A MAN CROSSED WITH ADVERSITY
"One sole desire, one passion now remains
To keep life's fever still within his veins,
Vengeance! dire vengeance on the wretch who cast
O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast."
--Lalla Rookh.
It was late in the evening when David returned to his apartments,
excited, triumphant, eager.
"Well," he cried, rushing impetuously up to Mantel, who stood waiting
for him. "Is he still there? Is that place really his home?"
"Yes," his friend answered; "he has lived there for more than a year, in
solitude and poverty. His health is very poor and he is growing steadily
weaker. He has declined so much recently that now he does not venture
out until the afternoon."
"Feeble, is he? Poor old man!" exclaimed David. "But at least he is not
dead, and while there is life there is hope! I am not a murderer, and
there is a possibility of my making atonement! How I cling to that idea,
Mantel! In a single hour I have enjoyed more happiness than I thought a
whole lifetime could contain. But even in this indescribable happiness
there is a strange element of unrest, for it seems too good to last. Is
all great gladness haunted by this apprehension of evanescence? But at
any rate, I am happy now!"
"And I am almost happy in your happiness," responded his friend, his
face lighted up by an altogether new and beautiful smile.
"Sit down, then," said David, giving him a chair and standing opposite
to him, "and I will tell you my story."
Words cannot describe the emotion, nay the passion, with which he poured
that tragic narrative into the ears of his eager and sympathetic
listener.
Never was a story told to a more attentive and appreciative auditor.
There must have been some buried sorrow in that heart which had rendered
it sensitive to the griefs of others. Hours were consumed by this
narrative and by the questions which had to be asked and answered, and
it was long after midnight when David found time to say, "And now shall
I tell you my plans for the future?"
"Yes, if you will," said Mantel.
"Well, I have rented a sunny room in a lodging house in a quiet street,
and to-morrow, if you are willing, you shall go and lead him to it. I
must lean upon you, Mantel; I dare not make myself known to him. He
would never accept my aid if he knew by whom it was bestowed, for he is
proud and revengeful and would give himself no rest night or day until
he had my life, if he knew I was within reach. I do not fear him; but
what good could come of his wreaking vengeance on me, richly as I
deserve it? It would only make his destiny more dark and dreadful, and
defeat the one chance I have of making an atonement. You do not think I
ought to make myself known, do you?"
"I do not. I think with you that an atonement is the most perfect
satisfaction of justice."
"Thank you, thank you, my dear friend. You do not know how glad I am to
have you think I am doing right. You will go to him to-morrow, then, and
you will tell him that some one who has seen him on the streets has
taken compassion on him. You will do this, will you not?"
"Nothing could give me greater pleasure. I half feel as if I had
participated with you in the wrong done to the old man, and that I shall
be blessed with you in trying to make it right."
"That is good in you, Mantel. How much nobility lies buried in every
human heart! It may be that even such men as you and I are capable of
some sort of rescue and redemption. I am going to spend my best strength
in working for this poor old blind beggar whom I have wronged. I mean to
toil for him like a galley slave, and mark me, Mantel, it is going to be
honest toil!"
"Honest, did you say?" asked Mantel, lifting his eyebrows incredulously.
"Yes," David answered, "honest. This hope that has come to me has
wrought a great change in my heart. It has revived old feelings which I
thought long dead. If there is a God in heaven who has decided to give
me one more chance to set myself right, I am going to take it! And
listen; if this great hope can come to me, why not to you?"
Mantel leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then answered with a
sigh, "Perhaps--but," and paused.
There are moments when these two indefinite words contain the whole of
our philosophy of existence. "I am going to seek the great Perhaps!"
said Rabelais, as he breathed his last.
David looked at him sympathetically and said, "Well, it is not strange
that you cannot feel as I do. It is not by what befalls others, but by
what befalls ourselves, that we learn to hope and trust."
The silence that came between them was broken by Mantel, who looked up
at him with a trace of the old ironical smile on his face.
"Your plans are all right as far as they go, but it seems to me the
hardest part of the tangle still remains to be unraveled."
"What do you mean?" asked David.
"What are you going to do about this beautiful Pepeeta?"
"Oh, I have settled that, too! You do not know how clearly I see it all.
It is as if a fog had lifted from the ocean, and the sailor had found
himself inside the harbor. I shall write and tell her all."
"Do you mean that you will tell her that her husband is alive?"
"I do."
"And perhaps you will advise her to return to him!"
"You are right, I shall."
Mantel shook his head.
"You do not think it best?" said David.
"I do not know."
"But there is nothing else to do."
"It is natural that I should see only the difficulties."
"What difficulties can there be?"
"Will you do anything more than destroy her by binding her once more to
the man she loathes?"
"You do not know Pepeeta."
"It is true, I only know human nature."
"But she is more than human!"
"And are you?"
"Not I!"
"Then how will you endure to see her once more the wife of your enemy
and rival?"
"Mantel," said David, pausing in his restless walk across the room, "I
do not wonder that you ask this. It was the first question that I asked
myself. It struck my heart like the blow of a hammer. But I have settled
it. I have weighed the pains which I have suffered in a just and even
balance. I know I cannot escape suffering, whichever way I turn. I have
felt the pains of doing wrong, and I now deliberately choose the pains
of doing right, let them be what they will!"
"It is easy to scorn the bitterness of an untasted cup."
"No matter! I have settled it. It must be done."
Mantel shrugged his shoulders and said, "I am afraid that the great
Joker of whom we were talking yesterday is about to perpetrate another
of his jests."
"You think it absurd, then?"
"I regard it as impossible."
"But why?"
"Because you are making a plan to act as if you were a disembodied
conscience. You have forgotten that you still have the passions of a
man. I fear there will be another tragedy as dark as the first. But if
you are determined, I must obey you. I never know how to act for myself;
but if some one wishes me to act for him I can do so without fear, even
if I am compelled to do so without hope."
David resumed his walk for a moment, and then pausing again before his
friend, said, "Mantel, a few years ago my soul was so sensitive to truth
and duty that I was accustomed to regard its intuitions as the will of
God revealed to me in some sort of supernatural way. I acted on the
impulses of my heart without the slightest question or hesitation, and
during that entire period of my life I cannot remember that I was ever
for a single time seriously mistaken or misled. While I obeyed those
intuitions and followed that mysterious light, I was happy. When I
turned my back on that light it ceased to shine. It has been more than
two years since I have thought I heard the voice of God or felt any
assurance that I was in the path of duty. But now the departed vision
has returned! I have had as clear a perception of my duty as was ever
vouchsafed me in the old sweet days, and I shall obey it if it costs me
my life."
So deep was his earnestness that Mantel seemed to catch his enthusiasm
and be convinced. But in another instant the old mocking smile had
returned.
"Would you be so tractable and obedient if the old beggar were in better
health?" he said, opening and shutting the leaves of a book which was
lying on the table, and looking out from under half-lifted eyelids.
At this insinuation David winced, and for a moment seemed about to
resent it. But he restrained himself and replied gently, "The same
distrust of my motives has arisen in my own mind. I more than half
suspect that if, as you say, the old beggar were young and strong, my
heart would fail me. But the knowledge that I could not do my duty if
the doctor were going to live cannot be any reason for my not doing it
when I believe that he is likely to die! I am not called upon to do
wrong simply because I see that I am not wholly unselfish in doing
right. I am not asked to face a supposition, but a fact. I shall not
pride myself on any righteousness that I do not possess; but I must not
be kept from doing my duty because I am not a perfect man."
"You are right," said Mantel, but his assent seemed more like a
concession than a conviction. He had grown to regard the passing
panorama of life as a great spectacular exhibition. The actors seemed
swayed by powers external to themselves, their movements exhibiting
such gross inconsistencies as to make it impossible to predict, and
almost impossible to guess them. He looked on with more curiosity than
interest, as at the different combinations in a kaleidoscope. He could
not conceive that David, or any one, could so come under the dominant
influence of a conviction as to act coherently and consistently upon it
through any or all emergencies. But he was kind and sympathetic, and his
heart responded to the passionate earnestness of his friend with a new
interest and pleasure.