For some weeks subsequent to the arrival of Captain Greenwood, the daily
avocations of the corps were assimilated with those of the Heracleans,
if we except the erratic disposition of Dr. Baāhar, which seemed to have
become more enamored with entomological pursuits. In apology, he said,
that the great beauty and ephemeral existence of the butterfly declared
its special intention for the accomplishment of a transient purpose; and
as angels’ terrestrial visits were few and far between, he had come to
the theoretical conclusion that they were intended as relief vehicles
for their conveyance during their earthly visits. For the verification
of this theory he had increased his vigilance, with the hopes of
catching an angel napping, which would recompense his trials from the
jeers of an unbelieving world.
After the morning salutations, four hours were passed in the cultivation
of the garden allotments in the latifundium, by all except the padre,
curators, and artist, the former assisting the Kyronese in renovation in
his vocation of carpenter; the latter named preferring pastoral
occupations as more consonant with their instinctive affinities. From
nine to eleven the time was occupied in the auriculum in conversational
consultation for the exposition of Manatitlan usages, applicable for
initiatory adoption by the Giga races. Thenceforward until the noon-day
hours of meridian heat, devoted to repose in the shady colonnades, each
individual employed his or her time in rendering neighborly aid or
solace. When the shimmering heat shadows were reflected in gleams from
the falling water indicating the sun’s decline, a slight refection was
served.
From thence until evening song the time was occupied in associate
consultations contributing to amusement and projective goodwill,
embracing in scope devices for penetrating the armadillo shell of
civilized vanity and selfishness. The ever changing novelty of
thoughtful inventions suggested by these associations, were in moments
of reflection a fruitful source of wonder to the members of the corps,
from the constant increase of real enjoyment afforded, in contrast with
the vague pursuits of instinctive pleasure followed with the routine
regularity of the kitten’s pastime, by the civilized races. In the
cultivation of associate worth they derived such abiding satisfaction
from the increasing reach of happy perception, they were at times
inclined to doubt their real identity as personal actors in the delusive
scenes reflected from memory.
The self-imposed absurdities reflected from the accumulative worriments
of business pursuits, and sensual gratifications were truthfully
illustrated by Jack and Bill, in the quaint relation of their
experience; who declared that their bodies had been launched and shipped
with just sconce enough to eat, drink, scrub, chew, splice, smoke, and
reef, under the old gaff, without the flutter of a sky-sail’s worth of
thought more than what they were bid to do. “But thanks to Captain
Greenwood, we’ve been saved from a dive into Davy Jones’ locker, where
we once expected to be keelhauled in brimstone scaldings by Old Nick,
without ever being able to take a squint beyond. Homsoever, now with the
Dosch for a skipper, we’ve taken soundings, and know our bearings, so
with a clear look ahead we can see a smooth surface in the channel
without a ripple, or a scud aloft to take us aback from our portage.”
Notwithstanding the constancy of the sailor’s ruder perceptions, the
thoughts of the padre and Dr. Baāhar were often auramentally caught
revelling in past visions of instinctive indulgence, so that it became
necessary for the auramentors to remind one of his medical society,
which held its stated meetings for the correction of ethical
correspondence between its members in a beer cellar; and the other of a
condition, in which he argued with his wife the propriety of retiring
for the night with his boots on. Mr. Dow would, in like manner, be
occasionally surprised in a mood of covetous calculation in anticipation
of conferred honors and titles likely to be bestowed by potentates and
societies in reward for his persevering merit, which had led to the
discovery of the Kyronese, Heraclean, and Manatitlan races. But the
slightest lisp of his first honors obtained for the discovery of a new
species of crab, which was christened “Cancer Doweri,” restored him to a
conscious appreciation of Heraclean example. M. Hollydorf and Captain
Greenwood were proof to the lure of selfish thought.
The visit to the nymphatasium had been eventful, under the direction of
the Dosch and Doschessa, in attracting an assimilative sympathy between
Mr. Welson and a maiden teacher, Cæluiformia by name, the daughter of
the pastor Corycebæus; this, through the intercession, or mediation, of
the prætor and wife, had been matured for a surprise. The pastor had set
his house in order for the return of his daughter, and the probationary
reception of Mr. Welson. When the arrangements were perfected, the
unwitting brides-wick was greeted at the portals of his thalmia when
emerging for matin salutation, by the prætor, tribune censors, Kyronese,
and Betongese, who escorted him after the morning song of praise,
accompanied by the entire population to the pastoriza. At the portal the
happy mentor received the embrace of welcome from the pastor, and one of
equal zest in the expression of sincerity from the prospective “mother-
in-law,” who introduced the blushing Cæluiformia, radiant with
affectionate anticipations, to the arms of her betrothed.
This consummation was the signal for the waiting choir of Manito, who
made the tympanum resound with an anthem prepared for the characteristic
expression of the Scotch instinctive type. Correliana, initiated into
the proemic espousal dedication, directed the measure from Manatitlan
lead. We give a rendering of the words in translation below:—
“From Scotia’s lock’d inlet shores,
Rough highland crags, and sombre glens,
Where heather glints o’er boggy fens,
And shivering, sighs lonely plaint;
In misty tears the lowland saint,
Of bracken braes, that rise from moors.
“With love, we hail the herald sage,
Who dares disdain the bogle chain,
Of myth-bound sects and all their train,
Whose fenny thoughts in muirk arise,
To obscure love’s creative skies,
With miasmatic hate and rage.
“All hail to his love’s perpetual vows,
That Cæluiformia’s now espouse.”
At the close of the salutatory greeting, the parents bestowed upon the
current unity of affection, in espoused accession, their joyful
benediction, introducing them with a glad welcome to the freedom of
their household colonnades. After their installation the assemblage
dispersed to their daily avocations.
With Mr. Welson’s departure, the “quarters” of the corps seemed to have
lost its active principle of vitality, and its members were to be seen
in daily attendance at the house of Corycebæus, after the morning
salutations. Indeed, the transfer was so complete that the tympano-
microscope followed in train, from the proposed consent of all, the
Dosch remarking, that in their course they followed the universal “law”
of attraction, that recognized the lead of strength, for self-control,
as the predominating source of power for the control of others. This
axiom you will find amply verified in all the motor relations of animate
and inanimate matter, as well as in all the votive enactments of life.
The sun, as the supreme source of effulgence and heat, attracts the
lesser luminaries within the pale of its orbit, and as the revivifying
source of vitality, force, and motion, it receives from instinct
worshipful reverence; while in mundane expression, its effects are
instinctively preëminent in the attractive power of the preacher,
lecturer, and democratic leader, for the control of the unthinking herd,
as the oratorical expositors of sound. In your own relations you were
controlled among your own people by precedental habits and customs,
accepting them, without a questioning thought, as well approved by the
ordeal of time. Away from your precedental theorisms, in enactment by
the controlling majority, you were attracted by the influence of
Correliana’s happy example over the Kyronese, and for the first time,
with the majority, your thoughts were directed to facts for deduction
and analytical comparison, which with the leading influence of Heraclean
example has happily called forth into active life your latent
appreciation of goodness. Following in its lead, after liberation, it
has harmonized and rendered subservient your instinctive tempers, so
that with the ascendant portion precedental argument is unknown, and
politic prudence controls the less appreciative minority, even when
opposed by the aggravations of material rebuttal. In apt illustration of
the power of self command achieved by the pastoral members of the corps,
while engaged in Olympic sports with the herd under the lead of the
pastor Corycebæus, Dr. Baāhar, the most pertinacious, politic, and
irascible imitator of antiquarian revelations among you, having unwarily
allowed his stronger passion for butterfly hunting to intrude upon the
portion of the day set apart for the entertainment of the flocks in
field gymnastics, was surprised while stooping to disengage a gaudy
victim from the meshes of his net, by a disjunctive butt, in the rear,
from the censorial horns and head of a precedental guanaco, which caused
a cycle revolution of his body. Regaining his feet, he in wrath
unthinkingly opposed himself to the sportive cause of his mishap, who
was collecting his energies with blind zeal for the renewal of his “good
old times salutation.” But with quick perception the doctor subdued his
reactive wrath, and while the sportive ram was poising his head to
follow up the advantage he had gained in reversing precedental ideas of
naturalistic progression, he wisely concluded that diplomatic discretion
would, for the occasion, be the better part of valor; acting upon the
suggestion, with bipedal advantage, he dodged instead of opposing his
body fatuistically with the adaged shield, “what has been, will be.”
Notwithstanding his “presence of mind,” shown upon this occasion, he
obstinately continued to pursue his predilection for fly catching, with
increased zeal. Often in the midst of the most alluring conversation,
devised for the reciprocation of instruction by Correliana, with a
refrain of notes from woodland songsters to the musical tones of her
voice, he would start wildly up, with his net raised “rampant” for the
catch, with his eyes absorbed for the detection of the species and order
of a butterfly attraction. When assured of rarity, he would rush forth
with eyes and net upraised for the capture of the tempting lure. Gentle
expedient, and every form of pleading inducement had been exhausted,
that could be suggested for exampled persuasion, when an incident
occurred which appeared in coincident similitude, like a conjunctive
interposition, for the cure of his malady.
On a morning which had been freshened with night showers, betokening the
approach of the winter solstice, Corycebæus led forth his flocks,
attended by all whose inclinations were not stayed with the occupations
of gardening and household employments. Conspicuous above the happy
throng, whose voices were melodious with song and mirthful repartee,
made vivacious with bantering chase, was raised the pennon net of Dr.
Baāhar. But for the contrasting halo of exuberant gladness, the bevied
groups, as they passed beneath the cinctus portal, might have been taken
for actors in some memorial scene enactment, expressive of festive
gayety in historic commemoration of ancient ceremonial rites. Nathless,
upon nearer inspection it would have been readily discovered that
instinctive pleasure, from anticipated indulgence, bore no part in the
joyous emotions that flowed in sportive current from affectionate
association. Even the pennon net, borne aloft in naturalistic ardor by
the enthusiastic fly hunter, had received its characteristic “fields” of
red, scarlet, blue, and yellow, from a peaceful Kyronese dye pot, under
the baptismal hands of the mirth loving sisters Cleorita and Oviata.
After their arrival and dispersion among the hill glades, selected for
the grazing of their flocks, Dr. Baāhar, apparently forgetful of the net
staff, supported on his shoulder, was imparting to a bevy of matrons the
secrets of vegetative propagation and fruition, when his words were
suddenly arrested by the shadow of a butterfly of large dimensions cast
by its interception of the sun’s rays upon the flower of his speech
demonstration. A glance upward, with an exclamation of enraptured
covetousness, and all his impressions and energies were concentrated for
the capture of the resplendent andean queen of butterflies. Bushing from
among his pupils, heedless of apologies, instinctive gallantry, and
masculine courtesies bestowed in deference to the weaker privileges of
the sex, he started under queenly lead down the incline of the hillock,
with eyes upturned, fixed upon the rainbow glints reflected from the
swaying waft of the andean regina’s wings, which were radiant with
cerulean tints, as if in blending to proclaim her ethereal source. Like
the ancient falconer, who with frantic gesticulation was accustomed to
wave his luring staff to attract the attention of an eyas gaffling, who
in freedom soared after striking his quarry, the doctor, with
outstretched arms, pursued the tantalizing evolutions of his intended
prize, which were sustained just beyond the reach of his net,—when, lo!
while in full career, from an opposite direction, the king appeared, and
a sudden concussion followed in quick succession, causing the doctor to
drop his net staff, and in reciprocation enclose with his arms the
object he had encountered, which, with the impulsive instinct of woman’s
self-possession in dangerous emergency, embraced with her arms his neck.
With faces in near approximation, the objects of this strange
conjunction in wondering surprise held emotional consultation; then, in
freedom from the reflection of modest embarrassment, which would have
caused sudden release, the right shoulder of the doctor became clothed
in raven tresses, intermingling with his own flowing locks, his right
arm having fallen instinctively to the waist for the support of the fair
possessor’s yielding form.
Forgetful of his net, and the vanished object of his first pursuit,
he, in “good” Germanic Latin, free from the guttural ingesta
inflection of saur-kraut, lager bier, sausage, and tobacco, offered
apologetic consolation for the shock he had unwittingly occasioned, to
which she replied in equally good English, “Pray, don’t mention it;”
while with lingering fondness, her sighs and steps were made eloquent
in responsive continuation, as he led her back in half-reclining mood
to her parents. The prætor, who had witnessed the scene with a
peculiar smile of satisfaction, explained the predisposing cause of
the encounter,—inasmuch as it was appreciable to ordinary
observation,—that it might not be thought an act of premeditation on
the part of the female respondent, or her relatives.
“Our Heraclean marriage alliance is so closely interwoven with
instinctive impression, hallowed by the unity of an affection
independent of the body, that the rupture by death of either of the
coaptive sexual individualities, leaves a void, from the material
deprivation of functional reciprocation, so desolate to the female in
its impression of lonely isolation, that instinct conjures some gentle
hallucination, to supply the broken threads of sympathy in the weftage
of the severed ties. This illusive visionary substitution is held as a
consecrated indication of continued affectionate unity, for the
survivor’s material direction in the body. Indeed, all our bereaved
experience in some form this impression, in translation to some memorial
object presented to view in the agony of instinctive disseveration.
Isolita, the daughter of our cremator, who is now reclining in the
support of Dr. Baāhar’s arm, had her attention attracted, while in the
anguish of separation, by a superb andean butterfly, which floated over
the body of her expiring husband, and with his last sigh settled for a
moment on her head with wafting wings, as if by invocation to inspire
her hopes in bereavement of a material emblematic source of
communication and direction; then, from the court colonnades, soared
directly upward until lost to view in the blending tints of ethereal
azure. This scene impressed us all with its omenic signification, so
that we could scarcely wonder that Isolita in her great sorrow received
it as a presage of vehicular translation, to be treasured as a token of
animus visitations from her departed unity in the flesh. Without doubt,
she will hold the conjunctive act you have witnessed this morning as an
intimated sign of direction for the selection of a scocius, or
companion, for the completion of her earthly term of sojourn. The
confiding trust, evinced from her retained position, already betokens
her belief in the consummated fulfillment of delegated substitution. In
like verification, you will observe that the doctor has abandoned his
net, and the winged vanity of his pursuit, for the realization of a more
happy and abiding achievement.”
In confirmation of the prætor’s prognostication, but a few moments had
been numbered with the past ere a procession had formed headed by the
cremator’s family, in hopeful conformity with the ceremonious rites they
were disposed to accord in recognition of the instinctive liberalisms of
sense which had been fostered by the doctor’s precedental education.
Being obliged to pass the scene of encounter in their passage up the
dale, the prætor’s face grew anxious as they approached the discarded
net, but assumed an expression of gladness when the doctor passed it
within the measure of a footfall, and without wincing saw it trodden
under foot by the mother of his prospective affiancee. Relieved of his
fears by the disdainful look cast upon it by the captured fly hunter,
the family group of the prætor moved downward to meet the symbolical
procession, and greet the advancing victor of self. While bestowing
their congratulations, the fanatical fatuity, inherent with the
expression of the doctor’s face, became broken and dissipated, as with
mist clouds under the genial rays of the morning sun. In answer to the
doctor’s application for the required sanction of his betrothal with
Isolita, the prætor expressed his warm approval, with the hope that he
would soon be able to derive his happiness from the prospective good his
example would confer upon future generations.
“Still,” he continued, “without a clear knowledge of Manatitlan
coöperation, in directing the wisdom of the ‘choice,’ I might have
questioned the prudent propriety of the betrothal, from your
pertinacious adherence to precedental habits, in defiance of the
constant increase of self-inflicted misery. Especially, as I have
learned from auramental source, that it has been the custom of the
Germans, practiced from time immemorial, to render their wives servitas
of convenience, rather than for the fulfillment of Creative intention,
designed for the perfection of unity. From this isolating peculiarity of
self-indulgent German instinct, it might be well for me to question,
even now, whether in thought you treasure selfish desire that would
detract by indulgence from the socius companionship of bereaved
affection. Although naturally endowed with a strong instinctive
predisposition, Isolita is in no way derelict in her full appreciation
of an affection, matured in purity, independent of the body’s functions.
Bethink you, in answering, of your deposed net?”
In reply, the doctor said, “My net has subserved its purpose, in
fulfilling its destiny of prestige; for, as you well know, I have
expressed my full belief in the especial design of the butterfly’s
vocation, from the unrivaled beauty of its embellishments, which
indicate the celestial transport, in previsemental aid of angelic
visits. This morning I have received satisfactory evidence of the fact,
and for the future have no farther object for its use; or, as we might
say in quotation, ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ If you
can assure me of Heraclean reciprocation in the bestowal of the angelic
capture I have made this morning, I will endeavor to discard, with my
net, precedental pursuits.”
The ingenuity of the insect savan’s reply bespeaking the sanity of his
self-possession, the prætor repeated to him the peculiarities of
Isolita’s widowed hallucination.
Still himself, the doctor replied, “I feel confirmed in my impressions
of her angelic nature, from your acknowledgment of the fact, that as a
woman she harbors but one hallucination, and that I have been preferred
as an equal for association with her, a privilege which has yet afore
been awarded, in civilized society, solely, to her sex’s insatiate
unabridged vanity by the cajoleries of man.”
With this additional evidence of the doctor’s consciously sane
appreciation of the happy conjunction his morning’s encounter
“foreboded,” the espousal received general approbation. The prætor
suggesting the efficient aid Isolita would be able to confer in
systematizing his botanical labors, from the thorough knowledge of her
acquirements necessary for fruitful vegetation, they departed upon their
first united essay in botanical research, and were not seen again until
the herdsmen sounded their calls for their return to the city; they then
appeared crowned with floral decorations in overture anticipation of
united reciprocations.
Of all the returning train the padre’s face alone remained subject to
the fitful indications of thoughtful sadness. The conjurations of the
day had separated him from his last mythological hold upon instinct,
raising a happy barrier between him and the familiar conviviality of
genial gossipings in the language of talk. Returning to the desolate
quarters of the corps, after indulging freely in chirimoya and milk, he
became subject to the indigestive broodings of instinct, barren of
thoughtful resources for occupation. In this condition, disconsolate, he
paced the deserted colonnades long after Mr. Dow and the curators of
sound had retired to rest. But the Kyronese, with sympathetic
consideration for his lonely plight, busied themselves in the court and
cochina, ostensibly in preparation for the duties of the morrow, until,
with the impression that he would prefer solitude for the melancholy
nursing of his ruminations, they yielded to the drowsy influence evoked
by the approaching midnight hour; and unaccustomed to the vigil unrest
of anxiety, begot by the dismal forebodings of dread from a belief in
mythological rewards and punishments, their eyes were sealed with such
sudden surprise that little choice was permitted for the selection of
easy positions for repose. Of late, mindful of others’ comfort, he saw
these sympathetic vigilantes overcome with sleep unheeded. Even Corycæus
intermitted his thought auramentations with the solace of an occasional
nap, and with the padre still waking, and walking in a mood of
increasing nervous excitement, he at length sank into a dreamless sleep.
The darkness which gathers its deeper pall of blackness, in reversion to
the brightness in vivid glow of the dying spark, had merged from the
palpable coldness of its impression into the murky gray of the shadowy
dawn, when there came a change so sudden and peculiar in the outward
sway of the hammacas of the auramentor’s family,—suspended from the
vibrillæ of the tragus across the fossæ to the ante-tragus,—that the
forward lurch awoke the occupants. Curious to know the cause of a motion
so unusual, Corycæus hastened, with the recollection of the padre’s
condition, to take an observation, in which his wife joined with
sympathetic alacrity. They found the padre kneeling and bowing before a
rough-hewn statue of an ancient Heraclean mother, with a child, which
she supported in her arms, the while counting with a “vociferous”
whisper the beads of the rosary presented to him by Fraile Gallagato,
alternating his devotional manipulations by cross “cuts” on his forehead
and breast with his index finger. The scene was so ludicrously absurd,
in evidence of the superstitious revival of his religious instincts,
that the auramentors passed to a neighboring branch to watch his motions
and hear his prayers engendered from selfish fears, wrought by
indigestion and sleepless innervation, aided by the changes of the
night. The image had been closely veiled with a vine embossure of
iriditrope, which had been noted for its close resemblance to the
sculptured statues of the immaculate virgin, without being aware of the
model beneath. By some coincident freak, combined with fear, mist, and
muirk, confounding with the incertitude of vision-fancied resemblance,
he had discovered the statue beneath, which tended to raise his
phantasmic emotions to a pitch of fanatical devotion. Impressed with the
belief that it was a special revelation, designed as a reproof for his
“backsliding” departure from grace, and neglect of his opportunities for
the conversion of the Heracleans, he ventured to unveil the miraculous
discovery, before seeking inspiration through the celestial gates of
bead prayer. Notwithstanding the impression made upon the family of
Corycæus by the ridiculous farce, there was a weird instinctive effect
that reminded them sadly of the benighted condition of his race, who
still made themselves blindly miserable with selfish labor, to the utter
perversion of affectionate ease imparted from the current equality of
self-legislation to the Heracleans.
After an hour’s devotional exercise with hands, and mumbling prayer
dronings and enumerations, wearied nature closed the scene with sleep,
and he sank forward with his body and face prone upon the virgin bed of
vine, in dreamless oblivion. In this condition he was found, as the
ruddy beams of day began to dispel the lingering misty light of dawn, by
the mayorong, who in sad fright made the courts and colonnades resound
to his calls for assistance. Fearing that the vital spark had forever
fled from the prostrate form of the kind-hearted padre, who, in despite
of his incertitude, begot from his thoughtless reliance upon instinctive
impressions, was alike the cherished favorite of the Heracleans,
Kyronese, and Betongese, the mayorong made no effort for his
resuscitation. The shrill, wailing cry, reverberating in anguished
appeal, reached not only his own people who were preparing for morning
salutation, but the Heracleans, who hurried in the greatest
consternation to the quarters of the corps to learn the cause of the
fearful outcry. Proof to the mayorong’s mournful cry, hastening
footsteps, and exclamations of the excited throng, the padre continued
unconscious, the gathering assemblage regarding his prostrate body with
blanched faces and horror-struck gaze. When at length their surprised
emotions had subsided into thoughtful sadness, “presence of mind”
revived under the impression of regretful sympathy, which caused
Cleorita and Oviata to kneel and raise the padre’s head, and with the
assistance of their grandfather to turn him upon his back. As gentle
hands withdrew the dank hair that enshrouded his eyes, the fall of tears
upon his face brought forth a deep sigh, as if conscious of the source
from whence they came; this, with a muttered ave, was followed by a
quivering stretch for relief from the stiffness of his limbs,
significant alike of retained vitality and reviving consciousness. Then,
as if under the herald impulse of a dream of dread, he, with a spasmodic
start, suddenly raised his head from the pillowed lap of Cleorita,
bringing his nose in abrupt contact with the toe of the figure that
projected over the pediment of the statue. This brought forth, with
tears, his accustomed ejaculation, “My goodness gracious!” while he
administered to it extreme unction with the soothing touch of his hand.
The grimaced accompaniment, in revulsion, brought forth, in contrast
from the depth of sadness, an irresistible outburst of laughter, from
the late mourners whose eyes were yet moist with the tears of sorrow.
Starting up, amazed at his own unaccountable position, and the
assemblage of faces that bestowed upon him their gaze, with mingled
expressions of grief and mirth, the padre’s fingers sought his hair for
the disentanglement of his bewildered impressions. Failing in his
attempt to recall the causeful events, his looks appealed to Cleorita
and Oviata, whose eyes were glistening with gladness through their misty
veil of tears, like the sun’s rays through the cilium of rosebuds
sparkling with dew drops; but the anxious inquiries of new arrivals
diverted explanation from them. Evil tidings are ever quick in spreading
when borne by the scandalous impulse of gossiping tongues intent upon
marvelous impression, but with sad sympathy the alarm had spread from
portal to portal, with tongueless celerity, heralding the source of
affectionate bereavement.
Among the nearest, and earliest to be apprised of the padre’s supposed
demise, was a young widow named Madonnasta, who resided with her parents
without the oppidum gate, in the racept of the latifundium. Her husband
had been taken by the savage besiegers when returning from a forage
sortie; their hatred against the whites had been embittered by cruelties
practiced for intimidation while the Jesuits were endeavoring to found
missions among them for subjective utilization and the ruling advance of
instinctive religion and civilization. In woful ignorance, they
accredited their civilized foes with a united faith in a common form of
worship, designed for the immolation of all unbelievers. Prompted by
revengeful defiance, the unfortunate captive had been stretched and
bound to a cross, the sacrificial emblem of Christian faith; and in that
condition had been suspended over the brink of the precipice, in view of
the besieged, who were forced to witness his agonized struggles, under
the scorching heat of the sun, increased by the absorption and
reflection of the basaltic rock, aggravated by the pain of his bonds,
and the gnawings of hunger and thirst; but not without witnessing the
desperate sallies made by sympathy for his rescue, in which with a
wife’s devotion Madonnasta had engaged. When at length death relieved
his mortal torments, and the vultures, with time and the elements, had
severed the cords that bound the bleached skeleton to the crucial
framework, and it to the precipice, it fell to a resting place beneath;
then a successful sortie was made for their recovery, and they were
cremated with the wood of crucifixion; but a portion was retained by the
widowed wife, who with great care and ingenuity formed it into an
emblematic cross, corresponding in memorial form with the one upon which
her husband had suffered; this she suspended from her neck, as an
instinctive memento of the sad scene of her mortal bereavement. Her
devotion to the relic soon imparted to sorrowing emotions the hallucid
impression that the crossed pieces of wood were enacting the part of a
spiritualized medium of communication with the animus of her departed
husband, and were consulted at certain hours of the day for direction.
As the hallowed memories clustered around the waking hours of the
morning, when from repose the grateful impressions of thanksgiving had
been revived for affectionate reciprocation, she was ever the first in
readiness for the orison hour of morning greeting. In these moods, the
fervor evinced by her reverential endearments plainly indicated the
instinctive lapse of her faith into the implied belief of material
transubstantiation eucharistic for imparting the hallucination of actual
presence for the renewal of connubial felicity. These impressions, which
from their sincerity involved consolation, in no wise impaired the
sanity of her thoughts and acts in matters pertaining to the rational
employments of her bodily existence in purity of intention. On the
contrary, it strengthened the outflowing tide of her affection, so that
its tangibility was imparted with a perceptible thrill from touch,
voice, and presence, to all within the sway of purity and goodness.
It was the good fortune of the padre, on the morning succeeding to that
of his first Heraclean advent, while yet subject to the relict baneful
effects of whiskey, tobacco, and their habitual hereditaments of
impurity, to be attracted by the beneficent fervor of the widowed
Madonnasta’s pitying glances of sympathy, while passing the portals of
her father’s house. The effect of these interviewing glances became
immediately reformatory, for he sought a retired spot, where he
“devoted” himself for an hour to the rapid chewing of his remaining
tobacco,—supplied from the limited store of his friend the doctor, for a
stipulated butterfly consideration,—the while ruminating upon the
incomparable charms of his inconuistic discovery. After fully expressing
its narcotic power to the offaled dregs, he, in the vernacular phrase of
instinct, incontinently swore off, while from a fountain in the
crematium he thoroughly abluted his mouth; then returning past the house
of Madonnasta, he paid her his reverence free from the actual impression
of defilement. Afterwards, whenever he contemplated a visit to the
predisposed object of his adoration, he subjected his mouth to a
thorough purification with the chloride of lime, recommended by his
“friend” as an excellent deodorizer for the correction of effluviums.
This politic course partook of in advisorial advocacy, and exampled
acceptance, the ostrich’s fatuity, who in closing or concealing the eyes
to self-reflection “supposes” its material body is rendered invisible to
others. With the passage of time and his reproof pilgrimage to Amelcoy,
he gradually became impressed with the mishaps attendant upon self-
indulgence, and under the direction of goodwill he had obtained with her
greetings manifestations of affectionate approval, which inclined her to
study his language with rapid achievement and understanding success.
These inter-allusions will afford the reader an understanding impression
of antecedent and subsequent passages, elicited from the eventful
singularities of the morning’s transpositions.
When the padre’s forlorn or dead estate was announced by the mournful
cadences of the mayorong’s call, Madonnasta was among the first of her
people who had flown upon the wings of sympathy, to realize with her own
eyes the truth of the startling rumor that knelled the second
bereavement of her hopes.
The padre, at the moment of her approach, was endeavoring, with his
right hand in his hair, to establish an equilibrium for the use of
reflective thought, while his eyes wandered from face to face in search
for the cause of their congregated anxiety, manifested in his behalf.
Observing the roseate flush of gladness that quickly succeeded the
pallor of dread anticipation in Madonnasta’s face, when she found that
he still lived, the padre essayed to address her in his own language,
but upon the instant of his first articulation she caught sight of the
cross dangling from his neck suspended by its chain of beads. Suddenly
raising her hands in the clasped attitude of thankful surprise, she
uttered the exclamation, “Al han espousita directicio!” (It is by thy
fond direction!) and springing forward fondly clasped his neck in a
joyfully conscious swoon. This episode proved fortunate, else she would
have discovered his great trepidation and lack of glad reciprocation,
which would have sadly chilled the realization of her transubstantial
vision of predilected reunion dedicated for enactment through the
padre’s substituted mortality. With his usual tardy perception, dulled
from the renewal of superstitious impression, he gave only mechanical
support to the form of Madonnasta, resplendent with the charms premised
from prospective reduplication in the body.
Cleorita observing his perplexity and evident abashment, pointed to the
cross of Madonnasta, and his own, then with eucharistical fervor he
bestowed upon her lips a baptismal kiss, while with a blush of shame he
concealed the pendent emblem, suspended from his own neck, beneath his
vest. This devotional exercise and symbol, recalled to his memory the
events of the night, with a circumstantial impression that Madonnasta
had by miraculous interposition been converted to the Christian faith,
which led him to exclaim with enthusiastic ardor, “Upon my conscience’
sake, it’s a miracle, how she has kept the faith among pagans!” With
pity and admiration, he again administered the baptismal rite of
instinctive communion, which served to revive the lapsed faculties of
his incumbent burthen. As his somewhat tardy tenderness revived the
waiting perceptions of his angelic godsend herald, sighs, like the
rustling flutter of leaves stirred in the stillness of noon-day by the
advance of a shower, betokened the restoration of vital energy, with the
genial accompaniment of joyful tears. When at length the rosy eyelids of
Madonnasta began with trembling vibrations to unfold, the padre’s
features in waiting expectation flickered with the _ignis-fatuus_
expression of catholic zeal, in the full belief of miraculous
intervention for the preservation of the ordinances of revealed religion
under the fructifying influence of saving grace. As with a convulsive
shudder the full orbs of Madonnasta’s wondering eyes were unveiled, and
made glorious with the expression of delegated affection, the padre’s
face became illuminated with the propagandic light of zealotry, causing
him to seize and bestow upon her cross an emblematic kiss of reverence.
This act fully revived the pervading strength of Madonnasta’s
hallucination, causing her, with a look of fond recollection, peculiar
to widowed grief, to embrace his neck, while with her lips she realized
to his fanatical zeal the confirmation of faith.
The wonderingly amused spectators of this pantomimically enacted scene
of mutual hallucination, with this act of consummation opened a passage
for Mr. Welson and the prætor, who had been attracted from the house of
Corycebæus by the hurrying excitement within the city portal. A glance
sufficed for the assurance of a provisional “wedding” crisis, and the
prætor was about to add his sanction, but the moment the padre observed
his intention, he started back objuringly in the greatest alarm,
muttering an interposing exorcism, at the same time exposing his own and
Madonnasta’s crosses as shields of protection. His impetuous array
startled the prætor with the fear that the padre was in reality
instinctively mad. But M. Hollydorf explained to his adopted father that
the padre’s disarray of thought had undoubtedly been occasioned by an
unusual conjunction of circumstances, recommending an adjournment to the
ordinarium of the corps for an investigation of facts, and a mutual
understanding, under the sanction of advisement. When convened Corycæus
related all that had transpired within the scope of his waking
knowledge, which extended through the devotional vigil of the padre. It
was easy to trace from subsequent events the source of Madonnasta’s and
the padre’s coincident delusions. She had recognized in him the
transubstantiated form preferred as a substitute by her crucified
husband, from the cross attachment to his rosary; and he, from the bias
of an instinctive Christian education, had supposed from coincident
impressions that she was a miraculous convert appealing to him for a
husband’s protection. The Dosch advised that the padre should be made
acquainted with the circumstances attending the death of Madonnasta’s
husband, and her consequent monumental delusion from the derangement of
her instinctive perceptions occasioned by affectionate solicitude. Then,
if he chose, in prospect of their incurability, to solace her with his
companionship during their allotted terms of mortal sojourn, their union
should receive Heraclean approval, upon the plea of like illusive
adaptation.
The padre was greatly abashed when the facts in plain demonstration were
confirmed by Correliana and her mother. Mr. Welson then urged him to
accept the coincidence as an omen of happy premonition. He then
gratefully received the rites of sanctioned betrothal without demurring,
after Madonnasta had been offered a like privilege of revocal by a
statement of his mythological delusions derived from the ghostly
precepts of a Christian education. Both with firm adhesion retained the
bias of first impressions, and were escorted with joyful mirth to the
house of Madonnasta’s parents, where, with parental welcome, the padre
assured the assemblage that he felt himself proof against lonely relapse
into the mythological haunts of instinct. After the padre’s betrothal
and domiciliation, Mr. Welson with the Dosch returned to the house of
Corycebæus.
While the prominent eccentricities of the last two conjunctions were the
subjects of mirthful explication, Mr. Welson abruptly addressed the
Dosch and Doschessa with an inquiry, which, like the shadow of a cloud
passing over a landscape made humorous by man’s instinctive invention,
caused gleams of joyous transition from the reflection of absurdity,
which, with authority, we are permitted to report.
_Mr. Welson._ “You have found it necessary in coupling the doctor and
padre with yoke mates, to adjust their ruling infatuations with like
characteristic hallucinations of will-o’-wisp affinity! will you now
expound to me my own, that led to the direction of my choice? For I will
frankly acknowledge, that with studied aid afforded by Cæluiformia’s
reflection, I have only been able to discover a lack of equality from my
own instinctive imperfections.”
_Dosch_ (with a joyous accompaniment of laughter). “You have an old
ritualistic proverb of more than ordinary worth, recorded among your
mythological oddities and traditional ‘saws,’ for the expression of Giga
infatuation, which we will reverse for your especial benefit in aid of
perception for the explication of the enigma you ask us to solve. The
reading your experience confirms, in quotation, should be rendered,
Sufficient for the day is the good thereof! and with us, Sufficient for
the day is the exampled proof thereof!”
Their mirthful inclinations were stayed by the entrance of the padre and
Madonnasta; the countenance of the former having reassumed the vacuity
of expression peculiar to the fanatical rule of instinctive fear and
prejudice, which in language we will allow him to express.
_Padre_ (addressing the Manatitlans). “You must know that it is not my
wish or intention to be ungrateful; but then one must have a care for
the preservation of his soul; for what is the whole world to a man if he
loses his own soul. I am certain you could not have failed to see by my
actions, all along, that I had qualms of conscience that all was not
right with me. Not that I would wish for a moment to question the
motives of Heraclean example, or ever have, for I know that in purity
it’s above my reach. But works, you know, are as nothing in the balance
with one’s soul without faith, which works wonders. Neither can I blame
you in any way, except that you reject the light, confident in your own
good works; and I greatly fear that the sources of happiness you suppose
to be real are the delusions of the devil, who goes about like a roaring
lion seeking whom he may devour. For what says Father Jaen, ‘Good works
are of no effect without saving grace administered under the seal of
confession!’ Well, after the strange marriages of Captain Greenwood, M.
Hollydorf, Jack and Bill, with the sun overhead,—which I suppose is a
pagan fashion,—and begging your pardon for expressing the truth of my
mind, were no marriages at all, being extraordinary, without the
sanction of the holy rites of the church, anointed under priestly seal,
in sign manual of registry in heaven, which prevents divorce.
(Addressing Mr. Welson.) Then you were espoused in another strange way,
which shows that there is no regular sanctified method, as there should
be. But yesterday, when Dr. Baāhar and Mrs. Isolita came together in
such an extraordinary way, my eyes were opened, and I could not sleep,
so I prayed to the virgin and her child fervently, which led to the
miraculous discovery of her image, and only begotten son, just as the
light was dawning, and while praying to her I was suddenly overcome with
a slumber so peacefully sweet and deep, that I awoke to find myself dead
in the belief of you all, at least those that saw me in that condition.
In my vision I saw angels in tears, who seemed to express sorrow for the
death of my body without the salvation of my soul by confession. Now,
perhaps I was dead, for I found Cleorita and Oviata and the mayorong and
his people and the Heracleans weeping, and felt uncomfortable in my
body, as though I had just risen. Hardly had I begun to think, and had
just bethought myself how I was overtaken, when I heard caress me
(carissima!) spoken in an imploring way, at the same time found that
Madonnasta had fainted in my arms, in an embarrassing way, which again
bewildered me, until Cleorita and Oviata pointed to our crosses; then a
light burst upon me, for I saw that she was a Christian among pagans,
miraculously interposed for my reproof and her salvation, before I had
sinned away the day of grace! All that I have said is true, and much
more, if I could recollect it, which you would have seen if you had had
faith like a grain of mustard seed. At any rate, I feel that the
immaculate virgin and her holy son are my guardian angels, and the
Manatitlans acknowledge that they are human, and depend upon good works
for happiness, which is against the fathers and Scriptures, and I
cannot, upon second thought, bring my mind to submit to your rites of
marriage, which I fear are but little better than concubinage, that
would endanger my soul and that of Madonnasta. From this you must know
how anxious I am to depart, that Madonnasta may receive the rites of
baptism and consecration for adoption into the bosom of our holy mother
church. Then, after our regular marriage, we may return to assist in
your conversion, if I am found worthy of confirmation in holy orders.”
It would be hard to express in language the mixed emotions of those of
the assemblage who understood the padre’s interpretation of his waking
visions of the morning, bred in emergence from sleep to the impressions
of reality. The face of Mr. Welson assumed an expression of humorous
admiration, seemingly gratified with the padre’s revived superstitious
simplicity, which gave encouragement to his playful disposition for
quizzing inquiry. The microscopic reflections in like manner appeared to
enjoy, for the moment, the “tutored” dismay evinced by the rambling
impressions of the padre’s rehearsal, incoherent with the precedental
intuition of faith expressed in his memory of words. Madonnasta’s face,
although apprised of the padre’s mythological delusions, “underwent” the
varied changes of curiosity, puzzled for the want of a clear
interpretation of emotions so foreign to the affectionate current of
sympathy. Mr. Welson and the Dosch were alike dreaded by the padre, when
the tenets of his religion and its instinctive incongruities, supported
by faith in impossibilities, were rendered farcical by the contradictory
absurdities of his questioned exposition of the law, prophets, and
revelation; for, with a few interrogations, they invariably made him
feel the ridiculous mist of his self-involvement. His incoherency had
been increased by the proboscidial waggish indications of Mr. Welson’s
nose, which he felt was searching for a tender point beneath the
superficial flow of his religious faith; so he mustered all the
dignified acerbity possible for repelling attacks made for the exposure
of his gullibility.
_Mr. Welson._ “You have preferred your former desire to leave Heraclea,
and propose to take Madonnasta with you for sacramental confirmation and
marriage. After the explanation you have heard of the cause that led her
to adopt the memorial emblem, would it not be well to question her
farther, that you may learn whether her disposition inclines her to the
course you propose?”
_Padre._ “You know very well, Mr. Welson, that I cannot speak the Latin
language, neither can she understand the English sufficiently well for
the full comprehension of my wish. But what is there under the sun more
evident than the common language of the cross, commemorative of our
Saviour’s crucifixion? Why, my goodness gracious, man, can’t you see
that its use in her husband’s death, was the inscrutable means used for
her conversion? Then what led me to discover the virgin and her
child,—which you had passed hundreds of times without noticing,—when I
was in the greatest need for their intercession from the want of sleep?
I know that you say it is the statue of an ancient mother of the
household, reverenced for her “virtues,” but this, as you well know,
would not account for the effect produced on me, when my prayers were
directly supplicating repose?”
_Mr. Welson._ “Our faces undoubtedly show what we cannot deny. But our
smiles are not provoked by a scoffing disposition; on the contrary they
are more inclined to sadness than derision, for it is hard for us to
conceive the incomprehensible nature of an obstinacy so void in
perceptive appreciation, although by the reflection it forces upon
memory the perverse insensibility and difference of our past lives to
the true source of happiness. That you, of us all the most highly
endowed with the natural manifestations of goodness, should prove so
dull as not to realize the source from which the happiness you really
feel is derived, bespeaks an infatuation that exceeds the measure of our
comprehension. But as you have determined to leave us, it is proper for
you to understand the true interpretation of your betrothed’s feelings
in prospect of her removal from home.”
_Dosch._ “Before she is questioned, I would have the padre fully
comprehend the true nature of the alliance he would assume with
Madonnasta, for she, in common with the Heracleans, has a realizing
perception of the unity still existing between herself and former
respondent in the flesh. Her true impressions, excited by the symbol in
your possession, were that your sympathies flowed in unison with hers
toward the severed reflection of her own identity, and that you were the
preferred successor chosen for the representative solace of her sojourn
in mortality. To disabuse her of this gentle hallucination, imparted
from the severed ties of instinctive association, would, if possible, be
cruel. Still if your prejudices are over strong against soothing her
partial preference in the interchange of proxied solace, it would be
better for you to depart alone. If, on the contrary, you can reciprocate
in substitution her instinctive affection, you will find her a constant
source of happiness, that will advance your perception to an earthly
realization of the joys imparted from a foretaste of immortality,
through the current reciprocation of goodness. Now that my wife has
explained to her your multiplied delusions, founded upon the sounding
words, faith and saving grace, with their attendant instinctive
inducements for the patronage of gross indulgences, I will state to her
the motives of your intention which prompt you to leave Heraclea, also
your desire to have her body undergo the ritualistic manipulations of
the priests of your sect, for the salvation of its instinctive soul, and
recommend that you bestow upon her during the relation your regardful
attention.”
Madonnasta, during the recital, devoted her attention to the close study
of the padre’s personal peculiarities, which were described to her as a
prevailing index of corrupting effect with the Giga civilized races.
With the mention of tobacco and distilled liquors, that could not be
disguised to his ear, his face assumed the scarlet hue of shame, while
with downcast eyes and tremulous folding of hands, he pleaded in thought
parental example and the encouragement afforded by priestly absolution.
Quick to appreciate his regretful sufferings, she was attracted to his
side, and with the soothing action of her hands imparted sympathy for
his self-inflicted misery. Shamefaced from the constantly recurring
examples of his heedless lack of purpose, he made no attempt to renew
his promises of constancy, but remained silently submissive to the
reprehensive admonition of the Dosch. “If,” continued the Dosch, “you
and your race would give heed to the warning impressions of your bodily
functions when oppressed, your perceptions from memory would soon act as
a guard against incompatibles and excess. Functional experience as an
example for good and evil, in provisional guard for the welfare of
digestion and healthy assimilation, is better by far than the
theoretical tests of chemical analysis and the empirical counter-actives
of the doctor, which only serve to exhaust vitality, distempering in the
process protective mental power designed for the corresponding
elimination of instinctive purity and goodness. Our bodily perfection,
which ignores in age the artificial aids of plaster and paint, for the
concealment of living depreciation from unnatural causes, has been
attained by the thoughtful provision of ancestral example, which
constantly held in view, with themselves, their responsibility to future
generations, with reactive profit to their own happy correspondence with
material self. It should appear, from the example of your last
experience, which has rendered you phantasmally mad, that judgment
should be trained individually and collectively to recognize in
representation the adaptability of food in quality and quantity for
healthy support. The cherimoyer as a fruit, and milk as a vegetable
production from animal elaboration, are each separately, with a
recognition of time and quantity, well adapted for the nutriment of the
human body. But you, as with your race, have paid the penalty of
heedlessness, and in relative degrees can realize from self-experience
the origin of war, gospel, law, and medicine, with their legions of
phantasmal abettors, which renders life a waking nightmare of miserable
variations in opposition to happy realization. In the calm quiet of
Heraclean life, with associate correspondence in purity and goodness,
your impressions and desires have been so occupied with happy realities,
that even in reflection, from memory, the gala day celebrations that
attracted your instinctive passions of sense with evanescent beguilement
have proved an aversion to thought. Picture in impression your emotions,
if in the distance you can imagine a scene so abhorrent to the
realizations of affection, you saw a procession passing up the now
peaceful avenue of the latifundium, heralded with deafening shouts,
cannon, Chinese crackers, bombas, the clangor of cymbals, obstreperous
shrillness of fifes, screechings, groanings, and dronings of bagpipes,
the monotonous boom and clattering roll of drums, a procession with
banners borne by soldiers in the popinjay “uniforms,” glittering swords,
bayonets, and like paraphernalia of vanity and death! Or the horror that
would suffocate your tender hopes inspired for the increasing purity and
goodness of future generations, if the temple schools of germination
should be usurped to give place to the stable ritualisms of priestly
compostors! When, with the study of your personal requirements, you seek
to make your habits inoffensive and agreeable to purity and goodness,
you will be able to avoid the humiliating impressions evoked by your
morning’s exposure, which were solely attributable to a heedless lack of
attention to your former experience and advice of Anticipator, who
warned you of the effects you provoked. From the effect produced upon
your involuntary powers from indigestion, you can judge of the living
nightmare freaks of insanity which have been provoked from ages of
conceptive indulgence to give birth to hallucinations of your present
progressive civilizations. Once entered upon the realities of self-
legislation, in its current form of affectionate solicitation for the
welfare of others, the germ of goodness will expand for reciprocation,
until in revivication it embraces not only the human race, but in
instinctive effect and degree the lower orders of animality.”
The padre feeling the justness of the direction, and kindly sympathy
manifested by the Manatitlans and Heracleans, could not withhold his
eyes from giving misty manifestation of emotional appreciation. This
“weakness” caused Dr. Baāhar, who had with politic diplomacy conformed,
in outward appearance, to Heraclean usage, to become cynically provoked,
openly urging that his childish tears accounted for his mistaking the
rough-hewn Heraclean statues for the Christian prototypes of his creed.
Notwithstanding the padre’s regretful humiliations, from a lack of
thoughtful consideration, he could not withhold a retortful reminder
from his old noli me tangere opponent, of his more flagrant assumption;
after a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “I claim but a limited
knowledge in genealogical matters pertaining to mythology, but I think I
was not more daft in my judgment when I mistook the statue in the misty
morning light, for the virgin mother and child, than you was in judging
the Heracleans politic worshipers of one of your old Sclavo-vendic
deities, because you found a statue garlanded with vine-disguised
Kyronese mousetraps.”
This ever ready repartee, and apt for the occasion, served to dispel the
reproachful shadows, that in impression hung over the padre from his
listless predisposition to lapse into his old fatuous rulings of
instinct. The admonitions of the Dosch had also aroused in him a
reproachful fear that his example would serve to impair the confidence
of new arrivals in the effective permanency of Heraclean example; which
awakened in him a determination in his own mind “to make his calling and
election sure,” by a thoughtful avoidance of precedental inclinations.