Hypatia Part 10

'They say! The bigots and slanderers; wild beasts of the desert, and fanatic intriguers, who, in the words of Him they call their master, compa.s.s heaven and earth to make one proselyte, and when they have found him, make him two-fold more the child of h.e.l.l than themselves. Go--I forgive you: you are young, and know not yet the mystery of the world. Science will teach you some day that the outward frame is the sacrament of the soul's inward beauty. Such a soul I had fancied your face expressed; but I was mistaken. Foul hearts alone harbour such foul suspicions, and fancy others to be what they know they might become themselves. Go! Do I look like--? The very tapering of these fingers, if you could read their symbolism, would give your dream the lie.' And she flashed full on him, like sun-rays from a mirror, the full radiance of her glorious countenance.

Alas, poor Philammon! where were thy eloquent arguments, thy orthodox theories then? Proudly he struggled with his own man's heart of flesh, and tried to turn his eyes away; the magnet might as well struggle to escape from the spell of the north. In a moment, he knew not how, utter shame, remorse, longing for forgiveness, swept over him, and crushed him down; and he found himself on his knees before her, in abject and broken syllables entreating pardon.

'Go--I forgive you. But know before you go, that the celestial milk which fell from Here's bosom, bleaching the plant which it touched to everlasting whiteness, was not more taintless than the soul of Theon's daughter.'

He looked up in her face as he knelt before her. Unerring instinct told him that her words were true. He was a monk, accustomed to believe animal sin to be the deadliest and worst of all sins-- indeed, 'the great offence' itself, beside which all others were comparatively venial: where there was physical purity, must not all other virtues follow in its wake? All other failings were invisible under the dazzling veil of that great loveliness; and in his self- abas.e.m.e.nt he went on-- 'Oh, do not spurn me!--do not drive me away! I have neither friend, home, nor teacher. I fled last night from the men of my own faith, maddened by bitter insult and injustice--disappointed and disgusted with their ferocity, narrowness, ignorance. I dare not, I cannot, I will not return to the obscurity and the dulness of a Thebaid Laura. I have a thousand doubts to solve, a thousand questions to ask, about that great ancient world of which I know nothing--of whose mysteries, they say, you alone possess the key! I am a Christian; but I thirst for knowledge .... I do not promise to believe you-I do not promise to obey you; but let me hear! Teach me what you know, that I may compare it with what I know .... If indeed' (and he shuddered as he spoke the words) 'I do know anything!'

'Have you forgotten the epithets which you used to me just now?'

'No, no! But do you forget them; they were put into my mouth. I--I did not believe them when I said them. It was agony to me; but I did it, as I thought, for your sake--to save you. Oh, say that I may come and hear you again! Only from a distance--in the very farthest corner of your lecture-room. I will be silent; you shall never see me. But your words yesterday awoke in me--no, not doubts; but still I must, I must hear more, or be as miserable and homeless inwardly as I am in my outward circ.u.mstances!' And he looked up imploringly for consent.

'Rise. This pa.s.sion and that att.i.tude are fitting neither for you nor me.'

And as Philammon rose, she rose also, went into the library to her father, and in a few minutes returned with him.

'Come with me, young man,' said he, laying his hand kindly enough on Philammon's shoulder .... 'The rest of this matter you and I can settle;' and Philammon followed him, not daring to look back at Hypatia, while the whole room swam before his eyes.

'So, so I hear you have been saying rude things to my daughter. Well, she has forgiven you--'

'Has she?' asked the young monk, with an eager start.

'Ah! you may well look astonished. But I forgive you too. It is lucky for you, however, that I did not hear you, or else, old man as I am, I can't say what I might not have done. Ah! you little know, you little know what she is.--and the old pedant's eyes kindled with loving pride. 'May the G.o.ds give you some day such a daughter!-- that is, if you learn to deserve it--as virtuous as she is wise, as wise as she is beautiful. Truly they have repaid me for my labours in their service. Look, young man! little as you merit it, here is a pledge of your forgiveness, such as the richest and n.o.blest in Alexandria are glad to purchase with many an ounce of gold--a ticket of free admission to all her lectures henceforth! Now go; you have been favoured beyond your deserts, and should learn that the philosopher can practise what the Christian only preaches, and return good for evil.' And he put into Philammon's hand a slip of paper, and bid one of the secretaries show him to the outer door.

The youths looked up at him from their writing as he pa.s.sed, with faces of surprise and awe, and evidently thinking no more about the absurdity of his sheepskin and his tanned complexion; and be went out with a stunned, confused feeling, as of one who, by a desperate leap, has plunged into a new world. He tried to feel content; but be dare not. All before him was anxiety, uncertainty. He had cut himself adrift; he was on the great stream. Whither would it lead him? Well--was it not the great stream? Had not all mankind, for all the ages, been floating on it? Or was it but a desert-river, dwindling away beneath the fiery sun, destined to lose itself a few miles on, among the arid sands? Were a.r.s.enius and the faith of his childhood right? And was the Old World coming speedily to its death-throe, and the Kingdom of G.o.d at hand? Or was Cyril right, and the Church Catholic appointed to spread, and conquer, and destroy, and rebuild, till the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of G.o.d and of His Christ! If so, what use in this old knowledge which he craved? And yet, if the day of the destruction of all things were at hand, and the times destined to become worse and not better, till the end-how could that be? ....

'What news?' asked the little porter, who had been waiting for him at the door all the while. 'What news, O favourite of the G.o.ds!'

'I will lodge with you, and labour with you. Ask me no more at present. I am--I am-- 'Those who descended into the Cave of Trophonius, and beheld the unspeakable, remained astonished for three days, my young friend-- and so will you!' And they went forth together to earn their bread.

But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon that cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far above the noise and struggle of man and his work-day world?

She is sitting again, with her ma.n.u.scripts open before her; but she is thinking of the young monk, not of them.

'Beautiful as Antinous! .... Rather as the young Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the slaughter of the Python. Why should not he, too, become a slayer of Pythons, and loathsome monsters, bred from the mud of sense and matter? So bold and earnest! I can forgive him those words for the very fact of his having dared, here in my fathers house, to say them to me .... And yet so tender, so open to repentance and n.o.ble shame!--That is no plebeian by birth; patrician blood surely flows in those veins; it shows out in every att.i.tude, every tone, every motion of the hand and lip. lie cannot be one of the herd. Who ever knew one of them crave after knowledge for its own sake? .... And I have longed so for one real pupil! I have longed so to find one such man, among the effeminate selfish triflers who pretend to listen to me. I thought I had found one-- and the moment that I had lost him, behold, I find another; and that a fresher, purer, simpler nature than ever Raphael's was at its best. By all the laws of physiognomy--by all the symbolism of gesture and voice and complexion--by the instinct of my own heart, that young monk might he the instrument, the ready, valiant, obedient instrument, for carrying out all my dreams. If I could but train him into a Longinus, I could dare to play the part of a Zen.o.bia, with him as counseller .... And for my Odenatus--Orestes? Horrible!'

She covered her face with her hand a minute. 'No!' she said, das.h.i.+ng away the tears--'That--and anything--and everything for the cause of Philosophy and the G.o.ds!'

CHAPTER XI.

: THE LAURA AGAIN.

Not a sound, not a moving object, broke the utter stillness of the glen of Scetis. The shadows of the crags, though paling every moment before the spreading dawn, still shrouded all the gorge in gloom. A winding line of haze slept above the course of the rivulet. The plumes of the palm-trees hung motionless, as if awaiting in resignation the breathless blaze of the approaching day. At length, among the green ridges of the monastery garden, two gray figures rose from their knees, and began, with slow and feeble strokes, to break the silence by the clatter of their hoes among the pebbles.

'These beans grow wonderfully, brother Aufugus. We shall be able to sow our second crop, by G.o.d's blessing, a week earlier than we did last year.'

The person addressed returned no answer; and his companion, after watching him for some time in silence, recommenced- 'What is it, my brother? I have remarked lately a melancholy about you, which is hardly fitting for a man of G.o.d.'

A deep sigh was the only answer. The speaker laid down his hoe, and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of Aufugus, asked again- 'What is it, my friend? I will not claim with you my abbot's right to know the secrets of your heart: but surely that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken to me, however unworthy I may he to hear it!'

'Why should I not be sad, Pambo, my friend? Does not Solomon say that there is a time for mourning?'

'True: but a time for mirth also.'

'None to the penitent, burdened with the guilt of many sins.'

'Recollect what the blessed Anthony used to say--"Trust not in thine own righteousness, and regret not that which is past."'

'I do neither, Pambo.'

'Do not be too sure of that. Is it not because thou art still trusting in thyself, that thou dost regret the past, which shows thee that thou art not that which thou wouldst gladly pride thyself on being?'

'Pambo, my friend,' said a.r.s.enius solemnly, 'I will tell thee all. My sins are not yet past; for Honorius, my pupil, still lives, and in him lives the weakness and the misery of Rome. My sins past? If they are, why do I see rising before me, night after night, that train of accusing spectres, ghosts of men slain in battle, widows and orphans, virgins of the Lord shrieking in the grasp of barbarians, who stand by my bedside and cry, "Hadst thou done thy duty, we had not been thus! Where is that imperial charge which G.o.d committed to thee?"' .... And the old man hid his face in his hands and wept bitterly.

Pambo laid his hand again tenderly on the weeper's shoulder.

'Is there no pride here, my brother? Who art thou, to change the fate of nations and the hearts of emperors, which are in the hand of the King of kings? If thou wert weak, and imperfect in thy work-- for unfaithful, I will warrant thee, thou wert never--He put thee there, because thou wert imperfect, that so that which has come to pa.s.s might come to pa.s.s; and thou bearest thine own burden only-and yet not thou, but He who bore it for thee.'

'Why then am I tormented by these nightly visions?'

'Fear them not, friend. They are spirits of evil, and therefore lying spirits. Were they good spirits they would speak to thee only in pity, forgiveness, encouragement. But be they ghosts or demons, they must be evil, because they are accusers, like the Evil One himself, the accuser of the saints. He is the father of lies, and his children will be like himself. What said the blessed Anthony? That a monk should not busy his brain with painting spectres, or give himself up for lost; but rather be cheerful, as one who knows that he is redeemed, and in the hands of the Lord, where the Evil One has no power to hurt him. "For," he used to say, "the demons behave to us even as they find us. If they see us east down and faithless, they terrify us still more, that they may plunge us in despair. But if they see us full of faith, and joyful in the Lord, with our souls filled with the glory which shall be, then they shrink abashed, and flee away in confusion." Cheer up, friend! such thoughts are of the night, the hour of Satan and of the powers of darkness; and with the dawn they flee away.'

'And yet things are revealed to men upon their beds, in visions of the night'

'Be it so. Nothing, at all events, has been revealed to thee upon thy bed, except that which thou knowest already far better than Satan does, namely, that thou art a sinner. But for me, my friend, though I doubt not that such things are, it is the day, and not the night, which brings revelations.'

'How, then?'

'Because by day I can see to read that book which is written, like the Law given on Sinai, upon tables of stone, by the finger of G.o.d Himself.'

a.r.s.enius looked up at him inquiringly. Pambo smiled.

'Thou knowest that, like many holy men of old, I am no scholar, and knew not even the Greek tongue, till thou, out of thy brotherly kindness, taughtest it to me. But hast thou never heard what Anthony said to a certain Pagan who reproached him with his ignorance of books? "Which is first," he asked, "spirit, or letter?--Spirit, sayest thou? Then know, the healthy spirit needs no letters. My book is the whole creation, lying open before me, wherein I can read, whensoever I please, the word of G.o.d."'

'Dost thou not undervalue learning, my friend?'

'I am old among monks, and have seen much of their ways; and among them my simplicity seems to have seen this--many a man wearing himself with study, and tormenting his soul as to whether he believed rightly this doctrine and that, while he knew not with Solomon that in much learning is much sorrow, and that while he was puzzling at the letter of G.o.d's message, the spirit of it was going fast and faster out of him.'

'And how didst thou know that of such a man?'

'By seeing him become a more and more learned theologian, and more and more zealous for the letter of orthodoxy; and yet less and less loving and merciful--less and less full of trust in G.o.d, and of hopeful thoughts for himself and for his brethren, till he seemed to have darkened his whole soul with disputations, which breed only strife, and to have forgotten utterly the message which is written in that book wherewith the blessed Anthony was content' 'Of what message dost thou speak?'

'Look,' said the old abbot, stretching his hand toward the Eastern desert, 'and judge, like a wise man, for thyself!'

As he spoke, a long arrow of level light flashed down the gorge from crag to crag, awakening every crack and slab to vividness and life. The great crimson sun rose swiftly through the dim night-mist of the desert, and as he poured his glory down the glen, the haze rose in threads and plumes, and vanished, leaving the stream to sparkle round the rocks, like the living, twinkling eye of the whole scene. Swallows flashed by hundreds out of the cliffs, and began their air- dance for the day; the jerboa hopped stealthily homeward on his stilts from his stolen meal in the monastery garden; the brown sand- lizards underneath the stones opened one eyelid each, and having satisfied themselves that it was day, dragged their bloated bodies and whip-like tails out into the most burning patch of gravel which they could find, and nestling together as a further protection against cold, fell fast asleep again; the buzzard, who considered himself lord of the valley, awoke with a long querulous bark, and rising aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretch himself after his night's sleep, bung motionless, watching every lark which chirruped on the cliffs; while from the far-off Nile below, the awakening croak of pelicans, the clang of geese, the whistle of the G.o.dwit and curlew, came ringing up the windings of the glen; and last of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a morning hymn to some wild Eastern air; and a new day had begun in Seetis, like those which went before, and those which were to follow after, week after week, year after year, of toil and prayer as quiet as its sleep.

'What does that teach thee, Aufugus, my friend?'

a.r.s.enius was silent.

'To me it teaches this: that G.o.d is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. That in His presence is life, and fulness of joy for evermore. That He is the giver, who delights in His own bounty; the lover, whose mercy is over all His works--and why not over thee, too, O thou of little faith? Look at those thousand birds--and without our Father not one of them shall fall to the ground: and art thou not of more value than many sparrows, thou for whom G.o.d sent His Son to die? .... Ah, my friend, we must look out and around to see what G.o.d is like. It is when we persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own imperfections, that we learn to make a G.o.d after our own image, and fancy that our own darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of His light and love.'

'Thou speakest rather as a philosopher than as a penitent Catholic. For me, I feel that I want to look more, and not less, inward. Deeper self-examination, completer abstraction, than I can attain even here, are what I crave for. I long--forgive me, my friend--but I long more and more, daily, for the solitary life. This earth is accursed by man's sin: the less we see of it, it seems to me, the better.'

'I may speak as a philosopher, or as a heathen, for aught I know: yet it seems to me that, as they say, the half loaf is better than none; that the wise man will make the best of what he has, and throw away no lesson because the book is somewhat torn and soiled. The earth teaches me thus far already. Shall I shut my eyes to those invisible things of G.o.d which are clearly manifested by the things which are made, because some day they will be more clearly manifested than now? But as for more abstraction, are we so worldly here in Scetis?'

'Nay, my friend, each man has surely his vocation, and for each some peculiar method of life is more edifying than another. In my case, the habits of mind which I acquired in the world will cling to me in spite of myself even here. I cannot help watching the doings of others, studying their characters, planning and plotting for them, trying to prognosticate their future fate. Not a word, not a gesture of this our little family, but turns away my mind from the one thing needful.'

'And do you fancy that the anchorite in his cell has fewer distractions?'

'What can he have but the supply of the mere necessary wants of life? and them, even, he may abridge to the gathering of a few roots and herbs. Men have lived like the beasts already, that they might at the same time live like the angels--and why should not I also?'

'And thou art the wise man of the world--the student of the hearts of others--the anatomiser of thine own? Hast thou not found out that, besides a craving stomach, man carries with him a corrupt heart? Many a man I have seen who, in his haste to fly from the fiends without him, has forgotten to close the door of his heart against worse fiends who were ready to harbour within him. Many a monk, friend, changes his place, but not the anguish of his soul. I have known those who, driven to feed on their own thoughts in solitude, have desperately cast themselves from cliffs or ripped up their own bodies, in the longing to escape from thoughts, from which one companion, one kindly voice, might have delivered them. I have known those, too, who have been so puffed up by those very penances which were meant to humble them, that they have despised all means of grace, as though they were already perfect, and refusing even the Holy Eucharist, have lived in self-glorying dreams and visions suggested by the evil spirits. One such I knew, who, in the madness? of his pride, refused to be counselled by any mortal man-- saying that he would call no man master: and what befell him? He who used to pride himself on wandering a day's journey into the desert without food or drink, who boasted that he could sustain life for three months at a time only on wild herbs and the Blessed Bread, seized with an inward fire, fled from his cell back to the theatres, the circus, and the taverns, and ended his miserable days in desperate gluttony, holding all things to be but phantasms, denying his own existence, and that of G.o.d Himself.'

a.r.s.enius shook his head.

'Be it so. But my case is different. I have yet more to confess, my friend. Day by day I am more and more haunted by the remembrance of that world from which I fled. I know that if I returned I should feel no pleasure in those pomps, which, even while I battened on them, I despised. Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women; or discern any longer what I eat or what I drink? And yet--the palaces of those seven hills, their statesmen and their generals, their intrigues, their falls, and their triumphs--for they might rise and conquer yet!--for no moment are they out of my imagination,-no moment in which they are not tempting me back to them, like a moth to the candle which has already scorched him, with a dreadful spell, which I must at last obey, wretch that I am, against my own will, or break by fleeing into some outer desert, from whence return will be impossible!'

Pambo smiled.

'Again, I say, this is the worldly-wise man, the searcher of hearts! And he would fain flee from the little Laura, which does turn his thoughts at times from such vain dreams, to a solitude where he will be utterly unable to escape those dreams. Well, friend!--and what if thou art troubled at times by anxieties and schemes for this brother and for that? Better to be anxious for others than only for thyself. Better to have something to love--even something to weep over--than to become in some lonely cavern thine own world,-- perhaps, as more than one whom I have known, thine own G.o.d.'

'Do you know what you are saying?' asked a.r.s.enius in a startled tone.

'I say, that by fleeing into solitude a man cuts himself off from all which makes a Christian man; from law, obedience, fellow-help, self-sacrifice--from the communion of saints itself.'

'How then?'

'How canst thou hold communion with those toward whom thou canst show no love? And how canst thou show thy love but by works of love?'

'I can, at least, pray day and night for all mankind. Has that no place--or rather, has it not the mightiest place--in the communion of saints!

'He who cannot pray for his brothers whom he does see, and whose sins and temptations he knows, will pray but dully, my friend Aufugus, for his brothers whom he does not see, or for anything else. And he who will not labour for his brothers, the same will soon cease to pray for them, or love them either. And then, what is written? "If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how will he love G.o.d whom he hath not seen?"'

'Again, I say, do you know whither your argument leads?'

'I am a plain man, and know nothing about arguments. If a thing be true, let it lead where it will, for it leads where G.o.d wills.'

'But at this rate, it were better for a man to take a wife, and have children, and mix himself up in all the turmoil of carnal affections, in order to have as many as possible to love, and fear for, and work for.'

Pambo was silent for a while.

'I am a monk and no logician. But this I say, that thou leavest not the Laura for the desert with my good will. I would rather, had I my wish, see thy wisdom installed somewhere nearer the metropolis-- at Troe or Canopus, for example--where thou mightest be at hand to fight the Lord's battles. Why wert thou taught worldly wisdom, but to use it for the good of the Church? It is enough. Let us go.'

And the two old men walked homeward across the valley, little guessing the practical answer which was ready for their argument in Abbot Pambo's cell, in the shape of a tall and grim ecclesiastic, who was busily satisfying his hunger with dates and millet, and by no means refusing the palm-wine, the sole delicacy of the monastery, which had been brought forth only in honour of a guest.

The stately and courtly hospitality of Eastern manners, as well as the self-restraining kindliness of monastic Christianity, forbade the abbot to interrupt the stranger; and it was not till he had finished a hearty meal that Pambo asked his name and errand.

'My unworthiness is called Peter the Reader. I come from Cyril, with letters and messages to the brother Aufugus.'

Pambo rose, and bowed reverentially.

'We have heard your good report, sir, as of one zealously affected in the cause of the Church Catholic. Will it please you to follow us to the cell of Aufugus?'

Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important air to the little hut, and there taking from his bosom Cyril's epistle, handed it to a.r.s.enius, who sat long, reading and re-reading with a clouded brow, while Pambo watched him with simple awe, not daring to interrupt by a question lucubrations which he considered of unfathomable depth.

'These are indeed the last days,' said a.r.s.enius at length, 'spoken of by the prophet, when many shall run to and fro. So Heraclian has actually sailed for Italy?'

'His armament was met on the high seas by Alexandrian merchantmen, three weeks ago.'

'And Orestes hardens his heart more and more?'

'Ay, Pharaoh that he is; or rather, the heathen woman hardens it for him.'

'I always feared that woman above all the schools of the heathen,' said a.r.s.enius. 'But the Count Heraclian, whom I always held for the wisest as well as the most righteous of men! Alas!--alas! what virtue will withstand, when ambition enters the heart!'

'Fearful, truly,' said Peter, 'is that same l.u.s.t of power: but for him, I have never trusted him since he began to be indulgent to those Donatists.'

'Too true. So does one sin beget another.'

'And I consider that indulgence to sinners is the worst of all sins whatsoever.'

'Not of all, surely, reverend sir?' said Pambo humbly. But Peter, taking no notice of the interruption, went on to a.r.s.enius-- 'And now, what answer am I to bear back from your wisdom to his holiness?'

'Let me see--let me see. He might--it needs consideration--I ought to know more of the state of parties. He has, of course, communicated with the African bishops, and tried to unite them with him?'

'Two months ago. But the stiff-necked schismatics are still jealous of him, and hold aloof.'

'Schismatics is too harsh a term, my friend. But has he sent to Constantinople?'

'He needs a messenger accustomed to courts. It was possible, he thought, that your experience might undertake the mission.'

'Me? Who am I? Alas! alas! fresh temptations daily! Let him send by the hand of whom he will .... And yet--were I--at least in Alexandria--I might advise from day to day .... I should certainly see my way clearer .... And unforeseen chances might arise, too .... Pambo, my friend, thinkest thou that it would be sinful to obey the Holy Patriarch?'

'Aha!' said Pambo, laughing, 'and thou art he who was for fleeing into the desert an hour agone! And now, when once thou smellest the battle afar off, thou art pawing in the valley, like the old war- horse. Go, and G.o.d be with thee! Thou wilt be none the worse for it. Thou art too old to fall in love, too poor to buy a bishopric, and too righteous to have one given thee.'

'Art thou in earnest?'

'What did I say to thee in the garden? Go, and see our son, and send me news of him.'

'Ah! shame on my worldly-mindedness! I had forgotten all this time to inquire for him. How is the youth, reverend sir?'