"And was that worth a week"s journey in perpetual danger of death?"
"As for danger of death, that weighs little with a man who is careless of life. And as for the week"s journey, I had a dream one night, on my way, which made me question whether I were wise in troubling a Christian bishop with any thoughts or questions which relate merely to poor human beings like myself, who marry and are given in marriage."
"You forget, friend, that you are speaking to one who has married, and loved-and lost."
"I did not. But you see how rude I am growing. I am no fit company for you, or any man. I believe I shall end by turning robber-chief, and heading a party of Ausurians."
"But," said the patient Synesius "you have forgotten your dream all this while.
"Forgotten!-I did not promise to tell it you-did I?"
"No; but as it seems to have contained some sort of accusation against my capacity, do you not think it but fair to tell the accused what it was?"
Raphael smiled.
"Well then.... Suppose I had dreamt this. That a philosopher, an academic, and a believer in nothing and in no man, had met at Berenice certain rabbis of the Jews, and heard them reading and expounding a certain book of Solomon-the Song of Songs. You, as a learned man, know into what sort of trumpery allegory they would contrive to twist it; how the bride"s eyes were to mean the scribes who were full of wisdom, as the pools of Heshbon were of water; and her stature spreading like a palm-tree, the priests who spread out their hands when blessing the people; and the left hand which should be under her head, the Tephilim which these old pedants wore on their left wrists; and the right hand which should hold her, the Mezuzah which they fixed on the right side of their doors to keep off devils; and so forth."
"I have heard such silly Cabbalisms, certainly."
"You have? Then suppose that I went on, and saw in my dream how this same academic and unbeliever, being himself also a Hebrew of the Hebrews, s.n.a.t.c.hed the roll out of the rabbis" hands, and told them that they were a party of fools for trying to set forth what the book might possibly mean, before they had found out what it really did mean; and that they could only find out that by looking honestly at the plain words to see what Solomon meant by it. And then, suppose that this same apostate Jew, this member of the synagogue of Satan, in his carnal and lawless imaginations, had waxed eloquent with the eloquence of devils, and told them that the book set forth, to those who had eyes to see, how Solomon the great king, with his threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number, forgets all his seraglio and his luxury in pure and n.o.ble love for the undefiled, who is but one; and how as his eyes are opened to see that G.o.d made the one man for the one woman, and the one woman to the one man, even as it was in the garden of Eden, so all his heart and thoughts become pure, and gentle, and simple; how the song of the birds, and the scent of the grapes, and the spicy southern gales, and all the simple country pleasures of the glens of Lebanon, which he shares with his own vine-dressers and slaves, become more precious in his eyes than all his palaces and artificial pomp; and the man feels that he is in harmony, for the first time in his life, with the universe of G.o.d, and with the mystery of the seasons; that within him, as well as without him, the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.... And suppose I saw in my dream how the rabbis, when they heard those wicked words, stopped their ears with one accord, and ran upon that son of Belial and cast him out, because he blasphemed their sacred books by his carnal interpretations. And suppose-I only say suppose-that I saw in my dream how the poor man said in his heart, "I will go to the Christians; they acknowledge the sacredness of this same book; and they say that their G.o.d taught them that "in the beginning G.o.d made man, male and female." Perhaps they will tell me whether this Song of Songs does not, as it seems to me to do, show the pa.s.sage upwards from brutal polygamy to that monogamy which they so solemnly command, and agree with me, that it is because the song preaches this that it has a right to take its place among the holy writings? You, as a Christian bishop, should know what answer such a man would receive.... You are silent? Then I will tell you what answer he seemed to receive in my dream. "O blasphemous and carnal man, who pervertest Holy Scripture into a cloak for thine own licentiousness, as if it spoke of man"s base and sensual affections, know that this book is to be spiritually interpreted of the marriage between the soul and its Creator, and that it is from this very book that the Catholic Church derives her strongest arguments in favour of holy virginity, and the glories of a celibate life.""
Synesius was still silent.
"And what do you think I saw in my dream that that man did when he found these Christians enforcing, as a necessary article of practice, as well as of faith, a baseless and bombastic metaphor, borrowed from that very Neo-Platonism out of which he had just fled for his life? He cursed the day he was born, and the hour in which his father was told, "Thou hast gotten a man-child," and said, "Philosophers, Jews, and Christians, farewell for ever and a day! The clearest words of your most sacred books mean anything or nothing" as the case may suit your fancies; and there is neither truth nor reason under the sun. What better is there for a man, than to follow the example of his people, and to turn usurer, and money-getter, and cajoler of fools in his turn, even as his father was before him?""
Synesius remained a while in deep thought, and at last- "And yet you came to me?"
"I did, because you have loved and married; because you have stood out manfully against this strange modern insanity, and refused to give up, when you were made a bishop, the wife whom G.o.d had given you. You, I thought, could solve the riddle for me, if any man could."
"Alas, friend! I have begun to distrust, of late, my power of solving riddles. After all, why should they be solved? What matters one more mystery in a world of mysteries? "If thou marry, thou hast not sinned," are St. Paul"s own words; and let them be enough for us. Do not ask me to argue with you, but to help you. Instead of puzzling me with deep questions, and tempting me to set up my private judgment, as I have done too often already, against the opinion of the Church, tell me your story, and test my sympathy rather than my intellect. I shall feel with you and work for you, doubt not, even though I am unable to explain to myself why I do it."
"Then you cannot solve my riddle?"
"Let me help you," said Synesius with a sweet smile, "to solve it for yourself. You need not try to deceive me. You have a love, an undefiled, who is but one. When you possess her, you will be able to judge better whether your interpretation of the Song is the true one; and if you still think that it is, Synesius, at least, will have no quarrel against you. He has always claimed for himself the right of philosophising in private, and he will allow the same liberty to you" whether the mob do or not."
"Then you agree with me? Of course you do!"
"Is it fair to ask me whether I accept a novel interpretation, which I have only heard five minutes ago, delivered in a somewhat hasty and rhetorical form?"
"You are shirking the question," said Raphael peevishly.
"And what if I am? Tell me, point-blank, most self-tormenting of men, can I help you in practice, even though I choose to leave you to yourself in speculation?"
"Well, then, if you will have my story, take it, and judge for yourself of Christian common sense."
And hurriedly, as if ashamed of his own confession, and yet compelled, in spite of himself, to unbosom it, he told Synesius all, from his first meeting with Victoria to his escape from her at Berenice.
The good bishop, to Aben-Ezra"s surprise, seemed to treat the whole matter as infinitely amusing. He chuckled, smote his hand on his thigh, and nodded approval at every pause-perhaps to give the speaker courage-perhaps because he really thought that Raphael"s prospects were considerably less desperate than he fancied....
"If you laugh at me, Synesius, I am silent. It is quite enough to endure the humiliation of telling you that I am-confound it!-like any boy of sixteen."
"Laugh at you?-with you, you mean. A convent? Pooh, pooh! The old Prefect has enough sense, I will warrant him, not to refuse a good match for his child."
"You forget that I have not the honour of being a Christian."
"Then we"ll make you one. You won"t let me convert you, I know; you always used to gibe and jeer at my philosophy. But Augustine comes to-morrow.
"Augustine?"
"He does indeed; and we must be off by daybreak, with all the armed men we can muster, to meet and escort him, and to hunt, of course, going and coming; for we have had no food this fortnight, but what our own dogs and bows have furnished us. He shall take you in hand, and cure you of all your Judaism in a week; and then just leave the rest to me; I will manage it somehow or other. It is sure to come right. No; do not be bashful. It will be real amus.e.m.e.nt to a poor wretch who can find nothing else to do-Heigho! And as for lying under an obligation to me, why we can square that by your lending me three or four thousand gold pieces-Heaven knows I want them!-on the certainty of never seeing them again."
Raphael could not help laughing in his turn.
"Synesius is himself still, I see, and not unworthy of his ancestor Hercules; and though he shrinks from cleansing the Augean stable of my soul, paws like the war-horse in the valley at the hope of undertaking any lesser labours in my behalf. But, my dear generous bishop, this matter is more serious, and I, the subject of it, have become more serious also, than you fancy. Consider: by the uncorrupt honour of your Spartan forefathers, Agis, Brasidas, and the rest of them, don"t you think that you are, in your hasty kindness, tempting me to behave in a way which they would have called somewhat rascally?"
"How then, my dear man! You have a very honourable and praiseworthy desire; and I am willing to help you to compa.s.s it."
"Do you think that I have not cast about before now for more than one method of compa.s.sing it for myself? My good man, I have been tempted a dozen times already to turn Christian: but there has risen up in me the strangest fancy about conscience and honour.... I never was scrupulous before, Heaven knows-I am not over-scrupulous now-except about her. I cannot dissemble before her. I dare not look in her face when I had a lie in my right hand.... She looks through one-into one-like a clear-eyed awful G.o.ddess.... I never was ashamed in my life till my eyes met hers...."
"But if you really became a Christian?"
"I cannot. I should suspect my own motives. Here is another of these absurd soul-anatomising scruples which have risen up in me. I should suspect that I had changed my creed because I wished to change it-that if I was not deceiving her I was deceiving myself. If I had not loved her it might have been different: but now-just because I do love her, I will not, I dare not, listen to Augustine"s arguments, or my own thoughts on the matter."
"Most wayward of men!" cried Synesius, half peevishly; "you seem to take some perverse pleasure in throwing yourself into the waves again, the instant you have climbed a rock of refuge!"
"Pleasure? Is there any pleasure in feeling oneself at death-grips with the devil? I bad given up believing in him for many a year .... And behold, the moment that I awaken to anything n.o.ble and right, I find the old serpent alive and strong at my throat! No wonder that I suspect him, you, myself-I, who have been tempted, every hour in the last week, temptations to become a devil. Ay," he went on, raising his voice, as all the fire of his intense Eastern nature flashed from his black eyes, "to be a devil! From my childhood till now never have I known what it was to desire and not to possess. It is not often that I have had to trouble any poor Naboth for his vineyard: but when I have taken a fancy to it, Naboth has always found it wiser to give way. And now.... Do you fancy that I have not had a dozen h.e.l.lish plots flashing across me in the last week? Look here! This is the mortgage of her father"s whole estate. I bought it-whether by the instigation of Satan or of G.o.d-of a banker in Berenice, the very day I left them; and now they, and every straw which they possess, are in my power. I can ruin them-sell them as slaves-betray them to death as rebels-and last, but not least, cannot I hire a dozen worthy men to carry her off, and cut the Gordian knot most simply and summarily? And yet I dare not. I must be pure to approach the pure; and righteous, to kiss the feet of the righteous. Whence came this new conscience to me I know not, but come it has; and I dare no more do a base thing toward her, than I dare toward a G.o.d, if there be one. This very mortgage-I hate it, curse it, now that I possess it-the tempting devil!"
"Burn it," said Synesius quietly.
"Perhaps I may. At least, used it never shall be. Compel her? I am too proud, or too honourable, or something or other, even to solicit her. She must come to me; tell me with her own lips that she loves me, that she will take me, and make me worthy of her. She must have mercy on me, of her own free will, or-let her pine and die in that accursed prison; and then a scratch with the trusty old dagger for her father, and another for myself, will save him from any more superst.i.tions, and me from any more philosophic doubts, for a few aeons of ages, till we start again in new lives-he, I suppose, as a jacka.s.s, and I as a baboon. What matter? but unless I possess her by fair means, G.o.d do so to me, and more also, if I attempt base ones!"
"G.o.d be with you, my son, in the n.o.ble warfare!" said Synesius, his eyes filling with kindly tears.
"It is no n.o.ble warfare at all. It is a base coward fear, in one who never before feared man or devil, and is now fallen low enough to be afraid of a helpless girl!"
"Not so," cried Synesius, in his turn; "it is a n.o.ble and a holy fear. You fear her goodness. Could you see her goodness, much less fear it, were there not a Divine Light within you which showed you what, and how awful, goodness was? Tell me no more, Raphael Aben-Ezra, that you do not fear G.o.d; for he who fears Virtue, fears Him whose likeness Virtue is. Go on-go on.... Be brave, and His strength will be made manifest in your weakness." ...............
It was late that night before Synesius compelled his guest to retire, after having warned him not to disturb himself if he heard the alarm-bell ring, as the house was well garrisoned, and having set the water-clock by which he and his servants measured their respective watches. And then the good bishop, having disposed his sentinels, took his station on the top of his tower, close by the warning-bell; and as he looked out over the broad lands of his forefathers, and prayed that their desolation might come to an end at last, he did not forget to pray for the desolation of the guest who slept below, a happier and more healthy slumber than he had known for many a week. For before Raphael lay down that night, he had torn to shreds Majoricus"s mortgage, and felt a lighter and a better man as he saw the cunning temptation consuming sc.r.a.p by sc.r.a.p in the lamp-flame. And then, wearied out with fatigue of body and mind, he forgot Synesius, Victoria, and the rest, and seemed to himself to wander all night among the vine-clad glens of Lebanon, amid the gardens of lilies, and the beds of spices; while shepherds" music lured him on and on, and girlish voices, chanting the mystic idyll of his mighty ancestor, rang soft and fitful through his weary brain. ...............
Before sunrise the next morning, Raphael was faring forth gallantly, well armed and mounted, by Synesius"s side, followed by four or five brace of tall brush-tailed greyhounds, and by the faithful Bran, whose lop-ears and heavy jaws, unique in that land of p.r.i.c.k-ears and fox-noses, formed the absorbing subject of conversation among some twenty smart retainers, who, armed to the teeth for chase and war, rode behind the bishop on half-starved, raw-boned horses, inured by desert training and bad times to do the maximum of work upon the minimum of food.
For the first few miles they rode in silence, through ruined villages and desolated farms, from which here and there a single inhabitant peeped forth fearfully, to pour his tale of woe into the ears of the hapless bishop, and then, instead of asking alms from him, to entreat his acceptance of some paltry remnant of grain or poultry, which had escaped the hands of the marauders; and as they clung to his hands, and blessed him as their only hope and stay, poor Synesius heard patiently again and again the same purposeless tale of woe, and mingled his tears with theirs, and then spurred his horse on impatiently, as if to escape from the sight of misery which he could not relieve; while a voice in Raphael"s heart seemed to ask him-"Why was thy wealth given to thee, but that thou mightest dry, if but for a day, such tears as these?"
And he fell into a meditation which was not without its fruit in due season, but which lasted till they had left the enclosed country, and were climbing the slopes of the low rolling hills, over which lay the road from the distant sea. But as they left the signs of war behind them, the volatile temper of the good bishop began to rise. He petted his hounds, chatted to his men, discoursed on the most probable quarter for finding game, and exhorted them cheerfully enough to play the man, as their chance of having anything to eat at night depended entirely on their prowess during the day.
"Ah!" said Raphael at last, glad of a pretext for breaking his own chain of painful thought, "there is a vein of your land-salt. I suspect that you were all at the bottom of the sea once, and that the old Earth-shaker Neptune, tired of your bad ways, gave you a lift one morning, and set you up as dry land, in order to be rid of you."
"It may really be so. They say that the Argonauts returned back through this country from the Southern Ocean, which must have been therefore far nearer us than it is now, and that they carried their mystic vessel over these very hills to the Syrtis. However, we have forgotten all about the sea thoroughly enough since that time. I well remember my first astonishment at the side of a galley in Alexandria, and the roar of laughter with which my fellow-students greeted my not unreasonable remark, that it looked very like a centipede."