III.
In the distance the white and yellow limestone of the mountains rose. Near
by was a laughter of flowers, a tumult of green. Just beyond, in a border
of sedge and rushes, a lake lay, a mirror to the sky. In the background
were the blue and white terraces of Magdala, and about a speaker were
clustered a handful of people, a group of laborers and of fishermen.
He was dressed as a rabbi, but he looked like a seer. In his face was the
youth of the world, in his eyes the infinite. As he spoke, his words
thrilled and his presence allured. “Repent,” he was saying; “the kingdom
of heaven is at hand.” And as the resplendent prophecy continued, you
would have said that a bird in his heart had burst into song.
A little to one side, in an attitude of amused contempt, a few of the
tetrarch’s courtiers stood; they were dressed in the Roman fashion, and
one, Pandera, a captain of the guard, wore a cuirass that glittered as he
laughed. He was young and very handsome. He had white teeth, red lips, a
fair skin, a dark beard, and, as he happened to be stationed in the
provinces, an acquired sneer. Dear old Rome, how vague it was! And as he
jested with his comrades he thought of its delights, and wished himself
either back again in the haunts he loved, or else, if he must be separated
from them, then, instead of vegetating in a tiresome tetrarchy, he felt
that it would be pleasant to be far off somewhere, where the uncouth
Britons were, a land which it took a year of adventures to reach; on the
banks of the Betis, whence the girls came that charmed the lupanars; in
Numidia, where the hunting was good; or in Thrace, where there was blood
in plenty—anywhere, in fact, save on the borders of the beautiful lake
where he happened to be.
It was but the restlessness of youth, perhaps, that disturbed him so, for
in Galilee there were oafs as awkward as any that Britannia could show;
there was game in abundance; blood, too, was not as infrequent as it might
have been; and as for women, there at his side stood one as appetizing as
Rome, Spain even, had produced. He turned to her now, and plucked at his
dark beard and showed his white teeth; he had caught a phrase of the rabbi
in which the latter had mentioned the kingdoms of the earth, and the
phrase amused him.
“I like that,” he said. “What does he know about the kingdoms of the
earth? Mary, I wager what you will that he has never been two leagues from
where he stands. Let’s ask and see.”
But Mary did not seem to hear. She was engrossed in the rabbi, and Pandera
had to tug at her sleeve before she consented to return to a life in which
he seemingly had a part.
“What do you say?” he asked.
Mary shook her head. She had the air of one whose mind is elsewhere. Into
her face a vacancy had come; she seemed incapable of reply; and as the
guardsman scrutinized her it occurred to him that she might be on the
point of having an attack of that catalepsy to which he knew her to be
subject. But immediately she reassured him.
“Come, let us go.”
And, the guardsman at her side, the others in her train, she ascended the
little hill on which her castle was, and where the midday meal awaited.
It was a charming residence. Built quadrangularwise, the court held a
fountain which was serviceable to those that wished to bathe. The roof was
a garden. The interior façade was of teak wood, carved and colored; the
frontal was of stone. Seen from the exterior it looked the fortress of
some umbrageous prince, but in the courtyard reigned the seduction of a
woman in love. From without it menaced, within it soothed.
Her title to it was a matter of doubt. According to Pandera, who at the
mess-table at Tiberias had boasted his possession of her confidence, it
was a heritage from her father. Others declared that it had been given her
by her earliest lover, an old man who since had passed away. Yet, after
all, no one cared. She kept open house; the tetrarch held her in high
esteem; she was attached to the person of the tetrarch’s wife; only a
little before, the emir of Tadmor had made a circuitous journey to visit
her; Vitellius, the governor of the province, had stopped time and again
beneath her roof; and—and here was the point—to see her was to acquire a
new conception of beauty. Of human flowers she was the most fair.
Yet now, during the meal that followed, Mary, the toast of the tetrarchy,
she whose wit and brilliance had been echoed even in Rome, wrapped herself
in a mantle of silence. The guardsman jested in vain. To the others she
paid as much attention as the sun does to a torch; and when at last
Pandera, annoyed, perhaps, at her disregard of a quip of his, attempted to
whisper in her ear, she left the room.
The nausea of the hour may have affected her, for presently, as she threw
herself on her great couch, her thoughts forsook the present and went back
into the past, her childhood returned, and faces that she had loved
reappeared and smiled. Her father, for instance, Theudas, who had been
satrap of Syria, and her mother, Eucharia, a descendant of former kings.
But of these her memories were slight—they had died when she was still
very young—and in their place came her sister, Martha, kind of heart and
quick of temper, obdurate, indulgent, and continually perplexed; Simon,
Martha’s husband, a Libyan, born in Cyrene, called by many the Leper
because of a former whiteness of his skin, a whiteness which had long
since vanished, for he was brown as a date; Eleazer, her brother, younger
than herself, a delicate boy with blue pathetic eyes; and with them came
the delight of Bethany, that lovely village on the oriental slope of the
Mount of Olives, where the rich of Jerusalem had their villas, and where
her girlhood had been passed.
From the lattice at which she used to sit she could see the wide white
road begin its descent to the Jordan, a stretch of almond trees and
oleanders; and just beyond, in a woody hollow, a little house in which
Sephôrah lived—a woman who came from no one knew where, and to whom Martha
had forbidden her to speak.
She could see her still, a gaunt, gray creature, with projecting
cheek-bones, a skin of brick, and a low, insinuating voice. The
fascination which she had exercised over her partook both of wonder and of
fear, for it was rumored that she was a sorceress, and as old as the
world. To Mary, who was then barely nubile, and inquisitive as only
fanciful children are, she manifested a great affection, enticing her to
her dwelling with little cakes that were sweet to the tooth and fabulous
tales that stirred the heart: the story of Stratonice and Combabus, for
instance, which Mary did not in the least understand, but which seemed to
her intensely sad.
“And then what?” she would ask when the tale was done; and the woman would
tell her of Ninus and Semiramis, of Sennachereb, of Sardanapalus,
Belsarazzur, of Dagon, the fish-god of Philistia, by whom Goliath swore
and in whose temple Samson died, or of Sargon, who, placed by his mother
in an ark of rushes, was set adrift in the Euphrates, yet, happily
discovered by a water-carrier, afterwards became a leader of men.
“Why, that was Moses!” the child would exclaim.
“No, no,” the woman invariably answered, “it was Sargon.”
But that which pleasured Mary more highly even than these tales were the
legends of Hither Asia, the wonderlands of Babylon, and particularly the
story of the creation, for always the human mind has wished to read the
book of God.
“Where did they say the world came from?” she would ask.
And Sephôrah, drawing a long breath, would answer: “Once all was darkness
and water. In this chaos lived strange animals, and men with two wings,
and others with four wings and two faces. Some had the thighs of goats,
some had horns, and some had horses’ feet, or were formed behind like a
horse and in front like a man; there were bulls with human faces, and men
with the heads of dogs, and other animals of human shape with fins like
fishes, and fishes like sirens, and dragons, and creeping things, and
serpents, and fierce creatures, the images of which are preserved in the
temple of Bel.
“Over all these ruled the great mother, Um Uruk. But Bel, whom your people
call Baal, divided the darkness and clove the woman asunder. Of one part
he made the earth, and of the other the sun, the moon, the planets. He
drew off the water, apportioned it to the land, and prepared and arranged
the world. The creatures on it could not endure the light of day and
became extinct.
“Now when Bel saw the land fruitful yet uninhabited, he cut off his head
and made one of the gods mingle the blood which flowed from it with earth
and form therewith men and animals that could endure the sun. Presently
Chaldæa was plentifully populated, but the inhabitants lived like animals,
without order or rule. Then there appeared to them from the sea a monster
of the name of Yan. Its body was that of a fish, but under its head
another head was attached, and on its fins were feet, and its voice was
that of a man. Its image is still preserved. It came at morning, passed
the day, and taught language and science, the harvesting of seeds and of
fruits, the rules for the boundaries of land, the mode of building cities
and temples, arts and writing and all that pertains to civilized life, and
for four hundred and thirty-two thousand years the world went very well.
“Then in a dream Bel revealed to Xisuthrus that there would be a great
storm, and men would be destroyed. He bade him bury in Sepharvaim, the
city of the sun, all the ancient, mediæval, and modern records, and build
a ship and embark in it with his kindred and his nearest friends. He was
also to take food and drink into the ship, and pairs of all creatures
winged and four-footed.
“Xisuthrus did as he was bidden, and from the ends of heaven the storm
began to blow. Bin thundered; Nebo, the Revealer, came forth; Nergal, the
Destroyer, overthrew; and Adar, the Sublime, swept in his brightness
across the earth. The storm devoured the nations, it lapped the sky,
turned the land into an ocean, and destroyed everything that lived. Even
the gods were afraid. They sought refuge in the heaven of Anu, sovereign
of the upper realms. As hounds draw in their tails, they seated themselves
on their thrones, and to them Mylitta, the great goddess, spake: ‘The
world has turned from me, and ruin I have proclaimed.’ She wept, and the
gods on their thrones wept with her.
“On the seventh day Xisuthrus perceived that the storm had abated and that
the sea had begun to fall. He sent out a dove, it returned; next, a
swallow, which also returned, but with mud on its feet; and again, a
raven, which saw the corpses in the water and ate them, and returned no
more. Then the boat was stayed and settled upon Mount Nasir. Xisuthrus
went out and worshipped the recovered earth. When his companions went in
search of him he had disappeared, but his voice called to them saying that
for his piety he had been carried away; that he was dwelling among the
gods; and that they were to return to Sepharvaim and dig up the books and
give them to mankind. Which they did, and erected many cities and temples,
and rebuilt Babylon and Mylitta’s shrine.”
“It is simpler in Genesis,” Mary said, the first time she heard this
marvellous tale. For to her, as to Martha and Eleazer, the khazzan, the
teacher of the synagogue, had read from the great square letters in which
the Pentateuch was written another account of the commingling of Chaos and
of Light.
At the mention of the sacred canon, Sephôrah would smile with that
indulgence which wisdom brings, and smooth her scanty plaits, and draw the
back of her hand across her mouth.
“Burned on tiles in the land of the magi are the records of a million
years. In the unpolluted tombs of Osorapi the history of life and of time
is written on the cerements of kings. Where the bells ring at the neck of
the camels of Iran is a stretch of columns on which are inscribed the
words of those that lived in Paradise. On a wall of the temple of Bel are
the chronicles of creation; in the palace of Assurbanipal, the narrative
of the flood. It is from these lands and monuments the Thorah comes; its
verses are made of their memories; it gathered whatever it found, and
overlooked the essential, immortal life.”
And Sephôrah added in a whisper, “For we are descended from gods, and
immortal as they.”
The khazzan had disclosed to Mary no such prospect as that. To him as to
all orthodox expounders of the Law man was essentially evanescent; he
lived his little day and disappeared forever. God alone was immortal, and
an immortal being would be God. The contrary beliefs of the Egyptians and
the Aryans were to them abominations, and the spiritualistic doctrine
inaugurated by Juda Maccabæus and accepted by the Pharisees, an impiety.
The Pentateuch had not a word on the subject. Moses had expressly declared
that secret things belong to the Lord, and only visible things to man. The
prophets had indeed foretold a terrestrial immortality, but that
immortality was the immortality of a nation; and the realization of their
prophecy the entire people awaited. Apart from that there was only Sheol,
a sombre region of the under-earth, to which the dead descended, and there
remained without consciousness, abandoned by God.
“Immortal!” Mary, with great wondering eyes, would echo. “Immortal!”
“Yes; but to become so,” Sephôrah replied, “you must worship at another
shrine.”
“Where is it?”
Sephôrah answered evasively. Mary would find it in time—when the spring
came, perhaps; and meanwhile she had a word or two to say of Baal to such
effect even that Mary questioned the khazzan.
“However great the god of the Gentiles has been imagined,” the khazzan
announced, “he is bounded by the earth and the sky. His feet may touch the
one, his head the other, but of nature he is a part, and, to the Eternal,
nature is not even a garment, it is a substance He made, and which He can
remould at will. It is not in nature, it is in light, He is: in the
burning bush in which He revealed Himself; in the stake at which Isaac
would have died; in the lightning in which the Law was declared, the
column of fire, the flame of the sacrifices, and the gleaming throne in
which Isaiah saw Him sit—it is there that He is, and His shadow is the
sun.”
Of this Mary repeated the substance to her friend, and Sephôrah mused.
“No,” she said at last—“no, he is not in light, but in the desert where
nature is absent, and where the world has ceased to be. The threats of a
land that never smiled are reflected in his face. The sight of him is
death. No, Baal is the sun-god. His eyes fecundate.”
And during the succeeding months Sephôrah entertained Mary with Assyrian
annals and Egyptian lore. She told her more of Baal, whose temple was in
Babylon, and of Baaltis, who reigned at Ascalon. She told her of the women
who wept for Tammuz, and explained the reason of their tears. She told her
of the union of Ptah, the unbegotten begetter of the first beginning, and
of Neith, mother of the sun; of the holy incest of Isis and Osiris; and of
Luz, called by the patriarchs Bethel, the House of God, the foothold of a
straight stairway which messengers ceaselessly ascended and descended, and
at whose summit the Elohim sat.
She told her of these things, of others as well; and now and then in the
telling of them a fat little man with beady eyes would wander in, the
smell of garlic about him, and stare at Mary’s lips. His name was Pappus;
by Sephôrah he was treated with great respect, and Mary learned that he
was rich and knew that Sephôrah was poor.
When the Passover had come and gone, Sephôrah detected that Mary had
ceased to be a child; and of the gods and goddesses with whose adventures
she was wont to entertain her, gradually she confined herself to Mylitta;
and in describing the wonderlands which she knew so well, she spoke now
only of Babylon, where the great tower was, and the gardens that hung in
the air.
It was all very marvellous and beautiful, and Sephôrah described it in
fitting terms. There was the Temple of the Seven Spheres, where the
priests offered incense to the Houses of the Planets, to the whole host of
heaven, and to Bel, Lord of the Sky. There was the Home of the Height, a
sheer flight of solid masonry extending vertiginously, and surmounted by
turrets of copper capped with gold. In its utmost pinnacle were a
sanctuary and a dazzling couch. There the priests said that sometimes Bel
came and rested. For the truth of that statement, however, Sephôrah
declined to vouch. She had never seen him; but the hanging gardens she had
seen, long before they were demolished. She had walked in them, and she
described their loveliness, and related that they were erected to pleasure
a Persian princess whose eyes had wearied of the monotony of the
Babylonian plain.
Once when Pappus was present—and latterly he had been often there—she
passed from the gardens to the grove where the temple of Mylitta stood. At
the steps of the shrine, she declared, were white-winged lions, and
immense bulls with human heads. Within were dovecotes and cisterns, the
emblems of fecundity, and a block of stone which she did not describe.
Without, among the terebinths and evergreens, were little cabins and an
avenue bordered by cypress trees, in which men with pointed hats and long
embroidered gowns passed slowly, for there the maidens of Babylon sat,
chapleted with cords, burning bran for perfume, awaiting the will of the
first who should toss a coin in their lap and in the name of Mylitta
invite them to perform the sacred rite.
“That,” said Sephôrah, “is the worship Mylitta exacts.” As she spoke she
drew herself up, her height increased, an unnatural splendor filled her
eyes. “I,” she continued, “am her priestess. I sacrificed at Byblus, but
you may sacrifice here. There is a dovecote, yonder is a cistern, beyond
are the cypress and the evergreens that she loves. Mary, do you wish to be
immortal? Do you see the way?”
Mary smiled vaguely, and with the serenity of one worshipping a divinity
she suffered the fat Jerusalemite to take her in his arms.
And now as she lay on her great couch these things returned to her, and
subsequent episodes as well. There had been the lamentable grief of
Martha, the added pathos in her brother’s eyes. The estate of her father
had been divided, and the castle of Magdala had fallen to her share.
Meanwhile she had been at Jerusalem, and from there she had journeyed to
Antioch, where she had heard the beasts roar in the arena. She had looked
on blood, on the honey-colored moon that effaced the stars, and everywhere
she had encountered love.
Since then her hours had been grooved in revolving circles of alternating
delights, and delights to which no shadow of regret had come. To her,
youth had been a chalice of aromatic wine. She had drained it and found no
dregs. Day had been interwoven with splendors, and night with the rays of
the sun. Where she passed she conquered; when she smiled there were slaves
ready-made. There had been hot brawls where she trod, the gleam of white
knives. Men had killed each other because of her eyes, and women had wept
themselves to death. For her a priest had gone mad, and a betrothed had
hid herself in the sea. In Hierapolis the galli had fancied her Ashtaroth;
and at Capri, where Tiberius lounged, a villa awaited her will.
Her life had indeed been full, yet that morning its nausea had mounted to
her heart. At the words of the rabbi the horizon had expanded, the dream
of immortality returned. It had been forgot long since and abandoned, but
now, for the first time since her childhood, something there was which
admonished her that perhaps she still might stroll through lands where
dreams come true. The path was not wholly clear as yet, and as in her
troubled mind she tried to disentangle the past from the present the sun
went down behind the castle, the crouching shadows elongated and possessed
the walls.
An echo came to her, Repent, and the prophecy continuing danced in her
ears; yet still the way was obscure. In the echo she divined merely that
the past must be put from her like a garment that is stained. The rest was
vague. Then suddenly she was back again in Machærus, and she heard the
ringing words of John. Could this be the Messiah her nation awaited? was
there a kingdom coming, and immortality too?
Her thoughts entangled and grew confused. There was a murmur of harps in
the distance, and she wondered whence it could come. Some one was
speaking; she tried to rouse herself and listen. The room was filled with
bats that changed to butterflies. The murmur of harps continued, and
through the wall before her issued a litter in which a woman lay.
A circle of slaves surrounded her. She was pale, and her eyes closed
languorously. “I am Indolence,” she said. “Sleep is not softer than my
couch. My lightest wish is law to kings. I live on perfumes; my days are
as shadows on glass. Mary, come with me, and I will teach you to forget.”
She vanished, and where the litter had been stood a eunuch. “I am Envy,”
he said, and his eyes drooped sullenly. “I separate those that love; I
dismantle altars and dismember nations. I corrode and corrupt; I destroy,
and I never rebuild. My joy is malice, and my creed false-witnessing.
Mary, come with me, and you will learn to hate.”
He disappeared, and where his slime had dripped stood a being with fingers
intertwisted and a back that bent. “I am Greed,” it said. “I sap the veins
of youth; I drain the hearts of women; I bring contention where peace
should be. I make fathers destroy their sons, and daughters betray their
mother. I never forget, and I never release. I am the master. Mary, come
with me, and you shall own the world.”
The fetor of the presence went, and in its place came one whose footsteps
thundered. “I am Anger,” he declared. “I exterminate and rejoice. I batten
on blood. In my heart is suspicion, in my hand is flame. It is I that am
war and disaster and regret. My breath consumes, and my voice affrights.
Mary, come with me, and you will learn to quell.”
He dissolved, and in the shadows stood one whose hands were ample, and
whose wide mouth laughed. “I am Gluttony,” he announced, and as he spoke
his voice was thick. “I fatten and forsake. I offer satrapies for one new
dish. I invite and alienate, I welcome and repel. It is I that bring
disease and disorders. I am the harbinger of Death. Mary, come with me,
and you shall taste of Life.”
He also disappeared, and two heralds entered with trumpets on which they
blew, and one exclaimed, “Make way for Assurbanipal, ruler of land and of
sea.” Then, with horsemen riding royally, Sardanapalus advanced through
the fissure in the wall. On his head a high and wonderful tiara shone with
zebras that had wings and horns. His hair was long, and his beard curled
in overlapping rings. His robe dazzled, and the close sleeves were
fastened over his knuckles with bracelets of precious stones. In one hand
he held a sceptre, in the other a chart.
“I,” he cried—“I am Assurbanipal; the progeny of Assur and of Baaltis, son
of the great king Riduti, whom the lord of crowns, in days remote
prophesying in his name, raised to the kingdom, and in the womb of his
mother created to rule. The man of war, the joy of Assur and of Istar, the
royal offspring, am I. When the gods seated me on the throne of the father
my begetter, Bin poured down his rain, Hea feasted the people. My enemies
I destroyed, and their gods glorified me before my camp. The god of their
oracles, whose image no man had seen, I took, and the goddesses whom the
kings worshipped I dishonored.”
He paused and looked proudly about, then he continued:
“That which is in the storehouse of heaven is kindled, and to the city of
cities my glory flies. The queens above and below proclaim my glory. I am
Glory, and I am Pride. Mary, come with me, and you shall disdain the sky.”
But Mary gave no sign. The clattering horses vanished, and two men dressed
in women’s clothes appeared. They bowed to the ground and chanted:
“The holy goddess, our Lady Mylitta, whose sacrificants we are.”
Then came a form so luminous that Mary hid her face and listened merely.
“I,” said a voice—“I am Desire. In Greece I am revered, and there I am
Aphrodite. In Italy I am Venus; in Egypt, Hathor; in Armenia, Anaitis; in
Persia, Anâhita; Tanit in Carthage; Baaltis in Byblus; Derceto in Ascalon;
Atargatis in Hierapolis; Bilet in Babylon; Ashtaroth to the Sidonians; and
Aschera in the glades of Judæa. And everywhere I am worshipped, and
everywhere I am Love. I bring joy and torture, delight and pain. I appease
and appal. It is I that create and undo. It is I that make heaven and
people hell. I am the mistress of the world. Without me time would cease
to be. I am the germ of stars, the essence of things. I am all that is,
will be, and has been, and my robe no mortal has raised. I breathe, and
nations are; in my parturitions are planets; my home is space. My lips are
blissfuller than any bloom of bliss; my arms the opening gates of life.
The Infinite is mine. Mary, come with me, and you shall measure it.”
When Mary ventured to look again the vision had gone. They had all gone
now. She had made no effort to detain them. They were tempters of which
she was freed, in which she believed, and which were real to her. The wall
through which they had come and departed was vague and in the darkness
remote, but presently it dissolved again, and afar in the beckoning
distance was one breathing a soul into decrepit rites. “Come unto me, all
ye that sorrow and are heavy-laden,” she heard him say; and, as with a
great sob of joy she rose to that gracious summons, night seized her. When
she awoke, a newer dawn had come.