Then again there was a silence in the Hall of Dreams, deeper and more
mysterious than the first interval, and I understood that the years of
Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the stillness of that clinging
fog, and I caught only a glimpse, here and there, of the river of his
life shining through the shadows that concealed its course.
I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous Egypt, seeking
everywhere for traces of the household that had come down from
Bethlehem, and finding them under the spreading sycamore-trees of
Heliopolis, and beneath the walls of the Roman fortress of New Babylon
beside the Nile--traces so faint and dim that they vanished before him
continually, as footprints on the hard river-sand glisten for a moment
with moisture and then disappear.
I saw him again at the foot of the pyramids, which lifted their sharp
points into the intense saffron glow of the sunset sky, changeless
monuments of the perishable glory and the imperishable hope of man. He
looked up into the vast countenance of the crouching Sphinx and vainly
tried to read the meaning of the calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it,
indeed, the mockery of all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had
said--the cruel jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that
never can succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in
that inscrutable smile--a promise that even the defeated should attain
a victory, and the disappointed should discover a prize, and the
ignorant should be made wise, and the blind should see, and the
wandering should come into the haven at last?
I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking counsel with
a Hebrew rabbi. The venerable man, bending over the rolls of parchment
on which the prophecies of Israel were written, read aloud the pathetic
words which foretold the sufferings of the promised Messiah--the
despised and rejected of men, the man of sorrows and the acquaintance
of grief.
"And remember, my son," said he, fixing his deep-set eyes upon the face
of Artaban, "the King whom you are seeking is not to be found in a
palace, nor among the rich and powerful. If the light of the world and
the glory of Israel had been appointed to come with the greatness of
earthly splendor, it must have appeared long ago. For no son of Abraham
will ever again rival the power which Joseph had in the palaces of
Egypt, or the magnificence of Solomon throned between the lions in
Jerusalem. But the light for which the world is waiting is a new light,
the glory that shall rise out of patient and triumphant suffering. And
the kingdom which is to be established forever is a new kingdom, the
royalty of perfect and unconquerable love.
"I do not know how this shall come to pass, nor how the turbulent kings
and peoples of earth shall be brought to acknowledge the Messiah and
pay homage to Him. But this I know. Those who seek Him will do well to
look among the poor and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed."
So I saw the other wise man again and again, travelling from place to
place, and searching among the people of the dispersion, with whom the
little family from Bethlehem might, perhaps, have found a refuge. He
passed through countries where famine lay heavy upon the land, and the
poor were crying for bread. He made his dwelling in plague-stricken
cities where the sick were languishing in the bitter companionship of
helpless misery. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted in the
gloom of subterranean prisons, and the crowded wretchedness of
slave-markets, and the weary toil of galley-ships. In all this populous
and intricate world of anguish, though he found none to worship, he
found many to help. He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and
healed the sick, and comforted the captive; and his years went by more
swiftly than the weaver's shuttle that flashes back and forth through
the loom while the web grows and the invisible pattern is completed.
It seemed almost as if he had forgotten his quest. But once I saw him
for a moment as he stood alone at sunrise, waiting at the gate of a
Roman prison. He had taken from a secret resting-place in his bosom the
pearl, the last of his jewels. As he looked at it, a mellower lustre, a
soft and iridescent light, full of shifting gleams of azure and rose,
trembled upon its surface. It seemed to have absorbed some reflection
of the colors of the lost sapphire and ruby. So the profound, secret
purpose of a noble life draws into itself the memories of past joy and
past sorrow. All that has helped it, all that has hindered it, is
transfused by a subtle magic into its very essence. It becomes more
luminous and precious the longer it is carried close to the warmth of
the beating heart.
Then, at last, while I was thinking of this pearl, and of its meaning,
I heard the end of the story of the Other Wise Man.