I implored Monsieur Safrac to listen to me a moment more.
"When she went away, my father, Leila left me a leaf of cypress on which certain characters which I cannot decipher had been traced with the point of a style. It seems to be a kind of amulet."
Monsieur Safrac took the light film which I held out to him and examined it carefully.
"This," he said, "is written in Persian of the best period and can be easily translated thus:
"THE PRAYER OF LEILA, DAUGHTER OF LILITH
"_My G.o.d, promise me death, so that I may taste of life. My G.o.d, give me remorse, so that I may at last find happiness. My G.o.d, make me the equal of the daughters of Eve._"
LAETA ACILIA
TO ARY RENAN
I.
Laeta Acilia lived in Ma.r.s.eilles during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. She had been married for several years to a Roman n.o.ble named Helvius, but she had no children, though she longed pa.s.sionately to become a mother. One day as she went to the temple to pray to the G.o.ds she found the entrance crowded by a band of men, half naked, emaciated and devoured by leprosy and ulcers. She paused in terror on the lowest step of the temple. Laeta Acilia was not without compa.s.sion. She pitied the poor creatures, but she was afraid of them. Nor had she ever seen beggars as wild looking as those who at this moment crowded before her, livid, lifeless, their empty wallets flung at their feet. She grew pale and held her hand to her heart; she could neither advance nor escape, and she felt her limbs giving way under her when a woman of striking beauty detached herself from these unfortunates and came towards her.
"Fear nothing, young woman," and the unknown spoke in a voice both grave and tender, "the men you see here are not cruel. They are the bearers not of falsehood and evil, but of truth and love. We have come from Judaea, where the Son of G.o.d has died and risen again. When He ascended to the right hand of His Father those who believed in Him suffered cruel wrongs. Stephen was stoned by the people. As for us, the priests placed us on board a ship without sails or rudder, and we were delivered over to the waters of the sea to the end that we should perish. But the G.o.d who loved us in His mortal life mercifully led us to the harbour of this town. Alas! the people of Ma.r.s.eilles are avaricious, idolatrous and cruel. They permit the disciples of Jesus to die of hunger and cold.
And had we not taken refuge in this temple, which they deem sacred, they would already have dragged us to their gloomy prisons. And yet it would have been well had they welcomed us, since we bring good tidings."
Having thus spoken the stranger held out her hand towards her companions and pointed to each in turn.
"That old man, lady," she said, "who turns on you his serene gaze, that is Cedon, he whom, though blind from birth, the Master healed. Cedon now sees with equal clearness things both visible and invisible. That other old man, whose beard is as white as the snow on the mountains, is Maximin. This man, still so young, and who yet seems so weary, is my brother. He was possessed of great wealth in Jerusalem. Near him stand Martha my sister and Mantilla, the faithful servant who in happier days gathered olives on the hillsides of Bethany."
"And you," asked Laeta Acilia, "you whose voice is so soft and whose face is so beautiful, what is your name?"
The Jewess replied:
"I am called Mary Magdalen. I divined by the gold embroidery on your raiment, and the unconscious pride of your bearing, that you are the wife of one of the princ.i.p.al citizens of this town. For this reason I have approached you, to the end that you may move the heart of your husband on behalf of the disciples of Jesus Christ. Say to this rich man: "Lord, they are naked, let us clothe them; they are anhungered and thirsty let us give them bread and wine, and G.o.d will restore to us in His Kingdom what was borrowed from us in His name.""
Laeta Acilia replied:
"Mary, I will do as you ask. My husband is named Helvius; he is of n.o.ble rank and one of the richest citizens of the town; never for long does he refuse what I desire, for he loves me. Your companions have now ceased, O Mary, to fill me with fear. I shall even dare to pa.s.s close to them, though their limbs are polluted by ulcers, and I shall go to the temple to pray to the immortal G.o.ds to grant my wish. Alas! hitherto they have refused."
Mary, with arms outstretched, barred her way.
"Beware, lady," she cried, "of worshipping vain idols. Do not demand of images of stone words of hope and life. There is only one G.o.d, and with my hair I have wiped His feet."
At these words the flashing of her eyes, dark as the sky in a storm, mingled with tears, and Laeta Acilia said to herself:
"I am pious, and I faithfully perform the ceremonies religion demands, but in this woman there is a strange feeling of a love divine."
Mary Magdalen continued in ecstasy: "He was the G.o.d of Heaven and earth, and He uttered His parables seated on the bench by the threshold, under the shade of the old fig-tree. He was young and beautiful. He would have been glad to be loved. When he came to supper in my sister"s house I sat at His feet, and the words flowed from His lips like the waters of a torrent. And when my sister complained of my sloth, saying: "Master, tell her it is but right that she should aid me to prepare the supper,"
He smiled and made excuse for me, and permitted me to remain seated at His feet, and said that I had chosen the good part.
"One would have thought to see Him that He was but a young shepherd from the mountains, and yet His eyes flashed flames like those that issued from the brow of Moses. His gentleness was like the peace of night and His anger was more terrible than a thunderbolt. He loved the humble and the little ones. Along the roadside the children ran towards Him and clung to His garments. He was the G.o.d of Abraham and Jacob, and with the same hands that had created the sun and the stars, He caressed the cheeks of the newly born whom their happy mothers held out to Him from the thresholds of their cottages. He was himself as simple as a child, and He raised the dead to life. Here among my companions you see my brother whom He raised from the dead. Behold, lady! Lazarus bears on his face the pallor of death, and in his eyes is the horror of one who has seen h.e.l.l."
But for some moments past Laeta Acilia had ceased to listen.
She raised towards the Jewess her candid eyes and her small, smooth forehead.
"Mary," she said, "I am a pious woman, attached to the faith of my fathers. Unbelief is evil for our s.e.x. And it does not beseem the wife of a Roman n.o.ble to accept new fashions in religions. And yet I must confess that there are some charming G.o.ds in the East. Your G.o.d, Mary, seems one of these. You have told me that He loves little children, and that He kisses them as they lie in the arms of their young mothers. By that I see that He is a G.o.d who is favourable to women, and I regret that He is not held in esteem among the aristocracy and the official cla.s.ses, or I would gladly bring him offerings of honey-cakes. But, listen, Mary the Jewess, appeal to Him, you whom He loves, and demand of Him for me that which I dare not demand myself, and which my G.o.ddesses have refused."
Laeta Acilia uttered these words with hesitation. She paused and blushed.
"What is it," Mary Magdalen asked eagerly, "and what desire, lady, has your unsatisfied soul?"
Gaining courage little by little, Laeta Acilia replied:
"Mary, you are a woman, and though I know you not, I yet may confide to you a woman"s secret. During the six years that I have been married I have not had a child, and that is a great sorrow to me; I need a child to love; the love in my heart for the little creature I am awaiting, and who yet may never come, is stifling me. If your G.o.d, Mary Magdalen, grants me through your intercession what my G.o.ddesses have denied me, I shall say that He is a good G.o.d, and I will love Him and I will make my friends love Him. And like us they are young and rich, and they belong to the first families of the town."
Mary Magdalen replied gravely:
"Daughter of the Romans, when you shall have received that for which you ask, may you remember this promise that you have made to the servant of Jesus."
"I shall remember," she replied. "In the meantime take this purse, Mary, and divide the money it contains among your companions. Farewell, I shall return to my house. As soon as I arrive I will send baskets full of bread and meat for you and your friends. Tell your brother and your sister and your friends that they may without fear leave the sanctuary where they have taken refuge and go to some inn on the outskirts of the town. Helvius, who has great influence in the town, will prevent any one molesting them. May the G.o.ds protect you, Mary Magdalen! When it shall please you to see me again ask of the pa.s.sers-by for the house of Laeta Acilia; any of the citizens will be able to show you the way without trouble."
II.
IT was six months later that Laeta Acilia, lying on a purple couch in the courtyard of her house, crooned a little song that had no sense and which her mother had sung before her. The water sang gaily in the fountain out of whose shallow basin rose young Tritons in marble, and the balmy-air gently stirred the murmuring leaves of the old plane-tree.
Tired, languid, happy, heavy as a bee leaving the orchard, the young woman crossed her arms over her rounded body, and, having ceased her song, glanced about her and sighed in the fulness of pride.
At her feet her black, white and yellow slaves were busy with needle, shuttle and spindle, vying with each other as they worked at the garments for the expected infant. Laeta stretched out her hand and took a little cap which an old slave laughingly offered her. She placed it on her closed hand and laughed in turn. It was a little cap of purple and gold, silver and pearls, and splendid as the dreams of a poor African slave.
At that moment a stranger entered this interior court. She was clothed in a seamless garment of one piece, in colour like the dust of the roads. Her long hair was covered with ashes, but her face, worn by tears, still shone with glory and beauty.
The slaves, mistaking her for a beggar, were about to drive her away when Laeta Acilia, recognising her at the first glance, rose and ran towards her.
"Mary, Mary," she cried, "it is true that you were the favourite of a G.o.d. He whom you loved on earth has heard you in Heaven, and through your intercession He has granted my prayer. See," she added, and she showed her the little cap which she still held in her hand, "how happy I am and how grateful to you."
"I knew it," replied Mary Magdalen "and I have come, Laeta Acilia, to instruct you in the truth of Jesus Christ."
Thereupon the Ma.r.s.eillaise dismissed her slaves, and offered the Jewess an ivory armchair with cushions embroidered in gold. But Mary Magdalen, pushing it back with disgust, seated herself on the ground with feet crossed in the shade of the great plane-tree stirred by the murmuring breeze.
"Daughter of the Gentiles," she said, "you have not despised the disciples of the Lord. For this reason I will teach you to know Jesus as I know Him, to the end that you shall love Him as I love Him. I was a sinner when I saw for the first time the most beautiful of the sons of men."
Thereupon she told how she had thrown herself at the feet of Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper, and how she had poured over the Master"s adored feet all the ointment of spikenard contained in the alabaster vase. She repeated the words the gentle Master had uttered in reply to the murmurs of His rough disciples.