Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 20

'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 he 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 he 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. He 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 be 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 be 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?'