This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
THE BRIDE OF THE NILE
By Georg Ebers
Volume 7.
CHAPTER I. [Note: In the print copy of this eBook, the chapter
numbers and page numbers here start over at one.]
If Philippus found no sleep that night, neither did Orion. He no longer
doubted Paula, but his heart was full of longing to hear her say once
more that she loved him and him alone, and the yearning kept him awake.
He sprang from his bed at the first glimmer of dawn, glad that the night
was past, and started to cross the Nile in order to place half of Paula's
fortune in the hands of Salech, the brother of Haschim the merchant.
In Memphis all was still silent, and all he saw in the old town struck
him as strangely worn-out, torpid, and decayed; it seemed only fit to be
left to ruin, while on the other side of the river, in the new town of
Fostat, on all hands busy, eager, new-born vitality met his eyes.
He involuntarily compared the old capital of the Pharaohs to a time-eaten
mummy, and Amru's new city to a vigorous youth. Here every one was astir
and in brisk activity. The money-changer, who had risen, like all
Moslems, to perform his morning prayer, "as soon as a white thread could
be distinguished from a black one," was already busy with his rolls of
gold and silver coin; and how quick, clear, and decisive the Arab was in
concluding his bargain with Orion and with Nilus, who had accompanied
him!
Whichever way the young man turned, bright and flashing eyes met his
gaze, energetic, resolute, and enterprising faces; no bowed heads, no
dull, brooding looks, no gloomy resignation like those in his native town
on the other shore. Here, in Fostat, his blood flowed more swiftly;
there, existence was an oppressive burden. Everything attracted him to
the Arabs!
The changer's shop, like all those in the Sook or Bazaar of Fostat,
consisted of a wooden stall in which he sat with his assistants. On the
side open to the street he transacted business with his customers, who,
when the affair promised to be lengthy, were invited by the Arab to seat
themselves with him on his little platform.
Orion and Nilus had accepted such an invitation, and it happened that,
while they sat in treaty with Salech, visible to the passers-by, the
Vekeel Obada, who had so deeply stirred the wrath of the governor's son
on the previous evening, came by, close to him. To Orion's amazement he
greeted him with great amiability, and he, remembering Amru's warning,
responded, though not without an effort, to his hated foe's civility.
When Obada passed the stall a second and a third time, Orion felt that he
was watching him; however, it was quite possible that the Vekeel might
also have business with the money-changer and be waiting only for the
conclusion of his.
At any rate Orion ere long forgot the incident, for matters of more
pressing importance claimed his attention at home.
As often happens, the death of one man had changed everything in his
house so utterly as to make it unlike the same; though his removal had
made it neither richer nor poorer, and though his secluded presence of
late had scarcely had an appreciable influence. The rooms formerly so
full of life now seemed dead. Petitioners and suppliants no longer
crowded the anteroom, and all visits of condolence had, according to the
ancient custom, been received on the day after the funeral. The Lady
Neforis had ceased fussing and bustling, the clatter of her keys and her
scolding were no longer to be heard; she sat apart, either in her
sleeping-room or the cool hall with the fountain which had been her
husband's favorite room, excepting when she was at church whither she
went twice every day. She returned from thence with the same weary,
abstracted expression that she took there, and any one seeing her lying
on the divan which her husband had formerly occupied, idly absorbed in
gloomy thought, would hardly have recognized her as the same woman who
had but lately been so active and managing. She did not exactly mourn
or bewail her loss; indeed, she had no tears for her grief, as though she
had shed them all, once for all, during the night after his death and
burial. But she could not attain to that state of sadness made sacred
by memories with which consoling angels so often mingle some drops of
sweetness, after the first anguish is overpast. She felt--she knew--
that with her husband a portion of her own being had been riven from her,
but she could not yet perceive that this last portion was nothing less
than the very foundations of her whole moral and social being.
Her father and her husband's father had been the two leading men in
Memphis, nay, in all Egypt. She had given her hand and a heart full of
love to the son of Menas, a proud and happy woman. It was as one with
her, and not by himself alone, that he had risen to the highest dignity
attainable by a native Egyptian, and she had done everything that lay in
her power to uphold him in a position which many envied him, and in
filling it with dignity and effect. After many years of rare happiness
their grief at the loss of their murdered sons only bound the attached
couple more closely, and when her husband had fallen into bad health she
had gladly shared his seclusion, had devoted herself entirely to caring
for him, and divided all the doubts and anxieties which came upon him
from his political action. The consciousness of being not merely much
but everything to him, was her pride and her joy. Her dislike of Paula
had its rise, in the first instance, in the discovery that she, his wife,
was no longer indispensable to the sufferer when he had his fair young
niece's company. And now?
At night, after long lying awake, when she woke from a snatch of uneasy
sleep, she involuntarily listened for the faint panting breath, but no
heart now throbbed by her side; and when she quitted her lonely couch at
dawn the coming day lay before her as a desert and treeless solitude.
By night, as by day, she constantly tried to call up the image of the
dead, but whenever her small imaginative power had succeeded in doing so
--not unfrequently at first--she had seen him as in the last moments of
his life, a curse on his only son on his trembling lips. This horrible
impression deprived her of the last consolation of the mourner:
a beautiful memory, while it destroyed her proud and glad satisfaction
in her only child. The youth, who had till now been her soul's idol,
was stigmatized and branded in her eyes. She might not ignore the burden
laid on Orion by that most just man; instead of taking him to her heart
with double tenderness and softening or healing the fearful punishment
inflicted by his father, she could only pity him. When Orion came to see
her she would stroke his waving hair and, as she desired not to wound him
and make him even more unhappy than he must be already, she neither
blamed nor admonished him, and never reminded him of his father's curse.
And how beggared was that frugal heart, accustomed to spend all its store
of love on so few objects--nay, chiefly on one alone who was now no more!
The happy voices of the children had always given her pleasure, so long
as they did not disturb her suffering husband; now, they too were silent.
She had withdrawn the sunshine of her narrow affection from her only
grandchild, who had hitherto held a place in it, for little Mary had had
a share in the horrors that had come upon her and Orion in her husband's
last moments. Indeed, the bereaved woman's excited fancy had firmly
conceived the mad notion that the child was the evil genius of the house
and the tool of Satan.
Neforis had, however, enjoyed some hours of greater ease during the last
two days. In the misery of wakefulness which was beginning to torture
her like an acute pain, she had suddenly recollected what relief from
sleeplessness her husband had been wont to find in the opium pillules,
and a box of the medicine, only just opened, was at hand. And was not
she, too, suffering unutterable wretchedness? Why should she neglect
the remedy which had so greatly mitigated her husband's distress? It was
said to have a bad effect after long and frequent use, and she had often
checked the Mukaukas in taking it too freely; but could her sufferings be
greater? Would she not, indeed, be thankful to the drug if it should
shorten her miserable existence?
So she took the familiar remedy, at first hesitatingly and then more
freely; and on the second day again, with real pleasure and happy
expectancy, for it had not merely procured her a good night but had
brought her joy in the morning: The dead had appeared to her, and for
the first time not in the act of cursing, but as a young and happy man.
No one in the house knew what comfort the widow had had recourse to; the
physician and her son had been glad yesterday to find her more composed.
When Orion returned home, after concluding his business with the money-
changer at Fostat, he had to make his way through a crowd of people, and
found the court-yard full of men, and the guards and servants in the
greatest excitement. No less a personage than the Patriarch had arrived
on a visit, and was now in conference with Neforis. Sebek, the steward,
informed Orion that he had asked for him, and that his mother wished that
he should immediately join them and pay his respects to the very reverend
Father.
"She wished it?" asked the young man, as he tossed his riding-hat to a
slave, and he stood hesitating.
He was too much a son of his time, and the Church and her ministers had
exercised too marked influence on his education, for the great prelate's
visit to be regarded otherwise than as a high honor. At the same time he
could not forget the insult done to his father's vanes, nor the Arab
general's warning to be on his guard against Benjamin's enmity; and
perhaps, he said to himself, it might be better to avoid a meeting with
the powerful priest than to expose himself to the danger of losing his
self-control and finding fresh food for his wrath.
However, he had in fact no choice, for the patriarch just now came out of
the fountain-hall into the viridarium. The old man's tall figure was not
bent, his snowy hair flowed in abundance round his proud head, and a
white beard fell in soft waves far down his breast. His fine eyes rested
on the young man with a keen glance, and though he had last seen Orion as
a boy he recognized him at once as the master of the house. While Orion
bowed low before him, the patriarch, in his deep, rich voice, addressed
him with cheerful dignity.
"All hail, son of my never-to-be-forgotten friend! The child I remember,
has, I see, grown to a fine man. I have devoted a short time to the
mother, and now I must say what is needful to the son."
"In my father's study," Orion said to the steward; and he led the way
with the ceremonious politeness of a chamberlain of the imperial court.
The patriarch, as he followed him, signed to his escort to remain behind,
and as soon as the door was closed upon them, he went up to Orion and
exclaimed: "Again I greet you! This, then, is the descendant of the
great Menas, the son of Mukaukas George, the adored ruler of my flock
at Memphis, who held the first place among the gilded youth of
Constantinople in their gay whirl! A strange achievement for an Egyptian
and a Christian! But first of all, child, first give me your hand!"
He held out his right hand and Orion accepted it, but not without
reserve, for he had suspected a scornful ring in the patriarch's address,
and he could not help asking himself whether this man honestly meant so
well by him, that he could address him thus paternally as "child" in all
sincerity of heart? To refuse his hand was, however, impossible; still,
he found courage to reply:
"I can but obey your desire, holy Father; but, at the same time, I do not
know whether it becomes the son to grasp the hand of the foe who was not
to be appeased even by Death, the reconciler--who grossly insulted the
father, the noblest of men, and, in him, the son too, at the grave
itself."
The patriarch shook his head with a supercilious smile, and a hot thrill
shot through Orion as Benjamin laid his hand on his shoulder and said
with grave kindness:
"A Christian does not find it hard to forgive a sinner, an antagonist, an
enemy; and it is a joy to me to pardon the son who feels himself injured
through his lost father, blind and foolish as his indignation may be.
Your wrath can no more affect me, Child, than the Almighty in Heaven,
and it would not even be blameworthy, but that--and of this we must speak
presently--but that--well, I will be frank with you at once--but that
your manner clearly and unmistakably betrays what you lack to make you a
true Christian, and such a man as he must be who fills so conspicuous a
position in this land governed by infidels. You know what I mean?"
The prelate let his hand slip from the young man's shoulder, looking
enquiringly in his face; and when Orion, finding no reply ready, drew
back a step or two, the old man went on with growing excitement:
"It is humility, pious and submissive faith, that I find you lack, my
friend. Who, indeed, am I? But as the Vicar, the representative of Him
before whom we all are as worms in the dust, I must insist that every man
who calls himself a Christian, a Jacobite, shall submit to my will and
orders, without hesitation or doubt, as obediently and unresistingly as
though salvation or woe had fallen on him from above. What would become
of us, if individuals were to take upon themselves to defy me and walk in
their own way? In one miserable generation, and with the death of the
elders who had grown up as true Christians, the doctrine of the Saviour
would be extinct on the shores of the Nile, the crescent would rise in
the place of the Cross, and our cry would go up to Heaven for so many
lost souls. Learn, haughty youth, to bow humbly and submissively to the
will of the Most High and of His vicar on earth, and let me show you,
from your demeanor to myself especially, how far your own judgment is to
be relied on. You regard me as your father's enemy?"
"Yes," said Orion firmly.
"And I loved him as a brother!" replied the patriarch in a softer voice.
"How gladly would I have heaped his bier with palm branches of peace,
such as the Church alone can grow, wet with my own tears!"
"And yet," cried Orion, "you denied to him, whom you call your friend,
what the Church does not refuse to thieves and murderers, if only they
desire forgiveness and have received absolution from a priest;
and that. . . ."
"And that your father did!" interrupted the old man. "Peace be to him!
He is now, no doubt, gazing on the glory of the Lord. And nevertheless
I could forbid the priesthood here showing him honor at the grave.--Why?
For what urgent reason was such a prohibition spoken by a friend against
a friend?"
"Because you wished to brand him, in the eyes of the world, as the man
who lent his support to the unbelievers and helped them to victory," said
Orion gloomily.
"How well the boy can read the thoughts of men!" exclaimed the prelate,
looking at the young man with approbation in which, however, there was
some irony and annoyance. "Very good. We will assume that my object
was to show the Christians of Memphis what fate awaits the man, who
surrenders his country to the enemy and walks hand-in-hand with
unbelievers? And may I not possibly have been right?"
"Do you suppose my father invited the Arabs?" interrupted the young man.
"No, Child," replied the patriarch, "the enemy came of his own free
will."
"And you," Orion went on, "after the Greeks had driven you into exile,
prophesied from the desert that they would come and overthrow the
Melchites, the Greek enemies of our faith, drive them out of the
country."
"It was revealed to me by the Lord!" replied the old man, bowing his
head reverently. "And yet other things were shown to me while I dwelt a
devout ascetic, mortifying my flesh under the scorching sun of the
desert. Beware my son, beware! Heed my warning, lest it should be
fulfilled and the house of Menas vanish like clouds swept before the
wind.--Your father, I know, regarded my prophecy as advice given by me
to receive the infidels as the instrument of the Almighty and to support
them in driving the Melchite oppressors out of the land."
"Your prophecy," replied Orion, "had, no doubt, a marked effect on my
father; and when the cause of the emperor and the Greeks was lost, your
opinion that the Melchites were unbelievers as much as the sons of Islam,
was of infinite comfort to him. For he, if any one--as you know--had
good reason to hate the sectarians who killed his two sons in their
prime. What followed, he did to rescue his and your unfortunate brethren
and dependants from destruction. Here, here in this desk, lies his
answer to the emperor's accusations, as given to the Greek deputation
who had speech of him in this very room. He wrote it down as soon as
they had left him. Will you hear it?"
"I can guess its purport."
"No, no!" cried the excited youth; he hastily opened his father's desk,
laid his hand at once on the wax tablet, and exclaimed: "This was his
reply!" And he proceeded to read:
"These Arabs, few as they are, are stronger and more powerful than we
with all our numbers. One man of them is equal to a hundred of us, for
they rush on death and love it better than life. Each of them presses to
the front in battle, and they have no longing to return home and to their
families. For every Christian they kill they look for a great reward in
Heaven, and they say that the gates of Paradise open at once for those
who fall in the fight. They have not a wish in this world beyond the
satisfaction of their barest need of food and clothing. We, on the
contrary, love life and dread death;--how can we stand against them?
I tell you that I will not break the peace I have concluded with the
Arabs. . . ."
"And what is the upshot of all this reply?" interrupted the patriarch
shrugging his shoulders.
"That my father found himself compelled to conclude a peace, and that--
but read on.--That as a wise man he was forced to ally himself with the
foe."
"The foe to whom he yielded more readily and paid much greater honor than
became him as a Christian!--Does not this discourse convey the idea that
the joys of Paradise solely and exclusively await our damned and blood-
thirsty oppressors?--And the Moslem Paradise! What is it but a gulf
of iniquity, in which they are to wallow in sensual delight? The false
prophet invented it to tempt his followers to force his lying creed,
by might of arms and in mad contempt of death, on nation after nation.
Our Lord, the Word made flesh, came down on earth to win hearts and souls
by the persuasive power of the living truth, one and eternal, which
emanates from Him as light proceeds from the sun; this Mohammed, on the
contrary, is a sword made flesh! For me, then, there is no choice but to
submit to superior strength; but I can still hate and loathe their
accursed and soul-destroying superstition.--And so I do, and so I shall,
to the last throb of this old heart, which only longs for rest, the
sooner the better....
"But you? And your father? Verily, verily, the man who, even for an
instant, ceases to hate unbelief or false doctrine has sinned for his
whole life on this side of the grave and beyond it; sinned against the
only true and saving faith and its divine Founder. Blasphemous and
flattering praise of the piety and moderation of our foes, the very
antichrist incarnate, who kill both body and soul.--With these your
father fouled his heart and tongue. . ."
"Fouled?" cried Orion and the blood tingled in his cheeks. "He kept his
heart and tongue alike pure and honorable; never did a false word pass
his lips. Justice, justice to all, even to his enemies, was the ruling
principle, the guiding clue of his blameless life; and the noblest of the
heathen Greeks admired the man who could so far triumph over himself as
to recognize what was fine and good in a foe."
"And they were right," replied the patriarch, "for they were not yet
acquainted with truth. In a worldly sense, even now, each of us may aim
at such magnanimity; but the man who forgives those who tamper with the
sacred truth, which is the bread, meat, and wine of the Christian's soul,
sins against that truth; and, if he is a leader of men, he draws on those
who look up to him, and who are only too ready to follow his example,
into everlasting fire. Where your father ought to have been a
recalcitrant though conquered enemy, he became an ally; nay, so far as
the leader of the infidels was concerned, a friend--how many tears it
cost me! And our hapless people were forced to see this attitude of
their chief, and imitated it.--Forgive their seducer, Merciful God!--
forming their conduct on his. Thousands fell away from our saving faith
and went over to those, who in their eyes could not be reprobate, could
not be damned, since they saw them dwelling and working hand-in-hand with
their wise and righteous leader; and it was simply and solely to warn his
misguided people that I did not hesitate to wound my own heart, to raise
the voice of reproof at the grave of a dear friend, and to refuse the
honor and blessing of which his just and virtuous life rendered him more
worthy than thousands of others. I have spoken, and now your foolish
anger must be appeased; now you will grasp the hand held out to you by
the shepherd of the souls entrusted to him with an easy and willing
heart."
And again he offered his hand to Orion, who, however, again took it
doubtfully, and instead of looking the prelate in the face, cast down his
eyes in gloomy bewilderment. The patriarch appeared not to observe the
young man's repulsion and clasped his hand warmly. Then he changed the
subject, speaking of the grieving widow, of the decadence of Memphis,
of Orion's plans for the future, and finally of the gems dedicated to
the Church by the deceased Mukaukas. The dialogue had taken a calm,
conversational tone; the patriarch was sitting in the dead man's arm-
chair, and there was nothing forced or unnatural in his asking, in the
course of discussing the jewels, what had become of the great emerald.
Orion replied, in the same tone, that this stone was not, strictly
speaking, any part of his father's gift; but Benjamin expressed an
opposite opinion.
All the tortures Orion had endured since that luckless deed in the
tablinum revived in his soul during this discussion; however, it was some
small relief to him to perceive, that neither his mother nor Dame
Susannah seemed to have told the patriarch the guilt he had incurred by
reason of that gem. Susannah, of course, had said nothing of the
incident in order to avoid speaking of her daughter's false evidence;
still, this miserable business might easily have come to the ears of the
stern old man, and to the guilty youth no sacrifice seemed too great to
smother any enquiry for the ill-fated jewel. He unhesitatingly explained
that the emerald had disappeared, but that he was quite ready to make
good its value. Benjamin might fix his own estimate, and name any sum he
wished for some benevolent purpose, and he, Orion, was ready to pay it to
him on the spot.
The prelate, however, calmly persisted in his demand, enjoined Orion to
have a diligent search made for the gem, and declared that he regarded it
as the property of the Church. He added that, when his patience was at
an end, he should positively insist on its surrender and bring every
means at his disposal into play to procure it.
Orion had no choice but to say that he would prosecute his search for the
lost stone; but his acquiescence was sullen, as that of a man who accedes
to an unreasonable demand.
At first the patriarch took this coolly; but presently, when he rose to
take leave, his demeanor changed; he said, with stern solemnity:
"I know you now, Son of Mukaukas George, and I end as I began:
The humility of the Christian is far from you, you are ignorant of the
power and dignity of our Faith, you do not even know the vast love that
animates it, and the fervent longing to lead the straying sinner back to
the path of salvation.--Your admirable mother has told me, with tears in
her eyes, of the abyss over which you are standing. It is your desire to
bind yourself for life to a heretic, a Melchite--and there is another
thing which fills her pious mother's heart with fears, which tortures it
as she thinks of you and your eternal welfare. She promised to confide
this to my ear in church, and I shall find leisure to consider of it on
my return home; but at any rate, and be it what it may, it cannot more
greatly imperil your soul than marriage with a Melchite.
"On what have you set your heart? On the mere joys of earth! You sue
for the hand of an unbeliever, the daughter of an unbelieving heretic;
you go over to Fostat--nay, hear me out--and place your brain and your
strong arm at the service of the infidels--it is but yesterday; but I,
I, the shepherd of my flock, will not suffer that he who is the highest
in rank, the richest in possessions, the most powerful by the mere
dignity of his name, shall pervert thousands of the Jacobite brethren.
I have the will and the power too, to close the sluice gates against such
a disaster. Obey me, or you shall rue it with tears of blood."
The prelate paused, expecting to see Orion fall on his knees before him;
but the young man did nothing of the kind. He stood looking at him,
open-eyed and agitated, but undecided, and Benjamin went on with added
vehemence:
"I came to you to lift up my voice in protest, and I desire, I require,
I command you: sever all ties with the enemies of your nation and of your
faith, cast out your love for the Melchite Siren, who will seduce your
immortal part to inevitable perdition. . . ."
Till this Orion had listened with bowed head and in silence to the
diatribe which the patriarch had hurled at him like a curse; but at this
point his whole being rose in revolt, all self-control forsook him, and
he interrupted the speaker in loud tones:
"Never, never, never will I do such a thing! Insult me as you will.
What I am, I will still be: a faithful son of the Church to which my
fathers belonged, and for which my brothers died. In all humility I
acknowledge Jesus Christ as my Lord. I believe in him, believe in the
God-made-man who died to save us, and who brought love into the world,
and I will remain unpersuaded and faithful to my own love. Never will I
forsake her who has been to me like a messenger from God, like a good
angel to teach me how to lay hold on what is earnest and noble in life-
her whom my father, too, held dear. Power, indeed, is yours. Demand of
me anything reasonable, and within my attainment, and I will try to force
myself to obedience; but I never can and never will be faithless to her,
to prove my faith to you; and as to the Arabs...."
"Enough!" exclaimed the prelate. "I am on my way to Upper Egypt. Make
your choice by my return. I give you till then to come to a right mind,
to think the matter over; and it is quite deliberately that I bid you to
forget the Melchite. That you, of all men, should marry a heretic would
be an abomination not to be borne. With regard to your alliance with the
Arabs, and whether it becomes you--being what you are--to take service
with them, we will discuss it at a future day. If, by the time I return,
you have thought better of the matter as regards your marriage--and you
are free to choose any Jacobite maiden--then I will speak to you in a
different tone. I will then offer you my friendship and support; instead
of the Church's curse I will pronounce her blessing on you--the pardon
and grace of the Almighty, a smooth path to eternity and peace, and the
prospect of giving new joy to the aching heart of your sorrowing mother.
My last word is that you must and shall give up the woman from whom you
can look for nothing but perdition."
"I cannot, and shall not, and I never will!" replied Orion firmly.
"Then I can, and shall, and will make you feel how heavily the curse
falls which, in the last resort, I shall not hesitate to pronounce upon
you!"
"It is in your power," said Orion. "But if you proceed to extremities
with me, you will drive me to seek the blessing for which my soul thirsts
more ardently than you, my lord, can imagine, and the salvation I crave,
with her whom you hold reprobate, and on the further side of the Nile."
"I dare you!" cried the patriarch, quitting the room with a resolute
step and flaming cheeks.
CHAPTER II.
Orion was alone in the spacious room, feeling as though the whole world
were sinking into nothingness after the rack of storm and tempest. At
first he was merely conscious of having gone through a fearful
experience, which threatened to fling him far outside the sphere of
everything he was wont to reverence and hold sacred. For love and honor
of his guardian angel he had declared war to the patriarch, and that
man's power was as great as his stature. Still, the image of Paula rose
high and supreme above that of the terrible old man, in Orion's fancy,
and his father, as it seemed to him, was like an ally in the battle he
was destined to wage in his own strength.
The young man's vivid imagination and excellent memory recapitulated
every word the prelate had uttered. The domineering old man, overflowing
with bigoted zeal, had played with him as a cat with a mouse. He had
tried to search his soul and sift him to the bottom before he attacked
the subject with which he ought to have begun, and concerning which
he was fully informed when he offered him his hand that first time--
as cheerfully, too, as though he had no serious grievance seething in
his soul. Orion resolved that he would cling fast to his faith without
Benjamin's interposition, and not allow his hold on the two other
Christian graces, Hope and Love, to be weakened by his influence.
By some miracle his mother had not yet told the prelate of his father's
curse, in spite of the anguish of her aching heart; and what a weapon
would not that have been in Benjamin's hand. It was with the deepest
pity that he thought of that poor, grief-stricken woman, and the idea
flashed through his mind that the patriarch might have gone back to his
mother to accuse him and to urge her to further revelations.
Many minutes had passed since the patriarch had left him; Orion had
allowed his illustrious guest to depart unescorted, and this could
not fail to excite surprise. Such a breach of good manners, of the
uncodified laws of society, struck Orion, the son of a noble and ancient
house, who had drunk in his regard for them as it were with his mother's
milk, as an indignity to himself; and to repair it he started up, hastily
smoothing down his tumbled hair, and hurried into the viridarium. His
fears were confirmed, for the patriarch's following were standing in the
fountain-hall close to the exit; his mother, too, was there and Benjamin
was in the act of departure.
The old man accepted his offered escort with dignified affability, as if
nothing but what was pleasant had passed between him and Orion. As they
crossed the viridarium he asked his young host what was the name of some
rare flower, and counselled him to take care that shade-giving trees were
planted in abundance on his various estates. In the outer hall, on
either side of the door, was a statue: Truth and justice, two fine works
by Aristeas of Alexandria, who flourished in the time of the Emperor
Hadrian. Justice held the scales and sword, Truth was gazing into her
mirror. As the patriarch approached them, he said to the priest who
walked by his side: "Still here!" Then, standing still, he said, partly
to Orion and partly to his companion:
"Your father, I see, neglected my suggestion that these heathen images
had no place in any Christian house, and least of all in one attached, as
this is, to a public function. We, no doubt, know the meaning of the
symbols they bear; but how easily might the ordinary man, waiting here,
mistake the figure with the mirror for Vanity and that with the scales
Venality: 'Pay us what we ask,' she might be saying, 'or else your life
is a forfeit,'--so the sword would imply."
He smiled and walked on, but added airily to Orion:
"When I come again--you know--I shall be pleased if my eye is no longer
offended by these mementos of an extinct idolatry."
"Truth and justice!" replied Orion in a constrained voice. "They have
dwelt on this spot and ruled in this house for nearly five hundred
years."
"It would look better, and be more suitable," retorted the patriarch,
"if you could say that of Him to whom alone the place of honor is due in
a Christian house; in His presence every virtue flourishes of itself.
The Christian should proscribe every image from his dwelling; at the door
of his heart only should he raise an image on the one hand of Faith and
on the other of Humility."
By this time they had reached the court-yard, where Susannah's chariot
was waiting. Orion helped the prelate into it, and when Benjamin offered
him his hand to kiss, in the presence of several hundred slaves and
servants, all on their knees, the young man lightly touched it with his
lips. He stood bowed low in reverence so long as the holy father
remained visible, in the attitude of blessing the crowd from the open
side of the chariot; then he hurried away to join his mother.
He expected to find her exhausted by the excitement of the patriarch's
visit; but, in fact, she was more composed than he had seen her yet since
his father's death. Her eyes indeed, commonly so sober in their
expression, were bright with a kind of rapture which puzzled Orion.
Had she been thinking of his father? Could the patriarch have succeeded
in inspiring her pious fervor to such a pitch, that it had carried her,
so to speak, out of herself?
She was dressed to go to church, and after expressing her delight at the
honor done to herself and her whole household by the prelate's visit, she
invited Orion to accompany her. Though he had proposed devoting the next
few hours to a different purpose, the dutiful son at once acceded to this
wish; he helped her into her chariot, bid the driver go slowly, and
seated himself by her side.
As they drove along he asked her what she had told the patriarch, and her
replies might have reassured him but that she filled him with grave
anxiety on fresh grounds. Her mind seemed to have suffered under the
stress of grief. It was usually so clear, so judicious, so reasonable;
and now all she said was incoherent and not more than half intelligible.
Still, one thing he distinctly understood: that she had not confided to
the patriarch the fact of his father's curse. The prelate must certainly
have censured the conduct of the deceased to her also and that had sealed
her lips. She complained to her son that Benjamin had never understood
her lost husband, and that she had felt compelled to repress her desire
to disclose everything to him. Nowhere but in church, in the very
presence of the Redeemer, could she bring herself to allow him to read
her heart as it were an open book. A voice had warned her that in the
house of God alone, could she find salvation for herself and her son;
that voice she heard day and night, and much as it pained her to grieve
him he must hear it now--: That voice never ceased to enjoin her to tear
asunder his connection with the Melchite maiden. Last evening it had
seemed to her that it was her eldest son, who had died for the Jacobite
faith, that was speaking to her. The voice had sounded like his, and it
had warned her that the ancient house of Menas must perish, if a Melchite
should taint the pure blood of their race. And Benjamin had confirmed
her fears; he had come back to her on purpose to beseech her to oppose
Orion's sinful affection for Thomas' daughter with the utmost maternal
authority, and, as the patriarch expressed the same desire as the voice,
it must be from God and she must obey it.
Her old grudge against Paula had revived, and her very tones betrayed
that it grew stronger with every word she spoke which had any reference
to the girl.
At this Orion begged her to be calm, reminding her of the promise she had
made him by his father's deathbed; and just as his mother was about to
reply in a tone of pitiful recrimination, the chariot stopped at the door
of the church. He did everything in his power to soothe her; his gentle
and tender tones comforted her, and she nodded to him more happily,
following him into the sanctuary.
Beyond the narthex--the vestibule of the church, where three penitents
were flaying their backs with scourges by the side of a small marble
fountain, and in full view of the crowd--they were forced to part, as the
women were divided from the men by a screen of finely-carved woodwork.
As Neforis went to her place, she shook her bowed head: she was
meditating on the choice offered her by Orion, of yielding to the
patriarch's commands or to her son's wishes. How gladly would she have
seen her son in bright spirits again. But Benjamin had threatened her
with the loss of all the joys of Heaven, if she should agree to Orion's
alliance with the heretic--and the joys of Heaven to her meant a meeting,
a recognition, for which she would willingly have sacrificed her son and
everything else that was dear to her heart.
Orion assisted at the service in the place reserved for the men of his
family, close to the hekel, or holy of holies, where the altar stood and
the priests performed their functions. A partition, covered with ill-
wrought images and a few gilt ornaments, divided it from the main body of
the church, and the whole edifice produced an impression that was neither
splendid nor particularly edifying. The basilica, which had once been
richly decorated, had been plundered by the Melchites in a fight between
them and the Jacobites, and the impoverished city had not been in a
position to restore the venerable church to anything approaching its
original splendor. Orion looked round him; but could see nothing
calculated to raise his devotion.
The congregation were required to stand all through the service; and as
it often was a very long business, not the women only, behind the screen,
but many of the men supported themselves like cripples on crutches. How
unpleasing, too, were the tones of the Egyptian chant, accompanied by the
frequent clang of a metal cymbal and mingled with the babble of
chattering men and women, checked only when the talk became a quarrel,
by a priest who loudly and vehemently shouted for silence from the hekel.
Generally the chanted liturgy constituted the whole function, unless the
Lord's Supper was administered; but in these anxious times, for above a
week past, a priest or a monk preached a daily sermon. This began a
short while after the young man had taken his place, and it was with
painful feelings that he recognized, in the hollow-eyed and ragged monk
who mounted the pulpit, a priest whom he had seen more than once drunk to
imbecility, in Nesptah's tavern, And the revolting creature, who thus
flaunted his dirty, dishevelled person even in the pulpit, thundered down
on the trembling congregation declarations that the delay in the rising
of the Nile was the consequence of their sins, and God's punishment for
their evil deeds. Instead of comforting the terrified souls, or
encouraging their faith and bidding them hope for better times, he set
before them in burning words the punishment that awaited their wicked
despondency.
God Almighty was plaguing them and the land with great heat; but this was
like the cool north wind at Advent-tide, as compared with the fierceness
of the furnace of hell which Satan was making hot for them. The
scorching sun on earth at any rate gave them daylight, but the flames of
hell shed no light, that the terrors might never cease of those whom the
devil's myrmidons drove over the narrow bridge leading to his horrible
realm, goading them with spears and pitchforks, with heavy cudgelling or
gnawing of their flesh. In the anguish of death, and the crush by the
way, mothers trod down their infants and fathers their daughters; and
when the damned reached the spiked threshold of hell itself, a hideous
and poisoned vapor rose up to meet them, choking them, and yet giving
them renewed strength to feel fresh torments with increased keenness of
every sense. Then the devil's shrieks of anguish, which shake the vault
of hell, came thundering on their ears; with hideous yells he snatched at
them from the grate on which he lay, crushed and squeezed them in his
iron jaws like a bunch of grapes, and swallowed them into his fiery maw;
or else they were hung up by their tongues by attendant friends in
Satan's fiery furnace, or dragged alternately through ice and flames,
and finally beaten to pieces on the anvil of hell, or throttled and wrung
with ropes and cloths.--As compared with the torments they would suffer
there, every present anxiety was as the kiss of a lover. Mothers would
hear the brain seething in their infants' skulls....
At this point of the monk's grewsome discourse, Orion turned away with a
shudder. The curse with which the patriarch had threatened him recurred
to his mind; he could have fancied that the hot, stuffy, incense-laden
air of the church was full of flapping daws and hideous bats. Deadly
horror crept over him; but then, suddenly, the rebound came of youthful
vigor, longing for freedom and joy in living; a voice within cried out:
"Away with coercion and chains! Winged spirit, use your pinions! Down
with the god of terrors! He is not that Heavenly Father whose love
embraces mankind. Forward, leap up and be free! Trusting in your own
strength, guided by your own will, go boldly forth into the open sunshine
of life! Be free, be free!--Still, be not like a slave who is no sooner
cut adrift and left to himself than he falls a slave again to his own
senses. No; but striving unceasingly and of your own free will, in the
sweat of your brow, to reach the high goal, to work out to its fulfilment
and fruition everything that is best in your soul and mind. Yes--life is
a ministry.... I, like the disciples of the Stoa, will strive after all
that is known as virtue, with no other end in view than to practise it
for its own sake, because it is fair and gives unmixed joys. I will rely
on myself to seek the truth--and do what I feel to be right and good;
this, henceforth, shall be the lofty aim of my existence. To the two
chief desires of my heart--: atonement to my father and union with Paula,
I here add a third: the attainment of the loftiest goal that I may reach,
by valiant striving to get as near to it as my strength will allow. The
road thither is by Work; the guiding star I must keep before me that I
may not go astray is my Love!"
His cheeks were burning, and with a deep breath he looked about him as
though to find an adversary with whom he might measure his strength. The
horrible sermon was ended and the words of the chanting crowd fell on his
ear. "Lord, reward me not according to mine iniquities!" The load of
his own sin fell on his heart again, and his dying father's curse; his
proud head drooped on his breast, and he said to himself that his burthen
was too heavy for him to venture on the bold flight for which he had but
now spread his wings. The ban was not yet lifted; he was not yet
redeemed from its crushing weight. But the mere word "redeemed" brought
to his mind the image of Him who took on Himself the sins of the world;
and the more deeply he contemplated the nature of the Saviour whom he had
loved from his childhood, the more surely he felt that it would be doing
no violence to the freedom of his own will, but rather be the fulfilment
of a long-felt desire, if he were to tell Jesus simply all that oppressed
him; that his love for Him, his faith in Him, had a saving power even for
his soul. He lifted up his eyes and heart to Him, and to Him, as to a
trusted friend, confided all that troubled and hindered him and besought
His aid.
In loving Him, he and Paula were one, he knew, though they had not the
same idea of His nature.
Orion, as he meditated, thought out the points on which her views
deviated from his own: she believed that the divine and the human natures
were distinct in the person of Christ. And as he reflected on this
creed, till now so horrible in his eyes, he felt that the unique
individuality of the Saviour, shedding forth love and truth, came home to
him more closely when he pictured Him perfect and spotless, yet feeling
as a man; walking among men with all their joy in life in His heart,
alive to every pang and sorrow which can torture mortals, rejoicing with
them, and taking upon Himself unspeakable humiliation, suffering, and
death, with a stricken, bleeding, and yet self-devoting heart, for pure
love of the wretched race to which He could stoop from His glory. Yes,
this Christ could be his Redeemer too. The Almighty Lord had become his
perfect and most loving friend, his glorious, but lenient and tender
brother, to whom he could gladly give his whole heart, who understood
everything, who was ready to forgive everything--even all that was
seething in his aching heart which longed for purification--and all
because He once had suffered as a man suffers.
For the first time he, the Jacobite, dared to confess so much to himself;
and not solely for Paula's sake. A violent clanging on a cracked metal
plate roused him from his meditations by its harsh clamor; the sacrament
of the Last Supper was about to be administered: the invariable
conclusion of the Jacobite service. The bishop came forth from behind
the screen of the inner sanctuary, poured some wine into a silver cup and
crumbled into it two little cakes stamped with the Coptic cross. Of this
mixture he first partook, and then gave it in a spoon to each member of
the congregation who came up to receive it. Orion approached after two
elders of the Church. Finally the priest rinsed out the cup, and drained
the very washings, that no drop of the saving liquid should be lost.
How high had Orion's heart throbbed when, as a youth, he had been
admitted for the first time to this most sacred of all Christian
privileges! He was instructed in its deep and glorious symbolism, and
had often felt the purifying, saving, and refreshing effect of the
sacrament, strengthening him in all goodness, when he had partaken of it
with his parents and brothers. Hand-in-hand, they had gone home feeling
as if newly robed in body and soul and more closely bound together than
before. And to-day, insensible as he was to the repulsiveness of the
forms of worship of his confession he felt as though the bread and wine
--the Flesh and Blood of the Saviour--had sealed the bond he had silently
entered into with himself; as though the Lord had put forth an invisible
hand to remove the guilt and the curse that crushed him so sorely. Deep
devotion fell on his soul: his future life, he thought, should bring him
nearer to God than ever before, and be spent in loving, and in the more
earnest, full, and laborious exercise of the gifts Heaven had bestowed on
him.