When Philippus had parted from Paula he had told her that the Mukaukas
might indeed die at any moment, but that it was possible that he might
yet struggle with death for weeks to come. This hope had comforted her;
for she could not bear to think that the only true friend she had had
in Memphis, till she had become more intimate with the physician, should
quit the world forever without having heard her justification.
Nothing could be more unlikely than that any one in Neforis’
household--excepting her little grandchild should ever remember her with
kindness; and she scarcely desired it; but she rebelled against the idea
of forfeiting the respect she had earned, even in the governor’s house.
If her friend should succeed in prolonging her uncle’s life, by a
confidential interview with him she might win back his old affection and
his good opinion.
Her new home she felt was but a resting-place, a tabernacle in the
desert-journey of her solitary pilgrimage, and she here meant to
avail herself of the information she had gathered from her Melchite
dependents. Hope had now risen supreme in her heart over grief
and disappointment. Orion’s presence alone hung like a threatening
hail-cloud over the sprouting harvest of her peace of mind. And yet,
next to the necessity of waiting at Memphis for the return of her
messenger, nothing tied her to the place so strongly as her interest
in watching the future course of his life, at any rate from a
distance. What she felt for him-and she told herself it was deep
aversion-nevertheless constituted a large share of her inner life,
little as she would confess it to herself.
Her new hosts had received her as a welcome guest, and they certainly
did not seem to be poor. The house was spacious, and though it was old
and unpretentious it was comfortable and furnished with artistic taste.
The garden had amazed her by the care lavished on it; she had seen
a hump-backed gardener and several children at work in it. A strange
party-for every one of them, like their chief, was in some way deformed
or crippled.
The plot of ground--which extended towards the river to the road-way
for foot passengers, vehicles and the files of men towing the
Nile-boats--was but narrow, and bounded on either side by extensive
premises. Not far from the spot where it lay nearest to the river was
the bridge of boats connecting Memphis with the island of Rodah. To
the right was the magnificent residence--a palace indeed--belonging
to Susannah; to the left was an extensive grove, where tall palms,
sycamores with spreading foliage, and dense thickets of blue-green
tamarisk trees cast their shade. Above this bower of splendid shrubs and
ancient trees rose a long, yellow building crowned with a turret; and
this too was not unknown to her, for she had often heard it spoken of
in her uncle’s house, and had even gone there now and then escorted by
Perpetua. It was the convent of St. Cecilia, the refuge of the last
nuns of the orthodox creed left in Memphis; for, though all the other
sisterhoods of her confession had long since been banished, these had
been allowed to remain in their old home, not only because they were
famous sick-nurses, a distinction common to all the Melchite orders,
but even more because the decaying municipality could not afford to
sacrifice the large tax they annually paid to it. This tax was the
interest on a considerable capital bequeathed to the convent by a
certain wise predecessor of the Mukaukas’, with the prudent proviso,
ratified under the imperial seal of Theodosius II., that if the convent
were at any time broken up, this endowment, with the land and buildings
which it likewise owed to the generosity of the same benefactor, should
become the property of the Christian emperor at that time reigning.
Mukaukas George, notwithstanding his well-founded aversion for
everything Melchite, had taken good care not to press this useful
Sisterhood too hardly, or to deprive his impoverished capital of its
revenues only to throw them into the hands of the wealthy Moslems. The
title-deed on which the Sisters relied was good; and the governor,
who was a good lawyer as well as a just man, had not only left them
unmolested, but in spite of his fears--during the last few years--for
his own safety, had shown himself no respecter of persons by defending
their rights firmly and resolutely against the powerful patriarch of the
Jacobite Church. The Senate of the ancient capital naturally, approved
his course, and had not merely suffered the heretic Sisterhood to
remain, but had helped and encouraged it.
The Jacobite clergy of the city shut their eyes, and only opened them to
watch the convent at Easter-tide; for on the Saturday before Easter, the
nuns, in obedience to an agreement made before the Monophysite Schism,
were required to pay a tribute of embroidered vestments to the head of
the Christian Churches, with wine of the best vintages of Kochome
near the Pyramid of steps, and a considerable quantity of flowers and
confectionary. So the ancient coenobium of women was maintained, and
though all Egypt was by this time Jacobite or Moslem, and many of the
older Sisters had departed this life within the last year, no one had
thought of enquiring how it was that the number of the nuns remained
still the same, till the Jacobite archbishop Benjamin filled the
patriarchal throne of Alexandria in the place of the Melchite Cyrus.
To Benjamin the heretical Sisters at Memphis--the hawks in a dove-cote,
as he called them--were an offence, and he thought that the deed might
bear a new interpretation: that as there was no longer a Christian
emperor, and as the word “Christian” was used in the document, if the
convent were broken up the property should pass into the hands of the
only Christian magnate then existing in the country: himself, namely,
and his Church. The ill-feeling which the Patriarch fostered against the
Mukaukas had been aggravated to hostility by their antagonism on this
matter.
A musical dirge now fell on Paula’s ear from the convent chapel. Was
the worthy Mother Superior dead? No, this lament must be for some other
death, for the strange skirling wail of the Egyptian women came up to
her corner window from the road, from the bridge, and from the boats on
the river. No Jacobite of Memphis would have dared to express her grief
so publicly for the death of a Melchite; and as the chorus of voices
swelled, the thought struck her with a chill that it must be her uncle
and friend who had closed his weary eyes in death.
It was with deep emotion and many tears that she perceived how sincerely
the death of this righteous man was bewailed by all his fellow-citizens.
Yes, he only, and no other Egyptian, could have called forth this great
and expressive regret. The wailing women in the road were daubing the
mud of the river on their foreheads and bosoms; men were standing
in large groups and beating their heads and breasts with passionate
gestures. On the bridge of boats the men would stop others, and from
thence, too, piercing shrieks came across to her.
At last Philippus came in and confirmed her fears. The governor’s death
had shocked him no less than it did her, and he had to tell Paula all he
knew of the dead man’s last hours.
“Still, one good thing has come out of this misery,” he said. “There
is nothing so comforting as the discovery that we have been deceived in
thinking ill of a man and of his character. This Orion, who has sinned
so basely against himself and against you, is not utterly reprobate.”
“Not?” interrupted Paula. “Then he has taken you in too!”
“Taken me in?” said the leech. “Hardly, I think. I have, alas! stood
by many a death-bed; for I am too often sent for when Death is already
beckoning the sick man away. I have met thousands of mourners in these
melancholy scenes, which, I can assure you, are the very best school
for training any one who desires to search the hearts of his
fellow-creatures. By the bed of death, or in the mart, where everything
is a question of Mine and Thine, it is easy to see how some--we for
instance--are as careful to hide from the world all that is great and
noble in us as others are to conceal what is petty and mean--we read
men’s hearts as an open page. From my observations of the dying and of
those who sorrow for them, I, who am not Menander not Lucian, could draw
a series of portraits which should be as truthful likenesses as though
the men had turned themselves inside out before me.”
“That a dying man should show himself as he really is I can well
believe,” replied Paula. “He need have no further care for the opinions
of others; but the mourners? Why, custom requires them to assume an air
of grief and to shed tears.”
“Very true; regret repeats itself by the side of the dead,” replied
the physician. “But the chamber of the dying is like a church. Death
consecrates it, and the man who stands face to face with death often
drops the mask by which he cheats his fellows. There we may see faces
which you would shudder to look on, but others, too, which merely to see
is enough to make us regard the degenerate species to which we belong
with renewed respect.”
“And you found such a comforting vision in Orion,--the thief, the false
witness, the corrupt judge!” exclaimed Paula, starting up in indignant
astonishment.
“There! you see,” laughed Philippus. “Just like a woman! A little
juggling, and lo! what was only rose color is turned to purple. No. The
son of the Mukaukas has not yet undergone such a dazzling change of hue;
but he has a feeling and impressible heart--and I hold even that in
high esteem. I have no doubt that he loved his father deeply, nay
passionately; though I have ample reason to believe him capable of the
very worst. So long as I was present at the scene of death the father
and son were parting in all friendship and tenderness, and when the good
old man’s heart had ceased to beat I found Orion in a state which is
only possible to have when love has lost what it held dearest.”
“All acting!” Paula put in.
“But there was no audience, dear friend. Orion would not have got up
such a performance for his mother and little Mary.”
“But he is a poet--and a highly-gifted one too. He sings beautiful songs
of his own invention to the lyre; his ecstatic and versatile mind works
him up into any frame of feeling; but his soul is perverted; it is
soaked in wickedness as a sponge drinks up water. He is a vessel full
of beautiful gifts, but he has forfeited all that was good and noble in
him--all!”
The words came in eager haste from her indignant lips. Her cheeks glowed
with her vehemence, and she thought she had won over the physician; but
he gravely shook his head, and said:
“Your righteous anger carries you too far. How often have you blamed me
for severity and suspicions but now I have to beg you to allow me to ask
your sympathy for an experience to which you would probably have raised
no objection the day before yesterday:
“I have met with evil-doers of every degree. Think, for instance, how
many cases of wilful poisoning I have had to investigate.”
“Even Homer called Egypt the land of poison,” exclaimed Paula. “And
it seems almost incredible that Christianity has not altered it in the
least. Kosmas, who had seen the whole earth, could nowhere find more
malice, deceit, hatred, and ill-will than exist here.”
“Then you see in what good schools my experience of the wickedness
of men has ripened,” said Philippus smiling, “and they have taught
me chiefly that there is never a criminal, a sinner, or a scapegrace,
however infamous he may be, however cruel or lost to virtue, in whom
some good quality or other may not be discovered.--Do you remember
Nechebt, the horrible woman who poisoned her two brothers and her own
father? She was captured scarcely three weeks ago; and that very monster
in human form could almost die of hunger and thirst for the sake of her
rascally son, who is a common soldier in the imperial army; at last she
took to concocting poisons, not to improve her own wretched condition,
but to send the shameless wretch means for a fresh debauch. I have known
a thousand similar cases, but I will only mention that of one of the
wildest and blood-thirstiest of robbers, who had evaded the vigilance of
the watch again and again, but at last fell into their hands--and how?
Because he had heard that his old mother was ill and he longed to see
the withered old woman once more and give her a kiss, since he was her
own child! In the same way Orion, however reprobate we may think him,
has at any rate one characteristic which we must approve of: a tender
affection for his father and mother. Your sponge is not utterly steeped
in wickedness; there are still some pores, some cells which resist it;
and if in him, as in so many others, the heart is one of them, then I
say hopefully, like Horace the Roman: ‘Nil desperandum.’ It would be
unjust to give him up altogether for lost.”
To this assurance Paula found no answer; indeed, it struck her that--if
Orion had told her the truth--it was only to please his mother that
he had asked Katharina to marry him, while she herself occupied his
heart.--The physician, wishing to change the subject, was about to speak
again of the death of the Mukaukas, when one of the crippled serving
girls came to announce a woman who asked to speak with Paula. A few
minutes later she was clasped in the embrace of her faithful old friend
and nurse, who rejoiced as heartily, laughing and crying for sheer
delight, as if no tidings of misfortune had reached her; while Paula,
though so much younger, was cut to the heart, and could not shake off
the spell of her grief.
Perpetua understood this and owed her no grudge for the coolness with
which she met her joyful excitement.
She told Paula that she had been well treated in her hot cell, and that
about half an hour since Orion himself, the young Master now, had opened
the door of her prison. He had been very gracious to her, but looked
so pale and sad. The overbearing young man was quite altered; his eyes,
which were dim with weeping, had moved her, Perpetua, to tears. She
trusted that God would forgive him for his sins against herself and
Paula; he must have been possessed by some evil demon; he had not been
at all like himself; for he had a kind, warm heart, and though he had
been so hard and unjust yesterday to poor Hiram he had made it up to him
the first thing this morning, and had not only let him out of prison
but had sent him and his son home to Damascus with large gifts and two
horses. Nilus had told her this. He who hoped to be forgiven by his
neighbor must also be ready to forgive. The great Augustine, even, had
been no model of virtue in his youth and yet he had become a shining
light in the Church; and now the son of the Mukaukas would tread in his
father’s footsteps. He was a handsome, engaging man, who would be the
joy of their hearts yet, they might be very sure. Why, he had been as
grave and as solemn as a bishop to-day; perhaps he had already turned
over a new leaf. He himself had put her into his mother’s chariot and
desired the charioteer to drive her hither: what would Paula say to
that? Her things were to be given over to her to-morrow morning, and
packed under her own eyes, and sent after her. Nilus, the treasurer, had
come with her to deliver a message to Paula; but he had gone first to
the convent.
Paula desired the old woman to go thither and fetch him; as soon as
Perpetua had left the room, she exclaimed:
“There, you see, is some one who is quite of your opinion. What
creatures we are! Last evening my good Betta would have thought no pit
of hell too deep for our enemy, and now? To be led to a chariot by such
a fine gentleman in person is no doubt flattering; and how quickly the
old body has forgotten all her grievances, how soothed and satisfied
she is by the gracious permission to pack her precious and cherished
possessions with her own hands.--You told me once that the Jacobites had
made a Saint Orion out of the pagan god Osiris, and my old Betta sees a
future Saint Augustine in the governor’s son. I can see that she already
regards him as her tutelary patron, and when we get back to Syria, she
will be begging me to join her in a pilgrimage to his shrine!”
“And you will perhaps consent,” replied the physician, to whom Paula at
this moment, for the first time since his heart had glowed with love
for her, did not seem to be quite what a man looks for in the woman he
adores. Hitherto he had seen and heard nothing that was not high-minded
and worthy of her; but her last words had, been spoken with vehement and
indignant irony--and in Philip’s opinion irony, blame which was intended
to wound and not to improve its object, was unbecoming in a noble woman.
The scornful laugh, with which she had triumphantly ended her speech,
had opened as it were a wide abyss between his mind and hers. He, as
he freely confessed to himself, was of a coarser and humbler grain than
Paula, and he was apt to be satirical oftener than was right. She had
been wont to dislike this habit in him; he had been glad that she did;
it answered to the ideal he had formed of what the woman he loved should
be. But now she had turned satirical; and her irony was no jest of the
lips. It sprang, full of passion, from her agitated soul; this it was
that grieved the leech who knew human nature, and at the same time
roused his apprehensions. Paula read his disapproval in his face, and
felt that there was a deep significance in his words, “And you will
perhaps consent.”
“Men are vexed,” thought she, “when, after they have decisively
expressed an opinion, we women dare unhesitatingly to assert a different
one,” so, as she would on no account hurt the feelings of the friend to
whom she owed so much, she said kindly:
“I do not care to enquire into the meaning of your strange
prognostication. Thank God, by your kindness and care I have severed
every tie that could have bound me to my poor uncle’s son!--Now we will
drop the subject; we have said too much about him already.”
“That is quite my opinion,” replied Philippus. “And, indeed, I would beg
you quite to forget my ‘perhaps.’ I live wholly in the present and am no
prophet; but I foresee, nevertheless, that Orion will make every effort,
cost what it may....”
“Well?”
“To approach you again, to win your forgiveness, to touch your heart,
to....”
“Let him dare” exclaimed Paula lifting her hand with a threatening
gesture.
“And when he, gifted as he is in every way, has found his better self
again and can come forward purified and worthy of the approbation of the
best....”
“Still I will never, never forget how he has sinned and what he brought
upon me!--Do you think that I have already forgotten your conversation
with Neforis? You ask nothing of your friends but honest feeling akin
to your own,--and what is it that repels me from Orion but feeling?
Thousands have altered their behavior, but--answer me frankly--surely
not what we mean by their feeling?”
“Yes, that too,” said the leech with stern gravity. “Feeling, too, may
change. Or do you range yourself on the side of the Arab merchant
and his fellow-Moslems, who regard man as the plaything of a blind
Fate?--But our spiritual teachers tell us that the evil to which we are
predestined, which is that born into the world with us, may be averted,
turned and guided to good by what they call spiritual regeneration. But
who that lives in the tumult of the world can ever succeed in ‘killing
himself’ in their sense of the word, in dying while yet he lives, to be
born again, a new man? The penitent’s garb does not suit the stature of
an Orion; however, there is for him another way of returning to the path
he has lost. Fortune has hitherto offered her spoilt favorite so much
pleasure, that sheer enjoyment has left him no time to think seriously
on life itself; now she is showing him its graver side, she is inviting
him to reflect; and if he only finds a friend to give him the counsel
which my father left in a letter for me, his only child, as a youth--and
if he is ready to listen, I regard him as saved.”
“And that word of counsel--what is it?” asked Paula with interest.
“To put it briefly, it is this: Life is not a banquet spread by fate for
our enjoyment, but a duty which we are bound to fulfil to the best of
our power. Each one must test his nature and gifts, and the better he
uses them for the weal and benefit of the body of which he was born a
member, the higher will his inmost gladness be, the more certainly will
he attain to a beautiful peace of mind, the less terrors will Death have
for him. In the consciousness of having sown seed for eternity he will
close his eyes like a faithful steward at the end of each day, and of
the last hour vouchsafed to him on earth. If Orion recognizes this,
if he submits to accept the duties imposed on him by existence, if
he devotes himself to them now for the first time to the best of his
powers, a day may come when I shall look up to him with respect--nay,
with admiration. The shipwreck of which the Arab spoke has overtaken
him. Let us see how he will save himself from the waves, and behave when
he is cast on shore.”
“Let us see!” repeated Paula, “and wish that he may find such an
adviser! As you were speaking it struck me that it was my part.--But
no, no! He has placed himself beyond the pale of the compassion which
I might have felt even for an enemy after such a frightful blow. He! He
can and shall never be anything to me till the end of time. I have to
thank you for having found me this haven of rest. Help me now to keep
out everything that can intrude itself here to disturb my peace. If
Orion should ever dare, for whatever purpose, to force or steal a way
into this house, I trust to you, my friend and deliverer!”
She held out her hand to Philippus, and as he took it the blood seethed
in his veins with tender emotion.
“My strength, like my heart, is wholly yours!” he exclaimed ardently.
“Command them, and if the devoted love of a faithful, plain-spoken
man--”
“Say no more, no, no!” Paula broke in with anxious vehemence. “Let us
remain closely bound together by friendship-as brother and sister.”
“As brother and sister?” he dully echoed with a melancholy smile. “Aye,
friendship too is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But yet--let me speak--I
have dreamed of love, the tossing sea of passion; I have felt its surges
here--in here; I feel them still.... But man, man,” and he struck his
forehead with his fist, “have you forgotten, like a fool, what your
image is in the mirror; have you forgotten that you are an ugly, clumsy
fellow, and that the gorgeous flower you long for....”
Paula had shrunk back, startled by her friend’s vehemence; but she
now went up to him, and taking his hand with frank spirit, she said
impressively:
“It is not so, Philippus, my dear, kind, only friend. The gorgeous
flower you desire I can no longer give you--or any one. It is mine no
longer; for when it had opened, once for all, cruel feet trod it down.
Do not abuse your mirrored image; do not call yourself a clumsy fellow.
The best and fairest might be proud of your love, just as you are. Am I
not proud, shall I not always be proud of your friendship?”
“Friendship, friendship!” he retorted, snatching away his hand. “This
burning, longing heart thirsts for other feelings! Oh, woman! I know the
wretch who has trodden down the flower of flowers in your heart, and I,
madman that I am, can sing his praises, can take his part; and cost what
it may, I will still do so as long as you.... But perhaps the glorious
flower may strike new roots in the soil of hatred and I, the hapless
wretch who water it, may see it.”
At this, Paula again took both his hands, and exclaimed in deep and
painful agitation of mind:
“Say no more, I beg and entreat you. How can I live in peace here, under
your protection and in constant intercourse with you, without knowing
myself guilty of a breach of propriety such as the most sacred feelings
of a young girl bid her avoid, if you persist in overstepping the limits
which bound true and faithful friendship? I am a lonely girl and should
give myself up to despair, as lost, if I could not take refuge in the
belief that I can rely upon myself. Be satisfied with what I have to
offer you, my friend, and may God reward you! Let us both remain worthy
of the esteem which, thank Heaven! we are fully justified in feeling for
each other.”
The physician, deeply moved, bent his head; scarcely able to control
himself, he pressed her firm white hand to his lips, while, just at this
moment, Perpetua and the treasurer came into the room.
This worthy official--a perfectly commonplace man, neither tall nor
short, neither old nor young, with a pale, anxious face, furrowed by
work and responsibility, but shrewd and finely cut-glanced keenly at the
pair, and then proceeded to lay a considerable sum in gold pieces
before Paula. His young master had sent it, in obedience to his deceased
father’s wishes, for her immediate needs; the rest, the larger part of
her fortune, with a full account, would be given over to her after the
Mukaukas was buried. Nilus could, however, give her an approximate idea
of the sum, and it was so considerable that Paula could not believe her
ears. She now saw herself secure against external anxiety, nay, in such
ease that she was justified in living at some expense.
Philippus was present throughout the interview, and it cut him to the
heart. It had made him so happy to think that he was all in all to the
poor orphan, and could shelter her against pressing want. He had been
prepared to take upon himself the care of providing Paula with the home
she had found and everything she could need; and now, as it turned out,
his protege was not merely higher in rank than himself, but much richer.
He felt as though Orion’s envoy had robbed him of the best joy in life.
After introducing Paula to her worthy host and his family, he quitted
the house of Rufinus with a very crushed aspect.
When night came Perpetua once more enjoyed the privilege of assisting
her young mistress to undress; but Paula could not sleep, and when
she joined her new friends next morning she told herself that here, if
anywhere, was the place where she might recover her lost peace, but that
she must still have a hard struggle and a long pilgrimage before she
could achieve this.