After that interview with Orion, Philippus hurried off through the town,
paying so little heed to the people he met and to the processions
besieging Heaven with loud psalms to let the Nile at last begin to rise,
that he ran up against more than one passer-by, and had many a word of
abuse shouted after him. He went into two or three houses, and neither
his patients nor their attendants could recognize, in this abrupt and
hasty visitor, the physician and friend who was usually so sympathetic to
the sufferer: who would speak with a cordiality that brought new
life to his heart, who would toss the children in the air, kiss one and
nod merrily to another. To-day their elders even felt shy and anxious in
his presence. For the first time he found the duty he loved a wearisome
burthen; the sick man was a tormenting spirit in league with the world
against his peace of mind. What possessed him, that he should feel such
love of his fellow-men as to deprive himself of all comfort in life and
of his night's rest for their sake? Rufinus was right. In these times
each man lived solely to spite his neighbor, and he who could be most
brazenly selfish, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, was
the most certain to get on in life. Fool that he was to let other folks'
woes destroy his peace and hinder him in his scientific advancement!
Tormented by such bitter thoughts as these, he went into a neat little
house by the harbor where a worthy pilot lay dying, surrounded by his
wife and children; and there, at once, he was himself again, putting
forth all his knowledge and heartfelt kindliness, quitting the scene with
a bleeding heart and an empty purse; but no sooner was he out of doors
than his former mood closed in upon him with double gloom. The case was
plain: Even with the fixed determination not to sacrifice himself for
others he could not help doing it; the impulse was too strong for him.
He could no more help suffering with the sufferer, and giving the best
he had to give with no hope of a return, than the drunkard can help
drinking. He was made to be plundered; it was his fate!
With a drooping head he returned to his old friend's work-room.
Horapollo was sitting, just as he had sat the night before, at his
writing-table with his scrolls and his three lamps, a slave below,
snoring while he awaited his master's pleasure.
The leech's pretty Greek greeting "Rejoice !" sounded rather like "May
you choke!" as he flung aside his upper garment; and to the old man's
answer and anxious exclamation: "How badly you look, Philip!" he
answered crossly: "Like a man who deserves a kick rather than a welcome;
a booby who has submitted to have his nose pulled; a cur who has licked
the hand of the lout who has thrashed him!"
He threw himself on the divan and told Horapollo all that had passed
between him and Orion. "And the maddest part of it all," he ended,
"is that I almost like the man; that he really seems to me to be on the
high road to become a capital fellow; and that I no longer feel inclined
to pitch him into a lime-kiln at the mere thought of his putting out a
hand to Paula. At the same time," and he started to his feet, "even if
I help him to bring the poor little girl away from that demented old hag,
I cannot and will not continue to be her physician. There are plenty of
quacks about in this corpse of a town, and they may find one of them.
"You will continue to treat the child," interrupted the old man quietly.
"To have my heart daily flogged with nettles!" exclaimed the leech, going
towards Horapollo with wild gesticulations. "And do you believe that I
have any desire to meet that young fellow's sweetheart day after day,
often twice a day, that the barb may be twisted round and round in my
bleeding wound?"
"I expect a quite different result from your frequent meeting," said the
other. "You will get accustomed to see her under the aspect which alone
she can hence forth bear to you: that of a handsome girl--there are
thousands such in Egypt,--and the betrothed of another."
"Certainly, if my heart were like a hunting-dog that lies down the moment
it is bid," said Philippus with a scornful laugh. "The end of it is that
I must go away, away from Memphis--away from this miserable world for all
I care! I?--Recover my peace of mind within reach of her? Alas, for my
blissful, lost peace!"
"And why not? To every man a thing is only as he conceives of it. Only
listen to me: I had finished a treatise on the old and new Calendars, and
my master desired me to deliver a lecture on it in the Museum--if the
school of pedants in Alexandria now deserves the name; but I did not wish
to do so because I knew that the presence of such a large and learned
audience would embarrass me. But my master advised me to imagine that my
hearers were not men, but mere cabbages. This gave me new light; I took
his advice, got over my shyness, and my speech flowed like oil."
"A very good story," said Philippus, "but I do not see..."
"The moral of it for you," interrupted the old man, "is that you must
regard the supremely adorable lady of your love as one among a dozen
others--I will not say as a cabbage--as one with whom your heart has no
more concern. Put a little strength of will into it, and you will
succeed."
"If a heart were a cipher, and if passion were calendar-making! . . ."
retorted Philippus. "You are a very wise man, and your manuscripts and
tables have stood like walls between you and passion."
"Who can tell?" said Horapollo. "But at any rate, it never should have
had such power over me as to make me embitter the few remaining days
under the sun yet granted to my father and friend for the sake of a woman
who scorned my devotion. Will you promise me to talk no more nonsense
about flying from Memphis, or anything of the kind?"
"Teach me first to measure my strength of will."
"Will you try, at any rate?"
"Yes, for your sake."
"Will you promise to continue your treatment of that poor little girl,
whom I love dearly in spite of her forbears?"
"As long as I can endure the daily meeting with her--you know. . ."
"That, then, is a bargain.--Now, come and let us translate a few more
chapters."
The friends sat at work together till a late hour, and when the old man
was alone again he reflected: "So long as he can be of use to the child
he will not go away, and by that time I shall have dug a pit for that
damned siren."
.........................
Orion had his hands full of work for the next morning. Before it was
light he sent off two trustworthy messengers to Doomiat, giving each of
them a letter with instructions that a sailing vessel should be held in
readiness for the fugitives. One was to start three hours after the
other, so that the business in hand should not fail if either of them
should come to grief.
He then went out; first to the harbor, where he succeeded in hiring a
large, good Nile-boat from Doomiat, whose captain, a trustworthy and
experienced man, promised to keep their agreement a secret and to be
prepared to start by noon next day. Next, after taking council with
himself, he went to the treasurer's office, and there, with the
assistance of Nilus, made his will, to be ratified and signed next
morning in the presence of a notary and witnesses. His mother, little
Mary, and Paula were to inherit the bulk of his property. He also
bequeathed a considerable sum as a legacy to the hospitals and orphan
asylums, as well as to the Church, to the end that they might pray for
his soul; and a legacy to Nilus "as the most just judge of his
household." Eudoxia, Mary's Greek governess, was not forgotten; and
finally he commanded that all his house-slaves should be liberated, and
to the end that they might not suffer from want he bequeathed to them one
of his largest estates in Upper Egypt, where they might settle and labor
for their common good. He increased the handsome sums already devised by
his father to the freedmen of his family.
This business occupied several hours. Nilus, who wrote while Orion
dictated, giving the document a legal form, was deeply touched by
the young man's fore thought and kindness; for in truth, since his
desecration of the judgment-seat, he had given him up for a lost soul.
By Orion's orders this will was to be opened after four weeks, in case he
should not have returned from a journey on which he proposed starting on
the morrow, and this injunction revealed to the faithful steward, who had
grown grey in the service, that the last scion of the house expected to
run considerable risk; however, he was too modest to ask any questions,
and his master did not take him into his confidence.
When, after all this, the two men went back into the anteroom, Anubis,
the young clerk and Katharina's ally, was standing there. Nilus took no
notice of him, and while he, with tearful eyes, stooped to kiss the hand
Orion held out to him as he bid him come to take leave of him once more
next evening, Anubis, who had withdrawn respectfully to a little
distance, keeping his ears open, however, officiously opened the heavy
iron-plated door.
Orion was exhausted and hungry; he enquired for his mother, and hearing
that she had gone to lie down, he went into the dining-room to get some
food. Although breakfast had but just been served, Eudoxia was awaiting
him with evident impatience. Her heart was bursting with a great piece
of news, and as Orion entered, greeting her, she cried out:
"Have you heard? Do you know?" Then she began, encouraged by his curt
negative, to pour out to him how that Neforis, by the desire of the
physician who had lately been to see her, had decided on sending her,
Eudoxia, away with her granddaughter to enjoy better air under the roof
of a friend of the leech's; they were to go this very day, or to-morrow
at latest.
Orion was disagreeably startled by this intelligence. He had not
expected that Philippus would come so early, and he himself had been the
first to promote a scheme which now no longer seemed advisable.
"How very provoking!" he muttered between his teeth, as a slave offered
him a roast fowl and asparagus.
"Is it not? And perhaps we shall have to go quite far into the country,"
said the Greek, with a languishing look, as she drew one of the long
stems between her teeth.
The words and the glance made Orion feel as if he grudged the old fool
the good food she was eating, and his voice was not particularly
ingratiating as he replied that town and country were all the same, the
only point was which would be best for the child. When he went on to say
that he was quitting home next evening, Eudoxia cried out, let a stick of
asparagus drop in her lap, and said despairingly: "Oh, then everything is
at an end!"
He, however, interposed reproachfully: "On the contrary, then your duty
begins; you must devote yourself wholly and exclusively to the child.
You know that her own grandmother is averse to her. Give her your best
affection, as you have already begun to do, be a mother to her; and if
you really are my well-wisher, show it in that way. For my part you will
find me grateful, and not in words alone. Go tomorrow to the treasurer's
office; Nilus will give you the only thing by which I can at present
prove my gratitude. Do your best to cherish the child; I have taken care
to provide for your old age."
He rose, cutting short the Greek's profuse expressions of thanks, and
betook himself to his mother. She was still in her room; however, he now
sent word that he had come to see her, and she was ready to admit him,
having expected that he would come even sooner.
She was reclining, half-sitting, on a divan in her cool and shady
bedroom, and she at once told her son of her determination to follow the
physician's advice and entrust the little girl to his friend. She spoke
in a tone of sleepy indifference; but as soon as Orion opposed her and
begged her to keep Mary at home, she grew more lively, and looking him
wrathfully in the face exclaimed: "Can you wish that? How can you ask
me?" and she went on in repining lamentation:
"Everything is changed nowadays. Old age no longer forgets; it is youth
that has a short memory. Your head has long been full of other things,
but I--I still remember who it was that made my lost dear one's last
hours on earth a hell, even in view of the gates of Heaven!" Her breast
heaved with feeble, tearless sobs--a short, convulsive gasping, and Orion
did not dare contravene her wishes. He sought to soothe her with loving
words and, when she recovered herself, he told her that he proposed to
leave her for a short time to look after his estates, as the law
required, and this information gladdened her greatly. To be alone--
solitary and unobserved now seemed delightful. Those white pills did
more for her, raised her spirits better, than any human society. They
brought her dreams, sleeping or waking; dreams a thousand times more
delightful than her real, desolate existence. To give herself up to
memory, to pray, to dream, to picture herself in the other world among
her beloved dead--and besides that to eat and drink, which she was always
ready to do very freely--this was all she asked henceforth of life on
earth.
When, to her further questions, Orion replied that he was going first to
the Delta, she expressed her regret, since, if he had gone to Upper
Egypt, he might have visited his sister-in-law, Mary's mother, in her
convent. She sat up as she spoke, passed her hand across her forehead,
and pointed to a little table near the head of the couch, on which, by
the side of a cup with fruit syrup, phials, boxes, and other objects, lay
a writing-tablet and a letter-scroll. This she took up and handed to
Orion, saying:
"A letter from your sister-in-law. It came last evening and I began to
read it; but the first words are a complaint of your father, and that--
you know, just before going to sleep--I could not read any more; I could
not bear it! And to-day; first there was church, and then the physician
came with his request about the child; I have not yet found courage to
read the rest of it.--What can any letter bring to me but evil! Do you
know at all whence anything pleasant could come to me? But now: read me
the letter. Not that part again about your father; that I will keep till
presently for myself alone."
Orion undid the roll, and with quivering lips glanced over the nun's
accusations against his father. The wildest fanaticism breathed in every
line of this epistle from the martyr's widow. She had found in the
cloister all she sought: she lived now, she said, in God alone and in the
Divine Saviour. She thought of her child, even, only as an alien, one of
God's young creatures for whom it was a joy to pray. At the same time it
was her duty to care for the little one's soul, and if it were not too
hard for her grandmother to part from her, she longed to see Mary once
more. She had lately been chosen abbess of her convent--and no one could
prevent her taking possession of the child; but she feared lest an
overwhelming natural affection might drag her back to the carnal world,
which she had for ever renounced, so she would have Mary brought up in a
neighboring nunnery, and led to Heavenly joys, not to earthly misery--to
be the wife of no sinful husband, but a pure bride of Christ.
Orion shuddered as he read and, when he laid the letter down, his mother
exclaimed:
"Perhaps she is right, perhaps it is already ordained that the child
should be sent to the convent, and not to the leech's friend, and started
on the only path that leads to Heaven without danger or hindrance!"
But Orion said to himself that he would make it his duty to guard the
happy-hearted child from this fate, and he begged his mother to consider
that the first important point was to restore the little girl to health.
He now saw that she had been right. His father had always obeyed the
prescriptions of Philippus, and for that reason, if for no other, it
would be her duty to act by his advice.
Neforis, who for some time had been casting longing eyes at a small box
by her side, did not contradict him; and in the course of the afternoon
Orion conducted little Mary and her governess to the house of Rufinus,
who, notwithstanding the doubts he had expressed the day before, made
them heartily welcome.
When Mary was lying in her bed, close by the side of Paula's, the child
threw her arms round the young girl's neck as she leaned over her, and
laying her head on her bosom, felt herself in soft and warm security.
There, as one released from prison and bondage, she wept out her woes,
pouring all the grief of her deeply wounded child's heart into that of
her friend.
Paula, however, heard Orion's voice, and she longed to go down to her
lover, whom she had greeted but briefly on his arrival; still, she could
not bear to snatch the child from her bosom, to disturb her in her newly-
found happiness and leave her at this very moment! And yet, she must--
she must see him! Every impulse urged her towards him and, when
Pulcheria came into the room, she placed Mary's hand in hers and said:
"There, now make friends and stay together like good children till I come
back again and have something nice to tell you. You are fond of Orion,
little one, my story shall be all about him."
"He was obliged to go," said Pulcheria, interrupting her. "Here is his
message on this tablet. He was almost dying of impatience, and when he
could wait no longer he wrote this for you."
Paula took the tablet, with a cry of regret, and carried it to her room
to read. He had longed for their meeting as eagerly as herself, but at
last he could wait no longer. How differently--so he wrote--had he hoped
to end this day which must be devoted to the rescue of her friends.
Why, oh why had she allowed herself to be detained here? Why had she not
flown to him, at least for a few moments, to thank him for his kindness
and faithfulness, and to hear him confess publicly and aloud what he had
but murmured in her ear the day before? She returned to the little girl,
anxious and dissatisfied with herself.
Orion had in fact postponed his departure till the last moment; he
thought it necessary to give Amru due notice of his journey and of his
rupture with the patriarch. Of all the motives which could prompt him
to aid the nuns, revenge was that which the Arab could best understand.