TWO CURIOUS HOUSES
I. GUESTS
“Your old men shall dream dreams.”+
A nature like that of Marius, composed, in about equal parts, of
instincts almost physical, and of slowly accumulated intellectual
judgments, was perhaps even less susceptible than other men’s
characters of essential change. And yet the experience of that
fortunate hour, seeming to gather into one central act of vision all
the deeper impressions his mind had ever received, did not leave him
quite as he had been. For his mental view, at least, it changed
measurably the world about him, of which he was still indeed a curious
spectator, but which looked further off, was weaker in its hold, and,
in a sense, less real to him than ever. It was as if he viewed it
through a diminishing glass. And the permanency of this change he could
note, some years later, when it happened that he was a guest at a
feast, in which the various exciting elements of Roman life, its
physical and intellectual accomplishments, its frivolity and
far-fetched elegances, its strange, mystic essays after the unseen,
were elaborately combined. The great Apuleius, the literary ideal of
his boyhood, had arrived in Rome,—was now visiting Tusculum, at the
house of their common friend, a certain aristocratic poet who loved
every sort of superiorities; and Marius was favoured with an invitation
to a supper given in his honour.
It was with a feeling of half-humorous concession to his own early
boyish hero-worship, yet with some sense of superiority in himself,
seeing his old curiosity grown now almost to indifference when on the
point of satisfaction at last, and upon a juster estimate of its
object, that he mounted to the little town on the hillside, the
foot-ways of which were so many flights of easy-going steps gathered
round a single great house under shadow of the “haunted” ruins of
Cicero’s villa on the wooded heights. He found a touch of weirdness in
the circumstance that in so romantic a place he had been bidden to meet
the writer who was come to seem almost like one of the personages in
his own fiction. As he turned now and then to gaze at the evening scene
through the tall narrow openings of the street, up which the cattle
were going home slowly from the pastures below, the Alban mountains,
stretched between the great walls of the ancient houses, seemed close
at hand—a screen of vaporous dun purple against the setting sun—with
those waves of surpassing softness in the boundary lines which indicate
volcanic formation. The coolness of the little brown market-place, for
profit of which even the working-people, in long file through the
olive-gardens, were leaving the plain for the night, was grateful,
after the heats of Rome. Those wild country figures, clad in every kind
of fantastic patchwork, stained by wind and weather fortunately enough
for the eye, under that significant light inclined him to poetry. And
it was a very delicate poetry of its kind that seemed to enfold him, as
passing into the poet’s house he paused for a moment to glance back
towards the heights above; whereupon, the numerous cascades of the
precipitous garden of the villa, framed in the doorway of the hall,
fell into a harmless picture, in its place among the pictures within,
and scarcely more real than they—a landscape-piece, in which the power
of water (plunging into what unseen depths!) done to the life, was
pleasant, and without its natural terrors.
At the further end of this bland apartment, fragrant with the rare
woods of the old inlaid panelling, the falling of aromatic oil from the
ready-lighted lamps, the iris-root clinging to the dresses of the
guests, as with odours from the altars of the gods, the supper-table
was spread, in all the daintiness characteristic of the agreeable
petit-maître, who entertained. He was already most carefully dressed,
but, like Martial’s Stella, perhaps consciously, meant to change his
attire once and again during the banquet; in the last instance, for an
ancient vesture (object of much rivalry among the young men of fashion,
at that great sale of the imperial wardrobes) a toga, of altogether
lost hue and texture. He wore it with a grace which became the leader
of a thrilling movement then on foot for the restoration of that
disused garment, in which, laying aside the customary evening dress,
all the visitors were requested to appear, setting off the delicate
sinuosities and well-disposed “golden ways” of its folds, with
harmoniously tinted flowers. The opulent sunset, blending pleasantly
with artificial light, fell across the quiet ancestral effigies of old
consular dignitaries, along the wide floor strewn with sawdust of
sandal-wood, and lost itself in the heap of cool coronals, lying ready
for the foreheads of the guests on a sideboard of old citron. The
crystal vessels darkened with old wine, the hues of the early autumn
fruit—mulberries, pomegranates, and grapes that had long been hanging
under careful protection upon the vines, were almost as much a feast
for the eye, as the dusky fires of the rare twelve-petalled roses. A
favourite animal, white as snow, brought by one of the visitors, purred
its way gracefully among the wine-cups, coaxed onward from place to
place by those at table, as they reclined easily on their cushions of
German eider-down, spread over the long-legged, carved couches.
A highly refined modification of the acroama—a musical performance
during supper for the diversion of the guests—was presently heard
hovering round the place, soothingly, and so unobtrusively that the
company could not guess, and did not like to ask, whether or not it had
been designed by their entertainer. They inclined on the whole to think
it some wonderful peasant-music peculiar to that wild neighbourhood,
turning, as it did now and then, to a solitary reed-note, like a
bird’s, while it wandered into the distance. It wandered quite away at
last, as darkness with a bolder lamplight came on, and made way for
another sort of entertainment. An odd, rapid, phantasmal glitter,
advancing from the garden by torchlight, defined itself, as it came
nearer, into a dance of young men in armour. Arrived at length in a
portico, open to the supper-chamber, they contrived that their
mechanical march-movement should fall out into a kind of highly
expressive dramatic action; and with the utmost possible emphasis of
dumb motion, their long swords weaving a silvery network in the air,
they danced the Death of Paris. The young Commodus, already an adept in
these matters, who had condescended to welcome the eminent Apuleius at
the banquet, had mysteriously dropped from his place to take his share
in the performance; and at its conclusion reappeared, still wearing the
dainty accoutrements of Paris, including a breastplate, composed
entirely of overlapping tigers’ claws, skilfully gilt. The youthful
prince had lately assumed the dress of manhood, on the return of the
emperor for a brief visit from the North; putting up his hair, in
imitation of Nero, in a golden box dedicated to Capitoline Jupiter. His
likeness to Aurelius, his father, was become, in consequence, more
striking than ever; and he had one source of genuine interest in the
great literary guest of the occasion, in that the latter was the
fortunate possessor of a monopoly for the exhibition of wild beasts and
gladiatorial shows in the province of Carthage, where he resided.
Still, after all complaisance to the perhaps somewhat crude tastes of
the emperor’s son, it was felt that with a guest like Apuleius whom
they had come prepared to entertain as veritable connoisseurs, the
conversation should be learned and superior, and the host at last
deftly led his company round to literature, by the way of bindings.
Elegant rolls of manuscript from his fine library of ancient Greek
books passed from hand to hand about the table. It was a sign for the
visitors themselves to draw their own choicest literary curiosities
from their bags, as their contribution to the banquet; and one of them,
a famous reader, choosing his lucky moment, delivered in tenor voice
the piece which follows, with a preliminary query as to whether it
could indeed be the composition of Lucian of Samosata,+ understood to
be the great mocker of that day:—
“What sound was that, Socrates?” asked Chaerephon. “It came from the
beach under the cliff yonder, and seemed a long way off.—And how
melodious it was! Was it a bird, I wonder. I thought all sea-birds were
songless.”
“Aye! a sea-bird,” answered Socrates, “a bird called the Halcyon, and
has a note full of plaining and tears. There is an old story people
tell of it. It was a mortal woman once, daughter of Aeolus, god of the
winds. Ceyx, the son of the morning-star, wedded her in her early
maidenhood. The son was not less fair than the father; and when it came
to pass that he died, the crying of the girl as she lamented his sweet
usage, was, Just that! And some while after, as Heaven willed, she was
changed into a bird. Floating now on bird’s wings over the sea she
seeks her lost Ceyx there; since she was not able to find him after
long wandering over the land.”
“That then is the Halcyon—the kingfisher,” said Chaerephon. “I never
heard a bird like it before. It has truly a plaintive note. What kind
of a bird is it, Socrates?”
“Not a large bird, though she has received large honour from the gods
on account of her singular conjugal affection. For whensoever she makes
her nest, a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon’s
weather,—days distinguishable among all others for their serenity,
though they come sometimes amid the storms of winter—days like to-day!
See how transparent is the sky above us, and how motionless the
sea!—like a smooth mirror.”
True! A Halcyon day, indeed! and yesterday was the same. But tell me,
Socrates, what is one to think of those stories which have been told
from the beginning, of birds changed into mortals and mortals into
birds? To me nothing seems more incredible.”
“Dear Chaerephon,” said Socrates, “methinks we are but half-blind
judges of the impossible and the possible. We try the question by the
standard of our human faculty, which avails neither for true knowledge,
nor for faith, nor vision. Therefore many things seem to us impossible
which are really easy, many things unattainable which are within our
reach; partly through inexperience, partly through the childishness of
our minds. For in truth, every man, even the oldest of us, is like a
little child, so brief and babyish are the years of our life in
comparison of eternity. Then, how can we, who comprehend not the
faculties of gods and of the heavenly host, tell whether aught of that
kind be possible or no?—What a tempest you saw three days ago! One
trembles but to think of the lightning, the thunderclaps, the violence
of the wind! You might have thought the whole world was going to ruin.
And then, after a little, came this wonderful serenity of weather,
which has continued till to-day. Which do you think the greater and
more difficult thing to do: to exchange the disorder of that
irresistible whirlwind to a clarity like this, and becalm the whole
world again, or to refashion the form of a woman into that of a bird?
We can teach even little children to do something of that sort,—to take
wax or clay, and mould out of the same material many kinds of form, one
after another, without difficulty. And it may be that to the Deity,
whose power is too vast for comparison with ours, all processes of that
kind are manageable and easy. How much wider is the whole circle of
heaven than thyself?—Wider than thou canst express.
“Among ourselves also, how vast the difference we may observe in men’s
degrees of power! To you and me, and many another like us, many things
are impossible which are quite easy to others. For those who are
unmusical, to play on the flute; to read or write, for those who have
not yet learned; is no easier than to make birds of women, or women of
birds. From the dumb and lifeless egg Nature moulds her swarms of
winged creatures, aided, as some will have it, by a divine and secret
art in the wide air around us. She takes from the honeycomb a little
memberless live thing; she brings it wings and feet, brightens and
beautifies it with quaint variety of colour:—and Lo! the bee in her
wisdom, making honey worthy of the gods.
“It follows, that we mortals, being altogether of little account, able
wholly to discern no great matter, sometimes not even a little one, for
the most part at a loss regarding what happens even with ourselves, may
hardly speak with security as to what may be the powers of the immortal
gods concerning Kingfisher, or Nightingale. Yet the glory of thy
mythus, as my fathers bequeathed it to me, O tearful songstress! that
will I too hand on to my children, and tell it often to my wives,
Xanthippe and Myrto:—the story of thy pious love to Ceyx, and of thy
melodious hymns; and, above all, of the honour thou hast with the
gods!”
The reader’s well-turned periods seemed to stimulate, almost
uncontrollably, the eloquent stirrings of the eminent man of letters
then present. The impulse to speak masterfully was visible, before the
recital was well over, in the moving lines about his mouth, by no means
designed, as detractors were wont to say, simply to display the beauty
of his teeth. One of the company, expert in his humours, made ready to
transcribe what he would say, the sort of things of which a collection
was then forming, the “Florida” or Flowers, so to call them, he was apt
to let fall by the way—no impromptu ventures at random; but rather
elaborate, carved ivories of speech, drawn, at length, out of the rich
treasure-house of a memory stored with such, and as with a fine savour
of old musk about them. Certainly in this case, as Marius thought, it
was worth while to hear a charming writer speak. Discussing, quite in
our modern way, the peculiarities of those suburban views, especially
the sea-views, of which he was a professed lover, he was also every
inch a priest of Aesculapius, patronal god of Carthage. There was a
piquancy in his rococo, very African, and as it were perfumed
personality, though he was now well-nigh sixty years old, a mixture
there of that sort of Platonic spiritualism which can speak of the soul
of man as but a sojourner in the prison of the body—a blending of that
with such a relish for merely bodily graces as availed to set the
fashion in matters of dress, deportment, accent, and the like, nay!
with something also which reminded Marius of the vein of coarseness he
had found in the “Golden Book.” All this made the total impression he
conveyed a very uncommon one. Marius did not wonder, as he watched him
speaking, that people freely attributed to him many of the marvellous
adventures he had recounted in that famous romance, over and above the
wildest version of his own actual story—his extraordinary marriage, his
religious initiations, his acts of mad generosity, his trial as a
sorcerer.
But a sign came from the imperial prince that it was time for the
company to separate. He was entertaining his immediate neighbours at
the table with a trick from the streets; tossing his olives in rapid
succession into the air, and catching them, as they fell, between his
lips. His dexterity in this performance made the mirth around him
noisy, disturbing the sleep of the furry visitor: the learned party
broke up; and Marius withdrew, glad to escape into the open air. The
courtesans in their large wigs of false blond hair, were lurking for
the guests, with groups of curious idlers. A great conflagration was
visible in the distance. Was it in Rome; or in one of the villages of
the country? Pausing for a few minutes on the terrace to watch it,
Marius was for the first time able to converse intimately with
Apuleius; and in this moment of confidence the “illuminist,” himself
with locks so carefully arranged, and seemingly so full of
affectations, almost like one of those light women there, dropped a
veil as it were, and appeared, though still permitting the play of a
certain element of theatrical interest in his bizarre tenets, to be
ready to explain and defend his position reasonably. For a moment his
fantastic foppishness and his pretensions to ideal vision seemed to
fall into some intelligible congruity with each other. In truth, it was
the Platonic Idealism, as he conceived it, which for him literally
animated, and gave him so lively an interest in, this world of the
purely outward aspects of men and things.—Did material things, such
things as they had had around them all that evening, really need
apology for being there, to interest one, at all? Were not all visible
objects—the whole material world indeed, according to the consistent
testimony of philosophy in many forms—“full of souls”? embarrassed
perhaps, partly imprisoned, but still eloquent souls? Certainly, the
contemplative philosophy of Plato, with its figurative imagery and
apologue, its manifold æsthetic colouring, its measured eloquence, its
music for the outward ear, had been, like Plato’s old master himself, a
two-sided or two-coloured thing. Apuleius was a Platonist: only, for
him, the Ideas of Plato were no creatures of logical abstraction, but
in very truth informing souls, in every type and variety of sensible
things. Those noises in the house all supper-time, sounding through the
tables and along the walls:—were they only startings in the old
rafters, at the impact of the music and laughter; or rather
importunities of the secondary selves, the true unseen selves, of the
persons, nay! of the very things around, essaying to break through
their frivolous, merely transitory surfaces, to remind one of abiding
essentials beyond them, which might have their say, their judgment to
give, by and by, when the shifting of the meats and drinks at life’s
table would be over? And was not this the true significance of the
Platonic doctrine?—a hierarchy of divine beings, associating themselves
with particular things and places, for the purpose of mediating between
God and man—man, who does but need due attention on his part to become
aware of his celestial company, filling the air about him, thick as
motes in the sunbeam, for the glance of sympathetic intelligence he
casts through it.
“Two kinds there are, of animated beings,” he exclaimed: “Gods,
entirely differing from men in the infinite distance of their abode,
since one part of them only is seen by our blunted vision—those
mysterious stars!—in the eternity of their existence, in the perfection
of their nature, infected by no contact with ourselves: and men,
dwelling on the earth, with frivolous and anxious minds, with infirm
and mortal members, with variable fortunes; labouring in vain; taken
altogether and in their whole species perhaps, eternal; but, severally,
quitting the scene in irresistible succession.
“What then? Has nature connected itself together by no bond, allowed
itself to be thus crippled, and split into the divine and human
elements? And you will say to me: If so it be, that man is thus
entirely exiled from the immortal gods, that all communication is
denied him, that not one of them occasionally visits us, as a shepherd
his sheep—to whom shall I address my prayers? Whom, shall I invoke as
the helper of the unfortunate, the protector of the good?
“Well! there are certain divine powers of a middle nature, through whom
our aspirations are conveyed to the gods, and theirs to us. Passing
between the inhabitants of earth and heaven, they carry from one to the
other prayers and bounties, supplication and assistance, being a kind
of interpreters. This interval of the air is full of them! Through
them, all revelations, miracles, magic processes, are effected. For,
specially appointed members of this order have their special provinces,
with a ministry according to the disposition of each. They go to and
fro without fixed habitation: or dwell in men’s houses”—
Just then a companion’s hand laid in the darkness on the shoulder of
the speaker carried him away, and the discourse broke off suddenly. Its
singular intimations, however, were sufficient to throw back on this
strange evening, in all its detail—the dance, the readings, the distant
fire—a kind of allegoric expression: gave it the character of one of
those famous Platonic figures or apologues which had then been in fact
under discussion. When Marius recalled its circumstances he seemed to
hear once more that voice of genuine conviction, pleading, from amidst
a scene at best of elegant frivolity, for so boldly mystical a view of
man and his position in the world. For a moment, but only for a moment,
as he listened, the trees had seemed, as of old, to be growing “close
against the sky.” Yes! the reception of theory, of hypothesis, of
beliefs, did depend a great deal on temperament. They were, so to
speak, mere equivalents of temperament. A celestial ladder, a ladder
from heaven to earth: that was the assumption which the experience of
Apuleius had suggested to him: it was what, in different forms, certain
persons in every age had instinctively supposed: they would be glad to
find their supposition accredited by the authority of a grave
philosophy. Marius, however, yearning not less than they, in that hard
world of Rome, and below its unpeopled sky, for the trace of some
celestial wing across it, must still object that they assumed the thing
with too much facility, too much of self-complacency. And his second
thought was, that to indulge but for an hour fantasies, fantastic
visions of that sort, only left the actual world more lonely than ever.
For him certainly, and for his solace, the little godship for whom the
rude countryman, an unconscious Platonist, trimmed his twinkling lamp,
would never slip from the bark of these immemorial olive-trees.—No! not
even in the wildest moonlight. For himself, it was clear, he must still
hold by what his eyes really saw. Only, he had to concede also, that
the very boldness of such theory bore witness, at least, to a variety
of human disposition and a consequent variety of mental view, which
might—who can tell?—be correspondent to, be defined by and define,
varieties of facts, of truths, just “behind the veil,” regarding the
world all alike had actually before them as their original premiss or
starting-point; a world, wider, perhaps, in its possibilities than all
possible fancies concerning it.
NOTES
75. Joel 2.28.
81. +Halcyone.