‘Here am I, at last!’ said Raphael Aben-Ezra to himself. ‘Fairly and
safely landed at the very bottom of the bottomless; disporting myself on
the firm floor of the primeval nothing, and finding my new element, like
boys when they begin to swim, not so impracticable after all. No man,
angel, or demon, can this day cast it in my teeth that I am weak enough
to believe or disbelieve any phenomenon or theory in or concerning
heaven or earth; or even that any such heaven, earth, phenomena,
or theories exist--or otherwise.... I trust that is a sufficiently
exhaustive statement of my opinions? .... I am certainly not dogmatic
enough to deny--or to assert either--that there are sensations.... far
too numerous for comfort .... but as for proceeding any further, by
induction, deduction, analysis, or synthesis, I utterly decline
the office of Arachne, and will spin no more cobwebs out of my
own inside--if I have any. Sensations? What are they, but parts of
oneself--if one has a self! What put this child’s fancy into one’s head,
that there is anything outside of one which produces them? You have
exactly similar feelings in your dreams, and you know that there is no
reality corresponding to them--No, you don’t! How dare you be dogmatic
enough to affirm that? Why should not your dreams be as real as your
waking thoughts? Why should not your dreams be the reality, and your
waking thoughts the dream? What matter which?
‘What matter indeed? Here have I been staring for years--unless that,
too, is a dream, which it very probably is--at every mountebank “ism”
which ever tumbled and capered on the philosophic tight-rope; and they
are every one of them dead dolls, wooden, worked with wires, which are
_petitiones principii_.... Each philosopher begs the question in hand,
and then marches forward, as brave as a triumph, and prides himself--on
proving it all afterwards. No wonder that his theory fits the universe,
when he has first clipped the universe to fit his theory. Have I not
tried my hand at many a one--starting, too, no one can deny, with the
very minimum of clipping,.... for I suppose one cannot begin lower than
at simple “I am I”.... unless--which is equally demonstrable--at “I am
not I.” I recollect--or dream--that I offered that sweet dream, Hypatia,
to deduce all things in heaven and earth, from the Astronomics of
Hipparchus to the number of plumes in an archangel’s wing, from that one
simple proposition, if she would but write me out a demonstration of it
first, as some sort of [Greek expression] for the apex of my inverted
pyramid. But she disdained.... People are apt to disdain what they know
they cannot do.... “It was an axiom,” it was, “like one and one making
two.”.... How cross the sweet dream was, at my telling her that I did
not consider that any axiom either, and that one thing and one thing
seeming to us to be two things, was no more proof that they really were
two, and not three hundred and sixty-five, than a man seeming to be
an honest man, proved him not to be a rogue; and at my asking her,
moreover, when she appealed to universal experience, how she proved that
the combined folly of all fools resulted in wisdom!
‘“I am I” an axiom, indeed! What right have I to say that I am not any
one else? How do I know it? How do I know that there is any one else
for me not to be? I, or rather something, feel a number of sensations,
longings, thoughts, fancies--the great devil take them all--fresh ones
every moment, and each at war tooth and nail with all the rest; and
then on the strength of this infinite multiplicity and contradiction,
of which alone I am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up, and
say, “I by myself I,” and swear stoutly that I am one thing, when all I
am conscious of is the devil only knows how many things. Of all quaint
deductions from experience, that is the quaintest! Would it not be more
philosophical to conclude that I, who never saw or felt or heard this
which I call myself, am what I have seen, heard, and felt--and no more
and no less--that sensation which I call that horse, that dead man,
that jackass, those forty thousand two-legged jackasses who appear to be
running for their lives below there, having got hold of this same notion
of their being one thing each--as I choose to fancy in my foolish
habit of imputing to them the same disease of thought which I find in
myself--crucify the word!--The folly of my ancestors--if I ever had
any--prevents my having any better expression.... Why should I not be
all I feel--that sky, those clouds--the whole universe? Hercules! what
a creative genius my sensorium must be!--I’ll take to writing’ poetry--a
mock-epic, in seventy-two books, entitled “The Universe: or, Raphael
Aben-Ezra,” and take Homer’s Margites for my model. Homer’s? Mine! Why
must not the Margites, like everything else, have been a sensation of my
own? Hypatia used to say Homer’s poetry was a part of her.... only she
could not prove it.... but I have proved that the Margites is a part of
me.... not that I believe my own proof--scepticism forbid! Oh, would to
heaven that the said whole disagreeable universe were annihilated, if
it were only just to settle by fair experiment whether any of master “I”
remained when they were gone! Buzzard and dogmatist! And how do you know
that that would settle it? And if it did--why need it be settled?....
‘I daresay there is an answer pat for all this. I could write a pretty
one myself in half an hour. But then I should not believe it .... nor
the rejoinder to that.... nor the demurrer to that again .... So.... I
am both sleepy and hungry.... or rather, sleepiness and hunger are me.
Which is it! Heigh-ho....’ and Raphael finished his meditation by a
mighty yawn.
This hopeful oration was delivered in a fitting lecture-room. Between
the bare walls of a doleful fire-scarred tower in the Campagna of Rome,
standing upon a knoll of dry brown grass, ringed with a few grim pines,
blasted and black with smoke; there sat Raphael Aben-Ezra, working out
the last formula of the great world problem--‘Given Self; to find God.’
Through the doorless stone archway he could see a long vista of the
plain below, covered with broken trees, trampled crops, smoking villas,
and all the ugly scars of recent war, far onward to the quiet purple
mountains and the silver sea, towards which struggled, far in the
distance, long dark lines of moving specks, flowing together, breaking
up, stopping short, recoiling back to surge forward by some fresh
channel, while now and then a glitter of keen white sparks ran through
the dense black masses.... The Count of Africa had thrown for the empire
of the world--and lost.
‘Brave old Sun!’ said Raphael, ‘how merrily he flashes off the
sword-blades yonder, and never cares that every tiny spark brings
a death-shriek after it! Why should he? It is no concern of his.
Astrologers are fools. His business is to shine; and on the whole, he
is one of my few satisfactory sensations. How now? This is questionably
pleasant!’
As he spoke, a column of troops came marching across the field, straight
towards his retreat.
‘If these new sensations of mine find me here, they will infallibly
produce in me a new sensation, which will render all further ones
impossible.... Well? What kinder thing could they do for me?.... Ay--but
how do I know that they would do it? What possible proof is there that
if a two-legged phantasm pokes a hard iron-gray phantasm in among my
sensations, those sensations will be my last? Is the fact of my turning
pale, and lying still, and being in a day or two converted into crows’
flesh, any reason why I should not feel? And how do I know that would
happen? It seems to happen to certain sensations of my eyeball--or
something else--who cares? which I call soldiers; but what possible
analogy can there be between what seems to happen to those single
sensations called soldiers, and what may or may not really happen to all
my sensations put together, which I call me? Should I bear apples if a
phantasm seemed to come and plant me? Then why should I die if another
phantasm seemed to come and poke me in the ribs?
‘Still I don’t intend to deny it.... I am no dogmatist. Positively the
phantasms are marching straight for my tower! Well, it may be safer
to run away, on the chance. But as for losing feeling,’ continued he,
rising and cramming a few mouldy crusts into his wallet, ‘that, like
everything else, is past proof. Why--if now, when I have some sort of
excuse for fancying myself one thing in one place, I am driven mad with
the number of my sensations, what will it be when I am eaten, and turned
to dust, and undeniably many things in many places.... Will not the
sensations be multiplied by--unbearable! I would swear at the thought,
if I had anything to swear by! To be transmuted into the sensoria of
forty different nasty carrion crows, besides two or three foxes, and a
large black beetle! I’ll run away, just like anybody else.... if anybody
existed. Come, Bran! ...............
‘Bran! where are you; unlucky inseparable sensation of mine? Picking up
a dinner already off these dead soldiers? Well, the pity is that this
foolish contradictory taste of mine, while it makes me hungry,
forbids me to follow your example. Why am I to take lessons from my
soldier-phantasms, and not from my canine one? Illogical! Bran! Bran!’
and he went out and whistled in vain for the dog.
‘Bran! unhappy phantom, who will not vanish by night or day, lying on
my chest even in dreams; and who would not even let me vanish, and solve
the problem--though I don’t believe there is any--why did you drag me
out of the sea there at Ostia? Why did you not let me become a whole
shoal of crabs? How did you know, or I either, that they may not be
very jolly fellows, and not in the least troubled with philosophic
doubts?.... But perhaps there were no crabs, but only phantasms of
crabs.... And, on the other hand, if the crab-phantasms give jolly
sensations, why should not the crow-phantasms? So whichever way it turns
out, no matter; and I may as well wait here, and seem to become crows,
as I certainly shall do.--Bran!.... Why should I wait for her? What
pleasure can it be to me to have the feeling of a four-legged, brindled,
lop-eared, toad-mouthed thing always between what seem to be my legs?
There she is! Where have you been, madam? Don’t you see I am in marching
order, with staff and wallet ready shouldered? Come!’
But the dog, looking up in his face as only dogs can look, ran toward
the back of the ruin, and up to him again, and back again, until he
followed her.
‘What’s this? Here is a new sensation with a vengeance! O storm and
cloud of material appearances, were there not enough of you already,
that you must add to your number these also? Bran! Bran! Could you find
no other day in the year but this, whereon to present my ears with the
squeals of--one--two--three--nine blind puppies?’
Bran answered by rushing into the hole where her new family lay tumbling
and squalling, bringing out one in her mouth, and laying it at his feet.
‘Needless, I assure you. I am perfectly aware of the state of the case
already. What! another? Silly old thing!--do you fancy, as the fine
ladies do, that burdening the world with noisy likenesses of your
precious self, is a thing of which to be proud? Why, she’s bringing out
the whole litter!.... What was I thinking of last? Ah--the argument was
self-contradictory, was it, because I could not argue without using
the very terms which I repudiated. Well.... And--why should it not be
contradictory; Why not? One must face that too, after all. Why should
not a thing be true and false also? What harm in a thing’s being false?
What necessity for it to be true? True? What is truth? Why should a
thing be the worse for being illogical? Why should there be any logic at
all? Did I ever see a little beast flying about with “Logic” labelled on
its back? What do I know of it, but as a sensation of my own mind--if I
have any? What proof is that that I am to obey it, and not it me? If a
flea bites me I get rid of that sensation; and if logic bothers me, I’ll
get rid of that too. Phantasms must be taught to vanish courteously.
One’s only hope of comfort lies in kicking feebly against the tyranny
of one’s own boring notions and sensations--every philosopher
confesses that--and what god is logic, pray, that it is to be the sole
exception?.... What, old lady? I give you fair warning, you must choose
this day, like any nun, between the ties of family and those of duty.’
Bran seized him by the skirt, and pulled him down towards the puppies;
took up one of the puppies and lifted it towards him; and then repeated
the action with another.
‘You unconscionable old brute! You don’t actually dare to expect the to
carry your puppies for you?’ and he turned to go.
Bran sat down on her tail and began howling.
‘Farewell, old dog! you have been a pleasant dream after all.... But if
you will go the way of all phantasms.’.... And he walked away.
Bran ran with him, leaping and barking; then recollected her family and
ran back; tried to bring them, one by one, in her mouth, and then to
bring them all at once; and failing sat down and howled.
‘Come, Bran! Come, old girl!’
She raced halfway up to him; then halfway back again to the puppies;
then towards him again: and then suddenly gave it up, and dropping
her tail, walked slowly back to the blind suppliants, with a deep
reproachful growl.
‘* * *!’ said Raphael with a mighty oath; ‘you are right after all! Here
are nine things come into the world, phantasms or not, there it is; I
can’t deny it. They are something, and you are something, old dog; or at
least like enough to something to do instead of it; and you are not I,
and as good as I, and they too, for aught I know, and have as good a
right to live as I; and by the seven planets and all the rest of it,
I’ll carry them!’
And he went back, tied up the puppies in his blanket, and set forth,
Bran barking, squeaking, wagging, leaping, running between his legs and
upsetting him, in her agonies of joy.
‘Forward! Whither you will, old lady! The world is wide. You shall be
my guide, tutor, queen of philosophy, for the sake of this mere common
sense of yours. Forward, you new Hypatia! I promise you I will attend no
lectures but yours this day!’
He toiled on, every now and then stepping across a dead body, or
clambering a wall out of the road, to avoid some plunging, shrieking
horse, or obscene knot of prowling camp followers, who were already
stripping and plundering the slain.... At last, in front of a large
villa, now a black and smoking skeleton, he leaped a wall, and found
himself landed on a heap of corpses.... They were piled up against the
garden fence for many yards. The struggle had been fierce there some
three hours before.
‘Put me out of my misery! In mercy kill me!’ moaned a voice beneath his
feet.
Raphael looked down; the poor wretch was slashed and mutilated beyond
all hope.
‘Certainly, friend, if you wish it,’ and he drew his dagger. The poor
fellow stretched out his throat, and awaited the stroke with a ghastly
smile. Raphael caught his eye; his heart failed him, and he rose.
‘What do you advise, Bran?’ But the dog was far ahead, leaping and
barking impatiently.
‘I obey,’ said Raphael; and he followed her, while the wounded man
called piteously and upbraidingly after him.
‘He will not have long to wait. Those plunderers will not be as
squeamish as I.... Strange, now! From Armenian reminiscences I should
have fancied myself as free from such tender weakness as any of
my Canaanite-slaying ancestors.... And yet by some mere spirit of
contradiction, I couldn’t kill that fellow, exactly because he asked me
to do it.... There is more in that than will fit into the great inverted
pyramid of “I am I.”. Never mind, let me get the dog’s lessons by heart
first. What next, Bran? Ah! Could one believe the transformation? Why,
this is the very trim villa which I passed yesterday morning, with the
garden-chairs standing among the flower-beds, just as the young ladies
had left them, and the peacocks and silver pheasants running about,
wondering why their pretty mistresses did not come to feed them. And
here is a trampled mass of wreck and corruption for the girls to find,
when they venture back from Rome, and complain how horrible war is for
breaking down all their shrubs, and how cruel soldiers must be to kill
and cook all their poor dear tame turtle-doves! Why not? Why should they
lament over other things--which they can just as little mend--and which
perhaps need no more mending? Ah! there lies a gallant fellow underneath
that fruit-tree!’
Raphael walked up to a ring of dead, in the midst of which lay,
half-sitting against the trunk of the tree, a tall and noble officer
in the first bloom of manhood. His casque and armour, gorgeously inlaid
with gold, were hewn and battered by a hundred blows; his shield was
cloven through and through; his sword broken in the stiffened hand which
grasped it still. Cut off from his troop, he had made his last stand
beneath the tree, knee-deep in the gay summer flowers, and there he lay,
bestrewn, as if by some mockery--or pity--of mother nature, with faded
roses, and golden fruit, shaken from off the boughs in that last deadly
struggle. Raphael stood and watched him with a sad sneer.
‘Well!--you have sold your fancied personality dear! How many dead
men?.... Nine.... Eleven! Conceited fellow! Who told you that your one
life was worth the eleven which you have taken?’
Bran went up to the corpse--perhaps from its sitting posture fancying it
still living--smelt the cold cheek, and recoiled with a mournful whine.
‘Eh? That is the right way to look at the phenomena, is it? Well, after
all, I am sorry for you.... almost like you.... All your wounds in
front, as a man’s should be. Poor fop! Lais and Thais will never curl
those dainty ringlets for you again! What is that bas-relief upon your
shield? Venus receiving Psyche into the abode of the gods!.... Ah! you
have found out all about Psyche’s wings by this time.... How do I
know that? And yet, why am I, in spite of my common sense--if I have
any--talking to you as you, and liking you, and pitying you, if you are
nothing now, and probably never were anything? Bran! What right had you
to pity him without giving your reasons in due form, as Hypatia would
have done? Forgive me, sir, however--whether you exist or not, I cannot
leave that collar round your neck for these camp-wolves to convert into
strong liquor.’
And as he spoke, he bent down, and detached, gently enough, a
magnificent necklace.
‘Not for myself, I assure you. Like Ate’s golden apple, it shall go to
the fairest. Here, Bran!’ And he wreathed the jewels round the neck
of the mastiff, who, evidently exalted in her own eyes by the burden,
leaped and barked forward again, taking, apparently as a matter of
course, the road back towards Ostia, by which they had come thither
from the sea. And as he followed, careless where he went, he continued
talking to himself aloud after the manner of restless self-discontented
men.
....’And then man talks big about his dignity and his intellect, and
his heavenly parentage, and his aspirations after the unseen, and the
beautiful, and the infinite--and everything else unlike himself. How
can he prove it? Why, these poor blackguards lying about are very fair
specimens of humanity.--And how much have they been bothered since they
were born with aspirations after anything infinite, except infinite sour
wine? To eat, to drink; to destroy a certain number of their species; to
reproduce a certain number of the same, two-thirds of whom will die in
infancy, a dead waste of pain to their mothers and of expense to their
putative sires.... and then--what says Solomon? What befalls them
befalls beasts. As one dies, so dies the other; so that they have all
one breath, and a man has no pre-eminence over a beast; for all is
vanity. All go to one place; all are of the dust, and turn to dust
again. Who knows that the breath of man goes upward, and that the breath
of the beast goes downward to the earth? Who, indeed, my most wise
ancestor? Not I, certainly. Raphael Aben-Ezra, how art thou better than
a beast? W hat pre-eminence hast thou, not merely over this dog, But
over the fleas whom thou so wantonly cursest? Man must painfully win
house, clothes, fire.... A pretty proof of his wisdom, when every flea
has the wit to make my blanket, without any labour of his own, lodge him
a great deal better than it lodges me! Man makes clothes, and the fleas
live in them.... Which is the wiser of the two?....
‘Ah, but--man is fallen.... Well--and the flea is not. So much better he
than the man; for he is what he was intended to be, and so fulfils the
very definition of virtue, which no one can say of us of the red-ochre
vein. And even if the old myth be true, and the man only fell, because
he was set to do higher work than the flea, what does that prove--but
that he could not do it?
‘But his arts and his sciences?.... Apage! The very sound of those
grown-children’s rattles turns me sick.... One conceited ass in a
generation increasing labour and sorrow, and dying after all even as
the fool dies, and ten million brutes and slaves, just where their
fore-fathers were, and where their children will be after them, to the
end of the farce.... The thing that has been, it is that which shall be;
and there is no new thing under the sun....
‘And as for your palaces, and cities, and temples.... look at this
Campagna, and judge. Flea-bites go down after a while--and so do they.
What are they but the bumps which we human fleas make in the old earth’s
skin?. Make them? We only cause them, as fleas cause flea-bites....
What are all the works of man, but a sort of cutaneous disorder in this
unhealthy earth-hide, and we a race of larger fleas, running about among
its fur, which we call trees? Why should not the earth be an animal? How
do I know it is not? Because it is too big? Bah! What is big, and
what is little? Because it has not the shape of one?.... Look into
a fisherman’s net, and see what forms are there! Because it does not
speak?.... Perhaps it has nothing to say, being too busy. Perhaps it
can talk no more sense than we.... In both cases it shows its wisdom by
holding its tongue. Because it moves in one necessary direction? ....
How do I know that it does? How can I tell that it is not flirting with
all the seven spheres at once, at this moment? But if it does--so much
the wiser of it, if that be the best direction for it. Oh, what a base
satire on ourselves and our notions of the fair and fitting, to say that
a thing cannot be alive and rational, just because it goes steadily on
upon its own road, instead of skipping and scrambling fantastically up
and down without method or order, like us and the fleas, from the cradle
to the grave! Besides, if you grant, with the rest of the world, that
fleas are less noble than we, because they are our parasites, then you
are bound to grant that we are less noble than the earth, because we are
its parasites. .... Positively, it looks more probable than anything
I have seen for many a day.... And, by the bye, why should not
earthquakes, and floods, and pestilences, be only just so many ways
which the cunning old brute earth has of scratching herself when the
human fleas and their palace and city bites get too troublesome?’
At a turn of the road he was aroused from this profitable meditation
by a shriek, the shrillness of which told him that it was a woman’s.
He looked up, and saw close to him, among the smouldering ruins of a
farmhouse, two ruffians driving before them a young girl, with her hands
tied behind her, while the poor creature was looking back piteously
after something among the ruins, and struggling in vain, bound as she
was, to escape from her captors and return.
‘Conduct unjustifiable in any fleas,--eh, Bran? How do I know that,
though? Why should it not be a piece of excellent fortune for her, if
she had but the equanimity to see it? Why--what will happen to her?
She will betaken to Rome, and sold as a slave.... And in spite of a few
discomforts in the transfer, and the prejudice which some persons have
against standing an hour on the catasta to be handled from head to foot
in the minimum of clothing, she will most probably end in being far
better housed, fed, bedizened, and pampered to her heart’s desire, than
ninety-nine out of a hundred of her sister fleas.... till she begins
to grow old.... which she must do in any case....And if she have not
contrived to wheedle her master out of her liberty, and to make tip a
pretty little purse of savings, by that time--why, it is her own fault.
Eh, Bran?’
But Bran by no means agreed with his view of the case; for after
watching the two ruffians, with her head stuck on one side, for a minute
or two, she suddenly and silently, after the manner of mastiffs, sprang
upon them, and dragged one to the ground.
‘Oh! that is the “fit and beautiful,” in this case, as they say in
Alexandria, is it? Well--I obey. You are at least a more practical
teacher than ever Hypatia was. Heaven grant that there may be no more of
them in the ruins!’
And rushing on the second plunderer, he laid him dead with a blow of his
dagger, and then turned to the first, whom Bran was holding down by the
throat.
‘Mercy, mercy!’ shrieked the wretch. ‘Life! only life!’
‘There was a fellow half a mile back begging me to kill him: with which
of you two am I to agree?--for you can’t both be right.’
‘Life! Only life!’
‘A carnal appetite, which man must learn to conquer,’ said Raphael,
as he raised the poniard..... In a moment it was over, and Bran and
he rose--Where was the girl? She had rushed back to the ruins, whither
Raphael followed her; while Bran ran to the puppies, which he had laid
upon a stone, and commenced her maternal cares.
‘What do you want, my poor girl?’ asked he in Latin. ‘I will not hurt
you.’
‘My father! My father!’
He untied her bruised and swollen wrists; and without stopping to thank
him, she ran to a heap of fallen stones and beams, and began digging
wildly with all her little strength, breathlessly calling ‘Father!’
‘Such is the gratitude of flea to flea! What is there, now, in the mere
fact of being accustomed to call another person father, and not
master, or slave, which should produce such passion as that?.... Brute
habit!.... What services can the said man render, or have rendered,
which make him worth--Here is Bran!.... What do you think of that, my
female philosopher?’
Bran sat down and watched too. The poor girl’s tender hands were
bleeding from the stones, while her golden tresses rolled down over
her eyes, and entangled in her impatient fingers; but still she worked
frantically. Bran seemed suddenly to comprehend the case, rushed to the
rescue, and began digging too, with all her might.
Raphael rose with a shrug, and joined in the work. ...............
‘Hang these brute instincts! They make one very hot. What was that?’
A feeble moan rose from under the stones. A human limb was uncovered.
The girl threw herself on the place, shrieking her father’s name.
Raphael put her gently back and exerting his whole strength, drew out
of the ruins a stalwart elderly man, in the dress of an officer of high
rank.
He still breathed. The girl lifted up his head and covered him with
wild kisses. Raphael looked round for water; found a spring and a broken
sherd, and bathed the wounded man’s temples till he opened his eyes and
showed signs of returning life.
The girl still sat by him, fondling her recovered treasure, and bathing
the grizzled face in holy tears.
‘It is no business of mine,’ said Raphael. ‘Come, Bran!’
The girl sprang up, threw herself at his feet, kissed his hands, called
him her saviour, her deliverer, sent by God.
‘Not in the least, my child. You must thank my teacher the dog, not me.’
And she took him at his word, and threw her soft arms round Bran’s Deck;
and Bran understood it, and wagged her tail, and licked the gentle face
lovingly.
‘Intolerably absurd, all this!’ said Raphael. ‘I must be going, Bran.’
‘You will not leave us? You surely will not leave an old man to die
here?’
‘Why not? What better thing could happen to him?’
‘Nothing,’ murmured the officer, who had not spoken before.
‘Ah, God! he is my father!’
‘Well?’
‘He is my father!’
‘Well?’
‘You must save him! You shall, I say!’ And she seized Raphael’s arm in
the imperiousness of her passion.
He shrugged his shoulders: but felt, he knew not why, marvellously
inclined to obey her.
‘I may as well do this as anything else, having nothing else to do.
Whither now, sir?’
‘Whither you will. Our troops are disgraced, our eagles taken. We are
your prisoners by right of war. We follow you.’
‘Oh, my fortune! A new responsibility! Why cannot I stir, without live
animals, from fleas upward, attaching themselves to me? Is it not
enough to have nine blind puppies at my back, and an old brute at my
heels, who will persist in saving my life, that I must be burdened over
and above with a respectable elderly rebel and his daughter? Why am I
not allowed by fate to care for nobody but myself? Sir, I give you
both your freedom. The world is wide enough for us all. I really ask no
ransom.’
‘You seem philosophically disposed, my friend.’
‘I? Heaven forbid! I have gone right through that slough, and come out
sheer on the other side. For sweeping the last lingering taint of it out
of me, I have to thank, not sulphur and exorcisms, but your soldiers and
their morning’s work. Philosophy is superfluous in a world where all are
fools.’
‘Do you include yourself under that title?’
‘Most certainly, my best sir. Don’t fancy that I make any exceptions. If
I can in any way prove my folly to you, I will do it.’
‘Then help me and my daughter to Ostia.’
‘A very fair instance. Well--my dog happens to be going that way; and
after all, you seem to have a sufficient share of human imbecility to
be a very fit companion for me. I hope, though, you do not set up for a
wise man!’
‘God knows--no! Am I not of Heraclian’s army?’
‘True; and the young lady here made herself so great a fool about you,
that she actually infected the very dog.’
‘So we three fools will forth together.’
‘And the greatest one, as usual, must help the rest. But I have nine
puppies in my family already. How am I to carry you and them?’
‘I will take them,’ said the girl; and Bran, after looking on at the
transfer with a somewhat dubious face, seemed to satisfy herself that
all was right, and put her head contentedly under the girl’s hand.
‘Eh? You trust her, Bran?’ said Raphael, in an undertone. ‘I must
really emancipate myself from your instructions if you require a similar
simplicity in me. Stay! there wanders a mule without a rider; we may as
well press into the service.’
He caught the mule, lifted the wounded man into the saddle, and the
cavalcade set forth, turning out of the highroad into a by-lane, which
the officer, who seemed to know the country thoroughly, assured would
lead them to Ostia by an unfrequented route.
‘If we arrive there before sundown, we are saved,’ said he.
‘And in the meantime,’ answered Raphael, ‘between the dog and this
dagger, which, as I take care to inform all comers, is delicately
poisoned, we may keep ourselves clear of marauders. And yet, what a
meddling fool I am!’ he went on to himself. ‘What possible interest can
I have in this uncircumcised rebel! The least evil is, that if we are
taken, which we most probably shall be, I shall be crucified for helping
to escape. But even if we get safe off--here is a fresh tie between me
and those very brother fleas, to be rid of whom I have chosen beggary
and starvation. Who knows where it may end? Pooh! The man is like other
men. He is certain, before the day is over, to prove ungrateful, or
attempt the mountebank-heroic, or give me some other excuse for bidding
good-evening. And in the meantime there is something quaint in the fact
of finding so sober a respectability, with a young daughter too, abroad
on this fool’s errand, which really makes me curious to discover with
what variety of flea I am to class him.’
But while Aben-Ezra was talking to himself about the father, he could
not help, somehow, thinking about the daughter. Again and again he
found himself looking at her. She was, undeniably, most beautiful. Her
features were not as regularly perfect as Hypatia’s, nor her stature so
commanding; but her face shone with a clear and joyful determination,
and with a tender and modest thoughtfulness, such as he had never beheld
before united in one countenance; and as she stepped along, firmly and
lightly, by her father’s side, looping up her scattered tresses as she
went, laughing at the struggles of her noisy burden, and looking up with
rapture at her father’s gradually brightening face, Raphael could
not help stealing glance after glance, and was surprised to find them
returned with a bright, honest, smiling gratitude, which met full-eyed,
as free from prudery as it was from coquetry.... ‘A lady she is,’ said
he to himself; ‘but evidently no city one. There is nature--or something
else, there, pure and unadulterated, without any of man’s additions or
beautifications.’ And as he looked, he began to feel it a pleasure
such as his weary heart had not known for many a year, simply to watch
her....
‘Positively there is a foolish enjoyment after all in making other fleas
smile.... Ass that I am! As if I had not drunk all that ditch-water cup
to the dregs years ago!’
They went on for some time in silence, till the officer, turning to
him--
‘And may I ask you, my quaint preserver, whom I would have thanked
before but for this foolish faintness, which is now going off, what and
who you are?’
‘A flea, sir--a flea--nothing more.’
‘But a patrician flea, surely, to judge by your language and manners?’
‘Not that exactly. True, I have been rich, as the saying is; I may be
rich again, they tell me, when I am fool enough to choose.’
‘Oh if we were but rich!’ sighed the girl.
‘You would be very unhappy, my dear young lady. Believe a flea who has
tried the experiment thoroughly.’
‘Ah! but we could ransom my brother! and now we can find no money till
we get back to Africa.’
‘And none then,’ said the officer, in a low voice. ‘You forget, my poor
child, that I mortgaged the whole estate to raise my legion. We must not
shrink from looking at things as they are.’
‘Ah! and he is prisoner! he will be sold for a slave--perhaps--ah!
perhaps crucified, for he is not a Roman! Oh, he will be crucified!’ and
she burst into an agony of weeping....Suddenly she dashed away her tears
and looked up clear and bright once more.
‘No! forgive me, father! God will protect His own!’
‘My dear young lady,’ said Raphael, ‘if you really dislike such
a prospect for your brother, and are in want of a few dirty coins
wherewith to prevent it, perhaps I may be able to find you them in
Ostia.’
She looked at incredulously, as her eye glanced over his rags, and then,
blushing, begged his pardon for her unspoken thoughts.
‘Well, as you choose to suppose. But my dog has been so civil to you
already, that perhaps she may have no objection to make you a present
of that necklace of hers. I will go to the Rabbis, and we will make all
right; so don’t cry. I hate crying; and the puppies are quite chorus
enough for the present tragedy.’
‘The Rabbis? Are you a Jew?’ asked the officer.
‘Yes, sir, a Jew. And you, I presume, a Christian: perhaps you may
have scruples about receiving--your sect has generally none about
taking--from one of our stubborn and unbelieving race. Don’t be
frightened, though, for your conscience; I assure you I am no more a Jew
at heart than I am a Christian.’
‘God help you then!’
‘Some one, or something, has helped me a great deal too much, for
three-and-thirty years of pampering. But, pardon me, that was a strange
speech for a Christian.’
‘You must be a good Jew, sir, before you can be a good Christian.’
‘Possibly. I intend to be neither--nor a good Pagan either. My dear sir,
let us drop the subject. It is beyond me. If I can be as good a brute
animal as my dog there--it being first demonstrated that it is good to
be good--I shall be very well content.’
The officer looked down on with a stately, loving sorrow. Raphael caught
his eye, and felt that he was in the presence of no common man.
‘I must take care what I say here, I suspect, or I shall be entangled
shortly in a regular Socratic dialogue.... And now, sir, may I return
your question, and ask who and what are you? I really have no intention
of giving you up to any Caesar, Antiochus, Tiglath-Pileser, or other
flea-devouring flea.... They will fatten well enough without your blood.
So I only ask as a student of the great nothing-in-general, which men
call the universe.’
‘I was prefect of a legion this morning. What I am now, you know as well
as I.’
‘Just what I do not. I am in deep wonder at seeing your hilarity, when,
by all flea-analogies, you ought to be either be howling your fate like
Achilles on the shores of Styx, or pretending to grin and bear it, as
I was taught to do when I played at Stoicism. You are not of that sect
certainly, for you confessed yourself a fool just now.’
‘And it would be long, would it not, before you made one of them do as
much? Well, be it so. A fool I am; yet, if God helps us as far as Ostia,
why should I not be cheerful?’
‘Why should you?’
‘What better thing can happen to a fool, than that God should teach that
he is one, when he fancied himself the wisest of the wise? Listen to
me, sir. Four mouths ago I was blessed with health, honour, lands,
friends--all for which the heart of man could wish. And if, for an
insane ambition, I have chosen to risk all those, against the solemn
warnings of the truest friend, and the wisest saint who treads this
earth of God’s--should I not rejoice to have it proved to me, even by
such a lesson as this, that the friend who never deceived me before was
right in this case too; and that the God who has checked and turned me
for forty years of wild toil and warfare, whenever I dared to do what
was right in the sight of my own eyes, has not forgotten me yet, or
given up the thankless task of my education?’
‘And who, pray, is this peerless friend?’
‘Augustine of Hippo.’
‘Humph! It had been better for the world in general, if the great
dialectician had exerted his powers of persuasion on Heraclian himself.’
‘He did so, but in vain.’
‘I don’t doubt it. I know the sleek Count well enough to judge what
effect a sermon would have upon that smooth vulpine determination of
his.... “An instrument in the hands of God, my dear brother.... We
must obey His call, even to the death,” etc. etc.’ And Raphael laughed
bitterly.
‘You know the Count?’
‘As well, sir, as I care to know any man.’
‘I am sorry for your eyesight, then, sir,’ said the Prefect severely,
‘if it has been able to discern no more than that in so august a
character.’
‘My dear sir, I do not doubt his excellence--nay, his inspiration. How
well he divined the perfectly fit moment for stabbing his old comrade
Stilicho! But really, as two men of the world, we must be aware by this
time that every man has his price.’....
‘Oh, hush! hush!’ whispered the girl. ‘You cannot guess how you pain
him. He worships the Count. It was not ambition, as he pretends, but
merely loyalty to him, which brought here against his will.’
‘My dear madam, forgive me. For your sake I am silent.’....
‘For her sake! A pretty speech for me! What next?’ said he to himself.
‘Ah, Bran, Bran, this is all your fault!’
‘For my sake! Oh, why not for your own sake? How sad to hear one--one
like you, only sneering and speaking evil!’
‘Why then? If fools are fools, and one can safely call them so, why not
do it?’
‘Ah,--if God was merciful enough to send down His own Son to die for
them, should we not be merciful enough not to judge their failings
harshly!’
‘My dear young lady, spare a worn-out philosopher any new anthropologic
theories. We really must push on a little faster, if we intend to reach
Ostia to-night.’
But, for some reason or other, Raphael sneered no more for a full
half-hour.
Long, however, ere they reached Ostia, the night had fallen; and their
situation began to be more than questionably safe. Now and then a wolf,
slinking across the road towards his ghastly feast, glided like a lank
ghost out of the darkness, and into it again, answering Bran’s growl by
a gleam of his white teeth. Then the voices of some marauding party rang
coarse and loud through the still night, and made them hesitate and stop
a while. And at last, worst of all, the measured tramp of an imperial
column began to roll like distant thunder along the plain below. They
were advancing upon Ostia! What if they arrived there before the routed
army could rally, and defend themselves long enough to re-embark!....
What if--a thousand ugly possibilities began to crowd up.
‘Suppose we found the gates of Ostia shut, and the Imperialists
bivouacked outside?’ said Raphael half to himself.
‘God would protect His own,’ answered the girl; and Raphael had no heart
to rob her of her hope, though he looked upon their chances of escape as
growing smaller and smaller every moment. The poor girl was weary; the
mule weary also; and as they crawled along, at a pace which made it
certain that the fast passing column would be at Ostia an hour before
them, to join the vanguard of the pursuers, and aid them in investing
the town, she had to lean again and again on Raphael’s arm. Her shoes,
unfitted for so rough a journey, bad been long since torn off, and her
tender feet were marking every step with blood. Raphael knew it by her
faltering gait; and remarked, too, that neither sigh nor murmur passed
her lips. But as for helping her, he could not; and began to curse
the fancy which had led to eschew even sandals as unworthy the
self-dependence of a Cynic.
And so they crawled along, while Raphael and the Prefect, each guessing
the terrible thoughts of the other, were thankful for the darkness which
hid their despairing countenances from the young girl; she, on the other
hand, chatting cheerfully, almost laughingly, to her silent father.
At last the poor girl stepped on some stone more sharp than usual--and,
with a sudden writhe and shriek, sank to the ground. Raphael lifted her
up, and she tried to proceed, but sank down again.... What was to be
done?
‘I expected this,’ said the Prefect, in a slow stately voice. ‘Hear me,
sir! Jew, Christian, or philosopher, God seems to have bestowed on you a
heart which I can trust. To your care I commit this girl--your property,
like me, by right of war. Mount her upon this mule. Hasten with
her--where you will--for God will be there also. And may He so deal with
you as you deal with her henceforth. An old and disgraced soldier can do
no more than die.’
And he made an effort to dismount; but fainting from his wounds, sank
upon the neck of the mule. Raphael and his daughter caught in their
arms.
‘Father! Father! Impossible! Cruel! Oh--do you think that I would have
followed you hither from Africa, against your own entreaties, to desert
you now?’
‘My daughter, I command!’
The girl remained firm and sound.
‘How long have you learned to disobey me? Lift the old disgraced man
down, sir, and leave to die in the right place--on the battlefield where
his general sent him.’
The girl sank down on the road in an agony of weeping. ‘I must help
myself, I see,’ said her father, dropping to the ground. ‘Authority
vanishes before old age and humiliation. Victoria! has your father no
sins to answer for already, that you will send before his God with your
blood too upon his head?’
Still the girl sat weeping on the ground; while Raphael, utterly at his
wits end, tried hard to persuade himself that it was no concern of his.
‘I am at the service of either or of both, for life or death; only be so
good as to settle it quickly.... Hell! here it is settled for us, with a
vengeance!’
And as he spoke, the tramp and jingle of horsemen rang along the lane,
approaching rapidly.
In an instant Victoria had sprung to her feet--weakness and pain had
vanished.
‘There is one chance--one chance for him! Lift over the bank, sir! Lift
over, while I run forward and meet them. My death will delay them long
enough for you to save him!’
‘Death?’ cried Raphael, seizing her by the arm. ‘If that were all--’
‘God will protect His own,’ answered she calmly, laying her finger
on her lips; and then breaking from his grasp in the strength of her
heroism, vanished into the night.
Her father tried to follow her, but fell on his face, groaning. Raphael
lifted him, strove to drag up the steep bank: but his knees knocked
together; a faint sweat seemed to melt every limb.... There was a pause,
which secured ages long.... Nearer and nearer came the trampling.... A
sudden gleam of the moon revealed Victoria standing with outspread arms,
right before the horses’ heads. A heavenly glory seemed to bathe her
from head to foot.... or was it tears sparkling in his own eyes?....
Then the grate and jar of the horse-hoofs on the road, as they pulled up
suddenly.... He turned his face away and shut his eyes....
‘What are you?’ thundered a voice.
‘Victoria, the daughter of Majoricus the Prefect.’
The voice was low, but yet so clear and calm, that every syllable rang
through Aben-Ezra’s tingling ears....
A shout--a shriek--the confused murmur of many voices.... He looked up,
in spite of himself-a horseman had sprung to the ground, and clasped
Victoria in his arms. The human heart of flesh, asleep for many a year,
leaped into mad life within his breast, and drawing his dagger, he
rushed into the throng--
‘Villains! Hellhounds! I will balk you! She shall die first!’
And the bright blade gleamed over Victoria’s head.... He was struck
down--blinded--half-stunned--but rose again with the energy of
madness.... What was this? Soft arms around him.... Victoria’s!
‘Save him! spare him! He saved us! Sir! It is my brother! We are safe!
Oh, spare the dog! It saved my father!’
‘We have mistaken each other, indeed, sir!’ said a gay young Tribune, in
a voice trembling with joy. ‘Where is my father?’
‘Fifty yards behind. Down, Bran! Quiet! O Solomon, mine ancestor, why
did you not prevent me making such an egregious fool of myself? Why, I
shall be forced, in self-justification, to carry through the farce!’
There is no use telling what followed during the next five minutes,
at the end of which time Raphael found himself astride of a goodly
war-horse, by the side of the young Tribune, who carried Victoria before
him. Two soldiers in the meantime were supporting the Prefect on his
mule, and convincing that stubborn bearer of burdens that it was not
quite so unable to trot as it had fancied, by the combined arguments of
a drench of wine and two sword-points, while they heaped their general
with blessings, and kissed his hands and feet.
‘Your father’s soldiers seem to consider themselves in debt to him: not,
surely, for taking them where they could best run away?’
‘Ah, poor fellows!’ said the Tribune; ‘we have had as real a panic among
us as I ever read of in Arrian or Polybius. But he has been a father
rather than a general to them. It is not often that, out of a routed
army, twenty gallant men will volunteer to ride back into the enemy’s
ranks, on the chance of an old man’s breathing still.’
‘Then you knew where to find us?’ said Victoria.
‘Some of them knew. And he himself showed us this very by-road
yesterday, when we took up our ground, and told us it might be of
service on occasion--and so it has been.’
‘But they told me that you were taken prisoner. Oh, the torture I have
suffered for you!’
‘Silly child! Did you fancy my father’s son would be taken alive? I and
the first troop got away over the garden walls, and cut our way out into
the plain, three hours ago.’
‘Did I not tell you,’ said Victoria, leaning toward Raphael, ‘that God
would protect His own?’
‘You did,’ answered he; and fell into a long and silent meditation.