"Come with me," he said, "that you may see the contrast between poverty
and riches, between the great and the humble, even among the ranks
of the dead;--for verily it hath been said that there are sermons in
stones."
And I passed with him through the Egyptian gates, and beyond the pylons
into the Alley of Cypresses; and he showed me the dwelling-place of
the rich in the City of Eternal Sleep--the ponderous tombs of carven
marble, the white angels that mourned in stone, the pale symbols of the
urns, and the names inscribed upon tablets of granite in letters of
gold. But I said to him: "These things interest me not;--these tombs
are but traditions of the wealth once owned by men who dwell now where
riches avail nothing and all rest together in the dust."
Then my friend laughed softly to himself, and taking my hand led me to
a shadowy place where the trees bent under their drooping burdens of
gray moss, and made waving silhouettes against the catacombed walls
which girdle the cemetery. There the dead were numbered and piled away
thickly upon the marble shelves, like those documents which none may
destroy but which few care to read--the Archives of our Necropolis.
And he pointed to a marble tablet closing the aperture of one of the
little compartments in the lowest range of the catacombs, almost level
with the grass at our feet.
There was no inscription, no name, no wreath, no vase. But some hand
had fashioned a tiny flower-bed in front of the tablet--a little garden
about twelve inches in width and depth--and had hemmed it about with a
border of pink-tinted seashells, and had covered the black mould over
with white sand, through which the green leaves and buds of the baby
plants sprouted up.
"Nothing but love could have created that," said my companion, as a
shadow of tenderness passed over his face;--"and that sand has been
brought here from a long distance, and from the shores of the sea."
Then I looked and remembered wastes that I had seen, where sand-waves
shifted with a dry and rustling sound, where no life was and no leaf
grew, where all was death and barrenness. And here were flowers
blooming in the midst of sand!--the desert blossoming!--love living in
the midst of death! And I saw the print of a hand, a child's hand--the
tiny Angers that had made this poor little garden and smoothed the sand
over the roots of the flowers.
"There is no name upon the tomb," said the voice of the friend who
stood beside me; "yet why should there be?"
Why, indeed? I answered. Why should the world know the sweet secret of
that child's love? Why should unsympathetic eyes read the legend of
that grief? Is it not enough that those who loved the dead man know his
place of rest, and come hither to whisper to him in his dreamless sleep?
I said _he_; for somehow or other the sight of that little garden
created a strange fancy in my mind, a fancy concerning the dead. The
shells and the sand were not the same as those usually used in the
cemeteries. They had been brought from a great distance--from the
moaning shores of the Mexican Gulf.
So that visions of a phantom sea arose before me; and mystic ships
rocking in their agony upon shadowy waves;--and dreams of wild coasts
where the weed-grown skeletons of wrecks lie buried in the ribbed sand.
And I thought--Perhaps this was a sailor and perhaps the loving ones
who come at intervals to visit his place of rest waited and watched and
wept for a ship that never came back.
But when the sea gave up its dead, they bore him to his native city,
and laid him in this humble grave, and brought hither the sand that the
waves had kissed, and the pink-eared shells within whose secret spirals
the moan of ocean lingers forever.
And from time to time his child comes to plant a frail blossom,
and smooth the sand with her tiny fingers, talking softly the
while--perhaps only to herself--perhaps to that dead father who comes
to her in dreams.
"AÏDA"[21]
To Thebes, the giant city of a hundred gates, the city walled up to
heaven, come the tidings of war from the south. Dark Ethiopia has risen
against Egypt, the power "shadowing with wings" has invaded the kingdom
of the Pharaohs, to rescue from captivity the beautiful Aïda, daughter
of Amonasro, monarch of Ethiopia. Aïda is the slave of the enchanting
Amneris, daughter of Pharaoh. Radames, chief among the great captains
of Egypt, is beloved by Amneris; but he has looked upon the beauty of
the slave-maiden, and told her in secret the story of his love.
And Radames, wandering through the vastness of Pharoah's palace, dreams
of Aïda, and longs for power. Visions of grandeur tower before him like
the colossi of Osiris in the temple courts; hopes and fears agitate
his soul, as varying winds from desert or sea bend the crests of the
dhoums to the four points of heaven. In fancy he finds himself seated
at the king's right hand, clad with the robes of honor, and wearing
the ring of might; second only to the most powerful of the Pharaohs.
He lifts Aïda to share his greatness; he binds her brows with gold,
and restores her to the land of her people. And even as he dreams,
Ramphis, the deep-voiced priest, draws nigh, bearing the tidings of war
and of battle-thunder rolling up from the land "shadowing with wings,"
which is beyond the river of Ethiopia. The priest has consulted with
the Veiled Goddess--Isis, whose awful face no man may see and live. And
the Veiled One has chosen the great captain who shall lead the hosts
of Egypt. "O happy man!--would that it were I!" cries Radames. But
the priest utters not the name, and passes down the avenue of mighty
pillars, and out into the day beyond.
Amneris, the daughter of Pharaoh, speaks words of love to Radames. His
lips answer, but his heart is cold. And the subtle mind of the Egyptian
maiden divines the fatal secret. Shall she hate her slave?
The priests summon the people of Egypt together; the will of the
goddess is made manifest by the lips of Pharaoh himself. Radames shall
lead the hosts of Egypt against the dark armies of Ethiopia. A roar
of acclamation goes up to heaven. Aïda fears and weeps; it is against
her beloved father, Amonasro, that her lover must lead the armies of
the Nile. Radames is summoned to the mysterious halls of the Temple
of Phthah: through infinitely extending rows of columns illumined by
holy flames he is led to the inner sanctuary itself. The linen-mantled
priest performs the measure of their ancient and symbolic dance; the
warriors clad in consecrated armor; about his loins is girt a sacred
sword; and the vast temple reëchoes through all its deeps of dimness
the harmonies of the awful hymn to the Eternal Spirit of Fire.
The ceremony is consummated.
The monarch proclaims tremendous war. Thebes opens her hundred mouths
of brass and vomits forth her nations of armies. The land shakes to
the earthquake of the chariot-roll; numberless as ears of corn are the
spear-blades of bronze;--the jaws of Egypt have opened to devour her
enemies!
Aïda has confessed her love in agony; Amneris has falsely told her that
her lover has fallen in battle. And the daughter of Pharaoh is strong
and jealous.
As the white moon moves around the earth, as the stars circle in
Egypt's rainless heaven, so circle the dancing-girls in voluptuous joy
before the king--gauze-robed or clad only with jeweled girdles;--their
limbs, supple as the serpents charmed by the serpent charmer, curve
to the music of harpers harping upon fantastic harps. The earth
quakes again; there is a sound in the distance as when a mighty tide
approaches the land--a sound as of the thunder-chanting sea. The hosts
of Egypt return. The chariots roar through the hundred gates of Thebes.
Innumerable armies defile before the granite terraces of the Palace.
Radames comes in the glory of his victory. Pharaoh descends from his
throne to embrace him. "Ask what thou wilt, O Radames, even though it
be the half of my kingdom!"
And Radames asks for the life of his captives. Amonasro is among them;
and Aïda, beholding him, fears with an exceeding great fear. Yet none
but she knows Amonasro; for he wears the garb of a soldier--none but
she, and Radames. The priests cry for blood. But the king must keep
his vow. The prisoners are set free. And Radames must wed the tall and
comely Amneris, Pharaoh's only daughter.
It is night over Egypt. To Ramphis, the deep-voiced priest, tall
Amneris must go. It is the eve of her nuptials. She must pray to the
Veiled One, the mystic mother of love, to bless her happy union. Within
the temple burn the holy lights; incense smoulders in the tripods
of brass; solemn hymns resound through the vast-pillared sanctuary.
Without, under the stars, Aïda glides like a shadow to meet her lover.
It is not her lover who comes. It is her father! "Aïda," mutters the
deep but tender voice of Amonasro, "thou hast the daughter of Pharaoh
in thy power! Radames loves thee! Wilt thou see again the blessed
land of thy birth?--Wit thou inhale the balm of our forests?--Wilt
thou gaze upon our valleys and behold our temples of gold, and pray
to the gods of thy fathers? Then it will only be needful for thee to
learn what path the Egyptians will follow! Our people have risen in
arms again! Radames loves thee!--he will tell thee all! What! dost
thou hesitate? Refuse!--and they who died to free thee from captivity
shall arise from the black gulf to curse thee! Refuse!--and the shade
of thy mother will return from the tomb to curse thee! Refuse!--and I,
thy father, shall disown thee and invoke upon thy head my everlasting
curse!"
Radames comes! Amonasro, hiding in the shadow of the palms, hears all.
Radames betrays his country to Aïda. "Save thyself!--fly with me!" she
whispers to her lover. "Leave thy gods; we shall worship together in
the temples of my country. The desert shall be our nuptial couch!--the
silent stars the witness of our love. Let my black hair cover thee as a
tent; my eyes sustain thee; my kisses console thee." And as she twines
about him and he inhales the perfume of her lips and feels the beating
of her heart, Radames forgets country and honor and faith and fame;
and the fatal word is spoken. Napata!--Amonasro, from the shadows of
the palm-trees, shouts the word in triumph! There is a clash of brazen
blades; Radames is seized by priests and soldiers: Amonasro and his
daughter fly under cover of the night.
Vainly tall Amneris intercedes with the deep-voiced priest. Ramphis
has spoken the word: "He shall die!" Vainly do the priests call upon
Radames to defend himself against their terrible accusations. His lips
are silent. He must die the death of traitors. They sentence him to
living burial under the foundations of the temple, under the feet of
the granite gods.
Under the feet of the deities they have made the tomb of Radames--a
chasm wrought in a mountain of hewn granite. Above it the weird-faced
gods with beards of basalt have sat for a thousand years. Their eyes
of stone have beheld the courses of the stars change in heaven;
generations have worshiped at their feet of granite. Rivers have
changed their courses; dynasties have passed away since first they took
their seats upon their thrones of mountain rock, and placed their giant
hands upon their knees. Changeless as the granite hill from whose womb
they were delivered by hieratic art, they watch over the face of Egypt,
far-gazing through the pillars of the temple into the palm-shadowed
valley beyond. Their will is inexorable as the hard rock of which their
forms are wrought; their faces have neither pity nor mercy, because
they are the faces of gods!
The priests close up the tomb; they chant their holy and awful hymn.
Radames finds his Aïda beside him. She had concealed herself in the
darkness that she might die in his arms.
The footsteps of the priests, the sacred hymn, die away. Alone in the
darkness above, at the feet of the silent gods, there is a sound as of
a woman's weeping. It is Amneris, the daughter of the king. Below in
everlasting gloom the lovers are united at once in love and death. And
Osiris, forever impassible, gazes into the infinite night with tearless
eyes of stone.