and painters he had +patronised, all lauding and thanking him, and soliciting a continuance of +his liberality. And the rabble cried "Largesse, largesse!" and horsemen +galloped forth, casting among them nuts enveloped in silver-leaf and apples +and comfits and trinkets and brass farthings in incredible quantities. At +which the people murmured somewhat, and spoke amiss respecting Timon and +the senators who escorted him, and the bland gentleman strove to keep Timon +between himself and the populace. While Timon was pondering what the end of +these things should be, his mob encountered another cheering for +Alcibiades, and playing pitch and toss with drachmas and didrachmas and +tetradrachmas, yea, even with staters and darics. + +"Long live Alcibiades," cried Timon's followers, as they attacked +Alcibiades's supporters to get their share. + +"Long live Timon," cried Alcibiades's party, as they defended themselves. + +Timon and Alcibiades extricated themselves from the scuffle, and walked +away arm in arm. + +"My dear friend," said Timon, "how inexpressibly beholden I am to you for +taking the burden of my wealth upon yourself! There is nothing I would not +do to evince my gratitude." + +"Nothing?" queried Alcibiades. + +"Nothing," persisted Timon. + +"Then," said Alcibiades, "I will thank thee to relieve me of Timandra, who +is as tired of me as I am of her." + +Timon winced horribly, but his word was his bond, and Timandra accompanied +him to his cavern, where at first she suffered much inconvenience from the +roughness of the accommodation. But Timon, though a misanthrope, was not a +brute; and when in process of time Timandra's health required special care, +rugs and pillows were provided for her, and also for Timon; for he saw that +he could no longer pass for a churl if he made his wife more comfortable +than himself. And, though he counted gold as dross, yet was he not +dissatisfied that Timandra had saved the gold he had given her formerly +against a rainy day. And when a child was born, Timon was at his wits' end, +and blessed the old woman who came to nurse it. And she admonished him of +his duty to the Gods, which meant sacrifice, which meant merry-making. And +the child grew, and craved food and drink, and Timon possessed himself of +three acres and a cow. And not being able to doubt his child's affection +for him, he came to believe in Timandra's also. And when the tax-gatherer +oppressed his neighbours, he pleaded their cause, which was also his own, +in the courts of Athens, and gained it by the interest of Alcibiades. And +his neighbours made him demarch, and he feasted them. And Apemantus came to +deride him, and Timon bore with him; but he was impertinent to Timandra, +and Timon beat him. + +And in fine, Timon became very like any other Attic country gentleman, save +that he always maintained that a young man did well to be a misanthrope +until he got a loving and sensible wife, which, as he observed, could but +seldom happen. And the Gods looked down upon him with complacency, and +deferred the ruin of Athens until he should be no more. + + + +II.--Napoleon's Sangaree + + +Napoleon Buonaparte sat in his garden at St. Helena, in the shadow of a +fig-tree. Before him stood a little table, and upon the table stood a glass +of sangaree. The day was hot and drowsy; the sea boomed monotonously on the +rocks; the broad fig-leaves stirred not; great flies buzzed heavily in the +sultry air. Napoleon wore a loose linen coat and a broad brimmed planter's +hat, and looked as red as the sangaree, but nowise as comfortable. + +"To think," he said aloud, "that I should end my life here, with nothing to +sweeten my destiny but this lump of sugar!" + +And he dropped it into the sangaree, and little ripples and beads broke out +on the surface of the liquid. + +"Thou should'st have followed me," said a voice. + +"Me," said another. + +And a steam from the sangaree rose high over Napoleon's head, and from it +shaped themselves two beautiful female figures. One was fair and very +youthful, with a Phrygian cap on her head, and eager eyes beneath it, and a +slender spear in her hand. The other was somewhat older, and graver, and +darker, with serious eyes; and she carried a sword, and wore a helmet, from +underneath which her rich brown tresses escaped over her vesture of light +steel armour. + +"I am Liberty," said the first. + +"I am Loyalty," said the second. + +And Napoleon laid his hand in that of the first spirit, and instantly saw +himself as he had been in the days of his youthful victories, only beset +with a multitude of people who were offering him a crown, and cheering +loudly. But he thrust it aside, and they cheered ten times more, and fell +into each other's arms, and wept and kissed each other. And troops of young +maidens robed in white danced before him, strewing his way with flowers. +And the debts of the debtor were paid, and the prisoners were released from +captivity. And the forty Academicians came bringing Napoleon the prize of +virtue. And the Abbe Sieyes stood up, and offered Napoleon his choice of +seventeen constitutions; and Napoleon chose the worst. And he came to sit +with five hundred other men, mostly advocates. And when he said "Yea," they +said "Nay"; and when he said "white," they said "black." And they suffered +him to do neither good nor evil, and when he went to war they commanded his +army for him, until he was smitten with a great slaughter. And the enemy +entered the country, and bread was scarce and wine dear; and the people +cursed Napoleon, and Liberty vanished from before him. But he roamed on, +ever looking for her, and at length he found her lying dead in the public +way, all gashed and bleeding, and trampled with the feet of men and horses, +and the wheel of a tumbril was over her neck. And Napoleon, under +compulsion of the mob, ascended the tumbril; and Abbe Sieyes and Bishop +Talleyrand rode at his side, administering spiritual consolation. Thus they +came within sight of the guillotine, whereon stood M. de Robespierre in his +sky-blue coat, and his jaw bound up in a bloody cloth, bowing and smiling, +nevertheless, and beckoning Napoleon to ascend to him. Napoleon had never +feared the face of man; but when he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell +upon him, and he leapt out of the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the +people as it were mid withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood +awaiting him. + +She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people proffering +him a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all wore his hair +in a queue with powder. + +"See," said the little old man, "that thou takest not what doth not belong +to thee." + +"To whom belongeth it then?" asked Napoleon, "for I am a plain soldier, and +have no skill in politics." + +"To Louis the Disesteemed," said the little old man, "for he is a +great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors reigned +here at the flood." + +"Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?" asked Napoleon. + +"In England," said the little old man. + +Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the +Disesteemed. But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to seek in +the obscurest places. And one day, as he was passing through a mean street, +he heard a voice of lamentation, and perceived a man whose coat and shirt +were rent and dirty; but not so his pantaloons, for he had none. + +"Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?" asked he, "and wherefore makest +thou this lamentation?" + +"I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre," replied the +distrousered personage, "and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have been +enforced to pawn, inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing upon my coat +or my shirt." + +And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether +garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those who +stood about. + +"Thou hast done wickedly," said the king when he heard who Napoleon was, +"in that thou hast presumed to fight battles and win victories without any +commission from me. Go, nevertheless, and lose an arm, a leg, and an eye in +my service, then shall thy offence be forgiven thee." + +And Napoleon raised a great army, and gained a great battle for the king, +and lost an arm. And he gained another greater battle, and lost a leg. And +he gained the greatest battle of all; and the king sat on the throne of his +ancestors, and was called Louis the Victorious: but Napoleon had lost an +eye. And he came into the king's presence, bearing his eye, his arm, and +his leg. + +"Thou art pardoned," said the king, "and I will even confer a singular +honour upon thee. Thou shalt defray the expense of my coronation, which +shall be the most splendid ever seen in France." + +So Napoleon lost all his substance, and no man pitied him. But after +certain days the keeper of the royal wardrobe rushed into the king's +presence, crying "Treason! treason! O Majesty, whence these republican and +revolutionary pantaloons?" + +"They are those I deigned to receive from the rebel Buonaparte," said the +king. "It were meet to return them. Where abides he now?" + +"Saving your Majesty's presence," they said, "he lieth upon a certain +dunghill." + +"If this be so," said the king, "life can be no gratification to him, and +it were humane to relieve him of it. Moreover, he is a dangerous man. Go, +therefore, and strangle him with his own pantaloons. Yet, let a monument be +raised to him, and engrave upon it, 'Here lies Napoleon Buonaparte, whom +Louis the Victorious raised from the dunghill.'" + +They went accordingly; but behold! Napoleon already lay dead upon the +dunghill. And this was told unto the king. + +"He hath ever been envious of my glory," said the king, "let him therefore +be buried underneath." + +And it was so. And after no long space the king also died, and slept with +his fathers. But when there was again a revolution in France, the people +cast his bones out of the royal sepulchre, and laid Napoleon's there +instead. And the dunghill complained grievously that it should be disturbed +for so slight a cause. + +And Napoleon withdrew his hand from the hand of Loyalty, saying, "Pish!" +And his eyes opened, and he heard the booming of the sea, and the buzzing +of the flies, and felt the heat of the sun, and saw that the sugar he had +dropped into his sangaree had not yet reached the bottom of the tumbler. + + + +III.--Concerning Daniel Defoe + + +Daniel Defoe, at the invitation of the judge, came forth from the garret +wherein he abode, and rode in a cart unto the Royal Exchange, wherein he +ascended the pillory, to the end that his ears might be nailed thereunto. +And much people stood before him, some few pelting, some mocking, but the +most part cheering or weeping, for they knew him for a friend to the poor, +and especially those men who were called Dissenters. And a certain person +in black stood by him, invisible to the people, but well seen of Daniel, +who knew him for one whose life he had himself written. And the man in +black reasoned with Daniel, and said, "Thou seest this multitude of people, +but which of them shall deliver thee out of my hand? Nay, but let thy white +be black, and thy black white, and I myself will deliver thee, and make +thee rich, and heal thy hurts, save the holes in thy ears, that I may know +thee for mine own." But Daniel gave no heed to him. So the Devil departed, +having great wrath, and entered into a certain smug-faced man standing by. + +And now the crowd before Daniel was greatly diminished, and consisted +mainly of his enemies, for his friends had gone away to drown their sorrow. +And the smug-faced man into whom Satan had entered came forth from among +them, and said unto him, "O Daniel, inasmuch as I am a Dissenter I am +greatly beholden to thee; but inasmuch as I am an honest tradesman I have +somewhat against thee, for thou hast written concerning short weights and +measures. And a man's shop is more to him than his country or his religion. +Wherefore I must needs be avenged of thee. Yet shalt thou own that the +tender mercies of the good man are piteous, and that even in his wrath he +thinketh upon compassion." + +And he picked up a great stone from the ground, and wrapped it in a piece +of paper, saying, "Lest peradventure it hurt him overmuch." And the stone +was very rough and sharp, and the paper was very thin. And he hurled it +with all his might at the middle of Daniel's forehead, and the blood +spouted forth. And Daniel cried aloud, and called upon the name of the +Devil. And in an instant the pillory and the people were gone, and he found +himself in the Prime Minister's cabinet, healed of all his hurts, except +the holes in his ears. And the Minister was so like the Devil that you +could not tell the difference. And he said, "Against what wilt thou write +first, Daniel?" + +"Dissenters," said Daniel. + +And he wrote a pamphlet, and such as read it took firebrands, and visited +the Dissenters in their habitations. And many Dissenters were put into +prison, and others fined and spoiled of their goods. And he wrote other +pamphlets, and each was cleverer and wickeder than the last. And whatsoever +Daniel had of old declared to be white, lo! it was black; and what he had +said was black, behold! it was white. And he throve and prospered +exceedingly, and became a commissioner for public-houses and +hackney-coaches and the imposing of oaths and the levying of custom, and +all other such things as one does by deputy. And he mended the holes in his +ears. + +But the time came when Daniel must be judged, and he went before the Lord. +And all the court was full of Dissenters, and the Devil was there also. And +the Dissenters testified many and grievous things against Daniel. + +"Daniel," said the Lord, "what answerest thou?" + +"Nothing, Lord," said Daniel. "Only I would that the Dissenter who threw +that stone at me should receive due and condign punishment, adequate to his +misdeed." + +"That," said the Devil, "is impossible." + +"Thou sayest well, Satan," said the Lord, "and therefore shall Daniel go +free. For if anything can excuse the apostasy of the noble, it is the +ingratitude of the base." + +So the Devil went to his own place, looking very small. And Daniel found +himself in the same garret whence he had gone forth to the pillory; and +before him were bread and cheese, and a pen and ink and paper. And he +dipped the pen into the ink, and wrote _Robinson Crusoe_. + + + +IV.--Cornelius the Ferryman + + +Fourscore years ago there was a good ferryman named Cornelius, who rowed +people between New York and Brooklyn. He had neither wife nor child, nor +any one to think of except himself. It was, therefore, his custom, when he +had earned enough in a day for his own wants, to put the rest aside, and +bestow it upon sick or blind or maimed persons, lest they should come to +the workhouse. And the sick and the blind and the maimed gathered around +him, and waited by the water's edge, until Cornelius's day's work should be +over. + +This went on until one of the little sooty imps who are always in mischief +came to hear of it, and told the principal devil in charge of the United +States, whose name is Politicianus. + +"Dear me," said the Devil, "this will never do. I will see to it +immediately." + +And he went off to Cornelius, and caught him in the act of giving two dimes +to a blind beggar. + +"How foolish you are!" he said; "what waste of money is this! If you saved +it up, you would by-and-by be able to build an hospital for all the beggars +in New York." + +"It would be a long time before there was enough," objected Cornelius. + +"Not at all," said the Devil, "if you let me invest your money for you." +And he showed Cornelius the plan of a most splendid hospital, and across +the front of it was inscribed in letters of gold, _Cornelius Diabolodorus_. +And Cornelius was persuaded, and that evening he gave nothing to the poor. +And the poor had come to think that Cornelius's money was their own, and +abused him as though he had robbed them. And Cornelius drove them away: and +his heart was hardened against them from that day forth. + +But the Devil kept his promise to Cornelius, and put him up to all the good +things in Wall Street, and he soon had enough to build ten hospitals. But +the more he had to build with, the less he wanted to build. And by-and-by +the Devil called upon him, and found him contemplating two pictures. One of +them showed the finest hospital you can imagine, full of neat, clean rooms, +in one of which sat Cornelius himself, wearing a dress with a number and +badge, and sipping arrowroot. The other showed fine houses, and +opera-boxes, and fast-trotting horses, and dry champagne, and ladies who +dance in ballets, and paintings by the great masters. Cornelius thrust the +pictures away, and the Devil did not ask to see them, nor was it needful +that he should, for he had painted them himself. + +"O dear Mr. Devil," said Cornelius, "I am so glad that you have called, for +I wanted to speak to you. It strikes me that there is a great defect in the +plan which you have been so good as to draw for me." + +"What is that?" asked the Devil. + +"There is no place for black men," said Cornelius. "And you know white men +will never let them come into the same hospital." + +And the Devil, to do him justice, talked very reasonably to Cornelius, and +represented to him that there were very few black men in New York, and +that these had very vigorous constitutions. But Cornelius was inflamed with +enthusiasm, and frantic with philanthropy, and he vowed that he would not +give a cent to an hospital that had not a wing for black men as big as all +the rest of the building. And the Devil had to take his plan back, and come +again in a year and a day. And when he did come back, Cornelius asked him +if he did not think it would be a most excellent thing if all the Irishmen +in New York could be shut up in an hospital or elsewhere; and he could not +deny it. So he had to take his plan back again. And next year it was the +turn of the Chinese, and then of the Red Indians, and then of the dogs and +cats. And then Cornelius thought that he ought to provide room for all the +people who had been ruined by his speculations, and the Devil thought so +too, but doubted whether Cornelius would be able to afford it. And at last +Cornelius said: + +"Methinks I have been very foolish in wishing to build an hospital at all +while I am living. Surely it would be better that I should enjoy my money +myself during my life, and leave the residue for the lawyers to divide +after my death." + +"You are quite right," said the Devil; "that is exactly what I should do if +I were you." + +So Cornelius put the plans behind a shelf in his counting-house, and the +mice ate them. And he went on prospering and growing rich, until the Devil +became envious of him, and insisted on changing places with him. So +Cornelius went below, and the Devil came and dwelt in New York, where he +still is. + + + + +THE POISON MAID + + O not for him + Blooms my dark nightshade, nor doth hemlock brew + Murder for cups within her cavernous root. + + + +I + + +Grievous is the lot of the child, more especially of the female child, who +is doomed from the tenderest infancy to lack the blessing of a mother's +care. + +Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of the +lovely Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an extraordinary +manner? That enormous serpents infested her cradle, licking her face and +twining around her limbs? That her tiny fingers patted scorpions? and tied +knots in the tails of vipers? That her father, the magician Locuste, ever +sedulous and affectionate, fed her with spoonsful of the honeyed froth that +gathers under the tongues of asps? That as she grew older and craved a more +nutritious diet, she partook, at first in infinitesimal doses, but in ever +increasing quantities, of arsenic, strychnine, opium, and prussic acid? +That at last having attained the flower of youth, she drank habitually from +vessels of gold, for her favourite beverages were so corrosive that no +other substance could resist their solvent properties? + +Gradually accustomed to this strange regimen, she had thriven on it +marvellously, and was without a peer for beauty, sense, and goodness. Her +father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed her in +all lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no other human +being had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that her bringing up +had differed in so material a respect from that of other young people. + +"Father," said she one day, bringing him a book she had been perusing, +"what strange follies learned men will pen with gravity! or is it rather +that none can set bounds to the licence of romancers? These dear serpents, +my friends and playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of +my health and vigour--that any one should write of these as pernicious, +deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or but the wanton +freak of an idle imagination?" + +"My child," answered the magician, "it is fit that thou shouldst now learn +what hath hitherto been concealed from thee, and with this object I left +this treatise in thy way. It speaks truth. Thou hast been nurtured from thy +infancy on substances endowed with lethal properties, commonly called +poisons. Thy entire frame is impregnated thereby, and, although thou +thyself art in the fullest enjoyment of health, thy kiss would be fatal to +any one not, like thy father, fortified by a course of antidotes. Now hear +the reason. I bear a deadly grudge to the king of this land. He indeed hath +not injured me; but his father slew my father, wherefore it is meet that I +should slay that ancestor's son's son. I have therefore nurtured thee from +thy infancy on the deadliest poisons, until thou art a walking vial of +pestilence. The young prince shall unseal thee, to his destruction and thy +unspeakable advantage. Go to the great city; thou art beautiful as the day; +he is young, handsome, and amorous; he will infallibly fall in love with +thee. Do thou submit to his caresses, he will perish miserably; thou (such +is the charm) ransomed by the kiss of love, wilt become wholesome and +innocuous as thy fellows, preserving only thy knowledge of poisons, always +useful, in the present state of society invaluable. Thou wilt therefore +next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing recommendatory letters +from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily reigning." + +"Father," said Mithridata, "either I shall love this young prince, or I +shall not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to caress +me. If I do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of his death." + +"Not even in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to thee by this +event?" + +"Not even for that consideration." + +"O these daughters!" exclaimed the old man. "We bring them up tenderly, we +exhaust all our science for the improvement of their minds and bodies, we +set our choicest hopes upon them, and entrust them with the fulfilment of +our most cherished aspirations; and when all is done, they will not so much +as commit a murder to please us! Miserable ingrate, receive the just +requital of thy selfish disobedience!" + +"O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!" + +"I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors." + +And he did. + + + +II + + +Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a +particle of the philosopher's stone--a slender outfit for a magician's +daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she do +now? The great object of her life must henceforth be to avoid committing +murder, especially murdering any handsome young man. It would have seemed +most natural to retire into a convent, but, not to speak of her lack of +vocation, she felt that her father would justly consider that she had +disgraced her family, and she still looked forward to reconciliation with +him. She might have taken a hermitage, but her instinct told her that a +fair solitary can only keep young men off by strong measures; and she +disliked the character of a hermitess with a bull-dog. She therefore went +straight to the great city, took a house, and surrounded herself with +attendants. In the choice of these she was particularly careful to select +those only whose personal appearance was such as to discourage any approach +to familiarity or endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty +surrounded by such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked +pages, and stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she +loved beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel it +right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for +strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course at +first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious illness, +but youth and a sound constitution pulled her through. + +Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by love +for thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by word nor +deed? To pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume with vain +yearnings for usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled by thy fellows +for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If so, thou wilt pity +poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate, +but who, from the necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as +possible all contact with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of +solitude, and knew that she was regarded as a monster of pride and +exclusiveness. She dared bestow no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any +one, lest this small beginning should lead to the manifestation of her +fatal power. Her own servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as +their bodies, hated her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty +disdain of them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without +tenderness receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her +own sex secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a +providential set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced +her as a--well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody +else's lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata's +severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths that +flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold water +thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep them from +her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets doux; they stood +before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran beside her litter when +she was carried abroad, they assembled at night to serenade her, fighting +desperately among themselves. They sought to gain admission as tradesmen, +as errand boys, even as scullions male and female. To such lengths did they +proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually attempted to carry +her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for the interposition of +another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after a fierce contest +smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course. What +was her horror on reviving to find herself in the arms of a young man of +exquisite beauty and princely mien, sucking death from her lips with +extraordinary relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made any +unfeminine use of her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology. +The youth reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in +silent misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated +her bosom also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake to dismiss +the young man as it did to see him move away, slowly and languidly +staggering to his doom. + +For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to a +youth dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually. She +steadily refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she wrung +her hands, she called for death and execrated her nurture. With that +strange appetite for self-torment which almost seems to diminish the pangs +of the wretched, she collected books on poisons, studied all the symptoms +described, and fancied her hapless lover undergoing them all in turn. At +length a message came which admitted of no evasion. The King commanded her +presence. Admonished by past experience, she provided herself with a veil +and mask, and repaired to the palace. + +The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier +circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her with +austerity, yet with kindness. + +"Maiden," he began, "thy unaccountable cruelty to my son----" + +"Thy son!" she exclaimed, "The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for my +disobedience!" + +"Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate +monsters. Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he has +risked his life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy +cruelty, and when a smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou wilt +not bestow it." + +"Alas! great King," she replied, "I know too well what your Majesty's +opinion of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight of me +could effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son." + +"Of that I shall judge," said the King, "when thou hast divested thyself of +that veil and mask." + +Mithridata reluctantly complied. + +"By Heaven!" exclaimed the King, "such a sight might recall the departing +soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet too +late." + +"O King," urged Mithridata, "how could this countenance do thy son any +good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?" + +"I am not aware of that," said the King. + +"Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state of +deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he not +tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?" + +"Not to my knowledge," said the King. "The symptoms, as I understand, are +not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a milder +form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and incessantly +calls upon thee." + +"This is most incomprehensible," said Mithridata. "There was no drug in my +father's laboratory that could have produced such an effect." + +"The sum of the matter is," continued the King, "that either thou wilt +repair forthwith to my son's chamber, and subsequently to church; or else +unto the scaffold." + +"If it must be so, I choose the scaffold," said Mithridata resolutely. +"Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son's chamber would but destroy +whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond everything +on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul." + +"Chamberlain," cried the monarch, "bring me a strait waistcoat." + +Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King's feet, taking +care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched +history. + +The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. "A bon chat bon rat!" +he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. "So thou art the +daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his craft, and, +as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes. Never did any +child in the world take an equal quantity of physic: but there is now no +poison on earth can harm him. Ye are clearly made for each other; haste to +his bedside, and, as the spell requires, rid thyself of thy venefic +properties in his arms as expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be +bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught +us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every poison." + + + + +NOTES + + +The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained +sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. Many +originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the +annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it +desirable to append, and which further provide an opportunity of tendering +thanks to many friends for their assent to republication. + +P. 5. _The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,_--Hereby we may detect +the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with +Armenia. "Hellenic letters," says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the +fourth century, "were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the +slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens" ("University Life in +Ancient Athens," p. 73). + +P. 28. _Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality._--The belief in +this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and many +emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the +groundwork of Leopold Schefer's novel, "Der Unsterblichkeitstrank," which +has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of "The Potion of +Lao-Tsze." + +P. 38. _So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously._--In A.D. 683, +the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband's death, caused her son to be +set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In our day we +have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns. + +P. 50. _Ananda the Miracle Worker._--This story was originally published +in Fraser's Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation appeared in the +_Revue Britannique_ for November, 1872. Buddha's prohibition to work +miracles rests, so far as the present writer's knowledge extends, on the +authority of Professor Max Mueller ("Lectures on the Science of +Religion"). It should be needless to observe that Ananda, "the St. John of +the Buddhist group," is not recorded to have contravened this or any other +of his master's precepts. + +P. 66. _The City of Philosophers._--This story has been translated into +French by M. Sarrazin. + +P. 68. _There to establish a philosophic commonwealth._--The petition was +actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the disordered +condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to save a sinking +state, possessed the accomplishments which would have adorned an age of +peace and culture. + +P. 82. _The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor edge._--Gallienus +was fond of such practical jocularity. "Quum quidam gemmas vitreas pro +veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re prodita, vindicari vellet, +surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. Deinde e cavea caponem emittit, +mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, per curionem dici jussit, +'Imposturam fecit et passus est': deinde negotiatorem dimisit" (Trebellius +in Gallieno, cap. xii.). + +P. 100. _Hypati, anthypati, &c._--_Hypati_ and _anthypati_ denote consuls +and proconsuls, dignities of course merely titular at the court of +Constantinople. _Silentiarii_ were properly officers charged with +maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was perhaps performed by +deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to persons of distinction. +The _protospatharius_ was the chief of the Imperial body-guard, of which +the _spatharocandidati_ constituted the _elite_. + +P. 114. _The Wisdom of the Indians._--Appeared in 1890 in _The Universal +Review_. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. Bastian's travels in +Burma. + +P. 124. _The Dumb Oracle._--Appeared in the _University Magazine_ for +June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval myth here +transferred to classical times, is also the groundwork of Browning's +ballad, "The Boy and the Angel." + +P. 136. _Duke Virgil._--The subject of this story is derived from Leopold +Schefer's novel, "Die Sibylle von Mantua," though there is but little +resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt as his +authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as their duke in +the thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely founded upon the +interpretation of the insignia accompanying a mediaeval statue of the poet. + +P. 138. _To put the devil into a hole_.--"Then sayd Virgilius, 'Shulde ye +well passe in to the hole that ye cam out of?' 'Yea, I shall well,' sayd +the devyl. 'I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall not do it.' +'Well,' sayd the devyll, 'thereto I consent.' And then the devyll wrange +himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. Virgilius kyvered +the hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and +myght nat there come out agen, but abideth shutte still therein" ("Romance +of Virgilius"). + +_Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?_--"Than he thought in his +mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with great landes +belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it Napells. And +the foundacyon of it was of eggs" ("Romance of Virgilius"). + +P. 148. _The Claw_.--Originally published in _The English Illustrated +Magazine_. + +P. 151. _Peter of Abano_.--Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his +birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, +whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic. It +is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition or stoned by +the populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his remains +having been secretly removed by his friends. Honours were afterwards paid +to his memory; and there seems no doubt that he was a man of great +attainments, including a knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished character, +if he had not sometimes sold his skill at too high a rate. For his +authentic history, see the article in the _Biographie Universelle_ by +Ginguene; for the legendary, Tieck's romantic tale, "Pietro von Abano" +(1825), which has been translated into English. + +P. 156. _Alexander the Rat-catcher_.--This story, to whose ground-work +History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published in vol. +xii. of _The Yellow Book_, January, 1897. + +P. 157. _Cardinal Barbadico_.--This cardinal was actually entrusted by +Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion +upon which the "sardonic grin" imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be +conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico was a remarkable +instance of a man "kicked upstairs." As Archbishop of Corfu he had had a +violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent XI., equally +unwilling to disown the representative of Papal authority or offend the +Republic, recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there. + +P. 177. _The Rewards of Industry._--Appeared originally in _Atalanta for +August_, 1888. + +P. 194. _The Talismans._--First published in _Atalanta_ for September, +1890. + +P. 202. _The Elixir of Life._--Published July, 1881, in the third number +of a magazine entitled _Our Times_, which blasted the elixir's character by +expiring immediately afterwards. + +P. 226. _The Purple Head._--Appeared originally in _Fraser's Magazine_ for +August, 1877. + +P. 228. _The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey in +comparison._ "Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini +comparatione fulgoris" (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.). + +P. 230. _All these sovereigns._--"Diligentissime et Aurelianus et Probus +et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus requisiverunt +tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt" (Vopiscus, _loc. cit._). + +P. 241. _Pan's Wand._--Published originally in a Christmas number of The +_Illustrated London News_. + +P. 249. _A Page from the Book of Folly._--Appeared in _Temple Bar_ for +1871. + +P. 282. _The Philosopher and the Butterflies._--One of the contributions +by various writers to "The New Amphion," a little book prepared for sale at +the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of Edinburgh in +1886. + +P. 294. _The Three Palaces._--Published originally on a similar occasion +to the last story, in "A Volunteer Haversack," an extensive repertory of +miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at +Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902. + +P. 300. _New Readings in Biography._--Originally published in _The Scots +Observer_ in 1889. + +P. 315. _The Poison Maid._--The author wrote this tale in entire +forgetfulness of Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter," which nevertheless he +had certainly read. + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: a misprint in the book was corrected in +this edition, from "He martyrdom" to "His martyrdom".] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twilight of the Gods, and Other +Tales, by Richard Garnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT OF GODS *** + +***** This file should be named 10095.txt or 10095.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/9/10095/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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