_A Steward’s Narrative_
To me, the prison and the palace were the same. No believer in fate,
and a strong believer in the doctrine that in the infinite majority of
cases the unlucky have to thank only themselves, I was yet irresistibly
conscious of my own stern exception. That there was an influence hanging
over me I deeply knew; that I might as well strive with the winds was
the fruit of my whole experience; and with the loftiest calculation of
the wonders that human energy may work, I abandoned myself on principle
to the chances of the hour. I was the weed upon the wave, and whether
above or below the surface, I knew that the wave would roll on, and that
I must roll on along with it. I was the atom in the air, and whether I
should float unseen forever or be brought into sight by the gilding of
some chance sunbeam, my destiny was to float and quiver up and down. I
was the vapor, and whether, like the evening cloud, my after-years were
to evolve into glorious shapes and colors, or I should creep along the
pools and valleys of fortune till the end of time—yet there I was, still
in existence, and that existence bound by laws incapable of the choice or
the caprices of man.
[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Burden]
I had yet to learn the true burden of my great malediction, for the
circumstances of my life were adverse to its fated solitude of soul; its
bitter conviction that there was not a being under the canopy of heaven
whose heart was toward me. I was still in the very tumult of life and
battling with the boldest. Public cares, personal interests, glowing
attachments, the whole vigorous activity of the citizen and the soldier
were mine. I was still husband, father, friend, and champion; my task was
difficult and grave, but it was ardent, proud, and animating. I was made
for this energy of the whole man; master of a powerful frame that defied
fatigue, and was proof against the sharpest visitations of nature; and
of an intellect which, whatever might be its rank, rejoiced in tasking
itself with labors that appalled the multitude.
Idle as I knew the praise of man, and sovereign as was my scorn for
the meanness which stoops to the vulgar purchase of popularity, I felt
and honored the true fame—that renown whose statue is devoted, not by
suspicious and clamorous flattery of the time, but by the solemn and
voluntary homage of the future, whose splendor, like that of a new-born
star, if it take ages to reach mankind, is sure to reach them at last,
and shines for ages after its fount is extinguished; whose essential
power, if it be coerced and obscured, like that of a man while his
earthly tenement still shuts him in, is thenceforth to develop itself
from strength to strength—the mortal putting on immortality.
[Sidenote: The Fetters of a Soul]
In the whirl of such thoughts I was often carried away, to the utter
oblivion of my peculiar fate, for the man and his associations were
strong within me, in defiance of the command. The gloom often passed
away from my soul, as the darkness does from the midnight ocean in the
dash and foam of its own waters. Nature is perpetual and drives the
affections, sleeping or waking, as it drives the blood through the old
channels. It was only at periods, produced by strong circumstance, that I
felt the fetter, but then the iron entered into my soul! To this partial
pressure belongs the singular combination of such a fate as mine with an
interest in the world, with my loves and hates, my thirst of human fame,
my reluctance at the prospect of the common ills and injuries of life. I
was a man, and this is the whole solution of the problem. For one remote
evidence that I was distinct from mankind, I had ten thousand, direct and
constant, that I was the same. But for the partiality of the pressure
there was a lofty reason.
The man who feels himself above the common fate is instantly placed above
the common defenses of mankind. He may calumniate and ruin; he may burn
and plunder; he may be the rebel and the murderer. Fear is, after all,
the great defense. But what earthly power could intimidate him? What
were chains or the scaffold to him who felt instinctively that time was
not made for his being; that the scaffold was impotent; that he should
yet trample on the grave of his judge, on the moldered throne of his
king, on the dead sovereignty of his nation? With his impassiveness, his
experience, his knowledge, and his passions, concocted and blackened by
ages, what breast could be safe against the dagger of this tremendous
exile? What power be secure against the rebel machination or the open
hostility of a being invested with the strength of immortal evil? What
was to hinder a man made familiar with every mode of influencing human
passions—the sage, the sorcerer, the fount of tradition, the friend of
their worshiped ancestors—from maddening the multitude at whose head he
willed to march, clothed in the attributes of almost a divinity?
But I was precluded or saved from this fearful career by the providential
feeling of the common repugnances, hopes, and fears of human nature. Pain
and disease were instinctively as much shunned by me as if I held my life
on the frailest tenure; death was as formidable as my natural soldiership
would suffer it to be; and even when the thought occurred that I might
defy extinction, it threw but a darker shade over the common terrors, to
conceive that I must undergo the suffering of death without the peace
of the grave. Man bears his agony for once, and it is done. Mine might
be borne to the bitterest extremity, but must be borne with the keener
bitterness of the knowledge that it was in vain.
[Sidenote: A Message from Septimius]
I was recalled from those reveries to the world by a paper dropped
through a crevice in the rafters above my head. On seeing its signature,
“Septimius,” my first impulse was to tear it in pieces, but Esther’s name
struck me, and I read it through.
“You must not think me a villain, tho I confess appearances are much in
favor of the supposition. But I had no choice between denying that I
knew you and being instantly beheaded. This comes of discipline. Titus
is a disciplinarian of the first order, and the consequence is that no
man dares acknowledge any little irregularity before him: so far, his
morality propagates knaves. But I must clear myself of the charge of
having acted disingenuously by your daughter. I take every power that
binds the soul to witness that I know not what is become of her; nay, I
am in the deepest anxiety to know the fate of one so lovely, so innocent,
and so high-minded.
[Sidenote: A Lover’s Confession]
“And now, prince, that I am out of the reach of your frown, let me have
courage to disburden my heart. I have long known Esther, and as long
loved her. From the time when I was first received within your palace in
Naphtali—and I have not forgotten that to your hospitality I then owed my
life—I was struck with her talents and her beauty. When the war separated
us and I returned to Rome, neither in Rome nor in the empire could I
see her equal. To solicit our union I gave up the honors and pleasures
of the court for the campaign in your hazardous country. I searched
Judea in vain, and it was chiefly in the vague hope of obtaining some
intelligence of Esther that I solicited the command of our unfortunate
mission. There I felt all hazard more than repaid by her sight, to me
lovelier than ever. I will acknowledge that I prolonged my confinement to
have the opportunity of obtaining her hand. But her religious scruples
were unconquerable. I implored her leave to explain myself to you. Even
this, too, she refused, ‘from her knowledge of your decision.’ What
then was I to do? Loving to excess, bewildered by passion, oppressed
with disappointment, and seeing but one object on earth, my evil genius
prompted me to act the dissembler.
“Under pretext of disclosing some secrets connected with your safety
I induced her to meet me, for the first and the last time, on the
battlements. There I besought her to fly with me—to be my bride—to enjoy
the illustrious rank and life that belonged to the imperial blood; and
when we were once wedded, to solicit the approval of her family. I was
sincere; I take the gods to witness I was sincere. But my entreaty was in
vain; she repelled me with resolute scorn; she charged me with treachery
to you, to her, to faith, and to sacred hospitality. I knelt to her—she
spurned me. In distraction, and knowing only that to live without her
was wretchedness, I was bearing her away to the gate when we were
surrounded by armed men. My single attendant fled; I was overpowered, and
I saw Esther, my lovely and beloved Esther, no more.”
There was an honesty in this full confession that did more for the
writer’s cause than subtler language. The young Roman had been severely
tried, and who could expect from a soldier the self-denial that it might
have been hard to find under the brow of philosophy? Stern as time and
trial had made me, I was not petrified into a contempt for the generous
weaknesses of earlier years; and to love a being like Esther—what was it
but to be just? While I honored the high sense of duty which repelled a
lover so dangerous to a woman’s heart, I pitied and forgave the violence
of a passion lighted by unrivaled loveliness of form and mind.
It was growing late, and the steward, who made a virtue of showing me the
more respect the more I was treated with severity, came in to arrange my
couch for the night; he would suffer no inferior hands to approach the
person of one of the leaders of his fallen country.
“In truth,” said he, “if I were not permitted to be your attendant
to-night, my prince might have been forgotten, for every human being but
myself is busy in the banquet-gallery.”
Sounds of instruments and voices arose.
[Sidenote: Titus Gives a Banquet]
“There,” said he, “you may hear the music. Titus gives a supper in honor
of the Emperor’s birthday, and the palace will be kept awake until
daylight, for the Romans, with all their gravity, are great lovers of the
table, and Titus is renowned for late sittings. Would you wish to see the
banquet?”
So saying, he unbarred the shutters of a casement, commanding a view
along the gallery, of which every door and window was thrown open for the
breeze.
If an ancient Roman could start from his slumber into the midst of
European life, he must look with scorn on its absence of grace,
elegance, and fancy. But it is in its festivities, and most of all in
its banquets, that he would feel the incurable barbarism of the Gothic
blood. Contrasted with the fine displays that made the table of the Roman
noble a picture and threw over the indulgence of appetite the colors of
the imagination, with what eyes must he contemplate the tasteless and
commonplace dress, the coarse attendants, the meager ornament, the want
of mirth, music, and intellectual interest—the whole heavy machinery that
converts the feast into the mere drudgery of devouring!
[Sidenote: Salathiel Views the Scene]
The guests before me were fifty or sixty splendidly attired men, attended
by a crowd of domestics equipped with scarcely less splendor, for no
man thought of coming to the banquet in the robes of ordinary life.
The embroidered couch, itself a striking object, allowed the ease of
position, at once delightful in the relaxing climates of the south and
capable of combining with every grace of the human figure. At a slight
distance the table, loaded with plate, glittering under a profusion of
lamps and surrounded by couches covered with rich draperies, was like
a central source of light radiating in broad shafts of every brilliant
hue. All that belonged to the ornament of the board was superb. The
wealth of the patricians and their perpetual intercourse with Greece made
them masters of the finest performances of the arts. The sums expended
on plate were enormous, but its taste and beauty were essential to the
refined enjoyment of the banquet. Copies of the most famous statues and
groups of sculpture in the precious metals, exquisite trophies of Greek
and Roman victory, models of the celebrated temples, mingled with vases
of flowers and burning perfumes; and covering and coloring all was a vast
scarlet canopy, which combined the groups beneath the eye, and threw the
whole scene into the light that a painter would love.
But yet finer skill was shown in the constant prevention of that want
of topic which turns conversation into weariness. There was a rapid
succession of new excitements. Even the common changes of the table were
made to assist this purpose. The entrance of each course was announced
by music, and the attendants were preceded by a procession of minstrels,
chaplet-crowned, and playing Grecian melodies. Between the courses a
still higher entertainment was offered in the recitations, dramas, and
pleasantries, read or acted by a class of professional satirists, of the
absurdities of the day.
[Sidenote: The Amusements of a Feast]
It is easy to imagine how fertile a source of interest this must have
been made by the subtle and splenetic Italian moving through Roman life;
the most various, animating, and fantastic scene in which society ever
shone. The recitations were always looked to as the charm of the feast.
They were often severe, but their severity was reserved for public men
and matters. The court supplied the most tempting and popular ridicule,
but the reciter was a privileged person, and all the better-humored
Cæsars bore the castigation without a murmur. No man in the empire was
more laughed at than Vespasian, and no man oftener joined in the laugh.
One of this morning’s sports was to collect the burlesques of the night
before, give them new pungency by a touch of the imperial pen, and then
despatch them to make their way through the world. The strong-headed
sovereign knew the value of an organ of public opinion, and used to call
their perusal, “sitting for his picture.” The picture was sometimes so
strong that the courtiers trembled. But the veteran, who had borne thirty
years of battle, laid it up among “his portraits,” laughed the insult
away, and repeated his popular saying, “that when he was old enough to
come to years of discretion and give up the emperor, he should become
reciter himself and have his turn with the world.”
The recitations again were varied by a sportive lottery, in which the
guests drew prizes—sometimes of value, gems and plate—sometimes merely an
epigram, or a caricature. The banquet generally closed with a theatric
dance by the chief public performers of the day, and the finest forms
and the most delicate art of Greece and Ionia displayed the story of
Theseus and Ariadne, the flight of Jason, the fate of Semele, or some
other of their brilliant fictions. In the presence of this vivid display
sat, tempering its sportiveness by the majesty of religion, the three
great tutelar idols of Rome—Jove, Juno, and Minerva, of colossal height,
throned at the head of the hall; completing, false as they were, the most
singular and dazzling combination that man ever saw, of the delight of
the senses with the delight of the mind.
To me human delight was always a source of enjoyment, and in the sounds
of the harps and flutes and the pleasant murmur of cheerful voices I was
not unwilling to forget the spot from which I listened. But the prisoner
can not long forget his cell, and closing the casement I walked away.
[Sidenote: The Steward Tells of Matthan]
“Little I ever thought,” sighed the old steward, “of seeing that sight.
But all nations have fallen in their time, and perhaps the only wonder is
that Israel should have stood so long. It is still stranger to my eyes
to see that gallery as it is to-night. It is fifteen years this very day
since I saw the light of lamp or the foot of man within those casements.”
“Yet,” said I, “the great Ananus lived as became his rank, and there were
then no dangers to disturb him in the midst of his people.”
“But there was one terrible event which made those walls unhallowed; nay,
even in this spot I would not remain alone through the night to have the
palace for my own.”
A rich strain of music that ushered in some change in the displays of the
banquet interrupted my question, while the old man’s countenance assumed
something of the alarm which he described.
“That sound,” said he, shuddering, “goes to my heart. It is the same that
I heard on the night of death. On that night Matthan, the only son of my
great master, was to be wedded to the daughter of the prince of Hebron,
and that gallery was laid out for the wedding-feast. All the leaders of
Jerusalem were there, all the noble women, all the chief priesthood;
all the grandeur, wealth, and beauty of our tribe. But Matthan was not
the son of his father’s mind. He had fled from his father’s roof years
before, and taken refuge in the mountains. The caravan passing through
Galilee dreaded the name of Matthan, for he was bold; the chief of the
hills saw his followers flying from his side, for deadly was the spear
of Matthan; but he was generous, and often the slave rejoiced in the
breaking of his chains, and the peasant saw his flocks cover the valley
again by the arm and the bounty of Matthan.
[Sidenote: A Countenance of Wrath and Wo]
“I saw him on the day when he returned; danger or sorrow had wrought a
change in him like the passing from youth to age. His strength was gone,
and his voice was broken, like the voice of him that treads on the
brink of the timely grave. His noble father wept over him, but gave him
welcome; and the palace was filled with rejoicing for the coming back
of the first-born. Yet he took no delight in the feast, neither in the
praises of men nor in the voice of the singer. He wandered through his
father’s halls, even as the leopard, chained and longing to escape to
the desert and the prey again. Disturbances were beginning to be heard
in Jerusalem, and he fell into the hands of the evil one. Onias, the man
of blood, betrayed him into the secret ways of conspiracy against our
conquerors. His heart was bold and his temper high, and he was easily
drawn into the desperate game by a villain who stirred up the generous
spirit of our nobles, only to sell their blood to Rome.
“He grew more lonely day by day; withdrew from the amusements of his
rank, and shut himself up in the wing of the palace, ending in this
tower. In this room I have seen his lamp burning through the livelong
winter nights, and grieved over the sleeplessness that showed he was
among the unhappy.
[Sidenote: The Strangeness of a Bridegroom]
“At last a change was wrought upon him. He went forth; he took delight
in the horse and the chariot, in the chase, and the feast, and the die.
His father, that he might bless his posterity before he died, counseled
him to take to wife Thamar, the noblest of the daughters of Hebron. The
day of the marriage was appointed. On that day I saw him come from the
council-hall, after receiving the congratulations of his friends. I saw
him passing along to his chamber, but I dared not cross him on his way.
He thought that he was alone, and then he gave way to his agony. Never
did I behold such a countenance of wrath and wo. It was bloated with
prodigal living, and it was now flushed with wine. He raved, he rent
his bridal raiment and cast it from him; he wept; he knelt and cursed
the hour he was born. I remained in my refuge, yet more in fear of his
countenance than of his sword. He took letters from his bosom, read them,
and then scattered their fragments in the air. He tottered toward me, and
I dreaded his rage, but I saw at a glance that his mind was gone. He was
talking to the air; he clasped his hands wildly; his face was covered
with tears; he implored for mercy, and fell. I hastened to bear him to
a couch; he saw me not, but cried out against himself as a betrayer and
a murderer, the fugitive from honor, the criminal marked by the hand of
Heaven.
“I called for help. His mountaineers rushed in; they repulsed me; and
chiding him in their barbarian tongue, and seeming accustomed to those
fits of sorrow, carried away in their arms the noble Matthan, crying like
a child.
“The evening fell, and I saw him ride forth at the head of his kindred to
bring home the bride. The wretchedness of the day had passed, and those
who looked only on the lofty bearing and heard the joyous language of the
leader of that train would have thought that sorrow had never touched his
heart. I watched for his return with anxiety, for I deemed him unhallowed.
[Sidenote: The Coming of a Bride]
“But all was well; the bridal train returned. Matthan, glittering in
jewels, came proudly, reining a steed white as the snow. The harp and
trumpet, the chorus of the singers, the light of the torches, and the
glitter of the youths and maidens who danced before the bride made me
forget everything but the joy of seeing peace among us once more. But at
the banquet the wonder of all was the bridegroom himself. Loud as the
guests’ voices were, his voice was the loudest; he laughed at everything,
as if he had never known a care in the world, or was never to know one
again. The jest was never out of his lips; and when he pledged the cup
to the health of the company or the fair bride—and often he pledged it
that evening—he always said something that raised shouts of applause. I
once or twice passed near him, but he had wiped every sign of grief from
his features, and if he seemed to be mad with anything, it was with joy.
The gallery rang with admiration, and not less with surprise, for he had
shut himself up so long from the people that he was almost unknown, and
the world is generally good-natured enough to invent a character for
those who will take no trouble to make one for themselves. Some had set
him down for intolerable haughtiness; others for fear of mixing in the
growing tumults; others for a dealer in the black arts; and still others
for a mere fool. But now opinions were altered, and every voice of his
tribe was loud in wonder at the talents he had so long hid in retirement.
“I was standing in the train of the High Priest, near the central
casement, through which you may now see the throne of Titus. My eyes,
I know not why, strayed to this tower; I marked a feeble lamp, a form
rushing backward and forward in gestures of violent sorrow. A foot beside
me made me turn. There stood Matthan with his eyes fixed upon the tower.
But his mind was gone. He looked like a man stricken into stone. He saw
me not; he saw not the guests; he saw nothing but the feeble lamp, the
hurrying form.
“The chorus of the singing women announced that the bride was about to
come. I looked up at the tower; the lamp was twinkling its last, and the
form was still seen wringing its hands. The hymn began that denotes the
veiling of the bride; but my eyes were fixed on the dying light and the
form, which now held a cup in its hand. A shriek was heard, so wild that
the guests sprang from their seats in alarm and astonishment. My eye
turned upon Matthan, but he had summoned up his strength, and tho I saw
him shake in every limb, his proud lip wore a smile.
“Clasping his hand upon his brow, he abruptly turned from the window and
demanded why the bridal attendants delayed the coming of the princess
of Hebron. The lamp had now disappeared, and the tower was in darkness
again. The portals were at length thrown open and the bride was led up to
the canopy beneath which the bridegroom stood. He raised the veil. His
countenance was instantly transformed into horror. He uttered no cry, but
stood gazing. The bride let fall the veil again, and taking his hand, led
him slowly and without a word down the hall.
[Sidenote: Matthan’s Death]
“None checked this strange ceremony; none dared to check it. We were
deprived of all power by astonishment. The High Priest himself stood
with his venerable hands lifted up to heaven, as if he felt that evil
was come upon his house. The wedded pair walked in silence through the
long range of chambers to the tower, and as they passed, the numberless
attendants felt themselves bound by mysterious awe. But our senses at
length returned, and Ananus, in the full dread of misfortune, yet bold
to his dying hour, suffered none to go before him. We found the door of
the tower barred, and long summoned Matthan to come forth and relieve our
fears lest some desperate invention of sorcery had been played upon him.
No answer was returned, and we forced the door.
“What a sight was there! Two corpses lay side by side. The blood still
trickled from the bosom of the unfortunate Matthan. I raised the veil
of the bride; the hue of poison was upon the lips, but they were not
the lips of the princess of Hebron. The countenance was Arabian, and of
exceeding beauty, but wan and wasted by sorrow.”
“Who, then, was his strange companion in the hall?” I asked.
The answer was given with a shudder. “I know not, but it seemed scarcely
a being of this world. A new confusion arose. The mountaineers, on
hearing of the death of their lord and still more of that noble creature
in whom they honored the race of their chieftains, demanded vengeance:
they were too fierce to listen to reason, and our attempts to explain the
unhappy truth only kindled their rage. Simitars were drawn, blood was
shed, and tho the barbarians were repelled, yet they plundered the wing
of the palace and bore off the infant offspring of their dead mistress,
the last scion of an illustrious tree that was itself so soon to feel the
ax.
“I saw the unfortunate and guilty Matthan laid in the sepulcher of his
fathers—the last that ever slept there, for his great sire, worthy of
being laid in the monument of kings, was denied the honors of the grave
by his murderers. Yet he sleeps in the noblest of all graves; his memory
is treasured in the love and sorrows of his country.
[Sidenote: The Arabian Stranger]
“It was discovered that Matthan, during his wanderings in the desert,
had wedded the daughter of a sheik. He loved her with the violence of
his nature, but the prospects which opened to him on his return to his
country made him shrink from the acknowledgment of his Arabian bride.
Yet to live without her he found impossible, and he brought her to the
tower. Surrounded by his mountaineers, this portion of the palace was
inaccessible. His solitude and the lights seen through the casements
were often thought to imply studies of the strange philosophy or evil
superstitions that had begun to infect the noble youth of Palestine.
“But the necessity of sustaining his ambition by an illustrious marriage
drove his fickle heart at last to treachery. The Arabian knew the
intended marriage, and pined away before his eyes. Remorse and ambition
alternately distracted him. The bridal procession was seen by the unhappy
wife, and she swallowed poison. The rest is beyond my power to account
for. But it is rumored among the attendants that strange sights have
since been seen and sounds of a bridal throng heard in the chambers
through which their last melancholy procession was made; tho, whether it
be truth or the common fear of the peasantry, I know not, nor indeed wish
too curiously to inquire.”