Many hours passed ere the young man dared to meet this great
horror that had come into his life. From the dawn of his earliest
consciousness this dark shadow had lain in his thoughts. Yet never had
they had the resolution to contemplate it. All his life he had seemed
to know that such a contingency, should it ever befall, would be beyond
his strength to endure.
As during this week of mental and moral eclipse he sought to prefigure
what an existence upon the earth would mean without that sanctuary for
the broken wayfarer, reason itself seemed to decline to accept the
alternative. One night in the depths of his despair there crept into
his brain a vision of the dark and mighty Thames, that noble symbol
upon which he had so often gazed; and had the power of prayer remained
to him, he would have sought the resolution to terminate within its
cold bosom his vicissitudes upon the earth.
In the height, however, of this gross terror, his eyes beheld the
aged man, his father, at the other side of the table, that guide and
protector and strong hand in his youth. What was his own pass in
comparison with that of one so frail and venerable? He himself, by
virtue of the youth in his veins, was fitted to cope with the cruel and
licentious hordes that thronged the streets of the great city; but this
aged man, whose sap was dry, whose vigour had burnt itself out, in what
manner could his white hairs accept the last stern decree of Fate?
He, too, throughout all his days had been sustained by that sanctuary.
And now he was old he was to be cast into those remorseless streets
which would deride his feebleness, assault his white hairs. The vision
of his father, alone and without shelter in the streets of the great
city, seemed to complete his own degradation. What manner of a man was
he to give his thoughts to the river, when circumstance had made its
first imperious call upon him? He who had lain under the protection of
a father all his days, must, now that he had obtained the estate of
manhood, become himself the protector of one who was old.
It was with the hurry of a great cowardice that he turned to the
ancient authors to ask his course. Their reply was unanimous and
uncompromising; yet to one of his cast of nature it was almost cynical.
He must act. He who could hardly thread his way through the crowd of
street-persons, whose lightest utterance, whose smallest resolve was a
pretext for the mockery of all who pressed around him and trampled him
with their feet, must gird his loins.
When he recalled what he had already endured in his strivings to
fulfil the simplest offices, which his Olympian companions performed
automatically, the blood within him flowed as water. Yet if he failed
to procure twenty pieces of gold by next Friday at noon, his aged
father would be cast to the mercy of the streets.
Every instant that he passed now seemed to increase his impotence.
He should be doing, acting; yet he was pasting labels on parcels, or
he was sitting in frantic self-communion in the little room. He was
wasting hours of ineffable price. “Action, Action, Action!” cried the
ancient authors eternally in his ears; “if you fail to act immediately,
O Achilles, you will commit the most sacred and venerable form in the
world to the pavements of the great city.” Yet there he still sat in
the little room with the pall still upon his heart and his brain.
At the other side of the table sat the aged man, his father, ever
reading in the Book of the Ages. With the childlike simplicity of his
many years on the earth, he had sat him down to wait for a miracle to
happen. What a heroic resolution and fortitude was required to do that!
Yet those faint eyes could read all that was written in the Book of the
Ages--perhaps as the reward of their heroic constancy, or perhaps as
the cause of it.
Yet it was not for him to sit down in simple faith and wait for a
miracle to happen, for the once potent belief of this craven’s heart
had been plucked out ruthlessly. It was not for him to summon that
ineffable courage, which, as the frail barque is engulfed in the
waves, can regard the cold sea as though it were the dry land. During
the phase upon which he was now entered he had no belief in himself.
Formerly when he resolved to accomplish the most trivial tasks, yet
failed lamentably to do so, he was ever Achilles. But now--what was he
now? He was less than a worm writhing through mire.
No, miracles did not happen to those like himself. On the evening
of the Wednesday in that fatal week he felt he could not return to
the little room to stretch his faint resolution once more upon the
rack. Therefore he wandered aimlessly up and down the streets of the
great city. And in the course of his wanderings he came at last to
the river. As he came to the quiet bridge on which the lamps were
flickering through the chill, rainy darkness, the Thames at full tide
gurgled beneath. Gazing down at these stealthy, all-effacing waters,
an irresistible impulse overcame him. It became essential that one who
was less than nothing should return to nothingness. By what right did
such impotence breathe the noble mountain airs of Olympus? The sun,
the rain, the sweet earth, the clement skies were for those who could
outface the tempest. The dreadful dark water, which he feared so much,
was drawing him. It was exercising an occult power upon him.
Almost involuntarily, almost without realizing his act, he began to
climb out on to the parapet of the bridge. There was a faint vision of
his aged father at the back of his thoughts, but now the rudderless
vessel was caught by the forces of nature.
As with a mechanical reluctance his feet left the pavement of the
bridge, the sight of the water caused him to shiver dismally. But the
magnetism lurking in its dark, yet lustrous surface, was a hundred
times more powerful than that will which was so inert in his flesh. It
was ordained, however, that his feet should not descend to the parapet.
For as they were still poised in mid-air, the first stroke of the hour
came booming across the way from the cathedral.
It was a calm voice, before which even the darkness seemed to yield.
In the same involuntary fashion in which he had climbed out on to the
parapet, he returned to the security of the pavement. The sense of his
destiny had been restored to him. He was again Achilles. Shuddering
in every vein, he staggered through the mire of the roadway to the
precincts of the national Valhalla, in which reposed the souls of
heroes.
As in the days of his childhood he crept into this great cathedral.
Again were his temples pressed to the chill flags; again he panted like
a hunted deer. As he lay prostrate upon the stones of the sanctuary, a
voice, lurking amid the dim columns, addressed him. “Zeus,” it said,
“will give us immortal ones the strength to fulfil our destiny.”
It was late at night when the frail and haggard figure returned again
to the little room. The aged man, his father, was still sitting at
the table, with his faint eyes perusing the magic pages in which his
profound faith was expressed.
“I will look at the page again, my father,” said the young man, whose
heart was no longer as water in his flesh.
To his infinite joy he saw that the writing, which formerly had not
been apparent to his eyes, had now gained a visible embodiment.
“My eyes have grown bright again, my father,” he cried. “And see, it
is here written that if a miracle be desired, such as wish it must go
forth personally in quest thereof.”
“It is not wholly thus that I construe the page, O Achilles,” said his
father simply; “but then my eyes are those of one who is old.”
“One day only is left to us now, my father,” said the young man. “And
although my fibres are as bread, to-morrow, come what may, I will go
out to seek for the miracle.”