About a week after, one day when their lesson was ended, Iona said: “I
have seen Dylar to-day, and he proposed that I should make a visit with
you. Professor Pearlstein, whose class of boys you will recollect, would
have come to see you, but he is quite lame. He sprained his ankle some
time ago, and cannot yet walk much. He knew Professor Mora well. They
were boys together. Would you like to go up?”
Tacita assented eagerly, and they set out.
“You are going to see an admirable person,” Iona said as they went
along. “He is very useful to the community. He sets the boys thinking,
and guides their thoughts, but not so severely as to check their
expression. He especially urges them to study what he calls the
Scriptures of nature. He keeps the records of the town, and in the most
perfect way, knowing how to select what is worth recording. He will make
no comment. His idea is that most histories have too much of the
historian in them.”
“My grandfather had the same opinion,” Tacita said. “He held that the
province of an historian is to collect as many authentic facts as
possible, and present them, leaving the reader to draw his own
conclusions. He did not thank the historian for telling him that a man
was good or was wicked from his own conclusion, giving no proof. He
preferred to decide for himself from the given facts whether to admire
or condemn the man.”
They reached the path leading upward; and there Iona stopped. She was
very pale.
“Would you mind going up alone?” she asked. “I do not feel quite well.”
Tacita anxiously offered assistance.
Iona turned away somewhat abruptly. “I need nothing, thank you. Go in
peace, since you are willing. I am sure that you would have much more
pleasure in a tête-à-tête conversation with Professor Pearlstein.
Present my salutations.”
Tacita, feeling herself decidedly rejected, looked after her a moment.
Iona was evidently neither weak nor faint. She walked rapidly, and,
instead of going homeward, had followed the outer road northward.
The Professor was seated in his little terrace with a table beside him.
He was weaving a basket. Silvery white roots in assorted bunches were
piled on the table, and strips of basket-wood lay on the ground in
coils. His robe was of gray cloth with a white girdle and hood, and he
wore a little scarlet skull-cap. Tacita saw now, better than before, how
handsome he was. The face was strong and placid, the hands fine in
shape, the hair gleamed like frost.
She stood on the edge of the terrace before he saw her, and was in some
trepidation lest she had not taken pains enough to make him aware of her
approach.
When he looked up suddenly, secretly aware of some other human presence,
his face lighted with a smile of perfect welcome, and with a faint,
delicate blush.
He brought out a pretty chair of woven roots with leathern cushions.
“The terrace is my salon,” he said. “And I have the pleasure of asking
you to be the first to sit in a chair of my own making. Are not the
roots pretty? See the little green stripe running through the silver. It
is second sight, already dreaming of leaves. Till I began basket-making,
I had not known the beautiful colors and textures of woods. It is a
pleasant employment for my hands. It enables me to think while working.
Is the chair right for you? I am grateful to you for coming up. Shall we
continue to speak in Italian? It must come more readily to you; and I am
always pleased to speak the beautiful language. It is not more musical
than San Salvadorian; but it is richer. Our language grows slowly. It is
limited, like the experience of our people. Every new word, moreover, is
challenged, and tried by a jury of scholars. We adopt a good many
imitative words, especially from the Italian. You will hear _fruscio_,
_ciocie_, _rimbomba_, and the like.”
They spoke of Professor Mora, and Tacita answered a good many questions
concerning him.
Professor Pearlstein, in return, recalled their early days together; and
she found it delightful to hear of her grandfather as a boy, leaping
from such a rock, picking grapes in vintage time in the road below,
studying in the college yonder, and sliding down from terrace to terrace
on a rope. It was charming, too, to hear of her mother as a little girl,
quaint and serious, with golden hair and a pearly skin, and of her
father as master of the orchards, with eyes like an eagle, and a ready,
musical laugh. He died from a fall in trying to jump from one tree to
another. “Who would have thought,” he said, “that it is only three feet
from time to eternity!”
“I am glad,” Professor Pearlstein said, “that my old friend was able to
live his own life to the last. It is not so hard for a student such as
he. In such cases people can understand that they do not understand, and
they let the student alone. In going out into the world, the most of us
feel the pressure of a thousand petty restraints. I reckon that I lost
five years of my life in wondering what people would think of things
which they had no right to notice at all.”
“It is like a person trying to run in a sack,” Tacita said, “or like
rowing against the tide a gondola all clogged and covered with weeds.”
The old man brought a little table and placed on it a dainty refreshment
for his visitor, setting it out with a pleased, hospitable care: a slice
of bread, a conserve of orange-flowers, and a tiny glass of wine;
partaking also with her at her request.
“I always expected some great discovery from Professor Mora,” he said,
folding his arms and looking far away to the western mountains. “At
first I thought that it would be in physics. But I soon found that he
looked through, rather than at, natural objects and phenomena. Visible
nature was to him the screen which hid the object of his search. I
recollect walking home with him one day in Paris after we had listened
to a lecture on electricity from a famous scientist. ‘What does
electricity mean?’ your grandfather exclaimed. He held that the greatest
obstacle to the discovery of truth is the insincerity of man.
“I liked the same studies that interested him, though my proficiency in
them was small; and when I saw the way he went, I hoped that he would
set the seal of his guess, at least, on some grand eclectic plan of
creation toward which my lighter fancy spun blindly its filmy threads.
That terrible ‘I do not know’ of his was crushing! But later I learned
to be thankful for one man who searched far into psychical and
theological problems, yet spared the race a new theory.”
Tacita listened with pleasure to his dreamy talk. And she told him of
the recitation she had heard the week before.
“That flowery nook, with its larks, is to-day what it was when Basil
laid him down there to die,” he said. “The mountain is excavated in
halls that concentrate like the spokes of a wheel, with a column left
solid in the centre. The hollow called Basil’s Rest may be called the
upper hub. The lower one is in the centre of the earth. There’s a narrow
stair goes up on the outside.”
When Tacita went down, she saw Iona coming toward her, seemingly quite
restored to health. Her cheeks were crimson, her eyes sparkling.
“I feel better,” she said. “Let us go to the Star-terrace for a view of
the sunset.”
They went, and she pointed out effects of shadow in the western
mountains and of colors in the eastern.
“I have sometimes an impulse to go out into the world again,” she said
then, abruptly. “When I was there, it was during my silence. I was there
to study, not to talk. When we first go out, especially the young, we
are held to a period of silence as to decisions, opinions, wishes, and
plans. Obeying, we save ourselves trouble and avoid a good deal of
foolishness. The story of Sisyphus is impressed on us as that of one
whose first years are spent in a foolish effort and his last years in
repenting of it.
“The only opinion we express from the first and at all ages is that
touching our faith. A child may reprove a blasphemer, or assert its
devotion to Christ in the hearing of one who expresses doubt. One
subject after another is freed for us, as we learn what the world means
by it. Of course, for a person of vivacious temper and strong feelings
to remain silent, or to say always, ‘I do not know,’ gives full
employment to the will and the nerves. I used sometimes to feel as
though I should burst.
“Now, if I should go, it would be to speak when occasion calls, and to
act in accordance with my speech. I could call a falsehood a falsehood,
and a wrong a wrong.”
“You would have to speak often,” Tacita said dryly.
“Should I not!”
Iona began walking to and fro. “I have had visions of what might be
done,” she said, her manner warming as she proceeded. “The time is past
when San Salvador can be long hidden, when it should hold itself only a
refuge for a few, and a nursery for a few. I think that the time is come
when it should prepare, prudently, yet with energy, to practice a
Christian aggressiveness. We have our little circles in every part of
the world. They are silent and true, and they are not poor. We have no
weak hearts. The children of San Salvador are baptized with fire. The
tests of our virtue and fidelity are severe. Our people have never
occupied public office, because we hold officials responsible; and by
the world they are not so held.
“We have capital. It might be spent in acquiring territory.
Concentrated, we should be a power in the world. It is possible. I have
the whole plan in my mind. I have studied over it for years. I have
settled where our outposts should be, and how they might be
strengthened. I would deprive no ruler of his realm; but he should call
himself viceroy, and sit on the footstool of an inviolate throne. I
would mock at no faith of person, or society; but I would show the whole
truth of which each belief is a fragment, and I would surround worship
with such a splendor as should satisfy any lover of pageantry; and I
would attack all organized wickedness.
“In the early days of our faith Christians did not fear persecution; for
above the head of threatening king, or pontiff, they saw the face of an
approving God. Only the spirit of Christ himself, simple and literal,
can reawaken that faith. The first Dylar said that when he abolished
preaching, and set the words of the King in letters of gold before the
people.
“Tell me what to do!” said Tacita, leaning to kiss Iona’s hand as she
passed her by.
Iona paused. “See what I have thought,” she said in a softened voice.
“San Salvador is in danger, and the danger increases every day. How
long, with explorers and mountain-climbers everywhere, can we hope to
escape? Already, more than once, we have escaped but by a
hair’s-breadth. We hide by a miracle. Once discovered, what rights have
we? A vulgar, if not malignant, curiosity follows you everywhere in the
world. Every kind of science and astuteness would be employed to invade
and subdue us. Every sophistical argument on the subject of sovereign
rights, and even of human rights, would be quoted against us. Fancy a
man educated in the tricks of diplomacy and the falsehoods of official
life coming here and claiming the right to investigate and command, and
bringing his subordinates to enforce submission!
“Our people are sent out into the world with every precaution. All are
placed above want; but no one is made rich enough to win the world’s
blinding flatteries. Depending solely on their intrinsic worth for
respect, they are seldom deceived. But, known as we are, even if force
did not invade, what flatteries! What imitations of our ways without the
spirit! Our realities made theatrical by their paraphrases—it might be
worse than war. Ordinary society can see no difference between its own
fire of straw and stubble and that primal fire which, now and then,
bursts through some human soul.
“I have thought, then, to acquire all the land possible about the
Olives, planting the plain and peopling the hills. A mile or two distant
there is a group of hills much like those on which Rome was built. Our
people could come, not as one people, but as if they were strangers to
each other. Those who would, might even come at first as laborers. We
all know how to labor. For wealth, if we had workmen and engines, the
mountains would be an immense storehouse. There are beautiful marbles,
and there must be more gold. Then what refuges we could have, not hidden
and crowded, but open!”
“Did you think to go out into the world in order to stir up the people
to this movement?” Tacita asked, when she paused.
Iona had stopped with her eyes fixed southward, as if she saw through
the mountain wall that measureless garden, and the city of her
imagination shining in the setting sun.
She turned quickly, seeming startled to be reminded that she was not
alone.
“Yes,” she said, almost sharply. “And my brother has told me that Dylar
thought I might wish to go. He spoke to you and you spoke to the prince.
Ion will go.”
“Ion feared to grieve you,” Tacita said, surprised at this sudden
address.
“Dylar also had spoken to me of it,” Iona continued, her brows lowering.
“He thought that I might like to go awhile with Ion. Why did he think
so? I have never spoken of these plans to him. I waited for other
conditions to arrange themselves. Why should the idea of my going out
occur to him?”
“I do not know,” said Tacita, more and more astonished at the tone in
which she was addressed. “He said nothing of it to me. Perhaps he has
some important mission for you.”
“Why should he intrust a mission to me instead of Elena, or of going
himself?” demanded Iona. “Can you think of any reason?”
“I do not know,” Tacita repeated, and her eyelids drooped.
There was a moment of silence, and it seemed to have thundered. Iona
gazed with scrutinizing and flashing eyes into the downcast face before
her, and seemed struggling to control herself. A shiver passed over her,
and then she spoke calmly.
“I have not told you all my mind. The country I have planned must have a
dynasty, not a luxurious one secluded from the people, but one as simple
and law-abiding as that which rules us here. But who will succeed Dylar?
While I planned, that became the difficult question to answer. He has no
child, and seemed vowed to celibacy. I thought of Ion. He alone, outside
the prince’s blood, might be said to have a certain prestige, though he
has no claim. Ion has force, and, when he shall have been tried in the
alembic, will have a fine character. He has courage, magnetism, and
enthusiasm. It seemed certain that Dylar would never marry; and I
approved of his apparent resolution and imitated it. It seemed fitting
that the two highest in San Salvador should give an example of
exceptional lives devoted to its cause. I had, moreover, a sort of
contempt for that maternity which we share with the beasts, reptiles,
and insects. I almost believed that common people only should have
children and superior people mould and educate them. In that frame of
mind I had that foolish portrait painted.
“Later, I saw my mistake.
“I have called the portrait foolish, and it is so in one sense, in the
sense that most people would give it, but not in the sense which still
to me is true. For I do set my foot on trivial love and mere fondness
for love’s sake alone.”
She was walking to and fro again, her brows lowering. Tacita sat mute
and pale, the vision of a terrible struggle rising before her mind.
“How perfectly logical an utter mistake may be!” Iona exclaimed with a
sort of fierceness. “I reasoned with myself. I made it quite plain to my
mind that the people of San Salvador needed an example of lofty and
laborious lives which set aside for duty’s sake all the joys of domestic
life. I said, ‘This people was elevated for a century to a higher plane
of feeling by such an example.’ It is a proverb here that the face of
Prince Basil shone a hundred years after he died.
“I was half right. What kept the Israelites up to that pitch of
enthusiasm which preserved them great so long? Not the goodness of the
mass, which seemed as base as any, but the divine fire of the few. What
made the great republic of the west something that for a time was equal
to its own boast? The greatness and disinterested earnestness of the
few. The nation which has no heroic leader is a prey to the first strong
arm or cunning voice which seeks its subjugation. My plan would have
been perfect if another leader had been growing up, as in the time of
Basil, one of unquestioned right and character. But as I studied longer,
I saw the flaw. Ion has been known here as a wayward boy, though noble.
Besides, there has always been a real Dylar.
“Gradually the question readjusted itself in my mind without my own
volition.
“Dylar and Iona married would unite the actual right and a shadowy one
of sentiment, and the need of a leader would consecrate the marriage as
still something ideal. Our son could not be a common one. I would pour
all my soul into him. I would make him enthusiastic, courageous, wise,
and eloquent. He should go down and work beside the daily laborer, as I
have seen Dylar do, till only labor should seem worthy of a crown. He
should be full of fire, like the old gods. That dead moon-like calm that
people call Olympian is not Olympian. They were creatures of fire. They
trembled with strong life like flames.
“It all flashed upon me. I saw what should be. But how could I inspire
Dylar with my thought! A woman has limits in such circumstances. Nature
imposes them. I could only wait till my plan of empire was perfect, then
set it before him in all its splendor. What could he say but ‘Let us
work together for this new Eden! Let the future viceroy be our son!’
There could be no other conclusion. It seemed sure, and on the point of
realization. I waited only for his return to lay the whole before him.
And then—and then”—
She choked, and, tearing the lace scarf from her neck, cast it away.
Tacita was deathly pale.
“Iona,” she said gently, “may it not be that you expect too much of
mankind in the mass? Can you hope that any nation will long keep its
ideal state? How many such a bubble has burst! Human life is not a
crystallization, but a crucible. Your kingdom of Christ extended and
prosperous, would it not become a kingdom of the world, as in the past?
It is the old story of the manna, food from heaven to-day, and to-morrow
corruption. Your saint in power would become, as in the past, a sinner,
and your trusting people, also as in the past, a populace first of
children, then of slaves, and lastly, of rebels. Forgive me, dear Iona!
Your vision is as noble as yourself; but all are not like you. Are not
you afraid to be so confident? Your plan opens such a field to
ambition!”
“I was not ambitious for myself,” said Iona, writhing, rather than
turning herself away. “And I believe that rulers may be educated to see
how much grander and happier they would be if the love of their subjects
should exceed their fear. I thought of the future of our people
submerged in a deluge with no counteracting influence. Perhaps something
suggested”—she turned again to Tacita, and spoke breathlessly—“When
Dylar first saw that portrait, he did not seem pleased. I asked myself
why he should look so dark if he approved of my renouncing love. It was
my way of silently telling him that I would take no lower stand than
his. I thought that he would be pleased. He had never said, but had
always seemed to intimate, that he would not marry. Once, on going out
on a long and dangerous journey, he said to me: ‘If I should never
return, educate Ion to take my place.’ He trusted me. He always confided
his affairs to me. I never feared to have him go out. Nothing could
seduce him. I felt sure that he would return even as he went. To me he
was not utterly gone. I told myself that our spirits communed.” She
paused a moment, then added bitterly: “I thought that they did!”
“I am no queen nor sibyl,” said Tacita faintly. “I cannot judge of these
questions; and I could never hope to be able to stir a man up to great
enterprises. I am only fitted to be a tender, and in some small things,
a helpful companion.”
“You think that I could not be a tender companion!” exclaimed Iona
jealously. “I have put a rein upon myself. I will not make my smiles and
caresses so cheap as to give them to everybody.”
“I know that you are capable of great devotion, Iona,” Tacita said
tremulously, her eyes filling with tears. “Yet the hearts of humbler
women may not be cheaply given, though they may be more accessible. They
may be in something like the Basilica,—I speak with reverence!—no one
rejected who wishes to enter in kindness, but one alone enthroned above
all the rest, one to whom all who enter must pay respect. And perhaps
the very kindness felt for all may be an outshining from that enthroned
one, a reflection of the happiness he gives.”
“It is well in its way,” Iona said, trying to speak more gently. “But
such love is not good for Dylar when our existence hangs upon a thread.
It is no time for him to think of repose and tender companionship. It
would weaken him. He needs one who, instead of weeping if danger should
threaten, would send him forth even to death, if need were, sure that
such a death is the higher safety for him, and for her love the higher
possession. Yet”—she made a haughty gesture and turned her darkening
face away—“it is not that I love him: it is for San Salvador.”
“Teach me to be useful, to be strong, Iona!” said Tacita earnestly. “I
would give my life to the same cause.”
“Would you give up a fancy for it?” asked Iona, looking sharply into her
eyes. “It is so easy to offer a world that is not wanted, and refuse a
grain of sand that is asked for.”
“I would give all that I have the right to give,” Tacita replied, and
felt herself shrivel before this imperious woman, who stood before her
with the sunset golden on her head and the shadow of a mountain on her
bosom, with her brow made for a tiara, her lips to command, and her eyes
to scathe with their anger.
“Dylar has asked you to be his wife?” Iona said, low and quickly.
There was something blade-like in the outcome of this sentence; but it
brought help in seeming to call the conduct of Dylar in question.
Tacita folded her hands, raised her head with a dignified gesture, and
looked the speaker steadily in the face without replying.
“Ah!” Iona turned away with a fierce gesture, then returned. “It is not
a son of yours who will save San Salvador!” she exclaimed.
“Perhaps God will save it, Iona,” said Tacita gently, and rising, went
toward the stair.
She had descended but a few steps when Iona followed her. “I hope that I
have not been too rude,” she said. “Pardon me if I have offended you!
The subject is to me of such supreme importance that I forget all lesser
considerations in it.”
Her voice, though conventionally modulated, had something in it which
told her heart was beating violently.
“I am not offended,” murmured Tacita. “I respect and appreciate your
position, your authority, your rights.”
At the lower landing they found Dylar. He looked anxiously at Tacita. “I
have been waiting for you to come down,” he said. “And Elena has gone to
order our supper to be brought here. We are going to have the sun-dance
in the Square. Do you wish to go home first?”
She shook her head, and tried to smile. She could not speak.
“I will leave you both in better company,” Iona said courteously,
declining to stay; and bowing, left them.
For a time, to Tacita, it had seemed as if San Salvador had opened its
walls to admit a salt wave from the outer world; but the gap closed
again while Dylar attended to her with a careful solicitude sufficiently
reassuring as to his regard for her, but with no suggestion of fondness.
He was a kind friend; and the cheerfulness and decision of his manner
gave her strength.
“He is not one,” she thought, “to need the strength of a woman’s will to
keep him in the path of duty. And she—I am glad that Iona does not love
him. It would break my heart, if she did.”