My grandfather was looking serious. Mr. Carter had come down from
Richmond, and, next day, the great American Undulator and Boneless
Vertebrate was to leave Elmington, taking with her Alice and Mary; and
these notable Christmas holidays would come to an end.
It was late in the afternoon of one of those delicious days in February,
which every year (in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave)
delude us with the hope of an early spring (though we all know that we
never have any spring, late or early); deceiving even yonder pair of
bluebirds, who, warmed into forgetfulness of that March which lies
between them and the abundant and nutritious worm of summer, go
gallivanting up and down the orchard, chirruping eternal fidelity;
peering into this old tree and into that, in quest of some hollow knot,
so suggestive (to the bluebirdish mind) of matrimony.
Where Charley and Alice were on this bright afternoon does not much
matter. No doubt they were together and happy; or, if wretched, wretched
with that sweet wretchedness which makes the tearful partings of young
lovers so truly delicious.
There’s your Araminta. Nineteen years of her life had she passed,
ignorant of your existence. T’other day you met; and now, she who gave
you not so much as a sigh during all those nineteen years, cannot hear
you speak of a month’s absence but she distils upon your collar the
briny tear! She has found out during the last few days, your Araminta,
that she cannot breathe where you are not.
Absurd Araminta—but nice?
Wherever else they may have been, they were not in the Argo. The Don and
Mary were there; and in the then infancy of naval architecture row-boats
were not built large enough to hold, comfortably, two pairs of lovers.
Mary was seated in the boat, he lounging around it; now leaning against
the gunwale, now stalking idly to and fro in the shining sand, rejoicing
in his youth. They talked of the passing sea-gulls, the twittering
bluebirds, the rippling waves, the rosy clouds, the generous
sunlight,—of everything, of nothing, it mattered not; for love hath
power to transfigure the plainest things.
Presently the Don said, standing with fingers interlaced behind his
back, and looking far away down the River, “Do you know, it would be
hard for me to live at a spot remote from salt water? All the great
thoughts that have moved the world have arisen within sound of the
sea-waves. She is the mother of civilization. It is the land which
separates the peoples of the earth, not the water. It thrills me to
think that, as I stand here, this river which splashes against my foot
is part of that ocean which washes the shores of England, of France, of
Italy, of Greece, of Palestine.”
Palestine! Strange word on the lips of a man who never went to church.
“Then, again,” continued he, with a smile, “I love the sea because it
reminds me—I don’t mind telling you, since I have let you into my
little secret—because it reminds me of Homer, and the epithets he has
applied to it.”
“Ah, that reminds _me_ of something! Have you forgotten your promise to
talk to me about Homer? Have you that little copy of the Iliad in your
pocket now?”
“Of course,” said he, tapping his vest.
“Will you not let me have it in my hand _now_?”
He shook his head, smiling. “No; but have you not the right to command
me now? Speak, and I obey!”
“Ah! Then I command you, on your allegiance, to deliver that book into
my hands.”
He hesitated for a moment, and his hand shook a little when he placed
the book in hers. She took the left lid between finger and thumb; but
his look of ill-suppressed agitation made her hesitate, and _her_ hand
began to tremble now, she knew not why.
“May I look?” she asked, in a rather shaky voice.
“If you will! But I warn you that that fly-leaf will tell you what you
have forbidden me to reveal.”
“Oh!” cried she, with a start. And the book fell upon the shining sand.
He stooped and picked it up. “Have you had enough of it?”
“More than enough,—for the present, at least,” she replied, smiling
faintly. “However,” she added, “I should like to look at the outside of
it. How very old it looks,” said she, as she took it in her hand. “Why,
the corners are worn perfectly round; you must know it all by heart.”
“Almost,” said he.
“And the back—what!” exclaimed she, with astonishment. “Why, this is
not the Iliad! It is a copy of the New Testament!” And she held up the
faded title before his eyes.
With a black look of annoyance, but without a word, the Don seized the
book, thrust it into his pocket, and began striding to and fro.
Presently he stopped in front of her.
“I put my hand into the wrong pocket,” said he, with obvious vexation.
“Why, yes. But what’s the harm?” said she, in a soothing voice.
“Carrying a Testament in one’s pocket is nothing to be ashamed of, I
hope?”
“Certainly not! But,” he added, with a half smile, “taking it out is
different.”
“And so,” she began, feeling her way, “you carry the Iliad in one pocket
and the Testament in the other.” But it was not now of the Iliad that
she wished to hear him talk.
“Yes; a rather ill-assorted couple, you would say?”
“Very! One might suppose you either a—Greek professor in
disguise—or—a—minister.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I never thought of that; so one
might. We generally look too deep for motives. Truth is not often found
in the bottom of a well. I carry these two books simply because—”
She looked up.
“Because,” he added, gravely, “they were given to me by—people that
I—cared for.”
Constituted as she was, these few words affected Mary strongly. He had
said so little, yet so much; revealing, in the unconscious simplicity of
his nature, the very intensity of feeling that he strove to hide. And as
she looked upon the two little volumes that he had carried all these
years, saw how they had been worn away against his heart, a feeling of
awe came over her. She found herself comparing, in her imaginative way,
the man before her with one of the great, silent powers of nature,—the
dark-floating tide, for instance, so noiseless when unresisted; or a
black cloud charged with thunder, that seems, at first, but to mutter in
its sleep, like a Cyclops in a battle-dream, but when yonder mountain
dares to rear his crest in its path—
“You value them very highly on account of the givers,” put in Mary, as
an entering wedge.
“Naturally; but not exclusively on that account.” And he drew the two
little volumes from his pockets, and, placing them side by side,
surveyed them lovingly.
Here was Mary’s opportunity. Painfully anxious as she had been as to her
lover’s religious convictions, she had shrunk, hitherto, from a direct
question. But it would be easy now, she saw, to lead him on to a full
confession of his faith without seeming to interrogate him.
She began by drawing him out on Homer; but what he said she hardly
heard, so tremulously eager was she to know what he thought of that
other little book which he held in his hand. One thing struck her at the
time, and she had cause to remember it afterwards: the strong admiration
he evinced for the character of Achilles, the flinty-hearted captain of
the Myrmidons.
Presently she said, in a low voice, “You hold them side by side; but
could two books be more different?”
He laid the Iliad upon the seat beside him, and taking the other little
volume in his hand, held it up before him. As he did so, there was
something in his look that thrilled her with expectancy. While he had
been indicating the clear-cut outlines of Homer’s marvellous creation,
she had felt (though hardly hearing with more than her outward ear) that
he spoke admirably, and remarked the high intellectuality that illumined
his features; but now a sudden glow suffused his countenance, and
strange, soft lights danced in his eyes. She hung upon his opening lips
with deep suspense; for something told her that upon the words he was
about to utter her own happiness depended.
The hour that followed was passed in a way which is probably rare with
parting lovers.
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✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻
“No. I have never read Chateaubriand’s _Genie du Christianisme_, and,”
added he, with an admiring glance, “I am glad of it; for otherwise I
should not have heard your brilliant version of what he says. I am
afraid, however, that, well as he puts it, I am hardly frank enough to
admit that parts of the Old Testament are superior, as mere literature,
to everything that the Greeks have left us. The truth is, however, that
I know so little of the Old Testament that I have no right to an
opinion; but this little book,” continued he, holding it up, “I know by
heart. I mean the gospels,” he added, quickly; “and I don’t hesitate to
say that in all literature you shall not find such a gem.”
The gospels a gem of literature! A weight seemed to press on Mary’s
heart.
“Listen!” And he opened the book, and turning a few pages with nervous
eagerness, found a passage. “Listen! Could anything be more beautiful?”
His lips parted; but, without reading a word, he closed the volume upon
his forefinger. “Pardon me; but do you know, I fear you can hardly have
more than a suspicion of how divinely beautiful this little book really
is?”
She looked up, puzzled.
“You have heard it read, week after week, it is true, but read with a
saintly snivel,—a holy whine.”
Mary would have protested, but a certain dark flash of bitter disdain
that accompanied these words checked her; and she was silent.
“Let me read you,” said he, after a pause, “a few of my favorite
passages, in the voice of a mere man.”
He read and commented, commented and read, for perhaps an hour;
commented without rhetoric, read without art. He merely gave himself up
to that wondrous story.
And what an hour for Mary! For weeks she had longed to know what he
thought upon the one great subject which overshadowed all others in her
mind. Yes, overshadowed,—for hers was not a blithe spirit. Had longed
to know, yet feared to ask. And now that he had been reading and talking
so long, did he—as she had so often and so fervently prayed that he
should—did he think as she did? Alas, it was but too clear that he did
not! But what did he think? That she could not tell, so strange and
bewildering were the flashes that came from his words. Her Virginia
theology gave her no clue. As though a mariner bore down upon a coast
not to be found upon his chart: the lights are there, but have no
meaning for him.
Equally bewildered was Mary. How did he regard the central figure of
that wondrous drama? As he read and talked and talked and read, a
will-o’-the-wisp danced before her eyes, leading her here, there,
everywhere, but not to be seized!
How tender his voice now! borrowing pathos not from art, but from the
narrative itself. A voice full of tears. And do not his eyes answer the
fading sunlight with a dewy shimmer?
He was right, she thought, when he said she knew not the beauties of
this little book. Not a month ago, and she had dozed under this very
passage.
And now there rose before her—he read on but she heard him not (so the
trooping fancies evoked by music have power to dull the mere outward
ear)—rose before her soul a vision of ineffable softness,—a vision of
one with a face full of sorrow, but a sun-lit head; and he beckoned to
little children, and they followed him; and as he passed, the burdens of
the heavy-laden grew lighter, and the weary smiled again and forgot
their weariness, and rose and followed, they too. And as he passed (he
read on but she heeded not)—as he passed along his stony path, violets
seemed to spring from beneath his feet,—violets shedding perfume. And
along the roadside lilies nodded. And sinners beat their breasts, but
lifted up their hearts. And one of her own sex followed,—one who had
loved much; and as she followed she dried her tears with her sunny
hair—
“GENERATION OF VIPERS!”
She started from her seat and clutched the gunwale of the boat. As he
towered above her, his nostrils breathed defiance, his white teeth
glittered with scorn, his dark eyes gleamed, his whole figure was
eloquent with indignation. ’Twas but a bunch of dry sea-weed that he
held aloft, crushed in his right hand; but to her he seemed to brandish
the serpent-thongs of Tisiphone; and the milksop ideal of Raphael and
the rest vanished from her mind. In its stead there rose before her
exalted imagination the heroic figure of a valiant young Jew. He stands
before a mob that thirsts for his blood. Alone, but intrepid. He knows
full well, O Jerusalem, that thou dost stone thy prophets (for what land
doth not?), but though his face be pale beneath the shadow of
approaching death, his brave spirit is undaunted. He is willing that the
cup shall pass from him; but, being such as he is, he may turn neither
to the right nor to the left. If he must drain it, then be it so. His
mission is to live for man—and, if need be, to die for him.
But is this the vision of a manlike God? Is it not rather that of a
godlike man?
The Argo stands firm in its bed of shining sand; but tempest-tossed is
the soul of the young girl who sits therein, straining her eager eyes
for a sight of land. Every now and then a glorious mirage seems to
spring into the air, gladdening, for a moment, the darkening horizon,
and then to fall as suddenly, dispersed by a word.
“Yes, Rousseau was right; Socrates did die like a philosopher, but Jesus
like a God!”
Mary leaned forward and held her breath.
He clasped his hands, and uplifting his face that was pale with emotion:
“My God,” cried he, in a voice that made her shiver—“my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?”
The mirage vanished,—for a mere tone may outline a whole system of
theology. That cry, as he gave it, was one of bitter human anguish. In
her lover’s eyes ’twas not a God that died, but a man,—godlike, but a
man.
“With that cry” (he added), “the bitterest that ever broke from mortal
lips—”
She heard but heeded not; she knew more than enough already.
“With that cry there burst the grandest heart that ever beat for
mankind. Who can wonder that sixty generations of men have worshipped
him as a God!”
Mary rose, and, descending from the Argo, took his arm. She needed its
support.
Just before reaching the piazza, she stopped suddenly, and, wheeling in
front of him, fixed her gaze upon his face. A gaze long, wistful,
pitiful-tender. As though a mother learned by heart the features of her
boy just going forth to battle, not knowing what may happen.
She tried to answer the smile that greeted this burst of feminine
impulse; but the soulful eyes were swimming with tears.
The Pythia was a woman—and Cassandra—