The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 124

What makes this "a body" thought he. This "body" is brown, heavy, hard, square, or has many other properties which come under my notice.

But it is evident that neither the color, weight, cohesion, nor form const.i.tute its _essence_. They are its manner of beings--not its being. If I modify it, destroy it even, it will still {697} be the same body, and I shall, after all, have only attacked its manner of being; the essence which heretofore has always escaped me--_the soul of the body_, if I may say so--will have suffered no change. It is as if I were suddenly to become hunchback, lame, idiotic--I would still be the same man. I must discover the substance _quod sub stat_; in the first place, what causes this to be; in the second place, what const.i.tutes it a body; and finally, what makes it this particular body which I hold in my hand and not another.

The problem was formidable; it was the mystery of the omnipotence of the G.o.d who created the world, and nevertheless this unknown Prometheus shrank not from the task, and flattered himself he could wring from created matter the secrets of its Creator.

In his experiments' Ben-Ha-Zelah had started with the axiom that all bodies were formed from certain elements which were invariable, but combined in different ways. Moreover, his researches had proved to him that many elements, formerly believed to be primary, were composed of different elements into which they might again be readily resolved. So that seeing their number decrease as his investigations became more abstruse and his a.n.a.lyses more delicate, he had arrived at the conclusion that there existed an original and absolute substance of which all bodies, even those apparently the most different, were only variations.

He affirmed the ident.i.ty of the base under the infinite variety of the forms. This primary substance which he considered as coeternal with G.o.d, was, he thought, that on which Jehovah breathed in the beginning, and in his Satanic pride he believed two things--first that the Almighty had combined the atoms of matter in so wondrously complex a manner only to conceal from man the secret of its creation--and secondly, that the Rabbi-Ben-Ha-Zelah would be able to baffle the precautions of the Almighty, and by a.n.a.lysis after a.n.a.lysis, at length succeed in finding the simple primary substance from which all things were originally formed.

Such were the thoughts which continually filled his mind--such the gigantic plan he had conceived. Again and again he said to himself that by taking from a body one after the other its contingent qualities, as one takes the bark from a nut, he would succeed at length in penetrating its most hidden depths, to that _matter essence_ from which was made, as he believed, all that existed in the universe.

He had inscribed on the door of his laboratory _Materia, mater_. And as soon as he should be able to imprison in his alembics this primary matter he could at will, disposing it after certain forms, make in turn bronze, stone, wood, or gold. Nay more, he hoped to surprise with the same blow the mystery of life--and then, thought he in his impious pride, I shall be a creator, like unto Him before whom every knee bends in adoration. I shall be G.o.d! _Eritis sicut dei_.

The old man, lost in the vain search for the absolute basis of matter, little suspected that the final word of all science is; "The essence of matter is immaterial."

However, he devoted himself most zealously to the great work he had undertaken, and pa.s.sed night after night in the recesses of his laboratory which would have reminded one of the entrance to the infernal regions but for the sweet presence of the young and lovely Rachel, who glided in and out, bringing order out of confusion, and in the evening beguiled the long hours by singing to her father s.n.a.t.c.hes of the old Hebrew songs of which such touching and beautiful fragments have come down to us.

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V.

One night, Ben-Ha-Zelah, regardless of fatigue, was still bending over his glowing furnaces. For more than a week he had allowed himself no sleep, nor had he permitted his eyes to wander from the vast crucible which had been heated to white beat for six consecutive months. He had discovered phenomena hitherto unknown. His bony hands clutched convulsively the handle of the bellows, and his eager, care-worn face was illuminated with a two-fold radiance, that from the purple light of the furnace and from the interior flame which consumed his soul. He was motionless from intensity of emotion. At last then he was about to attain the aim and desire of his whole life!

The primary substance, the absolute essence of matter, he was about to seize it--to be its lord. The old man still watched; a whitish vapor rose slowly from the crucible; matter decomposed in this crucible seemed to be a prey to a fearful travail--to struggle in an internal conflict.

The old man raised his tall form to its full height and at that moment appeared like a second Lucifer. He shouted in triumph, "I have created!"

Then rus.h.i.+ng to the cas.e.m.e.nt he gazed upward to the starry heavens, not in prayer, but in defiance.

"I have created!" he repeated, "I have created! I have conquered! I am the equal of G.o.d!"

A noise, slight in reality, but to the excited senses of Ben-Ha-Zelah, louder than the crash of thunder, was heard behind him. He turned with agitated countenance. The crucible, unwatched during his delirium of pride, had fallen, and was s.h.i.+vered to atoms. All was lost; the creation of him who aspired to an equality with the Most High was but a heap of ashes.

Ben-Ha-Zelah was stunned by this unlooked-for calamity. He fell back fainting, as if, while he rashly sought to penetrate the mystery of life, pale death, entering his dwelling had touched him with her sombre wing.

VI.

When consciousness returned, the fire of the furnace, which had been fed with so much care for six weary months, was extinguished. Through the open cas.e.m.e.nt he saw myriads of stars blazing in the firmament.

The majestic silence of the night hovered over the unchanged immensity.

The old man was seized with an indefinable terror. He understood that he was punished for his pride, and he had a presentiment that the sudden failure of the labor and research of so many years was but the beginning of his punishment. It seemed to him that in the midst of the thick darkness the living G.o.d had looked into the depths of his guilty soul and had stretched out his all-powerful hand to smite him.

Suddenly, as by a revelation, there came to him a knowledge of the point where G.o.d was about to strike him.

"My child! my child!" cried he, in a voice broken by terror and remorse.

He ran to the chamber of his daughter.

The old man opened the door gently, taking, in spite of his terror, a thousand paternal precautions not to awaken the sleeper. The trembling light of a small alabaster lamp cast its faint rays about the apartment. Gently he drew back the curtains of the bed and gazed fondly upon his child.

Rachel slept profoundly, her breathing was as peaceful as innocence.

Ben-Ha-Zelah looked upon the sweet, calm face with a transport of delight. The tranquillity of this peaceful sleep of childhood was communicated to him, and for a moment stilled the agitation of his soul.

He leaned fondly over the sleeping form; listened joyfully to the calm breathing of his darling child, to the regular beating of her heart; then stooping, imprinted a kiss of fatherly love on the beautiful brow.

Rachel remained immovable, and her sleep was unbroken. "It is strange she has not awakened," said the old man to himself looking at her again. "Sleep is so like death."

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As he allowed this thought to take form a vague terror took possession of him.

"Bah! she sleeps! I hear her breathing," said he aloud.

The secret indefinable fear which he could not banish, and for which he could not account, still remained; he could no longer contain himself.

"Rachel!"' cried he in a loud voice. The young girl slept on.

"Rachel! my child!" he cried again, at the same time shaking her gently by the arm.

Still the calm sleep was unbroken; and the peaceful breathing which at first had delighted the fond father now seemed like a fatal spell.

"Rachel! Rachel!"

He took her in his arms; he placed her on a couch; he tried to make her walk; and in vain essayed with his trembling fingers to open the sealed eyelids.

The young girl slept on; her respiration as calm, and the rhythm of her heart still preserved its frightful monotone. All the efforts of the despairing father were vain. Day dawned, night came, the next day, and weeks and months, and Rachel awoke not.

VII.

The distracted father, remembering that he was a physician, sought in medical science a remedy for this strange malady. He tried every known medicine, he essayed new ones; but nothing could break the fearful sleep. He no longer went to the palace of the caliph, but his days and nights were pa.s.sed in his laboratory as they had formerly been at Cordova; his researches, however, were no longer to feed his pride.

Sorrow concentrated his mighty genius on one thought--to discover a remedy for his idolized child. Bitterly did be expiate the old anxieties of his pride by the torturing perplexities of this new sorrow.

More than six months pa.s.sed thus. A last and desperate remedy to which he had recourse, had, like all the others failed; Ben-Ha-Zelah on a night like that on which this weight of sorrow had come upon him, was in his laboratory bending as ever over his retorts. He had made every research, every experiment that genius, quickened by affection, could suggest, and had failed in all. Rachel still slept. Then the broken-hearted old man, convinced of his own impotence, let fall his arms at his sides and burst into tears.

At that moment he heard a voice which seemed to come at once from the depths of immensity, and from the inmost recesses of his own heart.

"All thy efforts are vain," said the voice. "Thou wilt cure thy child, only by pa.s.sing about her neck, a pearl necklace, not the pearls which bountiful nature gives, and G.o.d makes, but pearls which thou thyself hast fas.h.i.+oned. Thou thoughtest thyself the equal of G.o.d, the equal of Him who created the world; and he punishes thee, by condemning thee to create only a few pearls, and he is willing to lend thee all the riches and treasures of his beautiful world. Go and seek! And when thou hast made enough of these pearls to fill the box beside thee, make a necklace of them. Put it on the neck of thy child, and she will awake."

It was not an illusion. The old man had seen no one, but the box was there beside him. It was a little box, of a wood unknown to him, which exhaled a delicious odor. On the lid inscribed in letters of gold, was a Hebrew word, meaning "Treasure of G.o.d."

Ben-Ha-Zelah, re-kindled the fires of his furnaces and again applied himself to explore the arcana of alchemy. He took from his coffers all the pearls he possessed, and after having a.n.a.lyzed them, tried in vain to form them again; but the secret of omnipotence which he attempted to grasp, fled from him. He decomposed precious stones and succeeded only in making a gross calcareous substance. Again and again he flattered himself, he had penetrated the mystery of the Creator; but all his hopes ended in nothingness. {700} Nature, which he had once attempted to conquer to satisfy his pride as a savant, he now wooed in vain to still the pa.s.sionate yearnings of his fatherly heart.

One day he said to himself: "My knowledge is very little; and with the very little I know, I shall never succeed in solving this problem, and nevertheless it is possible!"

The voice which spoke to me is a voice which does not deceive.