From that time forward and for many days the boy did not venture again
out of the little room behind the shop. And at night he could not bear
to be out of his father’s company, so that he never went to bed without
him, but sat reading in the ancient authors, or staring into vacancy
with his chin propped on his hands. On some evenings after the shutters
of the shop had been put up at eight o’clock, and each had partaken of
his frugal supper, his father would take down from the shelf on the
wall the old and massive volume in which he read so diligently.
The boy had never sought to read in this volume, because although he
had always viewed it with the greatest curiosity, and had even seen
when it lay open for his father’s perusal, that its pages of vellum
were covered in close and faded, and almost undecipherable writing in
red ink, he had felt instinctively from his father’s manner in regard
to it that the contents were only for his father’s eyes.
One night, however, long after the hour of midnight had chimed out
from the clocks of the neighbouring churches, and his father had been
reading in the old volume with a fidelity that seemed even greater than
his wont, the boy could stifle his curiosity no more. This was owing to
a strange incident that befell. Towards the dawn of the summer morning,
his father, who had not allowed his eyes to stray from the book for
many hours, rose from the table suddenly. There was an expression upon
his face that the boy had never seen before.
His father went to the cupboard which was let into the wall, into
which, owing to some occult reason that had never even shaped itself in
his mind, the boy had never sought to peer. Therefrom he took a knife
which was contained in a case that was very old and chased curiously,
a chalice for the reception of ink, and a stylus.
Setting out these articles upon the table, his father took off his
threadbare coat, and laid his right arm naked to the elbow. He then
took the knife from the case and plunged it into the flesh. As the
red blood spurted forth and dripped into the chalice, the boy gave an
exclamation of horror and dismay.
“If you have not yet the power, Achilles, to withstand this spectacle,”
said his father in that voice which never failed to calm his most
instant fears, “pray turn your eyes away.”
Although the boy was on the verge of swooning, for such a sight bereft
him of his strength, he continued to look at his father in sore
distress.
After his father had allowed a quantity of blood to pass into the
chalice, he swathed the wound in his arm in a linen band, opened a
blank page in the book, and sat down before it, stylus in hand.
He dipped the pen in the red fluid; he poised it over the page. For a
long time he maintained this attitude, yet not a mark of any kind did
the fingers trace on the vellum. At last with a gesture of profound
anguish, which filled the youthful witness with terror, he rose, and a
kind of moan came from his lips.
“It is not to be!” he muttered.
The fire in the grate was still smouldering, and into this the boy’s
father cast the contents of the chalice. Then with a religious care
he cleansed each of the articles he had taken from the cupboard, and
replaced them there.
“Is it that you cannot write in the book, my father?” asked the boy,
whose lips were pale.
“Yes, beloved one, it is not yet given to me to write in the book,”
said his father, with an expression of indescribable agony upon his
face. “And yet my years are now beyond three score.”
“Is it that you have never written in the book, my father?” asked the
boy in his consternation.
“I have never written in the book, Achilles,” said his father. “And I
dare not measure the failures I have made.”
“Is it the book of the Fates, my father, in which every human person
must write his destiny?” asked the boy.
“No, beloved one,” said his father. “It is not the book of the Fates.
Only the bearers of our name can write in this book. And these have
written in it for a thousand years past.”
“What is our name, my father?” said the boy. “I have been asked for it
on several occasions by the persons in the streets.”
“Our name is William Jordan--yours and mine.”
“William Jordan, William Jordan,” repeated the boy softly. A look of
strange disappointment crept into his face. “William Jordan!” he said,
“William Jordan!”
“What’s in a name, beloved one?” said his father, with his secret and
beautiful smile.
Under his father’s patient eyes the look of strange disappointment
passed from the boy’s face.
“And each bearer of our name, my father, must write in this book?” said
the boy.
“It is so decreed,” said his father. “And for a thousand years past
each of our dynasty has done so, with the exception, Achilles, of you
and me.”
The boy’s heart began to beat wildly.
“Then I, too, must write in it, my father?”
As he spoke the frail and gaunt form shook like gossamer.
“We can but fulfil our destiny, beloved one,” said the boy’s father.
“And it is written that when a bearer of our name ceases to write in
the Book of the Ages our dynasty is at an end.”